Broadband service not as advertised?

by Alan West, 1 March 2008.

If you go down the pub and ask for a pint of beer, pay for it, then get given half a pint, you'd complain. It also costs the same regardless of the actual capacity you consume.

The capacity of a data communications link is measured by the quantity of bits per second copied from sender to receiver.

I beleive when you pay for an internet service with 8 million bits per second capacity, you should receive 8 million bits per second capacity.

But a common scam ISPs use upon their own customers, is to create an imaginary much lower maximum capacity than that advertised, such as 85 billion bits per month, as 1 month is roughly 2.6 million seconds the equivalent capacity is only about 32,000 bits every second which is much lower than the minimum 2 million bits each second capacity often classified as broadband.

When you exceed this artificial maximum capacity the ISP will force all your web requests to their payment page, until you pay extra for each perhaps 1 million bits over you are. They probably avoid criminal fraud prosecution, because the maximimum is in a special technical details, restrictions of use policy, or other conditions section, and take advantage that most people wont understand it anyway.