As of today, BT has followed in the footsteps of Sky and removed its fair usage policy, which it used to apply to its ‘unlimited’ broadband services.

This usage policy allowed BT to restrict broadband access or slow it down for those download-happy customers who were making the most of the package they had paid for. For those among you who subscribe to BT Unlimited Broadband, Unlimited Broadband Extra, Unlimited BT Infinity 1, Unlimited BT Infinity 2 or BT Total Broadband Option 3 – ‘unlimited’ will finally mean unlimited.

Unfair fair-usage policies
And that’s how it should be. Unfortunately, the Advertising Standards Agency’s rules mean that internet service providers are allowed to label a package as ‘unlimited’, just so long as the fair usage policies are mentioned somewhere in the ads. I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t seem fair to me.

That’s why the Committee of Advertising Practice launched a consultation on this issue last year. Several solutions were up for consideration as part of the process, including the option to make ‘unlimited’ claims unacceptable for certain broadband services. This included services that came with a fair usage policy, which lead to extra charges or a suspended service if customers exceeded a certain usage limit.

Hopefully Virgin Media will now follow suit,

Is this retro-active?
I signed up to a package that has a cap, is that cap now removed?

Mark

and they're a heck of a lot nicer to deal with than BT's call centre hell.

I suppose this explains why my 15 meg connection is now running at 300k down but 750k up(normal). All I want to do is watch i player silent witness before tonights episode.