Legal thief

Having been within the hosting industry I have seen many web hosts oversell their disk space but more importantly their data transfer and ultimately their bandwidth. This article is not about that though as I am sure you can read the horrors of mass overselling on Webhosting Talk but rather more about the oversell of bandwidth on the backend of the Internet – the Internet Service Providers (ISPs).

It is no secret that Internet Service Providers do oversell their bandwidth as otherwise, they would not make a large amount of profit (no matter what ISP tells you, they are lying until they can prove otherwise which they have NOT yet done at the time of posting). They know or instead, they hope that not everyone will use their connections at the same time as if they do then they know everything is going to lag in hell.

I am sure your Internet Service provider does the same. Go and check their terms of service and if it says something like the following then you can be sure your Internet Service Provider is overselling.

In order to give the best service possible, we limit your max speeds during peek times in order to allow others to have  a good browsing experience.

What that means is the following:

LOL we are so totally over selling our bandwidth and if people starts to try and use what they paid for during peek hours when everyone else is on then our systems is going to crash and burn LOL

Oh and if we see you using to much data transfer out of your unlimited amount which we can not physically supply anyway then we are going to ban you for “excess amount of usage”. Oh and we also do not give your MAC addresses without maxing out your credit card LOLZOALG

The thing is, Internet Service Providers can not handle the number of people they are selling to. They really just hope you do NOT use what you pay for and if you do then they will either cap you further (and then blame it on you are using too much), block you or something along those lines.

I am sure you are now asking – “But at least it is cheaper for me. Due to overselling their bandwidth they are passing the savings onto me”. Well, the answer is no they are not. You are not getting any savings out of it and ultimately, you are losing OUT on what you pay for as you simply can not use it (if you get the full speed in the first place).

Internet Service Providers will not admit it although everyone knows they do it as simply if they do then customers will moan saying they are not getting what they pay for.

So what happens when you complain about your Internet connection being capped? Well, it sounds something like this:

You: Hello. I am currently ringing up wondering why my Internet connection speed is less then 512kbps even though I pay for a 8mb broadband and have a unlimited data transfer plan.

Support: नमस्ते, मेरा नाम एलन है

You: Umm, hello ?

Support: आज मैं तुम्हें कैसे मदद कर सकता

You: Do you speak English ?

Support: क्या आप चाहते हैं कि साथ आलू

You: Can I speak to someone else ?

Support: मैं समर्थन कर रहा हूँ .. me no do ?

You: Can I speak to a manager please ?

Being forwarded please hold…

Manager: مرحبا كيف يمكنني مساعدتك اليوم

You: Oh fuck this shit.

And then when you come to cancelling it the same thing happens. So ya to sum it all up. Internet Service Providers do not provide you with what you are paying for and if you use too much then you are kicked off.

Oh well, 3G time I guess.