EE Fair Usage - How often is it enforced?

[sof006]

So, i'm currently with Three for my home broadband and the speed is generally pretty good.

Between 60-100Mb's (sometimes less on a very bad day) but the ping unfortunately is a bit all over the place, I play games like WoW and yesterday my ping was over 100ms with noticeable delay. My ping isn't always that high, normally its around 50-80ms.

Now, I am a pretty heavy user of broadband (only person using it), last month I used 1.3TBs of data.

I see conflicting information on EE's website. Some parts suggest 1TB limit, some suggest 600GBs (which is frankly disgusting) and people on forums suggest that EE doesn't enforce their "fair usage" policy.

Anyone here on EE who is also a heavy user like me who can help?

 

[The Wee Bear]

Hi sof006, according to @Lucian he has gone over 1TB several times and no contact from EE about it.

Mentioned Here

 

[sof006]

Hi sof006, according to @Lucian he has gone over 1TB several times and no contact from EE about it.

Mentioned Here

Good to know, think i'll swap to EE when I get paid

 

[sof006]

@Lucian Are you on a consumer contract or a business contract?

 

[Lucian]

@Lucian Are you on a consumer contract or a business contract?

Consumer, I seem to be doing between 1 and 1.5 TB a month. This is normal family usage (+ work from home).

600GB quotas are entirely unrealistic, luckily they don't seem to be enforced, in my case atleast.

 

[johnro]

My EE ping is in the 40's with 100-400 mbs speeds in Croydon (It might help)

 

[sof006]

My EE ping is in the 40's with 100-400 mbs speeds in Croydon (It might help)

This is good to know, i'm hoping my ping is good. My EE mast is visible from my bedroom window and is probably about 20 second walk from my house.

I remember being on EE a long while back but don't recall what kind of speeds I would get.

 

[Lucian]

This is good to know, i'm hoping my ping is good. My EE mast is visible from my bedroom window and is probably about 20 second walk from my house.

I remember being on EE a long while back but don't recall what kind of speeds I would get.

Lucky
Though sometimes there's such a thing as "too close" for signal performance.
Keep us posted!
Latency can get funny if the backhaul is connected via microwave link (dish). See below:

EE vs Three 5G latency

It looks like EE either has some network problems or some weird prioritisation policies, cause Smokeping doesn't like it one bit. Worth pointing out that otherwise EE is fully usable, no issues with ssh or zoom. Check the graph attached, at 10:00 I switched it to Three 5G, much smoother.

www.ispreview.co.uk

 

[sof006]

Lucky
Though sometimes there's such a thing as "too close" for signal performance.
Keep us posted!
Latency can get funny if the backhaul is connected via microwave link (dish). See below:

EE vs Three 5G latency

It looks like EE either has some network problems or some weird prioritisation policies, cause Smokeping doesn't like it one bit. Worth pointing out that otherwise EE is fully usable, no issues with ssh or zoom. Check the graph attached, at 10:00 I switched it to Three 5G, much smoother.

www.ispreview.co.uk

How would I know? The mast is a very long pole with a thick part at the top

 

[Lucian]

How would I know? The mast is a very long pole with a thick part at the top

Most likely it's fiber backed then. Are you sure it's EE's?
Btw, have you checked their coverage site? There could be 5G there.

 

[sof006]

Most likely it's fiber backed then. Are you sure it's EE's?
Btw, have you checked their coverage site? There could be 5G there.

Yes its definitely EE's. There is a big sticker on the front saying "property of EE" and it has warning labels saying do not tamper lol

 

[Mark.J]

If an operator ever actually starts enforcing their FUP aggressively, across quite a few customers, then you'd probably find it as a story on ISPreview . So far we've not seen much evidence of strict enforcement.

 

[sof006]

If an operator ever actually starts enforcing their FUP aggressively, across quite a few customers, then you'd probably find it as a story on ISPreview . So far we've not seen much evidence of strict enforcement.

This is good to know, although I suppose that clause in the FUP means that they could enforce whenever but I also guess that would probably cause a lot of backlash from customers so its probably not worth the hassle enforcing it.

I don't understand why networks, ISP's have things like this since fibre has essentially limitless bandwidth?

 

[Lucian]

@sof006 Radio is a whole different can of beans. Spectrum is finite and you can only serve so many users and with so much bandwidth.
This could be OK if we had loads more masts for added capacity, but bureaucracy and stupidity seems to be getting in the way of that.

I could definitely see a future where most "broadband" connections are actually wireless (5G, 6G etc), but we need better coverage.

 

[GavinAshford]

I don't understand why networks, ISP's have things like this since fibre has essentially limitless bandwidth?

Every bit/byte has a cost in data carriage across the internet interconnects and someone has to pay for that - the cost is built into the contract costs we pay.
While providers promote/sell 'unlimited' products they are costed by their calculations of how much data their 'average' users are expected to use, so that the price of the products they sell cover the costs of the expected data carriage.

Yes some users on 'unlimited' will use more than average and so cost more to the provider in data carriage than they receive from the consumer in their tariff cost, but other users will use less and the provider will 'profit' from them and it'll balance out if they have their average calculations correct.

This is (partly) why as we all use more and more data the average use per user increases and so the costs of contracts need to increase (unless the carriage costs reduce at a greater rate).

 

[sof006]

Every bit/byte has a cost in data carriage across the internet interconnects and someone has to pay for that - the cost is built into the contract costs we pay.
While providers promote/sell 'unlimited' products they are costed by their calculations of how much data their 'average' users are expected to use, so that the price of the products they sell cover the costs of the expected data carriage.

Yes some users on 'unlimited' will use more than average and so cost more to the provider in data carriage than they receive from the consumer in their tariff cost, but other users will use less and the provider will 'profit' from them and it'll balance out if they have their average calculations correct.

This is (partly) why as we all use more and more data the average use per user increases and so the costs of contracts need to increase (unless the carriage costs reduce at a greater rate).

Interesting, its slightly annoying then that a provider would advertise unlimited if its not something they can fully intend to provide.

I know Three has a policy on "unlimited means unlimited" and nowhere on their website can I find a FUP that suggests otherwise

EDIT: I know they do traffic management but only under extreme circumstances

 

[The Wee Bear]

Interesting, its slightly annoying then that a provider would advertise unlimited if its not something they can fully intend to provide.

I know Three has a policy on "unlimited means unlimited" and nowhere on their website can I find a FUP that suggests otherwise

EDIT: I know they do traffic management but only under extreme circumstances

Guess EE will be in the clear now with all data caps with their new 'Stay Connected' milarky, where it is now unlimited, but throttled when you reach your data limit.

 

[GavinAshford]

All providers could provide 'unlimited' data, but would you/the public be willing to pay an 'unlimited' amount (i.e. a fixed £/p per GB that you use) to get that? Probably not.

Defining a fair use protects the provider and their network from abuse as they have a T&C to fall back on if they need to. Without that, legally, they probably wouldn't be able to take any necessary action against abuse.

I should have also said, by 'data carriage cost' I mean the costs involved to setup/install/maintain/run everything allows a byte of data from the source to your device. Mast builds/rents, RAN hardware, RAN software licences, backhaul rent, provider's core network infrastructure, user/billing/support systems, etc, etc

 

[GavinAshford]

Also, it's why I find EE's "data gifting" somewhat clever, even if it is designed with parents/children in mind.

From the customer perspective it seems great - one 'expensive' contract with 'lots' of data (e.g. 120GB), and say 2 other contracts with tiny data amounts (e.g. 1GB) that are then boosted by gifting data. As the cost of these 'tiny' contracts are lower, for the bill payer feels like they're 'saving', at least compared to if all 3 contracts were the 120GB contract.

From the provider perspective, if all 3 contracts above were the 120GB contracts then they would/should account for that potential data use their averages (e.g. they may calculate to estimate at 50GB per contract).
But for the data gifting example, they're still capturing 3 customers/contracts, but they're all sharing the 122GB of data - lowering the average to 40GB per account.

 

[sof006]

All providers could provide 'unlimited' data, but would you/the public be willing to pay an 'unlimited' amount (i.e. a fixed £/p per GB that you use) to get that? Probably not.

Defining a fair use protects the provider and their network from abuse as they have a T&C to fall back on if they need to. Without that, legally, they probably wouldn't be able to take any necessary action against abuse.

I should have also said, by 'data carriage cost' I mean the costs involved to setup/install/maintain/run everything allows a byte of data from the source to your device. Mast builds/rents, RAN hardware, RAN software licences, backhaul rent, provider's core network infrastructure, user/billing/support systems, etc, etc

I'd like to know what EE would consider "abuse" as the term is so loosely used in their FUP.

I can hedge a guess but.... also this term saying they could move you onto a more appropriate contract but what's more appropriate than the already unlimited contract that i'd be paying for?

EE make this very confusing.