SLT ADSL data limit on old Home package

[abiman]

Hello,

I have SLT ADSL home package bought about 10 years ago. At the time package was advertised as 512kbps down and 64kbps uplink. There was no data limit applied at the time. Today suddenly my speed was reduced to 64kbps downlink and when I called to complain, telecom told me, now there is a 40GB data limit on my connection. Clearly the original agreement didn't had such limit (there was no fair usage policy at the time).  Can they one sidedly change agreement with customer to impose data limit?

I know many people had this and similar connections at the time. Do you guys have any experience about this? is there any thing I can do to get what I originally paid for?

Thanks.

 

 

 

[Rumesh88]

They did the same to me and I simply disconnected it cos I did not want to bother about it. Why don't you complain to the CAA and get a hearing? Only thing is you need to get them to commit in writing (an email would do but they are unlikely to respond) that they have imposed a new condition on your ADSL. However, there can be a clause in small print in your agreement for them to get away. 

[The Stig]

This is quite old news actually, I had the same package and used to download load over 60-80 gbs per month. Apparently they can't limit the gb download since this package is classified as unlimited but they have found a loophole. Basically the slow you down after 40 gb. There was a major case with TRC but in the end no action, most of us switched over to the new packages. Again very very old news,  I mean almost 2-3 years ago so even if you complain to TRC I don't think anyone would even know about this package now.  It's not such a bad deal though,  you get 16 mbps speed and 30gb peak and 30gb off peak. I use dialog kbb package to do all the heavy downloading. 

Dialog 4g has also gone down the drain, lankanbell Is good but speed is pretty slow and reach is limited. I retained my slt connection because ping is important for me since I game online. 

Edited December 14, 2016 by The Stig

[Davy]

I remember this being discussed on the forum before.  As The Stig said, old news. I too upgraded at the time because I thought the faster connection would be a better deal although it has a download cap.

I simply can't imagine using a 512kbps connection these days.  

Edited December 14, 2016 by Davy

[kush]

2 hours ago, abiman said:

Hello,

I have SLT ADSL home package bought about 10 years ago. At the time package was advertised as 512kbps down and 64kbps uplink. There was no data limit applied at the time. Today suddenly my speed was reduced to 64kbps downlink and when I called to complain, telecom told me, now there is a 40GB data limit on my connection. Clearly the original agreement didn't had such limit (there was no fair usage policy at the time).  Can they one sidedly change agreement with customer to impose data limit?

I know many people had this and similar connections at the time. Do you guys have any experience about this? is there any thing I can do to get what I originally paid for?

Thanks.

 

 

 

 

[kush]

I went through similar experience. Every time when they throttle i would call them and threaten to report to TRC they would remove the limit. As the throttling is automatic this process had to go on every month.

Finally i got fed up and switch packages which got me 60 GB and 4 mbps for the same price.

I thought it was a reasonable trade off cos 512 kbps is a pain on new sites and if you want to down load and watch you tube.

 

[abiman]

Thanks all for your comments. Following are things I have done and results up to now.

I complained to SLT support. The lady said they cannot give me a complaint number because there is no problem with connection. I insisted that I'm not getting what I'm paid for and asked for a complaint number and got one after some arguments. Also, the lady told me to call the local SLT office and I did.

The guy from the local office said he lifted speed limit for now (after talking to his superiors), but it might automatically apply soon. When I asked about the legal situation, he told me to contact TRC. He also told me that his directors say TRC approved limiting old connections.

Then I contacted TRC. After several forwards, I reached Mr. Nishantha Palihawadana  (011-2682573, The officer who approve tariffs as TRC told me) from TRC and he CLEARLY told me that they have NOT approved to change anything in old connections. The limits are approved only for newly approved packages.

 

Except for the call center lady, all other people I talked about this matter are nice and easy to talk to.

 

Since I have some time for fun now, I intend to follow this matter to see where it leads me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[kush]

1 hour ago, abiman said:

Thanks all for your comments. Following are things I have done and results up to now.

I complained to SLT support. The lady said they cannot give me a complaint number because there is no problem with connection. I insisted that I'm not getting what I'm paid for and asked for a complaint number and got one after some arguments. Also, the lady told me to call the local SLT office and I did.

The guy from the local office said he lifted speed limit for now (after talking to his superiors), but it might automatically apply soon. When I asked about the legal situation, he told me to contact TRC. He also told me that his directors say TRC approved limiting old connections.

Then I contacted TRC. After several forwards, I reached Mr. Nishantha Palihawadana  (011-2682573, The officer who approve tariffs as TRC told me) from TRC and he CLEARLY told me that they have NOT approved to change anything in old connections. The limits are approved only for newly approved packages.

 

Except for the call center lady, all other people I talked about this matter are nice and easy to talk to.

 

Since I have some time for fun now, I intend to follow this matter to see where it leads me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Good for you i got fed up after couple of months

[Davy]

I personally think that the new packages are a better deal than the old 512 kbps connection. They do have fibre also now, so you can go 100 Mbps also and I think that is pretty competitive even by international standards.

While I understand that you are fighting for your right to have what you initially signed up for, let me show you how the new package might be beneficial to you.

With the 512 kbps connection, if you have your PC turned on 12 hours a day, the maximum amount of data you can download within a month is about 69 GB.

512 kbps (kilobits/s) = 64 kB per second. If we assume that the SLT service is operating at 80% speed consistently, the data rate you will be getting is about 50 - 55 kB per second (Assume 52.5).

For a month: 52.5 x 60 seconds x 60 minutes x 12 hours x 30.5 days in month = 69,174,000 kb = 69 GB approx.

From what I can see in SLT page, their new packages offer a 60 GB package (30/30 split between peak and off peak). So if you use it wisely, your overall experience will be much much better.

Just my 2 cents.

[asrock]

Completely agree with @The Stig and @Davy I'm surprised that they haven't touched your connection all this time. My office faced the same issue 3-4 years back and we simply got it converted to a Web Pro package. To be honest the new packages are not bad at all.

[Davy]

13 hours ago, asrock said:

I'm surprised that they haven't touched your connection all this time.

OP probably never hit the 40 GB limit all these years, until now. 

[The Stig]

20 hours ago, Davy said:

I personally think that the new packages are a better deal than the old 512 kbps connection. They do have fibre also now, so you can go 100 Mbps also and I think that is pretty competitive even by international standards.

While I understand that you are fighting for your right to have what you initially signed up for, let me show you how the new package might be beneficial to you.

With the 512 kbps connection, if you have your PC turned on 12 hours a day, the maximum amount of data you can download within a month is about 69 GB.

512 kbps (kilobits/s) = 64 kB per second. If we assume that the SLT service is operating at 80% speed consistently, the data rate you will be getting is about 50 - 55 kB per second (Assume 52.5).

For a month: 52.5 x 60 seconds x 60 minutes x 12 hours x 30.5 days in month = 69,174,000 kb = 69 GB approx.

From what I can see in SLT page, their new packages offer a 60 GB package (30/30 split between peak and off peak). So if you use it wisely, your overall experience will be much much better.

Just my 2 cents.

On the note of fiber you have to pay 25,000 to get the connection and the data packages are the same as normal adsl packages. Thats kind of like giving someone a Ferrari and saying you can go as fast as you want but you only get 5 liters of petrol.

[iRage]

44 minutes ago, The Stig said:

On the note of fiber you have to pay 25,000 to get the connection and the data packages are the same as normal adsl packages. Thats kind of like giving someone a Ferrari and saying you can go as fast as you want but you only get 5 liters of petrol.

Is the fibre service actually that good ? My ADSL connection actually has a better throughput than my dad's fibre connection.

My father and I signed up and paid the deposit for fibre at the same time. My father got his installed.His connection's download rate is not consistent at all and frequently just drops really really low. Most of the time it is annoying because during a 30min usage period it would just "stop" 10-15 times. Called SLT a few times, they promptly came, checked it ..and said nothing was wrong and that it is the way and left.

I am wondering if I should just cut m losses or go ahead with the installation.

[abiman]

5 hours ago, Davy said:

OP probably never hit the 40 GB limit all these years, until now. 

Yes. For last 3years it was only for skype. Before that skype and some weekend use. Never used beyond 40GB. But now the devil is at home  finally!

 

 

21 hours ago, Davy said:

I personally think that the new packages are a better deal than the old 512 kbps connection. They do have fibre also now, so you can go 100 Mbps also and I think that is pretty competitive even by international standards.

While I understand that you are fighting for your right to have what you initially signed up for, let me show you how the new package might be beneficial to you.

With the 512 kbps connection, if you have your PC turned on 12 hours a day, the maximum amount of data you can download within a month is about 69 GB.

512 kbps (kilobits/s) = 64 kB per second. If we assume that the SLT service is operating at 80% speed consistently, the data rate you will be getting is about 50 - 55 kB per second (Assume 52.5).

For a month: 52.5 x 60 seconds x 60 minutes x 12 hours x 30.5 days in month = 69,174,000 kb = 69 GB approx.

From what I can see in SLT page, their new packages offer a 60 GB package (30/30 split between peak and off peak). So if you use it wisely, your overall experience will be much much better.

Just my 2 cents.

 

I did calculation too and you are right. But for my usage pattern, 512kbps unmetered line is better. When I measured, I had about ~160MB up+down every hour.

 

 

 

 

[matroska]

well well... I've been using both an old SLT ADSL 512KBPS unlimited line for many years PLUS broadband from etisalat. I use the dongle to browse and the old ADSL line is used simply for torrents. (I use an old android tab with bittorrent for this purpose) so I've never really felt the need to replace/upgrade the 512 connection. On Tuesday i suddenly noticed that ADSL was quite fast - speedtest told me my speed was 4MBPS.. I think they may have 'upgraded ??' my package - which means they probably have a limit on it now.

@abiman - did you experience a speed increase before your bandwidth was brought down to 64kbps?

Edited December 15, 2016 by matroska

[abiman]

17 minutes ago, matroska said:

well well... I've been using both an old SLT ADSL 512KBPS unlimited line for many years PLUS broadband from etisalat. I use the dongle to browse and the old ADSL line is used simply for torrents. (I use an old android tab with bittorrent for this purpose) so I've never really felt the need to replace/upgrade the 512 connection. On Tuesday i suddenly noticed that ADSL was quite fast - speedtest told me my speed was 4MBPS.. I think they may have 'upgraded ??' my package - which means they probably have a limit on it now.

@abiman - did you experience a speed increase before your bandwidth was brought down to 64kbps?

 

No I did not notice any speed difference. It was always ~160MB per hour for the past 2 weeks when I used connection.

 

[maersk]

1 hour ago, iRage said:

Is the fibre service actually that good ? My ADSL connection actually has a better throughput than my dad's fibre connection.

My father and I signed up and paid the deposit for fibre at the same time. My father got his installed.His connection's download rate is not consistent at all and frequently just drops really really low. Most of the time it is annoying because during a 30min usage period it would just "stop" 10-15 times. Called SLT a few times, they promptly came, checked it ..and said nothing was wrong and that it is the way and left.

I am wondering if I should just cut m losses or go ahead with the installation.

 I've got my fiber connection installed by late 2014. I'm experiencing the same thing as your father. Connection is intermittent and I've had them over at my place for several times and found nothing wrong. Also the wifi signal strength is very weak and all my neighbors signal strength is stronger in my house than mine. One technician told me it's because of the router and there are lot of complaints about it but SLT does not have any other kind of fiber compatible routers.

 

 

 

 

[pug306xsi]

SLT is offering fiber set up for 7500/-, but i dont see buying it as they have not updated the packages to suit fiber.

its like exactly like what Stig said.