This is an old tariff that is no longer available.
Broadband usage based charging
One of the key costs in providing a broadband service to customers is the cost of transferring data. This is also one of the areas that can vary massively from one customer to another. To be fair to our customers all of our tariffs operate on usage based charging.
The principle is very simple - you select a tariff appropriate to your usage, and try and keep your usage within that tariff. You can change tariff at any time (effective from next regular bill). If you use too much then there is a charge for the excess usage. However, we are quite flexible and allow some usage to be carried over to the next month so that your bill will normally be the same each month if your usage is generally within the tariff you have picked.
Daytime and Eve/weekend
We measure the data sent from the Internet to you (download). We split the day in to peak/daytime (9am-6pm Mon-Fri) and off peak (all other times). We do not consider any data from you to the internet (upload) or the night period as part of your tariff. The tariff you pick says how much daytime and eve/weekend you can download during each month.
Bear in mind that the tariffs have very high eve/weekend levels such as 50GB or 100GB a month, and so for most people this is effectively unlimited.
Using too much or too little
If you use less than your allowance then we allow some of that under usage to be carried forward to the next month effectively giving you more allowance next month. If you use more than your allowance then we allow some of that over usage to be carried forward to the next month meaning you have already used some of the next months allowance. This flexibility allows you to use more in some months and less in others and have a consistent bill each month.
We have limits. You cannot bring forward more under usage to a new month than your monthly allowance in that new month, making the maximum allowance in any month twice the tariff level. You cannot bring forward more over usage than your allowance in that new month either. This means you never start a month overdrawn. If you use more than that then you are charged top-up rates for the excess usage (£5.64/GB† daytime, £0.49/GB eve/weekend).
These rules are applied totally separately for daytime and eve/weekend usage. You can change your tariff any time and that applies when we issue your next regular bill. Selecting the right tariff saves money as it is cheaper than top up usage, however you may not use it all and so lose some. We provide details on our control pages showing what you use in what period and how the tariff has been applied.
Top-up usage
Normally top-up is automatically billed for excess over usage, but it is possible to buy in advance, or we may give top-up free in some cases. The limit on under-usage carry forward to the next period is extended by any top-up added in this billing period so that additional top-up is not immediately lost at the end of the current period. This means any additional top-up that is not used lasts in to the following billing period and not beyond.
When we bill
We normally bill monthly on the 1st, but you can have different billing periods and dates. These rules actually apply at the point your bill is raised - the usage allowance is set for the next period being billed in advance and usage used up to the point the bill is raised is considered to be in the previous period. The allowance is adjusted based on the length of the period billed, e.g. three times the allowance for a quarterly bill. However the limit on under or over usage brought forward is always the monthly allowance.
Telling you what is happening
We also have a system to notify you if there is high usage - this can be set on the control pages and will cause an email and even a text message to tell you that you are using too much. We check your usage every hour. This can be very useful if you have got some sort of virus, or left a download running in to the daytime period by mistake, etc. However, at the end of the day, it is up to you to make sensible usage of the service and pay if you use too much.
Fortunately, over the years, the price of transferring data tends to go down. As this happens we will introduce lower prices and high usage levels on tariffs. We appreciate that some internet providers have "unlimited" tariffs. Remember, our daytime period is during the day as we mostly have business customers. Eve/weekend is effectively unlimited on our tariffs as the levels are so high. Generally an unlimited tariff is not actually unlimited, and sometimes the limits on unlimited tariffs can be quite low. We would rather you know exactly where you stand, and provide a quality service to all of our customers.
Changing tariff
You can change tariff at any time and it takes effect from your next regular bill. The currently selected tariff is used when your bill is raised and applied for the period covered by the bill.
Gigabytes
A byte is 8 bits of data which is normally one character. A gigabyte or GB is 1,000,000,000 bytes (not to be confused with a Gibibyte or GiB which is 1,073,741,824 bytes). A gigabyte is a lot of data, e.g. something like 150 typical MP3 songs or hundreds of good quality photographs. When considering the data transfer rates and costs it is also worth bearing in mind overheads for IP and TCP (see knowledge base article for details). We measure usage at the IP packet level only, not the ATM level, and we do not include LCP or other control traffic.
Older tariffs
The usage based charging system describes the way current tariffs work. Many customers are on older tariffs which do not have any carry over of under usage. Existing customers are being moved to new tariffs. How will this affect existing customers Older tariffs
