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ADSL throttling mars unshaped offers

16 May 2014

As the broadband price war soars to new levels and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are promising unshaped ADSL for next to nothing, users need to read the fine print of contracts carefully, as unscrupulous ISPs derive their profit from throttling their clients.

OpenWeb CEO Keoma Wright says with ADSL you pay for what you get. "The less you pay, the less bandwidth you will ultimately be able to use on the network.

"When a client complains, they simply point them to section 65215411544 million A to Z in their 74th Amended Acceptable Usage Policy stating that throttling is a way of life, take it or leave it," he explains.

"Be careful, the catch is in the fine print. What many ISPs advertise as Unshaped, more than likely comes with a complicated, draconian style Fair Usage Policy hidden deep within the realms of their Terms of Service."

He says throttling is ridiculous. "My advice is to leave throttling, one can rather shape heavy downloads during peak periods, yet still offer a great service on browsing and similar."

Some ISPs even shape and throttle capped accounts. When clients purchase capped accounts, they already have one limit imposed - the cap. Why must further limits be imposed? Capped should be completely unshaped.

"It is your bandwidth, you have a right to use it as and when you please."

ADSL is still cheaper than mobile data and is much more reliable. Whilst gaming on mobile is nearly impossible due to jitter, lag, latency and all sorts of other technical challenges, fixed line Internet works better for streaming, gaming VoIP and a number of other protocols.

"When was the last time you saw a truly Uncapped Unshaped Mobile data deal? Never - ADSL might look more expensive, but when you total up what you get, ADSL is still a much better offering overall," Wright concludes.