Have I been dudded ?

[craigb]

Last Friday, I converted to Optus Broadband. Some may remember the post I made at the time.

One of the reasons I went BB was that I could have v. good response time for only a little more that what I was paying for dialup as I went for the cheapest deal which included 200 mb download per month.

This seemed heaps to me 'cause I was basically only going to use my @home connection to access the WWA bulletin board and with my dialup connection, I don't think I ever used anywhere near a 100mb in a month.

Anyway, too cut a long story short, on Sunday (three days after installation), I checked my usage and found i had "used" 83mb :eek:

Apart from downloading some XP fixes all I had acessed was the Ubeaut site.

Monday I didnt't use my PC. Tuesday, I spent about half an hour on the board. Today I find that I'm up to 103 MB . :eek:

What the hell is going on?

Once my 200 mb is used up I get to access the net at 28.8. Terrific I can't wait .

Craig

[RETIRED]

Some of the XP fixes are rather large.

I had the same prob with Bigpond and had to go up another level.

[echnidna]

I reckon the telco's have leaked out onto the ground underneath the bottom of the barrel

[SteveI]

Craig

make sure you have a firewall (even a simple NAT on the modem) so hackers can't get into your PC and use up your allocation doing it.. On Broadband you get charged for upload and download.

To be safe, turn off the modem when you are not using it. You will find even if your PC is turned off, with the modem on, you can still have traffic on the connection as people try for port scans etc.
I put a timer on my broadband modem so it turns off at night when the 16 year old computer scientists are looking for a thrill.

[Tankstand]

Don't forget that every page you visit and view has to be downloaded through your server and counts towards your total! :eek:

[craigb]

Steve,

I have a firewall (Sygate). Its logs aren't showing me anything untoward.

A mate pointed out to me today that by the time a hacker has hit one of your ports (even if they can't get in), your ISP has already charged you for the "download" .

Always on ? I don't think so - I'll be turning off the pc AND the modem.

Craig

[Sturdee]

Craig, look at some of their other plans, 200 Mb is not very much.

My Optus plan is 12 Gig download ( no upload fee) for $ 69.95 pm.This is the same as I was paying before with dial up service with Isp fees, separate phone line and calls.

BTW Telstra has a similar plan but charges for excess useage at a hefty price instead of limiting down load speeds.


Peter.

[craigb]

Pete,

I expect you are right. It's just that I REALLY don't like being scammed.

Craig

[Sturdee]

Craig,

At least with Optus you are not charged extra.

I have heard on talkback radio of people being charged up to $ 800 for a month excess traffic on their 200 Mb plan.

BTW with my daughter downloading her favourite TV programs over the net direct from the the US we use our monthly limit and some times on the last day of the month we are also restricted to 28 kb speed

Peter.

[vsquizz]

Windows XP SP 2 was at least 80 Mb and larger for some, it was selectively released across Australia from last week. If you had auto update on then thats what it was. Bigpond charge an obscene rate for going over and Optus are no better. You should look at this, no contracts and no fees if you go over:

http://www.iinet.net.au/products/home/bliink/index.html

I think my limit is 6 Gb, I've tried but I can't use it in a month . The no contract was what sold me. On the two occaisions I have called them I got to speak to " a Human Being".

On principal I wont ever use anything from Optus due to their marketing strategy and the barrage of calls from Mumbai :mad: . I don't even try to be civil to them anymore.


Cheers

[gemi_babe]

Should always do your research with the servers. I am with westnet and they are now all over Australia. Good thing with them is they have a 'download vault'. Many many programs in there and if you are a member, and you download from their site it doesn't go on your download limit.

www.westnet.com.au for more info if any of you are looking for a change.

	e) What does WestNet consider as ‘free traffic’?

Answer: WestNet considers everything within the WestNet Neighbourhood as free traffic. Peer-to-peer transfers between WestNet customers in the same state and to customers on other WAIX/PIPE ISPs are also considered free. Local WestNet data such as the 3FL Gaming Services and the WestNet Download Vault also count as free traffic. Free Traffic does not count towards your download limit. Please note that some of the resources above are only available in certain states. For example, WAIX is only available to West Australian customers. Please see the WestNet Neighbourhood (http://www.westnet.com.au/products/broadband/adsl/neighbourhood.asp) page for more details. Disclaimer: In instances where customers may wish to take advantage of the the free Neighbourhood traffic made available to them with their ADSL connection through WestNet, it is the client’s own responsibility to perform the necessary checks, as described in our detailed Peering Information page (no link yet), for determining the route through which the data is travelling. And for info on hacking http://www.westnet.com.au/support/fa...q=8&fldAuto=91

[Perthite]

I have been through many isp"s in the past but now l am with wesnet and its just the best. Never any problems with downloads and always a human to talk to if problems arise.

[ozwinner]

Try here for plans etc.


Al

[Zed]

---rant on---

Do you lot think that running a telecoms netwok is cheap ?and that once the network is built all those electrons and ones a zeros running around the glass and copper is free ? think again boofheads. theres legal fees, government taxes and kickbacks, advertising, cost of infastructure (power & air in exchange spaces - the cost of those 2 alone!!!), staff, real estate, desktop equipment, IT costs, vendor agreements, support agreements, leasing on land and buildings,o/s carrier costs, building buildings, the cost of digging up turf and stone to lay cable - both in ground and under water, lets not forget Optus's satellites (of which one blew up on the launch pad but they still had to pay for!!!) etc etc I could go on all day - literally.

I dont deny telco's make a $hitload of money - but they spend a $hitload too - lots of it on infastructure - look at all the legislative issues that telstra and now optus have to deal with wrt regional areas and the bush.... this all costs money to set up and run. dont forget we have approx 18 mill people with a an average density of 2 people per sq km - they are all legally entitled to good carrier service - and they want it all and the want it now and they want it for free - ********! No other public service except water, power & health is more regulated that your local telephone call.

why abuse the chick at the call centre when she's just doing her job ? thats complete disrespect and ********! its like abusing the 17yo check out chick at woolies because they raised the price of your favourite toothpaste - pointless and gutless!

Squizz - if one of your customers abused you as you knocked on thier door asking for work - how would you react ???? dont forget that those call centre people are not that well paid for the work they do - especially those in India!! why abuse them - i've seen them react - the young girls cry, the older harder nosed ones just think "what a fcukwit that person was" and have a laugh over it - what was the use in that ? huh ? does it make you feel better ? are you a mass market hero now because you dissed a unknown c/s person over a phone ? what if your daughter came home from that and told you what happens to her every day of her working life - how would you feel ?

if it wasnt for the carriers - you woudnt be logged on now reading this would ya ? allow business to make money people - ok the carriers are doing ok - but so are many other companies that dont get abused - the carriers are just high profile. your energy is better spent elsewhere!

---rant off---

[simon c]

I would saythat there is nothing wrong with the optus plan but:

As a few others have mentioned, if you did the windows xp sp2 then that would almost certainly generate most of your usage. One the problems is that because the microsoft download servers are very fast, you can run up a lot more usage downloading from them than you would on a normal website

Secondly, 200 mb is not a large amount. Users who switch from dialup to broadband don't realise that the increased speed they have means that they use the internet a lot more than before and therefore download a lot more traffic than they would on dialup - however this doesn't appear to be the problem you are facing, yet ;-).

I would stick at it for a couple of months as it looks like the windows xp thing was a bit of an anomaly, but be aware taht 200mb is not alot, especially if you start to click on links to videos and music files etc, something you wouldn't have done when you had dialup.

Simon