# Trouble with an ISP
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trouble-with-an-isp/130375
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [October 1, 2002, 9:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trouble-with-an-isp/130375 "2002-10-01T09:42:37Z")
**Posts on this page:** 6
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@reprise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/reprise)
#### Post date: [October 1, 2002, 9:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trouble-with-an-isp/130375/1 "2002-10-01T09:42:37Z")
Oh my, you ARE having problems with your ISP - they’ve made you invisible. 😃
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### Author:  [@effac3d](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/effac3d)
#### Post date: [October 1, 2002, 9:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trouble-with-an-isp/130375/2 "2002-10-01T09:54:59Z")
Damn gerbils 😃
A friend is having some trouble with her cable ISP.
She has a plan where if you go over a bandwidth limit you pay extra,well they want her to pay $1,705 dollars extra for last month!
She is sure she didn’t go over as she has always been worried about it,and she shuts her PC down when she isn’t using it.
She has talked to the ISP about it,they told her to prove she didn’t use it.
At this point she is resigned to paying it because she wants to preserve her credit rating moe than anything.
She is looking for advice on how to fight this,and i thought that some members here may have had a similar experience or good advice on how to proceed.
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### Author:  [@effac3d](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/effac3d)
#### Post date: [October 1, 2002, 9:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trouble-with-an-isp/130375/3 "2002-10-01T09:56:25Z")
err “moe” should be “more” of course.
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### Author:  [@reprise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/reprise)
#### Post date: [October 1, 2002, 10:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trouble-with-an-isp/130375/4 "2002-10-01T10:03:19Z")
Presumably the ISP has sent her statements of the times and size of all her downloads for the month.
Most cable access here has a 3 gig cap on downloads, after which there’s some hideous charge for each extra meg, but it’s hard to imagine anyone being able to run up $1700 worth of excess charges in a month.
You say your friend is cautious about her use. Presumably that means that she regular checks her download total. If she keeps an eye on her downloads to date for each month, it’s difficult to imagine that she didn’t notice she was approaching her download limit, let alone that she had gone way over it.
I’d be inclined to suggest that someone has hijacked her cable connection (and is stealing bandwidth from her account), but that wouldn’t explain her not noticing the increased use when she checked her downloads during the month.
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### Author:  [@Patty\_O\_Furniture](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patty_O_Furniture)
#### Post date: [October 1, 2002, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trouble-with-an-isp/130375/5 "2002-10-01T13:53:20Z")
$1,705? :eek:
Is she running a web hosting server?
I swear I started a thread about download caps a few months ago but I hesitate to push the hampsters any harder. So here is the significant part of the text along with the old links in case you want to research.
> [@](#):
>
> If you are a cable modem user, get ready to pony up some more dough. Cable ISPs in [Canada](http://rtnews.globetechnology.com/servlet/RTGAMArticleHTMLTemplate/D,D,B/20020506/gtsymp?tf=tgam%252Frealtime%252Ffullstory_Tech.html&cf=globetechnology/tech-config-neutral&slug=gtsymp&date=20020506&archive=RTGAM&site=Technology) are going to a tiered system:
>
> Basic: $30 - download cap = 1GB
> Standard: $45 - download cap = 5GB
> Ultra: $70 - download cap = 10GB
>
> Additonal charges are 79¢/100MB past the cap.
>
> Fine, you say. I’ve got DSL, not cable.
>
> Hold on to your hats, [DSL is getting the brakes, too.](http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/17624)
>
> Fine, you say. I don’t live in Canada. What’s the big deal?
>
> Still holding on to your hats? Good. [AT&T and Comcast](http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/business/3319731.htm) are leaning in the same direction, claiming that 1% of subscribers consume 30% of network resources, and that they’re soon going to be paying for it.
I hope all the links are still good. Maybe you can get some help at [DSLreports.com](http://DSLreports.com).
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### Author:  [@slortar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slortar)
#### Post date: [October 1, 2002, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trouble-with-an-isp/130375/6 "2002-10-01T14:51:09Z")
Maybe you should post a link to her ISP and their usage agreement and pricing plans. I’m very skeptical that a typical user could run up a $1700 fee in one month.
My ISP does much the same thing. 40 base and 6 gigabytes worth of bandwidth, .50 per gigabyte beyond that. I rarely use more than 8 and I’m a HEAVY downloader. To get a $1700 usage fee, I’d have to download 686 gigabytes in one month. That’s the equivalent of 76 full length, uncompressed dvd movies in a 30 day period. To get that downloaded, she’d have to have to have an equivalent network speed of 265 kb/sec…and use it, constantly, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week…
Either she’s getting completely screwed on her service plan (e.g. they’re offering 1 gb normal capacity, plus $100 per gig over the cap) or they’ve screwed up royally.