Sky broadband does have a FUP similar to 98% of ISP's out there.
UPDATED as of 30th september 2008
Any terms in capitals not defined in these Usage Policies will have the
same meaning as in your Contract. These Usage Policies apply to you and
anybody you allow to use Sky Broadband. Any reference to “you” shall be
interpreted to mean you and anybody you allow to use Sky Broadband. You
are responsible for the use of Sky Broadband by any person you allow to
use it including anyone who accesses Sky Broadband because you have
removed the wireless encryption security on your Wireless Router.
How we update our Usage Policies
The way our customers use Sky Broadband is changing all the time so we
may need to change our Usage Policies to adapt to our customer’s needs.
Our latest Usage Policies will always be posted on our website at www.sky.com so please keep checking for updates.
USAGE CAPS
Broadband
If you subscribe to a Product that has a cap on the amount of data that
you download or upload via your Sky Broadband internet access each
month ("Usage Cap"), your usage must not exceed that Usage Cap each
month. For the current Usage Caps on each Product, please go to www.sky.com/broadband.
If you exceed your Usage Cap, we will contact you to let you know that you have done so.
If, in subsequent months, your usage continues to exceed your Usage
Cap, we will continue to contact you to ask you to reduce your usage
immediately. If after a reasonable period of time your usage still
exceeds your Usage Cap, then we may do one or more of the following
things by notice in writing (including by email): (a) charge you fair
and reasonable costs for your usage (and any reasonable administration
costs) in excess of your Usage Cap; (b) change your subscription to a
Product with a higher Usage Cap, in which case we would also notify you
of the new price you will be charged; (c) suspend your use of Sky
Broadband for the relevant month; or (d) end your Contract in
accordance with Condition 11 of your Contract; Sky Broadband Max gives
you unlimited downloads of music, movies, sports clips and online
gaming - no fair use policy applies.
E-mail
Whatever Product you take there are also limits on the use of the Sky
Broadband email accounts by you and anyone you allow to use an email
account. (a) There is an upper limit on the size of each mailbox
account. This will restrict the amount of Messages you are able to
store in your mailbox account using Sky Broadband; and (b) There is an
upper limit to the size of each Message which you can send using a Sky
Broadband email account. You must not exceed these usage limits. You
must only use a Sky Broadband e-mail account for normal e-mail purposes
and not, for example, as a storage facility. For the current usage
limits, please go to www.sky.com/email.
If you exceed these email usage limits or use a Sky Broadband e-mail
account for abnormal purposes, for example the storage of large files,
then we may immediately suspend the email account or we may send you an
email telling you to reduce your mailbox size or usage (as the case may
be). If you do not act on our notification we may then suspend the
relevant email account, or end your Contract in accordance with
Condition 11 of your Contract.
SKY BROADBAND CONNECT TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT POLICY In addition to the monthly Usage Cap, this Traffic Management Policy applies to you if you take Sky Broadband Connect.
Excessive use during peak time We will monitor your Sky
Broadband usage during peak times from 5pm to 12am each day. This is
when the majority of customers use the network and when speeds could be
affected by the excessive usage of a minority. If we consider that your
usage is excessive during peak times we may slow down your connection
for the rest of the day so that it has less affect on others. Only a
very small number of customers will be affected by this (less than 2%).
If you are affected, we will only slow down the speed you can get
during peak times for applications which use a lot of bandwidth (for
example, streaming, peer-to-peer and newsgroups) and which have a
negative affect on other customers. You will still be able to use Sky
Broadband to do other things normally such as browsing, email, instant
messaging and VOIP. There are no restrictions in place outside of peak
times.
Traffic management of our NetworkTo ensure we provide a sustainable
quality broadband service to our customers, we continuously monitor and
efficiently manage the Sky Network as a whole. To do this, during peak
times (from 5pm to 12am each day), we may slow down the speed that all
Sky Broadband Connect customers can get on certain applications which
we consider use up a lot of bandwidth (for example peer-to-peer and
newsgroups) and which have a negative affect on other customers There
are no restrictions in place for applications such as browsing, email,
streaming, instant messaging and VOIP during peak times. We do not put
restrictions on our network outside of peak times.
It goes on and on, but I just copy and pasted the most relevant part, it then jumps from that to the acceptable use policy...
Also unlimited downloads isnt always UNLIMITED, it could be a set amount like 250 gig a month and if you keep downloading more than that they may take that as excessive use of their service and send you threatening emails or slow your line speed down.
Many ISP's Claim Unlimited downloads, but most of them will never let you download more than 300 gig for more than 2 or so months without doing something to your line, the words Unlimited dont mean anything to the majority of ISP's, as every single ISP I have been with with the exception of Zen which I only joined them in january of this year, they all claimed unlimited but when the raping of their network starts they then start to complain to you and start messing with your speeds, only Zen have I been able to get 850kb - 900kb 24 hours of the day, whether its peak time or not, no other ISP could do that for me, most were good during the day but would cut me to 1 and a half to 2mbit from 4pm to 1am or so.
I will agree with you that Zen office is costly, as I pay for it and £92 a month does bug me at times, but I cannot praise the service enough, I dont have any problems, I dont lose connection, I can download whenever I want at full speed, but for the guts of 100 quid, I bloody should be able to do that, but I will say this, if a competitor with the same exact quality of service as zen for £30'ish quid came out, I would move in a heartbeat, for the sole reason that money is tight at the present time and 8mbit speeds are getting old and paying 100 quid is getting crazy for it, soon we will all have 24 to 100mbit due to the roll out of fibre, new houses will get fibre to the home whilst houses that are already built will get fibre to the cab which means roughly 40-50mbit speeds, so unless zen have a plan to up their speeds from 8mbit to atleast 24mbit for the same price as 8mbit office package, then I forseee lots of ppl leaving zen in the future if they dont keep up speed wise.
Thats just my take on it.