For a long time, there was no formal definition of what 'unlimited' meant in terms of your broadband service. ‘Unlimited’ was used as a marketing term for broadband with no advertised usage cap and was proven to sell well, but there were no strict regulations holding providers to particular standards.
Because of this, it was standard practice to have a ‘fair usage policy’ hidden somewhere on the provider’s website that placed a ‘reasonable usage’ limit on services sold as ‘unlimited’. This would mean that when the user went past this hard-to-find or secret limit they’d be given a warning and then if they didn’t desist they’d be cut off or charged a large bill for the additional data.
Unsurprisingly, lots of people felt this was unfair and misleading. Complaints about ‘unlimited broadband’ being secretly limited used to be one of the most common reasons people contacted our broadband experts. Unfortunately, there was very little we could advise disgruntled customers to do except go with a provider with a large upfront advertised usage limit.
This all changed when, after listening to customer feedback, Sky Broadband was the first internet service provider to challenge this industry standard practice of secretly limiting ‘unlimited broadband’.
In September 2008, Sky launched the first ever truly unlimited broadband service, with no fair usage policy. For the first time, people could choose an unlimited broadband provider and know that their download allowance really wouldn’t be limited. It was understandably popular with customers, and Sky gained a good reputation from heavy users and busy households alike.
Sky’s decision to go ‘truly unlimited’ also served to publicise the fact that other providers’ unlimited broadband wasn’t what most customers assumed. Complaints and campaigns about the misuse of the term ‘unlimited’ increased, and the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) brought in new regulations to ensure that ‘unlimited’ was not used in a misleading way.
As a result of these rules, which came into force on the 1st of April 2012, broadband suppliers can no longer charge customers or suspend their service for excessive usage. However, they are allowed to apply ‘traffic management’ restrictions, but only if these restrictions are made clear to customers.
What is unlimited broadband?
Today, packages sold as ‘unlimited broadband’ have no usage cap. This allows you to download and upload as much data as you like without needing to worry about exceeding an agreed limit and perhaps incurring a large bill or having your service suspended until the next month.
However, 'unlimited' broadband packages may still have traffic management that restricts your Internet speeds at peak times, especially if you are a heavy online user or live in a busy home with a family or housemates.
For example, Virgin Media applies traffic management slowdowns for an hour to upload speeds if your upload data usage exceeds a certain threshold in the previous hour. It also slows down both download peer to peer file sharing services (such as BitTorrent) and newsgroups during peak hours.
Ofcom rules require your provider to make their traffic management policy clear and easy to find, and ASA regulations mean that you should be aware when these restrictions apply before you sign up.
‘Unlimited browsing’
Another type of even more restricted service is also sometimes promoted as ‘unlimited’, usually by mobile broadband providers. This sells ‘unlimited browsing’ or ‘unlimited web’, where only the viewing of web pages is unlimited while heavy ‘fair usage’ limits and restrictions apply to other types of traffic, such as video streaming, Skype calls or online radio. The ASA regulations require these restrictions to be clear, but look out for possibly misleading caveats after the word ‘unlimited’.
What is truly unlimited broadband?
'Truly unlimited' broadband has no usage cap and no traffic management tied to usage volume. This means you’ll always receive the fastest service your line and type of broadband will support, so you can use the Internet as heavily as you wish with no associated penalties.
Even if you, your family or housemates are heavy downloaders, regularly play online games, or stream films and television, you’ll never have penalties applied to your service, regardless of what time you go online. While there is usually some drop in speed at peak times due to the number of people using the service, your speed will never be artificially reduced.
Why choose truly unlimited broadband?
With truly unlimited broadband, you don't have to worry about how much you use the internet, meaning potentially less stress and more freedom when you go online. You know you'll never be artificially slowed down for using your connection too much.
Those who use the Internet heavily will benefit greatly from having no usage cap or speed limiting. This includes:
Television and Film Streamers
Those who use services like Netflix, NOW TV or Sky Go to watch TV shows and movies online can rapidly hit traffic management policy allowances at peak times, especially when watching high definition content. With increasingly improving video stream quality and more people watching these services on their TVs, games consoles, computers and tablets, this is now one of the most common ways that households hit usage limits. A person who regularly streams HD movies can easily use 100GB of data in a month, and this figure can be multiplied in a household where family members or housemates are streaming on multiple devices.
Gamers
Those who regularly play MMOs (Massively Multiplayer Online games, such as World of Warcraft and EVE Online) and other games that require a lot of Internet use can find that they will rapidly hit download caps due to the bandwidth involved. A fast broadband speed is also required and therefore having your Internet speed restricted at peak times, as can occur with packages which are not truly unlimited, can be a big problem.
Truly unlimited broadband means you can play as much as you want without being penalised for it, and also lets you play at peak times without worrying about being artificially slowed-down by your provider.
Downloaders
Those who download large files and/or download regularly, can reach download limits quickly. This is the case for anyone who uses torrents, especially if you download movies or other large files. A 40GB limit can sound like a lot, but that can met solely by downloading 10 high-quality films in one month, not even accounting for other Internet usage, and it can all quickly add up.
Unlimited broadband removes this restriction for you, meaning you don't need to worry about how much you download every month. The lack of traffic management you gain from a truly unlimited service means you won't have your download speeds cut at peak times. This helps you avoid the need to wait as long for your files. It’s worth noting that traffic management, even on 'unlimited' packages, tends to target heavy downloaders more than other Internet users due to their volume of data usage, making truly unlimited services the ideal choice for habitual downloaders.
Larger Households
When various members of a household share an internet connection, the connection's download limits are divided out among the people in the house, meaning less for each person. A 40GB download cap will only be a 10GB download cap per person in a house where 4 people all use the internet equally. Larger households and busy homes with several heavy internet users, like the streamers, gamers and downloaders, will suffer from having download limits that might not be a problem if they were applied to each person individually. Because of this, student households, flat shares and large families are likely to be disadvantaged.
Truly unlimited broadband means that this is no longer an issue, letting everyone sharing the connection use the internet as much as they like without needing to worry if, for example, your flatmate's online gaming means you won't be able to download a music album without hitting the cap, causing further problems.
Peak Time Internet Users
Even those on 'unlimited' broadband packages can encounter traffic management restrictions at peak times, slowing down their internet service. For those who mostly access the internet during peak times, such as professionals with busy schedules, this can seem like a restriction in your service. This will only apply to heavier internet users, but if that includes you, and you’re online the most during weekday evenings, you may wish to consider getting a truly unlimited package. This way, you can be sure of getting the fastest speed available at those peak times without your provider slowing things down.
Uploaders, Video Content Creators and YouTubers
Although most usage comes from downloading and consuming content, there’s an increasingly large number of internet users who create and upload their own content. The largest file uploads are usually videos, with even relatively short YouTube-length videos producing large files at full HD resolution. Upload speed is usually proportionally slower than download speed, but equally, upload traffic management usage caps are usually smaller. If caps are based on relative usage, with fewer people uploading heavily, it’s easier to be in the top few percent of heaviest uploaders. This becomes even easier to achieve with a superfast connection with up to 10 or 20Mb upload speed.
Cloud Backup, Sync and Drive
Cloud services like iCloud, DropBox, Google Drive and SkyDrive are increasingly popular. They can be used to keep all your different devices in sync with the same files, or keep your pictures and videos available wherever you go. It can also be used as a backup or even in the place of your local hard drive. The latest versions of Windows and OS X even save to the cloud by default.
What you might not realise is that cloud services are usually also saving those files on your desktop computers, and every time you change a file on your tablet, it also gets downloaded on your desktop. Any files changed on your desktop computer is automatically uploaded to the cloud and downloaded to all your other devices. All this upload and downloading is happening over your broadband connection, even though your devices might all be in the same room. If you don't have a truly unlimited connection, this frequent file syncing could be counting towards your usage allowance or your traffic management threshold. As such, truly unlimited is best for the cloud.
Other things to consider
So you’ve decided that you want a truly unlimited broadband service, but there’s still other things to take into account when deciding which provider and what type of service to choose.
Differences between providers
Not all providers are equal, here are some other factors to consider:
- Bundled services: the quality and value for money of the TV or phone packages bundled with your broadband
- Extras and exclusives: whether the service comes with extras like free Wi-Fi when you’re out and about, or exclusive perks like access to streaming services
- Network congestion: how overloaded services get at peak times, some budget providers may cut costs this way causing slowdowns while bigger names invest more in maintaining capacity
- Reliability: how often the service develops technical faults or experiences downtime
- Customer service: how good the help you receive is when something goes wrong
- Setup and line rental: how much installation costs are (particularly a factor with fibre broadband) and how much your monthly line rental is
- Contract length: how long you’re tied into this service before you can switch, especially important if you might wish to upgrade to a fibre service later
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