World Cup means you could be breaching download limits
July 2, 2010 at 2:48 pm
If you have been sitting glued to the World Cup using your broadband connection, you could be in for a nasty surprise.
It is all very well thinking that you need never miss a match whether you are at home, work or even in the garden now that live TV streaming and catch-up TV are available.
But you might like to think again, this time bearing in mind the inconvenient aspects of 21st century technology such as fair-usage policy and download limits.
With streaming just one match in HD using a whopping 2.4GB, fans could easily be in danger of falling foul of their broadband contracts. The consequences of doing this range from a fine to speed throttling.
For the uninitiated, to whom this may sound like some form of medieval torture, speed throttling is in fact a method by which an ISP can limit the speed of upload, having a serious impact on your viewing experience. Even the so-called unlimited packages have restrictions so the advice is to read the small print carefully.
Choosing your provider carefully makes sense too. Virgin Media and Sky both offer packages with no download limits, whilst Be Broadband and O2 Broadband offer more generous downloads than many of their competitors, although there is still a fair-usage policy in place.
If you are concerned about running up big bills it is possible to download a monitor free of charge and even opt for an alarm to warn you when you are nearing your limit.
