Whirlpool

I provide support for a company that was using a liberty 25gig plan and had an employee that used P2P and used up all the usage in 10 days (about 29 gig all up, yes, he should be sacked.).

I need to get them unshaped. I put them on the 60 gig ADSL2+ plan to see if that would do it. I then read the method that Bigpond apply for changing plans and usage, (the thing I read only showed an excess usage plan changing to another excess usage plan) and am now unsure if this will unshape them without suddenly being charged excess usage.

Does anyone know what will happen in this case? I really only need them to have a couple of gig because that is their normal usage.

They will be unshaped.

Their usage for the remainder of the period will be:

60 / 30.41 * The number of days left this billing month.

The same goes for the bill
(99.95 / 30.41 * Days on 25GB plan) + ( 149.95 / 30.41 * Days on 60GB plan)

If that doesnt make sense have a look at the bigpond help centre which explains how the usage/billing works.

skiitz writes...

Their usage for the remainder of the period will be:

Applied on a pro rata basis.

skiitz writes...

Their usage for the remainder of the period will be:

60 / 30.41 * The number of days left this billing month.

Thanks

So the current excess usage will have no affect on the new quota?

With that calculation even if it is from today I get:

60/30.41 * 20 days left = 39 gig. As I said they only need a couple of gig.

If that doesnt make sense have a look at the bigpond help centre which explains how the usage/billing works.

Yeah I read this:

____________________________________

Usage Experience

Old Plan
*You usage allowance of 200MB expires when you change plan and no additional usage is incurred.

• If you used more than 200MB before the date you changed plan (ie 27 April), then you would incur additional usage charges
• Un-used usage is not transferred to your new plan.

New Plan

• Your usage allowance for the rest of the month in which you changed plan (ie April 12 to May 11) is calculated at 400MB / 30.4 (Average number of days in a billing cycle) * 14 (number of days on Plan)
  *Your usage allowance for your new plan is 184MB, so you will have incurred 124MB of additional usage.

____________________________________
and that pretty much made no sense at all. I then look down further and it mentions 300 mb usage in the new plan period and it started to make sense But by then I was so confused I gave up. :P (note to bigpond: put that bit in the scenario at the top, or leave it out and just tell us how much data will be available once the plan changes).

Funkstick writes...

So the current excess usage will have no affect on the new quota?

None at all.
Thats on a separate plan which is billed separately.
As the 25gb plan has no excess usage charges there is also nothing to pay for the usage.

canon1d writes...

Applied on a pro rata basis.

Thats what the formula i posted calculates, the pro rata usage.

skiitz writes...

None at all.

Oh, I see they have a one plan change per month to avoid abuse don't they.

Funkstick writes...

Oh, I see they have a one plan change per month to avoid abuse don't they.

Thats right :)

Funkstick writes...

and that pretty much made no sense at all.

That's because it is wrong. The reference to 124MB of additional usage is a furphy.

I then look down further and it mentions 300 mb usage in the new plan period and it started to make sense But by then I was so confused I gave up.

Yes that then makes more sense as the 300-184 = 116. Makes the 124 figure even more irrelevant.

There are other errors in this FAQ. Despite having edited it some time ago it is still wrong and totally confusing.

Don't forget to read the bit about your usage meter. It will show the total you have used for the month and say you have 60GB for the month. Go figure.

Oh, I see they have a one plan change per month to avoid abuse don't they.

But when you try to do it, many have found it won't let you change two months in a row. Go figure.

Funkstick writes...

60/30.41 * 20 days left = 39 gig. As I said they only need a couple of gig.

Yep, something like that. Seriously though, if you ever have to do this again, consider switching to the "other" (ie other speed) 25GB plan. That way you would still have gotten about 16GB for the rest of the month, but without the risk of excess usage charges if you go over.

Funkstick writes...

I provide support for a company that was using a liberty 25gig plan and had an employee that used P2P and used up all the usage in 10 days

Has this problem been addressed?

Someone should keep an eye on their usage for the rest of the month.

toony writes...

Yes that then makes more sense as the 300-184 = 116. Makes the 124 figure even more irrelevant.

No wonder I was confused.

JunkCrusader writes...

Has this problem been addressed?

Someone should keep an eye on their usage for the rest of the month.

Yeah I passed the info onto the relevant managers. I think they smacked him upside the head. They are keeping an eye on it now.

It looks like they are going to be shaped until Friday next week when the new plan comes into effect, so I may need to ring Bigpond and see if we can do something about that.

Funkstick writes...

It looks like they are going to be shaped until Friday next week when the new plan comes into effect, so I may need to ring Bigpond and see if we can do something about that.

You should have been able to choose to change plans at midnight "tonight". Was that not an option? Why Friday next week?

Even though they are now "keeping an eye on it" it is very dangerous to go to a 60GB excess plan. What if someone else goes mad and they don't notice. At $150/GB you won't be too popular if they go over.

Yes be very careful going from a 25gig* plan to a 60 gig and get charged heaps past that. I am very new at this and got caught by it.

About 5 days into my 25gig* plan I decided to change to 60 gig for one month
as I had some heaps of linux isos to download, and when I rang they explained yep
just login and do it there. No mention of Pro Rata so assuming i had whatever i had alraedy used in my 25gig plan about 8 gig i think, i thought i must have 50 gig
Nup.. it turned out i only had about 47 gig, and I am still not happy that
at no time did I get a warning that i was closing in on 47 gig mark (not the 50 gig that I figured it to be) till 2 days after the billing period where by I received a sms msg and an email about 30 mins apart. Lovely. Lucky i only went over it by about 900 meg so i got over billed for about 120 bucks or something.
but still, urggh not to happy about it though. and to make matters worse
I couldnt log into the usage metre on bigpond to find out how close i was getting anyway torward the end of the month it was just lucky i had gotten what i needed and had gone back to normal usage other wise it could of been worse.
They really dont explain that well, I mean for a mum and pop organization you would think that they would make that really clear.

toony writes...

Even though they are now "keeping an eye on it" it is very dangerous to go to a 60GB excess plan. What if someone else goes mad and they don't notice. At $150/GB you won't be too popular if they go over.

They lose a a lot more not having it working. If I had thought it likely they would ever have gotten near the limit I would have had them on an excess plan. Actually if I had much to do with the original plan setup they wouldn't have been with Bigpond especially seeing their exchange is enabled by a different ADSL2+ provider.

You should have been able to choose to change plans at midnight "tonight". Was that not an option?

No, I may have stuffed that up actually, I was aiming to get a plan with a bigger quota thinking the existing usage will come into account. The only plan with a larger usage was a ADSL2+ plan so I chose that and I guess that the speed change is the hold up. I didn't know choosing a different ADSL1 plan even with the same amount of quota would get them unshaped. I will make a phone call on Monday to get it sorted.

Funkstick writes...

I will make a phone call on Monday to get it sorted.

I'm guessing the phone call will go something like "I'm sorry Sir, but you will have to wait". Good luck anyway.

bucket2004a writes...

as I had some heaps of linux isos to download

Pull the other one.

JunkCrusader writes...

I'm guessing the phone call will go something like "I'm sorry Sir, but you will have to wait".

Yep, probably will. But I find Telstra can sometimes be bargained with. I am willing to recontract them if necessary.

EDIT:

I just had a try at changing the plans again to see what it said and it says that it is currently scheduled to change plans on the 7/9/2008 instead of the 11th it said before. So hopefully it will happen before tomorrow.

Funkstick writes...

I just had a try at changing the plans again to see what it said and it says that it is currently scheduled to change plans on the 7/9/2008 instead of the 11th it said before. So hopefully it will happen before tomorrow.

Yes, changing to an ADSL2+ plan normally takes about 5 days I think. There's also a risk you will lose ANY service for a while (days?) during the upgrade. It may be that you can't get ADSL2+ after all and they will therefore increase your speed to "up to 8Mbps" and not take as long to do so.

Good luck.

EvolutionOnline writes...

Pull the other one.

+1
Bigpond has most Linux ISO's in their unmetred section.

In Russian?