BROADBAND SPEED & PERFORMANCE
Broadband Lite - this is our no nonsense up to 8Mb bundled broadband product and will satisfy the needs of many home broadband users in the UK. Free UK calls to 01, 02 & 03 numbers plus UNLIMITED broadband usage between midnight and 6pm (18 hours a day) and 5Gb broadband usage limit between 6pm and midnight.
Broadband Family - this is our best value up to 8Mb bundled broadband product and will satisfy the needs of the vast majority of home broadband users in the UK. Free UK calls to 01, 02 & 03 numbers plus UNLIMITED broadband usage between midnight and 6pm (18 hours a day) and 20Gb broadband usage limit between 6pm and midnight. Most of our customers download less than 12Gb per month.
Broadband Pro - this provides the same great value as Broadband Lite and Broadband Family but with enhanced broadband performance. It is ideal for users who download lots of music or movies in the evenings plus it gives the best speed possible at all times making it ideal for gamers etc. Free UK calls to 01, 02 & 03 numbers plus between 6pm and midnight the usage limit is raised to a massive 40Gb per month in addition to the UNLIMITED broadband usage for the remaining 18 hours per day.
What affects my broadband speed?
How fast your broadband access is doesn't’t just depend on the speed of your broadband connection. It also depends on how many people are sharing the same connection with you.
It’s like traveling on the M1 from London to Birmingham...
If the motorway is clear, you can be in Birmingham in no time. If it’s the rush hour and there are lots of other cars and lorries on the motorway it could take much longer. Similarly, the speed at which your PC can download information from the Internet depends on how many other people are using the bandwidth at the same time.
Many broadband providers do not care too much about this
Especially if they have tied you in to a 12 or 18 month contract. They probably figure they’ve got your money and if your broadband service slows down at busy times, so be it - remember your contract with us is only 28 days.
DST care -
we need to - because it is a 28 day Agreement and so easy for you to leave our service we must deliver good broadband service to you to make you want to keep your broadband with DST. Price is important too, that's why we give you the choice of 3 great products, each providing excellent savings against our main competitors, enabling you to choose what broadband performance level is best for your needs, or simply put - how many users are sharing the bandwidth.
Do I need the enhanced performance?
You decide, our 3 broadband bundles, each based on performance, are ideal for you. Each broadband product provides great value and when demand is very high our Broadband Family and Broadband Pro customers are less affected than Broadband Lite customers.
The old ‘contention ratio’ method is no longer used by the broadband industry for 8Mbps services. Therefore, we are unable to give a specific ratio figure as this will vary from minute to minute depending on the number of people using our network. Many other factors may come in to effect such as line quality, how many PCs you have connected and so on. All of these broadband speeds are more than adequate for typical broadband use. We simply give you the choice of weighing up what broadband speed is important to you against how much you want to pay.
 |
 |
 |
 |
| Broadband Availability Checker powered by BT |
|
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
BROADBAND FAIR USAGE
Why do we have a fair usage policy on Broadband?
Most customers' favourite time to go online is between 6pm and midnight, and we want to make sure that we offer an excellent broadband service to everyone during these peak hours whilst keeping our prices low. That's why we have invested in broadband traffic management tools that share our broadband bandwidth fairly between all our customers.
Our popular Broadband Lite, Broadband Family and Broadband Pro products have a fair usage download limit during peak hours of 5Gb, 20Gb and 40Gb respectively. If you constantly download extremely large files, you should consider scheduling a proportion of these to non peak times to preserve an excellent broadband service for other users.
What is broadband unfair usage?
Historically a small number (under 1%) of broadband customers use the broadband service unfairly by taking up a disproportionate amount of bandwidth, especially between broadband peak hours. By constantly downloading extremely large movie and data files unchecked their abuse could affect the pricing of our great value broadband service. Hence the need for a broadband fair usage policy.
If your peak time broadband usage exceeds what is fair for your broadband product we will temporarily reduce your broadband speed during broadband peak hours to ensure you don't affect other peoples broadband service. This broadband speed will restrict your ability to download large files as quickly as normal, but will not affect web browsing or email. Your broadband speed will run as normal at all other times.
Will my broadband speed be slowed down further?
Unlikely, less than 1% of our broadband customers use our broadband service unfairly. You should only be affected if you constantly download excessive quantities of extremely large files during peak hours. If your peak time broadband usage exceeds what is fair for your broadband product we may temporarily reduce your broadband connection speed during broadband peak hours to ensure you don't affect other peoples broadband service. This speed will restrict your ability to download large files as quickly as normal, but will not affect web browsing or email. Your broadband speed will run as normal at all other times.
How do I know if my broadband speed has been slowed down?
You'll notice that downloads are taking longer than normal. However this will be reset at the start of next month. If this occurs regularly each month you should consider upgrading to Broadband Family or Broadband Pro.
