BT Total Broadband Fair Usage Policy

To give all customers optimum service, irrespective of network demand, we have a Fair Usage Policy covering monthly usage allowances and Network Management of specific applications.

BT supports Ofcom's Code of Practice on Speed and is committed to providing the best information about what affects customers' speeds and managing our service to optimise the experience for all our customers. To find out more about Ofcom's Code of Practice on Speed visit Ofcom's website.

Information about optimising your speed is available at www.bt.com/help/broadbandspeed.

A. Monthly Usage Allowances

1. What are BT's monthly usage allowances? How will I know if I exceed them?

Each BT Broadband option has a different monthly usage allowance, so you can choose the package that best suits your needs.

* Subject to Network Management

If you exceed your monthly usage allowance your service won't stop working; advisory emails will be sent to your BT primary email address if you reach 80 per cent of your usage allowance each month and further notification if you then exceed your allowance in a particular month.

If you exceed your usage allowance for two months in a row, we'll charge you £1 for each extra GB you use (rounded up to the nearest GB) starting from the second month you exceed your allowance. We'll continue charging if you keep exceeding your allowance in the following months. These charges will appear on your BT bill.

If you're finding your monthly usage allowance inadequate and are regularly paying charges for exceeding this, you can upgrade to a package with a higher or unlimited usage allowance. Upgrade your broadband here.

To monitor your usage, you can use a search engine to find and download an online-usage meter; search for 'internet usage meter'. You may wish to try several until you find one that meets your needs.

2. How does broadband usage work?

Everything sent or received over the internet consists of bits of data, whether it's a web page, an email, a music track or a video clip. The amount of data is measured in kilobytes (KB), megabytes (MB) or gigabytes (GB). 1MB=1024KB, 1GB=1024MB.

The total amount of data you send and receive each month is your total monthly usage, and at the end of the month we compare this with the monthly usage allowance of your Option. So, for example, with BT Total Broadband Option 1, you could download around 2,500 music files each month within your monthly allowance.

*BT services such as BT Vision via the Vision+ box, BT Digital Vault and BT Broadband Talk are not affected by our Fair Usage Policy and don't count towards your usage allowance. So you can watch as much on-demand entertainment on your TV and make as many online calls as you wish, without having to worry about going over your allowance.

However, downloads directly from the online BT Vision Download Store (ie, to a computer and not via the V-box) do count towards your monthly usage.

3. My usage is higher than I expected. What can I do?

Your usage level depends on what you and other users in your household do online. If your usage has increased a lot in a month, check how your household's surfing habits have changed and what extra things are being done online.

Browsing web pages and sending emails are typically low usage, video streaming and downloading music are medium usage, whereas high-definition video streaming, downloading TV programmes and movies or using peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing applications can be very high usage.

If you are regularly going over your usage allowance, you can always upgrade to an option with a higher usage allowance or the unlimited option.

B. Network Management

4. What is BT's Traffic Management Policy?

BT continuously monitors network performance and reduces the speed available to very heavy users (typically less than 1 per cent of all customers) during a given month to ensure that the service received by other customers is not impacted through extremely heavy usage by a minority of people.

Customers who are classified as very heavy users will experience significantly reduced speed at peak times (typically 5pm-midnight every day but these times may change depending on the demand on the network) for a period of 30 days, or for as long as very heavy use continues. This applies to customers on all Options.

BT Total Broadband Option 3 and BT Infinity Option 2 allow unlimited downloads and uploads within the monthly rental price, so customers on these products will not be charged for over-use. However, this does not preclude BT from reducing your speed if you are a heavy user in order to protect the experience for the rest of our customers.

We may need to vary the policy from time to time to ensure the best possible experience for all our customers. This site will always be kept up to date with the latest information.

5. What is BT's policy on Peer-to-Peer (P2P) applications?

P2P refers to certain applications that enable files and program sharing between groups of people logged on to a P2P network. Because they use uploads and downloads and are often left running 24/7, they consume significant bandwidth, even when being used by just a small number of customers.

Because a lot of P2P traffic is not time-critical, e.g., downloading and uploading TV programmes or movies for later viewing, we treat P2P traffic differently from time-critical traffic (such as surfing, streaming or internet telephony) and apply speed restrictions to all P2P traffic. We manage these restrictions daily based on the demands on the network, but downstream restrictions will typically be in place 4pm - midnight on weekdays and 9am - midnight on the weekend. Upstream restrictions may be in place at other times.

You can, of course, still use P2P services, but downloads will take longer during the peak times.

6. What is BT's policy on video streaming?

We do not impose any restrictions that affect the viewing quality of services such as BBC iPlayer or Catch Up on Channel4.com or ITV.com, as these stream at up to 800Kbps. However, we do limit the speed of all video streaming to 896Kbps on our BT Total Broadband Option 1 product, during peak times only, which is between 5pm - midnight every day.

This does not affect BT Vision.

If you are a BT Total Broadband Option 1 customer and do use higher than 896Kbps video services regularly at peak time, you may wish to upgrade to Option 2 or Option 3, or BT Infinity Option 2, which don't have this restriction, and will be more suitable for your level of usage.

C. Our Usage Policy for Broadband Anywhere GPRS Data Bundle

7. What is BT's usage policy on the BT Total Broadband Anywhere GPRS Data Bundle?

The BT Total Broadband Anywhere service has an inclusive 10MB of GPRS data each month. Where customers have opted for the Unlimited Data Bundle they will be subject to a reasonable residential-use policy. To ensure quality of service for all customers it is expected that usage will not exceed a reasonable-use limit of 500MB of GPRS mobile data per month.

We will monitor usage and if you are getting close to that limit we will text you on your BT ToGo contact number to tell you. If you have online billing from BT you'll be able to monitor your usage. You need to moderate usage after we've contacted you, because we'll charge you £1.50 for each MB you use over the reasonable-use limit.