Comments on: Quick math to show how terrible Belgian bandwidth providers are

By: Matti

Matti — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 21:22:36 +0000

@PW; I agree, and after having been a Dommel customer for nearly a year now, I would trade it all for lower bandwidth any day of the week. I’ve had support-cases drag on for _months_, before a solution was reached, there are lousy packetlosses occuring during peak hours (which was a serious PITA during my WoW-addiction).

A more mature player like Scarlet is definately looking a lot better now.

By: PW

PW — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 10:58:54 +0000

I wouldn’t push dommel too much. Customer service was horrible. I had used them for a year when they suddenly cancelled my account saying they had received a message saying Belgacom was disconnecting my phone line. Even if this were the case, they should have contacted me before disconnecting my DSL. Immediately they said they could reconnect me for a minor 75 euro fee. They cancel my account for no valid reason, without contacting me, and want me to pay a fee for reconnection?!?! This was simply the last of many issues I had with their customer service & billing, which if you get a response within 2 weeks from either you are lucky. They bandwidth limit is higher, but you certainly get little in the way of customer support.

Don’t get me wrong, Belgacom is no better with their bandwidth limits, but at least you can get someone on the phone. Is there no way in this damn country to get a real provider with unlimited usage like every other civilized country?

By: Vladimir

Vladimir — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 09:58:47 +0000

Guys, already at the time of writing of this article (one year ago), I had unlimited download from dommel for 41.95 per month (basic subscription + boost pack). I am using it happily already for 2 years. Also, I know that Scarlet also have unlimited ADSL offer at the moment. I hope that days of these damn bandwith limits in Belgium will soon be just a ugly memory from the past.

By: Matti

Matti — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 07:13:20 +0000

I share your pain Stefan, I honestly do :-)

By: Stefan

Stefan — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 07:11:02 +0000

I moved in brussels 1 month ago after living for 8 years in Italy and before that Romania , and it’s a nightmare having my internet connection limited to 20 GB /month .at 45 euros/month !!!. In Bucharest I had unlimited bandwidth fiber optic connection 20 mb/s internet (with 50 mb/s on within the city) at 30 euros/month and in Italy 20mb /s adsl 2 unlimited for 40 euros/month.So goodbye youtube days or live tv from Romania and Italy ,Goodbye free linux iso ,No more xbox or playstation live games , no more demo games download etc …But hey the external hard disk cost much less in belgium … I guess nobody really need one here .
If only that petition could really do something about that ..

By: Bubbles

Bubbles — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 23:01:38 +0000

http://get.connectunlimited.info/index_en.php Sign up – spread the word!

By: Dimitar

Dimitar — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 02:22:14 +0000

In my home country (Macedonia) we used to have data limit, but that changed about a year ago and now we have unlimited bandwidth for 35 euro a month with 3mbit/s dowstream and 1 mbit/s upstream. 386 kbytes/s is a solid download speed and it satisfies the needs of over 90% of the people.

I moved to Belgium in February and I was surprised to learn that every internet provider in the country restricts the bandwidth. I have a Belgacom package (tv, telephone and 30 gb internet) for 80 euro a month. I use up all the bandwidth in 6-8 days. Then the connection drops to lousy 12-13 kbytes/s which makes me wanna pull my hair out because its too darn slow. Besides checking mail and browsing flash free websites, there’s absolutely nothing else you can do without getting the urge to break something.

What irks me beyond belief is the fact that Belgacom claims to have 1 million internet users, which is 5 times less than the biggest internet provider in Macedonia. Wait a minute, how is this possible? Obviously, the internet providers in Belgium are ripping off their customers, there’s no other explanation.

Trust me when I tell you, I share your pain. Its just frustrating to pay such a high price and get nothing in return.

I also agree with you about the release dates of the movies. I’ve noticed that its the same situation all over Europe, not just in Belgium. I have no idea why is that though.

Take care,
Dimitar

By: Telenet raises monthly traffic limits, but still fails | All your blog are belong to us

Sun, 13 Jul 2008 10:22:40 +0000

[...] previously calculated, it’s still possible to totally destroy your monthly limit in less than 5 [...]

By: Why do movie release dates suck? | All your blog are belong to us

Why do movie release dates suck? | All your blog are belong to us — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 15:18:04 +0000

[...] sum it up: due to download limitations given to us by our internet providers (see previous rant: Quick math to show how terrible Belgian bandwidth providers are), we can’t download those lovely bootlegs, and due to movie release-dates we can’t see [...]