Beware the “users”

Wondering why your broadband is slower than a hillbilly’s brain activity? I have finally tripped across the answer, thanks to my I.T. literate gfriend...who sent me the life saving link; http://www.telecom.co.nz/broadband/usage

Beware the Users lurking behind closed doors using up megabytes faster than all the milk and bread in the house. They lay in the comfort of their beds dining out on your allocated 3 gigs (at $39.95/month) downloading sitcoms, amusing Youtube clips, music and anything else that takes their fancy. If that’s not enough to exhaust your bytes, there is the multitude of photos (mostly self takes), urgently uploaded from the weekend that thanks to the digital era is ‘’free’’ to them.

Once all the bytes have been consumed, generally halfway through the month...enter all other fee paying users. AKA you! While you painstakingly try to download your crucial joke email, upload your latest blog or google international accommodation, you are thwarted in your attempts at the dial-up speed you have been relegated to by Telecom, due to overuse.

Once in the know... go straight to http://www.telecom.co.nz/broadband/usage . Call your friendly 0800 22 55 98 and someone in India is going to save you lots of money and assist you in allocating blame. Armed with a new username and password you are set to lay down some serious ground rules from the plethora of information gleaned off the website. You will be able to pinpoint actual times and date of the aforementioned infractions.

At varying intevals over the month you and your magical username can check on current usage and thanks to our Indian friend, I am even being emailed warning notes of impending doom.

Forewarned is forearmed...