I’m fed up with my own excessive demands. I consume bandwidth as if it were a renewable resource and it’s gotta be costing me. So I’ve chosen to follow the example of my media hero, John Birt, and have introduced an internal market on my home network.

The principle is simple: slim down the number of duplicated requests and redundant bytes transferred by issuing a charge for every packet that flows along my twisted pair. I installed a packet logger onto one PC, to keep an accurate track of every bit requested and note from which PC the request originated. Once the logs started to flow, I observed the common waste factors: packets arriving incomplete resulting in requests for duplicates to be issued whilst, along the way, data colliding with other data, forcing digits up the wrong socket.

I needed managers to process my increasing flow, and so formed a new mini-department (housed next to the downstairs toilet), dedicated to reducing all unnecessary transfers between PCs; the “PC Consolidators of UNnecessary Transfers”. The sweet smell of waste reduction permeated the air.

Daily reports were compiled by crack loggers, but to who could I outsource the processing of such a vast volume of information? Capita to the rescue! They created a centralised database, on which a further small but highly-motivated team of PC CUNTS were able to collate their own logs, enabling speedy reporting and analysis of the data, now flowing into the newly formed Bandwidth Busting Company, run by my wife.

Every week I receive a report which tracks all of my data requests from the previous seven days and I’ve created a pricing formula so that I can place a value on the cost of my own bandwidth consumption:

((Cost of energy consumed)+(BBC budget)+(outsourced consultancy & overhead))
Bits

Now each PC CUNT in my network has a fixed charging scheme to apply and every week an invoice is sent to all the other CUNTS in the BBC. At last I have stemmed the flow of my own waste!

PlusNET BLAMES OWN CUSTOMERS AS BANDWIDTH BOMBSHELL LEAVES LONGSTANDING LOSERS LANGUISHING

Due to the investment and training habits of a few PlusNET managers, the service provided by the majority of experienced PlusNET staff, has suffered in recent years, with outages and promised upgrades delayed for months and even years on end.

In an effort to stem a growing bandwidth consumption concern, fuelled by the greedy demands of its customers, the meaning of unlimited has, today, been redefined by PlusNET's Department of Newspeak and the Marketing and Spin Unit have issued a statement making it clear that Usenet is merely a "value-added" service and that there was never any intention to provide a service that is anything other than unreliable and incomplete – and that it wouldn't be reasonable to expect their service to be "satisfactory", anyway.

Said one PlusNET customer, "Although PlusNET are entitled to provide unlimited months of poor service, I have long felt that the level at which they botch up their news servers, CGI platform, mail servers and customer relations, is becoming unsustainable."

A PlusNET spokesman was quick to retort. "When we asked twenty-one non-Usenet users what they thought about the Usenet service, the overwhelming response was 'I don't use Usenet, so I don't care'. Clearly there is no problem here."

The spokesman went on to add,

"And our CGI platform was never intended for real-world use anyway. We got some software on a stack of floppies in 1997 and so listed a few services on our website – how were we to know that customers would want what they'd paid for?"

Pressed on their decision to redefine certain English words to suit their own needs, PlusNET were keen to explain.

"We have changed and our service has evolved, but the word's definition has stubbornly remained static – it is no longer satisfactory. Rather than spending time redrawing all those gifs, we chose to redefine "Unlimited" and, after extensive market research, asking twenty one low usage users, 'As a low usage user, do you think it is fair that someone who uses 10 times as much bandwidth, probably stealing pornography or supporting international terrorism, should pay the same as you?' we received the overwhelming response that, 'no, we don't thing it's fair'."

But one of PlusNET's greedy customers was unrepentant.

"It costs me a lot of money to buy a "Premiere" monthly Internet connection, bundled with services including

+ Unlimited data transfer across my connection on all services
+ Uncensored news feed
+ 24/7/365 technical support

I have paid the asking price, regularly and on time, for over five years. All the service failures, spread over months and even years, dodgy marketing and repeated failures at handling customers such as myself, are unsustainable and these have an effect on ALL PlusNET customers. I have received neither refund nor compensation during periods of unsatisfactory service."

In their defence, PlusNET were keen to point out that they offer an unrivalled 24 hour technical support line.

"We asked 21 people who have never called us on the telephone whether they preferred lemon or strawberry flavour wine gums. An overwhelming number explained that the tart, bitter sweet experience of lemon was hard to match. Armed with this invaluable market research, we took action and employed several trained telephone blockers, able to issue responses as diverse as,

+ 'We're not allowed to transfer you to a specific person'
+ Able to ask 'what's your username' within a mere three seconds of answering the phone, whether it's relevant or not
+ And able to say, 'reboot your PC and try again after 1/2 hour' in response to any technical question.

And all without limit!"

He went on to add,

"Indeed, a survey amongst twenty-one randomly hand-picked, PlusNET customers, all of whom regularly use Vi and become erect at the thought of a quick Cronjob, have said, 'We're just being used to deflect from PlusNET's dodgy decisions and being made fall guys for a company that we pay and that owes us money. What a cheek!'"

"Don't let it never not be said that we don't daren't not listen to our customers", said the PlusNET spokesman, "We've proactively extended our 'Contact Us' system to the point that it is now capable, over a period of days, of frustrating and obfuscating any query or issue, to the point of infuriation.

Our mechanical answer wizard is able to:

+ Wait 48 hours whilst doing sod all, before asking, 'Are you still experiencing a problem?'
+ Able to say, 'Escalated to Room 101 for further investigation'. within a matter of hours.
+ And, after four days of inaction, it is able to ask the same question again, in the hope that the problem has fixed itself without the need for qualified intervention or, in more complex situations - perhaps involving a direct question from a customer - able to completely ignore the ticket's query and answer an entirely different question, from a selection of pre-defined, irritating answers."

PlusNET offers "Unlimited" broadband from as little as £19.99 per month at www.plus.net