NTL in a spin

NTL: Relocated to Mercury?

NTL was asking for trouble when it restricted internet sessions in its Terms and Conditions:

You must not disclose your password or user ID to anyone else. Your account can only be used for a single internet session at any one time and for no more than 24 hours in any one day. You may only use the internet Services from the telephone number and home address which you have advised us of when provisioning your account.

Oh dear, oh dear. Piers Wombwell though it a bit much:

How strange - I noticed that condition yesterday when I was trying to find the restrictions imposed for a cable modem.

I find the 24-hour restriction very unfair, especially on the last Sunday in March. Who do I complain to?

WIPO or the US Congress probably. Don't they control the international day length now? John Walker goes further, having crossed the line into illegality:

I have to confess that I am one of the many NTL users who has been blatantly using my cable modem for sometimes in excess of 30 hours a day.

Despite NTL making it very clear that only "the amount of hours in a day" was considered "acceptable use", and due to work pressures, I found that had no choice but to download one of the many illegal applications provided by xtrahourz.com to add time into my working day.

At first I only intended to add an extra half hour, just so I'd have more time to reply to emails and suchlike - I didn't think it would be noticed - but after a while temptation took over. Soon I found myself popping in an extra couple of hours to play Quake 3, or giving myself the time to chat to friends in America. And then quickly, like so many others, I was just knowingly flaunting the rules.

I would like to apologise to other NTL who have been using the service correctly. I hope that I, and others like me, have not caused irreparable damage.

Your humbly and sincerely, etc.

Look on the bright side - if you were attempting to access the web from Mercury, which is obviously NTL's concern, then the restriction would be a real problem. A day there is 1407.6 hours long, meaning that you'd have a 1383.6 hour wait between sessions. That's an awful lot of time to spend in the pub, even for the hacks down at Vulture Central.