My opinion on the 3 Gb cap

Hi guys,

I am a new ADSL user and I just would like to mention that I probably would not have subscribed to the service if there was not a 3 Gigabyte bandwith limit.

I strongly believe that there is a small monitory of ADSL users out there that, were there no bandwith limit, would spoil the party for the rest of us.

Although I feel the limit could have been 5 Gb, instead of 3 Gb, for some even 30 Gb would not be enough. That is where control comes in.

This phenomenon isn't limited to ASDL - If you go to a fairly large pary, most people know how to behave themselves, but there is always a few that drink themselves ****less and end up barfing on the steps.

Just my opinion, thanks.

Hiya, I'd suggest you read into the history of these posts

People aren't in the minority when it comes to the 3 gig cap, they could live with it if the bandwidth was monitored properly.

If you download 3 gig locally (which is not capped after the 3 gig cap) it is still counted towards your 3 gig cap, which makes international surfing so slow, the website times out, people can't even update their anti-virus software.

That is the problem which most users here have. Yes sure, they use Kazaa and what not, but the problem is, after they have been capped, they can't access any international website, slower than 9600 baud my friend, and if you've never surfed on that, then trust me, it's freaking slow.

I say, if they had a 1 gig per day limit, everyone would be happy, I know alot of people that don't even reach their 3 gig cap, but if you're like me (professional surf addict etc) you'd download as much as possible. I think I downloaded something like 9 gigs this weekend alone

and no, i'm not on adsl

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">and no, i'm not on adsl<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Woot.[]

Hi Divvie9 and welcome to MyADSL.
Like you don’t need more than 3 gigs, other people do. You are just on another part of the scale. However the point you should understand is that Telkom engage the 3 gig cap limit for more than the reasons they mention publicly. They refer to Napster and the like, but these programs are actually obsolete so what is their point. Telkom mention that they are protecting all users from bandwidth huggers.
Well who are they referring to? I would imagine that in general ADSL users to be able to fall into a different category of people. People like yourself Divvie9. Myself included. I cannot imagine that ADSL users would be downloading Movies and Music all day and night. This would be an preposterous assumption, to say the least. It would be more accurate to say that ADSL users need more bandwidth to stream music or video, to browse websites at a decent speed and to have 24/7 connectivity.
Perhaps you are new to ADSL and at this stage you don’t need 3 gigs.

I want to give you an example of how ridiculous the 3 gig cap is.
Ok let’s say you want to download the 700Mb Full Steam Install from SAIX (local) and you want to play Counterstrike on Saix or Karoo (all local). And then you want to download the service pack for Windows of about 300Mb (Microsoft). Now just for one month you would have used more than 2 gigs of usage by downloading that file from Saix and playing CS for several hours a week. This would represent 2 thirds of your cap already. Now also take into account that you send and receive email from Telkom (also local) will account for 200 megabyte or more. Plus you will need to update your antivirus which will consume 50 megabyte at least (not local) for the month.
You will be very close to 3 gigs now and of those 3 gigs maybe 500 might have been international. Plus the kids have not done any schoolwork yet or the wife hasn’t googled yet or you have not browsed any overseas sites yet.
You see mate, ADSL was designed as a BROADBAND solution. What Telkom is offering you is merely as they say, "always on".
And if Telkom were really concerned about the overseas bandwidth they should have measured the actual international bandwidth used and it would have stopped most of the gripes users have with it long ago.


<b><hr noshade size="1"></b><font size="2"><font color="red"><b>You can take Telkom out of the Post Office but you can't take the Post Office out of Telkom.</b></font id="red"></font id="size2">

The 3GB capping is only part of the problem.

Other issues include:

The exorbitant pricing compared to South Africa's trading partners (and others) is killing local IT development and growth. IT-based enterprises are volume driven. Internet connectivity costs are killing access volumes in South Africa.

The local ADSL offering in no manner can be called "State of the art". It is an "entry level" product compared to our trading partners. Other countries are not talking of 512kbits/s - they go for MBits/s. Connectivity at "kb/s" rates is already ancient in many parts of the world.

It is a mere "24/7" connectivity product, and not suited to for broadband applications as elsewhere in the world.

Then Telkom has decided they have the right to shape the bandwidth by giving priority to some traffic above others, actually they effectively "banned" some protocols. The problem is that Internet is far more than just e-mail and web. It includes stuff like ssh used to manage servers from South Africa across the globe by some entrepreneurs. This is not working very well because Telkom has decided...

Lastly, the service level agreement "Best Effort Service" - well go to your boss and tell him you will provide him with nothing more than "Best effort" no matter the deadlines everyone chucks at him. You will be fired soon!

I had an international client laughing when he saw that statement by Telkom. His response: "We'll it is what one could expect from Africa".





South Africa needs World Class Broadband at World Competitive Prices.

Ok, guys, I see what you mean.

I'm probably still in online-nirvana.

I use the Internet mainly during office hours to support my clients via secure shell sessions, checking email and browsing.

The whole thing for me is ALWAYS ON! connectivity. I spent close to my adsl/isp cost each month on ISDN dial-up/disconnect-dial-up/disconnect-dial-up/disconnect charges and became sick of it.

I understand that this is probably a very inferior products as compared to overseas offerings.

But at this stage, I'm just gratefull connectivity in SA is going forward, and not backwards.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"> I'm just gratefull connectivity in SA is going forward, and not backwards<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Actually for over a year now it has been pretty stagnant. I dont think anyone would complain as much if the cap was monitored correctly. Local downloads are included in our international cap.

I reckon if there were different packages available everyone (well at least most) would be happy.

An across-the-board 3GB cap is mindless, it is a bottom-of-the-range limit, and should stay just that while better, more flexible packages are added.

Sentech has the right idea with their service - not many people will download more than 1GB per day. After a while there'll be nothing more to download, surfing the Net will become boring. I had a 8Mbps leased line for 1 year in London, got it just as the Napster craze started... so I nailed it for all it was worth, downloading as much as I could all day every day... after all 1MByte/s is quite alright.. [B)] Eventually I thought "what's the point?" We download massive amounts of stuff of which 90% we will never watch/install/listen to. All that stuff I downloaded I left on the PC when I came back, had no use for any or at least most of it. What a waste of technology. I now have my CD's with the best freeware utilities and programs I could find, and that's all I need.

But still, 3GB really is paltry (<u>especially</u> for that price).. please Sentech Cape Town is waiting! []

<u>_________________________________________________</u>
Just imagine where SA would be now if it weren't for Telkom

Hi Mad,
Interesting point you have raised. People will get bored of downloading. You also need space to store the info.
An example of this is like someone starting a job in a cake shop. At first he eats chocolate éclairs and fridge tarts at every opportunity. But within a month or so he can’t stomach it anymore and eventually can’t stand the sight of a cake.
It’s all relative. Too much of anything can end up as yesterdays news. Telkom took to using P2P as their excuse to throttle ADSL, but IMO they are barking up the wrong tree.


<b><hr noshade size="1"></b><font size="2"><font color="red"><b>You can take Telkom out of the Post Office but you can't take the Post Office out of Telkom.</b></font id="red"></font id="size2">

that was my point all along dude

fuk, i only have a 120 gig harddrive, and if i download 9 gigs a weekend (like the past weekend) my harddrive would be over run by useless crap

but at least sentech don't just sell an "always on" service... true, they're "best effort" as well, but I haven't had any serious problem since I was connected. They're just dragging their feet with the antenna so i can boost my signal enough to get stable pings for gaming (not that 70ms in UT2004 isn't bad) I just need more than that, sub 60ms would do []

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Sentech has the right idea with their service - not many people will download more than 1GB per day. After a while there'll be nothing more to download,<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">This is exactly what we are seeing.
Most 512k users will download the internet in the 1st 3 weeks and as time goes along their downloads get less and less till they average around 3 to 5 gigs per month.
So the 3gig cap is just a very poor excuse and not needed imo [!]


<hr noshade size="1"><center><font color="blue">MyWireless Stuff</font id="blue">
<font size="1"><font color="black">The opinions expressed here are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of my employer</font id="size1"></font id="black"></center>

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by ProAsm</i>
<br /><blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Sentech has the right idea with their service - not many people will download more than 1GB per day. After a while there'll be nothing more to download,<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">This is exactly what we are seeing.
Most 512k users will download the internet in the 1st 3 weeks and as time goes along their downloads get less and less till they average around 3 to 5 gigs per month.
So the 3gig cap is just a very poor excuse and not needed imo [!]


<hr noshade size="1"><center><font color="blue">MyWireless Stuff</font id="blue">
<font size="1"><font color="black">The opinions expressed here are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of my employer</font id="size1"></font id="black"></center>
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Rock on.

Guys, I agree with you fully. I too have a problem with the 3 gig cap. I must say that if your local traffic did not contribute to the cap, it would be more bareable.

What I don't understand is that if the problem is international bandwith, why have the local traffic contribute to the cap? It just does'nt make sense.

*** There can be no happiness, if what you believe in is not the same as what you are doing ***

Hi in further reaserach, telkom has paid a lot to upgrade exchanges and put in DSLAMS so I think the are trying to recop there money, thats why they only want one account per line, so less bandwidth is used and more money is made from the line and less is spent on bandwidth []

Keep Surfing

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by ProAsm</i>
<br /><blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Sentech has the right idea with their service - not many people will download more than 1GB per day. After a while there'll be nothing more to download,<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">This is exactly what we are seeing.
Most 512k users will download the internet in the 1st 3 weeks and as time goes along their downloads get less and less till they average around 3 to 5 gigs per month.
So the 3gig cap is just a very poor excuse and not needed imo [!]


<hr noshade size="1"><center><font color="blue">MyWireless Stuff</font id="blue">
<font size="1"><font color="black">The opinions expressed here are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of my employer</font id="size1"></font id="black"></center>
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

I hope you're not counting on that... I haven't seen that here. I can happy state I've been doing as much now (or more) since when I started.