Iburst Cap

[sihen]

Does anyone know what type of cap Iburst is going to have? if any..

[CrazyMadMan]

It will obviously have to have one, we are not the US

Fantasy is what people want, reality is what they need.

[anakin]

I like the model used in Australia, 0MB, 500MB, 1,000MB, 2,000MB, 3,000MB, 10,000MB and uncapped under 3 or 12 month contracts, excluding modem cost. Any usage over cap is charged at x cents per MB. They also have the ability to move up and down caps at a charge.

South African rollout is likely to be bundled and priced differently though.

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[regardtv]

Obviously ? ....

If they manage traffic effectively and provide decent price points for different packages a cap would more than likely NOT be a requirement.



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[dorris]

the final purpose for our rollouts are very different, at PBA, the rollout is focussing on mobile users, hence price and availability is expected to be at a premium, over here, WBS can see the potetial to have the biggest rollout this countrys seen.

[anakin]

On the other hand, caps do introduce a natural element of bandwidth management on its own, from the users usage management.

But I have to agree, proper bandwidth management, and flexible packages, specially in the South African socio economic context, is even more important.

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[Perdition]

I'm against a cap as well. Most people will try download the internet during the first few months until the novelty wears off and then drop to more reasonable usage. There will be those who rape the connection 24/7 for months on end but that should be the responsibility of WBS to manage i.e. warn those users and cut them off if repeated warnings are ignored. This is how most broadband providers work (note I said "broadband", this currently excludes SA [;)]).

The problem with a cap is that it does not allow you the freedom of bandwidth when you really NEED it. Perhaps your normal usage in a month is very reasonable and you mostly just surf and download e-mails but there may be a month that, for example, you acquire an interest in linux and want to download 10 gigs worth of distros to learn. This isn't abuse but you certainly wouldn't want to pay to move up to the 10 gig package when you only need it for one month (and on something that is free).

Anyway I'm pretty sure that WBS have been monitoring user requirements very closely and may even offer packages with and without a cap... all speculation at this point.

[Insaniac]

id rather stick to my sentech if the word cap even comes up next year during rollout.

24% Signal
Tower 60 Woodmead

[neobyte]

If a cap was imposed, perhaps a daily or weekly cap would be better as when you do get capped you only have a small period to wait? Just a thought...

[sihen]

Insaniac I think their cap will be a daily cap like sentech, if they gave me sentech's cap of 3 gig a day i would be happy -g-

If they came out with a package with the speeds i currently get uncapped for the same price as ADSL i will take it.

[neobyte]

I doubt it will be around 3 gigs per day. I think that even 1 gig per day at reasonable speeds would be an extreme improvements of current South Africa Telecoms. Of course that depends if their speeds are good at it is at an acceptable price.

[reech]

1gb a day sounds reasonable

[IzZzy]

1 gig a day internationally, 1 gig a day locally? Never.......

[kaspaas]

What about a 100MB a day international limit combined with 1GB per day total on a 30 day average?

I guess it would suit most.

As a bonus they could consider not counting bandwidth starting and terminating on the iBurst backbone. Would make some P2P users happy :-)

Problem is that Telkom is charging such fortunes for bandwidth that no ISP can stay in business allowing unlimited bandwidth usage.



South Africa needs World Class Broadband at World Competitive Prices.

[grubman]

I think a better approach would be to impose a reasonable "soft" cap. Let users know upfront what the cap is and have different thresholds after the cap whereby at a certain point the user is then warned about excess usage - they're never cut off. If a user is consistently "abusing" the network then the user should be liable to a fine and possible termination of service.

A cap is not really a solution, but we're living in a country where bandwidth and usage is held at ransom by our favourite telco company and for any company to survive certain "restrictions" have to be imposed.

[freeek]

i can't survive with anything under 8gigs a month. ADSL sucks solely because of riduculous price and cap. Everything else is good with them. thats my opinion.

ALL IBurst should do is learn from these 2 factors. Allowing unlimited bandwidth is just plain crazy. However they could implement it in a way that will suit everyone, Unlimited Bandwidth but all p2p applications only allowed after 7 till 7 in the morning. This keeps browsing,ftp,email good during business hours.

this is wat a popular wisp is doing in cape town. I think this is a good idea

..- dot dot dash ;)

[stoke]

freeeeeeek -

Thats not a bad suggestion - p2p only at night - problem is - that's when i play games. p2p during the day would suit me fine. Sigh - maybee you cannot please everybody.
Howz about:
- gaming package (all game ports get highest priority on their own "channeled" line.)
- p2p package (all those ports get higher priority on their own heavily shared line. giggle.)
- browse + ftp + email package.

I don't know. But obviously - for me to get what I want and u to get what u want - means that IBurst must supply different products for different needs. Or am I barking up the wrong fire hydrant ?

May a VoidHawk's distortion field not kill you.

[reech]

What if you do a bit of everything--? ideally it should be unshaped - otherwise it's useless for anything other than playing around with - shaping/prioritising traffic often causes more problems than it solves.

[chopsky]

P2P only at night? Stop giving them STUPID ideas. Still 6 months until release...you guys are getting waaaaaayy too carried away with all this. Just wait and see. For all we know they're planning an uncapped unshaped uber service (wishful thinking) and now after seeing what you guys have said, they're thinking..."Hmmm these guys dont seem too demanding, lets give em less than that and make more profit" [:)]

[stoke]

reech - i'll second that - one packet at a time. If this shaping thing continues - all games will start using port 80 / 21 - then we'll be back to square 1 : get us decent bandwidth damnit.
Who are they fooling anyway ? Oh I get it - the cache'd content is given priority cos they charge us for cache'd content without having to pay for it more than once. Damn I'm slow.[:D]

[sihen]

chopsky ROFL

Ye lets just see what Iburst had up their sleaves...
I believe they will be very fair and understanding, they are easy to get ahold of and very friendly.
Just remmeber with them comming out now they are looking for a substainable competitive advantage and i think they will do that with their packages and caps.

[Silencer]

iburst should implement peercache server for the p2p users...

the day will come...