What are the rights of my ISP?

[HoboMincer]

Hi all,

I am in an area completely devoid of all ADSL connections and after a while some clever guy decided this would be a good place to setup his own private wimax type thing. So he comes around and setsup his wireless dish type thing and it is all fine and dandy. However, He has a monopoly of the area.

I am a relatively heavy internet user and after the first month went by (beautifully), we requested to move to his uncapped option. It says 512kbps connectivity uncapped and unshaped for R450. So I thought "wow, what a bargain!". It is not.

Every month, I start off with full 512kbps connectivity. Then about 5-10 days in, I notice our speeds become more like 256kbps (max 32KBps). He has a problem with the amount of stuff I download and we agreed verbaly that 30GB a month was alright. But after the first 10GB, I am already on half the speed and about halfway through the month every month he warns us that we have reached 16GB and that if we continue heavy usage, our speeds will suffer.

I was wondering, what are my rights and what are his? Cuz I think he should only throttle our line when we reach the full 30GB. I feel like we are permanently being punished for something we haven't done yet...

As I said, He has a monopoly and I can't complain too much or else we have to go back to iburst which was super sucky in our area as well and we had max 15KBps speeds.

:\

[HoboMincer]

Also, I do understand that he is a private company and maybe just can't handle large amounts of traffic but then he should provide a heavy service where he charges more or put me on a lighter bandwidth (384kbps) and charge me for what I get. I am paying for something I am not getting as it now stands. I think I am more irritated on principle than anything else. I don't mind the slower connectivity but I do mind paying for the faster one and not getting it.

[Gary Waterworth]

He is just doing what the majority of other ISP's do. Throttle high usage ( in their eyes ) users

[HoboMincer]

But surely there is a limit by law or something? such as "a service provider may not throttle to speeds slower than half the speed a user pays for" or something along those lines... no?

[solo7]

nothing like that.. they can drop you to 1KB if they wanted... your right is to be able to cancel the contract with the new consumers protection act.

[dadiggle]

its his network. he can do what he wants

[AstroTurf]

Try have a nice chat with the guy and ask him what an unthrottled 30GB account or uncapped account would cost you.

[HoboMincer]

Hmmm... That sucks. I was hoping he would be forced to give me good service. If that was so though, I guess Telkom wouldn't have so many complaining customers. Oh well. Thanks anyway guys.

Also, a 30GB account is pretty out of the question as he charges about R50per gig (but the speeds are about 1.5mbps always which was nice. but so expensive. Thats why we stopped with the capped :O)

[Venomous]

Hmmm... That sucks. I was hoping he would be forced to give me good service. If that was so though, I guess Telkom wouldn't have so many complaining customers. Oh well. Thanks anyway guys.

Also, a 30GB account is pretty out of the question as he charges about R50per gig (but the speeds are about 1.5mbps always which was nice. but so expensive. Thats why we stopped with the capped :O)

Stop a moment. Think....

He said it's ok on uncapped if you don't exceed 30GB. What you are now finding is him slowing you to a crawl.

Ask him if he'll give you a 30GB unshaped 512 service for say .... R550. That way your net should stay the same unless you're to busy on the net & run out before month end...

So you won't get faster than your current speed but at least not slower. I believe that is what the other poster meant (correct me if i'm wrong)

[dadiggle]

If your connecting thru his wi fi then your sharing bandwidth with him and he is restricted by his isp. So you and other people are sharing bandwidth that his ISP assigned to him.

[MickeyD]

If your connecting thru his wi fi then your sharing bandwidth with him and he is restricted by his isp. So you and other people are sharing bandwidth that his ISP assigned to him.

Was thinking the same thing...

[HoboMincer]

Stop a moment. Think....

He said it's ok on uncapped if you don't exceed 30GB. What you are now finding is him slowing you to a crawl.

Ask him if he'll give you a 30GB unshaped 512 service for say .... R550. That way your net should stay the same unless you're to busy on the net & run out before month end...

So you won't get faster than your current speed but at least not slower. I believe that is what the other poster meant (correct me if i'm wrong)

There is no harm in asking him I suppose. I will ask and see what he says.

[HoboMincer]

If your connecting thru his wi fi then your sharing bandwidth with him and he is restricted by his isp. So you and other people are sharing bandwidth that his ISP assigned to him.

Ah, But he controlls everything. He doesn't just share it, he runs a business. I can respect that. He controlls my speeds and blocks torrents or steam or whatever is using the most when he notices high usage.

[dadiggle]

Ah, But he controlls everything. He doesn't just share it, he runs a business. I can respect that. He controlls my speeds and blocks torrents or steam or whatever is using the most when he notices high usage.

no he blocks the ports. try encryption and randomize your ports. With encryption all bets are off

[HoboMincer]

no he blocks the ports. try encryption and randomize your ports. With encryption all bets are off

How would one go about encryption?