Mobile networks must stop deducting data when users visit thousands of websites in South Africa

[wizardofid]

Both you pay before you get service. The correct naming is actually pay-as-you-go and contract, not pre- and post-paid. The difference is contract you have to commit before getting a service where payg you can buy services as needed. If you don't pay for the month for contract you don't get service but you still end up having to pay as you made a commitment.


Well there you go, it's not clear so you can't claim it. Networks have a QoS by design yes but it's more to do with the type of service than the customer. Calls will receive priority over data. Certain calls may receive priority over other types of calls.


Our mobile networks, unlike fixed line, have never throttled except for the newer packages based on speed once you hit a certain usage. Also they've never differentiated between protocols or ports.

You're mixing a few different things here.

The prepaid vs contract distinction is about the payment obligation. With prepaid, you pay for the service before using it. With a contract, you commit to the service and are billed according to that agreement whether you use all of it or not.

It's basically the difference between renting a car for a day and financing a car. With the rental, you pay for the period/service you are actually taking. With the financed car, you've entered into an obligation to keep paying regardless of whether the car sits in the driveway for a month.

Calling it "pay-as-you-go vs contract" doesn't really change the underlying distinction. The important part is the commitment.


The QoS point is where I disagree with you.

There is actually MTN South Africa LTE material that explicitly discusses subscriber and service-level QoS differentiation. It states that QoS can be used to allocate finite network resources between different customers, and gives the example of providing better service to Platinum customers than regular customers.

It also describes QCI as affecting resource scheduling, rate shaping and queue management, and specifically says QCI 6, 8 and 9 can be used for differentiation on a service or subscriber basis. It even gives gold users vs other users as an example, and discusses AMBR being used to differentiate users or groups of users even where they share the same QCI.

So I'm not claiming that contract customers automatically get faster LTE than prepaid customers. That would require evidence of how MTN has actually mapped its current commercial packages onto those QoS classes.

But saying mobile networks have never differentiated between subscribers or services is a much broader claim, and MTN's own LTE material clearly shows that the network is designed with that capability.

There's also a difference between "the network has QoS" and "you can visibly see a different speed all the time." QoS becomes particularly relevant when resources are constrained and the network has to decide how those resources are allocated.

So the argument isn't that there's some magical "contract customer gets faster LTE" switch.

The point is that subscriber/service-level differentiation is technically supported by the MTN network architecture, and MTN's own documentation explicitly describes it.

(if you actually bothered to actually read the link posted, It's pretty fcking explicit)

Lines 107–113: different customers, Platinum vs regular.
Lines 166–171: service/subscriber basis, gold users vs others.

 

[Swa]

You're mixing a few different things here.

The prepaid vs contract distinction is about the payment obligation. With prepaid, you pay for the service before using it. With a contract, you commit to the service and are billed according to that agreement whether you use all of it or not.

That's exactly it. With contract you have to pay for the service regardless of whether you want it or will use it. There is no post- vs pre-paid distinction as both are prepaid. More accurate it's contract vs pay-as-you-go.

It's basically the difference between renting a car for a day and financing a car. With the rental, you pay for the period/service you are actually taking. With the financed car, you've entered into an obligation to keep paying regardless of whether the car sits in the driveway for a month.

A major difference. With the car you get the complete vehicle and have to then pay it off. Not the same with a contract where you pay in advance.

Calling it "pay-as-you-go vs contract" doesn't really change the underlying distinction. The important part is the commitment.

What I said. There is no post- vs pre-paid distinction.

The QoS point is where I disagree with you.

There is actually MTN South Africa LTE material that explicitly discusses subscriber and service-level QoS differentiation. It states that QoS can be used to allocate finite network resources between different customers, and gives the example of providing better service to Platinum customers than regular customers.

It also describes QCI as affecting resource scheduling, rate shaping and queue management, and specifically says QCI 6, 8 and 9 can be used for differentiation on a service or subscriber basis. It even gives gold users vs other users as an example, and discusses AMBR being used to differentiate users or groups of users even where they share the same QCI.

So I'm not claiming that contract customers automatically get faster LTE than prepaid customers. That would require evidence of how MTN has actually mapped its current commercial packages onto those QoS classes.

But saying mobile networks have never differentiated between subscribers or services is a much broader claim, and MTN's own LTE material clearly shows that the network is designed with that capability.

There's also a difference between "the network has QoS" and "you can visibly see a different speed all the time." QoS becomes particularly relevant when resources are constrained and the network has to decide how those resources are allocated.

So the argument isn't that there's some magical "contract customer gets faster LTE" switch.

The point is that subscriber/service-level differentiation is technically supported by the MTN network architecture, and MTN's own documentation explicitly describes it.

So you still don't know anything. There's no evidence that it's implemented that way. User classes can also mean different things like enterprise customers paying for a dedicated service and not necessarily consumers getting a different level of service based on their package.

I never said networks don't differentiate between subscribers or services. I said they don't differentiate between protocols and ports. So unlike dsl where you had to pay for an unshaped service mobile has always been unshaped by default.

(if you actually bothered to actually read the link posted, It's pretty fcking explicit)

Lines 107–113: different customers, Platinum vs regular.
Lines 166–171: service/subscriber basis, gold users vs others.

Does it say what you claim? The link takes over 2 minutes to verify and then still hangs not showing me anything legible.

 

[saor]

for what reason would an SP's own website and services not be zero rated?

Afrihost is frustrating in this regard.
Their app isn't zero-rated.
FNB via the Afrihost APN isn't zero rated.

So your data runs out:
Have to switch APN to MTN.
Open FNB and buy the minimum data.
Open Afrihost app.
Topup data.
Switch back to AH APN.

I mean jinne - is this the best we can do?
@Afrigirl