dEaThXc0rE
Well-Known Member
I need someone to explain this to me and explain to me why it's fair and why one should even consider buying an uncapped solution. Tl;dr version below.
As I don't intend to drag any names through the mud, I won't be naming the ISP but I've come to understand the problem is global.
I used to have uncapped long ago, in what I call the glory days, When Afrihost had a leaderboard on their website to see who can download the most. Since then I started working at a company that had more than enough bandwidth to go around so I had no more need to download anything at home. I switched to a capped account. I've been using said capped account since then and it's been nice. I recently moved down to Cape Town and moved in with a lady friend and my need for an uncapped account once again resurfaced.
I purchased one from a particular ISP and was appaled by the speeds I was getting. Having decided that there are many internet fish in the sea, I soon moved over to another provider. It went well for a few days and then the speed started dropping again. At this point I downloaded around 8gb on my 4mb uncapped account so I was well below any usage policy limitation.
I thought that maybe it's the line at this new home of mine so I logged a fault with Telkom but they came back and said that the line is running clean, and from my understanding of attenuation and noise margins, they were telling me the truth.
So one night the speeds were so bad I couldn't open my Gmail. It simply timed out. Facebook would open and load the first 2 posts but when trying to open notification or messages it timed out. Counter strike was unplayable. I decided to purchase a small capped account and to my amazement, everything worked well once again.
I got in contact with the ISP to ask them what the problem is and they explained that although I've barely used my uncapped account, the rest of the uncapped pool was very busy.
This begs the question, why would one purchase an uncapped account to begin with? ISP's tell you that you will experience full speeds unless you download too much but then they shape you anyway when other people download too much? I pay a lot of money for this account and I don't see how it's fair to get absolutely attrocious speeds, so much so that I can't even open my mail, when other people are abusing the network?
Is this fair? Is it even legal? Does the UAP really state that it doesn't really matter when you do with your account, it will get shaped during evenings and weekends? And why is the shaping for this particular ISP set up to shape everyone on all protocols? Why not shape everything from ports 1024 onward? Why must HTTP/S get shaped? What is the purpose of Internet if you can't actually use it?
So now I'm left with 2 options. Stay on the uncapped account and only expect any sort of decent internet service past 11 at night or purchase, at great expense, a capped account to accomodate for my download needs. I'm really not happy with either to be honest. Internet in this country has always been bad but it's been getting a lot worse and I don't think it needed to. Telkom have dropped their IPC prices a couple of times over the last few years and yes I know it's still much more expensive than it needs to be, but is this really the trend we've started to follow?
I understand that Telkom upgrades ADSL lines for free and that ISP's suddenly have a lot more traffic to cope with and I also understand that the IPC price cuts did not make up for this. That's a tricky situation and I know there's no real easy solution out of it. To be really honest I won't mind paying R100 a month more for an uncapped service if it just worked every now and again.
I'm taking this too far though, the point I was trying to make before this little essay was that ISP's should find smarter ways of shaping and/or limiting trafic through their network. I shouldn't get limited because of what other people are doing. It's not fair.
Any advice and suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
tl;dr: ISP's are shaping me when other people are downloading too much. Help.
As I don't intend to drag any names through the mud, I won't be naming the ISP but I've come to understand the problem is global.
I used to have uncapped long ago, in what I call the glory days, When Afrihost had a leaderboard on their website to see who can download the most. Since then I started working at a company that had more than enough bandwidth to go around so I had no more need to download anything at home. I switched to a capped account. I've been using said capped account since then and it's been nice. I recently moved down to Cape Town and moved in with a lady friend and my need for an uncapped account once again resurfaced.
I purchased one from a particular ISP and was appaled by the speeds I was getting. Having decided that there are many internet fish in the sea, I soon moved over to another provider. It went well for a few days and then the speed started dropping again. At this point I downloaded around 8gb on my 4mb uncapped account so I was well below any usage policy limitation.
I thought that maybe it's the line at this new home of mine so I logged a fault with Telkom but they came back and said that the line is running clean, and from my understanding of attenuation and noise margins, they were telling me the truth.
So one night the speeds were so bad I couldn't open my Gmail. It simply timed out. Facebook would open and load the first 2 posts but when trying to open notification or messages it timed out. Counter strike was unplayable. I decided to purchase a small capped account and to my amazement, everything worked well once again.
I got in contact with the ISP to ask them what the problem is and they explained that although I've barely used my uncapped account, the rest of the uncapped pool was very busy.
This begs the question, why would one purchase an uncapped account to begin with? ISP's tell you that you will experience full speeds unless you download too much but then they shape you anyway when other people download too much? I pay a lot of money for this account and I don't see how it's fair to get absolutely attrocious speeds, so much so that I can't even open my mail, when other people are abusing the network?
Is this fair? Is it even legal? Does the UAP really state that it doesn't really matter when you do with your account, it will get shaped during evenings and weekends? And why is the shaping for this particular ISP set up to shape everyone on all protocols? Why not shape everything from ports 1024 onward? Why must HTTP/S get shaped? What is the purpose of Internet if you can't actually use it?
So now I'm left with 2 options. Stay on the uncapped account and only expect any sort of decent internet service past 11 at night or purchase, at great expense, a capped account to accomodate for my download needs. I'm really not happy with either to be honest. Internet in this country has always been bad but it's been getting a lot worse and I don't think it needed to. Telkom have dropped their IPC prices a couple of times over the last few years and yes I know it's still much more expensive than it needs to be, but is this really the trend we've started to follow?
I understand that Telkom upgrades ADSL lines for free and that ISP's suddenly have a lot more traffic to cope with and I also understand that the IPC price cuts did not make up for this. That's a tricky situation and I know there's no real easy solution out of it. To be really honest I won't mind paying R100 a month more for an uncapped service if it just worked every now and again.
I'm taking this too far though, the point I was trying to make before this little essay was that ISP's should find smarter ways of shaping and/or limiting trafic through their network. I shouldn't get limited because of what other people are doing. It's not fair.
Any advice and suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
tl;dr: ISP's are shaping me when other people are downloading too much. Help.
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