How's this for a spin on the per-gig/cap issue.
One of the big gripes that I've seen brought up here is the mass download towards the end of the month as users realise they have spare "credit" and want to use it up, mainly because they are paying so much for it anyway. This tends to cause general degradation of service in the vicinity of those users, as anyone who knows anything about IP and network theory would likely expect.
The whole idea behind contention ratios is that it assumes a particular type of (relatively) random distribution of data traffic from a selection of users, resulting in what's known as statistical multiplexing. The problem is that the models assume unlimited use, not in terms of downloading at full line speed 100% of the time, but rather that they don't place any artificial restrictions on how much data can be associated with a single user. They just assume that data will flow back and forth in a random fashion, in line with the relatively random nature of human behaviour.
By introducing the cap Telkom basically shot themselves in the foot. Because of the cap, close to the end of the month ppl with a large amount of "credit" left are known to start mass downloads, in line with the thought of getting what they paid for, which I feel is justified given how much is being paid. This aspect of human behaviour completely blows any statistical multiplexing gain out the window, causing the degradation. They are not abusers, they simply want to get what they paid for, and have the comsumer right to do so.
There are a few solutions to this:
1) Remove the cap completely. Yes, there will be those who go crazy with their new found freedom, much like the stereotypical 18yo's who can now legally drink and end up in a stupor night after night. But much like those 18yo's once they've had their bout of fun they will get bored of the novelty and calm down. A small percentage might somehow get too addicted and consume copious amounts of bandwidth continuously, but there are other ways of dealing with those, and as said, they'd be a small percentage.
2) Charge reasonable prices for a capped service. If the prices were reasonable, people would be far less likely to "abuse" the service, as the amount lost due to not getting what they paid for, would not be significant. Basically, if Telkom treated us fairly and with respect, we would mostly do the same. Yes there will again be some who insist on getting every cent out of their connection, but again, they are likely to be the minority.
3) This is what I've been thinking of recently; a combination of the two. Since its the international bandwidth that Telkom always jump up and down about, why not have completely uncapped local bandwidth for a fixed, reasonable, amount per month, with all international traffic being on a per-gig based payment mechanism, but again at a reasonable amount. The local infrastructure should be able to handle it. And removing explicit caps means that people will have a more uniform traffic pattern, not resulting in a huge burst of activity towards the end of the month. At the very least it would also make traffic patterns easier to predict and _real_ hotspots easier to identify thereby allowing more effective network management, which would in turn result in lower overheads.
I'm not going to try to propose exactly what would be a "fair" price for any of the services I mentioned, There are plenty of other people on these forums who have a better grapple on the financial side of things than I do at the moment. All that can be said by anyone is that the costs at the moment are not fair, or any other adjective with similar meaning.
Just my thoughts
... heh.. sorry it's quite long, just copied it into notepad now to read it through more easliy. This little message box is deceptive!
), remember ZA doen't have access to the unlimited bandwidth that Europe and the US have. At reasonable costs, we'd also have a lot more users than countries like Sri Lanka, New Zealand or Lebanon, so we will have to deal with contention.