"Best Effort" service

[skybound]

In most of the agreements it states:

Fibre Broadband Access is supplied as a best effort service by the supplier.

The question holds now is what is the definition of "Best Effort"?

For example, If we look at a 264 page thread here, where a FNO is delivering really poor service, are they meeting "Best Effort"

What I would also like to know, since the ISPs like @Afrihost-Gian are affected by their upstream suppliers, do they hold these FNO operators accountable? If so, what does this accountability look like?

 

[Hemi300c]

How about "best effort" payment........

 

[PBCool]

In most of the agreements it states:


The question holds now is what is the definition of "Best Effort"?

For example, If we look at a 264 page thread here, where a FNO is delivering really poor service, are they meeting "Best Effort"

What I would also like to know, since the ISPs like @Afrihost-Gian are affected by their upstream suppliers, do they hold these FNO operators accountable? If so, what does this accountability look like?

Best effort covers the service from end to end. The point is more around not being able to get credits for a service that is either down or performing poorly.

It is mostly there just as an insurance policy and most FNOs provide a decent service if you look at it statistically.

There will be mistakes and delays and process failures from time to time.

Basically, if it's an ongoing issue with an FNO and after multiple meetings of management level engagement, it gets to the executive side.

This has happened with us in the past, but it has been the scenario for more than 10 years of being in the business.

This is pretty much the norm for broadband world wide.

 

[PaulGherkin]

Ah this excuse... oh boy I have got a reply to this one.
Best effort was an excuse that came around to stay during the early days of ADSL. Back then there was talk about "fast pipe" and "slow pipe" The bad days, when 3GB caps were real and local and international were treated differently.

Somehow in 2024 we're still stuck with this bullschitt.

It's really odd because in the mid 1990s when I was in the telecoms game, this was simply not an option. There were SLAs to even the small and medium business and they were enforced, my performance review had a KPI for this.

I left the industry to pursue software dev, and imagine my shock when I eventually got broadband at home and managed ADSL at the office (as I was also the IT admin) that all these things are suddenly now "best effort". Gone are the days of things had to be fixed within reasonable time frames- now the providers can fail and there's no recourse you have against them.

If I don't pay my credit agreements I get summonsed to court and judgement is handed down.

Best effort is an excuse and a license for the internet industry to get away with shaping/throttling and being generally douchebags to customers.

 

[PaulGherkin]

I also wanted to add, that I treat every ISP with a punishment scale.
For every day of poor service, they get paid one day past the due date, or they get paid with me going to the bank and paying them cash into their bank account in small amounts so the cash deposit fees.

 

[PBCool]

Ah this excuse... oh boy I have got a reply to this one.
Best effort was an excuse that came around to stay during the early days of ADSL. Back then there was talk about "fast pipe" and "slow pipe" The bad days, when 3GB caps were real and local and international were treated differently.

Somehow in 2024 we're still stuck with this bullschitt.

It's really odd because in the mid 1990s when I was in the telecoms game, this was simply not an option. There were SLAs to even the small and medium business and they were enforced, my performance review had a KPI for this.

I left the industry to pursue software dev, and imagine my shock when I eventually got broadband at home and managed ADSL at the office (as I was also the IT admin) that all these things are suddenly now "best effort". Gone are the days of things had to be fixed within reasonable time frames- now the providers can fail and there's no recourse you have against them.

If I don't pay my credit agreements I get summonsed to court and judgement is handed down.

Best effort is an excuse and a license for the internet industry to get away with shaping/throttling and being generally douchebags to customers.

Umm not really, you are quoting product marketing coined by a particular ISP. Also you seem to be stuck on the ADSL era of broadband which I can agree was not fair to the consumer, as we all know the popular term was advertised "up to".

Uptime as a % is now higher on a per link basis vs what they were in the 90s by a large margin, but if you want an SLA then it comes with additional resources and costs attached, and that is also always an option. Have you compared the price per mbps to a link in the 90s vs now?

Best effort is an excuse and a license for the internet industry to get away with shaping/throttling and being generally douchebags to customers.

I don't understand why someone would shape or throttle these days, it costs more money to go through the technical process to do so vs just buying more capacity.

 

[PBCool]

I also wanted to add, that I treat every ISP with a punishment scale.
For every day of poor service, they get paid one day past the due date, or they get paid with me going to the bank and paying them cash into their bank account in small amounts so the cash deposit fees.

Ok then.

 

[Conack]

Frogfoot pushes this to the limits.
Their best effort is the worst of any service I've ever had to deal with.

 

[MakoPC]

I also wanted to add, that I treat every ISP with a punishment scale.
For every day of poor service, they get paid one day past the due date, or they get paid with me going to the bank and paying them cash into their bank account in small amounts so the cash deposit fees.

You have way to much time on your hands, find a hobby please, we know once you retire you don't have much to do, but find something better to do

 

[PaulGherkin]

Frogfoot pushes this to the limits.
Their best effort is the worst of any service I've ever had to deal with.

I thought that distinction belonged to rain

 

[Frogfoot Fibre]

Frogfoot pushes this to the limits.
Their best effort is the worst of any service I've ever had to deal with.

Hi Conack.

We are sorry to hear that you feel this way.

Please provide us with your details on PM if you need our assistance with anything.

Kind regards.

 

[PaulGherkin]

You have way to much time on your hands, find a hobby please, we know once you retire you don't have much to do, but find something better to do

Ah its you again. How about you get your arse off the internet and do some work so that we can retire in peace. Does your employer know you post on company time.

 

[skybound]

@PBCool Thanks for your participation. It is always good to have an alternate view.

Agreed, to get a proper SLA, will cost and does make sense in business.

In the domestic arena, are there any stats that you could make available showing which FNO you receive the most calls for? Also what is the meant time for resolution?

If you had to put any numbers to "best effort", what would they be? Window frame answers are ok, like 1 week is good, 2 weeks poor, 3+weeks unacceptable.

 

[PaulGherkin]

I don't understand why someone would shape or throttle these days, it costs more money to go through the technical process to do so vs just buying more capacity.

Because CEOs are greedy, and their mentality makes them do it. MWEB and Afrihost are doing it routinely still

 

[PBCool]

Because CEOs are greedy, and their mentality makes them do it. MWEB and Afrihost are doing it routinely still

If the CEOs are greedy, they would make more money not shaping vs shaping is my point.

I can confirm Afrihost don't shape or throttle, but when using a transit provider for international, you never get complete transparency. This is one of the reasons why we do wet capacity to London.

 

[MakoPC]

Ah its you again. How about you get your arse off the internet and do some work so that we can retire in peace. Does your employer know you post on company time.

I honestly don't remember you, quite funny you remember me though

 

[PBCool]

@PBCool Thanks for your participation. It is always good to have an alternate view.

Agreed, to get a proper SLA, will cost and does make sense in business.

In the domestic arena, are there any stats that you could make available showing which FNO you receive the most calls for? Also what is the meant time for resolution?

If you had to put any numbers to "best effort", what would they be? Window frame answers are ok, like 1 week is good, 2 weeks poor, 3+weeks unacceptable.

No problem

We are on 30 networks all with varying degrees of scale so unfortunately, I can't give a realistic response on the most calls.

Mean time again is complicated, are you referring to line downs, congestion, latency throughput etc

With the last question, are you referring to line downs?

 

[Conack]

Hi Conack.

We are sorry to hear that you feel this way.

Please provide us with your details on PM if you need our assistance with anything.

Kind regards.

My details are:

The city of George. (Mosselbay and PE are in the same boat)

Residents all over town are fed up with Frogfoot's unreliable network.
We don't open new tickets for outages anymore because there is no point. It'll be back on shortly after - but the dip in connectivity, or evening of packetloss - which sometimes goes on for days, eventually gets sorted out again. Only for the problem to re-appear a few days later again.

The problem is that packetloss and loss of connectivity happens way, way too often for a Fibre network.
It's barely more stable than a cellular network which is a very low bar.

We want the reliability of Openserve.

The primary reason why Frogfoot still has as many clients as they do is simply because they have the monopoly and did such a poor job installing fibre in George, that the municipality now doesn't want any other FNO to dig up the pavements again.

 

[Frogfoot Fibre]

My details are:

The city of George. (Mosselbay and PE are in the same boat)

Residents all over town are fed up with Frogfoot's unreliable network.
We don't open new tickets for outages anymore because there is no point. It'll be back on shortly after - but the dip in connectivity, or evening of packetloss - which sometimes goes on for days, eventually gets sorted out again. Only for the problem to re-appear a few days later again.

The problem is that packetloss and loss of connectivity happens way, way too often for a Fibre network.
It's barely more stable than a cellular network which is a very low bar.

We want the reliability of Openserve.

The primary reason why Frogfoot still has as many clients as they do is simply because they have the monopoly and did such a poor job installing fibre in George, that the municipality now doesn't want any other FNO to dig up the pavements again.

Hi Conak. Once again, our apologies for the inconvenience caused. The details we require is the account holders full name and full physical address in order for us to check your link and provide a resolution thereof. Kind regards.

 

[PaulGherkin]

No problem

We are on 30 networks all with varying degrees of scale so unfortunately, I can't give a realistic response on the most calls.

Mean time again is complicated, are you referring to line downs, congestion, latency throughput etc

With the last question, are you referring to line downs?

I think it's fair to give you context.
This is my experience, with FTTH on Octotel.

Most of the time, like for months on end, it works fine. Then someone gets the urge to start fiddling. Not sure whom.
When the trouble starts its one of the three possible modes of failure:

* Line connected, PPPoE session says connected... packets sent, 0 bytes back. The Rx counter on the PPPoE Rx port remains stuck at 0
* Line drops and comes back aka the "micro outage"
* Sudden burst of packet loss, and usually when this happens international sites won't load. Speedtest.net to the UK shows the usual, download speed is like 1Mbps and upload speed is > 100Mbps

Because I have to go through VOX TELECOM, they take their sweet time in doing anything about this. By they time they've pulled their heads out their rectums the faults have either been resolved or are still ongoing. If they're still ongoing i.e. the packet loss one, then they say it's my router, every single time. They don't want to do anything because they do not want to fight the FNO or simply don't care. Bit of both I think.

The one they cannot and refuse to help me with is the first one where the PPPoE session says "connected" but no data flows. They close the tickets. I took them to the ISPA for that who found in my favour but Vox told me to either accept it or find another ISP.

When they give me crappy service especially with 1 and 3 that's when I start with punitive measures.