Biggest ADSL bandwidth hogs in SA

With respect to this discussion and in the sake of openness, I'd like to know from those responding when they feel an ISP is allowed to contend their connection?

You are buying contended network access, even on capped accounts. However the moment speed dips for anyone it is problematic. So with this in mind, are you comfortable with your ISP saying that speeds were reduced on downloads at a specific time due to ordinary network contentions? Also, would you prefer these contentions to be across the board on all protocols or do you believe it should hit perhaps p2p first when a network contends?
 
DJ... said:
25% doesn't work across the board for all uncapped line speeds, as no uncapped accounts are priced at this mark, especially as you get faster (take 20Mbps multipled by what you reckon IPC+international+other expenses costs and divide by 4 - it ain't what you're paying for 20Mbps, that's for sure - it would imply a 4:1 contention on uncapped - some unscrupulous ISPs run their contention at 50+:1). If I look at uncapped only, if we invoked a throttle policy on our uncapped with rather high "FUPs" we could reduce input costs by around 25% and push that back into the network to pretty much unshape everyone, at all times. It is something we have always considered, however there is a far better way to do this fairly than with throttle limits, and that's to use prioritisation instead. If you're throttled, you're throttled - that's it. With deprioritisation even those who are deprioritised can still get great performance when the network opens up a bit in terms of usage. But when the network gets tight those with less usage will be rewarded with better performance if they require it before you.
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Sounds like the IS model.
 
biometrics said:
Sounds like the IS model.
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I can't speak for their model as we operate our own network management, but I do believe it's overall a more fair policy than throttling. For the record Crystal Web does not resell a single account from another ISP. We operate our own bandwidth and network profiles on our own capacity, so we've got a lot of flexibility in terms of what we can do, which is why these discussions are good to have. Often they turn into "I pay for 10Mbps so <insert expletive here> and go <insert expletive about a family member here>" which is not helpful.

Hopefully this discussion can remain civil and fruitful for all involved...
 
DJ... said:
I can't speak for their model as we operate our own network management, but I do believe it's overall a more fair policy than throttling. For the record Crystal Web does not resell a single account from another ISP. We operate our own bandwidth and network profiles on our own capacity, so we've got a lot of flexibility in terms of what we can do, which is why these discussions are good to have. Often they turn into "I pay for 10Mbps so <insert expletive here> and go <insert expletive about a family member here>" which is not helpful.

Hopefully this discussion can remain civil and fruitful for all involved...
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Sounds interesting ... might have a look ...
 
DJ... said:
You reckon all ISPs have their capped accounts set to a higher priority over uncapped on their network?
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I use your Home Capped account and honestly it does everything I need it to for very little cost. Yes, there are more expensive capped accounts with higher priority, but does the average home user really need it? I doubt it. Bare in mind that MyBB users aren't usually the average user.

I do quite a bit of P2P after hours as it's never urgent and great decent speeds. During peak times it's mostly streaming and browsing, again performance is really good. I really can't complain for the price I pay.

I wouldn't say that ALL ISPs set capped on a higher priority compared to uncapped, but I would think that most do if it's part of the same range, ie: your business premium capped gets priority over business premium uncapped.

WebAfrica has a good comparison chart of each of their products and how they compare in terms of priority. I don't know if they actually follow that, but at least it gives you an idea before hand.

I think that capped should (as a general rule, exceptions may apply) be on a higher priority that uncapped. Simply due to the fact that I pay for a finite amount and thus should be allowed to use all my cap when and how I see fit.

My comments are all obviously from a consumer's point of view. They may be completely unrealistic from the providers side, which I can completely understand.

I found an account that works for me, with decent performance at a decent price. When fibre comes along things will most definitely change, but for now I pretty happy with the value for money being offered (relatively speaking bearing in mind the broadband situation in SA).
 
DJ... said:
With respect to this discussion and in the sake of openness, I'd like to know from those responding when they feel an ISP is allowed to contend their connection?

You are buying contended network access, even on capped accounts. However the moment speed dips for anyone it is problematic. So with this in mind, are you comfortable with your ISP saying that speeds were reduced on downloads at a specific time due to ordinary network contentions? Also, would you prefer these contentions to be across the board on all protocols or do you believe it should hit perhaps p2p first when a network contends?
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If the "pool" of customers is big enough as that I'm not contended to death during peak times, then I have no problem with it. I have no issues with any kind of bandwidth management on the ISP side (contending, shaping, prioritization) as long as real time protocols (streaming specifically) work when they are needed.

File sharing (P2P, NNTP) is usually not time sensitive, so I don't usually mind having to wait a bit longer for these files. Again, I do all my P2P over night so most of the time I'm never waiting for something to download. I would have an issue if I queued some torrents the night before and then when I check the next morning they were not completed (obviously factoring in the size of the torrents and my line speed).

Now while I do say that P2P isn't a priority, there needs to be some sort of "reasonable" (lolz) speed that the user can expect if for example they wanna torrent Big Bang Theory at 7PM when all the sane people are streaming Netflix. The problem is what is "reasonable", 80% of line speed, 70%, 50%, 30%? It's not something I think will ever be agreed upon in a way that most parties involved are happy.

From my understanding very few customers would be able to afford any kind of internet account if the data was not contended to some degree. We all want fast internet, but pricing does play a huge part as well (for the average internet user anyway). If having a contended service (that you don't really notice the effects of real time protocols) dramatically decreases the cost of access, then I'm all for it.

So to solve this issue, I think the only reasonable thing to do is dig up all the streets and lay some glorious fibre, starting with where I live (I have highly regarded, self reviewed studies showing that this is the optimal point to begin the network). Then Telkom can go [censored] itself with its IPC.
 
DJ... said:
With respect to this discussion and in the sake of openness, I'd like to know from those responding when they feel an ISP is allowed to contend their connection?

You are buying contended network access, even on capped accounts. However the moment speed dips for anyone it is problematic. So with this in mind, are you comfortable with your ISP saying that speeds were reduced on downloads at a specific time due to ordinary network contentions? Also, would you prefer these contentions to be across the board on all protocols or do you believe it should hit perhaps p2p first when a network contends?
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What makes me wonder is will south africa keep up with the data growth world wide? We see streaming (netflix) and youtube is growing by the day more and more people are using it. Also 4k video will be a must in a year or 2. What will happen to ISPs when more and more people want to stream and peak hour. ?

Streaming usage almost full line speed on 4mb-10mb? I don 't have a clue what line you would need to stream 4k?

Would it not be the same as people leaving downloads on on peak hour? Also with phone updates, people using phones to stream youtube videos on wifi at night the peak usage on stream I would think is going to increase from here on.

To what point is SA ISP ready for people to stream TV shows at night at peak hours and keep the network stable.?
 
Bryn said:
I get that argument, but the reality is that you have to deal with tradeoffs. Reduce the quality of the data or reduce the quantity of data.

Ideally I'd like large capped accounts that don't assume full utilisation. I don't want an account that's within a hair of my typical usage - I'd be happy to pay extra for some headroom. But most ISP's have fairly linear pricing for their capped accounts.

What do I know though. I'm not an ISP.

Edit: Forgot to mention - this is why I think throttled uncapped accounts could be great. No one wants low quality data, so obviously the only reason we don't all have capped accounts is because we can't afford the current prices of the large caps. So just offer a middle ground with a throttled account. The ISP doesn't have a risk of terabytes of usage and the user gets data that isn't shaped to hell.
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Seeing as a lot of isp's now shape the capped accounts there is very little difference between them. The only real unshaped accounts seems to be the business accounts, there is no unshaped for the home consumer anymore.

DJ... said:
With respect to this discussion and in the sake of openness, I'd like to know from those responding when they feel an ISP is allowed to contend their connection?
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Personally never ever. Totally opposed to any shaping/throttling ever. Personally the network is poor if you need to resort to those tactics.
 
Arthur said:
Why are they hogs? Their consumption is a matter between them and their provider.
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They aren't being named... what is the problem?

And you know well enough that the term 'bandwidth hog' is the top percent or so of users
 
Biscuit1018 said:
They aren't being named... what is the problem?

And you know well enough that the term 'bandwidth hog' is the top percent or so of users
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But there will always be "hogs". If the ISPs ban these people then the next top 5 people will be considered hogs. The only way you won't have a "hog" is when there is no one on your network or everyone uses everything in the same quantity.

These articles are silly, and term "hog" is a negative term. These people are paying their ISP accounts every month, these aren't illegal electricity connections or such.

MyBroadBand should be encouraging broadband behavior in people, not trying to curb it.
 
Hard to believe that back in 2006 most of us were on 3GB capped accounts and Telkom couldn't see why we would need more :)
 
stefan9 said:
Seeing as a lot of isp's now shape the capped accounts there is very little difference between them. The only real unshaped accounts seems to be the business accounts, there is no unshaped for the home consumer anymore.



Personally never ever. Totally opposed to any shaping/throttling ever. Personally the network is poor if you need to resort to those tactics.
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Unrealistic and idealistic.

Even if you have an unshaped account the ISP
- has limited IPC capacity
- limited internet capacity

The usage is not constant. It is particularly heavy near the end of the month and during certain tome slots.

So for there to be no throttling or shaping they would need a lot, lot more IPC and internet capacity

Thats costs money... which means the prices go up ... a lot.
 
whatwhat said:
But there will always be "hogs". If the ISPs ban these people then the next top 5 people will be considered hogs. The only way you won't have a "hog" is when there is no one on your network or everyone uses everything in the same quantity.

These articles are silly, and term "hog" is a negative term. These people are paying their ISP accounts every month, these aren't illegal electricity connections or such.

MyBroadBand should be encouraging broadband behavior in people, not trying to curb it.
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Disagree - If you see someone at an all you can eat buffet stacking ups the plate with lobster, smoked salmon and caviar...
Then he spends 6 hours there non stop...
Hog? Its all you can eat after all.

Hog isn't anything to do with legality..
 
HavocXphere said:
How exactly does one consume 8TB+ of media per month?

4K content and watching around the clock?
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Easy... That's my account - 8TB+ - and no, its a personal account with no one sharing it, it's locked on my phone line
 
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I only started downloading on the 7th
 
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