BigPond hits up heavy users

[rpm]

Australia's largest ISP, Telstra BigPond, will implement dramatic slow-downs on customer accounts that exceed 10GB of usage in a month, starting from today.

Telstra's new automatic speed capping system will limit users to 64Kbit/s speeds — just a littler faster than a dialup modem — if they exceed 10GB of uploads and downloads combined.

The first states to be hit with the speed caps are Victoria and Tasmania, today. All other eastern states will be progressively downgraded throughout February and March with South Australia, Northern Territory and Western Australia being finally downgraded on the 5th of April.

The 10GB limit was always in the fine print, but cable customers were speed-limited manually by BigPond staff, with most left uncapped and able to download hundreds of gigabytes in a month. ADSL customers had not been speed capped at all.

The country's now third largest ISP, iiNet, is in pole position to absorb disenfranchised BigPond customers following this latest change. It offers 8Mbit/s ADSL speeds — roughly the same speed as BigPond Cable, from telephone exchanges that have its iiBroadband2 DSLAMs installed into them.

Dates for the introduction of Telstra's speed limiting are in the article continuation.

 

[KikzAzz]

It seems that more and more service providers all over the world are starting to clamp down on abusers. I think that is is a good thing as it has been proven time and time again that there are a small percentage of users that abuse the service at the detriment of the users that are using it for business reasons.

Maybe a specially structured service should be offered for people that are download crazy.

 

[Spamtheman]

"I think that is is a good thing as it has been proven time and time again that there are a small percentage of users that abuse the service at the detriment of the users that are using it for business reasons."

If someone sells you a car do they have the right to tell you how often or far you may drive? Or if you buy dstv are you only allowed to watch three hours a day otherwise they stop it playing or show only sabc? Lay off the crack. What will happen is that those customers who have been capped will change to another ISP, the wonder of competition.

 

[kaspaas]

Even the freebie water and electricity for the poor are capped...

I believe it is fair for any service to be "capped" with a reasonable usage.

But then 3GBytes is an example of Telkom's attitude to the IT revolution.

ICASA allows this, and even Ivy does not meddle.

It paints a bleak image for the IT future of SA.

 

[Vio]

I believe that if caps must be implemented, that they are on a fair scale according to the maximum that a user can download with the specified cap per capping period. E.g., with Telkom ADSL 512 going at max 24 h a day you could download about 127 gigs but we are capped at 3 gigs. This is about 2% of the total achievable data. A better % would be around 25-33% (30-40gigs). That would give even a heavy user enough rope.

Personally I am against capping completely.

 

[KikzAzz]

If you buy a car and share the road with other users that are affected by the way you use your car, certain caps and regulations on how you are to behave, need to be put in place, so that everyone can have a fair share of what they are paying for.

I'm not saying that rediculous caps should be applied, but I am going to get pissed off if I pay for a service, but get a substandard response because some download freak has a bee under his bonnet. I do download software where needed but within socially accepted boundaries.

 

[hArTh]

Personally I support caps equivalent to running a line at max speed (up and down) for 25% of a month.

 

[BTTB]

3 Gig is too little.

I can understand the Cap, but 3 gigs is far too low. Especially seeing we are paying a premium for the luxury of broadband in South Africa.

Also the trend is clear from all the threads lately which have shown that the international norm is far higher than 3 gigs.
Telkom made their own set of rules to suite their pocket, using the excuse of a small sector of users that abuse the network downloading P2P.
IMO, Telkom implemented the 3 Gig Cap so that they can sell 6 and 9 gig accounts and cream a few extra Rand while they have the Monopoly of the Market.
When TATA and the SNO get their act together, we will quickly see 1mb connections and 10 gig caps for a lower price than we have at present.

 

[KikzAzz]

A poll on what the forum members perceive as being a reasonable cap, would be quite interesting!

 

[BTTB]

A poll on what the forum members perceive as being a reasonable cap, would be quite interesting!

Good Suggestion.
I will forward to RPM.

 

[Vio]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't there a poll like that a few months back?

 

[BTTB]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't there a poll like that a few months back?

Most likely.
But, their are new members and geusts everyday. So perhaps having a Poll again would include some new visitors input.
MyADSL just registered 3000 members recently.

 

[ic]

I certainly don't remember having seen such a poll

If there was a reasonable bandwidth cap poll, please could someone post a url to it?

 

[Vox Populi Vox Dei]

I'm in support of different capping pacakges as each different package would cancel out each other (gamers would essentialy 'use' the lesser cap of a person who has a 6GB cap etc)

Packages as follows:

HTTP, FTP etc ( no big downloads): 6GB
Semi - Gamer (gaming with web browsing and streaming audio): 15GB-20GB
Ultimate Gamer Package: 40GB-50GB (heavy user)

 

[antowan]

The Poll Was Added, But Please Note That This Poll Is Experimental And Should The Other Mods Collectively Decide That We Should Not Run Polls IN THIS WAY, It Will Be Taken Down. I BELIEVE A POLL LIKE THIS WAS DONE ALREADY, BUT AS HAS BEEN MENTIONED, WE CAN GIVE IT ANOTHER GO IF THIS IS THE CASE...



Thanks For Understanding...

Antowan

 

[KikzAzz]

Excellent, thanks ant.

It may have run before but as ic have mentioned a lot of members. like me, are new to the forum and have not participated.

 

[josselg]

I dont think caps are bad I think the cost to bw ratio is bad, so too is the line rental

 

[Vio]

Aint them poll numbers a lil small? I kinda expected them to go up to 80 gigs

 

[rpm]

Hi guys

Cap poll on the main site as well... A few different figures

 

[ic]

Excellent, thanks ant.

It may have run before but as ic have mentioned a lot of members. like me, are new to the forum and have not participated.

GM, I would luv to take credit, but BTTB actually mentioned that very valid point .