I think I've been fairly diplomatic regarding issues I have been having up to now, but I've now lost my sense of humour.
My issues are simply being ignored by BitCo, almost as if they think if they ignore it, it will just go away. I logged a ticket on the 15 August 2014 regarding random lag issues in game, almost 2 months later this issue is just being ignored and has not yet been resolved.
So let me get started:
FUP:
The FUP is said to be on the "leaky bucket" principal. The exact details behind this "leaky bucket" remain a mystery and any attempt by myself to get more information regarding this is simply ignored. To me the FUP does not make any sense and I will use a graph to explain why.
View attachment 156290
I have drawn in the red 95th percentile for clarity.
Based on this graph, at 06:05am I started streaming netflix and at 07:05am I get FUP'ed. Based on the graph sent to me by Bitco, my usage during that period averaged at little over 3Mbps or better yet, 60% of my connections capacity.
Now assuming standard leaky bucket, the concept works like drilling a few holes into the bottom of a bucket. No matter how much you fill the bucket, the water will pass through these holes at a consistent pace. if too much water is filled into the bucket it spills over the side and is lost. The graph does not depict this in anyway.
In comes Token Buckets. Similar to leaky bucket but periodically X-many tokens are added to the bucket. When stuff is put into the bucket a token is consumed. if say 100 tokens are added every hour and 100 tokens are consumed in 15 minutes, then anything else added to the bucket for the next 45 minutes is lost. The graph does not depict this in anyway.
So based on these analogies, I don't believe Bitco uses leaky bucket. They may be using "their version" of what they consider a leaky bucket is. From what I can see, Bitco's FUP is one of 2 things:
- If the user utilizes more than 51% of the connection speed they are paying for, drop their maximum speed to 50% of the connection speed.
or
- They have predetermined an hourly data threshold based on around 50% of the connection speed. For example:
2.55Mbps = roughly 1.147GB an hour. If you exceed this 1.1GB in an hour, your speed is halved.
So what does this mean. Well simply put, people think they are paying R899 for a 5Mbps connection, when in actual fact you are paying R899 for a 2.5mbps connection with the facility to burst to 5Mbps, once a day, for an hour.
This to me is insane, I usually only use the internet between 17:00 and 22:00 (5 hours a day, after hours). During this time, 4 of my hours are spent at 2.5Mbps with only 1 hour a day at full speed. The rest of the time my connection is not utilized at all, Zero, nudda, nothing!
Heaven forbid you, as the consumer maybe want to actually use your 5mbps connection for something legit like Youtube or Netflix.
Don't you dare use more than 50% of the connection you pay for, or you will be struck down.
There seems to be some Bitco Cardinal Sin around customers actually wanting to use the connection they are paying for. I am not speaking about abuse, as you see from my graph above, abuse doesn't even enter the equation.
Contention Ratio
You state that Bitco is better than ADSL because it's a 1:1 contention ratio and DSL is a 30:1 contention ratio.
Unfortunately you fail to actually explain the contention ratio correctly and I've just remained quiet about it.
The DSL contention ratio does not mean that for every 10Mbps connection that is allocated, it is shared by 30 people. That is incorrect information. A connection of say 100Mbps is allocated between 30 people. So yes you can have 30 individuals with 10Mbps allocated to the same 100Mbps connection. The presumption behind this is that not all 30 people are going to be utilizing 100% of their connection, 100% of the time. I am not sure where you got this mis-information. The fact that your connection ratio is 1:1 is absolutely pointless when you CAN'T actually use the speed that is supposedly 1:1 allocated to you.
False Advertising
View attachment 156278
The 5Mbps package states:
"Suitable For: Heavy Browsing & Email,
HD YouTube, File Transfers, Media Downloads,
Gaming, Downloading,
HD Streaming"
This is false advertising. How can you say that this package is suitable for these when the moment you actually do stream HD YouTube or "HD Streaming" your speed is halved as though you are abusing your connection?
That would be like Vodacom saying that the Samsung Note 4 on their unlimited call package is suitable for Business exec's who make lots of phone calls and then the moment the Exec makes a business call that is longer than 30 minutes they drop his phone call quality down to 1980's 2-way radio for the rest of the day. When he phones them and asks why his call quality is so bad, they tell him "well, you made a 30 minute call so....."
View attachment 156292
On Really? When exactly am I going to experience this "Gaming Optimized, Low Latency"? My random latency spike issues have
not been resolved. General latency in game has gone up from 200ms to around 300ms on average. I got this connection specifically for gaming, yet this is become the bane of my life as my issues are simply being ignored.
Support
Has become nothing short of Amobia.
Getting absolutely pathetic, generic responses from Leonard is nothing short of infuriating.
Being told "oh you have issues because this one specific time, not related to your ticket, you went above 50% of your connection speed" and then when I respond saying "What about 22:00 at night when there is nothing but me gaming and nothing else using the line" my ticket gets ignored.
Other emails and support tickets simply being flat out ignored.
I am still waiting for my gaming issue to be resolved and Mike I am still waiting for a response to my email.
I do not want to become that nightmare customer, but I really have no issue phoning and emailing you every 20 minutes of every day or every week until you fix my issues. Please let me know if this is what it's going to take to get my issues resolved, rather than ignored.
-Dave