BitCo Consumer Review

I don't get it why people want to download torrents during the day?

As if being able to do 10GB's minimum (on a 5Mbps) per night isn't enough? How much porn does one man need, to still want to download torrents during the day as well?
 
I'm fine with torrent blocking during the day, but I'm really scared it gets misconfigured and game updates also gets blocked during the day, that will make me cancel my subscription. I'm also voting with the other guys for a softcap though.
 
To me the argument is simple and the 1:1 contention ratio can be tested with the consumer commission.

Bitco site boasts 1:1 contention ratio. That means , for every 1 Mbps sold, they have 1Mbps reserved exclusively for that user. Shaping should not be required since the user has the full speed reserved for him...

The water gets a little murky though because they do not make distinction between international and local or even in-network. This is dangerous and can mislead the consumer.

If I were to take a guess, the 1:1 ratio speaks only of their in-network bandwidth and not internet bandwidth, hence the need for shaping and leaky buckets.

I'd like to know their real contention ratio...1:10:20? (In:local:intl)
 
Bitco

Bitco Unfair user policy.jpg

[ATTACH said:
233574.vB[/ATTACH]Nicks3113;15611212]Dito!! If this is successful i will be the happiest customer they have..
Click to expand...

Guys, torrents are what they are. Why would you believe for a second that Bitco will all of a sudden do right by us? According to their AUP, the attached usage should not be possible. No P2P involved and still no return to full speed after the initial 40min.
 
BitCo said:
Hi Solitude,

I we agree with you.

Everyone wants to Torrent and should have the right to do so after hours.

We cannot allow ongoing abuse of P2P negatively affect the users on our network and compromise services like online gaming, Streaming and general web usage.

We are aggressively working towards this and are a few days away from a permanent solution.

We will ensure to formally update everyone once we are complete with testing

Mike
Click to expand...

It's weekend and I checked torrents still do not work.

Logged into VPN and all works wonders. You really want people to use VPN's instead..


Blocking torrents is the same as banning drugs, they will always find away around and in this case it's super easy.
 
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I've never downloaded on Torrents during the day. Only after hours and over the weekend. Any other downloads I've done have been game downloads on PSN or Steam, etc.

I still can't do Torrents it's not working at all for me.
 
Its not working for any of us dude, yet after 40 minutes of SD streaming of Comic Con I am now again at my 50% as usual for Bitco speed.
So if no one is downloading torrents at the moment I wonder what Bitco's excuse is for the super aggressive acceptable use policy.

For the non torrentz users, this is exactly what I was getting at in earlier posts when I said torrents are the excuse of the moment but something else will always be next.
 
I think Bitco has a good idea of having streaming and gaming as first priority and then torrents. Look i do torrent but i also believe it should be done in the evening rather than during the day just so everyone has a good experience on the network.

That being said when its 7PM torrents need to work perfectly or everyone who uses torrents will be pissed.

Also what worries me is that if torrents are blocked completely during the day then what if a game update uses those protocols and also gets blocked?? I understand that Bitco probably has a very sophisticated system checking packets but it really needs to be 100% for this to work out...

It seems awsome if it all worked like how you say it will and i hope it does but please please please make sure its 100% perfect when you guys implement it to avoid interruptions to users.

Its now 9.00PM and torrents are not even starting let alone downloading?? And it was just a test to give you guys feedback.

So once again im all for the new improvements because i stream and game alot but please allow torrents to ACTUALLY work at 7PM when you guys say its okay to download.
 
Yeah, "torrents" work after hours, getting a nice 140kb/sec on my 10mb link.

Mike, is that your idea of a home user speed on a Sunday at 6:23pm?

Unfortunately for me, I cancelled all my telkom acccess and now do not have any other recourse but to put up with this ridiculous shaping policy as I need internet for home and work purposes.

First you shaped my http (not even p2p downloads) from my seedbox, now I can't even download after hours. I'm lucky if I get 1gb down a night from torrents.

Mike, Garth, I understand you have a business you want to grow and users you want to protect, surely you can find a happy medium where your users and your shareholders are both happy? The hammer and nail approach to every protocol/user that "seem" to be abusive to your network is really not on.

I'm not asking you to bend over backwards and give every user what they want, there are reasonable expectations and on some of those you as BitCo do NOT deliver as you have advertised and promised.

Here is a SUGGESTION :

1. Give us a clientzone to check our link usage, PLEASE.
2. Limit/shape p2p/seedboxes etc during the day, however at 7pm/weekends you need to lift said shaping. Right now I'm seeing a 80-90% shaping applied even at 6pm on a Sunday, I'd be happy with a 50% shaping until network load lessens, but I've monitored my link over the last 6 weeks and I've YET to see over 500kb/sec on my link from my seedbox at 1 am, how is that fair and reasonable?
3. Listen to your userbase (home user base) as these are the same people that recommend your corporate services to their companies, it's free advertising and ignoring your home user base and making them upset, only hurts YOU as a company in the long run.
4. I have logged a support ticket #SP00128172 where I was waiting for a technician to call me on the 12th of June at 4:30PM, I have YET to receive that call.
 
Pitbull said:
I downloaded 5 movies last night on the 10Mb and this morning it was all done.
Click to expand...

Snap, no issues, gaming seems to becoming more stable and consistent, still not where it should be, but they are getting there.
 
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Mike/Garth,

Offer has been made on our house and provisionally accepted. The new owner is very interest in having the Bitco connection stay at his place. He says he applied before but had no LOS :D. Anyway, can an existing contract be transferred to new owners or will mine be moved and he needs to apply for a new line?

I said I'll find out as I don't know if I'll have LOS at the new place. This is still a few months away, just wanted to find out so long.
 
Another update from Durban:

My line was installed with a two-day turnaround. I received my router a week later and then went on holiday for a week. Got back last night and finally had a chance to tinker. I was a bit disappointed about the torrent shaping, but they worked ok after 7pm and I was able to download a ~700mb file in about 20 min or so. Im happy with YT streaming, works flawlessly even with HD content. Apple music and Rdio stream uninterrupted and offline syncing speeds are quite acceptable. Browsing is near instantaneous and loads heavy pages very quickly. Xbox has issues, tells me the network quality isnt good enough and that I wont be able to use the chat features. Xbox updates were also painfully slow.

So far I'm happy with my line, that being said I havent used it enough for a fair comparison. I'll be sure to report back here.

Side note: The install team was amazing, professional and very patient, the complicated installation took 8 hours while we figured out how to run the cables AND keep the estate happy. Give those guys a bells!
 
Thx, no after hours support really wears me down!

Ticket logged, watching paint dry
 
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