Boycott MWEB. Because they don't care if you leave...

[Quest10n]

If Mweb wants all the abusers off there network they should make it easy for them or for those that wants to leave.

 

[MagicDude4Eva]

Unfortunately, due to MWeb mass mailing this information to us shortly after the start of the month instead of near the end of last month, many of us are stuck with MWeb until the end of September whether we like it or not. MWeb could have at least had the decency to say that the calendar month's notice won't apply in this one instance as a minor curtesy to the customers you're publicly calling "abusers." It absolutely baffles me that MWeb thinks that this is a intelligent manner of dealing with these 3% of customers. You're essentially ensuring that these 3% of people will never touch your company again. I certainly won't.

Not the case: It's change of terms of service and as such you are entitled outside of notice period. Mweb will still be able to bill you pro-rated. See my previous post about this. Also just phone your bank and put a Stop Payment on Mweb debit order, so this will avoid Mweb debiting your account past August (BTW: your bank will be able to reverse any transaction, especially debits without a problem).

 

[snoopdoggydog]

I remember MWeb cancelling my account a couple of years ago because of abuse, never needed to send in a months notice at all

 

[fbman]

It not about how much you download, but how long you download for... 24/7 downloading considered abuse.. even if you throttle yourself, you still downloading 24/7

I am on the 4 Meg Premuim account, I download around 180Gig a month. I download maybe around 3 to 4 hours a day during the week. My line does have traffic all day as the wife works from home, that normally emails and surfing. Weekends its streaming or general surfing, no real p2p downloading.. I never received an abuse letter or email.. I never download through the night.

 

[Bryn]

It not about how much you download, but how long you download for... 24/7 downloading considered abuse.. even if you throttle yourself, you still downloading 24/7

I am on the 4 Meg Premuim account, I download around 180Gig a month. I download maybe around 3 to 4 hours a day during the week. My line does have traffic all day as the wife works from home, that normally emails and surfing. Weekends its streaming or general surfing, no real p2p downloading.. I never received an abuse letter or email.. I never download through the night.

You shouldn't have to monitor your activity like that on an uncapped account. Switch ISP's even if just out of principle. I used to be on 4Mbps Mweb Premium and a few months ago changed to 4Mbps Afrihost business for R2 less a month. It's completely unshaped 24/7, has no rolling windows, a far superior clientzone and comes from a company that is genuinely trying to move internet forward in this country. It's a little mad to not take this option over Mweb.

 

[Seriously]

Unfortunately, due to MWeb mass mailing this information to us shortly after the start of the month instead of near the end of last month, many of us are stuck with MWeb until the end of September whether we like it or not. MWeb could have at least had the decency to say that the calendar month's notice won't apply in this one instance as a minor curtesy to the customers you're publicly calling "abusers." It absolutely baffles me that MWeb thinks that this is a intelligent manner of dealing with these 3% of customers. You're essentially ensuring that these 3% of people will never touch your company again. I certainly won't.

Tell that to the "CEO?" dog Derrick.

 

[Seriously]

So how exactly are we suppose to boycott Mweb?

Put a few dead "vrot vis" fish in a parcel and send it to their CEO via courier.

 

[MagicDude4Eva]

Done - cancellation sent 10/08 and you guys need to push for not being billed for September - see below:

@MwebGuy - don't you think for transparency purposes for your remaining customers it would be good to communicate what those "new measures to enforce the policy from the 01 September 2013" are?

I am sorry to hear that you decided to end your association with MWEB.

MWEBs network is shared by all of our customers. The Acceptable Use policy is not changing, but we will be implementing new measures to enforce the policy from the 01 September 2013. It is important to us to make sure that our customers have a great experience.

Thank you for completing the termination form and giving us notification that you are cancelling the service. I understand the importance of your request and will gladly assist.

I confirm herewith that the subscription will be terminated on 31 August 2013 following the calendar month's notice. The ADSL line will be migrated to Telkom on 31 August 2013 when the service ends.

After the cancellation, the e-mail address will be reserved for a further three months and will be released thereafter. To prevent any loss of data, please ensure that you download all important emails that you may require before 31 August 2013.

The final subscription payment will be deducted on 31 July 2013 and your billing details removed from our database thereafter. Please be reminded that MWEB bills one month in advance. Please ignore the September 2013 invoice, as it will automatically be reversed once the account is cancelled.

We do offer you the option to retain your e-mail address at a reduced fee. You are welcome to contact me for more information.

MWEB aims to ensure that all customers receive a fair and favourable experience on our network. I understand that this is important and trust it meets your requirements.

 

[TJ99]

Unfortunately, due to MWeb mass mailing this information to us shortly after the start of the month instead of near the end of last month, many of us are stuck with MWeb until the end of September whether we like it or not. MWeb could have at least had the decency to say that the calendar month's notice won't apply in this one instance as a minor curtesy to the customers you're publicly calling "abusers." It absolutely baffles me that MWeb thinks that this is a intelligent manner of dealing with these 3% of customers. You're essentially ensuring that these 3% of people will never touch your company again. I certainly won't.

That's exactly their strategy. They don't want people on their network that actually use the internets. They want customers like Chevron and Kinshasa who think that an uncapped account is for houses where only one person person lives and sends an occasional email and if you want to watch Youtube videos or play games you should pay R5000 a month for a business account.

 

[Robin Hood]

...geez...by reading all THESE comments, combined with my OWN experience, Mweb REALLY seems "Up to Maggits" :-(

 

[Necuno]

Sig Code:

[B][URL="goo.gl/yEXZo3"][COLOR="#FF0000"]Boycott MWEB[/URL]: [/COLOR][URL="goo.gl/uPjKQO"]Beware excessive usage, MWEB warns ADSL users[/URL][/B]
1. Convert account to 1 gig capped.
2. [URL="goo.gl/MMSz9U"]Cancellation form[/URL] (cancellations@mweb.com / fax 0215968915)

Boycott MWEB: Beware excessive usage, MWEB warns ADSL users
1. Convert account to 1 gig capped.
2. Cancellation form (cancellations@mweb.com / fax 0215968915)

 

[Looney]

Done

 

[Robin Hood]

mmm Maybe Mweb's MOUTHS were too big...but unfortunately not their BANDWIDTH....when they announced how GOOD they are...

http://www.bandwidthblog.com/tag/mweb/

Edited from the above url --->

"Although most of our competitors have some form of throttling on their 10Mbps products, MWEB does not throttle, which means we can deliver the best possible Internet experience to subscribers on our network. At R999 per month, 10Mbps Uncapped Unthrottled ADSL gives South African Internet users exceptional value for money.”

DATE: Jul 30th, 2012

 

[Paul Hjul]

Okay I've had family about for the weekend and haven't gotten a proper chance until now to put together something that borders on being coherent.

MWeb appears to have issued a letter to customers using more than 100 gigs of data in a 30 day rolling period accusing said customers of overusing their uncapped product offering. I have checked to see whether MWeb deny this and no such denial is forthcoming - instead all that is repeated is an inability to give parameters at all. Instead we have had a few voices who I assume to be related, either by way of a business or romantic interest, in the success of Naspers (I doubt actual MWeb employees are defending the moves because lets face it they are unlikely to actually support a course of action that could hurt the arm of Naspers where they are working and thereby place their jobs at risk) spouting the standard bull**** (see Frankfurt) in favour of abusive business practices with the particular mantra of "businesses have to screw over some customers to make it better for all other customers" having a thread dedicated to it - an argument that trips over at the first appearance of logic (if a business is willing and able to abuse one customer why will they protect another - profit is the driving ethic) and some general misunderstanding about what an AUP is. This letter has not been sent (by any account) to customers on cheap products with a recommendation that they upgrade to a better suited product. I have previously defended ISPs wanting to move customers from lower priced products to products better suited to their usage - I have particularly taken issue with customers ranting that they are unable to accomplish business use on a non-business product - but if you are a household on a product that is has "premium" you can't exactly upgrade much further.

ALL packet switched networks on the Internet have AUPs in play and there is no distinction between transit networks and consumer ISPs with respect to the purpose of an AUP which is to set what parameters of operation apply on that particular network. Traffic sent over the Internet traverses over multiple networks with their own AUPs and ISPs are subject to each others AUP when they transit. AUPs are usually written to give the provider enough discretion to efficiently manage their services but not enough discretion to make them responsible for things they don't want to be responsible for - AUPs make it unacceptable use to infringe on intellectual property rights as determined by law while not specifically making it unacceptable use to "pir@te warez". ISPs have further practices which are designed to manage the network in order to achieve a "fair usage" among customers and to improve the user experience, deliberate efforts to circumvent network management very often contravenes the AUP and moreover is against good practice as it is harmful to the various networks that make up the Internet. One general exception that I think causes a lot of questions is VPN usage because a VPN can be used to circumvent shaping; however if a home product explicitly excludes VPN usage then customers have a choice.

I very strongly take the view that unless conduct is in proper contravention of the AUP and causes harm to the network it cannot be called abuse. The very essence of an uncapped product is that there is no cap which exceeding would constitute abuse. A product which has a threshold at which some form of network management kicks in should either not be marketed as uncapped or should explicitly state what the cap is - a good option is to call such a product a soft capped product (this term can also be used to refer to the basic bundle on a metered product where a per gig charge is imposed above the "soft cap", as well as to caps imposed by users on a metered product -- the OOBShark is a problem because MNOs do not allow users to "soft cap" their data offering). Any person who claims that users are "abusing" their paid for internet product on the basis of the amount of data they transfer should be put on trial for gross stupidity, similarly while flagrant disregard for intellectual property rights may result in abuse - the machine that uploads an unreleased copy of a movie that was stolen from the studio is likely to cause as ISP to receive and abuse complaint from the indisputable owner of the property, and hosting a web site of an index of torrents with the explicit declaration of encouraging persons to "pirate" - as a rule the enforcement of IP is not an ISPs job (afterall they are not IPSPs or IPPs [Intellectual Property Police]). Transmitting child pornography is pretty universally abuse as is sending spam and malicious software of whatever shape or form. Downloading more than some arbitrary "fair" amount over X period of time simply cannot do any harm to the network especially if the network is properly managed. The Internet is all about innovation and finding a use beyond existing implementations of available resources: Households should be seeing the amount of data consumed growing all the time, it is only an insatiable demand that drives the innovation which is the lifeblood of the ICT economy. MWeb is taking a hundred steps backwards. Interestingly there were people who claimed that the uncapped offerings by MWeb were unsustainable and would kill small ISPs only to see MWeb kill off uncapped once the market place had fewer players but that clearly hasn't happened. The introduction of proper and well placed uncapped in SA was a brave move that depended on a forward vision and banking on the reduction of costs following SEACOM landing etc ... The reality now is that it is perfectly viable for an ISP with a proper customer mix (which MWeb really has) to offer uncapped consumer products at R200 per Mb/s over and above line rental even if no further cost reductions are built into the equation and there are wholesale reductions on their way because of the Telkom Comp Comm settlement. 2 years ago there was a lot of pressure for smaller ISPs when dealing with customer mix and I remember Afrihost at one stage migrated some heavy use customers to an IS uncapped system and if MWeb is experiencing a problem of scale where they cannot expand their capacity in a small increment and are seeing an increase in demand by outsourcing part of the problem even if those customers are a dead loss MWeb retains high revenue customers rather than what they are now accomplishing. More importantly the environment has changed over the last two years with IPConnect costs going down, WACs etc ... coming online and a heck of a lot of higher usage customers actually reducing their monthly haul whilst lower usage customers are increasing their haul (the 5% use 95% proposition is shifting continuously). MWeb's network should have a lot more capacity now than 3 years ago and looking at the ADSL figures from Telkom the growth in ADSL users is not enough to explain a clear decline in quality over recent months on MWeb so either MWeb is: (a) not managing their network properly - not being prepared to pay for quality network administrators and software; (b) not increasing their network capacity at all and absorbing the savings as profits; (c) dependent on exchange congestion for their network not to reach its capacity - essentially as Telkom builds capacity in the last mile MWeb's capacity constraint becomes clearer; (d) MWeb's is wanting surplus backhaul capacity for alternate last mile plans (WiMax, LTE, "NakedDSL") and may actually reduce their IPConnect capacity; (e) a combination of the above. My suspicion is that (a) strongly applies, (b) applies; (c) weakly applies but it is (d) mostly - the improvements of Telkom's DSL structures and the particular threat to Naspers posed by the MSANs with VDSL provisioning means that Naspers is going to want to focus on non-Telkom final delivery and that they have been looking for a long time to ways to move in that direction.



-- Part 1 of 2

 

[Paul Hjul]

This is all about Naspers rather than a small ISP with teething problems - it seems sight of that fact gets lost - Vodacom, Telkom, MTN, Napers, IS are frankly in a different league on the basis of a combination of cash, infrastructure, client base and so on (CellC, Neotel, Infraco, Sentech in the next rung). MWeb uncapped in a commodity internet product which our monopoly cable operator (to use the US term) Naspers in part uses to leverage their cash cow DSTV. It has been in Naspers interests for several years to drive broadband internet uptake in South Africa in order to leverage their monopoly in content (DSTV on demand, box office etc ...) and as a stick with which to give Telkom a hard time. I have been speculating for months that several acquisitions moves by the league of core players (particularly on guys in the next rung) is in part driven to fend off against a rise of Naspers to fighting weight as a "teleco". It seems that Naspers vision of becoming a big player in the converged arena is not gaining the traction it would like and if eTV and her sibling companies can pull off a much needed second phase in shaking up the satellite arena Naspers monopoly profits are under a serious threat - regardless of ICASA. I also strongly suspect that whilst most ISPs in SA are able on the face of demands from whichever IP enforcement troll to simply ignore the matter whilst MWeb faces a possibility of making content rights negotiations more difficult for the other operating arms of Naspers. Don't be surprised if the guys responsible for acquiring content for Multichoice aren't bitching about "abusers" of the Internet to MWeb guys and ultimately pushing Naspers strategic management towards bringing MWeb "in line with Naspers strategic position". Even Naspers general strategy was to take on Telkom as a converged internet company after acquiring Neotel then MWeb would dominate that "strategic position" - put differently if MWeb was guaranteed to be a real LTE player things would be very different. Instead IIRC MWeb have actually pulled back on their WiMax moves for businesses. The net effect is that if you look at the 4 options (and combinations thereof) MWeb is sitting as a grossly inefficient ISP and the LLU draft regulations while a welcome development are not as favourable to the non-Telkom big players as the big players may have hoped for. So a person needs to return to the basic question "how does Naspers make money" if they can't be a "teleco"? The answer is by selling content primarily video content by way of DSTV. A couple of months ago they may have thought (and claimed) that torrents are not a threat to their business, that has changed. More importantly streaming services threaten their business and video streaming does not lend itself to being shaped.

To put it simply: It is now in Nasper's interests to embed in the public consciousness an idea that "downloading the Internet" rather than purchasing online content from a content resale channel is "abuse" because they are the content sales channel. It is in Nasper's interests to clamp down on people using Hulu or Unotelly because those products are competitors. MWeb doesn't want to "free the Internet" it wants to "free the web" (HTML) so that the web can complement a very much unfree content sales channel. If they resort to telling lies and spreading FUD then it is the duty of the Internet community to bring some wrath. Fortunately this has already begun:

I don't know whether an MWeb boycott by Internet users is the best route to adopt in itself because Nasper's strategy is to get rid of people who actually use the Internet while getting consumers who aren't interested in the Internet to toe their little line. I am going to have a look at MWeb's AUP carefully as well as at ISPAs documents; if I spot a case to take up with ISPA - especially because I am not an MWeb customer - then that is a route. The ASA may also be an option especially if we are able to find a particular ... I will certainly take the matter up with the Portfolio Committee as part of their costs to communicate investigation when I next have dealings with the Committee and it is my view (and will be my submission) that Naspers should be put under scrutiny for what is a prima facie predatory move.
Let us hope Telkom decides to exact revenge and throws some money into a marketing campaign on this: "unlike some other companies so called uncapped products we don't charge a premium for limited usage - Real Unlimited Internet". ISPs can also after taking into account MWebs change in direction afford them the necessary warning and time periods terminate settlement free peering with MWeb- if Naspers wants to play the game of undermining the Internet then they cannot be surprised if their competitors retaliate, moreover if they are going to hurt Internet users nothing stops them from moving their sights to misbehaving with their competitors.
Tech journalists (such as the poor sods hired by MyBB) need to continue to write and ultimately expose abuse in the industry; I was greatly amused to see Telkom use as advertising material that their GSM network was voted as the best by MyBB.

At this point the best thing for MWeb to do is to get a very very senior person (the CEO for example) to actually take ownership of the problem rather than demonstrating MWeb to be worse than "old Telkom".

-- Part 2 of 2

 

[Grouter]

/snip...

I wish I'd said that!

Much to contemplate there, thanks Paul.

 

[nfbs]

MWeb appears to have issued a letter to customers using more than 100 gigs of data in a 30 day rolling period accusing said customers of overusing their uncapped product offering.

It's not 100Gb. Mweb doesn't want to state what this magic number is.Remove the top 3% subscribers and I might be next in line for the next round of letters. ADSL is a best effort service they can throttle if you are in the top x percent or if their network capacity comes under strain. If they were transparent about it then I would be fine about it.

MWeb telling all customer that some customers are naughty without us knowing what constitutes naughty is what is wrong IMO. Because of this I as a consumer can't compare their throttle CAP with other ADSL ISPs throttle cap

Mweb has
- a premium uncapped throttle at X GB service
- a basic uncapped throttle at Y GB service
And I am supposed to be happy that my X > Y but I may not know what X or Y is so I am stuck as cancellation requires a calendar month's notice

It's like saying you may drive a car for x km as far as you want but we will limit you to 10km an hour while travelling from Cape Town to Joburg if we feel you travel too far and we won't tell you when so you can't plan ahead for when it happens and you still have to pay us for 2 months when it does happen

 

[Fulcrum29]

Mweb is in denial. Yes, you can agree to comply with changes (T&C / Policies) without prior notice, but I’m very sure that all amendments dates and changes must be made available.

I also cannot see how they can this easily bypass their prior marketing/PR campaigns with these instilled but unknown thresholds, this must have been coming a while now.

This make their whole “Free the Web” campaign hypocritical, they are blatantly unethical, they can also not explain in truth to the consumer (their customers), but will hide behind a 3% 24/7 bandwidth user segment who are abusing their network without stating the Factual Parameters.

They also stated that other ISP’s do not make their threshold publically available, but it is available, why mislead people asking to be enlightened.

It is questionable why users must be locked within a 30-day cancellation period when they are being punished by the 30-day rolling window or when they want to leave on principle.

It is clear that Mweb do not have capacity or Naspers have other plans. Mweb is imprisoning the web, limiting Freedom.

Mweb have made users sign-up with insincere advertising, only to punish them, while expanding with our hard-earned monies.

It would be appreciated to have other ISP’s opinion on this matter, also a legal view and implications by Michalsons Attorneys.

 

[MagicDude4Eva]

Good post Paul. In my view ISPA will not achieve much (after all, it's an industry body of ISPs - so I always found that ISPA had more interest in protecting the ISPs then the customers of ISPs). I had dealings with ISPA before and do find the terms and the weak implementation of ECT worrying (something they seem to now rectify, but granted, the way the ECT is structured and the way ISPA's "rule book" is laid out, it clearly favours their members and not the consumers).

I think ASA and CPA are more tangible and would then affect not just Mweb but other ISPs when it comes to marketing the term Uncapped. As far as I can recall, Mweb is currently the only one having done this PR faux-pas where consumers are now questioning the positioning of their Uncapped product. While shaping and throttling is acceptable, Mweb did communicate to several users that their usage is abusive (not in terms of content violating an AUP but in terms of bandwidth consumed over a period of time). Abusive in itself is a harsh term when a company previously known for "freeing the Internet" all of a sudden places restrictions on usage and then still has the cheek of sending out communication to affected customers forcing them to sit through an unacceptable notice-period cycle.

I think ASA is straight forward. CPA would really in this case test the CPA - i.e. can a company change their terms dramatically and then still expect consumers to honour a notice period. I do think that ASA has more independence than CPA and can't think of any other industry body (ICASA?) that would be able to investigate this.

I guess Mweb also did not anticipate the backlash from customers and that in itself shows a level of arrogance (i.e. "All the customers we informed are guilty, and will not complain"). Since Mweb sent the email out before the long weekend (and school holidays) you can expect that more complaints will surface in the next few days (especially since the mail was sent to the Mweb address and not the billing address).

 

[reactor_sa]

...

At this point the best thing for MWeb to do is to get a very very senior person (the CEO for example) to actually take ownership of the problem rather than demonstrating MWeb to be worse than "old Telkom".

Very good post there Paul.
And isn't that something mweb worse than 'old Telkom'.... Which is where mweb was before they launched uncapped dsl.