Crystal Web (NEW ISP) ADSL Feedback

[Hectic]

If we block p2p other customers complain. We're saying, the choice is yours and being open about it, and letting you make the decision about how you use your account. If you want to use peer to peer during peak times, sure. But we can't offer you an unshaped experience on that basis. Once you stop the peer to peer and the system detects as such, it will release shaping thereafter if this usage was during peak hours.

The point here was to make a simple product that allows you to have a great experience - from our research, few people are interested in peer to peer during the day, but some are, so we've set the account up so that the choice is yours. You decide if you want to use it. Otherwise schedule your downloads for off-peak hours.

This look like a very fair entry account?

 

[Crystal Web]

Where did I say that, please?

Let me spell it out. IF NNTP IS A PROBLEM, SHAPE IT! IF TORRENTS IS A PROBLEM, SHAPE IT! There's NO reason to restrict an entire flippen account because of it. What happens when my Skype (which can use random ports), accidently decides to use port 119? Dropbox - another example... There's NUMERIOUS applications that uses random ports... VoIP (RTP)....

We recognise that traffic and classify it already. We've already discussed your specific usage case - this product is not right for your requirements. We have something more suitable though and you're on my list of testers for it.

Bottom line is this is an account designed for consumers because that's who the target market is on these accounts - Skype, Dropbox, HTTP downloads, streaming - they work, and as long as peer to peer and nntp are scheduled for after hours you won't find a better service on the market for these consumer orientated services. If traffic is incorrectly labelled, as with absolutely any ISP, we'd need to fix that. Nothing is unique about this one product in our range in that respect...

 

[copacetic]

Sounds good to me, honestly.

 

[IziWhatNow]

I was wondering, it seems like you use the term "peak periods" and office hours interchangeably? I though most of Co's traffic much actually be in the evenings, Netflix time?

 

[Aluroth]

Shaun I understand your point, that you cannot offer unshaped uncapped permenantly and different users have different needs. But atm the shaping is so bad it doesn't make p2p feasible. As soon as p2p is detected it shapes everything to < 50KBps, from 10mbps. Imho that is unusable internet.

 

[Crystal Web]

I was wondering, it seems like you use the term "peak periods" and office hours interchangeably? I though most of Co's traffic much actually be in the evenings, Netflix time?

There's no such thing as office hours any longer. Netflix time pushes as much data and often more than business use. The entire dynamic of this market has changed in that respect. Netflix time is a peak time of usage, and the same rules regarding peer to peer apply here as well. We're still finalising the hours on our end, but as a rule of thumb it really is best to get the most out of your connection to schedule large downloads from midnight. Where we're trying to differentiate ourselves from other ISP accounts is by ensuring that the internet is still very much usable during peak load times though. So your perceived experience as an end user is exceptional - just don't torrent and peer to peer in peak times - the option is there to do so, so that if you have an emergency torrent that has to come down and you can't wait a few hours to start the download, you can set it to go, but it will slow other services down, starting with other services that consume large amounts of bandwidth.

If you want it another way, we can look at it, but it changes costs, and it will change the way we price the product to the end user.

 

[Crystal Web]

Shaun I understand your point, that you cannot offer unshaped uncapped permenantly and different users have different needs. But atm the shaping is so bad it doesn't make p2p feasible. As soon as p2p is detected it shapes everything to < 50KBps, from 10mbps. Imho that is unusable internet.

It shapes other protocols that use large amounts of bandwidth, yes. The solution is to schedule your peer to peer stuff. If that's not possible in your environment, then we're soon to release other products more suitable for this purpose.

 

[slasherjdc]

We recognise that traffic and classify it already. We've already discussed your specific usage case - this product is not right for your requirements. We have something more suitable though and you're on my list of testers for it.

Bottom line is this is an account designed for consumers because that's who the target market is on these accounts - Skype, Dropbox, HTTP downloads, streaming - they work, and as long as peer to peer and nntp are scheduled for after hours you won't find a better service on the market for these consumer orientated services. If traffic is incorrectly labelled, as with absolutely any ISP, we'd need to fix that. Nothing is unique about this one product in our range in that respect...

Ok so can i get this straight. You don't block p2p, but if you use any of it you get throttled to <100kbs....yes throttled. having streaming,http,p2p all shaped is called throttling.

also your throwing around "peak hours" alto which you said can be 7pm........i'm sorry but this isn''t going to work. your basically not blocking p2p because you don't want people to complain it's blocked.....BUT at the same time saying anyone that uses it gets throttled.......

Not all of us have this absolute control over that can completely stop people doing any p2p....you cannot introducing such a harsh shaping policy without giving everyone a way to avoid it. because personally i don't. My roommate uses p2p through their phone I have no way to block that from doing abit of p2p during "peak" hours occasionally(few hundred mbs once in awhile at worst a gb)
and we can't limit it as you said peak hours change all the time....not that limiting it will help anyways as the p2p will still be there just slower.

It shapes other protocols that use large amounts of bandwidth, yes. The solution is to schedule your peer to peer stuff. If that's not possible in your environment, then we're soon to release other products more suitable for this purpose.

So we have to pay more to block p2p? great.

you need to give as an ETA on how long well be keeping these unshaped account because if it's till the end of this month or till the 6th of next month and we get stuck the whole month on these shaped account with the only way out to upgrade, Id rather cancel now.

 

[saa044]

Rather just allow torrents on x ports (we do it on the wug) and nntp on port 119 and some other random ssl port and sorted. Any HTTP download over 2GB a day get's throttled down to 50KB/s for the remainder of the day.

 

[saa044]

I find it similar to "Puppy Love". Many years ago ( not giving away my age ), you get a hot chick, most of the time you are sitting there chewing her face off.

This is how the internet was initially... Wow! A 2Mbs line! This poor connection is kept busy 24/7 downloading everything including "The Brady Bunch", just because it's there!, not that it ever will be watched!.

Nowadays (Okay about 3% is genuine work, but have convinced the SO that it's close to 30%), if we want to watch a series, or a movie, simply select it, no need to download. We have the largest Virtual Video Shop at our doorstep, FREE OF CHARGE! (Linux Distros are free ) The children, (okay the youngest is 20) all know that it's available! It does not need to be on your computer unless you need it. One gets used to having this speed and takes it for granted.

I could not imagine, copying & re-copying my server hard-drive simply to ensure that my 1GB home network is 100% utilised at all times simply to "get my monies worth" from the switch.... Why should the internet be different? No need to use it apart from checking my emails, but when I need it for a flick or two, it's there!

Ccproxy and activate cache. I suppose your household does not watch x episode or movie over and over like my 10 year old girl, but I find it works NICE.

 

[Necuno]

Rather just allow torrents on x ports (we do it on the wug) and nntp on port 119 and some other random ssl port and sorted. Any HTTP download over 2GB a day get's throttled down to 50KB/s for the remainder of the day.

Steam is going to be a joll in your scenario, god forbid I need something out of my MSDN library, IOs developer update, < insert >.

 

[saa044]

Ok so can i get this straight. You don't block p2p, but if you use any of it you get throttled to <100kbs....yes throttled. having streaming,http,p2p all shaped is called throttling.

also your throwing around "peak hours" alto which you said can be 7pm........i'm sorry but this isn''t going to work. your basically not blocking p2p because you don't want people to complain it's blocked.....BUT at the same time saying anyone that uses it gets throttled.......

Not all of us have this absolute control over that can completely stop people doing any p2p....you cannot introducing such a harsh shaping policy without giving everyone a way to avoid it. because personally i don't. My roommate uses p2p through their phone I have no way to block that from doing abit of p2p during "peak" hours occasionally(few hundred mbs once in awhile at worst a gb)
and we can't limit it as you said peak hours change all the time....not that limiting it will help anyways as the p2p will still be there just slower.

So we have to pay more to block p2p? great.

you need to give as an ETA on how long well be keeping these unshaped account because if it's till the end of this month or till the 6th of next month and we get stuck the whole month on these shaped account with the only way out to upgrade, Id rather cancel now.

I'm all for this new account, as long as I don't get a Facebook msg from the wife complaining about netflix buffers. That is my main reason for the net. But now thinking about it, the Xbmc streams, I wonder what ports they use, it also get's used a lot in our household and I wouldn't want to upgrade to a downloaders account just to stream, will be awful.

 

[saa044]

Steam is going to be a joll in your scenario, god forbid I need something out of my MSDN library, IOs developer update, < insert >.

Nope, I said torrents. Legal services will be white listed. Yes I know you get legal torrents also, but those have HTTP alternatives. Steam also mostly use port 80. I only found one Jhb server that ran over torrent ports, think it was mweb or telkom one, rest on port 80.

 

[Paul Hjul]

Ok so can i get this straight. You don't block p2p, but if you use any of it you get throttled to <100kbs....yes throttled. having streaming,http,p2p all shaped is called throttling.

Not sure what you mean by throttling but if you understanding is to restrain traffic by account or line capacity then definitely not.
Your terminology is neither standard (technical or industry) nor making much sense to be honest.

also your throwing around "peak hours" alto which you said can be 7pm........i'm sorry but this isn''t going to work. your basically not blocking p2p because you don't want people to complain it's blocked.....BUT at the same time saying anyone that uses it gets throttled.......

Again you seem to have a misconstruction of what shaping entails and what the objective and intent of throttling techniques are. Our data indicates that this is exactly what customers want and we have plenty of data to show why other approaches (blocking p2p traffic entirely on consumer accounts, or having an unshaped pool that has similar contentions to shaped pools) are not working for consumer accounts.

Not all of us have this absolute control over that can completely stop people doing any p2p....you cannot introducing such a harsh shaping policy without giving everyone a way to avoid it. because personally i don't. My roommate uses p2p through their phone I have no way to block that from doing abit of p2p during "peak" hours occasionally(few hundred mbs once in awhile at worst a gb)
and we can't limit it as you said peak hours change all the time....not that limiting it will help anyways as the p2p will still be there just slower.
So we have to pay more to block p2p? great.

If you connection is performing poorly and you are using p2p the answer is to pause your p2p and schedule it to an offpeak point IF you are on the standard entry consumer product - if you are on a different product different rules. Currently corporate clients in this market "pay more to block p2p" because there are huge benefits for them in doing so.

It really seems as though you have been burnt by somebody and are paranoid that an ISP will go out of its way to hurt you. The best guarantee for quality from ISPs is a market of quality ISPs with month to month options and an array of consumer choice (which is why we are not discussing the entirety of a product range here but rather the standard entry product). What really is confusing me is that this shaping policy is as relaxed as the one we entered the market with (it differs in that the scope of traffic "unshapedness" off-peak is higher and the intrusiveness of the shaping during the day matches "dynamic shaping" techniques).
More importantly this entire discussion is largely premised on conjecture and we'd really like to be able to engage on options and approaches with our customers without having to ward off conspiracy theory type thinking.

 

[Necuno]

I'm all for this new account, as long as I don't get a Facebook msg from the wife complaining about netflix buffers. That is my main reason for the net. But now thinking about it, the Xbmc streams, I wonder what ports they use, it also get's used a lot in our household and I wouldn't want to upgrade to a downloaders account just to stream, will be awful.

Perhaps you just need an account for streaming. Imho streaming ****loads all day while rest us must suffer is also not too kosher.

 

[Paul Hjul]

Rather just allow torrents on x ports (we do it on the wug) and nntp on port 119 and some other random ssl port and sorted. Any HTTP download over 2GB a day get's throttled down to 50KB/s for the remainder of the day.

If you could send me some documentation pertaining to the WUGs implementation we would be most obliging

 

[Necuno]

If you connection is performing poorly and you are using p2p the answer is to pause your p2p and schedule it to an offpeak point IF you are on the standard entry consumer product - if you are on a different product different rules.

Good luck on just doing off peaks for:
Wolfenstein TNO: 55g
The secret world: 50g
Star Citizen: 40g

But the streamers must stream! 24.7! 1080p

:edit

I feel a sig coming on: The streams must flow! 24.7! 1080p

 

[saa044]

Perhaps you just need an account for streaming. Imho streaming ****loads all day while rest us must suffer is also not too kosher.

Well... I suppose I use just as much data as the average downloader, but again i am on roughly 92GB for the month. We stream a LOT. A series on a streaming site is roughly also 70MB in size, so not the 170MB plus on NNTP / Torrents. So I would say yeah, I can stream a lot and not feel guilty for the other's torrents that are slow.

 

[Necuno]

Well... I suppose I use just as much data as the average downloader, but again i am on roughly 92GB for the month. We stream a LOT. A series on a streaming site is roughly also 70MB in size, so not the 170MB plus on NNTP / Torrents. So I would say yeah, I can stream a lot and not feel guilty for the other's torrents that are slow.

The streams must flow! 24.7! 1080p!

 

[saa044]

If you could send me some documentation pertaining to the WUGs implementation we would be most obliging

I must get in contact with my friend that set that up, will get back to you tomorrow. The wug has a bit of config and code of every user on it hehe.