Crystal Web (NEW ISP) ADSL Feedback

[PostmanPot]

It's this kind of ***** that made OW finally pack up and leave the forums.

Tripe.

 

[StevenC]

Tripe.

Constant hammering? Yeah. That, and the fact that they are dishonest snakes who avoided the issues time and time again.

Really, I don't mind people taking the hardline with questions. It's the only way we get answers. But when you have this stupid roundabout of nitpicking small words, and blatant disregard for answers given (and then still ignoring it), then it becomes unpleasant.
Once they launch, and we have a full product line up in place, and IF it's not all sunshine and roses, then yeah, sure, have it out.
But going off about a beta product, having been told that the account he is on is not suited to his needs (multiple times) and that they are talking about ONE account (multiple times) in the "shaping plan" is just a bit tiresome. I can understand why people went crazy, we have been down this road before on the ISP gauntlet. I say, we wait and see what is on offer first, before we start making predictions.

 

[Looney]

CrystalWeb: I think it's time you guys hurried up and launch your products already. Things have become waaaaay to confusing for everyone. It's time you officially launch as an ISP and reveal your different offerings so that consumers can start choosing the right account for them. Until you guys do this, there is going to be backlash. Please do it soon, I beg you.

 

[Crystal Web]

I just spoke with the developer and it may be possible to alert users as to whether p2p is running on their account, and only send it if p2p is running - we can also build this into the customer portal. It won't be a live view as we'd overload the servers polling frequently for hundreds (hopefully thousands) of customers, but you can request a live view in the portal with the click of a button. We'll look at doing these checks every hour, with the option for you to check live from within the customer portal.

We'll also enable this for all customers, irrespective of the account you're running.

 

[slasherjdc]

Constant hammering? Yeah. That, and the fact that they are dishonest snakes who avoided the issues time and time again.

Really, I don't mind people taking the hardline with questions. It's the only way we get answers. But when you have this stupid roundabout of nitpicking small words, and blatant disregard for answers given (and then still ignoring it), then it becomes unpleasant.
Once they launch, and we have a full product line up in place, and IF it's not all sunshine and roses, then yeah, sure, have it out.
But going off about a beta product, having been told that the account he is on is not suited to his needs (multiple times) and that they are talking about ONE account (multiple times) in the "shaping plan" is just a bit tiresome. I can understand why people went crazy, we have been down this road before on the ISP gauntlet. I say, we wait and see what is on offer first, before we start making predictions.

They don't really want to answer my question anyway so ill just leave it.
but based on the 2 people who have gone off unshaped back on to their original shaped account...i'm seriously worried atm....you can call them exceptions if you want but they also happen to be the only ones who have been moved back so....I don't think i'm unjustified in worrying.

 

[Crystal Web]

They don't really want to answer my question anyway so ill just leave it.
but based on the 2 people who have gone off unshaped back on to their original shaped account...i'm seriously worried atm....you can call them exceptions if you want but they also happen to be the only ones who have been moved back so....I don't think i'm unjustified in worrying.

Which questions didn't we answer? We've replied to all of your posts as far as I can tell, as well as taking your feedback on board and going so far as to looking to introduce another product entirely, which you also appear to be unhappy with.

As for the two customers, one is not on the new accounts, and the other continued to use peer to peer on the account during peak usage, knowing full well the repercussions thereof after we spoke in private about it.

 

[slasherjdc]

Which questions didn't we answer? We've replied to all of your posts as far as I can tell, as well as taking your feedback on board and going so far as to looking to introduce another product entirely, which you also appear to be unhappy with.

As for the two customers, one is not on the new accounts, and the other continued to use peer to peer on the account during peak usage, knowing full well the repercussions thereof after we spoke in private about it.

Know im ok with the new product. the question i asked was why it is necessary to have p2p unblocked during peak hours at all on a entry level account. the reason you gave first was because some people would be upset......those people still cant use p2p and to top it off people who didnt care about p2p to begin with get impacted to.

in his case he may have used it continuously but he reported being unable to watch anything on youtube above 240p.....in multiple user situation we don't always know where the p2p is coming from, at best we can limit it but it will still be detected. when i signed up i was told you wouldn't shape streaming. you also convinced me to share my connection and upgrade, if you hadn't done so we wouldn't even be having this conversation.

i didn't know savage still refused the account....i have no idea what he was doing complaining about the shaping if he already moved to another isp....but it still stands that the only person moved back to shaped is not able to stream properly

 

[Crystal Web]

Know im ok with the new product. the question i asked was why it is necessary to have p2p unblocked during peak hours at all on a entry level account. the reason you gave first was because some people would be upset......those people still cant use p2p and to top it off people who didnt care about p2p to begin with get impacted to.

Oh, because some people aren't home during the day and fire off their p2p to run for completion when they return home, and therefore don't care that they're being shaped at the time because of it.

in his case he may have used it continuously but he reported being unable to watch anything on youtube above 240p.....in multiple user situation we don't always know where the p2p is coming from, at best we can limit it but it will still be detected. when i signed up i was told you wouldn't shape streaming. you also convinced me to share my connection and upgrade, if you hadn't done so we wouldn't even be having this conversation.

I will repeat it once more - this is just one product in a wider range. And we won't shape your streaming - just queue your p2p if you're on this account. If your room-mate urgently has to have his torrent fix during the day, then between the two of you, this account won't be right, and let's get you on something more appropriate then. Bottom line is if you want peer to peer, http downloads, streaming, gaming and so on during peak periods, a standard uncapped account is not the way forward.

Out of interest, what account would be ideally suited to you, seeing as we've pretty much given you an unshaped experience up until now since you joined, and you've been going through hundreds and hundreds of gigs (in the first month at least)? What account do you believe is right for your usage case, where it's shared, used during the day for torrents, and is very high usage on average? I'm genuinely looking for some feedback here from you on this one, and you're welcome to PM me with info if you'd like and to talk further?

 

[DJ...]

There comes a point where if every single decision we make as a business needs to be justified to you, we have to draw the line, and I'm doing that now.

I cannot do this any longer, going back and forth and trying to justify what is an incredibly complex costing and operational process. We have been incredibly open about this proposal so far, far sooner than expected once again, and explained that more products will be released in due course with appropriate notice, and that there are alternatives available in our range for pretty much all customers. I will also take on board your feedback. Thanks.

You will however leave me no choice but to withdraw the openness we have with this forum if we have to justify every business decision to you and send a thread onto a roundabout circle each time. No answer I offer you appears to be good enough, and your expectations appear to be that you'll remain unshaped, uncapped and unlimited on your current price, and you're upset that shaping is being introduced in general. If not, you're upset with the manner we propose doing so on one product because it doesn't suit you. If not, you're upset about price. If not, you're upset about the manner in which you assume we're going to market our products. Otherwise you're asking us to justify business decisions to you, and the questions become relentless, to the point that I'm up at 3:30am not working on our products and our launch, and instead going though every type of usage case or scenario debating the merits thereof and justifying the proprietary metrics used to price our products. This is no longer a productive spending of my time to be quite frank, and I feel nothing I say will now please you.

Here's where we stand: we have a great standard product that will offer you a mostly unshaped experience if you keep your downloads scheduled for off peak hours. Other options to come. Following feedback, we are going to look at a similar product that blocks peer to peer as well as offering better VPN support.

This product development can be informed by submitting an idea on our site. Future derails will not be entertained to the degree that they have been tonight...

 

[slasherjdc]

There comes a point where if every single decision we make as a business needs to be justified to you, we have to draw the line, and I'm doing that now.

I cannot do this any longer, going back and forth and trying to justify what is an incredibly complex costing and operational process. We have been incredibly open about this proposal so far, far sooner than expected once again, and explained that more products will be released in due course with appropriate notice, and that there are alternatives available in our range for pretty much all customers. I will also take on board your feedback. Thanks.

You will however leave me no choice but to withdraw the openness we have with this forum if we have to justify every business decision to you and send a thread onto a roundabout circle each time. No answer I offer you appears to be good enough, and your expectations appear to be that you'll remain unshaped, uncapped and unlimited on your current price, and you're upset that shaping is being introduced in general. If not, you're upset with the manner we propose doing so on one product because it doesn't suit you. If not, you're upset about price. If not, you're upset about the manner in which you assume we're going to market our products. Otherwise you're asking us to justify business decisions to you, and the questions become relentless, to the point that I'm up at 3:30am not working on our products and our launch, and instead going though every type of usage case or scenario debating the merits thereof and justifying the proprietary metrics used to price our products. This is no longer a productive spending of my time to be quite frank, and I feel nothing I say will now please you.

Here's where we stand: we have a great standard product that will offer you a mostly unshaped experience if you keep your downloads scheduled for off peak hours. Other options to come. Following feedback, we are going to look at a similar product that blocks peer to peer as well as offering better VPN support.

This product development can be informed by submitting an idea on our site. Future derails will not be entertained to the degree that they have been tonight...

Im sorry if i offended you as that was not my intention at all. I will refrain from contacting either you or paul again regarding this as obviously i seem to be misunderstanding something that everyone else seems to understand.

 

[Sinbad]

Wow @ parents going to suffer because their kids fire up utorrent... Suggest said parents grow a pair and control their kids...

And DJ please keep the openness. Don't let two whingers wreck it for the rest of us who are quite happy!

 

[saa044]

I will pay for a account that blocks p2p in business hours at my business. I am limited with Tp-link Routers and Planet modems, which none have Qos, and the comments are, as long as we can receive mail it's fine. (Looks at Graphics designer with a grin on his face)

 

[Necuno]

I omitted the comic sans ...

We will deal with this later :erm:

But in truth I am actually on your side of the issue - the streaming factor is a complication that really does surface especially if you look at the contention crunch that can happen (streamers more than downloaders contribute to the capacity constraints that are hitting sections of the network - certain exchanges) and one of the real benefits of NNTP, p2p and "downloaders" generally is that the considerate ones use the network when it is most available -- we haven't quite got to the point where streaming traffic picks up at 4am. The unfortunate reality though is that there is a market appeal dynamic at play here - people would buy the Model T Ford even if they thought it was butt ugly because it could be made cheap, to make it cheap they had to make it available to more people. I wouldn't call the streamers abusers, simply because I wouldn't call anybody not violating the law or causing actual harm to a network with the requisite intent, but it certainly is true that streaming is a more difficult usage case than scheduled downloaders. Gamers are a difficult case as well -- and don't get me started on Twitch (we thank Google for their acquisition of Twitch). While we may jest - particularly on the forum - trust me we take the challenges very very seriously. We will joke about the IPC price needing to come down rather than whine and bitch about Telkom, but underneath the joke is a very real knowledge that there is a serious problem with the underlying structures of the provisioning of DSL in SA: IPC needs to be reduced in price and Telkom needs to be able to generate sufficient revenue to allocate to the growing capacity needs, or somebody else needs to step up and join the party.

By getting p2p traffic (and the exact identification of p2p traffic is simplified) and NNTP and schedule-able downloads to be scheduled to off peak (and that is network off peak times) is a vital component of getting a network to work. Getting streamers on board allows for a situation where you have capacity well paid for that is only used at certain times (which can then be used by heavier use customers) and the reality is that in the main that section of the market uses their connection to a degree that makes it possible to invest in growing capacity across the board.

Trying to get the sort of usage mechanisms in place that allows the growth in on demand content to be matched by on scheduled content is one of the real challenges that remains with this industry and business - what we are really trying to accomplish is to perform the inverse of what has been the norm, where performance degrades as the network is unable to match usage patterns until the stage is reached where the network is hoping their more "demanding" customers leave the provider (and sometimes they accomplish this in rather direct means) and start insulting their users.

I'm sorry if I overreacted a bit, thank you for the great response.

 

[Necuno]

I'm sorry, but seriously I've raised this before with CW. Its rather a stupid idea tbh to have an account that seems only to cater for streaming 24.7 for that is the most important thing in the world: nothing matters, **** everything, **** everyone, the streams must flow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is not the only account we're releasing to the market.

It is just as bad and as abusing when someone streams lekker 24.7, full hdd and other things are limited just to accommodate them and **** the rest.

But this is not the only account we're going to have available. We've never said **** the rest, and never will. We're all discussing one single product in our range, before it's been released properly, that is effectively a standard entry level account, which is consumed by (these days) streamers, gamers, and after-hours downloaders in the vast majority.

If we were to release an account that allows streaming, gaming, downloading, VPN, peer to peer, and everything else at all times (to please absolutely everybody), it would have to be an uncapped, unshaped account (which is now on the cards after our trials [so far]). So as we've said time and time again, we're rather going to tailor the product range to specific usage requirements based on your feedback and the data we have available.

With my initial conversation with DJ... I told him exactly my expectancy, exactly my usages and he said they will be ok and I will be fine. However when I read what I read a few pages back it doesn't seem that way at all. I start to wonder and think and it ends up in the above of streams.

Crystal Web will not be selling a single account. Current users will always be looked after properly as well.

However with all that said:
I still want to give CW the benefit of the doubt and see what is for what when you guys finally launch, for I really want to see new people in the market and is honestly why I'm throwing my cash at you guys to see someone new in.

And we really appreciate the support, but it becomes incredibly disheartening when we engage (prematurely in this case but we're forced to) on a product that let's you effectively have an unshaped experience and simply asks you to be responsible (as users requested) by scheduling your downloads, which we believe is fair, and is in line with all of the data collected, and people assume that this is the only account that we'll release and it's somehow going to result in a terrible experience. My personal views on this matter are that customers said "give us unshaped" so we trialled it, and are in all likelihood going to launch it; customers said "we can be responsible, give us the chance" so we did, and are extending that responsibility to standard accounts as well and giving you the option to use p2p during the day if you need; customers also said give us great capped pricing, so we've put together some great products in this respect that we're finishing up; customers said "we need choice because I have unique requirements" so we're looking at putting this together based on demand; customers said "I have slow throughput" so we went above and beyond to fix this (granted, this is our responsibility as well); customers said "we want the best support" so we introduced what we believe to be the best 24hr support; customers said "we want, we want, we want" and we're trying to analyse these requests and determine which are viable and which aren't.

In your case, you use VPN services nearly all of the time - you have a very unique usage case, and you've largely been happy this month. So there are options here we're exploring specifically for you and other customers who require encrypted communication in large volumes.

The dynamic of this market though is shifting away from downloading the internet to streaming the internet. We have to cater for this. This is also why other ISPs have changed thigns up in their product base - where previously you could have 20 customers on the same bandwidth "after hours" you can now only have 5. But costs haven't reduced. This is why our argument has been that other ISPs were crazy to embark on price wars with each other and reduce the cost expectation without a reduction in input costs, only to subsequently degrade their own offerings once they'd reached their "critical mass" goals of the price war and attained dominant market positions.

There are no input cost reductions, but usage demand is increasing, and the times of usage demand are overlapping as well, making peak loads a real concern to ISPs as this peak load needs to be provisioned and paid for as well.

We tend to have a more tech-savvy (but high usage) customer base at the moment, who understand this to an extent, and in general appear to be willing to accept that they need to find the right product for their needs. In your case, the standard entry uncapped product is not suitable, and we'll talk in private at some point once we have our ducks in a row about getting you on to the right account for your specific and unique requirements. Because I made a commitment to you, and I believe in ethical business practices in this respect.

Now my account after we spoke has been a lot better and has improved in a lot of ways and I am truly thankful for that. Finally I don't need a backup account, having myself paying double each month just to get myself through and keep on supporting CW.

So of course it is not all hate, doom and gloom, but I can't help but think and feel from time to time WTF is going on and WTF are we going to.
This is the double-edged sword with being so open with you guys - it means that we end up having conversations about touchy subjects, to you as a consumer, and us as an ISP, and we need to remember to do so with level-heads (as you tend to do for the most part when you're not shouting at us ). Having a conversation means hearing all sides, and it's often a whole lot of conjecture thrown around that others read and start jumping to conclusions about.

We are releasing an entry-consumer product that let's you use the internet during the day, let's you use it at night, and let's you download peer to peer at line speed in off peak periods. It comes with some responsibilities though in order to offer such a product at the current price-points: don't peer to peer/nntp during peak periods if you want line speed on other protocols. If we left it as is (shaping or blocking peer to peer), usage patterns wouldn't change on the consumer side - people would still simply let their ISP dictate their usage patterns and there'd be less flexibility in offerings. We've never been shy about saying that this is a two-way street of responsibility from ours and a users' perspective.

We may in fact not be the ISP for every consumer out there, and we accept that as well. We have products that offer truly awesome value for money and performance. All we ask on the entry product is that for us to maintain current pricing, you need to accept that running large downloads in peak periods on peer to peer and nntp type protocols comes with an acceptance that other services at that point will be shaped. If you don't want shaping applied, schedule those downloads for off-peak, and we'll be open about when these times are. And also ensure that you're on the right account for your needs - we have the responsibility to advertise these accounts honestly, and customers have the responsibility to select appropriately for their requirements and in our opinion, not get upset when a standard uncapped account intended for consumer use is not offering line speed on all services at all times.

Thank you for your response, I really appreciate it.

 

[Necuno]

I will pay for a account that blocks p2p in business hours at my business. I am limited with Tp-link Routers and Planet modems, which none have Qos, and the comments are, as long as we can receive mail it's fine. (Looks at Graphics designer with a grin on his face)

I would say rather not, but have these options if possible:

1. P2P alert - statistics and usage. At least the alert part, but would be cool if you can see some statistics and usage on it.
2. Option to disable p2p - I'd personally rather have this in the CP a switch where you yourself can manage it.
3. "WTF am I at" - Hehe not sure what to call this, but I know we've already spoken about this. Something to tell me if I am in shaped, throttled, limited range and why.

But yeah, I don't have any decent QOS either and would like to have... not per IP level but per protocol. That would be awesome!

this might be an implementation / management nightmare, but what about options in your CP to manage this and perhaps with time frames?

 

[saa044]

I would say rather not, but have these options if possible:

1. P2P alert - statistics and usage. At least the alert part, but would be cool if you can see some statistics and usage on it.
2. Option to disable p2p - I'd personally rather have this in the CP a switch where you yourself can manage it.
3. "WTF am I at" - Hehe not sure what to call this, but I know we've already spoken about this. Something to tell me if I am in shaped, throttled, limited range and why.

But yeah, I don't have any decent QOS either and would like to have... not per IP level but per protocol. That would be awesome!

this might be an implementation / management nightmare, but what about options in your CP to manage this and perhaps with time frames?

Yeah at work I am just to lazy to worry about p2p stuff, but get irritated when the net becomes slow and I have to go pc to pc to find the culprit lol. But yes QOS is a necessary must in business unfortunately. Like your idea's regarding the CP.

EDIT:

I REALLY like the idea to have a p2p on/off switch in the CP. What can also work nice is a 24hr time table in the CP that show's network status, like the eskom thingy on tv.

 

[Paparazzi]

TBH I have been loving my account, my only issue/complaint is the "schedule the big downloads for after hours." AFAIK both Steam & Blizzard & other clients don't have the capability to schedule the download it just happens.

that's incorrect my friend. With Steam you can configure a download window, been there done that. With Battle.net client you can't yet, but you can limit your download rate

 

[Aluroth]

DJ if you can honestly say I need a business type account for the following, then I would gladly consider switching to a business account, but tbh I don't think the following justify a business account:

Do I need a business account for the occasional, work from home, vpn connection to work?
Do I need a business account for an 70mb update on a game?

 

[saa044]

DJ if you can honestly say I need a business type account for the following, then I would gladly consider switching to a business account, but tbh I don't think the following justify a business account:

Do I need a business account for the occasional, work from home, vpn connection to work?
Do I need a business account for an 70mb update on a game?

I think he did mention a similar priced account in the making that will address your concerns there.

 

[SIlvRav]

Ok, I need to add my 2cents now.

So far I have been happy with CW and wish to add the following

1. Thank you for an unshaped uncapped prodcut, until recently. Please let me know when and waht pricing an uncapped unshaped account will be availible again as I do a lot of P2P between my various sites and therefore require this.

2. What is your shaping times as last night between the times of 12h00 and 05h00 my everage DL was only 100kbs where it use to hit 450,-550kbs easily.

3. Although your communication schedule are great, be a more open in the content of the communcation. The new accounts you send us for the test for unshaped/uncapped was limited to a certain capacity....something you did not make us aware of your in communcation....that and you also did not mention outright that once you back on your old account shaping will now be in full swing.

Overall I am sticking it out with CW as they have been open and honest then other ISP"s but please let me know when the new pacakges will be availible as I can not sit with only 100kbs during offpeak hours.