Crystal Web (NEW ISP) ADSL Feedback

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Well this month, quietly and without many customers noticing, we increased the unshaped limits for some customers. We obviously didn't send out a press release and marketing statement to all customers, but we still did it, to see the impact to the network. Bottom line was that we may continue to do so on some sort of randomised draw basis as well. Maybe. But again, these are a few value adds we're throwing in behind the scenes for customers when we can, and when we're feeling particularly generous. :D

:eek:

I see...

* cues eye of the tiger *

Thanks :) :D
 
Ok here's my problem with how fusion works.

It's all great and all offering unshaped GBs at the start of the month, but I prefer a consistent experience. getting unshaped for a few days, then shaped, would just make me unhappy about being shaped, not happy that I got a few hundreds of unshaped. If I used less than the unshaped GBs amount, the account would be quite expensive for needs.

I'd much prefer a way of blending these unshaped GBs into the account so that I get a less shaped, but consistent experience throughout the whole month.

Or another way to improve it would be to not allow midnight downloads to use unshaped GBs(even if one has to pay more). Then offer bolt ons so that a person can get more unshaped(day time) GBs, that again don't get used after midnight.

DISCLAIMER:

I have no idea how shaped the account gets after the unshaped GBs are used, just my perspective.

I appreciate the feedback - honestly, I do. And some of what you've said is absolutely the direction we're moving as well. Let's do a quick value comparison: look at how our shaping works, and look at our big, red cousin. Very, very similar. Check the pricing - very similar on the low-end, and equal or cheaper on the high speed end. And we don't hit the shaping button for hundreds of gigs. So compare this on value for money and you see that if you want uncapped, there's no real question where you should be putting your money, in our humble and not so neutral opinion. :D

But also remember that this is only the first in our full suite of products.

I can confirm that capped will be here by the end of next month, as will our business accounts, designed specifically for businesses though, not consumers. We don't see the point in selling business accounts to consumers - if we're doing that, it means we've packaged things incorrectly on our side.

There will also soon be new consumer products released, as well as looking at adding value to the existing products as per your great suggestions.
 
I appreciate the feedback - honestly, I do. And some of what you've said is absolutely the direction we're moving as well. Let's do a quick value comparison: look at how our shaping works, and look at our big, red cousin. Very, very similar. Check the pricing - very similar on the low-end, and equal or cheaper on the high speed end. And we don't hit the shaping button for hundreds of gigs. So compare this on value for money and you see that if you want uncapped, there's no real question where you should be putting your money, in our humble and not so neutral opinion. :D

But also remember that this is only the first in our full suite of products.

I can confirm that capped will be here by the end of next month, as will our business accounts, designed specifically for businesses though, not consumers. We don't see the point in selling business accounts to consumers - if we're doing that, it means we've packaged things incorrectly on our side.

There will also soon be new consumer products released, as well as looking at adding value to the existing products as per your great suggestions.

As I said to Paul though, you guys need another account for power users. I hope there is such a product planned.
 
100 gigs on 4Mbps but all usage counts towards the traffic. We're looking at some cool things in this respect at the moment, to eliminate usage from midnight to 7am as well. But these standard uncapped packages offer incredible value. Awesome shaping policy that leaves gaming, streaming, VPN etc untouched, and moves large downloads to after midnight.

And on top of that, we give you unshaped data for free, for at least 100 gigs.

I see. Well seeing that my monthly data usage is usually under 200 gigs I think I'll just go with a capped option and suck it up with topups every few months if I need more.
 
As I said to Paul though, you guys need another account for power users. I hope there is such a product planned.

What is a power user though? The market has instilled this doctrine of "business vs home" and "power vs normal" that we're not entirely comfortable with. And when you boil it down, it's not simple semantics.

If a power user is defined by overall usage alone, then we have a problematic definition, as a user downloading 200 gigs in peak costs us far more (because peak capacity must increase) than a user downloading 200 gigs in off peak (because no additional capacity is required).

So rather than try to pigeon-hole customers into two categories, we believe there may be better, and more affordable solutions to be had here. This is all about cost vs compromise. Internet users the world over compromise, if not on shaping, then on contention. So the concept of compromise is deeply ingrained, and not unique. The real art-form that we have discovered, is trying to create optimal products at the right price-points that require the least possible compromise per customer, rather than flouting and marketing a product for "less usage" and "more usage". :)
 
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I see. Well seeing that my monthly data usage is usually under 200 gigs I think I'll just go with a capped option and suck it up with topups every few months if I need more.

You'd probably love our uncapped to be honest. Here's the thing, it's month to month, so if you're not happy you can simple move to capped next month when it's released, or move to another ISP's capped options if need be as well. If for half of the month you can compromise on large downloads moving to our non-peak hours (everything else works - streaming, gaming etc) then you'll be a pretty damn happy customer. If not, then go hop on live chat quick and let's see if we can get you on as our first early-bird capped customer.

I'll extend this offer to the first 5 people who hop on live chat tonight to request it.
 
What is a power user though? The market has instilled this doctrine of "business vs home" and "power vs normal" that we're not entirely comfortable with. And when you boil it down, it's not simple semantics.

If a power user is defined by overall usage alone, then we have a problematic definition, as a user downloading 200 gigs in peak costs us far more (because peak capacity must increase) than a user downloading 200 gigs in off peak (because no additional capacity is required).

So rather than try to pigeon-hole customers into two categories, we believe there may be better, and more affordable solutions to be had here. This is all about cost vs compromise. Internet users the world over compromise, if not on shaping, then on contention. So the concept of compromise is deeply ingrained, and not unique. The real art-form that we have discovered, is trying to create optimal products at the right price-points that require the least possible compromise per customer, rather than flouting and marketing a product for "less usage" and "more usage". :)

I totally agree with you.

As with the person just above me though, if they want 200 unshaped GBs, than the 100GBs included is insuffiecient, then he has to rather go to a capped solution as you don't have a product for his needs.

You bring up very good points though and I think you need to look to Web Africa's capped model for inspiration.

Allow the person to have a slider on the website that automatically adds and removes unshaped peak GBs with pricing that fluctuates accordingly.

This is assuming you get it right so that off peak GBs don't count towards the unshaped GBs.

In essence than this would be a hybrid account, so that if the user needed more GBs for a month, they'd just have to live with some shaping.
 
A user can already increase their unshaped allocation with us on uncapped and we massively discount this as well @ R2 per gig.

So once you're a customer, we extend some pretty awesome benefits. ;)
 
Account not working today, support say there was an error when I hit my unshaped limit, they give me a temp account to use. Temp account doesn't work either, get back to support and they tell me the temp account has the same issue as my original account :wtf: Then why give it to me in the first place? He tells me he has escalated it and will email me, one hour later and still Internetless :(
 
Hi CW, i still have not had an answer to my previous question as to when the accounts become "live"....I need to have a seamless switchover
 
Current chat system is super awkward to use and the black background with thin white text is difficult to read. Gonna have to work on that quite a bit


EDIT: It's also very small relative to the whole screen, it being a pop-out would be great
 
Account not working today, support say there was an error when I hit my unshaped limit, they give me a temp account to use. Temp account doesn't work either, get back to support and they tell me the temp account has the same issue as my original account :wtf: Then why give it to me in the first place? He tells me he has escalated it and will email me, one hour later and still Internetless :(

This hit top priority for me. Sorting out for you now.
 
Current chat system is super awkward to use and the black background with thin white text is difficult to read. Gonna have to work on that quite a bit


EDIT: It's also very small relative to the whole screen, it being a pop-out would be great

Agreed. Not on the pop-out bit though for now - will look at making it look a little better soon.
 
Why 2am? Are we on UTC or something? Why not midnight? Will I have 2 hours of zero internet at my busiest time?

There's one helluva process that the backend systems go through from 9pm tonight. In our second month we made the mistake of trying to activate in a certain manner that caused numerous authentication problems, and so we refined the system to process new applications over a longer duration. Existing account changes and resetting happens in a set time-frame, and then new accounts are provisioned correctly thereafter. It doesn't impact on existing accounts though - it won't disconnect you or cause any hassles at all - new accounts however are provisioned from 2am though.
 
This hit top priority for me. Sorting out for you now.
Anything yet? I understand you guys are having issues, but can I not at least get some sort of temporary account? I just want to renew my psn subscription before the price increase tomorrow
 
Anything yet? I understand you guys are having issues, but can I not at least get some sort of temporary account? I just want to renew my psn subscription before the price increase tomorrow

If you reboot now it should be sorted from what our team told me - I believe an email was sent out to you a few minutes ago. :)
 
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