data usage policy on RAIN

phly said:
Had even thought of the infamous car analogy. Just because a car can do 400 max does not mean you must drive at 400 all day everyday as that - seemingly cool it may be/feel - endangers the lives of everyone around. So basically that excessive enjoyment theoretically shortens the life span and longevity of those around.
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That's why there's a law governing that ... or a FUP if you wish. Car analogies are seldom good ones :)
 
eg2505 said:
1TB FUP?

this is new, but even if I went nuts torrenting like a mad person and streaming half the net, I only managed to hit 400-500 GB,

so maybe its quite difficult in normal usage to hit that kind of figure? maybe that's what the warning is referring to?

OP, keep going, what happens next? shaping/throttling to 56K or something funny?
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If 150GB is reasonable for one person then for a household with 3 or more people 500GB could well be reasonable usage. That's why FUP should not be left to the users to debate endlessly. The network should state the data cap on their "uncapped" contract. No need to be coy about stating the exact figures, unless this was some sort of ambush marketing to begin with.
 
Azg said:
If 150GB is reasonable for one person then for a household with 3 or more people 500GB could well be reasonable usage. That's why FUP should not be left to the users to debate endlessly. The network should state the data cap on their "uncapped" contract. No need to be coy about stating the exact figures, unless this was some sort of ambush marketing to begin with.
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It's hard to say what's reasonable or not. My issue is more towards the fact that it's not unreasonable for a casual user to in one month download 10 copies of Red Dead Redemption. What should rather be looked at is whether someone has a negative impact on the network whether they use 1TB or 1GB. It shouldn't rest on a strict limit that's enforced without taking into account someone's normal usage and whether there's spare capacity in the area.
 
Azg said:
If 150GB is reasonable for one person then for a household with 3 or more people 500GB could well be reasonable usage. That's why FUP should not be left to the users to debate endlessly. The network should state the data cap on their "uncapped" contract. No need to be coy about stating the exact figures, unless this was some sort of ambush marketing to begin with.
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But the SIM wasn't really intended for your household, but for a single mobile. You should have gotten 3 SIMs. The way I understand the issue.

Granted they didn't make this too explicit, but perhaps they (naively) didn't forsee some users totally owning the connection and making as much use of it as they possibly can.
 
Swa said:
Have you done the math? 1TB would be 0.40Mbps average during a month. That means even at its worst a single tower can handle 370 users each doing 1TB or 370TB in a month. Most areas have more than one tower. Them letting Vodacom use their spectrum in some shady deal isn't my problem. Now I'm not debating if it's right or wrong to use so much but if it's claimed to be uncapped then it should be uncapped. If you want it to have an FUP then apply a cap. But that's actually a disadvantage because the moment you advertise a number people see it as a target to achieve. So people who do 100GB on streaming, Steam and the occasional download will now try to use their whole allocation of 1TB or see it as not getting their full money's worth.

Now I do think our networks should get with the times. 1TB is hardly an achievement any more. And where does it say what type of usage is permitted and what isn't? Rain is making it purely by how much you use and not how you use it. I don't have a problem with that if it's stated upfront but even then the purpose of an FUP is to enforce fair usage and not strict limits. Therefor the uncapped mobile offerings that used to exist would take into account how much you use over a period. So even if you did use 2GB this month on an update it's not an issue if your normal usage is like 500MB. It's only in SA that FUPs are seen as fixed cap targets to enforce. This needs to change.
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You do make some interesting points and I somewhat agree but let's be honest here that that 1tb usage probably was not done at 0.4Mbps over a period of time. It was done in burst. Let's take downloading RDR2 on xbox or Ps4 for example. 1tb would mean downloading the game 10 times. Sounds like nothing but when you add at what speeds are being downloaded it changes the situation. 3 or 4 days that tower was crawling due to the large download. Other users were probably struggling watch even 1080p netflix during that time.

I did some tests on Telkom. I pretty much have a telkom tower to myself in Wierdapark. Surrounded by adsl and fibre most people are on those offerings. I rarely get lower than 80Mbps download speed and being like 150m from the tower I have very good speeds. So I did a test after midnight with 1x uncapped contract sim in a B618 on 4G+. 1 x b315 on band 40 with 450GB night surfer and 1 x b315 with a 2GB telkom only mo nice bundle.

On the 450gb sim and the uncapped b618 I fired up some torrents and direct downloads in download managers maxing out at 70Mbps and 32Mbps respectively. Once I stop one the other one was going faster so I know I was absolutely maxing the tower.

On the 2GB mo nice sim in the B315 I forced band 3 and just tried to play games. It wasn't possible as the latency was varying. A speedtest was showing 20Mbps down and 20Mbps upload but it struggled to get to 20 and I noticed the other 2 slowing down when doing the speedtest. The tower does it best to try and share as much bandwidth as possible but it wasn't doing a good job and I could not play online at all. Once I stopped the downloads the latency returned to normal.

I was just playing around and seeing what affect massive downloads have and I totally get what the networks are bitching about. A handful of users on a tower downloading non stop or big amounts of data on a tower with let's say 60 people really affects other users. What would be really interesting is to see how many users per tower and how the tower manages to share the data evenly.

Next time people complain about 3Mbps speeds just think about it. Some people are hitting their connection hard and that is why you are slow. Even 6 people watching 4k Netflix will totally kill the tower so you might not even abuse the service at all it's just that the tower bandwidth is just so limited it can't serve everyone. 4k Netflix IMO should not even be allowed on Mobile networks and there is a reason why Telkom limits Lit video bundles to 360p.
 
newby_investor said:
But the SIM wasn't really intended for your household, but for a single mobile. You should have gotten 3 SIMs. The way I understand the issue.

Granted they didn't make this too explicit, but perhaps they (naively) didn't forsee some users totally owning the connection and making as much use of it as they possibly can.
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If we are discussing the Rain LTE, then it's not really meant for a single mobile. Rather a single fixed router, to provide WiFi to multiple users in your home. I am not trying to defend any usage level as reasonable.
 
newby_investor said:
But the SIM wasn't really intended for your household, but for a single mobile. You should have gotten 3 SIMs. The way I understand the issue.

Granted they didn't make this too explicit, but perhaps they (naively) didn't forsee some users totally owning the connection and making as much use of it as they possibly can.
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I still don't see what the intended usage is. They sell both LTE routers and phones for this so it can be both for on the go and for fixed mobile. If any specific usage is excluded then it should be stated in their FUP like Telkom did and throttle it.

cavedog said:
You do make some interesting points and I somewhat agree but let's be honest here that that 1tb usage probably was not done at 0.4Mbps over a period of time. It was done in burst. Let's take downloading RDR2 on xbox or Ps4 for example. 1tb would mean downloading the game 10 times. Sounds like nothing but when you add at what speeds are being downloaded it changes the situation. 3 or 4 days that tower was crawling due to the large download. Other users were probably struggling watch even 1080p netflix during that time.
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That is the nature of the internet though. Just because you have a permanent connection doesn't mean you will use it all the time. Whether someone does a 100GB download or a 1GB windows update it will affect other users during that time. It's reasonable to assume that will be the case most of the time so average usage will even out. It's the same with adsl on a 4Mbps backbone. Networks should anticipate this and it's not like it's guaranteed for a specific purpose like unshaped gaming.
 
backstreetboy said:
Both are mobile devices unless you keep your mifi plugged into a wall socket.
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Can be used for either mobile on the go or fixed providing connection to multiple devices instead.
 
Swa said:
Exactly. So it's hard to say what intended usage is when they cater for both.
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Straight from their t&c

rain’s product is designed for bona fide mobile use. The network is a shared resource, therefore, rain reserves the right to manage users who may be using the product for its unintended purposes as well as users who are impacting the performance of the network and other users of. Please refer to the terms and conditions for further information on our usage policy.
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Speedster said:
It says intended for mobile use pretty clearly
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And where is mobile use defined? Mobile use could mean practically anything with how technologies are overlapping. Besides for that they market it as fixed mobile as well by selling LTE modems/routers. Their iffy terms won't stand up against the CPA.
 
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