Definition of Uncapped?

[access]

The "bending" of this term is getting ridiculous.

Uncapped ADSL refers to an ADSL account that has no limit to the amount of data that can be downloaded for that line speed.

The ISP's answer for this? AUP!! aupaupaupaupaup.

NO. I'm sorry uncapped exempts the account from any limit what so ever. Simply because its advertised like this and thats what the consumer purchased.

This business where the ISP shouts AUP if the user downloads say, 20GB, and then gets "throttled" is not uncapped. THE USER REACHES LIMIT/CAP/THRESHOLD THEN GETS THROTTLED TO AN UNUSABLE ACCOUNT. How is this uncapped??

After spending 4 years in the UK, working for a pioneering company in DSL, I can confidently say I know the proper definitions of the terms South African ISP's are currently "bending" to suit their pocket. Specially after going through the ups and down generated by complaints to Ofcom (The independent regulator and competition authority for the UK communications industries) by the general consumers in the UK.

ISP's MUST stop this false advertising and advertise packages that they can support on their network. I know of people that are currently taking this up with the Advertising Standards Authority of South Africa.

I ask anyone with a few bucks in their back pocket and some time on their hands to take this up with the authorities. The more people take this up the better.



PS. Shaping is usually traffic throughput controlled by the port it uses over the net, these days MWEB are limiting traffic to a list of IP address as well (not mentined anywhere when you buy your "uncapped" service).

Where is this going to stop? There needs to be a set standard that all ISP's adhear to and an authority watching over them. We as the consumer need to make sure they are falling within the lines. As South Africans our recently revised consumer laws are one of the most protective consumer laws favouring the consumer in the world. Unfortunatly we have a "oh what can we do about it anyway" type of attitude. We just need to make use of our consumer complaints fascilities.

RAGE!!

 

[Chevron]

That's why Openweb GOLD exists. Move there.

 

[who.is.michael]

...it is only the MWEB's and the IS' that have those restrictions (stay away from those that advertise the service) - do a search on some of the smaller ISP's, far better value for your money and excellent throughput, with no AUP's.

And once you have found it - keep it off the forum.

 

[access]

Thanks I will have a look for them and start recommending them to my clients.

But this is exactly my point, instead of taking this up with the correct people, we dont do anything and ISP's get away with it. Give them a finger and they take the hand, give them a hand and they take the arm.. It will get worse if everyone does not start complaining to the right people. I have seen this happen, and things take a bit longer to filter down to South Africa.

 

[Chevron]

Thanks I will have a look for them and start recommending them to my clients.

But this is exactly my point, instead of taking this up with the correct people, we dont do anything and ISP's get away with it. Give them a finger and they take the hand, give them a hand and they take the arm.. It will get worse if everyone does not start complaining to the right people. I have seen this happen, and things take a bit longer to filter down to South Africa.

The thing is most people dont use 100gigs. The cheap packages are catered toward the majority and just so people dont have to worry about caps. MWEB stuffed up by not offering a power user package for those that want to download the internet. It goes from R539 to R1999 seriously fscked up.

 

[Alestorm]

...it is only the MWEB's and the IS' that have those restrictions (stay away from those that advertise the service) - do a search on some of the smaller ISP's, far better value for your money and excellent throughput, with no AUP's.

Interesting, but how do they make money or not run at a loss if they're a small ISP offering uncapped with no limitations? I can only imagine that they end up with a small pool of heavy users paying for cheap uncapped.. which simply won't work.

 

[Necuno]

That's why Openweb GOLD exists. Move there.

give it time. with enough hardcore users they might also be forced to implement some form of something.

 

[SabreWolfy]

That's why Openweb GOLD exists. Move there.

OpenWeb Terms of Use:

4.3 Without prejudice to the aforegoing, OpenISP CC considers that any application that overloads the OpenISP Network by whatever means will be considered as making profligate use of the OpenISP Network and is as such NOT allowed. <snip>

What does "overload" mean exactly?

 

[milomak]

OpenWeb Terms of Use:



What does "overload" mean exactly?

do you think people are fighting the T&Cs or how the T&Cs are implemented?

 

[SabreWolfy]

do you think people are fighting the T&Cs or how the T&Cs are implemented?

No idea. Was browsing them and noticed the clause about "overloading".

 

[Gushesh]

@access +1000

The uncapped situation is a very sad situation at the moment.

I have no idea where to go in terms of ISP. I was with Afrihost on a 5GB account for quite some time, moved to Afrihost uncapped when it was offered and we ended up being throttled/shaped right down to 384 speeds on a 4Mb line. I am not a heavy user by any means, i don't game, i don't use news servers or torrents i just want to be able to download series from Rs or Hotfile when they have played in the US. I rarely go over 20GB a month.

I got tired of paying for a 4Mb line and having such slow speeds so i downgraded my line to 384 and moved to Mweb uncapped.. what a disappointment that was.
Speeds on Mweb are so slow during the day for everything not just downloads. I have now also found out that Mweb doesn't shape based on usage but rather on specific sites so downloading from Rapidshare or Hotfile etc during the day or night is impossible. These sites are only unshaped from 1am to 6am..WTF

I am a paying customer, i am not abusing the network, downloading gigs a day or streaming video content. I just want to be able to download what i want when i want it.
Why do SA consumers always have to be shafted in every possible way in this country?
No idea where to go now or what to do as clearly Mweb isn't going to work.

These are not uncapped accounts, ISPs should be truthful to consumers and stop advertising them as uncapped, they are not!
My ISP in the UK was uncapped, bethere.co.uk. Uncapped, unshaped, pure internet to get whatever you want when you want it, not this fake uncapped ISPs are selling us here.

/Rant

 

[Digital_Reaper]

would you rather them call it the use as much as we allow package?;p

 

[racer]

After spending 4 years in the UK, working for a pioneering company in DSL, I can confidently say I know the proper definitions of the terms South African ISP's are currently "bending" to suit their pocket.

you can't compare the Uk to here, as consts involved are very different. and i think we all know what uncapped means over there, seriously. The one thing you got right is that yes, ISP's over here ARE bending things to suit their pocket. Would you rather they ran at loss and had to shut up shop?

the only thing our local ISP's are guilty of, is assuming that people here would understand what "consumer account, NOT for 24x7 downloading" means.

perhaps they should have studied the market a bit more, or even read these forums a bit more before unleashing something called "uncapped" on this market.

anyways, we have 2 kinds of internet users - the ordinary folk who would probably use a couple of gig per month, and who are now not having to watch their usage and worry about being "capped" before month end. to them, these accounts are great, they can use the internet without counting bytes, and they can even download the odd luxury they weren't able to before.

then we have the downloaders.. they need to keep their connection running at all times, as they have all of Hollywood to download every day. Even though they're specifically told "this is not an account for heavy downloaders" they get it anyway, and then complain when they can't heavily download.

I can understand the frustration of both sides. the users who want to believe that "uncapped" means unlimited everything, and the ISP's who are losing money when users run their connections 24x7.

I don't know how much it costs ISP's to deliver bandwidth these days, but even if its as low as R4 per gig, then anyone who uses 200GB is costing the ISP R800 - more than what they're paying for the account! So i can fully understand where the ISP's are coming from by advertising an "uncapped" product in good faith, but attaching T&Cs to it to preserve their business.

The majority of ppl using these uncapped acounts are entirely happy that we can get 50GB now for the same price we were paying for 5GB not so long ago.

EDIT: Having just read the comment from Gushesh, I have to say that's not something I have experienced.. but if that's the kind of experience some people are having (especially at using only around 20GB pm), then maybe I can understand where some of the frustration is coming from....

 

[milomak]

No idea. Was browsing them and noticed the clause about "overloading".

I had a look at a well known UK ISP's t&cs - similar to mweb's. But what I have heard from anecdotal evidence is that they are not acting like mweb

 

[access]

You would think in the IT/telecommunications business there are standard terms/phrases that are used to conform to an international standard. Uncapped ADSL, or kind of uncapped untill we need your bandwidth to sell more and smack as many users across a link as possible.

ISP's rely on the fact that not everyone will use their ADSL bandwidth at full speed, 100% of the time. So they can "slightly oversell" (done internationally) their available bandwidth and provide people with the offered package.

Funnely enough, this needs to be done correctly and there are several applications that paint you a pretty friggin clear picture, some of them are free!! Like this cacti program I used and recommend, found at http://www.cacti.net/
Check it out, if the wavy line reaches the top, its baaaaaad. put more. if the wavy line is gone, its baaaad. do work.

Marketing people need to consult the network boys, before launching a cash cow! You cant just limit accounts so you can fit in more new users, it honestly looks like ISP's are doing this. They launch a new product, realise theres not enough bandwith on the backbone or across links, so instead of upgrading the network, they pop on a limit and shout AUP. I mention this not as some conspiracy story but as an actuall experience I had while working abroad. The only way this inhouse communication breakdown (or just plain arrogance) was address, was when formal warnings/fines where handed to ISPs. Brought on by the consumer complaining to the correct authorities.

Right now as it is, they dont care if a user packs up and leaves. Because the next chump that fell for the all promising marketing banner will take his place.

I dont mind if my uncapped service is degridated because of a network fault or routine maintenance. But to sell me one thing and provide me with another... criminal.

"I'll have another one of those bottomless coffees please" "Oh sorry, you have already had 4. AUP"
"But we can now offer you a teaspoon of coffee every 3 hours." - useless

 

[milomak]

the pure definition of capping is minimising usage to below that which is possible given the linespeed. the physical limitations of the technology are never seen as a cap. This would mean any service that shapes could fall foul of this definition.

reasonable consumers would be willing to turn a blind eye if you could utlilise a large percentage of your line without the threat of being booted. we may then argue what this reasonable amount would be. and perhaps it is what we as consumers should be demanding. Do we want 100% or nothing for the term uncapped. Or is some high usage number reasonable enough that we consider the service uncapped even if it isn't on a technical basis?

the latter seems reasonable to me.

 

[who.is.michael]

It is the consumers own fault, due to their apathetic behaviour...

To cite a recent example; the MWEB fanboys, blindly defending MWEB although the behaviour of this ISP should not have been tolerated under any circumstances.

Regards

Michael

 

[access]

ISPs should only be allowed to call AUP if there is a problem on the network causing massive congestion, thus slowing down the heavy users to make space for everyone els. Only untill the problem has been sorted out and then not leave it that way because nobody has said anything.

Around here I get the idea AUP is used to cover your butt when your trying to make as much money possible without spending anything.

 

[Phenomenon]

The thing is most people dont use 100gigs. The cheap packages are catered toward the majority and just so people dont have to worry about caps. MWEB stuffed up by not offering a power user package for those that want to download the internet. It goes from R539 to R1999 seriously fscked up.

By this logic, if only a small amount of users make heavy use of the system, the ISP (and especially the large ISPs) can easily absorb their heavy usage, for the sake of providing a good service that would hopefully lead to greater market share. This is standard in many industries that rely on their customers not making 100% use of their service to turn a profit, and it works went most don't. Cancelling the service of individual customers that don't turn a profit for you is ****ty, and is something prevented by consumer protection law for ISPs in some countries. The same practice is illegal for medical aids and insurance companies in SA. Maybe its time ICASA (lol) does something?

The commonly cited excuse that heavy users degrade the network performance of 'regular' users is just that: a convenient excuse, and it's bull****. If a handful of heavy users can bring MWEB's network to its knees... well, I'd call that embarrassing.

 

[Tharaxis]

This business where the ISP shouts AUP if the user downloads say, 20GB, and then gets "throttled" is not uncapped. THE USER REACHES LIMIT/CAP/THRESHOLD THEN GETS THROTTLED TO AN UNUSABLE ACCOUNT. How is this uncapped??

Agreed, such services fall woefully short or what is expected from consumers, although it's only IS and their various resellers (afaik) that have such a ridiculous, convoluted, and altogether confusing system in place.

After spending 4 years in the UK, working for a pioneering company in DSL, I can confidently say I know the proper definitions of the terms South African ISP's are currently "bending" to suit their pocket. Specially after going through the ups and down generated by complaints to Ofcom (The independent regulator and competition authority for the UK communications industries) by the general consumers in the UK.

The UK has a far stronger (and more capable) regulating body compared to ZA with ICASA, and this is probably one of the biggest reasons why Telecoms in the UK is comparatively better off than here. However, there are significant monetary differences here as well, it costs many times more than it does in the UK to offer a similar service, and until those costs have been rebalanced it's unrealistic to expect huge leaps in performance and price.

ISP's MUST stop this false advertising and advertise packages that they can support on their network. I know of people that are currently taking this up with the Advertising Standards Authority of South Africa.

Agreed, false advertising is a huge problem, though what constitutes false advertising is a very subjective topic, so far, despite the various arguments re. uncapped that have been tabled with the ASA very few have gone the way of the complainant.

PS. Shaping is usually traffic throughput controlled by the port it uses over the net, these days MWEB are limiting traffic to a list of IP address as well (not mentined anywhere when you buy your "uncapped" service).

What?! For someone who apparently spent a lot of time working for a "pioneering company in DSL" (whatever that means), this displays a significant lack of knowledge about "shaping". Sure, in the old days rudimentary quality of service was performed purely on a port by port basis, but the inherent limitations and difficulty administering such a system meant that newer ones incorporating deep packet inspection and the like (which is what M-Web employs) are far more the norm. This is so that the shaping is less easy to circumvent compared to the classic approach (and yes, that may employ a list of IP's as well).

Where is this going to stop? There needs to be a set standard that all ISP's adhear to and an authority watching over them. We as the consumer need to make sure they are falling within the lines. As South Africans our recently revised consumer laws are one of the most protective consumer laws favouring the consumer in the world. Unfortunatly we have a "oh what can we do about it anyway" type of attitude. We just need to make use of our consumer complaints fascilities.

Agreed, a standard needs to be set (and preferably not a low standard), and this is supposed to be the realm of ISPA and ICASA, both of which are somewhat dropping the ball and being complacent.

RAGE!!

RAGE!! indeed.