Definition of Uncapped?

devdev666 said:
would you rather them call it the use as much as we allow package?;p
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Actually, yes. That would be a more accurate definition. Or just "high usage" accounts.

But the term "uncapped" does not seem to fit these accounts.
 
Well I do agree with most of your points access but dont be blinded with the fact that overseas everything is much closer and involves less costs to maintain, remember we are running over a fibre cable to International services which costs even more for the Local ISPS and we have telkom as a monopoly which is also making it more difficult for the retailer to maintain a good service level.
 
Things people in this forum are forgetting, and this differentiates e.g. UK from SA:

  • Access cost. Telkom IPC + international cables costs the ISPs a certain amount per Mbps. This is higher than in the UK
  • Capped accounts. A low-usage user will get a capped account for R150, instead of a uncapped account for R500. In the UK, all accounts are uncapped, and your 10GB user subsidizes the 200GB user.
  • User base. Compared to SA, the UK has a much larger total installed base, which spreads network load around.

Say for example (to pull a figure out of thin air), it costs an ISP R3,000 per Mbps to provide a service to customers (IPC + SEACOM + local transit + overhead cost). The ISP decides to sell that for R500 for 4Mbps. Therefore the cost to them is R12,000 and they get paid R500. In order to break even, they will need to sell at a 60:1 contention ratio. Therefore, if all their users download at the same time, they will only get 1/60 of the 4Mbps line speed. If half the users are active, you get 1/30 line speed, etc. This gets averaged over the whole network, so the larger the network (more subscribers) the smaller the impact should be.

It is crucial that ISPs have a large contingent of low-activity users, to ensure that there are sufficient free bandwidth. For every person that downloads at line speed, there MUST therefore be 59 idle users on the network. In SA the low-usage users turns to capped solutions, so there's a small percentage of them in the uncapped pool.

Therefore, to maintain QoS, the ISPs implement shaping and FUPs to the uncapped packages, to reign in the heavy users. If the heavy users. And this is also the reason one person that bypasses shaping to get full speed have a detrimental impact on the network - he effectively takes the place of 60 other users. If 10 users do it, it offsets the space reserved for 600 users on the network.

This is why ISPs are reading their FUP's more strictly in SA than they are in the UK, and it is also why a comparison between them is futile. We will either HAVE to have strict FUP policies, or we do not get cheap uncapped at all.

The reason no ISP (other than Telkom/SAIX) publish contention ratio's is because of business. It gives competitors an insight into their business model and profit margins. Telkom only does it because they are forced to by ICASA.
 
Valerion said:
Things people in this forum are forgetting, and this differentiates e.g. UK from SA:

  • Access cost. Telkom IPC + international cables costs the ISPs a certain amount per Mbps. This is higher than in the UK
  • Capped accounts. A low-usage user will get a capped account for R150, instead of a uncapped account for R500. In the UK, all accounts are uncapped, and your 10GB user subsidizes the 200GB user.
  • User base. Compared to SA, the UK has a much larger total installed base, which spreads network load around.

Say for example (to pull a figure out of thin air), it costs an ISP R3,000 per Mbps to provide a service to customers (IPC + SEACOM + local transit + overhead cost). The ISP decides to sell that for R500 for 4Mbps. Therefore the cost to them is R12,000 and they get paid R500. In order to break even, they will need to sell at a 60:1 contention ratio. Therefore, if all their users download at the same time, they will only get 1/60 of the 4Mbps line speed. If half the users are active, you get 1/30 line speed, etc. This gets averaged over the whole network, so the larger the network (more subscribers) the smaller the impact should be.

It is crucial that ISPs have a large contingent of low-activity users, to ensure that there are sufficient free bandwidth. For every person that downloads at line speed, there MUST therefore be 59 idle users on the network. In SA the low-usage users turns to capped solutions, so there's a small percentage of them in the uncapped pool.

Therefore, to maintain QoS, the ISPs implement shaping and FUPs to the uncapped packages, to reign in the heavy users. If the heavy users. And this is also the reason one person that bypasses shaping to get full speed have a detrimental impact on the network - he effectively takes the place of 60 other users. If 10 users do it, it offsets the space reserved for 600 users on the network.

This is why ISPs are reading their FUP's more strictly in SA than they are in the UK, and it is also why a comparison between them is futile. We will either HAVE to have strict FUP policies, or we do not get cheap uncapped at all.

The reason no ISP (other than Telkom/SAIX) publish contention ratio's is because of business. It gives competitors an insight into their business model and profit margins. Telkom only does it because they are forced to by ICASA.
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Nice post.
 
OP:

You don't understand what uncapped means, it means you wont get DISCONNECTED at all! You can download as much as you like, you wont ever get disconnected, whats so difficult to understand that?
Surely, you can get throttled which means, after a certain usage your speed will decrease. Or with shaping, you will get fast speeds at certain times of a day, or when priority increases on the network your speeds will be cut a bit.
 
"Uncapped" means ...

1) being able to download as much as your line physically allows
2) during the advertised hours of the product
3) at the speed the product is listed at.

If it can pass all three of those criteria then it qualifies as "Uncapped".

Anything short of that... and you are being lied to.
 
blaaislaai said:
OP:

You don't understand what uncapped means, it means you wont get DISCONNECTED at all! You can download as much as you like, you wont ever get disconnected, whats so difficult to understand that?
Surely, you can get throttled which means, after a certain usage your speed will decrease. Or with shaping, you will get fast speeds at certain times of a day, or when priority increases on the network your speeds will be cut a bit.
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But ppl are getting disconnected or told to move over to Addict. Why was Addict created? Well it was made because people doing >100GB /mo were not economically viable for R549 /mo.
 
blaaislaai said:
OP:

You don't understand what uncapped means, it means you wont get DISCONNECTED at all! You can download as much as you like, you wont ever get disconnected, whats so difficult to understand that?
Surely, you can get throttled which means, after a certain usage your speed will decrease. Or with shaping, you will get fast speeds at certain times of a day, or when priority increases on the network your speeds will be cut a bit.
Click to expand...

Being throttled/shaped to unusable speeds is very much the same as being disconnected.
 
Valerion said:
The reason no ISP (other than Telkom/SAIX) publish contention ratio's is because of business. It gives competitors an insight into their business model and profit margins. Telkom only does it because they are forced to by ICASA.
Click to expand...

And all ISPs should be forced to do so. Without knowing the contention ratio, you don't know what you are paying for.

And all the ISPs have insight into the pricing models their competitors use, most of them resell the exact same product.
 
Phenomenon said:
And all ISPs should be forced to do so. Without knowing the contention ratio, you don't know what you are paying for.

And all the ISPs have insight into the pricing models their competitors use, most of them resell the exact same product.
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contention ratios dont help when you dont know the users on the network. More heavy users on lower contention can give worse performance than light users on high contention.
 
Phenomenon said:
And all ISPs should be forced to do so. Without knowing the contention ratio, you don't know what you are paying for.

And all the ISPs have insight into the pricing models their competitors use, most of them resell the exact same product.
Click to expand...

Not completely. Some may be buying SEACOM bandwidth from IS or BCS, while others buy from SEACOM directly. Some may be using blended SEACOM/SAT-3 or SEACOM/EASSY. There are many ways of carrying your data to the landing station (DFA, Telkom, Neotel, etc). Also, I understand that the IPC pricing is not constant, but negotiated with Telkom on a case-by-case basis. Also, contention shifts dynamically. You can e.g. sign up 1,000 extra users this month, but Telkom can only supply the needed IPC in 2 months time. For that period you have a higher-than-normal contention ratio, and can't change it.

But I agree with your first point. Showing contention ratio's will help the consumer a lot. This is something ICASA will have to implement, though.
 
Just one question from my side - have you verified that your uncapped account is indeed being throttled by using another [capped] account at another ISP?

Doesn't help moaning and groaning about you getting throttled when other people's overloading the DSLAM's now.

And, remember, Telkom still is the lowest common denominator. Until LLU happens...
 
access said:
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!!
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But then, by your definition, telkom is forcing AUP as well, since they enforce line speeds. So there's still no "real uncapped" solution by your definition, which should ultimately mean no download or speed limits.
 
SoftDux-Rudi said:
But then, by your definition, telkom is forcing AUP as well, since they enforce line speeds. So there's still no "real uncapped" solution by your definition, which should ultimately mean no download or speed limits.
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Rubbish... every line has physical limitations. Don't be obtuse.

I repeat....

"Uncapped" means ...

1) being able to download as much as your line physically allows
2) during the advertised hours of the product
3) at the speed the product is listed at.

If it can pass all three of those criteria then it qualifies as "Uncapped".

Anything short of that... and you are being lied to.
 
Garyvdh said:
Rubbish... every line has physical limitations. Don't be obtuse.

I repeat....

"Uncapped" means ...

1) being able to download as much as your line physically allows
2) during the advertised hours of the product
3) at the speed the product is listed at.

If it can pass all three of those criteria then it qualifies as "Uncapped".

Anything short of that... and you are being lied to.
Click to expand...

well, then you should start your own Tier1 ISP and sell uncapped. And see what it's all about. Maybe then you can call the shots?


P.S. we are not a Tier1 ISP, nor do we make the rules about uncapped ;)
 
Qwikslver said:
contention ratios dont help when you dont know the users on the network. More heavy users on lower contention can give worse performance than light users on high contention.
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They most certainly do help. Contention ratio is a guarentee of the minimum throughput you will have regardless of load created by other users. More importantly, it indicates how much bandwidth your ISP has for the number of users they have.
 
SoftDux-Rudi said:
well, then you should start your own Tier1 ISP and sell uncapped. And see what it's all about. Maybe then you can call the shots?

P.S. we are not a Tier1 ISP, nor do we make the rules about uncapped ;)
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It's very simple .... If you advertise 4 mbps uncapped... then you must provide 4 mbps all the time for that uncapped. Otherwise you are not providing according to your own product description.

If you don't want to do that... then you need to call it something else.

This is not rocket science... just truth in advertising.
 
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