Help required on Up/dwn load Quantities - Bandwidth Cap/throttle !

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hans100

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Having just aquired a dsl192 @home connection thru Telkom I am left utterly confused as I guess most 1st timers would be!
The telkom bandwidth notice has notified me today that I have lesss than 20% left after which my account will be redirected to a throttled international service.

So, what does this imply in real terms?..and what is the difference between throttled and capped and why is it international?
I have read previous forum posts here but I still confused as telkom state international! Does this mean I can still browse the web but cant access any other than .co.za sites? what about local sites that use .com in their domain name? I don't use yahoo or hotmail but if I did would this restrict access to online mail?
Some contributors talk about downloading way over the 3gb cap but dont comment to what happens after that!
What infact does happen? are you charged more like a pay per view cable tv or do you lose yr connection..... surely not as then they would state you would be shut down.... What does Cap mean and is it the same for everyone ...according to what I read here
If one is ?throttled/capped/restrcited? what and how is this applied? limited 24 hr usage or what?
I actually only started downloading movies and software on Wed nite ,Fri nite and practiclly whole day Sat/day&nite.
The notice states I have Uploaded: 68.34MB Downloaded: 2.40GB Combined Total: 2.47GB ....How the hell I have uploaded 68MB beats me!

(Incidently, go to http://www.archive.org/ & http://www.netctr.com/media.html where you will find hundreds of EXCELLENT documentaries and non fiction movies about just about anything. I recommend the videos by Alex Jones on the tyranny of Bush and he's cronnies..Will open your eyes!)

Checking the totals of dwnloads on my "GET RIGHT" downloader I calculated a total of 1346118321 bytes which is equivalent to 1,25367 Giga bytes.
So that is practically half of what the notice states I downloaded! How is this possible?
Ok, browzing and listening to online/streaming radio/tv/music( probably only 5 to 8 hrs in total) also uses bandwidth but does it use as much as this in only 5 days?

If I compare the data of just todays usage (been on the net entire day but have not downloaded anything I also have the comparison of the(1) Conexant ADSL acess runner meter (the modem) SENT 4,702,200 RECIEVED 33,001,296 and the (2)windows monitor (the small icon in staus bar) SENT 3,101,038 RECIEVED 30,980,018. thats a difference of 1,5MB and 1,92MB respectively.

Monitoring the same line with one pc and one user how is this possible?
Today I have not utilised any streaming sites and have mainly surfed sites displaying text with usual ads etc...
Is this normal?
Where does all the Upload or Sent usage come from? I have not even sent any mail today! This forum post would be the 1st bit of data that I would actually "upload" today!

I know somebody might say I should ask Telkom but 1stly I don't have the time to listen to their music 2moro and 2ndly I need a unbiased/qualified view before I attack whoever I face up to at their Claremont office which I will do on Tuesday!

I thank in advance whoever provides me with some help, information and advice!
:eek: :confused:
 
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Hans, i dont have all the answers but here are definitely some:

If you are on a 3gig account once you are capped you can still access local (i.e. hosted in South Africa) web sites at the same speeds you've been experiencing.

But your international is throttled which means you're on a much slower connection which you have to share with everyone else that is capped. Note that this is rreeeeaaaalllllllyyyy slow, and virtually unusable, so you can go way over your cap but only with data from LOCAL sites. This is obviously within your contract and i have never heard of anyone being charged extra for this sort of thing.

As to streaming audio, i dont have specific figures but this will eat your cap fast, be very very careful with this or your months cap could go in a few days.

Your uploads are not that high as your computer has to communicate with the rest of the internet anytime you send or request any form of information, eg posting here, searching with google, sending email. Although this is obviously not very much, it can add up. If you think this is entirely impossible you may want to download some sort of antispyware software to check your computer for any malicious software. you could try this http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/

I hope this helps
 
if you use P2P programs your uploading will be high aswell.
streaming audio and video off internet will definately eat your cap fast!
 
Thx for replies SA & RB.... Still somewhat in the dark as far as to the what in reality happens once Telkom apply this international throttle ion reaching the cap of 3 G ?
No body know?
Lots of local sites use the .com domain and overseas ISP's ...is a subscriber completely blocked to any site other than .co.za? if not what is Reaaaly Slow ...what speed ? norma ldial up ?
What speed are you provided with in the local domain areas then? remain on the DSL as of now? Is there any cap imposed for local downloads?

If no one knows the result to this likely scenario ,is it a case of just not telling as maybe its some sort of closely guarded secret.....surely there must be a way around this rediculous situation....

Excuse my ignorance but what about using the proxy options that are available on various sites ... albeit that some or from the lower level areas?......Cant one thru this method of set up, side step one's local ISP?

Surely there is a way around this ...I really cant believe all these regular posters here have not come up with a solution after the numerous posts which in principle all relate similar to my query.....without any usefull or actual practical answers ever been posted...

So,...what ever comes my way ...that is in advice or a link/s to some site with the correct ammo will no doubt get the full value in appreciation ..

Tnxs!
 
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hey,ugh dont wanna be the one to say this but once your 3 gig is finished u cant browse internationally at all,atleast from my experience,loading a page such as gmail would take 30hour or sumthing and they usually time out...this is the whole thing>we being had
 
After you hit the 3G cap you can basically kiss international bandwidth goodbye. This means any site physically located outside of SA (regardless of domain name) is throttled to a practically useless level. It's nowhere near dial-up speeds.

There's no way around the situation without paying. You have three choices :
a) Get an uncapped UUNet or IS account and pay for the privilege
b) Get an Axxess (10, 20 or 30 gig) or AYCE (30 gig) account for decent prices
c) Use a proxy service like Nukecap (search the forum) starting at fairly cheap prices. You won't get full speed but you can easily browse and download at dial-up speeds (at least) from international sites.
 
Rrrreeeeaaaaallllyyyyy slow, would be kinda like trying to drain a swimming pool with a straw. (only without that refreshing chlorine flavour)
 
The worst IMO is that when I was capped (before my UUNET days) some local sites would stall on their overseas ads so make sure you use ad-blocking.
 
One other thing to remember is that a COM address or a ZA Address does not denote wether it is a local or international Site.

The physical Location of the sites denotes it as being local or International. i.e Is the site physically Hosted inside or outside SA Borders, and consequently, inside or outside telkoms international edge routers. Remember, all traffic goes through telkom. You can also figure site Hosting by DNS Report
This will give you an idea if the site is physically local or international.
 
If you're struggling to control how much gets sent FROM your computer, a sneaky and rather unfair route to take - thats kind've justified, given our lousy bandwidth quantities locally, is an app called Net Limiter, where you can 'invisibly' throttle your upload speeds, without it being visible on the p2p application itself.

Its not really a nice thing to do, given the whole sharing concept of most p2p - but it is an option, if you want to keep most of your 3 gigs allocation for 'downloads', as opposed to 'uploads'.
If folks overseas had similar constraints on amounts of b/w available to them - they'd probably be doing the same..
 
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