How will MWEB's peering link cuts effect you?

Rosaudio said:
Thanks. Sorry for going OT, it was just bothering my inner Grammar Nazi :whistle:
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lol, my inner Grammar Nazi is also troubled regularly on internet forums ;)

Gatecrasher said:
Not necessarily, but it does increase the likelihood of healthier competition. And competition leads to better quality and lower prices.

As for Mweb uncapped, improved bandwidth provisioning, on-net value-added services and reduced shaping would probably take precedence over price cuts.
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Indeed, free peering will not have a direct impact on consumer pricing in the short term - but just like the mobile interconnect rate cut it will foster increased competition... Should it actually happen of course!

However the biggest stumbling block to lower consumer prices is clearly our universally hated incumbent - Telkom. Their local loop monopoly and high IPC costs are holding the country back. Don't even get me started on double (not to mention very expensive) line rentals and pathetic low-end speeds (while the high-end faster DSL keeps getting upgraded for free!).

The fact that mobile data (from Cell C) is now cheaper (if phone line rental is taken into account) than an equivalently capped (and significantly slower) fixed-line product is really disturbing...
 
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IPC

Gatecrasher said:
How?
With peering there is at least an alternative route.
On IPC costs they are dealing with a monopoly.
It is quite clear, though, that the size of their IPC pipe, being larger than all other ISPs combined has given them significant bargaining power and economy of scale.
But it is not like they can route around Telkom.
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THIS is what NeoFAIL should have acheived.

Let us see what happens when INFRACO get up to steam .........
 
LabAnimal said:
well whatever Mweb's done... its not good. Torrents max out at 80k on a 4meg - Pathetic! I've seen much better from Mweb. Even HTTP is much slower! As much as I support Mweb's Decision to cut paid peering, how long will we be sitting with these issues? I'm no gamer, but expect a good surfing experience atleast for a 4meg!..... this is honestly running more like a 512k/640k atm... *sigh*
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Your torrents really shouldnt be affected, cos you rarely find local torrents. Im only on a 512 line (Mweb uncapped) and I havent felt any difference in download speeds (torrent or http). Im more upset with telkom now that they have further delayed my 4mb upgrade because of this peering thing.
 
Shayd said:
John MWEB has 170000+ users pushing an average of 12.7 GB per month... 3.7 GB more than Telkoms' largest available ADSL account. Plus they are owned by Naspers, South Africa's largest media conglomerate. You need to wrap your head around this, MWEB are not the little guys in this! Naspers as of yesterday is a R149 Billion company while Telkom is only valued at R18 billion.

BTW there are only about 650000 ADSL customers country wide at last count so MWEB has just over 25% market share by subscriber numbers and probably 50%+ share by data volume.
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Absolutely, forget the volume the user is pushing, the more they push the less profitable the model is for MWeb being uncapped. Maybe you have hit the nail on the head, only 25% of the market, Telkom must have a substantial part of the 75% directly, higher traffic volumes on that 25%, so MWeb most likelye hast the less profitable sector because of uncapped.

Agreed, Naspers is the big boy in the picture, I have posted before, we complain about Telkom but we all support MWeb who is part of a worse monopoly. DSTV is the biggest rip off out there, what R530 for a service that costs much less to provision than ADSL, 3G, whatever...... Remember there is no incremental cost in the DSTV model from a provisioning perspective as it is one to many, if anything the cost MUST start going down and it is not.

I support neither in this fight, both Telkom and Naspers are ripping consumers off .....
 
bekdik said:
And don't leave out MTN, Vodacom, Neotel ..

OK, time for you to switch countries.
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The reality is that no matter where we go costs are too high. I just have a concern that while the issue of peering is a big issue, the overall issue is dealing with competition and monopolies. Sometimes people do not see the bigger picture, monopolies in any form are bad for prices. In this whole discussion around Telkom, MTN, etc,etc ......everyone seems to forget that the "blue eyed boy" here is not completely clean and we are all falling into the trap.

MONOPOLIES ARE BAD no matter who it is......
 
Tpex said:
Well they sell to Nashua Mobile, I don't know to who else, and then there is all their wireless customers, but they must be used to crappy latency :p



1. "It's because local content is almost non-existent" Just because you don't know about it doesn't mean it doesn't exist.... :p

2. It never said all of the online gamers.... Local gaming is big enough to warrent a note, especially all the gamers on the SAIX network...
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I never said that nothing will be affected. I was trying to bring the point across that not all content and services would be affected - Unlike the article which was less than thorough in this regard.

"International routing means higher latency and hence worsened service levels when browsing the web." - Correction: "International routing means higher latency and hence worsened service levels when browsing sites on networks which are not peered."

"In the online gaming space the difference between 30ms and 300ms ping times is particularly significant and online are likely to change either their gaming servers or their ISP to ensure that they have low latency when gaming online." - Correction: "In the online gaming space the difference between 30ms and 300ms ping times is particularly significant and online gamers are likely to change either their gaming servers or their ISP to ensure that they have low latency when gaming online in cases where they are not on a network that is peered with the network the game server is on."

You get what I am trying to say? I am simply objecting to the article's wording. As many of us do I have to do in family computer support. Most of them are less than knowledgeable about everything IT. For people such as this (and I admit few of them would be reading MyBB) you have to state the full facts or you get some rather crazy notions in circulation. I mean I can just see my folks reading an article like this and saying... Wait a minute! I'm just going to stick with Telscum and get ripped off for 2GB a month at ridiculous prices for another two years. Plus there are always the people who do have a clue, but want to believe in fail so badly that they will grab and hold on to information that backs up their convictions whatever the cost. Notably global warming denialists, nvidia fanboys and proponents of capped internet accounts. Also see crusades and the inquisition. For those types all I can say is that as an mweb customer I have not experienced a flutter, not even blip of degraded performance since MWEB's new policy came into play - And yes I am lucky to not frequent content on unpeered networks from my home connection, but the fact remains than saix+mtn businese <> the internet.
 
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Lol... If you go look at the SAIX gaming web page then you will note the following.

The last news article is dated for February this year.
The article announces HoN servers. (any HoN player in SA will tell you those servers have been discontinued... It's still listed as a hosted game though)

So I ask you this... Does this sound like a vibrant game hosting environment? I think not. Sounds rather stale to me actually. I'd like to get a complete list of current SAIX game servers and how they perform in general.
 
Also... According to online sources Africa as a whole (not just our bit at the south point) generates 0.02% of global internet content. Conclusive proof that access to 99.98% of the internet will not be affected by MWEB's decision. And I for one will rather stick with the guys trying to embrace the rest of the world.
 
I will miss being able to play on the SGS servers from my mweb account, but I have Afrihost for that..

Sent from my GT-I9000 using MyBroadband Android App
 
johnelis said:
The reality is that no matter where we go costs are too high. I just have a concern that while the issue of peering is a big issue, the overall issue is dealing with competition and monopolies. Sometimes people do not see the bigger picture, monopolies in any form are bad for prices. In this whole discussion around Telkom, MTN, etc,etc ......everyone seems to forget that the "blue eyed boy" here is not completely clean and we are all falling into the trap.

MONOPOLIES ARE BAD no matter who it is......
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I agree that monopolies are bad. However MWEB is not a monopoly - and for that matter neither is Naspers. Naspers owns a monopoly in the form of Multichoice. Which is of course not MWEB's fault.

For example: Say you went out and bought a controlling share in Telkom and a controlling share in Pick 'n Pay - would Telkom's high prices and monopoly status then be Pick 'n Pay's fault? In fact they would only be slightly your fault/responsibility. While you may have a large influence and make some strategic group decisions - you won't actually be running the company and setting the prices.

This is what Naspers is - a holding company. Calling anyone other than Multichoice in this equation a monopoly is just incorrect. Please quit blaming MWEB for Multichoice just because they're owned by the same holding company!

I do agree that MWEB have some ulterior motives - but at the end of the day I don't much care because this is good for the state of broadband in this country. Local transit is clearly WAY too expensive - It should not cost less for MWEB to send data halfway across the world and back than to send it across a datacentre floor.
 
nut123 said:
I agree that monopolies are bad. However MWEB is not a monopoly - and for that matter neither is Naspers. Naspers owns a monopoly in the form of Multichoice. Which is of course not MWEB's fault.

For example: Say you went out and bought a controlling share in Telkom and a controlling share in Pick 'n Pay - would Telkom's high prices and monopoly status then be Pick 'n Pay's fault? In fact they would only be slightly your fault/responsibility. While you may have a large influence and make some strategic group decisions - you won't actually be running the company and setting the prices.

This is what Naspers is - a holding company. Calling anyone other than Multichoice in this equation a monopoly is just incorrect. Please quit blaming MWEB for Multichoice just because they're owned by the same holding company!

I do agree that MWEB have some ulterior motives - but at the end of the day I don't much care because this is good for the state of broadband in this country. Local transit is clearly WAY too expensive - It should not cost less for MWEB to send data halfway across the world and back than to send it across a datacentre floor.
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My concern is around the fact that at the same time the MWeb story broke, so did the DSTV one break, coincidence or design ?
 
The Trutherizer said:
Lol... If you go look at the SAIX gaming web page then you will note the following.

The last news article is dated for February this year.
The article announces HoN servers. (any HoN player in SA will tell you those servers have been discontinued... It's still listed as a hosted game though)

So I ask you this... Does this sound like a vibrant game hosting environment? I think not. Sounds rather stale to me actually. I'd like to get a complete list of current SAIX game servers and how they perform in general.
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damn you know how to type a reply, fair enough, I see your point,
on the SAIX note, I am talking about people with SAIX accounts, not Servers hosting on SAIX
 
nut123 said:
I agree that monopolies are bad. However MWEB is not a monopoly - and for that matter neither is Naspers. Naspers owns a monopoly in the form of Multichoice. Which is of course not MWEB's fault.

For example: Say you went out and bought a controlling share in Telkom and a controlling share in Pick 'n Pay - would Telkom's high prices and monopoly status then be Pick 'n Pay's fault? In fact they would only be slightly your fault/responsibility. While you may have a large influence and make some strategic group decisions - you won't actually be running the company and setting the prices.

This is what Naspers is - a holding company. Calling anyone other than Multichoice in this equation a monopoly is just incorrect. Please quit blaming MWEB for Multichoice just because they're owned by the same holding company!

I do agree that MWEB have some ulterior motives - but at the end of the day I don't much care because this is good for the state of broadband in this country. Local transit is clearly WAY too expensive - It should not cost less for MWEB to send data halfway across the world and back than to send it across a datacentre floor.
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This is the main point you have right there. People too easily forget how painful it was to get internet before the beginning of the year when MWEB revolutionized internet services in South Africa. If an ulterior motive is good then it's not bad to have an ulterior motive. Simple as that. And if MWEB saves a few bucks with the new peering scheme then more power to them - I am 100% fine with it - I'm not a bean counter. And the quesion remains - Considering how relatively little content there is on the local networks which are not peered - Exactly how much can they be saving?

The "ulterior motive" seems to me to be more of a forward looking strategy to promote the hosting of "MORE" local content- Just like they have stated in fact. With or without free peering by the incumbents. Right now hosting prices on free peered networks will start dropping through the floor. Once that has happened we will see most of our locally generated content migrating back to local servers at a zero performance impact. In fact the performance will dramatically improve - Except for those who are not free peered of course - They will still have to go via international routes to get to the data. And if you want to know which type of companies will benefit the most from more normalized local hosting prices then you have to look no further than many of the companies that Naspers has a stake in. I mean you can just hear the representatives at a Naspers board meeting screaming at MWEB for internationally competitive local hosting. Better local performance for the same price.

Just wait - The benefits of this has not reached the user yet. But it will...

Internet TV.
Internet Radio channels.
Our own WoW realm.
Huge cache servers for international content.

These are just a few possibilities. Now imagine the users on networks not peering with the free and open crowd have to route all that through international channels... Do you think they will be happy? There will be a lot of pressure on their service providers to join the rest of the world - Win!

"Against the spirit of the internet" my you-know-what.
 
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SAIX is basically dead as a gaming service. While they have plenty of servers they cannot fill more than two or three at any given time. Looking at their server use stats and you will realise at peak times this week they had a staggering 60 people playing all there hosted games.
Two or three years ago that number would have been in excess of 1000...
Telkom has basically given up on SGS.
 
valmore said:
unfortunately gamers don't make up the bulk of the market :(
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True. Even if gamers complain about latency to Telkom or SAIX, they won't budge, since gamers make up only a fraction of their customer base. The only thing that will make them consider open peering is if they lose too much money in this war with Mweb.

I only noticed recently, but local hosted websites are quite snappy. I never really thought about it before until this whole thing with Mweb.
 
my Wow latency has improved quite allot, but i cant play MoH at all with the lag on SAIX game servers
 
All i can say is kudos to Mweb for pushing SA into the present (albeit the present from 10years ago for most of the world). Since i now spend most of my year in Europe my perspective has really changed. Here in Bulgaria local peering has been free since the start of the internet and whats more it's run at incredible fibre speeds so people generally have much faster local traffic than international traffic.

Add to that local hosting and a few local torrent servers and local services like IPTV (which is free with about all ISPs here) all available to me at near 100mb speeds and you try explaining to me that local peering is irrelevant. How about torrenting a 700mb movie in 2 -3 mins max? :)

The benefits of this just aren't even being dreamt of yet in SA.
Its just that thanks to paid peering local content/service has just never been utilized or developed.
 
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