iBurst Accounts Suspended Without Warning

Ok, I was going to post this in LG's thread, but it seems that has been appropriated by GWB & Oil conspiracies :D...

Anyways, I think there might genuinely be something to the idea I've just had, so I'm posting here:

On & after 1st April [official WBS iBurst launch date], quite a few of us iBurster forumites expressed our unhappiness with the inflated per 1GB price that WBS want to charge for additional bandwidth [i.e. full speed additional bandwidth - not the unlimited bandwidth on the still non-existent 64kBits/s throttle].

So, what happens?...well WBS realizes that their throttle does not work, and that iBurst customers will not pay for additional bandwidth bcos they find the throttled speeds to be quite usable, the next thing you know is WBS decide in a fit of rage, that they don't want customers that would prefer to stay on the throttled speed instead of buy full-speed bandwidth...

Comments...?
 
ic said:
Ok, I was going to post this in LG's thread, but it seems that has been appropriated by GWB & Oil conspiracies :D...

Anyways, I think there might genuinely be something to the idea I've just had, so I'm posting here:

On & after 1st April [official WBS iBurst launch date], quite a few of us iBurster forumites expressed our unhappiness with the inflated per 1GB price that WBS want to charge for additional bandwidth [i.e. full speed additional bandwidth - not the unlimited bandwidth on the still non-existent 64kBits/s throttle].

So, what happens?...well WBS realizes that their throttle does not work, and that iBurst customers will not pay for additional bandwidth bcos they find the throttled speeds to be quite usable, the next thing you know is WBS decide in a fit of rage, that they don't want customers that would prefer to stay on the throttled speed instead of buy full-speed bandwidth...

Comments...?
Click to expand...

my take...
there are happy and unhappy people on iburst. the unhappy people want all the happy people to feel unhappy... because in suspension land it's cool to be unhappy, but iburst speeds are making me happy... too happy to be unhappy... even my mirc works :D
 
RichardG said:
Number 1 none of you were Throttled and didn't notify WBS, since you bandwidth abusers were downloading like 20 gig in 2 days or more. I for fact couldn't download nothing, it wasn't network problem it was BANDWIDTH DOGS like you eating and eating the bandwidth as you please.
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What retarded syndrome do you carry around? If they could download fast, why wouldnt you be able too?

You do understand the sharing methology being used... All Fast, All Slow..

If someone gonna tell you there is 512k bandwidth, one user starts a download at full 512k.. You going to tell me that the 2nd user will get no bandwidth?

Think again, and Iburst **** you
 
Let's not start a flame war here, thanks

I think RichardG was won over to the other side ~300 posts back...;)
 
ic said:
On & after 1st April [official WBS iBurst launch date], quite a few of us iBurster forumites expressed our unhappiness with the inflated per 1GB price that WBS want to charge for additional bandwidth [i.e. full speed additional bandwidth - not the unlimited bandwidth on the still non-existent 64kBits/s throttle].
Click to expand...
The 64k throttle seems to work fine for my account (max 8KB/s). However, last night I donwloaded a 300MB file and it started going at 3KB/s. After 5 minutes it was up to 50KB/s. So maybe it isn't working afterall so I look forward to another suspension. :D
 
slimothy said:
but thats what i've been trying to figure out, what can we do? I dont have the cash to sue them, they are a multi million dollar company, what can we do
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****ing unlikely. Multi-million rand company, perhaps.

Ciao

Zak
 
better late than never, lemme also just say 'great letter there Grimsqueaker' - which perfectly dissects and shows the utter (to me) criminality of WBS' currently logic and actions. That letter needs to be spread around and faxed around, to block WBS trying to use those statements again without being challenged by the interviewing journalist..
 
zaktoo said:
****ing unlikely. Multi-million rand company, perhaps.

Ciao

Zak
Click to expand...
WBS "only" need ~12..13 million ZAR to be a multi-million USD company...
 
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My response to ITWeb article

I posted a response (or comment) to the article on ITWeb. In case ITWeb do not publish it or drastically edit it, and to keep forumites informed, I have decided to post it here too.

WBS's action is unethical and indefensable

As a reseller of WBS's iBurst service I would like to point out some incorrect statements attributed to WBS COO Thami Mtshali and some erroneous reporting in the articles published by ITWeb.

Firstly, apparently only customers who had exceeded their monthly allowance (cap) of 3Gb by 100% or more (6Gb+) had their accounts suspended.

However, apparently WBS did not take into account that some of these customers had already purchased extra bandwidth and had therefore technically not exceeded their monthly allowance by the same amount as those who had not purchased extra bandwith. They just summarily disconnected all customers that had used 6Gb or more.

The most important factor in this debacle is that the specifications of the service state that a customer will get an always-on internet connection with speeds of up to 1000kbps (1Mbps) until they reach their monthly limit. Thereafter the connection will be restricted to 64kbps. The specifications at no point state that a customer will be disconnected if they exceed any specified limit. This was an arbitrary decision taken by WBS to limit their losses due to the fact that they had not properly implemented their facility to restrict customers to 64kbps if they had exceeded their monthly allowance.

Instead of being restricted to 64kbps after reaching their monthly cap, customers found that they still had a potential 1000kbps connection. They continued to use the service for which they had paid and due to WBS not restricting their connection speed they ended up using a large amount of bandwidth.

At no time was this the customers fault. It is not the customers responsibility to restrict their own connection speed, even if they could.

It is impossible for any customers to get download speeds of 5Mbps or 100Mbps as the service only provides a speed of up to 1Mbps.

All customers (including the so-called "abusers") were getting extremely slow connection speeds with a single-threaded download. However it was possible to get a higher combined download speed by using a multi-threaded download.

It seems that WBS themselves were slowing the whole network down due to the fact that their facility to restrict individual customers was not working. However they could only restrict the speed of single threads and those customers that were using multi-threaded software were able to get a higher combined speed. It is not illegal or against WBS's contract to use multi-threaded software.

Clause 3.6.1 of the WBS contract has nothing to do with exceeding monthly allowances or disconnecting customers - it states the following: the subscriber "shall not use nor allow the MDN services to be used for any improper, immoral or unlawful purpose, nor in any way which may cause injury or damage to persons or property or an impairment or interruption to the MDN services".

The only way that WBS could invoke this clause and the relevant clause 5.1.2 (which entitles them to suspend a subscriber if "the subscriber fails to perform any of his or her obligations, or breaches any terms of the agreement") is if they could prove that the relevant subscribers had actually caused an impairment of the service .

The statement that all the users that had been disconnected had been forewarned via e-mail is essentially incorrect as the relevant e-mails were sent out in the early hours of the morning while most if not all of the users where asleep. The disconnection occured at about 5 am before most if any users had had a chance to retrieve the relevant e-mails.

Sasan Parvin states that the 64kbps throttle is in place and working fine, but this was only the case after these users had been suspended. He also accuses these users of having found a way to bypass the 64kbps throttle which is totally inaccurate - all they did was to use standard internet software that utilises multi-threaded downloading.

A company that promises to provide an always-on internet connection cannot defend disconnecting users that are just using the service as provided to them.

This action taken by WBS is a bad reflection on the company and, unfortunately, creates a bad reflection on iBurst resellers like myself that had nothing to do with this unethical action.

WBS's action could also negatively affect sales for their resellers - are WBS prepared to compensate resellers for any lost sales or the loss of subscribers that cancel their service as a result of this action?

Unfortunately I have to withold my and my company's names as WBS may decide to retaliate against my company for speaking out about this unethical action. If ITWeb requires these details I will provide them to ITWeb on condition that they are not published in any way.
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ic said:
WBS "only" need ~12..13 million ZAR to be a multi-million USD company...
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Point is they trade in rands for most if not all of their business. Just attacking a bit of creeping yankee cultural imperialism , that's all.

Ciao

Zak
 
Tricks - bandwidth theft or not?

is this the trick that has caused some people to be disconnected by iBurst? (bypassing the bandwidth manager)?

Cause if it is, good riddens! I want as much of my 64kbps as i can get ;)

Some of us try to use a service as its supposed to be, if others cant respect that I feel nothing for them. Its theft, plain and simple. You paid for 3GB's, you've taken 6GB's at an uncapped rate - you're stealing from the rest who are paying.
 
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no it isn't, there was no trick, that was just WBS propaganda, you didn't need a trick to get unthrottled because they just didn'y throttle people
 
slimothy said:
no it isn't, there was no trick, that was just WBS propaganda, you didn't need a trick to get unthrottled because they just didn'y throttle people
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Where there's smoke there's fire slimothy. iBurst would be very stupid to disconnect people for no reason other than making money - when knowing full well the obvious legal and financial implications that would follow....
 
<deleted by="ic"/>, heres what happened, they throttled EVERYONE because THEY never had the agreed bandwith manager in place, a week later they install a new 15MB pipe from IS, following that capped users recieve good speeds (the agreement was that WBS throttled them, an agreement that was broken by WBS) and users that weren't capped still recieved throttled speeds, because it took WBS 4 days (over the weekend and the monday) to realise they were hemmoraging bandwith and therfor money they needed to take drastic action, they then tooks 2 days to fix thier bandwith manager (well its still not 100% but it won't give capped users full speed for very long) after those 2 days they decided to suspend EVERYONE thats used over 6GB, bear in mind this includes people that never got uncapped speeds while throttled as well as people who might have bought extra bandwith already.

So saying they would be stupid to do so is an understatment, it was stupid, it was all on thier part and as far as I'm concerned its the biggest stuff up thus far. Wether you choose to believe thier propaganda is up to you, I quite frankly don't care which side you take but might I suggest that you actually go read up about it and get soem facts before you post about it
 
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slimothy said:
So saying they would be stupid to do so is an understatment, it was stupid, it was all on thier part and as far as I'm concerned its the biggest stuff up thus far. Wether you choose to believe thier propaganda is up to you, I quite frankly don't care which side you take but might I suggest that you actually go read up about it and get soem facts before you post about it
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have you got your angry eyes on :D
 
Do you usually call people idiot or does it just make you feel more important?

And read-up on it where? your posts? that would biased. The ITWEB articles you claim to be false? They claim its not.

We'll see what iBust does about this. Will be interesting.
 
well that idiot had the audacity to call me a thief without knowing what he's talkign about, you can take 6GB if you want, 3GB throttled and 3GB unthrottled, or even 18GB throttled and 3GB unthottled, thats the agreement, thats what the ads say and thats what the helpdesk people will tell you if you call right now and more importantly, thats what the contract I signed says. He's basically sayign its up to me to sit here watching how mucha 24/7 connection chews up and to stop it the second it goes over 64kbit because if i don't its theft. WTF is that, tell me one ISP in the world where they leave it up to you.
 
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