iBurst - warning for excessive usage

[antonc]

As much as Iburst irritates me, I am basically financing you guys to download your pron and movies and music to the tune of 40GB+ per month on packages of as little as 1.5GB. If Iburst are going to reduce their prices it will certainly help to throw out the few people taking excessive advantage of a soft cap. Big deal. The guys who are making the biggest noise here probably represent less than half a percent of their user base and are no doubt among their worst clients on a profit basis.

So please, cancel your accounts and go and buy a proper uncapped solution on ADSL and be happy ever after. The rest of us who use our caps and not much more will then hopefully experience better speeds and lower prices.

 

[Vrotappel]

As much as Iburst irritates me, I am basically financing you guys to download your pron and movies and music to the tune of 40GB+ per month on packages of as little as 1.5GB. If Iburst are going to reduce their prices it will certainly help to throw out the few people taking excessive advantage of a soft cap. Big deal. The guys who are making the biggest noise here probably represent less than half a percent of their user base and are no doubt among their worst clients on a profit basis.

So please, cancel your accounts and go and buy a proper uncapped solution on ADSL and be happy ever after. The rest of us who use our caps and not much more will then hopefully experience better speeds and lower prices.

What part of softcap don't you understand?

 

[MrH]

Hmmm, I guess this cancels what I said in here:

http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showpost.php?p=1097067&postcount=34

I had posted that before reading todays replies in this thread.

Screw iburst if they cut me off this month thats when I cancel and get the "do Level 3 ADSL", as the after cap usage was the main reason I've stayed with them.

EDIT: I have not received an email or call from iburst to date.

 

[Abe]

If iBurst not cut you off after you go over a certain limit then they arent going to have many users left!!
I will stop using them, and NOT reccomand them to anyone.etc

It's quite easy to understand. Using 40GB on a 1GB account means that you are actually costing them money, whether it is in the network or out of the network traffic. They don't make a cent off you and would probably be happy if you went elsewhere.

 

[PsyCLown]

Looks like a sign of things to come.

I suppose next month they will look at the 20gb bracket, then 10gb then 5gb.

One day you will wake up and find that they cap you when you go 500mb over limit

Or they might give you uncapped speed after your capp is used then after like 20GB or so they charge you per MB which you downloaded after the cap!!

 

[Abe]

What part of softcap don't you understand?

But 40GB on a 1.5GB account. Come on. You are getting p'd off with a company for cutting you off after going 27 times your limit. That 40GB as international traffic probably costs in the region of R2500. Regardless of what you got away with before. It seems to me that iBurst have decided enough is enough. Losing you guys/gals as customers will save them money and make the experience better for other "better" clients so why put up with it any more.

 

[antonc]

Losing you guys/gals as customers will save them money and make the experience better for other "better" clients so why put up with it any more.

Exactly.

 

[MrH]

Abe, you are missing the point, as the least iburst could do is either email a warning or call the "offender" and let them know what the limit is on 64kbps after he reaches his cap.
They could also have put that limit on the packages webpage, what iburst are doing now is totally wrong as their "hi-tech" bw monitor should be doing it's job which it is not.

Then again what can you expect from the idiots that are running that useless company.

 

[Vrotappel]

The softcap is the reason why I (and I guess many others) went with iBurst to start of with. Now if IBurst from the beginning said and advertised that say 1.5GB x 2 is fair usage I would not have been using their service. Don't advertise something you don't intend to sell.

And the guys and galls that don't like their experience with iBurst - take it up with them. All I want is my 1.5GB at full speed and a softcap after that, which I intend to use the full month.

 

[GavinMannion]

These F***** cut me off as well, and I do not even think that I have passed 30GB!

According to me they cancelled the agreement with me and stopped delivering the service. Thank God!!! I'm out of the contract with them!!

lol you have been complaining about iBurst for ages now. Seriously go with someone else then

The softcap is the reason why I (and I guess many others) went with iBurst to start of with. Now if IBurst from the beginning said and advertised that say 1.5GB x 2 is fair usage I would not have been using their service. Don't advertise something you don't intend to sell.

I would hesitate to guess that about 100-200 of it's 40 000 users have gone with iBurst because of it's softcap...

Seriously you guys are so far over what you originally paid for I don't blame them for cutting you off... They won't be the least bit worried about your threats to leave.

If you are really lucky they may even pay you to leave.

Seriously why should the rest of the iBurst subscribers pay for your bandwidth? If you habitually go over your 1Gig cap then why not go for the 9Gb cap instead? Actually you need 4 of those... Does this not make sense to you?

 

[MrH]

The softcap is the reason why I (and I guess many others) went with iBurst to start of with. Now if IBurst from the beginning said and advertised that say 1.5GB x 2 is fair usage I would not have been using their service. Don't advertise something you don't intend to sell.

And the guys and galls that don't like their experience with iBurst - take it up with them. All I want is my 1.5GB at full speed and a softcap after that, which I intend to use the full month.

Thats basically the same reason I stayed with iburst, but as for taking it up with them......forget it I'm not wasting my time with the idiots that work there.

I decided to rather just cancel and go ADSL where at least I know what the limit will be and will stick to it, besides iburst is lagging far behind in offerings whereas the other ISPs including telkom are advancing by the day.

 

[antonc]

Iburst are far from Angels. I agree that it is ridiculous that they cut people off without warning. I haven't taken the time to read their t&c's, however, if there is no mention of this 40GB hard cap then they are acting illegally imo.

My point, however, was that it is often those same people who are demanding price decreases on their 1.5GB accounts who are bitching about being cut off after using 40GB. You can't have everything, no matter how much of an emo you are.

 

[MrH]

antonc, I don't expect anything for free, but they do not state how much usage is allowed after you reach your cap at 64kbps, so therefore they are wrong to cut anyone off.

They should know what sort of bandwidth could be used at 64kbps per month assuming a customer reaches his cap on the first day.
That amount of GB should be allowed for and then if the customers exceeds that amount (which could only be done if the speed was higher than 64kbps) then they should warn that customer that if he continues to exceed that amount he will either be disconnected till the following month or his account with iburst will be terminated.

EDIT: and I'm not "bitching" about been cut off since I have not even used half of my 3,5GB cap so far this month.

 

[Abe]

That amount of GB should be allowed for and then if the customers exceeds that amount (which could only be done if the speed was higher than 64kbps) then they should warn that customer that if he continues to exceed that amount he will either be disconnected till the following month or his account with iburst will be terminated.

By which time it's cost them a years worth of subs. They maybe should have sent out an email stating that accounts would be cut off for using the services excessively but with the types of figures being bandied about, they have no obligation IMO.

 

[Abe]

Abe, you are missing the point, as the least iburst could do is either email a warning or call the "offender" and let them know what the limit is on 64kbps after he reaches his cap.

You mean to tell me that people don't know that they are using 25 times the paid for limit?

They could also have put that limit on the packages webpage, what iburst are doing now is totally wrong as their "hi-tech" bw monitor should be doing it's job which it is not.

They can't do that. If they put 30GB on the page, then everyone will use 30GB including people that are not going over by much now. They would set the limit. This way, they can take selected people that are continiously going over and cut them without effecting one user who goes over for the first time.

 

[MrH]

Abe, I see you quote selected portions of my post.

Lets hear your comment on this part:

"They should know what sort of bandwidth could be used at 64kbps per month assuming a customer reaches his cap on the first day.
That amount of GB should be allowed for and then if the customers exceeds that amount (which could only be done if the speed was higher than 64kbps) then they should warn that customer that if he continues to exceed that amount he will either be disconnected till the following month or his account with iburst will be terminated."

EDIT: ok I seem to have missed your reply above, not that I agree with your reply since they should fix the bw monitor which is obviously not doing it's job.

 

[antonc]

antonc, I don't expect anything for free, but they do not state how much usage is allowed after you reach your cap at 64kbps, so therefore they are wrong to cut anyone off.

I don't think you read the first paragraph of my post.

They should know what sort of bandwidth could be used at 64kbps per month assuming a customer reaches his cap on the first day.
That amount of GB should be allowed for and then if the customers exceeds that amount (which could only be done if the speed was higher than 64kbps) then they should warn that customer that if he continues to exceed that amount he will either be disconnected till the following month or his account with iburst will be terminated.

EDIT: and I'm not "bitching" about been cut off since I have not even used half of my 3,5GB cap so far this month.

I don't believe that they need to make this kind of accommodation. It's so clearly abuse, particularly reading the posts made in this thread where how much is used is almost seen as bragging rights.

If Iburst set their business principles according to your logic, then every package would have to be tailored according to a worst case scenario (24/7 download for the entire month) and we wouldn't get any progress at all.

 

[Gatecrasher]

By which time it's cost them a years worth of subs. They maybe should have sent out an email stating that accounts would be cut off for using the services excessively but with the types of figures being bandied about, they have no obligation IMO.

You are completely incorrect in your thinking.

Bandwidth is not the volume downloaded, but the rate at which it is downloaded. An ISP like iBurst does not pay for bandwdith on a per Gigabyte basis. They purchase a pipe that that has a certain bandwidth capacity, say 200Mb/s. It is a fixed cost to them, regardless of thruput. They will seek to maximise the total revenue to cover this cost.

A client downloading 1Gb at 1Mbs will certainly "cost" them far more than a client downloading 1Gb at 64k.

Why? Because you can only have 20 clients downloading from a basestation at 1Mbs, but you can have 320 clients downloading from a basestation at 64k.

But 320 uncapped clients on a basestation is likely to cause massive congestion (as it I'm sure it does), so in order to reduce congestion, iBurst have to keep building towers and keep their contention ratios at tollerable levels. They can only have a limited number of subscribers on each basestation before quality of service deteriorates to unacceptable levels.

People downloading at 64k, regardless of how much they download, are placing very little strain on the network. And it costs iBurst amost nothing to provide for them. iBurst are not stupid. That is why they threw this sweetener into the mix in the first place.

iBurst will, however, like any business seek to maximise the number of clients and the contention ratios, while seeking to minimise the width of the pipe they purchase.

So ban the "abusers" and put the fear of disconnection into the remainder. For every 16 clients not utilizing their throttled speed, they can pack one more paying client onto the network.

It's just greed.

 

[Ekhaatvensters]

You are completely incorrect in your thinking.

Bandwidth is not the volume downloaded, but the rate at which it is downloaded. An ISP like iBurst does not pay for bandwdith on a per Gigabyte basis. They purchase a pipe that that has a certain bandwidth capacity, say 200Mb/s. It is a fixed cost to them, regardless of thruput. They will seek to maximise the total revenue to cover this cost.

A client downloading 1Gb at 1Mbs will certainly "cost" them far more than a client downloading 1Gb at 64k.

Why? Because you can only have 20 clients downloading from a basestation at 1Mbs, but you can have 320 clients downloading from a basestation at 64k.

But 320 uncapped clients on a basestation is likely to cause massive congestion (as it I'm sure it does), so in order to reduce congestion, iBurst have to keep building towers and keep their contention ratios at tollerable levels. They can only have a limited number of subscribers on each basestation before quality of service deteriorates to unacceptable levels.

People downloading at 64k, regardless of how much they download, are placing very little strain on the network. And it costs iBurst amost nothing to provide for them. iBurst are not stupid. That is why they threw this sweetener into the mix in the first place.

iBurst will, however, like any business seek to maximise the number of clients and the contention ratios, while seeking to minimise the width of the pipe they purchase.

So ban the "abusers" and put the fear of disconnection into the remainder. For every 16 clients not utilizing their throttled speed, they can pack one more paying client onto the network.

It's just greed.

Or is it just business sense? If you owned iBurst would you rather keep those users using 40GB per month at the expense of even just two or three more paying customers and some lower bandwidth costs?

But if you advertised it.... I suppose I can understand iBurst's side and the users side.

Hmm and I only saw House's post just now, so how have you done 30Gb this month when you were previously going to publish your findings on how parts of JHB or PTA can only get 2kb/s, I'm sure this included your connection.

 

[PsyCLown]

But 40GB on a 1.5GB account. Come on. You are getting p'd off with a company for cutting you off after going 27 times your limit. That 40GB as international traffic probably costs in the region of R2500. Regardless of what you got away with before. It seems to me that iBurst have decided enough is enough. Losing you guys/gals as customers will save them money and make the experience better for other "better" clients so why put up with it any more.

I do it on the DC hub which is ALL iburst!! Every user there is an iBurst users or they get pathetic speeds and leave!

Its mainly uploading as well. they havent cut me off yet, fortunatly.