If you were an ISP...

[Icarium]

With all the furore over AUP's, T&C's, shaping, throttling and capping floating around myBB, I'm interested in seeing what you people would do if you were running a large ISP with all the economies of scale and bargaining power that entails.

Would you offer only capped or "uncapped" services, and at what price(s)?
Would you employ shaping?
Would you employ throttling?
What kind of contention ratio(s) would you put in place?
Would you have any T&C's or AUP's?
If you did, would they be fluid (ie: purely dependant on the load on your infrastructure) or rigid (ie: we will throttle/shape/ban users if they do 'X')

Bear in mind that this is not an excercise in wishfull thinking. Ignore startup costs, but keep in mind the very real costs involved in running an ISP in South Africa that an ISP has very little control over. If anyone has an actual indication of what the costs are for an actual ISP, please feel free to enlighten us (eg: We know TENET was paying R1380 per mbps for SEACOM bandwidth, which is a good place to start). If anyone knows what ISP's actually pay for thier international bandwidth, be it via SEACOM or SAT-3/SAFE, let us know. If anyone knows the actual cost of local backhaul for a Tier 1 ISP, let us know (Although AFAIK it's the more expensive of the costs).

I'm very interested in seeing what figures and products people would come up with were they the ones calling the shots at an ISP.

 

[guest2013-1]

Can't say much but I'd do it exactly like MWEB is doing it. Their shaping policies allow me to use torrents freely and as soon as I surf a website or check my email the torrent's speed subsequently almost dies so that it gives priority to what is used most online (and the way it should be).

You can't NOT have T&C's or AUP's and you can't NOT have shaping. However, like I said, I'd do things exactly like MWEB.... maybe get a nice fat piece of SAT3 as well, but nevertheless.

 

[Icarium]

I'm also fairly happy with the way Mweb is doing it, barring the summary kicking of people they view as abusers.

What I'm interested in is seeing if any the mob that are hounding the ISP's can come up with a viable business case wherein they get thier higher speeds/lower contention ratios/less shaping other than crying about it being false advertising.

 

[Keeper]

I would make it different prices for different speeds.

All uncapped. All unshaped. nothing throttled, nothing.

3 Packages - Casual (slowish), Speedy (fastish) and Ultimate (Fastest)


If there are 5000 people on the Speedy package, it takes the bandwidth pipe available, and divides it into 5000. for example if you have a capacity of 5000mbps for the "Speedy Package", and 5000 people on the network, then everyone can download at 1mbps.

2000 people on the Ultimate package, is say 15000mbps / 2000 people = 7.5mbps.



these are not actual speeds/etc - all I'm trying to say is the speed gets devided between how many users are on. so if you surf late at night, more speed.


As my ISP makes money, I will expand and buy "bigger capacity pipes"





Why, if an ISP pays for SPEED, and not GIGS - should you be limited to 386 when you could have 4mbps no problem?