Is Telkom changing the rules? or just confused?

[doekvoet]

When my ADSL was installed about a month ago - I subscribed to the daily usage tracking email service. Initially I received the following email on a daily basis:

Dear Telkom Internet subscriber,
Just a short report to indicate that you have currently uploaded 0bytes and downloaded 0bytes of your monthly 3.00Gbytes allocated volume. Should you reach the 3.00Gbytes cap on either one of these, you will be redirected to a throttled international service.


Now, I started to receive the following email:

Dear Telkom Internet subscriber,

Just a short report to indicate that you have currently uploaded 46.72Mbytes and downloaded 53.73Mbytes of your monthly 3.00Gbytes allocated volume. Should you reach the 3.00Gbytes cap on the combined total of these, you will be redirected to a throttled international service.


There is clearly a huge difference in presentation and interpretaion of the content of these two emails, both being sent by the same service from Telkom. Which one is correct?

I will try and follow up with the relevant but apparently confused Telkom section

 

[Sonny]

It seems like the rules have changed...or maybe not.According to telkom this has been the policy all along that the 3gig should have been combined and not individualised.They gave us "grace",but now it will be implemented(total usage combined)as of 1 August.But hang on..."because we care about our customers we can sell you an extra account for R$$$...."[!]what a freaking ripoff[xx(].

ADSL--A Damn Slow Link

 

[paf]

I pointed out to Telkom last month that their daily report was complete nonsense. They concurred and said they were working on it.
Looks like they fixed it now. The one I got today was in line with my own measurements.

 

[Merlin2003]

Well, i think maybe someone should tell M-WEB that Telkom has changed the rules. Below a e-mail sent out to all M-Web subscribers with respect to how the cap is calculated. According to them it's not the aggregate, but the up <b>OR</b> down traffic being measured against the cap.

Notice the phrasing of the cap '<i>Should you send more than 3 Gb of data or receive more than 3 Gb of data in a single calendar month, your access speed will be reduced to just a little slower than 64 Kbps</i>'. I guess in that case i'm constantly capped, and if i do reach this proverbial 'cap', then i lose my service.[]

<i>Dear M-Web Member
We would like to remind you that your ADSL service has a 3 Gigabyte (3 Gb) Cap. With the commercial pilot phase of Telkom's ADSL launch nearing completion, this cap will now be applied across the board.

What does this mean to you?

Should you send more than 3 Gb of data or receive more than 3 Gb of data in a single calendar month, your access speed will be reduced to just a little slower than 64 Kbps for the rest of that month. Your regular ADSL speeds will then resume at the beginning of the next month.

Note that the 3 Gb Cap is only applied to sent data or received data, but not both. In other words, the Cap is not calculated by looking at the total amount of data transferred, but by detecting whether either your data sent or your data received exceeds 3 Gb. So you could send up to 2,9 Gb and receive up to 2,9 Gb in one month and still enjoy full-speed ADSL access. We are in the processing of developing an online tool that will allow you to monitor and manage your data usage, and we will inform you as soon as it is available.

Please note that all ADSL users in South Africa, regardless of their Internet Service Provider, are affected by this policy.

Should you have any further queries in this regard please do not hesitate to contact our Technical Support team at 082 161 00 or 0860 11 22 52.

Kind regards
M-Web Member Services </i>

 

[paf]

Now that I reread that mail, they have changed the rules!
Last month, my cap become effective around the time I reached 3GB OUTGOING traffic (I had 2.5 incoming traffic at that time).
With that inconspicious little word change from "either" to "total" it means we're getting screwed even more this month!
I am absolutely stupified how Telkom just does what they want without ever even informing their customers.
Where does MWeb get this: "your access speed will be reduced to just a little slower than 64 Kbps for the rest of that month". - it certainly wasn't my experience last month.
Does that only apply to MWeb customers?

 

[Sonny]

Well then we better embrace ourselves for some GREAT NEWS OF CHANGE coming our way!!!!LOL[:0][V]

ADSL--A Damn Slow Link

 

[ItalicBold]

Lol, I didn't even notice the wording chaneg :/

That realy sux. This Basically means the 3 gig cap is now a 2 gig cap. (My upload is usauly a third of my total bw)

Things just keep getting worse. Whats a bet that they will increase the costs soon.

 

[doekvoet]

Well - I received a quick response from Steven White from Telkom when I queried what in my opinon still constitutes a change in rules on the ADSL cap, however, the reply does not explain the change in application of the cap calculation.

Here is his reply:

"The cap is 3Gbyte of data transfer per month. The cap is a combination of up and download data. Once reached your international bandwidth will be throttled, however your local bandwidth will remain unaffected. Additional user names and passwords can be purchased from Telkom Internet at R219 per month for the standard ProLog service offering which will provide you with an additional 3 Gbyte worth of throughput within the same month."

The opportunity was well used for Telkom to make even more money though.

I am now considering forwarding this issue to ICASA and see if they have the ability to deal with this matter

 

[pdos]

If you read your terms and conditions you will see that Telkom reserve the right to change the rules at any time.

So we are stuffed, they can do what they like.

I am convinced that in terms of common law this is an unenforceable contract. A contract that allows one side to change the terms of the contract at any time for whatever reason is hardly a contract. But to get a legal remedy against a player the size of Telkom is not feasible.