Is this Normal?

LazyLion

LazyLion

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I finally mananged to get connected with ADSL on the first of the month (May) after having applied in December.

Now I have already exceeded my bandwidth (not having actually tried to). I consider my internet usage above average, but by no means a "power user".

It is only the middle of the month. Now I cannot access any international sites at all (they just give an error message). I also cannot access some South African sites - iol.co.za, mg.co.za, or news24.com.

Is this normal? Does Telkom actually cut your international link after you have reached your cap?

According to Telkom's Web site...

"Once you have exceeded the 3 GByte cap your data will be transported over a restricted international link for the remainder of that month. Telkom will not cut the service or bill for additional usage however the restriction becomes worse towards the end of the month when the customers that do reach their 3 Gigabyte Cap contend for the same restricted bandwidth."

My service has obviously been cut! Should I sue Telkom for "false advertising" or for "breach of contract"?

On M-Web's home page it says "If the total amount of data you have transferred (local & international, sent & received) exceeds your capping level during any given month, Telkom will reduce your international access speed to around analogue (normal dial-up) speed for the rest of that month."

But what I am getting now is nowhere near "dial-up speed".

Also...

"The 3 GB monthly volume cap helps to equally distribute the bandwidth available to the total ADSL subscriber base."

but how can that be? That means that there will be excessive bandwidth use at the beginning of the month and very little use at the end of the month?

Is Telkom lying to me?

Have my constitutional rights been violated?

Could it be that they are not an ethical company?

*** Forbid, I refuse to believe that!
 
After having a discussion with several ADSL users last night , this seems to be normal when you exceed your limit and i beleive there are a few sites which even though it is a .co.za site they are hosted overseas and therefore when capped you get the errors and no connection . I stand corrected on this but this was what info i got from my ADSL informers who are all heavy online gamers.
 
Welcome to the magic world op capped ADSL...

The reason you cannot get access to local sites like news24.co.za , iol.co.za and mg.co.za is because they make use of ad delivery networks ( like falkag.net and doubleclick.net ) located overseas.

Take a look at the News24 homepage:
Total Page Size = 260K
www.falkag.net (Javascript, Banners, etc...) = 74K
Source: http://www.websiteoptimization.com/services/analyze/wso.php?url=http://www.news24.com/News24/Home/

When capped your international bandwidth can be as low as 0.1 kb/s.
74K @ 0.1kb/s will take about 740 seconds to load. You now see where the
problem lies - damn advertising.

The only solution to the problem will be to add the hostnames of falkag.net and doubleclick.net to your hosts file, with IP address 127.0.0.1. But these ad companies are so evil, they know people are blocking ad delivery via hosts file, so they change the hostname every so often. Try searching for this on Google to get a permament solution.
 
But that's not what I agreed to in the contract

Telkom makes the impression that the international link will be capped to dial-up speeds. 0.1 Kbps is not dial-up speed. It's unusable.

Why would anyone in their right minds agree to that. yes, I know that also makes me crazy. But I'm glad I did not sign up for the two year contract.

I think I'm going to look for something else.
 
Garyvdh - I agree with you 100%...

From the Telkom ADSL product page:
"Once a customer exceeds the 3 Gigabyte volume limit for the month his international traffic will be transported over a slower international link without affecting his local access. He will experience slower access speeds on the alternate international link, as he will then be sharing this link with all other customers who exceed the 3 Giga byte cap."
Source: http://www.telkom.co.za/portal/page...RL=/pls/portal/docs/page/adsl/description.jsp

This is the whole issue about Telkom ADSL. They do not guarantee anything. See the careful wording in the above statement : "slower international link". Heck - this can mean anything. And thus you can not take them on, because they have not provided a baseline of a slow connection (eg dial-up).

Very screwed up if you ask me!!!!

But the wheel turns - and Telkom will have these words on its grave...
 
Unfortunatley, Garyvdh, you have two options :-

Carefully measure your internet usage or
Buy more bandwidth.

It really does suck. For instance, I know I can only listen to 20 minutes or so of streaming audio a night and have to limit my downloads.
I'm on 2gig, but have downloaded about 400mb today - I'll probably get capped around the 20th if I'm a bit careful.

I'm not keen on trying these uncapped solutions as I'm worried about thier contention ratios - essentially a contention ratio on top of an already contended connection. They are also too expensive for me and I think my maximum usage would never top 9gig anyway.

So, we sit and hope that the ICASA hearings will have some impact on pricing and services or hope that finally a wireless company that has more balls than greed will introduce true competition to the arena, as opposed to WBS's wussy watered down offering.
 
Unfortunately - its normal. Irrespective of any claims by Telkom or M-web, international access becomes non-existant after you have been capped. Many .coza sites are hosted overseas due to Telkom's high costs for hosting, therefore you will not be able to access them on a capped account. Sites like news24 use ad delivery (as per a post above) which at times causes these sites also not to open.

Sad state of affairs this is - telkom is really screwing us
 
The way to get rid of the falkag.net Ads

Franna said:
Welcome to the magic world op capped ADSL...

The reason you cannot get access to local sites like news24.co.za , iol.co.za and mg.co.za is because they make use of ad delivery networks ( like falkag.net and doubleclick.net ) located overseas.

Take a look at the News24 homepage:
Total Page Size = 260K
www.falkag.net (Javascript, Banners, etc...) = 74K
Source: http://www.websiteoptimization.com/services/analyze/wso.php?url=http://www.news24.com/News24/Home/

When capped your international bandwidth can be as low as 0.1 kb/s.
74K @ 0.1kb/s will take about 740 seconds to load. You now see where the
problem lies - damn advertising.

The only solution to the problem will be to add the hostnames of falkag.net and doubleclick.net to your hosts file, with IP address 127.0.0.1. But these ad companies are so evil, they know people are blocking ad delivery via hosts file, so they change the hostname every so often. Try searching for this on Google to get a permament solution.
Click to expand...

Here is a option to get rid of these kind of Ads:

1/ you must use Firefox, upgrade to 1.0.4 pls
2/ download Ff extensions by menu Tools->Extensions->Get More Extensions..., on opened window, click and install Adblock extension, it's so popular, you won't miss it
3/ after install, restart the Ff, go to iol.co.za, right click the top Ad img, select Adblock Imgae, you will be prompted for filter text, change the given URL to http://*.falkag.net/*, then everythig from falkag will gone, very cool
4/ Do the same to other Ad site's img

since iol.co.za, news24.co.za, iafrica.com's Ads all came from falkag.net, you will find all those site are clean and fast now, try
 
That's all well and good, but...

Where can I get the latest version of firefox off a local server?

I cannot even update my virus definition files or spyware definitions. Unless I initiate a dial-up session and I just hate to give Telkom one cent more of my money this month.

Are there any other good local servers for software? The ftp.saix.net site is so old it's starting to stink.

Even www.tucows.co.za is filled with international links - no good to me.
 
Garyvdh,
Tucows on SAIX is still Firefox V1.03. I thought I will post you only the link and then you can download it youself, but yes... Way to old.

If you PM me your email adres I can mail it to you with AdBlocker and a "default" add file.
 
Thanks Louis:

We had ADSL installed at the office today, so now I am set to get firefox. Thanks for the help.
 
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