ISP with own ADSL Authentication be warned

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paarlberg

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I had originally agreed with some of the ISP's that welcomed the new pricing from Telkom. A great way to offer more specialized services. After considering the risks in detail, the ISP has the most potential to get screwed.

In the following scenario, an ISP will get screwed by doing their own authenticaton. This is based on a 3GB account.

We have seen quite a few users that will download as much as possible during the last 24 hours of their cap (12 hours starting in November). They will be at just under the cap and then download several GB during the last reset period. This is great if the user or the ISP are not getting billed for it. Under the new pricing as of November 1, 2005, the ISP would be billed for that usage.

In order for the ISP to protect themself from this type of last minute abuse, they would need to bill for the usage. This would be abuse since the user is not paying for the additional bandwidth above the cap and therefore screwing the ISP which will have to pay for the usage.

Say a user has a 512k ADSL and has used 2.9GB at the 12 hour reset from SAIX. They then go download as much as possible in the next 12 hours, they would use quite a few GB over the cap depending on the available bandwidth.

The ISP would have to use one of the following methods, and back billing is a risk for an ISP.

1) Back bill the user for the exact usage above the cap.

2) Back bill the user for the exact usage to the next GB (or other level)

3) Increase pricing to allow for the difference, this would be the cap + maximum 12 hour usage for 1024k ADSL.

4) Back bill for all usage and set the cap at the highest possible level allowed by Telkom/SAIX.

This creates a terrible situation for ISP's wishing to do their own authentication for ADSL as it will not affect the ones that use the Telkom/SAIX RADIUS servers. If the ISP must do any back billing, this will add cost to the service, it could be an increase to all users, an over the cap penalty + additional usage, etc..

Should ICASA be involved as this gives preference to ISP's using the Telkom/SAIX RADIUS including Telkom Internet?

Is this in response to the ICASA ruling to show they have control over the short term future of ADSL?

Is this in response to ISP's that used the loophole in RADIUS accounting to offer 30GB accounts at super cheap pricing (in comparison)?

Is this their attempt to cause financial hardship for ISP's therfore putting them out of business or to reduce the number that provide ADSL to gain control of the market?

I had typed a much longer posting, but my PC locked up after a little over an hour of typing last time. So this is the quick and dirty version..

These are just my thoughts...
 
We can choose to authenticate dialups, ADSL or both.

How can you drop the ISP when you used more than you were alloted and/or paid for? It isn't the ISP's fault you exceeded the cap. If you have a 3GB cap, you will need to stay under it or you could be liable for exceeding it. Any ISP that is willing to eat 1 or more GB of traffic for a client, deserves to be stuck with the cost.

I am not as concerned about the people that go over by a few MB, but the ones that do the last minute slam of the line. I have seen 3GB accounts come in at 10GB or more when they are finally capped. It is obvious that they did go for the gusto in the last reset period prior to being capped. Therefore, after November 1, 2005 they would be trying to steal from the ISP as it would be intentional. The ISP is billed based on total bandwidth used by all users and not on a per user basis.

If you look at it from a cellphone company billing scenario... You have a whopping 120 free minutes per month, you use 300 minutes. Who is responsible for it? Not the person that sold you the service, the subscriber is.

Not trying to be a **** here... Just want to bring a concern to the attention of other ISP's and ADSL users. There is a lot more at risk here and the costs could be high for persons that abuse the ISP's. ISP's won't take the fall for clients.
 
Hmmm.
If you sell me a service and tell me that after 3gb you are going to hard cap me, then it is your responsibility to enforce that ie cap me when i reach 3gb. I have 3 pc connected to a router being used at any time, how do i know when i have reached 3gb?
Prehaps you would prefer if i was so nervous of the bill i will get at the end of the month that i will only use half my cap? Talking of that i would presume you will refund the users for bandwidth they dont use, since Telkom is not going to charge you for it?
 
In otherwords the customer is going to have to look at ammount downloaded constantly then disconnect wait however many hours it will be till the useage is checked then re-connect so they dont get back billed.

Great plan
 
Daveogg said:
Hmmm.
If you sell me a service and tell me that after 3gb you are going to hard cap me, then it is your responsibility to enforce that ie cap me when i reach 3gb. I have 3 pc connected to a router being used at any time, how do i know when i have reached 3gb?
Prehaps you would prefer if i was so nervous of the bill i will get at the end of the month that i will only use half my cap? Talking of that i would presume you will refund the users for bandwidth they dont use, since Telkom is not going to charge you for it?
Click to expand...

ISP's don't own the network and don't control when the hard cap is enforced. When the reset occurs from telkom, they send updated usage details to the RADIUS server at the ISP, that is then used to determine whether you are over the cap or not. It is not a real-time usage total as the traffic never crosses the ISP's network.
 
I see a trend here that is really disturbing.. everyone wants to blame others and not be responsible for their own actions or usage, while expecting others to be fully responsible and pay for someone elses abuse. ISP's are not your mommy and won't pay your bills either.

If you buy 3GB and use 10GB, and don't want to pay the difference, I won't even go there..

My point in this thread is that SAIX/Telkom can and will allow traffic to go over the cap set by the ISP on its RADIUS, but on SAIX RADIUS the ISP is not billed for it. Also, ISP's should not be financially responsible for clients that will refuse to pay for their usage (as noted by several here) above the cap.

In my opinion, I would hate to have to back bill for usage for many reasons. However, if someone is trying to screw me intentionally, I will screw back.. You will see many ISP's that do their own RADIUS will begin requiring contracts for ADSL service, there is no loyalty with ADSL users and it is almost not worth doing unless you use SAIX's RADIUS servers..

ISP's could always just sell unlimited accounts for DigiNet prices and you can use what you want.

Sorry, if I upset anyone... but I needed to vent..
 
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paarlberg said:
Sorry, if I upset anyone... but I needed to vent..
Click to expand...

I actually agree with you. If you want to abuse, then pay the price.
 
So paarlberg you have explained to telkom that, with the network configured as it is, this will not work?
And if telkom insists on this billing structure could you point me in the direction of how i can monitor the bandwidth used by my private network.
 
When exactly are the ISP's going to inform the public, and more importantly, the currently subscribed users, of this new pricing scheme, and the consquences of what will happen on the 1st of November if this new billing system comes into effect?
 
It seems to me that there could be a lot of problems with the potential new billing system, and November is coming towards us fast and furiously. I hope we hear something concrete soon... :confused:
 
But then why can the ISP's over sea's get it right?They offer uncapped at cheap price ! What scheme are they useing ?
 
Cosmic_Nomad said:
But then why can the ISP's over sea's get it right?They offer uncapped at cheap price ! What scheme are they useing ?
Click to expand...

I guess they care about their customers, oh and they are cool!
 
Cosmic_Nomad said:
They offer uncapped at cheap price !
Click to expand...
If there was no cap then this topic would be meaningless ... however thats whole other debate thats far larger then just Telkom (e.g. the regulator, the goverment etc.)
 
Data is not frikin oil! I can't get over it....this country is so screwed. Just because of a few ppl who are mind bent on screwing the customers out of money. I can get so frustrated at the situation, it really is unbelievable. Progress is way to slow. I dream of a day when every one can have 8mbps connections, no stupid caps and no stupid shapping. Just fast internet! Like almost everywhere else in the world.

Ok....I feel better now :p
 
Yeah, want to see if the ridiculous 3GB cap lasts, for the thing that's called BROADBAND. Or is BROADBAND only available in other countries?! :mad:
 
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By the time south africa that has anything close to resembling broadband as it is today, the rest of the world will have moved on and have 100 times the speed we have then.
 
i cant believe how people talk about using gb's of data after cap? how much does it cost telkom to give me local bandwidth? R4 per Gb even? this billing system blows my mind everytime i try to think about how someone can try to justify it.

if im gonna pay so much for a pittyful 3Gb i'm not gonna lose any sleep over actually using my adsl for 12h each month. and the word "abuse" is getting thrown around allot these days, are we forgetting what adsl is supposed to(and can) do. more than 7h of usage on 1mbit would be abuse? 14h for 512k etc... is that what we get? wouldn't surprise me if they started reseting your connection every hour too make sure they suck money out of us for each and every last Kb of abuse.

funny to think that ALL the money that ALL adsl users cough up each month doesn't even cover the CEO`s salary, but that SAT-3 cable sure is mighty expensive...
 
Back to the specific topic at hand ... assuming Telkom don't come up with a system/mechanism by which self authenticating ISPs are not lumped with the bill for 'last login session of the month blitzing', I can imaging the following scenario occuring ...

Subscriber on a 3Gig package manages to use up 9Gig for the month. A few days into the next month they recieve the following email ...

Dear Mr. Customer,

It has come to our attention that you have used 9GB of traffic for the month of XXX on the 3Gig product for which you have subscribed. As per our terms & conditions we will be upgrading your subscription to our 10GB product and will be amending your debit order to the amount of R XXXX which represents the price of our 10GB product.

If you do not wish this upgrade to occur, please reply to this email indicating so. Your subscription will be immediately cancelled and a final debit order for the amount of R XXXX will be passed on your account representing the price for the 6 GB of excess traffic you have used.

Again as per our terms & conditions, should any of the debit order adjustments in the two above options fail we will have no choice but to hand your account over to our legal dept. This would entail the recovery of any outstanding amounts on your account by legals means, and the risk of your details being handed over to the credit unions.

Regards,

Customer Care Dept.

While this is a bit of an exaggeration, even the most decent of ISPs is not going to pay for your surfing out of their back pockets.
 
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