MWEB - Message from CEO - Acceptable Use Policy

[SabreWolfy]

Tharaxis:
Die in a fire.

<snip>

Tasteless and inappropriate.

 

[SabreWolfy]

You realise they don't need to look at *what* you're downloading (legally, they can't anyway) to know that it's probably not private (in the sense of personal) data.

They can see how much you're downloading. They can see where you're downloading it from. They can see how you're downloading. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out you're probably not going to be pulling 500GB of family photos off RS/AeroVPS/DS/Random Usenet Provider etc.

@PeterCH: You're a really rude individual. You specifically asked how you can keep access to your Mweb email accounts, and when someone gives you a perfectly valid answer you thank them by calling them an Mweb shill?

+1

 

[SabreWolfy]

1 - The CEO of the company said there's no shaping after hours...<snip>

You keep repeating this statement. A reference/source please? "Radio interview" doesn't count.

 

[marine1]

You mweb fan boys are really a joke.
I am not saying I am unhappy with mweb so far its been great but the really is these accounts are capped.
Mweb know exactly how much a user can download or use in a month and that is why rhe shaping is so heavy and why they are getting their panties in a twist over users downloading at full speed as that throws their planning out the window.

Basically you can only download at what? 1mb or 512 on a 4mb line? Talking about torrents, nzbs etc.
They therefore have capped our accounts as they know based on the heavy shaping, you cannot go over say 100 gigs or so.
So these accountd are most definitely capped just very clever way of advertising and doing it

 

[Necuno]

<snip>

/giefs coffee and chill pill

 

[milomak]

You keep repeating this statement. A reference/source please? "Radio interview" doesn't count.

as a matter of interest, why do you believe what a CEO says on the radio would not count as a representation about his company or specific product?

in any event, what would be great is that mweb waive their one-month notice for those of us concerned about this. it should make them happy as those who cancel are those who are potential heavy downloaders and thus should lessen the load on their network. everyone wins then.

 

[SabreWolfy]

You mweb fan boys are really a joke.
I am not saying I am unhappy with mweb so far its been great but the really is these accounts are capped.
Mweb know exactly how much a user can download or use in a month and that is why rhe shaping is so heavy and why they are getting their panties in a twist over users downloading at full speed as that throws their planning out the window.

Basically you can only download at what? 1mb or 512 on a 4mb line? Talking about torrents, nzbs etc.
They therefore have capped our accounts as they know based on the heavy shaping, you cannot go over say 100 gigs or so.
So these accountd are most definitely capped just very clever way of advertising and doing it

You know there is a thread on these forums where users report they have downloaded several hundred GB on MWeb accounts every month.

 

[SabreWolfy]

as a matter of interest, why do you believe what a CEO says on the radio would not count as a representation about his company or specific product?

in any event, what would be great is that mweb waive their one-month notice for those of us concerned about this. it should make them happy as those who cancel are those who are potential heavy downloaders and thus should lessen the load on their network. everyone wins then.

I thought that a reference or source that everyone could independently verify would be useful. All written/online evidence available says that shaping is relaxed after hours but is not necessarily removed completely. That's what we know for sure and can verify. If the CEO has claimed otherwise, I'd like to know where I can verify it, as if it were the official case, I would have thought there would be some official mention of it online somewhere.

 

[milomak]

I thought that a reference or source that everyone could independently verify would be useful. All written/online evidence available says that shaping is relaxed after hours but is not necessarily removed completely. That's what we know for sure and can verify. If the CEO has claimed otherwise, I'd like to know where I can verify it, as if it were the official case, I would have thought there would be some official mention of it online somewhere.

that's fair enough

 

[Icarium]

You mweb fan boys are really a joke.
I am not saying I am unhappy with mweb so far its been great but the really is these accounts are capped.
Mweb know exactly how much a user can download or use in a month and that is why rhe shaping is so heavy and why they are getting their panties in a twist over users downloading at full speed as that throws their planning out the window.

Basically you can only download at what? 1mb or 512 on a 4mb line? Talking about torrents, nzbs etc.
They therefore have capped our accounts as they know based on the heavy shaping, you cannot go over say 100 gigs or so.
So these accountd are most definitely capped just very clever way of advertising and doing it

There are plenty of people doing well over 100 gigs without any hassles and without running foul of Mweb's T&C. While it could be argued that they are overdue to increase thier infrastructure to cope, thier shaping is neither arbirtrary or uneccesary. They simply do not have the capacity to allow every single 4Mb user to go ape**** and max out thier lines 24/7 - some ISP's charge a bit more and in return you get better contention ratios. No one has a gun to thier head forcing them to use mweb.

If being a happy customer makes me a fanboi, so be it. It doesn't have any bearing on my ability or right to voice my opinion here adn it doesn't mean I won't vote with my wallet the day I find a better service or a better price.

 

[Chevron]

1) Never has it been stated that there is *no* shaping during off-peak hours. What was stated (many months ago by the way) is that performance should improve during off-peak hours and should "appear as if unshaped". I point out that it was said many months ago because clearly over time more load has been placed on the network (in some cases through certain unscrupulous users circumventing the shaping), meaning that the shaping now has a greater effect during off-peak hours than it originally used to. You'll notice this still happens, because off-peak hours perform significantly better than peak, albeit that they don't perform at "maximum speeds" anymore. Shaping doesn't magically "kick in" at certain times, the shaping rules in place at 3PM are the same as 3AM, however the scale at which shaping has an effect on your connection performance is based on varying network load (less load at 3AM than 3PM). Remember though, reduced load doesn't imply there is NO load, so, based on how performance has dipped over time, it's pretty clear that their ratio of contention has increased since they launched... as was to be expected.

2) Nothing has been said to indicate that people are being disconnected due to excessive usage (number of GB's), but rather due to other reasons such as circumvention of the shaping. However, I wouldn't be surprised if they do use GB's as some form of warning signal to begin an investigation into an account (since a user running at 400KB/s constantly will have more usage than one running at 50KB/s constantly). I doubt they have any problems with people downloading as much as they possibly can, as long as those people make use of the systems put in place to share out the bandwidth to everyone. It's when you start using GB's and GB's and cause other people's connections to suffer that they begin to take exception.

3) Statements of a CEO are not advertising and are therefore not binding as an "advertised product". CEO's are notorious when it comes to oversimplifying things during interviews and generally lack all the technical knowledge required to more accurately describe the product. That and obviously one would want to try and make the product sound as good as possible. The advertised product is that which is available upon purchase, with the full Terms and Conditions included.

4) Stop being a filthy pirate, you filthy pirate!

Shaping does kick in at certain times. At 6:55 my torrents fly, at 07:05 they crawl. Lot's have graphs have been posted regarding the 07:00 shaping. It's the time the shaping gets lessened at night that's variable. Some say it happens at 17:00 and I can say after 17:00 things improve.

 

[Osiris85]

You keep repeating this statement. A reference/source please? "Radio interview" doesn't count.

http://www.techcentral.co.za/qa-with-mweb-ceo-rudi-jansen/13461/

Do you have a fair-use policy for these new, uncapped offerings? If so, what does it entail?

I knew you were going to ask this [laughs]. Yes, we do, like any other ISP or telco in the world. We’ve looked at all of them and made sure we weren’t any different from the big ones like France Telecom, BT, Sky and Virgin. So, yes, we have a fair-use policy, but the idea of it is to ensure the abusers don’t spoil it for everyone. We have no intention of shaping bandwidth more than is necessary in peak network conditions. It’s not dramatic shaping at all, and it’s only in peak hours. This is not a big issue. Everyone makes it out to be a big issue, but it’s not.

What will you do with users who use peer-to-peer services like BitTorrent, and people who stream audio and video online?

What [the fair-use policy is] there for is to stop, say, someone who hosts a website with 80 000 movies on it, and invites other people to download from their server. We won’t go after people who are using [the service] for their own personal use.

So if I want to listen to streaming music or watch streaming video all day, that’s not an issue for MWeb?

No, it’s not.


http://stopthecap.com/category/providers/mweb-south-africa/

For $73.50US per month, MWEB offers 4Mbps DSL service that is truly unlimited, which is a radical notion in a country used to usage caps averaging 3GB per month. Customers willing to tolerate slower speeds can reduce their unlimited broadband bill considerably — 384kbps starts at $30 a month; 512kbps is priced at $41 a month. The company does admit to throttling torrent services, but customers have managed to bypass the throttle by encrypting their torrent traffic.

 

[Tharaxis]

Shaping does kick in at certain times. At 6:55 my torrents fly, at 07:05 they crawl. Lot's have graphs have been posted regarding the 07:00 shaping. It's the time the shaping gets lessened at night that's variable. Some say it happens at 17:00 and I can say after 17:00 things improve.

It would make sense that during business hours non-priority protocols take a back seat. It's possible that during business hours the amount of bandwidth allocated to these protocols is significantly reduced (an automated process) so as to not unduly affect their business customers.

 

[Icarium]

Peak =/= business hours, although there is a significant overlap. Thier capacity doesn't magically expand at 5pm sharp so that every Tom, Dick and Sally can run thier lines at full speed - the only difference is you're no longer competing with business users who are paying more specifically so that they don't have to.

 

[Tharaxis]

1 - The CEO of the company said there's no shaping after hours...and I'm sorry as a consumer I want to believe what the boss of a company says...because the day I (we) get pissed off we can hold him to that. As I was reading this I was keeping an eye on my DU Meter screen...I have a dual view setup so the active usage graph DU Meter gives me sits nice and big on my second screen...8am EXACTLY I saw a huge dip in my downloads, as if either the network cut me off, or they have a script running limiting speeds on certain ports in specific hours.

2 - No nothing has been said about usage, you're right. The guys that has admitted to using "other" means of bypassing whatever shaping protocols MWEB has in place, got caught simple as that. Although, I am pretty sure guys on the 512 and 384 also use these services...then why is MWEB only targeting the 4mb users? Is it maybe because they pull a lot more data? But then...what does it matter, since "it's not about how much they usage"...sigh I would love to know if someone "got the call" that was using these services and only downloaded 1Gb...

3 - I'm sorry, you're WRONG in so many ways...MWEB is listed company yes? As a "company" they have a responsibility to their customers but more importantly to their shareholders...the boss of a company can't just go and say whatever the hell he likes, obviously to sugarcoat the product, then couple of months later nobody has the right to quote him on what he said? The product description has remained the same since he went on record saying there's no shaping after hours, so give me what you (Rudi Jansen) said, or change your damn product's desctiption!!!

4 - lol yes I'm a pirate...prove it!

I believe in honest advertising...simple as that. I honestly don't get why so many people are defending MWEB on this

1) I agree, if I subscribed in a vacuum, solely based on what the CEO said, I would be upset too. However, I didn't, and I'm sure you didn't either. M-Web has always been very up front with their terms and conditions, and despite some rantings to the contrary the T&C's have not changed in ways that significantly change the product, additionally the T&C's have been discussed heavily and openly on MyBB. It's possible (and likely), however, that during business hours there is a drop in the % of total traffic allowed over non-standard protocols. That does go largely in line with that the CEO said.

2) Well if you think about it, it's really easy to figure out why the 4mbit users are the most likely to be targeted, just look at the pricing! 4mbit users are paying R539 p/m for data vs R219 p/m for 384K users, 4mbit users are paying only double the price yet are capable of using 10x the bandwidth (and therefore having 10x the effect on the network). Is it any mystery that they're the ones to be targeted first? If you have 1000 384K users and 1000 4mbit users, and all 2000 are maxing out, then 90% of your bandwidth is being used by 4mbit users!

3) In an ideal world? Sure, companies and their CEO's should always be on message and should always be 100% accurate in what they say. But lets be realistic, people make mistakes, people DO sugarcoat things sometimes, and CEO's do sometimes say what they want (and maybe regret it later). You try having a conversation with someone and you might realise that often you try and frame what you say in ways that are perhaps not the most accurate, but instead easiest for you to remember and understand.

I believe in honest advertising too. But I think people are getting their lines seriously crossed as to what advertising is and isn't, and what they were expecting the product to be. Many seem to be under the impression that uncapped ADSL is somehow license to go crazy and score a free lunch, and are taking exception to having some hard reality dropped on them. There's no such thing as a free lunch unfortunately.

 

[Chevron]

I was actually thinking now that they should have rather priced the 4Mb/s package higher so we could get better quality of service.

 

[Necuno]

I was actually thinking now that they should have rather priced the 4Mb/s package higher so we could get better quality of service.

before the cable break, there was hardly an issue with quality. no rational person can think that backup bandwidth will preform as the normal means would with all the monkeys wanting to do 800+ a month. power users should be on power accounts and not home accounts, period.

lets see how they preform from monday onwards when it's back to seacom. yes i know the switch over is today, but i can guarantee you there will still be some issues here and there.

 

[Moodtec]

Just thought I would post my thoughts.

I was a happy a 4mb MWEB account holder and I do not think I am a heavy user as I have done under 100GB this month. The problem with MWEB's approach is now everytime I am on the net I am worrying am I downloading to much, can I stream this video or download this file.

Uncapped means no worries of being capped etc, now I can't use the net without worrying about going over my "cap" or having some T&C issue, for this reason I and I am sure many others will feel the need to change their ISP, this policy in my view has completely undone the "free the web" experience.

MWEB besides being a PR nightmare don't you think this approach may also cost you your reputation and some of your "good" clients?

 

[Necuno]

just read what has been said so far. it's covered.

Good evening ladies and gents

I see there has been quite a lot of debate regarding "the call". Please note that I limit my posts to clarifying specific issues from time to time if I feel that it can add some value. I'm also not going to discuss the specifics of individual customers who have been contacted regarding abuse, this is a matter between MWEB and the customer so please do not expect me to respond to questions about what customer X did, or didn’t do.

I would like to clarify a few points based on recent comments and re-emphasize some of my previous comments.

There is a lot of speculation going on about whether we are looking at a gigabyte limit, or some other such arbitrary rule to determine who is 'abusive'. Let me state again, we are looking at behaviour over an extended period of time and we are considering factors such as:

· repeated incidents of long periods of uninterrupted downloading at high speeds.
· the use of various techniques which allow vast amounts of traffic to be transferred at line, or near line speeds for extended periods of time.
This includes vpns and tunnelled http traffic from commercial seedbox services (thanks Venificus for describing the methods used by these services earlier).

Customers found to be making extensive use of ‘unshaping techniques’ will not be given a second chance.
These are the actions of an Internet savvy user who has gone to some lengths to optimize their downloading experience, not someone who stumbled on a faster way to download by pure chance.
These users are having a very real impact on the integrity of the network and service delivery to the vast majority of our customers is the first priority here.

This is not a process that is going to affect normal reasonable Internet users. The handful of people being affected by this know that they are pushing the envelope trying to continuously download as much as possible, as fast as possible. This isn’t what our shaped product was designed for and we quite simply cannot allow it be used in this way.

Kind Regards
MWEB Operations (Tech Manager)

Just thought I would post my thoughts.

I was a happy a 4mb MWEB account holder and I do not think I am a heavy user as I have done under 100GB this month. The problem with MWEB's approach is now everytime I am on the net I am worrying am I downloading to much, can I stream this video or download this file.

Uncapped means no worries of being capped etc, now I can't use the net without worrying about going over my "cap" or having some T&C issue, for this reason I and I am sure many others will feel the need to change their ISP, this policy in my view has completely undone the "free the web" experience.

MWEB don't you think this approach may also cost you some of your "good" client?

 

[Tharaxis]

Tharaxis:
Die in a fire.

Ah, what a measured and mature way in which to begin a discussion!

What a CEO says via any public channels, is considered advertising. Sorry, fact.

What fact? your fact? I can't remember when last I've heard some CEO or "person in charge" be in the media and NOT had to groan at the odd inaccuracy or obvious PR spin. You must live a very interesting life to be taking things so literally all the time.

Rudi did publicly say that they will not cut people off.

I think you're taking a *very* narrow interpretation of what was said, and it would likely not hold up in any official legal channel.

Rudi also publicly said that after-hours are unshaped.

Again, he has never said *anything* along the lines of "after hours are unshaped", what has been implied in most of the interviews is that shaping has a larger effect during peak hours and that off-peak should not have such problems, these things were said months ago however, and obviously shaping does have a larger effect during off hours than it used to, and one of the MAJOR causes of the off-peak problems is due to people abusing the service. On the one hand people go off and rant when M-Web's quality of service drops, then go off and rant when they try and fix the problem without having to hike your prices. Damned if you do, damned if you don't!

If amount of GB has nothing to do with it, how come we haven't heard of any 384k users being cut off? Oh i Know! Because even at full line speed 24/7 they probably wont even get near 100GB.

Read above, as a 4mbit user you pay 2x what a 384K user does, but expect 10x the product. WHAT A BARGAIN! Not so much if you're the ISP trying to provide that service.

I'm actually sooooo tempted to sign up for a 384 on my wife's name, and VPN the everliving sh** out of it for 3 months non-stop.
Just to see if they will cancel it.

Ah yes, acting like a petulant child, definitely a way to get people to take notice and listen!