MWEB - Message from CEO - Acceptable Use Policy

[Kosmik]

The explanation was hardly clear. BTW please butt out, I do not wish you to reply to my posts.

It's a public forum, he's free to express his opinion within the T&C's of MyBB. Your free to use the ignore function for him if you choose, I find it lovely for Tanya35, does wonders for my peace of mind.

 

[Necuno]

It is possible that some people use a VPN to abuse the network - however, that is not my concern. MWEB is free to shape encrypted protocols if they want.

your concern was termination, the fool was not terminated merely asked to rethink his habits or move along. quite normal for any isp or hosting company as many of them would have done the same. even openweb will have to swallow their candy when too much users download 24.7 on their supposedly true uncapped.

a) they do the same as mweb and give a call.
b) the product goes magically out of stock as it has been done previously when the network got "full".

Solmatrix had a uncapped product but with the fear of cut off, the did loose the asasa case rightfully so and had to stop selling bull**** accounts. where as all the IS/seacom uncapped accounts do not cut you off but limit in one way or other, period.

 

[SabreWolfy]

That is how I understood the case to be earlier. However, now it seems that MWEB is going back. Remember bypassing shaping is not the only thing they consider abusive.

Today it is 600GB, next week it will be 300GB, next week it will be 100GB.

Yup. Sucks hey. What you going to do about it though?

 

[PeterCH]

Read. The. Terms. And. Conditions. Please. Before. Posting. Rubbish.

Uncapped is uncapped. Sorry T&C notwithstanding.

Some of us were letting it slide because we did not think, as the CEO first mentioned, that they would call and harass people but this calling and harassment is nonsense. We thought, sure it's shaped - that's why it's so slow but now it's not just shaping it's also cancellations. This is a poor show.

 

[PeterCH]

Yup. Sucks hey. What you going to do about it though?

What business is it of yours?

 

[Kosmik]

Then what is at issue?

Utilising Vpn\proxies to disguise the p2p traffic that would normally be shaped.
Using the account for internet cafes or to run FTP/Web/Forum servers.
Sharing the account with multiple users ( not a single household but multiple households )

 

[PeterCH]

It's a public forum, he's free to express his opinion within the T&C's of MyBB. Your free to use the ignore function for him if you choose, I find it lovely for Tanya35, does wonders for my peace of mind.

The same applies to him. My comments do not involve him. I am not commenting on Saberwolfy.

 

[Necuno]

Uncapped is uncapped. Sorry T&C notwithstanding.

see:

your concern was termination, the fool was not terminated merely asked to rethink his habits or move along. quite normal for any isp or hosting company as many of them would have done the same. even openweb will have to swallow their candy when too much users download 24.7 on their supposedly true uncapped.

a) they do the same as mweb and give a call.
b) the product goes magically out of stock as it has been done previously when the network got "full".

Solmatrix had a uncapped product but with the fear of cut off, the did loose the asasa case rightfully so and had to stop selling bull**** accounts. where as all the IS/seacom uncapped accounts do not cut you off but limit in one way or other, period.

as i've said go the asasa/ispa route, i'd be really really surprised if they have changed their minds since those two rulings...

 

[PeterCH]

Utilising Vpn\proxies to disguise the p2p traffic that would normally be shapes.
Using the account for internet cafes or to run FTP/Web/Forum servers.
Sharing the account with multiple users ( not a single household but multiple households )

So if I have 10 people at my house, and someone is always downloading something and say we want to protect our privacy -- that is ABUSE then eh?

 

[LancelotSA]

May i just say that had i been implicitly told beforehand that i'm not allowed to exceed a certain amount of data per month i would have probably adhered to that - but with no clear definition of thresholds by MWEB and the Abuse letter i received from them

So this is what your letter said :

Dear MWEB Customer

This email serves as a notice regarding your MWEB ADSL service and follows from our earlier telephone discussion with yourself.

Your current ADSL usage pattern indicates that you have not been adhering to our ADSL Service Terms, specifically our ADSL Acceptable Usage Policy, provided to you when you subscribed to our ADSL service.

As a result we strongly advise you to upgrade to one of our Business or Unshaped products that will better suit your requirements. Should you not adhere to this request, you leave us no choice but to have your account terminated in line with our ADSL Service Terms.

To read more on our ADSL Service Terms, please click here.

If you wish to discuss this matter further, reply to this email or contact us on 021 596 8996.

Kind regards
MWEB Operations

So show me where they complained about the amount of data you were using? Were you using VPNs to bypass shaping for downloads? Give us all the facts before slagging off a company or it just makes you look silly and bitter.

 

[PeterCH]

see:

But the name is UNCAPPED. Name and T&C do not agree.

 

[SabreWolfy]

Uncapped is uncapped. Sorry T&C notwithstanding.

Some of us were letting it slide because we did not think, as the CEO first mentioned, that they would call and harass people but this calling and harassment is nonsense. We thought, sure it's shaped - that's why it's so slow but now it's not just shaping it's also cancellations. This is a poor show.

ROFL! You can't simply dismiss the T&C you agreed to by saying "notwithstanding". If you use the service within the T&C it is uncapped.

 

[Necuno]

But the name is UNCAPPED. Name and T&C do not agree.

ow god please show me an isp that does not feature an AUP or T&C. should i fetch the asasa case to help your crippled understanding ?

 

[SabreWolfy]

So if I have 10 people at my house, and someone is always downloading something and say we want to protect our privacy -- that is ABUSE then eh?

If those 10 people regularly download hundreds of GB over an encrypted tunnel on a non-business/non-internet addict account, in terms of the T&C, yes.

 

[MWEBHelp]

@Seeyou : The Consumer Protection Act is a big focus for us right now in terms of ensuring that all of our customer service processes are up to speed and it's something I've spent quite a bit of time on myself recently. I can honestly tell you that as customer service is such a core value for us at MWEB, much of what the act stipulates are things that we have already been doing for quite some time!

@PeterCH: I'm really sorry that you feel that this is a poor show on our part and I fully respect your point of view, however our shaped and unshaped products are clearly demarcated in the advertising in terms of the usage profile that we expect on them. The unshaped products is named Internet Addict and is flagged as being for heavy downloaders and I honestly feel that the customers we contacted, requesting not that they terminate their accounts, but that they migrate to this product would be hard-pressed to argue that they do not fall into this range of usage.

I think it's also fair to note that of the customers we offered this choice to very few of them expressed the opinion that they were being unfairly treated and many of them made the decision to stay on and move to a product more appropriate to their usage needs.

 

[PeterCH]

ROFL! You can't simply dismiss the T&C you agreed to by saying "notwithstanding". If you use the service within the T&C it is uncapped.

The service is called UNCAPPED = no limits. From what I understood, the shaping was supposed to ensure that abuse did not occur, and obviously account sharing etc is all abusive. However, now we hear other stories. Because MWEB's shaping is deficient, suddenly people are terminated. Anyway - this is all a poor show and hardly cricket.

 

[Kosmik]

So if I have 10 people at my house, and someone is always downloading something and say we want to protect our privacy -- that is ABUSE then eh?

Unlikely that you are going to have some of the 10 permanently downloading at the full line speed 24/7, simply for the reason the other 9 would throttle them

And 10 users browsing the internet is not continous, the gaps between web calls would clearly show in thier logs. Same for VPN use, you can protect your privacy but when you start shunting 100's of GB though a VPN connection then they consider it abuse, yes.

 

[PeterCH]

If those 10 people regularly download hundreds of GB over an encrypted tunnel on a non-business/non-internet addict account, in terms of the T&C, yes.

So MWEB is therefore preventing people from protecting their PRIVACY.

 

[PeterCH]

Unlikely that you are going to have some of the 10 permanently downloading at the full line speed 24/7, simply for the reason the other 9 would throttle them

And 10 users browsing the internet is not continous, the gaps between web calls would clearly show in thier logs. Same for VPN use, you can protect your privacy but when you start shunting 100's of GB though a VPN connection then they consider it abuse, yes.

So you're saying - switch off privacy when you are downloading files of x size?

Again can you see the absurdity of this?

Your privacy is limited by MWEB's issues.

 

[Tanya35]

@Seeyou : The Consumer Protection Act is a big focus for us right now in terms of ensuring that all of our customer service processes are up to speed and it's something I've spent quite a bit of time on myself recently. I can honestly tell you that as customer service is such a core value for us at MWEB, much of what the act stipulates are things that we have already been doing for quite some time!

@PeterCH: I'm really sorry that you feel that this is a poor show on our part and I fully respect your point of view, however our shaped and unshaped products are clearly demarcated in the advertising in terms of the usage profile that we expect on them. The unshaped products is named Internet Addict and is flagged as being for heavy downloaders and I honestly feel that the customers we contacted, requesting not that they terminate their accounts, but that they migrate to this product would be hard-pressed to argue that they do not fall into this range of usage.

I think it's also fair to note that of the customers we offered this choice to very few of them expressed the opinion that they were being unfairly treated and many of them made the decision to stay on and move to a product more appropriate to their usage needs.

And if they refuse to "migrate to" the more expensive product? Be honest now...