MWEB - Message from CEO - Acceptable Use Policy

[Necuno]

Something I'm trying to get to through to you and you are not able to grasp is that if someone uses a VPN for privacy they should not have to deactivate it if they want to download. If someone wants privacy they should be able to have it 24/7. If not then they need to put that restriction so that people know where they stand - "This product is unsuitable for transfers over 10GB over an encrypted connection."

already noted here. i've already done few purevpn accounts for "privacy" without any issues. in fact, i've quite rolled the vpn between my house and my office for admin and work without fail.

i would love to see the punters try an asasa case... if they have the balls to come out from hiding behind their screens where it is safe. however let me pre-warn, uncapped is only deemed not uncapped when they actually cut you off. then it is not uncapped (which in this case is not the case since the user abused the service and was asked to move up one package). if they limit in anyway except that, it is uncapped according to the ISPA and ASASA going by the previous tried case.

...peterch, medical porn very confidential ?. quite sure using a vpn "normally" and not with the idea to bypass shaping mechanisms is legit. i've used quite a lot of vpn for work and optimizing my mmo traffic without getting a letter.

 

[Necuno]

Ok now you're arguing WHAT he was downloading. Yes it could have been legit.

I am not against MWEB protecting against 'abuse'. I just want them to spell in black and white what abuse is - i.e. quantify it. From what I understood earlier was that their systems shaped the connection to avoid abuse and only abuse in the form of sharing connections across numerous households or hosting websites was 'abuse'.

Thanks.

dude even vodacom have t&c don't **** with them if you want to use their service. our country has t&c don't **** with them if you want to live here out of jail. even medical aid does and so on and so on. if you want the cookie you have to adhire to the rules in place, it is that simple it is that stupid. if you can't grasp that then i at least evolution will take it's course

 

[PeterCH]

already noted here. i've already doen few purevpn accounts for "privacy" without any issues. in fact, i've quite rolled the vpn between my house and my office for admin and work without fail.

How much data have you done on it?

Secondly you are not using a VPN entirely for PRIVACY.

If someone chooses to anonymise all their traffic and if that is abuse, then that should be spelt out clearly.

 

[Kosmik]

There is a cap. Guy who was given a letter pulled 600GB. He said he didn't use a VPN. Now assume, that he used a VPN to cheat shaping but only pulled 20GB per month. Do you think he would have been called?

Was this on the forums anywhere? The only folks that I have seen to have spoken out have all basically admitted to trying to circumvent the shaping rules. Link please.

If not then they need to put that restriction so that people know where they stand - "This product is unsuitable for transfers over 10GB over an encrypted connection."

This I tend to agree with as these folks will be the victims due to other users trying to abuse the system. Think of it like internet banking. We used to just have pins, now we have pins, passwords, one time sms, tru phases, all because of people trying to break and circumvent systems put in place for the benefit of all.

 

[PeterCH]

dude even vodacom have t&c don't **** with them if you want to use their service. our country has t&c don't **** with them if you want to live here out of jail. even medical aid does and so on and so on. if you want the cookie you have to adhire to the rules in place, it is that simple it is that stupid. if you can't grasp that then i at least evolution will take it's course

Medical Aid is spelt out clearly. They cover first R500,000 on their plans for example.
Insurance is also spelt out clearly.
Sick leave is spelt out clearly. Etc.

All of these things are quantified. We have an exception here and not a rule. Please don't show off your own ignorance.

 

[Necuno]

How much data have you done on it?

Secondly you are not using a VPN entirely for PRIVACY.

If someone chooses to anonymise all their traffic and if that is abuse, then that should be spelt out clearly.

only vpns i have is

a) work, not sure how much since it's sql/ide work.
b) lower ping on mmo. about 1 gig a month.

...other time was to watch soccer via espn on their HD stream.

 

[Necuno]

Medical Aid is spelt out clearly. They cover first R500,000 on their plans for example.
Insurance is also spelt out clearly.
Sick leave is spelt out clearly. Etc.

All of these things are quantified. We have an exception here and not a rule. Please don't quite on my idiocy.

dude, i can't. you are in a loop and need a reset or hard blow to the head.

i shall now preform

forward slash give up and continue with live and leave those without it in a spinner.

 

[PeterCH]

dude, i can't. you are in a loop and need a reset or hard blow to the head.

i shall now preform

forward slash give up and continue with live and leave those without it in a spinner.

You're not using logic.

 

[Tharaxis]

Oh ffs, is this argument STILL persisting. It blows my frickin' mind.

I'm sure it's fun throwing around dictionary definitions in an attempt to look and sound smart, but lets break it down here.

Firstly, the M-Web service *is* unCAPPED, what it is not is unRESTRICTED. Now no doubt I'm going to get at least one response going "hurr hurr, that's the same thing, derp.", but unfortunately for that person they would be wrong. They're easy to confuse (apparently), but they're not the same.

Capping (esp. in the ZA context) relates to one specific thing, and that is usage thresholds. A "cap" is a formal declaration of a specific usage limit (MB/GB), after which some form of restriction occurs (loss of access, reduced service quality, etc.). Since M-Web's uncapped offering has never had such a "formal declaration", with the opposite in fact being stated numerous times, it's unequivocally an "uncapped" service. At no time is your account shut off, or access denied to you due to having hit some arbitrary GB threshold.

Some people (voted most likely to receive an abuse letter from M-Web) are attempting to muddle definitions to help bolster their individual arguments, redefining "cap" to mean "any synthetic limitation/restriction imposed by the service", be that usage thresholds, shaping, throttling, etc. and therefore come out swinging, with wild accusations and arguments, most of which are incorrect. Sure we can pull out the dictionaries and wax lyrical about the many different meanings of the word "cap", but lets be real here, "cap" means usage limits. I see no arguments about being "capped" at 384K speeds if you subscribed to a 384K line.

What you people are complaining about are certain RESTRICTIONS imposed by the Terms & Conditions (restrictions, mind, which have been made very clear to you and to which you agreed when you signed up for the service). Restrictions that have become far less palatable as "abuse" has been clamped down upon.

Do I agree with every term they have? No, I think there are a couple of clauses that are either stupid or closed-minded based on how The Internet works (and should be working here).

So seriously, lets stop with the STUPID arguments (yeah, like that'll happen) and start focusing on the things that actually are important, like how to *realistically* work with ISP's on improving service levels, getting them to understand us better regarding our needs (arguments like these do nothing but piss ISP's off) so they can better service us, and so on.

 

[SSung]

for the love of god try to follow the cases and the verdicts

SolMatrix / D I Wise & Another / 9956 (fake saix uncapped accounts/ complaint upheld)
http://www.asasa.org.za/ResultDetail.aspx?Ruling=3957


Open Web Uncapped ADSL / MB Deas & Another / 9690 (uncapped limits / complaint dismissed)
http://www.asasa.org.za/ResultDetail.aspx?Ruling=3915

I don't see how either of those cases are relevant to the current situation with MWEB. MWEB (apparently) isn't using 'hard' thresholds & throttling anyone's linespeed. This is about the allegations of 'abuse' and interpretations of the T&Cs.

 

[Tharaxis]

@Tanya35 Yes the other choice is cancellation, but please put emphasize on the fact that a choice was offered. It might surprise you to know that more than one customer chose to reduce their usage and expenditure and move down to the 512k unshaped product, which we were more than happy to accomodate - apparently it is possible to download the whole Internet in 3 months

Come now, let's be honest here, a choice between cancellation or a 3-fold hike in price isn't really a choice, especially for the individual, it's borderline extortion (perhaps a bit harsh, but you catch my drift). M-Web historically seems to be of the impression that their customers have deep pockets, which couldn't be further from the truth.

Personally if I was hit with one of these mails and there was some quantifiable reason "we noticed these specific types of activity which we don't appreciate" and it really is excessive, I would be happy to potentially REDUCE (although not eliminate) such activity to a level at which it is acceptable, but I don't think I would just sit and accept some form of boilerplate notice, I have no way of knowing what activity was wrong, and by how much. So maybe what you guys should look at is maybe fleshing out these mails with specific details of the activity noticed, potential solutions, etc. It can only help the customer make more informed decisions, and if the customer feels that what's being reported just can't possibly be right, it gives them something that they can dispute and investigate.

 

[MWEBHelp]

How much data have you done on it?

Secondly you are not using a VPN entirely for PRIVACY.

If someone chooses to anonymise all their traffic and if that is abuse, then that should be spelt out clearly.

If that person was on a shaped product and they chose to do bulk downloads (torrent, news, rapidshare, etc) through the vpn they would unshaping the bulk download traffic.

The intentional bypassing of shaping rules is specifically stated as being prohibited in our terms and conditions and I can't imagine that anyone who had actively chosen to make use of the service in this manner would be ignorant of the fact that they were seeing faster downloads when using it in this manner, so yes it is abuse.

I really can't think of a clearer way to answer the question than this.

 

[MWEBHelp]

Come come now, let's be honest here, a choice between cancellation or a 3-fold hike in price isn't really a choice, especially for the individual, and is borderline extortion (perhaps a bit harsh, but you catch my drift) - M-Web historically seems to be of the impression that their customers have deep pockets, which couldn't be further from the truth.

Personally if I was hit with one of these mails and there was some quantifiable reason "we noticed these specific types of activity which we don't appreciate" and it really is excessive, I would be happy to potentially REDUCE (although not eliminate) such activity to a level at which it is acceptable, but I don't think I would just sit and accept some form of boilerplate notice, I have no way of knowing what activity was wrong, and by how much. So maybe what you guys should look at is maybe fleshing out these mails with specific details of the activity noticed, potential solutions, etc.

It can only help the customer make more informed decisions, and if the customer feels that what's being reported just can't possibly be right, it gives them something that they can dispute and investigate.

Thanks for the feedback Tharaxis

As some of you may have guessed I am not the regular Mr Mweb Ops. I have a direct involvement in the managing of this process and you make some valid points which I will definitely keep in mind going forward.

This is a challenging and very sensitive subject. You have to consider what’s fair on the users being flagged as abusive, but you also have to consider the impact they are having on the 99.99% average customers and on the integrity of the network.

We are trying our best to juggle all of these factors and we will only get better at this.

What you also have to consider is that even MWEB Operations staff need their beauty sleep so goodnight to all of you

Kind Regards
MWEB Operations (Tech Manager)

 

[SlowHands]

I STILL wanna know why I'm only pulling between 50-60kb/s this time of the morning (nzb's)

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

The big boss man himself said this...and it's currently 01h50 so it IS NOT PEAK HOURS!!!!!!!!! Can someone at MWEB please tell me why I'm only getting 60kb/s on a line that can do 420kb/s???????

 

[Alestorm]

Something I'm trying to get to through to you and you are not able to grasp is that if someone uses a VPN for privacy they should not have to deactivate it if they want to download. If someone wants privacy they should be able to have it 24/7. If not then they need to put that restriction so that people know where they stand - "This product is unsuitable for transfers over 10GB over an encrypted connection."

Although this makes sense, I must say: who really cares. So few people use VPN's, and generally VPN's are not for permanent service, they're to connect temporarily through another network. If you do for some reason have to permanently use a VPN then you should at least know that it bypasses their shaping and therefore not use it to download massive amounts off P2P at full speed. This really isn't much to ask and I doubt whether your hypothetical argument about privacy is even going to affect anyone on these accounts. A non-issue if I've ever seen one. MWeb and the two or three people who might have this problem can just come to an agreement between themselves.

 

[PeterCH]

If that person was on a shaped product and they chose to do bulk downloads (torrent, news, rapidshare, etc) through the vpn they would unshaping the bulk download traffic.

The intentional bypassing of shaping rules is specifically stated as being prohibited in our terms and conditions and I can't imagine that anyone who had actively chosen to make use of the service in this manner would be ignorant of the fact that they were seeing faster downloads when using it in this manner, so yes it is abuse.

I really can't think of a clearer way to answer the question than this.

Yes, but you used the word intentional. So it's the same if the bypassing is a byproduct of wanting to preserve constant privacy?

So with MWEB a user who wants to maintain anonymity online has to disable his privacy mechanism in order to help MWEB's poor shaping technology and therefore sacrifice his privacy whenever he wants to download anything which could be construed as abusive.
Since we have no idea what abusive is - it could be 10GB per month, it could be 1GB per month, heck it could be a burst of traffic more than 10min long - who knows.

So you should explicitly say that this account is not for those who want to maintain constant online anonymity OR you could say how much is acceptable in terms of protected downloads or total downloads.

 

[PeterCH]

Although this makes sense, I must say: who really cares. So few people use VPN's, and generally VPN's are not for permanent service, they're to connect temporarily through another network. If you do for some reason have to permanently use a VPN then you should at least know that it bypasses their shaping and therefore not use it to download massive amounts off P2P at full speed. This really isn't much to ask and I doubt whether your hypothetical argument about privacy is even going to affect anyone on these accounts. A non-issue if I've ever seen one. MWeb and the two or three people who might have this problem can just come to an agreement between themselves.

The matter would be clear if we had usage limits. So that MWEB can say
Look you can have your privacy but only 10GB pm thereof, our shaping system is not capable of shaping encrypted connections and so we have to assume you are cheating.

 

[MWEBHelp]

The matter would be clear if we had usage limits. So that MWEB can say
Look you can have your privacy but only 10GB pm thereof, our shaping system is not capable of shaping encrypted connections and so we have to assume you are cheating.

The system is quite capable of shaping this type of traffic, we choose not to shape it precisely because so many people like yourself who use vpn legitimately would be adversly affected by this. All of the commerically available vpn services I've seen which encourage bulk downloading specifically mention unshaping in their advertising, which brings us back to intentional usage.
Perhaps you could give me some examples of other types of vpn services that the average man in the street would consider using that would generate high enough volumes of traffic to register as potential abuse, so that I can understand your concerns better?

 

[DJNgoma]

The complainants are of the opinion that the advertisement is misleading as the word “uncapped” implies limitless Internet access. The service, however, is limited to specific amounts of data. Once the stipulated limit is reached, the connection speed is significantly reduced.

The respondent submitted that it is not selling “unlimited” ADSL accounts, but “uncapped” ADSL accounts. Because the user will always have an Internet connection, irrelevant of bandwidth usage, the package remains uncapped. Users who download more than their allocated amount of data are restricted in terms of access speed, but will still have Internet access.

Just commenting on the previous post about the complaint to ASASA. If users are pushing bulks of data through MWeb's network, they should just throttle them. So for example I could be downloading huge amounts on my 4mbps uncapped package and if they deem it to be abusive just drop my cap speed to 512kps for the remainder of the month to avoid congestion.

This brings me to this conclusion. They offer a middle ground with with some dubious limitations being the 4mbps uncapped shaped package; but as far as I can see if you drop down to a 512kbps uncapped shaped package, being the lower ground, or jump all the way to the top with the 4mbps uncapped unshaped package, being the higher ground, you don't hear these reports of abuse.

Like PeterCH has said, there is a limit on how much one can download. No point in sugarcoating that point, thus one needs to provide some sort of muzzle to be placed be it a capping or throttling of some sorts and therefore wouldn't need not require the use of these 'abuse' letters to clients.

 

[zorko]

Not to mention most folks who don't abuse the network still get in excess of 200Gb a month.

dude, i am on 67gb on a 4meg line for the month and still only average 42kbs if i am lucky anytime of the day or night.