MWEB - Message from CEO - Acceptable Use Policy

@MwebOps : Do you shape on a entire network level or is there different shaping at differnt points of the network eg: Dbn , Jhb , based on what users in that area are doing at the time?
 
MWEB Operations said:
Some more clarity, regarding priority traffic, shaping, after hours and the unshaping of downloads:

Shaping is not something that happens on a protocol, by protocol basis for the individual user.

Traffic is allocated into priority pools, with the aim of giving the best possible experience to the average user on the network. Each pool is allocated a portion of the available bandwidth on the network and at different times of the day, or dynamically based on the performance of the network the pool sizes are increased and decreased to allow more, or less headroom for different traffic types.
Within a given pool users making use of those traffic types will contend the available bandwidth, based on the shaping rules applied to ensure that everyone gets a fair experience.
So when we talk about relaxed shaping after hours, we are in effect saying that the size of the pool for peer to peer is increased as demand for priority traffic decreases.

This means that when someone intentionally unshapes their downloads they are no longer sharing bandwidth from the peer to peer pool with everyone else, but are using bandwidth from the priority traffic pool.

The net effect of this is that not only are they drawing from a bandwidth pool allocated to basic critical services, but they are also reducing the amount of bandwidth that can be allocated to the non critical bandwidth pool, which means that peer to peer users who play by the rules are also directly impacted by this behaviour.

Kind Regards
MWEB Operations (Tech Manager)
Click to expand...

In terms of users that download files via Rapidshare, Hotfile & similar http sites, how does this shaping affect them?
 
Good question Kosmik at the moment it's on an entire entwork level - in the future as the network expands and we will most likely be able to exercise more granular control over this.
 
MWEB Operations said:
Some more clarity, regarding priority traffic, shaping, after hours and the unshaping of downloads:

Shaping is not something that happens on a protocol, by protocol basis for the individual user.

Traffic is allocated into priority pools, with the aim of giving the best possible experience to the average user on the network. Each pool is allocated a portion of the available bandwidth on the network and at different times of the day, or dynamically based on the performance of the network the pool sizes are increased and decreased to allow more, or less headroom for different traffic types.
Within a given pool users making use of those traffic types will contend the available bandwidth, based on the shaping rules applied to ensure that everyone gets a fair experience.
So when we talk about relaxed shaping after hours, we are in effect saying that the size of the pool for peer to peer is increased as demand for priority traffic decreases.

This means that when someone intentionally unshapes their downloads they are no longer sharing bandwidth from the peer to peer pool with everyone else, but are using bandwidth from the priority traffic pool.

The net effect of this is that not only are they drawing from a bandwidth pool allocated to basic critical services, but they are also reducing the amount of bandwidth that can be allocated to the non critical bandwidth pool, which means that peer to peer users who play by the rules are also directly impacted by this behaviour.

Kind Regards
MWEB Operations (Tech Manager)
Click to expand...

I ask you again. How does a "handful" (Mweb's words) of users affect the entire "pool" and cause them more strenuous shaping?
 
MWEB Operations said:
Some more clarity, regarding priority traffic, shaping, after hours and the unshaping of downloads:

Shaping is not something that happens on a protocol, by protocol basis for the individual user.

Traffic is allocated into priority pools, with the aim of giving the best possible experience to the average user on the network. Each pool is allocated a portion of the available bandwidth on the network and at different times of the day, or dynamically based on the performance of the network the pool sizes are increased and decreased to allow more, or less headroom for different traffic types.
Within a given pool users making use of those traffic types will contend the available bandwidth, based on the shaping rules applied to ensure that everyone gets a fair experience.
So when we talk about relaxed shaping after hours, we are in effect saying that the size of the pool for peer to peer is increased as demand for priority traffic decreases.

This means that when someone intentionally unshapes their downloads they are no longer sharing bandwidth from the peer to peer pool with everyone else, but are using bandwidth from the priority traffic pool.

The net effect of this is that not only are they drawing from a bandwidth pool allocated to basic critical services, but they are also reducing the amount of bandwidth that can be allocated to the non critical bandwidth pool, which means that peer to peer users who play by the rules are also directly impacted by this behaviour.

Kind Regards
MWEB Operations (Tech Manager)
Click to expand...

Thanx for the explanation.

Am I understanding it right to think that when (in my case 6pm) my p2p traffic jumps to about 60kb/s from literally nothing, that the amount I'm getting is the ceiling at that particular point in time, according to the p2p pool size(or rather speed), which effectively means that speed for p2p is limited to around 60kb/s at that time for 4mb users (other people have confirmed getting the same speeds as me), which means that I'm only getting 14% speed when I'm doing p2p. I will admit that it does pick up later at night but not much...again I would have to go look at my hourly logs (and ps I'll share this with whoever wants to see it).

14% isn't allowing much now is it...
 
Last edited:
Angellus said:
*Going to ask this again to see if I get a reponse

Thanks for atleast trying to keep your users up to date on the forums, I for one appreciate it a lot.

I do have a very important question that I would like to get some clarity on and a straight answer would be much appreciated.

Will using Rapidshare/Megaupload/Megashares/Hotfile etc. mostly after hours(7pm-7am) be considered abuse as is indicated in the bolded part above? These services are very obviously shaped by mweb to nothing during the day so I would assume since you do this that using these services will not be considered abuse?

Would doing 150gb-300gb MAX per month with this method get a person into a position where they would get "The Call"?

It's a little frustrating not knowing exactly what is allowed and what not. :(
Click to expand...

I'm quite keen to get the terminology right. It is true, as you say, that RS, Hotfile etc and in my experience P2P (incl. games) are shaped "to nothing" during the day.

My question to Mweb is this:

When does shaping get so severe, we can call it BLOCKING?

It looks like Mweb uncapped is really designed for browsing only during the day - then after hours service speeds are about 1/3 of what they should be for a normally shaped account.
 
Last edited:
Are you still rabitting on like a damn stuck record... We know you dislike Mweb... so move on and find a better ISP for your needs.
 
ToxicBunny said:
Are you still rabitting on like a damn stuck record... We know you dislike Mweb... so move on and find a better ISP for your needs.
Click to expand...

Still with the toxic personal responses? If you don't like my questions then block them (take your own advice move on or maybe you just trying to offend?).
 
SlowHands said:
Thanx for the explanation.

Am I understanding it right to think that when (in my case 6pm) my p2p traffic jumps to about 60kb/s from literally nothing, that the amount I'm getting is the ceiling at that particular point in time, according to the p2p pool size(or rather speed), which effectively means that speed for p2p is limited to around 60kb/s at that time for 4mb users (other people have confirmed getting the same speeds as me), which means that I'm only getting 14% speed when I'm doing p2p. I will admit that it does pick up later at night but not much...again I would have to go look at my hourly logs (and ps I'll share this with whoever wants to see it).

14% isn't allowing much now is it...
Click to expand...

Slowhands your experience isn't the norm as I understand it and I've flagged this with the team who do the regular support on here to look into this. My understanding is that they are busy assisting you? If I remember correctly you are using an international news feed. Have you checked to ensure that there is no problem with the service - what happens if you try other types of peer to peer at these hours?
 
MWEB Operations said:
Slowhands your experience isn't the norm as I understand it and I've flagged this with the team who do the regular support on here to look into this. My understanding is that they are busy assisting you? If I remember correctly you are using an international news feed. Have you checked to ensure that there is no problem with the service - what happens if you try other types of peer to peer at these hours?
Click to expand...

This is what I am experiencing, (but on 384) and since reporting it, Mweb tech says it's "normal shaping" protocol.
 
mr MWEB Operations,

1) please tell if we are going to see the "reworked t&c" that was discussed by mweb on thuesday 20/07/2010.
2) from your reply below a rational interpretation would be that using a seed box now and then without being hours at end on it is acceptable.
3) continues downloads by steam will this be flagged too ?

MWEB Operations said:
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)
Click to expand...
 
MWEB Operations said:
Some more clarity, regarding priority traffic, shaping, after hours and the unshaping of downloads:

Shaping is not something that happens on a protocol, by protocol basis for the individual user.

Traffic is allocated into priority pools, with the aim of giving the best possible experience to the average user on the network. Each pool is allocated a portion of the available bandwidth on the network and at different times of the day, or dynamically based on the performance of the network the pool sizes are increased and decreased to allow more, or less headroom for different traffic types.
Within a given pool users making use of those traffic types will contend the available bandwidth, based on the shaping rules applied to ensure that everyone gets a fair experience.
So when we talk about relaxed shaping after hours, we are in effect saying that the size of the pool for peer to peer is increased as demand for priority traffic decreases.

This means that when someone intentionally unshapes their downloads they are no longer sharing bandwidth from the peer to peer pool with everyone else, but are using bandwidth from the priority traffic pool.

The net effect of this is that not only are they drawing from a bandwidth pool allocated to basic critical services, but they are also reducing the amount of bandwidth that can be allocated to the non critical bandwidth pool, which means that peer to peer users who play by the rules are also directly impacted by this behaviour.

Kind Regards
MWEB Operations (Tech Manager)
Click to expand...


Now THAT is an answer! Thanks :) A little transparency goes a long way - I understand a little more about why the bypassing shaping is a bad idea.

Of course, in an ideal world "to transfer large amounts of data at line, or near line speeds" wouldn't be a grievous sin but eh, such is life for now I suppose.
I'm still paying a damn site less than I used to be per GB so I'm reasonably happy :) If I can use Amazon's services to backup my photos I'll be quite chuffed.
 
MWEB Operations said:
Slowhands your experience isn't the norm as I understand it and I've flagged this with the team who do the regular support on here to look into this. My understanding is that they are busy assisting you? If I remember correctly you are using an international news feed. Have you checked to ensure that there is no problem with the service - what happens if you try other types of peer to peer at these hours?
Click to expand...

Hi MWEB Ops,

Thank you for the feedback. The only p2p traffic in my case is nzb's, using program Grabit, and using news server Atraweb. It's weekend so there will be much time to test different things and see if I can learn more. I'll keep updating here my findings.
 
MWEB Operations said:
Good evening ladies and gents

................
This is not a process that is going to affect normal reasonable Internet users.

Kind Regards
MWEB Operations (Tech Manager)
Click to expand...

Just explain the above. Does that mean the norm, as was many times before advertised by MWEB, E-mails, browsing and the "occasional" download? Fact is what you say, advertise and do are very different ambiguous and very unclear. Just say you cannot seem to deliver what you promise.
regards people using means to bypass your shaping you have a point. Thus block those systems not the user. It is obvious that people will use P2P, news servers and some other means to get the maximum benefit from the system they purchase. To come with crap like you ARE NOT ALLOWED TO DOWNLOAD 24/7 and YOU ADVERTISE "ALL THE DATA YOU NEED" That is just plain stupid, and you know it. You stuffed up and cannot deliver it seems. Now you come with all this Draconian Shiite you want to enforce. Just alter your products and we will choose our ISP's accordingly.

Get real! IN the beginning uncapped users will enjoy the Internet more as they experience what they could never before. Thus later the fad will wear off and data usage should reduce. You should not run your business concept on that hope as you have to ass-sume that every user will maximize their benefit. As long as they do not crook and bypass your safeguards (whatever that may be) keep your toys in your cot.
 
This includes vpns and tunnelled http traffic from commercial seedbox services .
Click to expand...
Kindly provide us with a amount considered 'fair usage'
Or can you not do this without violating your sacred 'uncapped' statements
I was told if you average 250gig+ over three months you will be flagged
 
Last edited:
I am Penguin said:
Get real! IN the beginning uncapped users will enjoy the Internet more as they experience what they could never before. Thus later the fad will wear off and data usage should reduce. You should not run your business concept on that hope as you have to ass-sume that every user will maximize their benefit. As long as they do not crook and bypass your safeguards (whatever that may be) keep your toys in your cot.
Click to expand...

But they have Penguin, you can go ape first month, next month , any month, any time , as long as you don't use tools that bypass the shaping restrictions or sites that *may unintentionly* bypass the shaping restrictions.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X