MWEB - Message from CEO - Acceptable Use Policy

I think the capacity issues might also have to do with Telkom's network freeze. They weren't able to increase IPC capacity until very recently.

@mwenops Still no mention of a power user account for lets say R699 or R799?
 
Guys lets be serious, they are not going to create another account for "power users" this would create product confusion with their business offering. And lets be honest their market would be a few guys on MyBB. Openweb gold already exists and they have a good rep, why no go there?
 
Perhaps you would like to explain how a handful of users can affect the shaping?

Tanya how can a handful of taxi's affect a highway with 10 000 cars on it?

They do it by pushing in where they should have waited their turn and that causes everyone else to have to wait for them
Thus slowing everyone else down

PS. this is a simplified explantion
 
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I think cost to provide the service might play a big part in that... I've heard that M-Web has seen itself significantly ahead of projections wrt their bandwidth provisioning, which would also throw out some costing models, they may be seeing less profitability than originally expected.

Agreed wrt the costs of provisioning. People constantly forget that the high cost of bandwidth in this country is directly attributable to Telkom and the consortiums that own the international links. The ISP's do what they can within this context and then get blasted because they're not willing to run at a loss just to keep what is a small percentage of thier customer base happy.
 
Tanya how can a handful of taxi's affect a highway with 10 000 cars on it?

They do it by pushing in where they should have waited their turn and that causes everyone else to have to wait for them
Thus slowing everyone else down

PS. this is a simplified explantion

But not the right metaphor I think. A handful of users utilising full bandwidth (4Meg) are limited both by shaping and line speed as well.
 
Agreed wrt the costs of provisioning. People constantly forget that the high cost of bandwidth in this country is directly attributable to Telkom and the consortiums that own the international links. The ISP's do what they can within this context and then get blasted because they're not willing to run at a loss just to keep what is a small percentage of thier customer base happy.

You forget that Mweb has bypassed a lot of these and are running on thier own links/aggreements. I agree that a lot of the fixed costs are still in play but it's not something that they cannot calculate or provision for. The ideal they have is right, two bandwidth pools , priorirty and low, dependant on protocol and shaped accross the network. The only place this fails is where people bypass the shaping. Otherwise there is no reason why a reasonable calculation can't be done to determine pool size and availability.
 
Yes Tanya but that is the whole point
Those few users is bypassing the shaping which does affect the group they are in
even if they have a small effect on the network it is still other users that is negatively affected
we aren’t talking about them bringin it to a standstill but it does have a effect

Lets say you are doing 400KB/s for you downloads while the shaping is only allowing you to do 100KB/s (which is allot more than the shaping allows according to you)

That means you are using 300KB/s that was not allocated to your usage group

Which is full line speed for 7.5 384K users
It also means that for every user bypassing the system there could be 3 users each getting 200KB/s instead of 100KB/s

I don’t get you from everything I have read you have been bitching and moaning about being shaped and it affecting your speed
Now you bitch and moan about people who was at least a partial cause for excessive shaping being moved or removed (I still say they should have been given option to stop abusing the system)
In the long run the effect those guys have might not be catastrophic but it has a effect

I think the only thing that would make you happy is if MWED decides to give you a 20MB/s unshaped un caped line for free
And even then I think you would still complain
 
Perhaps you would like to explain how a handful of users can affect the shaping?

Imagine you set up your router to prioritise http/vpn/(insert protocol of choice) over whichever protocol you're using for your p2p fix. You have a 4mbps line. If you were to leave your p2p stuff running 24/7 you would see it using, on average, about 90% of your available bandwidth.

You then graciously decide to let someone else share your line by connecting to your router. Your router is set up to prioritise http over p2p traffic, and as long as he's using the same protocols for the same purposes. Everything should be fine, right? If you're both online, downloading and browsing you're both gettting, on average, equal slices of bandwidth.

Them your family member decides his p2p stuff is too slow and reroutes it as http traffic. Your router sees his http traffic as higher priority than your p2p stuff and suddenly his downloads are flying while your p2p stuff is crawling.

If you were to log and analyse the traffic through your router at frequent intervals you would see the demand for priority traffic go from relatively low to very high. If you were making decisions as to how to reserve bandwidth for high priority protocols based on what you were seeing (without knowing that your cousin is actually rerouting his p2p stuff via http) you would go from reserving a relatively small % for the high priority stuff to a disproportionally large %.

Now this is with a contention ratio of 2:1. With a contention ratio of 40:1 or more, it still only takes person to completely skew the apparent demand for priority traffic. Even if only 1 in a 100 users decides to reroute thier p2p stuff via priority protocols it still significantly overstates the demand for those protocols.

Bear in mind that ISP's are not allowed to look at *what* you're downloading. If they see a skewed demand for priority traffic, they need to cater for that demand by reserving more bandwidth for that priority traffic and reserving less for the lower priority stuff. So that 1 out of a 100 user has his downloads flying along at 400kBs, while the other 99 users have thier p2p stuff shaped into the ground because thier ISP has only allocated 10% of thier available bandwidth for the p2p protocols, instead of a more realistic 80%.

I know I've pulled the percentages out of my arse, but the basic principle is sound and should answer your query as to how a handfull of users can affect the shaping.
 
Yes Tanya but that is the whole point
Those few users is bypassing the shaping which does affect the group they are in
even if they have a small effect on the network it is still other users that is negatively affected
we aren’t talking about them bringin it to a standstill but it does have a effect

Lets say you are doing 400KB/s for you downloads while the shaping is only allowing you to do 100KB/s (which is allot more than the shaping allows according to you)

That means you are using 300KB/s that was not allocated to your usage group

Which is full line speed for 7.5 384K users
It also means that for every user bypassing the system there could be 3 users each getting 200KB/s instead of 100KB/s

I don’t get you from everything I have read you have been bitching and moaning about being shaped and it affecting your speed
Now you bitch and moan about people who was at least a partial cause for excessive shaping being moved or removed (I still say they should have been given option to stop abusing the system)
In the long run the effect those guys have might not be catastrophic but it has a effect

I think the only thing that would make you happy is if MWED decides to give you a 20MB/s unshaped un caped line for free
And even then I think you would still complain

By your own example, one user is doing the usage of 4 (100kb/s compared to 400). So a "handful of users" turns into 4 handfuls, so what.

If shaping wasn't so severe, they wouldn't have to bypass it.

I reckon they are just using it as an excuse to justify over-shaping (cost saving).
 
You forget that Mweb has bypassed a lot of these and are running on thier own links/aggreements. I agree that a lot of the fixed costs are still in play but it's not something that they cannot calculate or provision for. The ideal they have is right, two bandwidth pools , priorirty and low, dependant on protocol and shaped accross the network. The only place this fails is where people bypass the shaping. Otherwise there is no reason why a reasonable calculation can't be done to determine pool size and availability.

I'm not forgetting anything. I'm simply fed up with people complaining about not being able to download at 4mbps 24/7 - they complain that they're not getting what they're paying for without realising that what they're paying is nowhere near sufficient to get what they're demanding.

Even if Mweb were paying SEACOM half of what TENET is (which is unlikely), to provide a single user with 4mbps of 24/7 connectivity will be costing them R2800 without factoring in any other costs. But then that user pays R569 and throws his or her toys out of the cot because they're not getting that 24/7 4mbps they think they deserve.
 
By your own example, one user is doing the usage of 4 (100kb/s compared to 400). So a "handful of users" turns into 4 handfuls, so what.

If shaping wasn't so severe, they wouldn't have to bypass it.

I reckon they are just using it as an excuse to justify over-shaping (cost saving).
No they never hid the fact that they are going to shape it
if you don't like the shaping then take the unshaped account
oh wait that costs more
Hmmm maybe that is because MWEB just wants to steal all your money and make you pay double the amount that it is costing them

I wonder why there is no other ISP that could get these prices before MWEB since the way you see it MWEB is ripping people off and stealing their money
So there should be a huge market for small ISP’s who only wants to make a 10% profit (since MWEB must be making 100%+ right) from their connections to give you nice cheap internet

Tanya please open your own ISP with prices the way you want them I want to join your connection (for the first week maybe)
Since it will be dirt cheap and and no shaping will mean that you will get the biggest uptake in clients ever
Until you actually have to pay your staff and Seacom for the Bandwith and Telkom interconnect fees
And for the servers and switches and buildings

Big surprise here MWEB actually wants to make a profit from their connections
They did not put multiple millions (if not billions) of Rands into their IPC network to make a loss
An yet they still came out with a price that made the other ISP’s moan about the low cost
 
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Imagine you set up your router to prioritise http/vpn/(insert protocol of choice) over whichever protocol you're using for your p2p fix. You have a 4mbps line. If you were to leave your p2p stuff running 24/7 you would see it using, on average, about 90% of your available bandwidth.

You then graciously decide to let someone else share your line by connecting to your router. Your router is set up to prioritise http over p2p traffic, and as long as he's using the same protocols for the same purposes. Everything should be fine, right? If you're both online, downloading and browsing you're both gettting, on average, equal slices of bandwidth.

Them your family member decides his p2p stuff is too slow and reroutes it as http traffic. Your router sees his http traffic as higher priority than your p2p stuff and suddenly his downloads are flying while your p2p stuff is crawling.

If you were to log and analyse the traffic through your router at frequent intervals you would see the demand for priority traffic go from relatively low to very high. If you were making decisions as to how to reserve bandwidth for high priority protocols based on what you were seeing (without knowing that your cousin is actually rerouting his p2p stuff via http) you would go from reserving a relatively small % for the high priority stuff to a disproportionally large %.

Now this is with a contention ratio of 2:1. With a contention ratio of 40:1 or more, it still only takes person to completely skew the apparent demand for priority traffic. Even if only 1 in a 100 users decides to reroute thier p2p stuff via priority protocols it still significantly overstates the demand for those protocols.

Bear in mind that ISP's are not allowed to look at *what* you're downloading. If they see a skewed demand for priority traffic, they need to cater for that demand by reserving more bandwidth for that priority traffic and reserving less for the lower priority stuff. So that 1 out of a 100 user has his downloads flying along at 400kBs, while the other 99 users have thier p2p stuff shaped into the ground because thier ISP has only allocated 10% of thier available bandwidth for the p2p protocols, instead of a more realistic 80%.

I know I've pulled the percentages out of my arse, but the basic principle is sound and should answer your query as to how a handfull of users can affect the shaping.

Ok, so you're basically saying that MWEB should invest in more routers?
 
I'm not forgetting anything. I'm simply fed up with people complaining about not being able to download at 4mbps 24/7 - they complain that they're not getting what they're paying for without realising that what they're paying is nowhere near sufficient to get what they're demanding.

Even if Mweb were paying SEACOM half of what TENET is (which is unlikely), to provide a single user with 4mbps of 24/7 connectivity will be costing them R2800 without factoring in any other costs. But then that user pays R569 and throws his or her toys out of the cot because they're not getting that 24/7 4mbps they think they deserve.

I'm not disagreeing with you but the largest problem here is folks moaning about the shaping and them getting hit for bypassing it. I consider my self a decent user of bandwidth ( although not a hog etc, I was quite happy to drop my old express+ for mweb as I wasn't using the line anywhere near what it could do and why pay double for what you don't use ) and although the shaping can be harsh at times, there is still a very decent data throughput on a month to month basis and I've been able to game online and stream quite comfortably, even with the seacom downtime.
 
:p

In this case Mweb is the router in that they need to decide how much bandwidth to allow different types of traffic based on nothing more than historical useage stats and available bandwidth.
 
Imagine you set up your router to prioritise http/vpn/(insert protocol of choice) over whichever protocol you're using for your p2p fix. You have a 4mbps line. If you were to leave your p2p stuff running 24/7 you would see it using, on average, about 90% of your available bandwidth.

You then graciously decide to let someone else share your line by connecting to your router. Your router is set up to prioritise http over p2p traffic, and as long as he's using the same protocols for the same purposes. Everything should be fine, right? If you're both online, downloading and browsing you're both gettting, on average, equal slices of bandwidth.

Them your family member decides his p2p stuff is too slow and reroutes it as http traffic. Your router sees his http traffic as higher priority than your p2p stuff and suddenly his downloads are flying while your p2p stuff is crawling.

If you were to log and analyse the traffic through your router at frequent intervals you would see the demand for priority traffic go from relatively low to very high. If you were making decisions as to how to reserve bandwidth for high priority protocols based on what you were seeing (without knowing that your cousin is actually rerouting his p2p stuff via http) you would go from reserving a relatively small % for the high priority stuff to a disproportionally large %.

Now this is with a contention ratio of 2:1. With a contention ratio of 40:1 or more, it still only takes person to completely skew the apparent demand for priority traffic. Even if only 1 in a 100 users decides to reroute thier p2p stuff via priority protocols it still significantly overstates the demand for those protocols.

Bear in mind that ISP's are not allowed to look at *what* you're downloading. If they see a skewed demand for priority traffic, they need to cater for that demand by reserving more bandwidth for that priority traffic and reserving less for the lower priority stuff. So that 1 out of a 100 user has his downloads flying along at 400kBs, while the other 99 users have thier p2p stuff shaped into the ground because thier ISP has only allocated 10% of thier available bandwidth for the p2p protocols, instead of a more realistic 80%.

I know I've pulled the percentages out of my arse, but the basic principle is sound and should answer your query as to how a handfull of users can affect the shaping.

I'm not forgetting anything. I'm simply fed up with people complaining about not being able to download at 4mbps 24/7 - they complain that they're not getting what they're paying for without realising that what they're paying is nowhere near sufficient to get what they're demanding.

Even if Mweb were paying SEACOM half of what TENET is (which is unlikely), to provide a single user with 4mbps of 24/7 connectivity will be costing them R2800 without factoring in any other costs. But then that user pays R569 and throws his or her toys out of the cot because they're not getting that 24/7 4mbps they think they deserve.


VERY VERY GOOD EXPLANATION ICARIUM!! I vote that this be stickied! - Plain and simple explanation, yet 100% spot-on.
 
I'm not forgetting anything. I'm simply fed up with people complaining about not being able to download at 4mbps 24/7 - they complain that they're not getting what they're paying for without realising that what they're paying is nowhere near sufficient to get what they're demanding.

Even if Mweb were paying SEACOM half of what TENET is (which is unlikely), to provide a single user with 4mbps of 24/7 connectivity will be costing them R2800 without factoring in any other costs. But then that user pays R569 and throws his or her toys out of the cot because they're not getting that 24/7 4mbps they think they deserve.

Don't forget the extra line rental charges - which don't go to MWEB but are a requirement for us to use those accounts.

Some of us want clarity, that's all. And kicking people off after 12 years of being a customer without even a warning is just not cricket.
 
Some of us want clarity, that's all. And kicking people off after 12 years of being a customer without even a warning is just not cricket.

mweb says we have clarity :)
MWEB CEO Rudi Jansen has recently clarified their Acceptable Use Policy, making it clear that MWEB’s ‘uncapped means uncapped’ - as long as you play by the rules.
 
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