MWEB peering changes begin - fallout imminent

I have a Vodacom business gold uncapped account via Openweb, if Vodacom doesn't come to some sort of agreement with Mweb, I'm a bit screwed for Black Ops. Although, if I mail MrBeep, he can always switch me back to the IS backbone who appears to be unaffected by this peering change. Just hope my download speeds won't suffer though, but I guess that's something I'll have to get used to then for the sake of the game ! :D
 
@StoneCode: You right on there man. Do what you must to have a good multiplayer experience with BlackOps :)
I hit my 10th prestige 2 weeks ago in MW2 and have now lost most of my interest in the game. Am HANGING for BlackOps :)
We got about 11 of us meeting at midnight on release day at BT Games to get our copies. All taken 2 days off work too to just PLAY - lol. 39 year old kid this side :)
 
Finally! We've been waiting for this since forever. Im 100% behind Mweb. I had an mweb account since that big black box came out with the 56k modem. Haven't bothered switching over since. Obviously didnt stick to dial-up but yeah.

One interesting thing is that MWeb aren't the ones who will benefit from this, but rather all the other ISPs who come onboard. MWeb customers are already switching over because of the high latencies to other networks such as saix and mtn. The guys who dont come to the party, like saix will be hurt because their customers will also switch over as they will experience problems connecting to sites hosted on mweb, especially gamers since MWeb's gaming servers are going to be awesome.

The guys who benefit from it are the ones like WebAfrica who remain unaffected in terms of latencies. The only change for them is that they don't have to pay to peer with MWeb and MWeb doesn't pay them to peer with them.

So this has created a prisoner's dilemma. Every ISP has a choice whether to peer with mweb or not. If they don't peer, they risk being left in the cold while everyone else switches over. If they do peer then they benefit from MWeb's low cost and customers moving over to them.

Ultimately if everyone moves over the big ISPs will lose out as they can no longer get extra cash for peering charges, but if they don't move over and everyone else moves over it will be even worse for them. So in order to prevent losing out big, they will move over so they only lose out a tiny bit. As for the smaller ISPs, for them its a win-win situation as peering fees cost them more than it earns them so free peering helps while at the same time their customers wont be affected as they can still peer with other ISPs unlike MWeb.

The end result will be that everyone has to join the party or risk being left in the cold. There is just one small problem in this equation. Nothing stops anyone from moving over and then just keep charging peering fees to everyone except MWeb. The smaller ISPs don't have the luxury that MWeb has of just refusing to pay any peering fees. The only difference then will be that MWeb is the sole ISP that doesn't charge or pay peering fees. I am not sure what their balance sheet looks like for peering fees but I am guessing they are currently paying more than receiving, which means they will have less costs while every other ISP will be in the same spot as they were. This will allow MWeb to cut prices in both web hosting and adsl accounts and give them an edge.

It will take time but in the end everyone will have to remove peering fees or be left in the cold.
 
Cyrus62 said:
Ultimately if everyone moves over the big ISPs will lose out as they can no longer get extra cash for peering charges, but if they don't move over and everyone else moves over it will be even worse for them. So in order to prevent losing out big, they will move over so they only lose out a tiny bit. As for the smaller ISPs, for them its a win-win situation as peering fees cost them more than it earns them so free peering helps while at the same time their customers wont be affected as they can still peer with other ISPs unlike MWeb.
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Interesting thing here is that you talk about large ISPs loosing money from peering charges. This would surely make no difference to the ones who were getting to MWeb via SAIX ? So this statement is a little flawed ?

In terms of the small ISPs this is an absolute victory, to have MWeb offer to distribute their content free of charge, especially those with a presence only in JHB or CT. Anyone know if MWeb will be limiting this geographically ?
 
johnelis said:
Anyone know if MWeb will be limiting this geographically ?
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At the moment you can peer in either JHB or Cape Town because MWeb have a presence at both exchanges, but it looks like (as in Web Africa's case) if you only have a connection to one of the internet exchanges then only customers in that area can connect. i.e. Joburg Web Africa subscribers are being routed via London whereas Cape Town users are going direct. They should find a way around this ideally.
 
Well so now Mweb needs to publicise this as much as they can - and so do all the other ISPs that are openly peering with them. Customers need to know what's going on so they can make the move.
 
Alestorm said:
At the moment you can peer in either JHB or Cape Town because MWeb have a presence at both exchanges, but it looks like (as in Web Africa's case) if you only have a connection to one of the internet exchanges then only customers in that area can connect. i.e. Joburg Web Africa subscribers are being routed via London whereas Cape Town users are going direct. They should find a way around this ideally.
Click to expand...

This does not sound like the so called "free" peering model. Whilst it does seem a reasonable way to deal with the geographic issue, segregating areas seems a little like what the other big guys are doing to an extent.
 
Online gaming is kinda shot to pieces. Not good publicity for MWeb. I know "they are doing the right thing" but - hey - wasn't there a less disruptive way of doing it? Smacks of publicity stunt - methinks. But on the positive - at less we know who to hate in this debacle. (for the confused - it starts with TEL...).

Ooh - Joburg online gamers: iGame works - where as SGS and WAGE are obviously off.
CT online gamers: iGame + WAGE would work.

Mweb - has done diddly squat to jack up their online game servers... doesn't sound like the boy scout motto to me...
 
MWEB FTW!

Hi All

It's been quite interesting seeing all this unravel. I for one am very proud to be an MWEB customer if this is how they are forcing internet reform in South Africa.

Please be patient with them, they are doing this for all of us.

MWEB, you have my vote!

Greets to Keith and the rest in CPT Mweb, you oaks rock man!

R
 
This matter has become very quiet. Would be nice to get an update as to how things are progressing.
 
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