MWEB Uncapped ADSL Feedback - Part 2

[Diesal]

Received from M-Web now, I'm not sorry.




We are terribly sorry to see you wanting to leave MWEB.

We confirm receipt of your cancellation request, and your reference number is: [REF# 20130808***** ].

Please do not delete this reference number from the subject line (which is Cancellation - m********] ) in this email.
We will deal with the request (in line with our product terms and conditions), as soon as possible and send confirmation via your preferred method of communication as selected in the form, providing we have a fully completed cancellations form. Should your account be registered in the business name, also provide us with the company letterhead and a detailed cancellation instruction from the primary contact person as registered for this account, as well as a copy of his/her ID.
Kind regards
MWEB Customer Care

You submitted your cancellation today, and got a response today.
When I did mine on the 31 July, I only got a response on 5 August.

Looks like Mweb were prepared for this day.

 

[pjjdp]

I have never received a warning before today either.

Thanks ill be moving as well. Already have trial accounts for the weekend.

Everyone I know who is using MWEB will likely follow suite, as they trust in my opinion. So -6 or so here.

Well played

+1 also have a trial account for the weekend.

Only thing is, I can only join a new provider at the end of Sept. With the unfair business practice of M-Web of waiting for a calendar month, I have no choice.

By then, I might even upgrade a bit to a 2MB account.

 

[Anthro]

If my theory is correct, the 3% "heavy downloaders" is a lot of money they will lose.

Personally I have 4 accounts with MWEB, 1 of my companies is forking out for 8 DSL accounts.

Our main office spends +/- 48k a month on DSL...

 

[BlaQ_PhoeniX]

I will be trying out Afrihost. Nothing to lose seeing as how they have a 60day double your money back if you are not satisfied.

 

[zs6cey]

+1 also have a trial account for the weekend.

Only thing is, I can only join a new provider at the end of Sept. With the unfair business practice of M-Web of waiting for a calendar month, I have no choice.

By then, I might even upgrade a bit to a 2MB account.

If Mweb not giving us 1 calendar notice of impending doom, how can they ask for 1 calendar month notice? Not fair, I think.

Also, the rolling window is 30 days, only 23 days to 1 September - ummmm.

 

[Lydon]

Hi,

I have never received any notification of my excessive usage, and therefore, am not aware that my usage was excessive. Please refrain from making generalizations!

Same boat!

Well, having been a loyal customer since 2010 we're canceling our MWeb service tonight.

EDIT: Surely this would be considered a breach of contract on MWeb's part and we should be allowed to switch providers from the start of next month at the very latest?

 

[MagicDude4Eva]

Will also move - was stupid enough to move my ADSL line to Mweb as well which is now going to be a major pain. In any case if you pay R899/pm for Premium Uncapped ADSL and then get told from MWeb customer care "You are an abuser and using too much" is really a slap in the face and false marketing. How can you offer an uncapped product and in the same breadth then tell customers they are downloading too much?

I think Mwebguy overestimates customer loyalty and people will churn.

BTW Mweb: Your behaviour is the same as a traffic cop pulling you over for speeding, but not saying how fast you are allowed to go - perhaps now you understand why your customers are angry. A bit of transparency and clarity would help. Customer is still king - you know?

 

[zs6cey]

Will also move - was stupid enough to move my ADSL line to Mweb as well which is now going to be a major pain. In any case if you pay R899/pm for Premium Uncapped ADSL and then get told from MWeb customer care "You are an abuser and using too much" is really a slap in the face and false marketing. How can you offer an uncapped product and in the same breadth then tell customers they are downloading too much?

I think Mwebguy overestimates customer loyalty and people will churn.

BTW Mweb: Your behaviour is the same as a traffic cop pulling you over for speeding, but not saying how fast you are allowed to go - perhaps now you understand why your customers are angry. A bit of transparency and clarity would help. Customer is still king - you know?

I feel exactly the same.

 

[MagicDude4Eva]

BTW - this is the feedback I got in February and based on telephonic conversation with Mweb today, their stance seems to have changed that there are now limits (I do believe that there have always been limits but for whatever bizarre reasons Mweb now decides to upset power users resulting in a huge amount of bad publicity and revenue-loss). I am still puzzled by the fact that no-one at Mweb "knows" the limits for those consumption patterns - can MwebGuy please ask your Mweb Linux guy in the corner what he wrote in his Python script?

On 25 Feb 2013, at 10:07 , Abuse <[email protected]> wrote:


Good day

The abuse process is not related to how much total bandwidth is utilised in a month. Uncapped means precisely that, Uncapped. There are no monthly limits.

The notifications are triggered by (amongst other parameters) a prolonged period of daily usage patterns between 20 and 40 GBs. The abuse system looks at a variety of factors, such as bandwidth consumption patterns and historical usage, to determine who gets flagged. The system does this dynamically and automatically, so there is no set guideline.

That is as much detail as I am able to provide you with regarding this process without completely breaching any internal policies.

As long as you manage your usage patterns appropriately (no unattended automated transfers for several days) you should not trigger any further notifications or warnings.


Kind regards
XXXX XXXXX
Security & Abuse Team
Fax: + 27 021 5968915
[email protected] ; [email protected]
MWEB Head Office, Private Bag X001, N1 City, Cape Town, South Africa, 7463 www.mweb.co.za

 

[AthenianOwl]

Will also move - was stupid enough to move my ADSL line to Mweb as well which is now going to be a major pain. In any case if you pay R899/pm for Premium Uncapped ADSL and then get told from MWeb customer care "You are an abuser and using too much" is really a slap in the face and false marketing. How can you offer an uncapped product and in the same breadth then tell customers they are downloading too much?

I think Mwebguy overestimates customer loyalty and people will churn.

BTW Mweb: Your behaviour is the same as a traffic cop pulling you over for speeding, but not saying how fast you are allowed to go - perhaps now you understand why your customers are angry. A bit of transparency and clarity would help. Customer is still king - you know?

Dude, you can move your line back to Telkom. it can be done in less than a week. PM MWEBGUY for more details.

 

[AthenianOwl]

BTW - this is the feedback I got in February and based on telephonic conversation with Mweb today, their stance seems to have changed that there are now limits (I do believe that there have always been limits but for whatever bizarre reasons Mweb now decides to upset power users resulting in a huge amount of bad publicity and revenue-loss). I am still puzzled by the fact that no-one at Mweb "knows" the limits for those consumption patterns - can MwebGuy please ask your Mweb Linux guy in the corner what he wrote in his Python script?

Hahaha, that's some ambiguous **** right there in that letter.

 

[MagicDude4Eva]

Hahaha, that's some ambiguous **** right there in that letter.

Back then, they at least entertained my queries, nowadays I don't get such email responses anymore, but demonstrates the stance Mweb had taken then and now. It's like saying: "Come to our all-you-can-eat-party" and some time later: "Uh wait, you can't eat so much, we are not telling you why and we will make something up in September to frustrate you even more".

On 22 Feb 2013, at 10:32 , Abuse <[email protected]> wrote:



Good day

Yes, Uncapped and unthrottled is exactly that. There is no limit to how much bandwidth you can use and MWEB do not throttle your connection speeds when you reach certain thresholds.
However, MWEB reserves the right to establish policies concerning the use of it's services and to manage our network for the benefit of all our subscribers. Please see the MWEB Acceptable Use Policy available athttp://www.mweb.co.za/legalpolicies/GeneralPage/AcceptableUsePolicy.aspx.
Uncapped products are all subject to the MWEB Acceptable Use Policy and all products are advertised as such. This is especially apparent in any print or media campaigns.
Usage Patterns which are identified as abusive network behaviour are prolonged sessions. By prolonged sessions, we are referring to unattended automated transfers for lengthy periods. That pattern of usage is not in keeping with the terms and conditions of the product, which clearly state that you are not to behave in such a manner as to place an unnecessary burden on our network.
Essentially if you are attempting to download as much as you can, as fast as you can every day for a number of consecutive days, your requirement is not suited to an Uncapped Shaped Home Use ADSL product.
"If your intention with this shaped product is to conduct heavy/bulk data transfers 24/7, then this product is not suited to your usage pattern. Our "Internet Addict" products, which are Unshaped, are suited to heavy transfers. Please seehttp://www.mweb.co.za/productspricing/InternetAccess/ADSL/InternetAddict.aspx."

Please contact us if you require any further information.

Kind regards
XXXX XXXXXXX
Security & Abuse Team
Fax: + 27 021 5968915
[email protected] ; [email protected]
MWEB Head Office, Private Bag X001, N1 City, Cape Town, South Africa, 7463 www.mweb.co.za

Being a good netizen, I did ask them for advice so that I am "less abusive" in Mweb terms and came up with the following (in my mind fair suggestion - call it my own "Nightowl"). Surely someone from Mweb should be able to answer a simple question as the one below (that was asked in Feb and since then it's been crickets):

Thanks for the response,

so on MyBB there is the sentiment that it is absolutely okay to run downloads at full line-speed (in my case I will probably get about 380KB/sec) between 6/7pm till 6/7am (i.e. 12 hours) and just not use the ADSL connection for downloads during business hours. Another sentiment seems to be that it's perfectly okay to run full line-speed for 6 hours, then stop for 6 hours and so on.

I appreciate your response, but I still have not really received a satisfactory answer - my point being:
I downloaded 24x7 at 150-200KB/sec which amounts to 13-18GB/day. The line is never fully utilised.
User A downloads at full line-speed (i.e. 380KB/sec) from 7pm-7am (12 hours) - this amounts to 15-16GB/day but fully saturates the line for that period
User B downloads at full line-speed for 6 hours with a 6 hour break - so that also means 12 hours (i.e. 00:00 - 06:00 download, 06:00-12:00 pause, 12:00-18:00 download) and also amounts to the same as user A

I don't see that I will change what I download but am very well in a position to change how and when the downloads occur and would like to adjust this to avoid being banned from MWEB. Your previous responses did not really answer my question to take those actions.

Since there seem to be no guidelines, I will try the following and perhaps this will suit your dynamic/automatic mechanism:
00:00 - 05:00 = max 350KB/sec (max 6,1GB)
05:00 - 20:00 = max 150KB/sec (max 7,7GB)
20:00 - 23:59 = max 250KB/sec (max 3,6GB)

Appreciate your guidance / suggestions

 

[Seriously]

Or, upgrade to another MWEB package to accommodate your higher data usage.

This is the crunch of the Mweb idiots!

My problems were eventually escalated at Telkom. Got a reply that congestion is the problem (that is between 11PM and 3/4am) congestion?. Anyway suddenly on Monday my internet improved (Thanks TelkomZA) but I got a Openweb gold trial for the weekend and on Monday/Tuesday internet was a pleasure again for the first time in months. Then the trial ran out and I reloaded my Mweb ISP account. To my surprise it was OK...for a while .,... then the slow periods, disconnections and lagging started again. At least now I have superb results with Speedtest.net but unfortunately the main problem is just that that is not my main gameserver IP..

One thing i downloaded a few torrents. On Openweb I got speeds between 150-250 as a test on Mweb I got 5-20 MAX! Yes on exactly the same torrents late at night! That alone makes you wonder. Now these abuse letters?

F you mweb just cancel my account. THANKS for nothing.

 

[AfricanTech]

So glad I moved on when that big outage occurred a couple of months ago.

 

[reactor_sa]

Seems the time has come to leave M-Web. Just received an e-mail with the subject "We may have to slow down your Internet speeds"

I have a 1mb line. Sitting on 16gb this month so far.

Rest of e-mail

"Dear MWEB Customer

We want to ensure the best possible experience for our customers by managing the quality of our network. We monitor the usage on our network and make sure that customers are not abusing certain defined parameters. This is in line with our Acceptable Use Policy (AUP).

Your usage is close to exceeding these parameters. We will enforce our AUP from 1 September, and should you continue to show excessive usage patterns and therefore exceed these parameters, you will experience slower connection speeds (while we manage your bandwidth usage). As soon as your usage patterns stabilise your connection speeds will return to normal.

Here are some tips to avoid excessive usage:
1.Don't leave your connection running all day (downloading heavy content)
2.Know who is using your Internet connection and make sure it's secure
3.Or, upgrade to another MWEB package to accommodate your higher data usage.
Click here for faster line speed and higher data options.
Kind regards
The MWEB Team"




I have a 1mb line. Sitting on 16gb this month so far.

Stats for the last 12 months

Month Data Sent (MB) Data Received (MB) Total (MB)
Aug-135995.410046.716042.1
Jul-1325207.4778828.18104035.64
Jun-1322652.2457901.8480554.09
May-1324288.2162361.5686649.77
Apr-1331917.88102978.57134896.45
Mar-1319218.11113750.29132968.4
Feb-138411.1161706.8970118
Jan-139159.4268272.4677431.88
Dec-1213343.9749226.5762570.54
Nov-1214783.5363369.9278153.45

Got the same email earlier too. I thought it was just me but my daily average hasn't changed for months. I don't understand.

So from the 1st September 2013 mweb is going to start throttling premium uncapped? Maybe it's time to move. I know I know, I've said that plenty before but if I get throttled I will absolutely do it.

 

[vanteacher]

Btw Mwebguy, can you please tell me by how much our speeds will be slowed if we continue to over-use?

 

[reactor_sa]

Hi pjjdp

The letter was not sent based on your current usage, but rather looking at the trend over the past few months.

We have always enforced our acceptable usage policy however as from the 1st of September we will be changing the method for doing this on our Premium Products.

Rather than issue warnings and suspend services as we have done in the past we will instead be applying temporary speed limits to users with excessive behaviour, based on a rolling 30 day window.

We are confident that this will be a much more efficient way of doing things and should have a positive impact on the network experience for all of our customers.

So we are all going to get our speeds throttled, yet still pay more than other comparative products from other isp's...
Talk about pointless, I think I will cancel on Monday, I would hate to be throttled for the whole of September while I serve out my 1 calendar month cancellation sentence in Internet jail.

 

[jes]

It's been interesting reading the posts. I think I can see the frustration.

Users are told that based on a global variable (overall network utilisation) and their personal user profile assessment (individual usage habits) they have been issued with a generic AUP infraction warning.

So, fair enough - since this infraction is partially based on user profile assessment, surely that means the user can be told what it is they are doing wrong?

Can Mweb not say: Our network is congested during the evenings with people using YouTube streaming and playing games, so those that are doing peer-2-peer and other large downloads are impacting the network during those periods.

If that is the case, then shouldn't the service provider with their highly advanced world class network simply be able to throttle problematic traffic types (and give the user a fair warning and reason for doing so)? Seems that network utilisation problems are being passed on to the end-user...

Alternatively, if such throttling/shaping/network optimisation isn't possible, or not permissible under the terms of their contract with the user, and with all their predictive abilities to be able to warn users that their usage patterns are approaching a breach of the AUP, then surely they can tell users each month what the ballpark AUP data consumption figure is?

I would also be annoyed to receive such a "warning"; it seems like a cop-out for the provider to suddenly say "Hey, you're abusing our network, but we can't tell you exactly how because of technical reasons. But anyway, you better stop doing it or else we'll hamstring your experience."

My 2cents worth...

I'm with Afrihost currently (4Mbps uncapped) and I've been going along merrily without issues. I average around 160GB/month; I really smashed them in June with 460GB.

 

[reactor_sa]

I think the steam summer sale really hammered the mweb network, all those full speed http downloads 24/7 for weeks.....
P2p is shaped so it can't be that.

 

[Sneeky]

I posted in the other thread, my service has improved since yesterday a lot.

So for now I am VERY happy, but who knows maybe I also receive a mail and then that might change.

I was unable to use youtube at all, it was buffering itself to death, very slow connection times to websites, etc, but the last 2 days have been quite sublime.

4mb premium uncapped.