MWEB Uncapped ADSL Feedback - Part 3

[JAmBer]

Hi JAmBer

At the beginning of August we made the decision to implement an automated speed limiting system which would curb the behavior of a very small percentage of excessive users on our premium products. These users are affecting the quality of our network and using unreasonable amounts of bandwidth for the product they are paying for.

At the time we made a best effort to identify the users most likely to be affected by this change, based on their recent usage patterns, and sent out communication advising them of the change.

I never received any notification to this effect. Though if I did, I would probably not have paid any attention to it, because I don't consider myself an "excessive user". Based on my usage history (see first post's screenshot), do you believe this is a fair assesment?

It is possible if your usage has significantly increased recently, or you do not make use of your MWEB mailbox, that you would not have received this communication.

Based on my history, this month's consumption is up about 22% over the 12 month average. I do check my MWEB mailbox regularly (polling every 20min) and keep backups of all retrieved emails. The only things that comes through there are my monthly invoices and the odd newsletter. I never received any notice to the effect that the policy was changing or that my account was being throttled this month.

However if your account is in a throttled state then it means that you have exceeded the acceptable usage thresholds and will need to operate at the reduced speeds until your average usage falls back into acceptable levels.

Ok, this much I understand. However, nobody seems to be able to tell me how long I will be stuck in this situation, or what I need to do in order to prevent it from happening again. I don't do torrenting or other dodgy downloading, but I do a lot of streaming. My bandwidth usage is reasonably well distributed throughout the month (no bursty traffic). So as far as I can tell, I'm well within the AUP and an ISP should consider me a friendly user. I've been very happy with MWEB and would like to continue with this product. But if you're now telling me that I can't use MWEB for streaming my HD video, then maybe this new not-so-uncapped service is not what I need.

Previous discretionary methods such as sending warnings to excessive users have not proved to be effective in managing this behavior and enforcing our AUP will automate this.

I understand that a warning alone may not be sufficient for many users, but I believe it is only fair to formally inform subscribers about any policy changes, and to also give fair warning before crippling a product for which I'm paying.

 

[SabreWolfy]

I'm a little confused by all this. When I signed up for the uncapped service 2 years ago, it was sold to me as the account that lets you stream unlimited video, spend all day browsing youtube and whatever else you wanted to do online -- just what I wanted.

Looking at my past 12 months' usage, I've been averaging something like 370GB per month on my 4Mbps "Premium Uncapped" line. The highest was 470GB and lowest was last month at 180GB, but mostly it's pretty stable around 300-odd GB.

In these two years, not once have I received an email telling me that I'm using too much, or that I need to change my usage patterns. I take this to mean that MWEB's generally been happy with the way I've been using the product. And I must admit that I've been very happy with it.

This month, for the first time, the speed dropped dramatically (to the point that it's unusable) and I've just discovered all this nonsense about thottling. My account's connection status now reads "throttled" on myadsl.mweb. Now, admittedly, this month I did 450GB, which is more than I'd normally do. But I've not had a single bit of correspondence warning me that this might happen, or even that it had happened. I had to figure this out myself.

I'd like to prevent this happening again. So I have two questions:

1) Why was I not informed that I was about to be throttled.
2) Am I likely to be throttled again, given my usage patterns? If I stay under ~400GB, is there still a reasonable probability that I'll be throttled? If this is the case, then the "revised" product no longer meets my needs.

View attachment 79945
View attachment 79947
View attachment 79949

What speed line are you on? That speed test makes it look like a 1mbps line? How are you pulling >400 GB per month on a 1mbps line? (I thought the theoretical limit on a 1mbps line was around 300-and-something GB per month?)

 

[Fudzy]

What speed line are you on? That speed test makes it look like a 1mbps line? How are you pulling >400 GB per month on a 1mbps line?

Looking at my past 12 months' usage, I've been averaging something like 370GB per month on my 4Mbps "Premium Uncapped" line. The highest was 470GB and lowest was last month at 180GB, but mostly it's pretty stable around 300-odd GB.

The current line speed is probably due to the throttling.

 

[SabreWolfy]

The current line speed is probably due to the throttling.

ROFL! D'oh!

 

[an3s]

Mweb Guy, have you managed to take a look at my account? Posted the details on page 110.

 

[MWEBHelp]

Mweb Guy, have you managed to take a look at my account? Posted the details on page 110.

Your line readings looks good to me, I reauthed your account now, allow 30 minutes then restart the router and test.

if your speed does not improve then provide me with a trace route to a local and international site.

 

[TEXTILE GUY]

Aag it will be easy for MWEB to gather new customers for those who have left. With Nuus24 gone and Beeld, Burger and Volksblad behind a paywall (very weak paywalls, LOL) they should just say that since MWEB is part of Naspers, all the MWEB uncapped subscribers will have GRATIS! access to Beeld, Burger, Volksblad and Rapport. The tannies and ooms will flock to MWEB because of the R99 BESPARING! ELKE MAAND! Dish out a free download of a Bles Bridges CD and a free Leon Schuster movie and they will have more new subscribers than they have lost.

ROFLMAO. . Just imagine the tannies throttling the ooms while using 5megs of data on their uncapped 10 gig business account

 

[an3s]

Your line readings looks good to me, I reauthed your account now, allow 30 minutes then restart the router and test.

if your speed does not improve then provide me with a trace route to a local and international site.

Speed wasn't the issue. The issue is that I can't browse to or download from certain sites whereas I can with Afrihost. I will check later if it is fixed. Thank you

 

[Syphonx]

I think you have your opinion on how the uncapped business works. Correct me if I'm wrong but ISPs pay a flat or wholesale rate on the pipe that comes into them, this hasn't got a cap but the only way to charge for the traffic is to use GBs rather than Mbps, this means there is always a break even point, beyond that is it's not profitable for them to provide the service. AFAIK they pay the same amount whether the traffic is used for Web browsing or torrents, it's the ISPs job to ensure that legit uses take priority hence the port shaping.

True, but with a given capacity the break even point would be reached when the ISP has enough customers to do so, obviously as you add more customers the capacity has to be divided between more users, add too many users and they have a **** experience. Obviously heavy users mean you need more capacity per user to maintain an acceptable level of quality but its part and parcel of offering an uncapped service. Shaping protocols based on network usage allows the ISP to use their capacity to its maximum, ideally you'd want the capacity you paid for to be used 24/7 and not heavily for a few hours a day and then it goes unused.

Using throttling does not achieve this because its not dynamic, the network could be empty but because you're throttled you can't use that excess capacity. Thus mweb's reason to throttle is to get rid of heavy users so they can have more customers using a given capacity, thus higher profits. It has nothing to do with better user experience, shaping can be used for that and if shaping is properly implemented and the experience is still poor that means you need more capacity. It seems mweb decided to get rid of users instead of upgrade their network when they found that shaping alone wasn't enough.

 

[supersunbird]

Hi rakabos3

There have numerous post about our AUP that we have enforced and if you've been following the threads you would have noticed the above have been mentioned many times.

Yes, it affects everyone but not if you manage your usage.

http://mybroadband.co.za/news/adsl/89837-mweb-uncapped-adsl-claims-win-at-asa.html

You should have sent this throttling e-mail to EVERYONE.

My average usage for 9 months of the year us 75GB/pm and then 3 months of the year its more likely to be 150GB/pm but no, now I get throttled so bad that gmail stuggles to open. Are you guys too incompetent to realise that peoples usage fluctuate? A rolling 365 day window would have been much better for me.

Screw you you useless company!

 

[an3s]

Your line readings looks good to me, I reauthed your account now, allow 30 minutes then restart the router and test.

if your speed does not improve then provide me with a trace route to a local and international site.

mybroadband is working now (can't upload attachments though), but still no luck with downloads from battle.net or malwarebytes.org or yahoo.com or microsoft.com. I can browse battle.net, but not download.

All of them are working fine with the Afrihost prepaid.

Links to screenshots of the 2 things I get when browsing to them:

 

[MWEBHelp]

mybroadband is working now (can't upload attachments though), but still no luck with downloads from battle.net or malwarebytes.org or yahoo.com or microsoft.com. I can browse battle.net, but not download.

All of them are working fine with the Afrihost prepaid.

Links to screenshots of the 2 things I get when browsing to them:

View attachment 80013
View attachment 80015

Provide me a trace route to those sites using your MWEB account.

 

[GreatD7007]

Throttled...The joys of free the Internet :/ What must I do now to get Unthrottled?? Can any advise and give me suggestions

 

[AthenianOwl]

Throttled...The joys of free the Internet :/ What must I do now to get Unthrottled?? Can any adviseView attachment 80047 and give me suggestions

Move to another ISP. That's the only logical permanent solution to the issue you are currently experiencing. SCREW MWEB!!!!

 

[MWEBHelp]

Throttled...The joys of free the Internet :/ What must I do now to get Unthrottled?? Can any adviseView attachment 80047 and give me suggestions

Your account will be back to normal once your usage has evened out.

Remember the less you use now the sooner it will be back to normal.

 

[Fudzy]

Your account will be back to normal once your usage has evened out.

Remember the less you use now the sooner it will be back to normal.

Assuming you're on 1mbps it should lower once it goes below 100gb, reduce your usage to below 3.3gb a day.

 

[GreatD7007]

Move to another ISP. That's the only logical permanent solution to the issue you are currently experiencing. SCREW MWEB!!!!

It's not that easy, Choosing who to go with?? Which ISP do you go for

 

[Necuno]

It's not that easy, Choosing who to go with?? Which ISP do you go for

Get a trial and test them?
Plugg, OpenWeb, AfriHost or WebAfrica?

 

[TEXTILE GUY]

Your account will be back to normal once your usage has evened out.

Remember the less you use now the sooner it will be back to normal.

WTF :wtf: ''The less you use it'' ... ie do not go online ,,,, ''the sooner it will be back to normal'' .... Huh? Not going online with an internet account is NORMAL ....:wtf:

REALLY ... your useage will even out at NOTHING???? :wtf::wtf::wtf:

 

[Fudzy]

It's not that easy, Choosing who to go with?? Which ISP do you go for

And believe me, the grass isn't always greener on the other side.