MWEB Uncapped ADSL - Official Q & A

[d4zza]

noob Q: whats the average download speed on a 384kb line and the same for 512kb

i want to know how much can i download a month from a 384kb line ?

roughly, 10%
so 384, will get around 32 -34 kb/s
512 around 50kb/s

 

[Pilgrim]

Hm, does seem to be a bit of a dissonance there, but CEO's aren't always quite that understanding of the technicalities and tend to oversimplify. Perhaps he was told something along the lines of "shaping won't have any effect during off-peak hours due to the amount of bandwidth that will be available" (remember, shaping only kicks in once the network starts being over-utilized), and he took it to mean "there is no shaping during off-peak hours".

Would be nice to gain some clarification though.

Exactly my point. There is a difference between "it should not apply and it will not apply".

Here is why it is important to me:

If you play an online game, and no shaping is happening and the network is under a bit of pressure (lets say tons of people are watching youtube, facebooking, etc) the average latency will go up a bit across the board. If, however, shaping rules kicks in, your online gaming traffic will be the first to be dropped, so instead of having slightly higher pings, you will have dramatic ping spikes.

So, is it "UNshaped", or is it "shaped,-but-you-will-probably-not-notice-it,-we-hope"

 

[Tharaxis]

MWEB:

What steps have you taken to ensure this doesn't turn into another Verizon/UUNet uncapped situation whereby it starts off great and as time goes on becomes worse and worse performance-wise (keeping in mind you guys are using more powerful hardware and DPI stuff to help manage your network better than they were). I would hate to sign up today and in 2 months time it's turned into an absolute mess and you guys can't sustain the quality/performance.

 

[FragMePleaz]

@cavedog

Uhm where did you hear this? I already have a uncapped account. You just call them and it gets activated over the phone.

Uhm where did you hear this? I already have a uncapped account. You just call them and it gets activated over the phone.

Officially the new MWEB Uncapped products are avaliable from Tue 23rd from our call centre or online.

MWB.

Say No More Of this

Regards
FragMePleaz

 

[Azgard]

From a 384K line you should get max download speed of about 384/8=48K.

You won't get exactly that due to network overheads, so say around 80% of that.

Just divide the line speed by 8, then multiply by 0.8.

 

[rsd]

Excellent question.

On my part, I would love to know why on earth HTTP is close to first in the queue where the ONLY flipping protocol that does NOT require the fastest response is HTTP.
Absurdity, all in the name of making the product look good the the manager, who browses.

Luckily, managers are starting to do more things than browse on the internet nowadays.

What are you talking about? HTTP does need to be prioritised. When you load a web page your browser is probably sending get requests for 50 individual resources - css stylesheets, javascripts, adverts, images. If HTTP is not prioritised there will be serious latency associated with each of these requests meaning page loads would be insanely slow. Browsing would becoming extremely frustrating.

I don't know how you can assert that HTTP does not need a fast response. I don't want to recreate the dial-up browsing experience on my ADSL line.

 

[HavocXphere]

Nice. I hope you guys revolutionize the internet market in SA with this.

MWEB has deployed a state-of-art content caching system that can cache many P2P protocols as well as standard web browsing/streaming.

Interesting. Aren't there too many torrents out there to make this work?

K thanks... now do i cancel the 30GB special from WA and go for this..... I don't want to lose it if this mweb account turns sour. Think I'll wait for a few months.

I'm also sticking with the 30gb WA. On a 384 line that is plenty. So next announcement of significance is Telkom pushing up line speeds.

Surely if I have a 4mbps account and the contention ratio is 1:20, I am entitled to a minimum of ~200kbps

The stated contention ratio is at ADSL level. I believe thats what Telkom said & since this is running on Telkom infrastructure mweb can claim this too. Uplink contention ratio is unknown so any calculation based on the 20:1 is pretty useless.

 

[Tharaxis]

Keeping in mind that prioritization is not only to do with latency, but also with overall % of the bandwidth pool allocated to it, so if they allocate 50% to HTTP (as a baseline) on a 100mbit line, it means that HTTP traffic will always be 50mbits minimum until all the "lower priorty" stuff has been reduced to nonexistant, at which point the HTTP traffic will start dropping too.

It doesn't mean that it makes HTTP the fastest protocol or the one with the lowest latency, it means that HTTP is the LAST one to get penalized by an oversaturated network.

 

[rave]

On a 4meg line, what is the max attainable upload speed through MWEB?
Is it just line dependent or is it limited by MWEB to "x"Kbps?

 

[rsd]

Keeping in mind that prioritization is not only to do with latency, but also with overall % of the bandwidth pool allocated to it, so if they allocate 50% to HTTP (as a baseline) on a 100mbit line, it means that HTTP traffic will always be 50mbits minimum until all the "lower priorty" stuff has been reduced to nonexistant, at which point the HTTP traffic will start dropping too.

It doesn't mean that it makes HTTP the fastest protocol or the one with the lowest latency, it means that HTTP is the LAST one to get penalized by an oversaturated network.

Fair enough, but that in turn implies it will be the last one to suffer from latency as a result of an oversaturated network. I get the distinction, but the bottom line is you don't want browsing to suck. Arguing that HTTP is unimportant seems a little crazy.

 

[Tharaxis]

It wasn't as much a response to your post as it was a supplementary to your response to davemc.

 

[Necuno]

MWEB.

bit ot, but please can i have more information on when and how mweb went tier 1.

 

[phoneJunky]

Viparo 3/18/2010 1:15:04 PM
Just got off the phone with Mweb. Fair use policy is more than 100Gb per month. No 10/20Gb per 10 day window period either. Torrents and p2p NOT BLOCKED, but is subject to network throttling should the network become congested. All in all, a great deal, and no catch.

This is a comment from news24

 

[rsd]

Viparo 3/18/2010 1:15:04 PM
Just got off the phone with Mweb. Fair use policy is more than 100Gb per month. No 10/20Gb per 10 day window period either. Torrents and p2p NOT BLOCKED, but is subject to network throttling should the network become congested. All in all, a great deal, and no catch.

There you go - the people who lack the imagination to sign up for the service, use it as they wish and see if they get an abuse notice can move on now and stop asking the same question over and over.

 

[MWEB]

Please explain in detail on how this content caching system will benefit everybody?

Hi Giantslayer,

Basically, the benefit to you is if content has been previously viewed, there is a good chance it will be avaliable at full speed as there is no restriction to how fast one can pull content from the cache (within the limits of your line speed/product).

MWB.

 

[LazyLion]

Hi Garyvdh,

This time around the situation is very different. If you remember at the time of our local uncapped offering MWEB was still a wholesale reseller of Telkom ADSL, and such every extra GB used had a direct cost to us. This situation eventually made it financially unfeasible for us to sustain.

Now that we operate our own network the cost dynamics are very different, and I assure you we have done our homework this time around. That said, usage that is either illegal or has a negative impact on the performance of the entire service/user-base will be addressed.

This is no different from any other provider of uncapped broadband services locally or overseas.

MWB.

Great! Thanks! That sounds good. Esp. to hear you guys say you have done your homework this time around.

 

[trancehead]

Basically, the benefit to you is if content has been previously viewed, there is a good chance it will be avaliable at full speed as there is no restriction to how fast one can pull content from the cache (within the limits of your line speed/product).

If the stuff from the cache is coming through at full line speed does that mean local is at full line speed or is it also throttled to the "paid for" speed?

 

[MWEB]

Hi MWEB...

I have a business line rental (512 line) and want to transfer to your "all inclusive home and office" (R899) not the business service. And I want to migrate to the 4mb package. Is it possible?

Also how long will the transfer / upgrade take before I could go live?

Hi IRG,

If you can PM me your particulars (any identifier) I can get one of the Business account managers to contact you to guide you through the process.

MWB.

 

[phoneJunky]

If the stuff from the cache is coming through at full line speed does that mean local is at full line speed or is it also throttled to the "paid for" speed?

I think if you are on their fibre network in JHB or CT it will probably be full speed, but if you go through others it will not, not even the stuff form the cache can be full speed if they run it over telkom I would think.

 

[Armgame]

I dont know if this has been asked? Does this slow down your gaming? Like lets say BC2 or css?(btw bc2= Bad Company 2, css= counter strike source) WIll it affect my download speed when downloading something from a site or a ftp?
And MWEB, will your capped prices drop? And will you keep your bigger packages?