I am Penguin
Executive Member
- Joined
- Jan 26, 2009
- Messages
- 7,712
- Reaction score
- 38
They do not want "net savvy" MyBB type customers they prefer stupid" Joe the Public" as it is there where they make their money.
-
Join the MyBroadband community
South Africa’s biggest forum. Discuss, discover, and connect with thousands of members.
-
Question of the Day: Are you keeping your Prime subscription?
MWEB Uncapped - have you been warned/capped/disconnected
- Thread starter killerbyte
- Start date
They do not want "net savvy" MyBB type customers they prefer stupid" Joe the Public" as it is there where they make their money.
what did you goto?
That about sums it up.
SabreWolfy
Expert Member
- Joined
- Sep 7, 2009
- Messages
- 2,229
- Reaction score
- 1
This has been discussed at length in other threads. IIRC, this is detailed in various parts of section 12 of the T&C (click the last dot in my signature for the T&C).
Well, still have my Telkom account, Axxess Lite and Webafrica Account.
Im going to hang back until I see an improvement in things.
You know that this is the only way an uncapped account anywhere in the world can work, right? They have to have a majority of "Joe Public" users or else it isn't viable. The situation is made even harder for ISPs starting uncapped accounts in SA, so I think you could say the same for any ISP with an uncapped account that's trying to make a profit.
Elsewhere in the world there is more HD content to BUY and download (eg iTunes, Amazon, NetFlix etc) so that even non-torrent users gobble huge amounts of data plus the line speeds are significantly higher. In SA we are already limited by 4Mb/sec - and those lines are expensive as heck - $60 for the right to use ADSL at 4Mbit/sec? So while I agree that most users are low usage users, going by those standards even heavy SA users are their light-moderate users.
And elsewhere in the world they don't have to deal with Telkom and the necessity of routing everything through one of three very expensive international cables. ISP's are businesses and thier aim is to make a profit, not provide public services at a loss.
Go look at whats' available in Aus or NZ who are in similar boats and you'll see that SA is not all that much different when comparing apples to apples.
When I was there it worked out about the same as SA on their iBurst equivalent - the difference was that the UPLOADS didn't count against your bundle (10GB).
Not sure of ADSL costs, they were rolling out ADSL2+ when I was there.
Also - if you think broadband is expensive there, try cellular (calls and 3G)
What do you mean?
Australia
http://bc.whirlpool.net.au/bc/isp-18-5/tpg-internet-residential-adsl2.htm?p=19996
ADSL2+ Unlimited 24x7~ No set limit N/A Static $75 /mo (R 492.89)
That's half of what we pay and yeah - no set limit.
New Zealand:
http://www.slingshot.co.nz/BroadbandPlans.aspx
From $24.95 NZD - for "Free Off-peak Period - download as much as you want during your plans off-peak period and it won't count towards your data limit!"
BTW those plans start at 24 and 10 Mbit/sec.
Of course Aussies/Kiwis earn more proportionately so these plans are actually cheaper than ours, then they don't pay line rental and voice rental.
Point is that we are already slowed down by 4Mbit/sec and that should be the only throttle used - nothing else. That should be the limiting factor.
Last edited:
Well this would be ideal, but it's obvious that this doesn't quite work yet in South Africa. If we had everyone on cheap uncapped it would work fine, but we have the majority of heavy downloaders jumping at cheap uncapped without enough people to subsidise them.
4Mb allows for around 1TB/month, and for +-R500 this isn't possible without enough "normal" users on the same uncapped accounts. Are there any other reasons why this would be possible yet in SA, compared to a few months back?
That may be but I think the issue is that we should then call these accounts what they are and the limits should be stipulated in the fine print. If UNCAPPED is impossible, don't call it uncapped or at least give a safe Fair Use Policy value eg 100GB or 50GB. Anything higher than this and you risk being an 'abuser'.
This might be the best way to do things, I think MWeb are hoping that in time they can really offer fully uncapped. They're quite close already, they've only booted a few users for far higher amounts than 50-100GB.
In any case, the problem with setting any value on a fair use policy is that you then restrict all users from reaching this amount even if it's just for one or two months in a year, which they don't want to do. It's only a problem when users consistently download that much every month. For everyone else the product really is uncapped even if you need to max out your line for a few days occasionally to get some huge file. Seems unfair to impose a limit on all users every month because some users would otherwise exceed this every month that they can.
MWeb's current way of dealing with this is to look at usage over a few months and where users are consistently trying to download/max their lines all month they get kicked/told to upgrade. This is actually a better system than imposing a limit for all users in my opinion (including the fact that they're now technically doing some false advertising which isn't ideal).
Last edited:
mika1000
Expert Member
But if you don't use VPN's or whatever - and "get no call" ,but just the "email" ?
Ye that's not a great way of handling "abuse". But i think the system is better than having Afrihost's 200GB throttling limit or IS's top 40% shaping.
Positively Negative
Expert Member
ok so i think i will definetely be one of those who get terminated...ive been downloading around 50 gigs a month on 384 since starting.
im extremely happy with the package but if they terminate me im gone. Is Afrihost really gonna be able to compete with Mweb...i just see ALOT more complaints about Afrihost uncapped
im extremely happy with the package but if they terminate me im gone. Is Afrihost really gonna be able to compete with Mweb...i just see ALOT more complaints about Afrihost uncapped