MWEB Uncapped Subscribers Feedback

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Att: MWEB Guy & Will@MWEB

If I pm you a .nzb for a popular TV show, would it be possible for you print out the RARs & fax/email them to me? I could then print them out on this side, scan them & use an OCR program I have convert them back into digital data on this side, where they can finally be unRARed.

I am asking for this favour because I believe it will be quicker than your newservers are currently operating.

Regards,

SSung

Durbanville, CT
 
lol, rather let them finish tweaking and tuning the prioritization and stuff on the primary stuff, then i'm sure they would focus on the news servers, as it would be beneficial of all the leechers rather use local traffic and the local news server, than torrenting and killing the international bandwidth :P
 
Looks as though I spoke a bit too soon this morning, and once again the 5-minute average graphs have revealed that all is not still 100%.

daily.gif


This graph is showing the average speed of a single download at my home in Durban running at about 65KB/sec. Better than yesterday, but to be honest, I really don't care about the actual speed anymore. I can live with 65KB/sec. What I DO care about is the fact that I'm paying the same price as a friend of mine in Durbanville, yet for whatever reason, he is averaging 300KB/sec on the SAME file! We've ruled out Telkom, we've ruled out usage, we've even swapped accounts; there is no beating around the bush about it anymore. Whether it is intentional on MWEB's part or not, customers in Cape Town are getting a better service than customers in Durban. :mad: I will simply not be happy until I know that I am getting the same value for money as customers in Cape Town.

Will@MWEB, you have my contact number as requested... I'd still be very interested to hear what you have to say on the matter.
 
TonyA said:
Good Morning, just for info I did a trial on the Nvidia UK website as well and downloaded a 132 mb file. Max speed I got on my 4 mb line and Mweb 4 mb account was 262 KB/s. Seems a bit slow!
Click to expand...

Tony it's not line speed for sure, but it does raise an interesting question for me. What should a reasonable expectation be from a customer point of view as to the speed of a given download, bearing in mind the following factors:

  • That it's a very big internet out there with a lot of things happening on it between you and the file.
  • That you are operating on a contended service, both on your ADSL line from the Telkom exchange and on our account with us.
  • That you are utilizing a shaped, uncapped service which in all fairness really shouldn't be directly compared with the performance of a capped product.

I'm curious to hear the thoughts of this forum on those points.

Kind Regards
Will
 
update :
eish, it is broken again :(

international http downloads, multiple threads ubuntu mirror in NL, microsoft and nvidia spiking alot between 100 and 300KB/s
will report back again in 2 hours

*edit not fully broken down to less than 40KB/s though :P
 
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Yeah I know its not line speed, and I also understand that it would change given a number of factors, website, time of day, etc. i actually don't think its too bad for me, but also have to wonder if a 4 mb line or account is worth it I would think that I should get about 80% of rated line speed and account ie about 330 KB/s. Not a complaint merely passing info for consideration.
 
Will@MWEB said:
Tony it's not line speed for sure, but it does raise an interesting question for me. What should a reasonable expectation be from a customer point of view as to the speed of a given download, bearing in mind the following factors:

  • That it's a very big internet out there with a lot of things happening on it between you and the file.
  • That you are operating on a contended service, both on your ADSL line from the Telkom exchange and on our account with us.
  • That you are utilizing a shaped, uncapped service which in all fairness really shouldn't be directly compared with the performance of a capped product.

I'm curious to hear the thoughts of this forum on those points.

Kind Regards
Will
Click to expand...

Well, considering that the rest of the world manages connection speeds of over 20Mbps... I would have assumed that regardless of what is happening at on the 'big internet', a contended service, or a shaped uncapped product; that I would be able to download an infrequent update for NVIDIA graphocs cards as fast as my line will let me carry it.

I've come to terms with the the sporadic speeds on NNTP and Torrents; I was one of the first to admit that it's not your speed right now that makes a difference when compared to your total pull, but realistically I had always felt that when I needed to get something in the way of an update or an Ubuntu ISO or something legitimate, legal and irregular over HTTP I would get full speed, regardless of usage on other protocols. I dunno...

108KB/s from NVIDIA; is a far cry from full speed; but its certainly much better than it was... and it hasn't stalled... yet.
 
Will@MWEB said:
Tony it's not line speed for sure, but it does raise an interesting question for me. What should a reasonable expectation be from a customer point of view as to the speed of a given download, bearing in mind the following factors:

  • That it's a very big internet out there with a lot of things happening on it between you and the file.
  • That you are operating on a contended service, both on your ADSL line from the Telkom exchange and on our account with us.
  • That you are utilizing a shaped, uncapped service which in all fairness really shouldn't be directly compared with the performance of a capped product.

I'm curious to hear the thoughts of this forum on those points.

Kind Regards
Will
Click to expand...

My thoughts on your three points above are that you are correct. There is only so much that we can realistically and fairly expect from a budget uncapped, shaped service, during the busiest hours of the day, and to compare it to a capped product is futile.

However, to counter, my question to MWEB is whether it is a reasonable expectation for Customer A to get the same service as Customer B on the other side of the country? Are we to be penalized because we users in JHB/DBN find ourselves in a much larger pool of users than those in Cape Town, so there is less bandwidth to go around?
 
Will@MWEB said:
Tony it's not line speed for sure, but it does raise an interesting question for me. What should a reasonable expectation be from a customer point of view as to the speed of a given download, bearing in mind the following factors:

  • That it's a very big internet out there with a lot of things happening on it between you and the file.
  • That you are operating on a contended service, both on your ADSL line from the Telkom exchange and on our account with us.
  • That you are utilizing a shaped, uncapped service which in all fairness really shouldn't be directly compared with the performance of a capped product.

I'm curious to hear the thoughts of this forum on those points.

Kind Regards
Will
Click to expand...

What has changed in the last few weeks that makes:

The MWEB newserver slow & unconnnectable for ~22/24 hours/day.

Well-seeded torrents from both public and private trackers going nowhere.

Regular http downloads that constantly timeout.

Websites that don't load properly.

???
 
Will@MWEB said:
Tony it's not line speed for sure, but it does raise an interesting question for me. What should a reasonable expectation be from a customer point of view as to the speed of a given download, bearing in mind the following factors:

  • That it's a very big internet out there with a lot of things happening on it between you and the file.
  • That you are operating on a contended service, both on your ADSL line from the Telkom exchange and on our account with us.
  • That you are utilizing a shaped, uncapped service which in all fairness really shouldn't be directly compared with the performance of a capped product.

I'm curious to hear the thoughts of this forum on those points.

Kind Regards
Will
Click to expand...

Well considering all your points, 262kbps is fine. 10kbps is not fine
 
Will@MWEB said:
Tony it's not line speed for sure, but it does raise an interesting question for me. What should a reasonable expectation be from a customer point of view as to the speed of a given download, bearing in mind the following factors:

  • That it's a very big internet out there with a lot of things happening on it between you and the file.
  • That you are operating on a contended service, both on your ADSL line from the Telkom exchange and on our account with us.
  • That you are utilizing a shaped, uncapped service which in all fairness really shouldn't be directly compared with the performance of a capped product.

I'm curious to hear the thoughts of this forum on those points.

Kind Regards
Will
Click to expand...

You bring up very good points. I'd like to say though then, why make it worse? Upgrading all 512 users to 1 meg for free? The service is so contended as it is with no other option for a less contended service other than moving to another ISP.

Why not have a similar GOLD option? It is desperately needed. We need quality over price. There's no point having a cheap service if it doesn't perform.
 
Will@MWEB said:
  • That it's a very big internet out there with a lot of things happening on it between you and the file.
  • That you are operating on a contended service, both on your ADSL line from the Telkom exchange and on our account with us.
  • That you are utilizing a shaped, uncapped service which in all fairness really shouldn't be directly compared with the performance of a capped product.

I'm curious to hear the thoughts of this forum on those points.

Kind Regards
Will
Click to expand...

Yes it is a very big internet out there, and you as an ISP should position yourselves to cope with the demand for this 'piece of the pie' coming into the country - if you are incapable to do so - leave the business.
Because it is a shark tank out there.

I am operating on a contended service,yes - but the contention ratio depends on the capacity available - and currently you are placing me on a higher contention because of a lack in capacity (too much marketing selling a product that is under performing?)

I am not comparing the speeds of my 'highly contended service' with a capped service, but I cannot speak for others.
Axxess uncapped as well as OpenWeb Gold uncapped is producing a much higer yield in download speed and stability.
As well as a gaming latency to international sites that you can only dream of :love:

What is holding me back 'from the big internet out there' ?
A new device you implemented between me, London - and the greater slice of the pie.
And might I add, the Nvidia servers - and all others I access run on some scary speedy servers, and are not 'always busy' as you might be implying.
Telkom congestion out the window - the congestion will not change when I swap to either mentioned alternate ISP's available in the country - so that renders that argument invalid (in my case).
 
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Agree with websites not loading, I often have difficulty with my personalised mweb home page as well as news 24. I have to reboot router (sometimes 3 or 4 times a day, at other times it will run for about 4 days without problem), to get into home page. Generally service is slower that capped, but I expected that. What I do experience is that its a lot slower now than when I first sunscribed to uncapped, just hope it doesn't get any worse!
 
StNick said:
My thoughts on your three points above are that you are correct. There is only so much that we can realistically and fairly expect from a budget uncapped, shaped service, during the busiest hours of the day, and to compare it to a capped product is futile.

However, to counter, my question to MWEB is whether it is a reasonable expectation for Customer A to get the same service as Customer B on the other side of the country? Are we to be penalized because we users in JHB/DBN find ourselves in a much larger pool of users than those in Cape Town, so there is less bandwidth to go around?
Click to expand...

In so far as it's possible yes it is a reasonable expectation and in so far as it's possible we do try to keep this experience the same, shaping policies are kept the same, the ratio in terms of capacity to customers is kept the same and all services such as DNS and news are replicated in both data centers. I would again put the question back to you though which is:

Is it possible for any ISP operating a nationwide network to offer their customers an identical experience in different parts of the country considering the complexities of such a venture and the external factors that influence the customer experience.

When I say external factors consider that our IPC links break out of the Telkom infrastructure in JHB and Cape Town and that as a customer you must be routed to one of these points so just in terms of physical distance traversed on the Telkom backhaul a customer in KZN has a different set of external influences to one who is in Midrand.

Also if you consider that as far as I know we are currently the only ISP operating IPC links in both Cape town and JHB, what is your point of comparison?
 
Will, just a question. Is there a major speed difference between major cities? Because if a place such as Bloemfontein, PE or East London are getting the same speeds as Durban then I buy your argument but if not it cannot be because you have to reroute.
 
My question is what has happened to the adsl network in general the past few weeks?? There has been alot of banter about quality of service, network issues and distances, etc, etc. All that I do know is that for almost a year that I have been with MWEB, with the exception of a handful of times (such as the Seacom cable), I have never had any problems with downloading via http, iTunes updates, streaming video and the like......up until just over 2 weeks ago when everything starting going pear shapped! But Im hoping that these issues are sorted out real soon and that http downloads and streaming are back to normal over the weekend.
 
Qwikslver said:
You bring up very good points. I'd like to say though then, why make it worse? Upgrading all 512 users to 1 meg for free? The service is so contended as it is with no other option for a less contended service other than moving to another ISP.

Why not have a similar GOLD option? It is desperately needed. We need quality over price. There's no point having a cheap service if it doesn't perform.
Click to expand...

Remember 512k was not really a very popular speed choice, in terms of price point vs capability you'll find most users either stayed on 384k, or went all the way to 4mb so you're not talking about a large group of customer here. However I can assure you that bandwidth requirements are reviewed and adjusted on a very regular basis and this will of course be taken into account along with any other relevant factors when this takes place.

In terms of the idea of a Gold product all I can say on that score is that our version of this would be the unshaped products and this is something that our product design teams would obviously have under consideration when deciding how to structure products and pricing.

When you talk about other ISPs who offer Gold products though you really do need to consider that these are not players in the market who operate their own networks and they have an entirely different business model so it's difficult to make a straight line comparison. In the end my own personal opinion is quite simple:

Every customer ultimately has the right to choose the product and service provider most suited to their needs. As a service provider, we do not make any attempt to mislead our customers in terms of the nature of the products that we offer and we try to offer them at the most competitive prices possible. Further to this we will always try to deliver the best service possible and we will constantly strive to improve on both the products and on service delivery.

So if the product you chose suits your needs and our attitude towards service delivery suits you as a customer then I'm happy to be here to assist you in any way possible, but please understand that I cannot change the underlying nature of the product you signed up for.

Kind Regards
Will
 
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