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Question of the Day: Have you ever ordered a product online and received a fake knock-off?
My R13000 Data Bill
- Thread starter AK65
- Start date
The_Unbeliever
Honorary Master
Maybe this thing with windowsupdates was the last straw and he went over to linux recently? 
Pilgrim
Wugger
I love the way Microsoft always becomes the root of all evil.
You can switch Windows update to not auto download but to notify you when there are new updates.
Microsoft live in a country where internet data is almost free so pushing out a 500mb update is fine. In this country a 500mb update eats all your bandwidth for the month. (not sure why, i know international traffic is "expensive" but you get charged for downloading from your ISPs local proxy server. Funny that)
And I suppose you will also make snide comments about how many viruses and security holes there are in Windows. If everybody turned on their auto update a lot of problems will go away. But no, people do not trust auto updates...
You can switch Windows update to not auto download but to notify you when there are new updates.
Microsoft live in a country where internet data is almost free so pushing out a 500mb update is fine. In this country a 500mb update eats all your bandwidth for the month. (not sure why, i know international traffic is "expensive" but you get charged for downloading from your ISPs local proxy server. Funny that)
And I suppose you will also make snide comments about how many viruses and security holes there are in Windows. If everybody turned on their auto update a lot of problems will go away. But no, people do not trust auto updates...
Pilgrim
Wugger
BTW, if your sig says "M$-free", why are you downloading M$ updates?
Perhaps he has a "free" copy of windows?
The_Unbeliever
Honorary Master
And I suppose you will also make snide comments about how many viruses and security holes there are in Windows. If everybody turned on their auto update a lot of problems will go away. But no, people do not trust auto updates...
For the simple reason - if something gets pushed onto your PC and it borks something else, you won't know what happened or why your software isn't working properly anymore.
Pilgrim
Wugger
Hey maybe Vodacom should host a WSUS server and add it to that list of free downloads like VMC (still waiting). I'm sure that will be a nice value add for Vodacom clients
Now why would they offer you something for free if they can charge you oodles of money for it?
AK65
Well-Known Member
How do you figure a dud cache the cause?
BTW, if your sig says "M$-free", why are you downloading M$ updates?
MS free since this incident
I figure a dud cache because I don't see clients from any other networks having the same problems as 3 of us on the Vodacom network on the same date.....Surely if the server in aus was dud whole networks would have been taken down?
BTW, just got off the phone to Vodacom support. The cap thing doesn't work. Or it's so complicated neither I nor the agents know how the fsck it works. I had put a soft limit of R50 on my account and now it's locked even though there is still a gig left...........
So it's off again and i'm feeling a tad exposed....Maybe you can explain how it works?
vodacom3g
Vodacom Representative
Now why would they offer you something for free if they can charge you oodles of money for it?
All downloads from vodacom.co.za and 4me are to be zero-rated. Will probably be part of the new!, improved! v4me.
morkhans, what the heck is a WSUS server?
Pilgrim
Wugger
For those too lazy to click on the link; it's like your own personal Windows Update server. We have one at work and have deployed it for a number of clients. It works really well, is a huge bandwidth saver and gives you control over updates on your network.
PS: It's either new or improved, can't be both
vodacom3g
Vodacom Representative
MS free since this incident
I figure a dud cache because I don't see clients from any other networks having the same problems as 3 of us on the Vodacom network on the same date.....Surely if the server in aus was dud whole networks would have been taken down?
BTW, just got off the phone to Vodacom support. The cap thing doesn't work. Or it's so complicated neither I nor the agents know how the fsck it works. I had put a soft limit of R50 on my account and now it's locked even though there is still a gig left...........
So it's off again and i'm feeling a tad exposed....Maybe you can explain how it works?
Mine (stuck download) was on a fixed line, not 3G. But I read a fair number of reports (not just in SA) of this problem.
CeeBee
Expert Member
cool! then maybe its just MTN that don't care
biznis is biznis, why say no to some easy munny
I'm going to europe next month, so I want some sort of cap on my home hsdpa modem, so family won't go crazy with me not checking it up...
AK65
Well-Known Member
Damn..........
Perhaps you can illuminate on how the cap is supposed to work? Your helpline people aren't exactly the most clued up I've talked to.
I put a R50 soft cap on, and then couldn't dial out. Now I thought, when all of my data is used, R50 past that and I would get cut off..
Noooooo, they tell me because the billing is for last month, the cap is already active, even though this month I have not exceeded my cap.
WTF?????
SoftDev
Active Member
I would very much appreciate it if you could shed some light on the issue........
I very much believe that it was NOT somebody hacking into my wireless network, as I live in a sparsely populated neighbourhood....and somebody would have had to be parked very close by to get signal - of course doesn't rule out somebody using a high gain antenna from far away.....
What to me seems the most likely culprit is a Windows update gone wrong ....... Windows downloading and re-downloading a corrupt file ad infinitum.......Because I did see a lot of windowsupdate.com.au stuff in the logs.......and it can't be a mere coincidence that these events both happened on the 19th of March.
As usual, it's Microsoft's fault
AK65, confirmed in our case it was windows update as well, that caused the massive bill.
Will switch off the automatic windows update.AK65
Well-Known Member
AK65, confirmed in our case it was windows update as well, that caused the massive bill.
Microsoft FTL
Whatever you do, Microsoft costs you money
How many others have been affected? and how much juicy revenue did Vodacom get out of this?
What a waste.........:sad:
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Roman4604
Executive Member
The problem is what if your anti-virus software experiences the same type of failure. At the end of the day there is no way to predict every type of unforseen/unexpected failure, thus you cannot guarentee you will not be exposed to oob cost overruns. I think the mobile guys really need come up with solutions for providing accurate data capping for contact plans.The very first thing i do(which i have always done) is switch off any kind of Automatic Updates(excluding Anti-Virus) after i have re-installed Windows
Just imaging if, for instance Telkom switched ADSL to a similar system where you would be liable for out of cap traffic generated before the cap was physically enforced (at up to 5x higher p/meg rate). I think there would be a mass outcry.
AK65, confirmed in our case it was windows update as well, that caused the massive bill. Will switch off the automatic windows update.Microsoft FTL
Whatever you do, Microsoft costs you money
How many others have been affected? and how much juicy revenue did Vodacom get out of this?
What a waste.........:sad:
Not if you are more clever than Microsoft
On the contrary, if you regularly keep your AV updated, the update files on the latest update runs are significantly less(a few hundred Kilobytes at least to a few Megabytes at most). So even if the download fails and you try again, there's a less than 5% chance that you will run up a OOB charge like that.