New LTE AUP from September 2016

[CUDlybunny]

Was doing it with LTE at under 2mbps for days.

Then what's the problem?

 

[Saba'a]

Youtube 2 mbps vs 10 mbps vast difference in my view.
But might reduce AH adsl line to 4mbps.

 

[Saba'a]

Then what's the problem?

2mbps impacts on anything other than netflix.

 

[CUDlybunny]

2mbps impacts on anything other than netflix.

480p instead of HD... Doesn't bother me much but neither does the 300gb softcap.

It's clear that the product is great for light to medium users but isn't great for heavy or many users.

 

[Saba'a]

480p instead of HD... Doesn't bother me much but neither does the 300gb softcap.

It's clear that the product is great for light to medium users but isn't great for heavy or many users.

Thing is I am limiting LTE to netflix and social media and still using a lot of data.
But 7gb x 30 should keep it within cap. But will see. With a range extender I can always divert my activities to AH as well.

 

[SeaSickMama]

Just stop using Netflix it uses too much data and also even if you have the UsA catalog it's not that great

 

[alkit]

Just stop using Netflix it uses too much data and also even if you have the UsA catalog it's not that great

And the alternative would be? Showmax?

 

[FlashSA]

The one thing i notice is that netflix etc they all cool, but you stream the stuff in such a massive format. like to watch 2 seasons of fargo you will maybe need 25gb but then if i go download it off piratebay etc it will only be 6gb and then it will also be 1080p

Just stop using Netflix it uses too much data and also even if you have the UsA catalog it's not that great

And the alternative would be? Showmax?

OR, log into your Netflix account and hardcode a lower resolution to your viewing - lock it to 720p or lower to extend the 300GB full speed LTE "cap"

Adjust your data usage settings

Adjusting the data usage settings for your account is the easiest way to reduce the amount of bandwidth used while watching Netflix. There are four data usage settings to choose from. Each estimate below is per stream:

Low (0.3 GB per hour)
Medium (SD: 0.7 GB per hour)
High (Best video quality, up to 3 GB per hour for HD and 7 GB per hour for Ultra HD)
Auto (Adjusts automatically to deliver the highest possible quality, based on your current Internet connection speed)
To select a setting that works best for your Internet plan, navigate to the Your Account page and select Playback settings in the My Profile section. It can take up to 8 hours for these changes to take effect. Restricting data usage may affect video quality while watching Netflix.

Data usage settings only apply to the Netflix profile you are in when you set them, meaning you can have different data usage settings for each profile. If you are concerned about the total amount of data that Netflix uses, make sure to change this setting for each profile.

What I would do is make the kids profile very low (they won't really notice) and keep high bandwidth streaming for my and my SO's watching. Hell, give SO their own profile and hardcode it to SD too!

 

[NeilGouws]

Not really, the network is only suffering slow down between 6 and 10PM. That means streamers are causing all the problems.

Is this your "professional" opinion ?

Here's my qualified opinion ...
Streamers are not causing the problem, TELKOM IS CAUSING THE PROBLEM !
They advertised the service us UNCAPPED streaming, they said you will NEVER be capped for VIDEO services, including YouTube etc
AND FOR THAT SPECIFIC REASON most of us (incl ME) got that service

At no stage (when I signed the agreement) was I informed that FUP = X amount of GB / month.
If you change the terms on your side without my consent then we don't have a legally binding agreement anymore
I didn't sign a contract based on what you have in your agreement NOW, I signed based on what you had THEN ON THAT DAY
I send an e-mail notifying you of breach of agreement and that I will return your equipment, I package your router, I return it to one of your shops, I record the event on video, I sign a stop order at the bank ... and then you Telkom can go screw yourself

I don't scare easily, I have done it to Telkom before and I will do it again and there is nothing they can do about it.

 

[cerebus]

Is this your "professional" opinion ?

Here's my qualified opinion ...
Streamers are not causing the problem, TELKOM IS CAUSING THE PROBLEM !
They advertised the service us UNCAPPED streaming, they said you will NEVER be capped for VIDEO services, including YouTube etc
AND FOR THAT SPECIFIC REASON most of us (incl ME) got that service

At no stage (when I signed the agreement) was I informed that FUP = X amount of GB / month.
If you change the terms on your side without my consent then we don't have a legally binding agreement anymore
I didn't sign a contract based on what you have in your agreement NOW, I signed based on what you had THEN ON THAT DAY
I send an e-mail notifying you of breach of agreement and that I will return your equipment, I package your router, I return it to one of your shops, I record the event on video, I sign a stop order at the bank ... and then you Telkom can go screw yourself

I don't scare easily, I have done it to Telkom before and I will do it again and there is nothing they can do about it.

Do it then. The new FUP is still alright for my needs. I'm struggling to find any better value offering

 

[NeilGouws]

Most people seem to be missing the point about this whole event, it's got nothing to do with what you are happy with, it's about what the agreement was when you decided to enter into it for 24 months. Why in the world do people (or should I say sheep) accept this ?

The point is very simple, NOBODY should accept it, it's an agreement, and should stay in place till the agreement expires. When I signed that agreement there was no easy way out for me, yet Telkom has now changed the agreement and now there's a way out for me ... how does that work ?
And to make it worse, they did it quietly and I queried it, and they never gave me the details. They were very vague and evasive and I have the proof of that. And still I was not notified of the changes nor was I notified that I have the option to "opt out" if I don't accept it.

This has got everything to do with the idea of I bought a 2 year supply of uncapped internet access at full speed, and they have just changed that, whether I am affected now or not based on my usage pattern.
I honestly don't care what they change the cap to, as long as it stays uncapped ! Cause thats what I agreed to and that's what I expect, nothing more and nothing less.

Then there is another matter that's quite important (and 99.9% of the people seem to miss that aswell), they changed the agreement without consulting with/notifying the people with whom they entered into this agreement with ! Again, how can this be seen as OK ?

The masses complained ... and as Telkom satisfied them with carrots the complaining group got smaller and smaller, till where we are now just a few that's left saying NO it's NOT OK. That's why every village needs a leader, because the MOB never grew a "pair"

Now let's just look at what we signed up for (well I did anyway)
• 50GB of Torrents, after which I will be capped @ 128kbps ... I'm OK with that
• Everything else uncapped, it will never be shaped ... blah blah blah you know what I mean
• If I move to another area ... I'm screwed (that's what it says in the contract)

Here's what's happening now :
• 300GB @ up to 90mbps then 50GB @ 4mbps then the rest @ 2mbps

They dropped the speed to below 5% of it's original claimed speed if I reach their newly THUMBSUCKED limit of 300GB, yet people are OK with that ? Seriously ????? And I am actually not interested with how they got to 300GB, I don't really care because it sure as hell isn't part of what I agreed to.

I'm a network engineer by trade, I do this for a living, so I can understand where they are coming from, but there's no way in hell that I accept what they are doing. There are many ways to handle this better, the problem is that they simply that have the skilled staff to implement QOS and rate-limiting properly. Most (not all) of their technical staff lack the experience to understand how you handle excessive traffic.

I deal with Telkom technical staff on a very regular basis, and their knowledge or basic networking is shocking to say the least. There are a few very good engineers @ Telkom aswell, but they are a dying breed that simply have no say in how things are done. The decision makers should actually not be allowed close to technology to be quite honest.

If they had a public campaign stating that due to excessive usage the following would be implemented after a participation process with their current subscribers then I believe most people would actually work with them.
I would agree and support them, if they actually followed a process that makes sense to other human beings !
Here is just an example
• 300GB of data @ 90mbps (11.2MB/second) - not that anybody gets that speed anyway LOL
• then 100GB amount of data @ 45mbps (5.6MB/second)
• then 100GB amount of data @ 22.5mbps (2.8MB/second)
• then after that @ 9mbps (1.1MB/second) - and that's where your rate-limiting stops, 10% of original claimed speed
This is a stepped approach and only the really bandwidth hungry will be affected, but their experience will not be crippled to where it becomes unusable, most services will work perfectly fine @ 9mbps
Then they should provide facts that show which abusers they are targeting, it would make sense to target people doing Terrabytes of traffic a month, most of us would understand (but not that we have to, because again, that's not what the contract says)
And then as a last resort, offer a cancellation for those that don't agree with the consultation process after it has been completed.

Don't roll over ...



Please read this

http://mybroadband.co.za/news/broad...vice-with-a-fair-use-limit-is-misleading.html

 

[DA-LION-619]

^ give that man a bells

 

[Saba'a]

OR, log into your Netflix account and hardcode a lower resolution to your viewing - lock it to 720p or lower to extend the 300GB full speed LTE "cap"

Adjust your data usage settings

Adjusting the data usage settings for your account is the easiest way to reduce the amount of bandwidth used while watching Netflix. There are four data usage settings to choose from. Each estimate below is per stream:

Low (0.3 GB per hour)
Medium (SD: 0.7 GB per hour)
High (Best video quality, up to 3 GB per hour for HD and 7 GB per hour for Ultra HD)
Auto (Adjusts automatically to deliver the highest possible quality, based on your current Internet connection speed)
To select a setting that works best for your Internet plan, navigate to the Your Account page and select Playback settings in the My Profile section. It can take up to 8 hours for these changes to take effect. Restricting data usage may affect video quality while watching Netflix.

Data usage settings only apply to the Netflix profile you are in when you set them, meaning you can have different data usage settings for each profile. If you are concerned about the total amount of data that Netflix uses, make sure to change this setting for each profile.

What I would do is make the kids profile very low (they won't really notice) and keep high bandwidth streaming for my and my SO's watching. Hell, give SO their own profile and hardcode it to SD too!

That netflix is mostly SO but thanks will limit it to SD as she was fine on 2 mbps although my AH is fine for my phone use browsing youtube google music etc. so netflix should be ok. Once LTE gone will see AP vs extender.

Thanks

Update - set kids on low 0.3gb per hour and two on medium 0.7 per hour.

 

[KingLv]

Using 600gb is bull, We are a fairly heavy usage household and we have never done 600gb, even when downloading games.
If you use 600gb you have to start looking at that you are doing. Change your Video streams to 720p rather than 1080p.

Unfortunately not all devices has these options.
The Youtube app on the Xbox One for example does not have this option.
My 3 year old uses YouTube alot on the thing.
With the Xbox set to auto update and youtube it does over 300GB a month.
That's just one device in my house.

I've hit 600gb... If you haven't you definitely not a heavy use.
It's not like I try to download more than the norm.
Not having to worry about limitations and having to monitor and restrict usage was the selling point of the product for me.
Who wants to play network administrator at home.

 

[Saba'a]

Most people seem to be missing the point about this whole event, it's got nothing to do with what you are happy with, it's about what the agreement was when you decided to enter into it for 24 months. Why in the world do people (or should I say sheep) accept this ?

The point is very simple, NOBODY should accept it, it's an agreement, and should stay in place till the agreement expires. When I signed that agreement there was no easy way out for me, yet Telkom has now changed the agreement and now there's a way out for me ... how does that work ?
And to make it worse, they did it quietly and I queried it, and they never gave me the details. They were very vague and evasive and I have the proof of that. And still I was not notified of the changes nor was I notified that I have the option to "opt out" if I don't accept it.

This has got everything to do with the idea of I bought a 2 year supply of uncapped internet access at full speed, and they have just changed that, whether I am affected now or not based on my usage pattern.
I honestly don't care what they change the cap to, as long as it stays uncapped ! Cause thats what I agreed to and that's what I expect, nothing more and nothing less.

Then there is another matter that's quite important (and 99.9% of the people seem to miss that aswell), they changed the agreement without consulting with/notifying the people with whom they entered into this agreement with ! Again, how can this be seen as OK ?

The masses complained ... and as Telkom satisfied them with carrots the complaining group got smaller and smaller, till where we are now just a few that's left saying NO it's NOT OK. That's why every village needs a leader, because the MOB never grew a "pair"

Now let's just look at what we signed up for (well I did anyway)
•50GB of Torrents, after which I will be capped @ 128kbps ... I'm OK with that
•Everything else uncapped, it will never be shaped ... blah blah blah you know what I mean
•If I move to another area ... I'm screwed (that's what it says in the contract)

Here's what's happening now :
•300GB @ up to 90mbps then 50GB @ 4mbps then the rest @ 2mbps

They dropped the speed to below 5% of it's original claimed speed if I reach their newly THUMBSUCKED limit of 300GB, yet people are OK with that ? Seriously ????? And I am actually not interested with how they got to 300GB, I don't really care because it sure as hell isn't part of what I agreed to.

I'm a network engineer by trade, I do this for a living, so I can understand where they are coming from, but there's no way in hell that I accept what they are doing. There are many ways to handle this better, the problem is that they simply that have the skilled staff to implement QOS and rate-limiting properly. Most (not all) of their technical staff lack the experience to understand how you handle excessive traffic.

I deal with Telkom technical staff on a very regular basis, and their knowledge or basic networking is shocking to say the least. There are a few very good engineers @ Telkom aswell, but they are a dying breed that simply have no say in how things are done. The decision makers should actually not be allowed close to technology to be quite honest.

If they had a public campaign stating that due to excessive usage the following would be implemented after a participation process with their current subscribers then I believe most people would actually work with them.
I would agree and support them, if they actually followed a process that makes sense to other human beings !
Here is just an example
•300GB of data @ 90mbps (11.2MB/second) - not that anybody gets that speed anyway LOL
•then 100GB amount of data @ 45mbps (5.6MB/second)
•then 100GB amount of data @ 22.5mbps (2.8MB/second)
•then after that @ 9mbps (1.1MB/second) - and that's where your rate-limiting stops, 10% of original claimed speed
This is a stepped approach and only the really bandwidth hungry will be affected, but their experience will not be crippled to where it becomes unusable, most services will work perfectly fine @ 9mbps
Then they should provide facts that show which abusers they are targeting, it would make sense to target people doing Terrabytes of traffic a month, most of us would understand (but not that we have to, because again, that's not what the contract says)
And then as a last resort, offer a cancellation for those that don't agree with the consultation process after it has been completed.

Don't roll over ...



Please read this

http://mybroadband.co.za/news/broad...vice-with-a-fair-use-limit-is-misleading.html

They have offered cancellation as they know legally they are in breach.
But yes agree the cap is crap.

 

[HapticSimian]

/snip

Absolutely none of that does anything whatsoever to change the fact that Telkom has - publicly - committed to allowing cancellation without penalty. That's their out. No matter how much more you protest you'll be met with 'feel free to cancel', and any institution or body you can possibly approach will accept that as sufficient action from Telkom's side. I'd encourage you to let Telkom know you're still decidedly unhappy, but don't expect it to change anything in the short term.

It sucks. It's not what any of us signed up for. But that's where we stand.

 

[KingLv]

Using 600gb is bull, We are a fairly heavy usage household and we have never done 600gb, even when downloading games.
If you use 600gb you have to start looking at that you are doing. Change your Video streams to 720p rather than 1080p.

Unfortunately not all devices has these options.
The Youtube app on the Xbox One for example does not have this option.
My 3 year old uses YouTube alot on the thing.
With the Xbox set to auto update and youtube it does over 300GB a month.
That's just one device in my house.

I've hit 600gb... If you haven't you definitely not a heavy use.
It's not like I try to download more than the norm.
Not having to worry about limitations and having to monitor and restrict usage was the selling point of the product for me.
Who wants to play network administrator at home.

 

[FlashSA]

@NeilGouws: You buy a car with a 5yr warranty. It gives endless trouble and the workshop repeatedly fails to fix the faults. Usually, at a point, the dealer will offer to take the car back but you will have to pay for mileage used. Telkom is willing to take the faulty car back and settle the outstanding finance amount in full with no usage penalty due by you.

That is how I see it.

 

[Saba'a]

@NeilGouws: You buy a car with a 5yr warranty. It gives endless trouble and the workshop repeatedly fails to fix the faults. Usually, at a point, the dealer will offer to take the car back but you will have to pay for mileage used. Telkom is willing to take the faulty car back and settle the outstanding finance amount in full with no usage penalty due by you.

That is how I see it.

Not faulty more like a lamborgini restricted ito speed limit to a toyotas .

But I will see how it goes between LTE and AH

 

[FlashSA]

Also, keep in mind that the dead cost of the B315 router + external antenna + courier delivery is at least R3k. For those people who have only been signed up for 1-3 months, Telkom will barely break even because that hardware is going to need refurbing in order to resell.

There will always be an uncapped bitterness in our mouths, but they have offered all of us an out if we want and I do tip my hat a mm or 2 to them.