NEW TOPIC: 3GB CAP

Hi,

I have no real problem with the cap, however I was expecting a better performance after the cap.

In fairness, 3 gigs is not enough, perhaps 500 megs a day would have been fine.

- Chris
 
To answer that question, one may need to ask another. What is the goal of the 3gb cap?

Just to put the cap in perspective :

It is not a technical means of limiting bandwidth utilisation. It does not throttle your bandwidth utilisation at any point in time, until you hit the cap at which point you will be technically throttled ( and mentally as well [;)]).

I quote from a Telkom letter.

'The 3 GByte cap protects users from a small minority of people who abuse the service and use it for purposes it was not intended for.'

<i>Maybe we should start a thread to get people's views of what they think the ADSL service is intended for, as clearly, according to Telkom, there is a minority out there who doesn't [;)] I include myself in that minority of course</i>

How does a 3gb cap protect the users. In my opinion, it is a cheap way of trying to manage bandwidth consumption. It is a very negative approach because if this limit is exceeded, the client is <b>punished</b> by degrading his service to such an extent that it almost becomes unusable.

There is also a lot of uncertainty as to how this cap is calculated. Again I quote from the same letter.

'The 3 GByte is measured on total usage, both local and international, volumes up- and downloaded.'

That's maybe what Telkom would like people to believe, but i know for a fact that this is not the case. Or at least it was not the case a few months ago. Maybe Telkom decided to change their minds as they often do without due consultation.

When i first encountered this cap in February/March, I approached one of the senior officials in Telkom and challenged him on the fairness of the capping system. Telkom expects it's clients to adhere to this volume cap or else they are penalised. How does a client monitor his own utilisation? If I cannot measure my utilisation, how the hell am i supposed to know when i've exceeded my cap? Well in the good old days, you just woke up one morning and found yourself capped. It was so bad that I logged a fault the first time it happened only to be told that i've been capped.

As a result of this discussion, or it may have been discussed already, Telkom decided to introdue this usage page where you can now see how much you are using.

Be it as it may, it still does not answer the question of what the goal is. In my humble opinion, Telkom expects people to consider their overall utilisation and as a result would force people to slow down their downloads and spread it over the month. This is a very crude and maybe effective way of managing volumes. Does it happen? Clearly not, as we still sitting with a very crappy service. I think you made a comment in one of your other posts as to how people can circumvent the 3gb cap. Get a second account. What if we all do it? Now we are slamming the network with 6gb each per month.

<b>Does it work? NO! </b>

This is clearly proven by the fact that Telkom was forced to implement yet another crude solution in the form of network shaping. This does limit utilisation in a big way, but I believe that they have now succesfully destroyed the ADSL service by doing it. Again it was a decision Telkom made without due consultation.

<b>Is it a good thing? NO!</b>

There are other ways of managing a network by using more sophisticated technology where people can be given a choice as to how much they want to download and what type of access they require. It can be used to provide a tiered service where people pay a premium for more volume and could also cater for a more sophisticated bandwidth allocation based on the client's specific requirements. What this premium should be may be yet another topic of discussion.

Obviously Telkom does not see the need to spend the extra cash to ensure a good service to their clients. What's new[:(!]
 
Hi Merlin

Thanks again for a very informative and insightful posting.

You effectively described the problem. I will be glad to purchase another account, or pay a bit more for my current one, if I know that the money will go into upgrading international bandwidth. But we all know that it is not the case. The more people they subscribe without upgrading the international service, the more profit they make. Why stop this beautiful scheme?

I think we can agree that one of the first questions this group must pose to Telkom is what the “international bandwidth per subscription” ratio is, and what they see as acceptable. Currently I am fairly certain the ratio is amusingly low. I will do my best to get precise figures soon and post the results here.

Regards,

RPM


RPM
[email protected]
 
Correct me if I wrong here.

I get the impression you would happy to pay more money to Telkom to
get more bandwidth ?

When I got this service I was under the impression that the speed after cap (sac ?!?) would be at least simular to the speed I used to get with my old modem. I would be happy if it was like that, however I would not like some scheme that makes me pay more based on my usage ...whats the point of having a 24/7 connection if you still get a variable bill from using it.

Another point : The 3gig cap is to protect normal(read: casual users) so they can surf and e-mail. My opinion is if you are a casual user why pay so much for your net access? A normal modem would suffice and cost cheaper. I believe ADSL is suppose to be for 'power' users who are willing to pay for the service.

I used to download about 1.5 gigs a week on my old modem...now with this setup I am limited to 3 gigs/ month...I hit 3 gigs in 5 days!
 
Hi ASnogarD

I would indeed be happy to pay around R 400-00 or even more a month if I am guaranteed a minimum bandwidth and they remove the cap. I want a decent bandwidth-user ratio upgraded with the growth of the amount of users. But again I want to stress that it must be accompanied by a guaranteed international bandwidth, and NO cap!

Having said this, we are already paying too much for this service compared with international standards (see news article). But to be realistic, Telkom is not going to bring the price down…why should they?

Regards,

RPM


RPM
[email protected]
 
At this stage of the game and with what i'm getting from ADSL, I actually don't want to pay anything[;)]

If however Telkom can provide a guaranteed service, I will consider paying more for the service. To put this 'more' into context though, I also don't think that the current pricing for ADSL is fair. I'm merely saying that i'm prepared to pay more than the casual user who just wants to use ADSL for surfing and e-mail. In this respect, i agree with you that ADSL is meant for the power user. If Telkom wants to go for volume and get as many of the dial-up users onto ADSL, they will have to be more competitive in their pricing as the current entry level is just too high for the casual user. And this is where it get's interesting. Within Telkom's current position as the sole provider of telecomms infrastructure they are finding that they have to compete with themselves. What they gain on ADSL, they will lose from dial-up and ISDN with respect to their per-second call revenue. They may even lose revenue from their dedicated line services.

This creates a very delicate balance that they may disturb should ADSL be cheap and good enough for people to make the switch. I guess that's why the launch entry level price is so high, to deter those casual users from taking ADSL. It does protect their call revenue to a certain extent. ISDN is different in that those people that had ISDN could be classified as power users and is more than likely where most of the initial ADSL subscriber would come from. Maybe this is where the 3gb plan comes in. I did a very rough calculation and if there's anyone out there that can do it more acurately, i would welcome your input.

It will cost approximtely R 302.00 per month on ISDN to download 3gb and this is assuming you only use the R7 plan. For ADSL however, it would cost you R 789.00 for the exact same benefit. These prices include the line rental, call charges where applicable and the Internet Connection fee. So it costs R 487.00 more to get the same thing on ADSL. The only other benefit ADSL has is the permanent connection. Wow, so you can surf anytime u like on ADSL! Big deal, when you hit that cap you are going to tear out your hair and switch on your modem.

Would you have switched to ADSL if you had known this beforehand? I would definately not!

As a last thought, I am quoting an official e-mail from Telkom and may even give myself away by doing this, but what the hell.[}:)]

<i>'As discussed the service is not faulty but there are restrictions such as the 3 Gigabyte Cap and the shaping to protect the network from
bandwidth intensive applications that would adversely effect all users
throughput.

It seems that this service is not meeting your needs and I would
advise that you investigate other options such as ISDN Basic rate or a
leased line service.'</i>

Imagine if we all take their advice? Do you think ADSL will survive?

<b>Telkom is admitting that ADSL is worse than ISDN!!!![:D] Now that is a joke.</b>
 
Funny ... when I first encounter the sac (speed after cap)I geniunly thought it was a network fault. I phoned up the fault line only to get a very tired person who had probably told hundreds of people that there is no fault it is the norm....and he also advised ISDN.
 
Funny I hit the 3GB Cap 3days ago. and to be honest i really cant see much difference in the QOS. Its Friday lunchtime on payday and im still getting 128.23Kbits/s. is this normal or should i be expecting more?
 
Have you logged out yet? I get the feeling they only check your bandwidth after loggin out. I managed to get 3.6 gigs before getting shut out.
 
I think that 3gb is a good thing, BUT, only in the event they provide alternatives. Either, 1: Unblock it and restart; 2: 3gb, 10gb, 20gb, 50gb cap options...
 
Lets think about this for a quick second. I have this guy I share my Internet with, he used to dial-up to check his mail, it used to cost him R500 a month, yet he was still not satified that he had to wait another 30 minutes or so for the next email. Now he pays me that... I and I am bloody happy, and so is he... ADSL was benificial in his case.

Now I also think about this, WHO IN THEIR RIGHT MIND would download more than 3gb without doing something ILLEGAL, my brother works for a programming company, they have 15 people working there, they usually hit their cap around the 25th of the month... do the math, it saves them ****loads of money and increases their productivity. Personally, I think you guys are off your tree. Go read my topic on a reality check before you flame me.
 
Hi odge,

I also have my own software development company, although I deal with my client who develops Insurance/Investment tools for brokers. For the simple task of fixing their software, I may need a copy of a client's database. That in itself, zipped, is about 300mb. Emails on a daily basis with also uses bandwidth. Updates each day over the internet to over 3,000 people with EOD share prices would also take quite a chunk out of the cap (and that's just on the one product). Downloading updates to MS software, trial versions of new software, beta versions within MSDN, etc... Now, that's just for downloads. If there are 6 people with bugs, that's 1,800mb. They also do work at their offices, so I'll need updates to the database from them, now that's just 1 project. What about the others? 3gb is easily used. I can't even listed to online radio for a month with a silly 3gb cap. Who would want to do that? Me, that's what I pay for ADSL for, I choose to listen to international radio stations, I would like to be able to watch live internation broadcasts, I already use it for webcast training from the U.S., I would like to speak to my sister in the UK over MSN to name but a few. Browsing is not the only thing to do on the web.
 
Hi Odge

Thanks for the postings.

I had a discussion with a senior person in Telkom regarding these issues today, and he confirmed what we all say. We have been sold ADSL with the understanding that it is blistering fast internet. It turned out to be closer to a 33.6 analogue leased line speeds and even slower, with the added disadvantage of a 3 Gig cap. If they sold the product with the understanding that it is a 24 hour connection that might be slow during peak hours it would be a different story. There has been discussion in Telkom about “tricking” people into getting ADSL, but it still continues. If the offer a certain service they should deliver.

About the amount of downloaded material from the net, I simply don’t care what somebody downloads. I want the freedom to make the choice to download a 5 Gig DVD quality video file about the dressing room antics of famous actresses without being concerned that the net will be worthless to me after that.

Regards,

RPM


RPM
[email protected]
 
Fair enough syntax, but honestly you are not a power user, you are a business user, and someone like yourself needs diginet, you should be sitting in a place like UUNETs internet barn in Cape Town (serious bandwidth) not at home with DSL.
 
Hi odge,

DSL would serve my purpose idealy. If only it provided exactly what it is I've mentioned in my post entitled 'Port Caps'.

With you having mentioned 'WHO IN THEIR RIGHT MIND would download more than 3gb without doing something ILLEGAL', would that mean that a 'Power User' would be downloading illegal goods?

I really don't want to get into an argument here as this is supposed to be a constructive site whereby we can accumulate data which we can present to Telkom in a faint hope to get what we on DSL have paid for. We are supposed to be sticking together towards common goals, and that's a better DSL service, or at least what Telkom sold us.
 
Odge,

3gig ain't much for browsing and checking emails, i get loads of emails, some fairly large, and as for browsing, i have done up to +-100mb of browsing per day, yes that is a hell of a lot of browsing, and yes it is possible...so as for a small home-business or even a family which has more than 1 computer, it could add up. As for browsing and prioritising, maybe so, but i still don't get great speeds via http when i'm uncapped.

They are ripping us off no two ways about it. They making money and won't change unless they can find a way not to lose out on the profit. i can almost bet you telkom makes more than 50% profit on adsl.

=TT=
 
When ADSL was due to be launched on August of laste year everyone got their hopes up, yay, finally we can play games against ppl in the USA/UK and we can have seriously fast internet inter. and nationally...but between all pages of text explaining what DSL exactly was, lay the "3GB Cap" near the end of the page, no-one took notice of it, some people didnt even know what that meant...

Like me, I play games on the internet every night, come 7 'o clock im there, doing what i like best, chatting on mirc, browsing etc etc....

For a gamer like me, do you know how many megabytes an evening of gaming takes up!? From what I've heard its something like 80mb or so, do it every night and you're round about 2.5gb near the end of the month, and on the weekend when you have all the free time you clock up big downloads and no, not the massive Matrix DVD rips, take me for instance, I play battlefield 1942 online, all the users had to download these "modifications" to the game, two were 300mb, and about 4/5 others were about 100-150mb (no jokes). So thats about 1.3GB maybe?

So I would be called a "power user" then, I don't have money for DIGINET obviously, even at 64k it costs R2000, thats ridiculous.

So add all your evening gaming, downloading, and big usage on the weekend and you hit the cap VERY QUICKLY, there have been endless complaints about the crap cap on mIRC... I quite honestly believe that Talkom could make peace with the ADSL Users if they would at least up the cap to 6gb or so, and then after the cap, have the speeds at 64k...

I'm keeping my ISDN till Telkom catches a wake up, they are ruining the state of South Africa's internet and future, in their big money making scheme.

As in another topic that rpm posted about that big official in some other country, he said that if Telkom would lay more lines down and increase the bandwidth they would see far more customers, of course after altering their adsl product though first.

But they are the kings of SA's internet, they can do what they like and the government couldn't care less, where did I read that every government official has a 4mb line!! No wonder they dont care, they can do whatever the hell they want on that, surely 1mb isn't enough to check your business mail is it now!?

Damn Telkom, they'll never learn...

Where to from here??
 
Odge, are you a Telkom mole or something?

I take objection to "WHO IN THEIR RIGHT MIND would download more than 3gb without doing something ILLEGAL,"

What are you insinuating - that we are all part of a child pornography ring or what????

Cheers
 
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by odge</i>
<br />Lets think about this for a quick second. I have this guy I share my Internet with, he used to dial-up to check his mail, it used to cost him R500 a month, yet he was still not satified that he had to wait another 30 minutes or so for the next email. Now he pays me that... I and I am bloody happy, and so is he... ADSL was benificial in his case.

Now I also think about this, WHO IN THEIR RIGHT MIND would download more than 3gb without doing something ILLEGAL, my brother works for a programming company, they have 15 people working there, they usually hit their cap around the 25th of the month... do the math, it saves them ****loads of money and increases their productivity. Personally, I think you guys are off your tree. Go read my topic on a reality check before you flame me.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

the majority of adsl home users are still teens and they dl game demos that can be the size of up 2 200-300mb or we dl movie trailers or game patches and still play games online and surf the web and dl the odd utility which easily takes up more than 3gb
 
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