*READ FIRST* iBurst Network Status & Issues (DNS, Throughput and Latency)

Agree with davidgrm - notification from iBurst about these things would be nice. I was so happy when I could finally play some games last week without changing anything on my side I almost :cry: from joy :)
 
davidgrm said:
I dont have issues with you, in fact its great to see somebody at iBurst whi tells it like it is. Perhaps you can get you PR people to read the last couple of pages. We would like to know these things BEFORE they happen, so if stuff goes wrong we know why. When the shaping first started I was forced to ask server admins in Germany to look at the game server logs to see why I was being kicked off all the time. They then told me that the punk buster service said my connection was dropping packets. But I dont pay them to waste their time to investigate. I do pay iBurst for a service and if they are going to experiment on a live platform (which is just dumb:wtf:) I would at least expect them to notify us in ADVANCE.
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Please email [email protected] with your comments and complaints. The support managers are copied on the email.
 
Tw171 said:
P2P throttling is illegal, if anyone cares...
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You keep on saying its illegal, but if that were the case why doesn't ICASA stop them, they raided them once -they must know about it. ??? It doesn't seem likely that a company will break the law knowingly.

Ive been with Iburst now for a couple of years, and although I don't use Peer to peer services personally, i use a lot of streaming services and things of that nature, and i have never really experienced a problem with them. It seems unlikely that a company will go out of its way to do what you are saying they are doing. it doesn't add up.
 
David2M said:
You keep on saying its illegal, but if that were the case why doesn't ICASA stop them, they raided them once -they must know about it. ???
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It is illegal. I can’t speak as to why ICASA hasn’t done something about it, in all probability they simply aren’t aware of it, or think it is too trivial a matter to pursue. I don’t know. However, technically it is in their mandate; protecting democracy and ensuring free and open airwaves and access to information is one of their chief responsibilities. So I’ll leave that one up to you. If you want to take it up with them, here’s their contact.

As for the question about it being illegal to ‘throttle’ or otherwise interfere with a client’s connection, it most certainly is. Lots of ISP have done similar things, only to find themselves having to reverse policy latter on. In 2006 Comcast (an American ISP) started implementing measures aimed at disrupting P2P networks. After long legal battles, the FCC finally forced Comcast to terminate the use of its discriminatory network management policies. Comcast argued that their policies were implemented around functionality, all designed to optimize their network in order to give the best experience to the end user, however, the court believed that the mechanisms implemented fundamentally changed the way the users ended up using the internet; certain networks and channels became unattractive because the new policies rendered them virtually nonfunctional. The court found this to be a mechanism of censorship and in violation of an ISP legal obligation to net neutrality. Like I say there are many cases of this globally, all illegal. Iburst is one.

David2M said:
It doesn't seem likely that a company will break the law knowingly.
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Companies regularly violate the law. It’s to be expected. In fact the amount of criminal fines that corporations pay per year, globally, is approx. $780 million. These are just the ones that they are actually forced to pay (meaning violations in first world countries, 3rd world countries don’t have the resources or power to fine them.)

Again and again we have the problem that whether companies obey the law or not becomes a question of whether is cost effective, if the chances of getting caught and the penalties are less than it costs to comply, then they think of it as simply a business decision.
 
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David2M said:
. It seems unlikely that a company will go out of its way to do what you are saying they are doing. it doesn't add up.
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Well the P2P shaping/throttling is real and they are doing it. They have admitted that they are doing it. Is it legal? I dont know but it is very poor practice when you dont tell your clients what you are doing behind the scenes. If I used P2P and joined iBurst only to discover I could not do it during the day I would be a very unhappy camper
 
davidgrm said:
Well the P2P shaping/throttling is real and they are doing it. They have admitted that they are doing it. Is it legal? I dont know but it is very poor practice when you dont tell your clients what you are doing behind the scenes. If I used P2P and joined iBurst only to discover I could not do it during the day I would be a very unhappy camper
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The shaping policy has always been disclosed. Here are some other blokes to target as well: http://mybroadband.co.za/news/adsl/79569-adsl-and-p2p-traffic-in-sa.html
 
davidgrm said:
Well the P2P shaping/throttling is real and they are doing it. They have admitted that they are doing it. Is it legal? I dont know but it is very poor practice when you dont tell your clients what you are doing behind the scenes. If I used P2P and joined iBurst only to discover I could not do it during the day I would be a very unhappy camper
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I don't agree with their policy but they have disclosed it, and I guess it helps in traffic management considering my usage would affect other users - and its during business hours mostly
 
Tw171 said:
IThe court found this to be a mechanism of censorship and in violation of an ISP legal obligation to net neutrality. Like I say there are many cases of this globally, all illegal. Iburst is one.
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So what can be done about it?
 
David2M said:
So what can be done about it?
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There’s a lot that can be done, but we will first need to mobilize more support for it. The way one goes about this sort of thing is to first inform Iburst subscribers. Then we need to get a petition together, the more the better. Then we hand that over with a notice of Intent to sue. But this is still a long ways of. There’s due diligence that needs to be done first, i.e. inform ICASA, determine prevalence of practice within the industry, inform Iburst about our intent( which usually means a sit down meet). After all of that we get to legal proceedings. It is a very long and difficult road. I quite honestly don’t know if in this instance it will be worth the pay off. We are talking about a small ISP, in a country were less than 17% of its population have a permanent internet connection. We won’t find a lot of support.

If you are genuinely interested in this then there is a way forward.

I’ll be out of the country until the 21st. But if, by the time I get back, you still feel like perusing this, Pm me and we can start looking at options.
 
To be honest I'd rather have P2P throttled to nothing if it means my web browsing, business And gaming is faster.
 
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RVQ said:
To be honest I'd rather have P2P throttled to nothing if it means my web browsing/business services is faster.
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I am not opposed to throttling P2P download services (especially torrents for piracy) during normal hours if it means surfing and gaming can work smoothly. As long as I get a decent experience and less lag-deaths its cool. It is just that they need to inform us of changes so we can be on the lookout for issues, either here or on social media. Being in the dark about what changed and why it is affecting me grates my gears.
 
Darquan said:
I am not opposed to throttling P2P download services (especially torrents for piracy) during normal hours if it means surfing and gaming can work smoothly. As long as I get a decent experience and less lag-deaths its cool. It is just that they need to inform us of changes so we can be on the lookout for issues, either here or on social media. Being in the dark about what changed and why it is affecting me grates my gears.
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Sounds great but I've learnt that in the world of IT telling the end-user you changing something means they'll blame you the next time their kettle doesn't boil...

My problem is service given once a problem is reported...
 
r00igev@@r said:
The shaping policy has always been disclosed. Here are some other blokes to target as well: http://mybroadband.co.za/news/adsl/79569-adsl-and-p2p-traffic-in-sa.html
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As I have already stated, I dont use P2P so it does not affect me. But unfortunately iBursts method of rolling out changes directly onto a system that paying customers use without doing enough testing meant that it DID affect me. Also the fact that they did not notify users that they were going to make changes. Over the past years there have been many many times that I have had a slow ping, slow downloading, no connectivity etc. I now wonder how many times that was just caused by iBurst techies experimenting on a live system like they did with the P2P filter
 
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davidgrm said:
As I have already stated, I dont use P2P so it does not affect me. But unfortunately iBursts method of rolling out changes directly onto a system that paying customers uses without doing enough testing meant that i DID affect me. Also the fact that they did not notify users that they were going to make changes. Over the past years there have been many many times that I have had a slow ping, slow downloading, no connectivity etc. I now wonder how many times that was just caused by iBurst techies experimenting on a live system like they did with the P2P filter
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Like I said sounds great but I also don't notify the entire end-user base when making changes unless downtime is expected (And seems like Telkom doesn't either). The important thing is end-users must contact the service-desk the second they experience a problem.

But like I said before my problem is the service after reporting the and it just so happens I've just logged one, let see how well it goes...
 
RVQ said:
My problem is service given once a problem is reported...
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I stand corrected iBurst service was pretty decent this time around BUT life is never that easy.

Apparently living in an area with excellent coverage means jack! So after over a year of decent speeds (changed in the last few months) now I need to go out and buy a directional directional antenna to force my modems to connect to a tower further away to get close to the speeds I used to get.
 
Having a really bad connection again tonight. Can't even open FB to see if there is anything on the iBurst page there. Worked fine last night :(
 
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