Hi everyone,
This thread concerns unlimited local access and how Telkom might be taking that away. I'm sure most of you have read ICASA's findings on the negative effects of restricting local access. I've been doing some thinking about how telkom has implemented their adsl network and how that might be used as an excuse to cap local access. I dont work for telkom and so I'm not sure if this is how they actually do it but it makes sense to me (especially considering what they have been saying about limited local access being a side effect of their per gig plan). So I'm admitting right now that I've most probably gotten some of the technical aspects wrong. If you are in the know, please correct me.
I think that:
1. when you log on.. depending on whether you are capped or uncapped you are put on one of two different physical networks. The one for the capped user has very slow international link while the other has normal international link. You can see from the IP address you are assigned.. 165.165.*.* if you are capped and 165.146.*.* if you are not.
2. the usage measurements is done at your local exchange this is where they measure how much upload and download you do. At this point, the network does not know where the traffic is going or coming from. It just counts. So it cant differentiate between local and international at this point. Doing the accounting here means each exchange tracks a few hundred users at most at anytime. I have to admit that this is probably the most efficient place to do bandwidth accounting.
3. At the end of each day, your usage report is uploaded to the authentication server (or to a database where the authentication server is connected to).. whereby the next time you log on it'll use the information to determine which of the two network you should be put into.
This makes sense to me because if Telkom were to implement a per gig accounting.. with the above procedure in place.. local capping would indeed be a 'side-effect'. It seems to me that if that is the case, it would mean Telkom is too lazy to implement a more consumer-friendly procedure, but instead chooses to stick with what it has and makes minimal changes with minimal effort.
I think Telkom could then use this as an excuse to ICASA as to why uncapped local access is not technically possible.. because doing bandwidth accounting at any other place (where it can differentiate between local and international traffic) other than the local exchange is not practical and will slow down the network. They will claim that doing it elsewhere means they'll have to track all all 100000+ adsl accounts at one or a few points, instead of distributing it to the local exchanges. This will in turn allow them to claim local capping as a rather unfortunate but necessary side-effect.
My question to you guys are:
1. Do you think that the above scenario is the case? If not, where have I gone wrong?
2. Assuming the above scenario (or something similar) is the case, what do you think should happen concerning local access come November? Here are a few choices:
-- A) Telkom should rethink and reimplement the whole model .. where local access is not capped. Is this possible? Do you guys have some ideas as to how this could work?
or B) Telkom should offer a new package where there is NO international access at all. (ie. when you log on you will always be placed in the what is now the capped pool.) This type of account will have unlimited local access and no international access. You will have to pay your ISP or companies like Nukecap extra to access their proxies for international traffic. I dont see how telkom can claim that this is not implementable as it uses their existing (assumed above) infrastructure. It would then not have to worry about the precious international bandwidth as this would be managed by others.
or C) Telkom should do its homework to discover what the ratio of international/local access is for the last few years and re-adjust its cap accordingly. For example. If the average ratio is 70% local and 30% international access, then it should assume that 3Gig (what it wants to cap) is the international part .. thus it should then increase the cap to 10Gig. so if the ratio is 50:50 .. the new cap would be 6gig. This would at least allow telkom to claim that it has factored in the local access portion into its packages.
There may well be other solutions. Please share them with us. My personal choice is (A) but if this is not possible or take too much effort then (B) would be ok for a much cheaper price. From the point of view of telkom, with (B) they can offer this local-only package as well as the other new packages. It will allow them to keep ICASA happy .. I think this might be the best compromise. Besides Telkom wont really have to implement anything new. (C) would only be fair if telkom insists on not being unable to prevent local capping and reject (A) and (B) out of hand.
So what do you guys think? I eagerly await your responses.
Spindrift
This thread concerns unlimited local access and how Telkom might be taking that away. I'm sure most of you have read ICASA's findings on the negative effects of restricting local access. I've been doing some thinking about how telkom has implemented their adsl network and how that might be used as an excuse to cap local access. I dont work for telkom and so I'm not sure if this is how they actually do it but it makes sense to me (especially considering what they have been saying about limited local access being a side effect of their per gig plan). So I'm admitting right now that I've most probably gotten some of the technical aspects wrong. If you are in the know, please correct me.
I think that:
1. when you log on.. depending on whether you are capped or uncapped you are put on one of two different physical networks. The one for the capped user has very slow international link while the other has normal international link. You can see from the IP address you are assigned.. 165.165.*.* if you are capped and 165.146.*.* if you are not.
2. the usage measurements is done at your local exchange this is where they measure how much upload and download you do. At this point, the network does not know where the traffic is going or coming from. It just counts. So it cant differentiate between local and international at this point. Doing the accounting here means each exchange tracks a few hundred users at most at anytime. I have to admit that this is probably the most efficient place to do bandwidth accounting.
3. At the end of each day, your usage report is uploaded to the authentication server (or to a database where the authentication server is connected to).. whereby the next time you log on it'll use the information to determine which of the two network you should be put into.
This makes sense to me because if Telkom were to implement a per gig accounting.. with the above procedure in place.. local capping would indeed be a 'side-effect'. It seems to me that if that is the case, it would mean Telkom is too lazy to implement a more consumer-friendly procedure, but instead chooses to stick with what it has and makes minimal changes with minimal effort.
I think Telkom could then use this as an excuse to ICASA as to why uncapped local access is not technically possible.. because doing bandwidth accounting at any other place (where it can differentiate between local and international traffic) other than the local exchange is not practical and will slow down the network. They will claim that doing it elsewhere means they'll have to track all all 100000+ adsl accounts at one or a few points, instead of distributing it to the local exchanges. This will in turn allow them to claim local capping as a rather unfortunate but necessary side-effect.
My question to you guys are:
1. Do you think that the above scenario is the case? If not, where have I gone wrong?
2. Assuming the above scenario (or something similar) is the case, what do you think should happen concerning local access come November? Here are a few choices:
-- A) Telkom should rethink and reimplement the whole model .. where local access is not capped. Is this possible? Do you guys have some ideas as to how this could work?
or B) Telkom should offer a new package where there is NO international access at all. (ie. when you log on you will always be placed in the what is now the capped pool.) This type of account will have unlimited local access and no international access. You will have to pay your ISP or companies like Nukecap extra to access their proxies for international traffic. I dont see how telkom can claim that this is not implementable as it uses their existing (assumed above) infrastructure. It would then not have to worry about the precious international bandwidth as this would be managed by others.
or C) Telkom should do its homework to discover what the ratio of international/local access is for the last few years and re-adjust its cap accordingly. For example. If the average ratio is 70% local and 30% international access, then it should assume that 3Gig (what it wants to cap) is the international part .. thus it should then increase the cap to 10Gig. so if the ratio is 50:50 .. the new cap would be 6gig. This would at least allow telkom to claim that it has factored in the local access portion into its packages.
There may well be other solutions. Please share them with us. My personal choice is (A) but if this is not possible or take too much effort then (B) would be ok for a much cheaper price. From the point of view of telkom, with (B) they can offer this local-only package as well as the other new packages. It will allow them to keep ICASA happy .. I think this might be the best compromise. Besides Telkom wont really have to implement anything new. (C) would only be fair if telkom insists on not being unable to prevent local capping and reject (A) and (B) out of hand.
So what do you guys think? I eagerly await your responses.
Spindrift