Telkom Internet Capped/Uncapped User Feedback (Pt2)

[Grouter]

... and the bar is orange

Yep, and I promise I didn't 'shop it!

 

[ranger]

thanks for the info ranger. Its a bit disappointing to now have this restriction, but will try and follow your advice, although its difficult to watch netflix during those times

I never said you should, but if most heavy users are running p2p and nntp at line speed at Netflix time, it is difficult to let those watching Netflix have a good experience.

We believe our current policy is justifiable and line with e.g. US norms (where 4Mbps services currently have caps in the region of 250GB, and users pay to go over the cap).

We don't believe we will need to reduce thresholds in future, the current ones are basically what we launched with when we migrated to IPC last year, although we have followed a more structured approach. Another change is that the throttling speeds are almost exactly proportional to the normal speed. Remember that there are 3 flavours of uncapped, home, business and business premium, which differ a bit.

We are also working on enhancements (to better protect the peak but not unnecessarily throttle users for days at a time).

 

[diane7]

... and the bar is orange

Maybe ranger can comment on the significance when he has a chance.

Just my Oservation this month
when i got to orange BEFORE i was always on it for about 2weeks /10days
THIS month I was on Orange only about 2 days Then red kiked in .
You must Know how the Bars work they DONT go up gradualy .
FIRST Nothing .
Second little green .
Third Green upto just under the word tracking .
Forth Orange just upto the word trackng .
Fith RED poweruser.

My Thought Telkom Swoped the long time on orange over with the red poweruser
IM dyslexic MOST people dont understand me
Cheers di♥

PS I an not going to read wat I wrote cos If i start correcting stuf we might be in the next melenium

 

[Grouter]

IM dyslexic MOST people dont understand me
Cheers di♥

PS I an not going to read wat I wrote cos If i start correcting stuf we might be in the next melenium

Don't worry, we understand you!

Thanks for confirming what we're all beginning to suspect: TI's throttling thresholds have changed.

 

[Electric]

I just went in to the store to try and downgrade my account.
They handed me the phone and I got through only to be told their system is down and I'd have to call them on Monday again which unfortunately is after the billing cycle so I will now need to fight that as well.

Joy

 

[Grouter]

 

[Spamhater]

2MB line and i'm in the orange but not experiencing any throttling
http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/3533128064

C:\Users\>tracert www.bbc.co.uk

Tracing route to www.bbc.net.uk [212.58.246.90]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 1 ms 1 ms <1 ms home.gateway [192.168.1.254]
2 9 ms 9 ms 9 ms ti-224-248-01.telkomadsl.co.za [105.224.248.1]
3 22 ms 11 ms 11 ms ti-226-0-22.telkomadsl.co.za [105.226.0.22]
4 12 ms 11 ms 12 ms ti-226-0-57.telkomadsl.co.za [105.226.0.57]
5 11 ms 10 ms 10 ms 165.165.214.213
6 155 ms 156 ms 156 ms lon-ip-hsll-1-gig-7-1-0.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.
43.9.58]
7 170 ms 170 ms 171 ms ldn-b5-link.telia.net [62.115.35.89]
8 171 ms 170 ms 173 ms atos-ic-151907-ldn-b5.c.telia.net [80.239.132.14
2]
9 * * * Request timed out.
10 * * * Request timed out.
11 173 ms 170 ms 175 ms ae0.er01.cwwtf.bbc.co.uk [132.185.254.93]
12 177 ms 178 ms 176 ms 132.185.255.165
13 179 ms 177 ms 180 ms bbc-vip011.cwwtf.bbc.co.uk [212.58.246.90]

Trace complete.

 

[MightyMuffinMan]

@ranger

Issue is : throttling is not working ( Hear me out) ie line speed gets reduced however the quality drops and what I mean by this is that websites simply dont load. eg I want to load a banks website or gmail and it will never load or I have to pick reload. NB this is on a 4 meg line that has been throttled. Line stops working every few minutes even though router says connected. A game like dota 2 becomes laggy.

Downloading and update for PS4 takes 2 days (175 mb) and this is not from the slow speed, this is because the download keeps timing out.

Clearly Telkom has lost the plot: issue is not the throttling, Issue is that the line becomes useless for everyday banking etc


I dont mind being slowed down for heavy use however I do mind not being able to use the service, understand????

Please let your team know that they don't have to fix the speed reduction or thresholds. they need to fix the timeouts with simple websites such as gmail and fnb banking etc.

I do NOT think its unfair for customers to say the service is "NOT WORKING". BTW if this is a tactic to tell us to leave the service just say so and we will go. So if this occurs next month than I'll simple cancel 'not the slow speed but the inabilty to do the basics with the line". Will give in my cancellation request and see what happens.

 

[genetic]

No need to shout. :wtf:

 

[Diesal]

Ok so I thought I will raise an issue here, the throttling seems quite bad once we reach the “power user” status, this worries me.

Let’s keep in the back of our minds that this is an uncapped 4mbps account. I have used just over 299.354 GB(1). My calculations tell me that if download 24/7 on my uncapped account I should achieve a total usage of just over 1.02 TB (https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-xx1nvIXK58YW91dkhhcEtLN00/edit?usp=sharing). Now I have downloaded the above mentioned amount of 299.354 GB, which translates to just 28.6% (299.354/1044.48*100) of my total possible usage on an Uncapped account, this amount would obviously decrease if I included uploads (but in my case I don’t use P2P, so it’s negligible).

Firstly - This tells me that if my usage @ 29%* of my total possible usage is having a detrimental effect on Telkom’s Network, what exactly is this network made of? - Two tin cans and some string?
Secondly – Telkom, seems to be throttling the connections really badly, to the extent that the connection is possibly unusable (according to a post above), this is an uncapped account and we’ve used a fraction of the total possible usage why is the throttling that draconian?

(1) Including, my uploads @ 10.24 GB.
*Based on the fact that other people on 4 Meg accounts have achieved usage in similar ranges, before being throttled.

Please let me know your thoughts, because I feel like I am wrong in some way.

 

[Big Bean]

@ranger

Issue is : throttling is not working ( Hear me out) ie line speed gets reduced however the quality drops and what I mean by this is that websites simply dont load. eg I want to load a banks website or gmail and it will never load or I have to pick reload. NB this is on a 4 meg line that has been throttled. Line stops working every few minutes even though router says connected. A game like dota 2 becomes laggy.

Downloading and update for PS4 takes 2 days (175 mb) and this is not from the slow speed, this is because the download keeps timing out.

I am softcapped (not on uncapped), I get occasional website time out but gaming (Dota 2 on SA server) has been fine

 

[MightyMuffinMan]

No need to shout. :wtf:

Just highlighting the issue people are having with the throttling. for some reason telkom misunderstands the complaint we have.

It is not about being throttled. Its about being timed out when doing the basics ie gaming, banking and email.

 

[ranger]

Firstly - This tells me that if my usage @ 29%* of my total possible usage is having a detrimental effect on Telkom’s Network, what exactly is this network made of? - Two tin cans and some string?

It's not about what components are in the network, it's about what bandwidth actually costs. Even if we count *just* the IPC cost, your 4Mbps which you seem to think you are paying the full cost of, costs us about R2500. That doesn't include any local (off our own network) or international bandwidth, network equipment, traffic management platforms, provisioning and billing systems, or staff costs.

The recent article by Jan Vermeulen is quite well-researched (even if a bit biased for MWeb's specific situation), if you haven't read and understood it, you should.

Secondly – Telkom, seems to be throttling the connections really badly, to the extent that the connection is possibly unusable (according to a post above)

If you are basing your complaints about throttling purely on MightyMuffinMan's description, and not your own experience, please note that we are investigating some issues which are unrelated to throttling which may be impacting MightyMuffinMan as well as Electric who was not throttled. (we have some capped users who reported a similar experience while they were in quota). Unfortunately we have some high priority work to be completed during this week (which should hopefully further improve experience), so I haven't had time to keep up-to-date with the investigation of that issue.

There is nothing different in implementation from the in the throttling from what people were paying R199/month for 2 years ago ...

 

[Wackyza]

No more excuses and wish wash from Telkom. Last night is a good example. I havent used my TI 4mb uncapped account in 2 months. I load it up 2 days ago with 0 usage for the month. Try and stream netflix, it literally just buffers and goes blocky and then the screen goes black. Restart router, same result. I change my account to Vox, stream 100% smooth 1080P.

I laughed and said to my wife that this is why we havent been using Telkom for 2 months. Cancellation in. Good riddance

 

[MightyMuffinMan]

If you are basing your complaints about throttling purely on MightyMuffinMan's description, and not your own experience, please note that we are investigating some issues which are unrelated to throttling which may be impacting MightyMuffinMan as well as Electric who was not throttled. (we have some capped users who reported a similar experience while they were in quota). Unfortunately we have some high priority work to be completed during this week (which should hopefully further improve experience), so I haven't had time to keep up-to-date with the investigation of that issue.

There is nothing different in implementation from the in the throttling from what people were paying R199/month for 2 years ago ...

Thanks ranger. I hope you guys sort out the throttling issues.

Really like I said its not an issue of being throttled ie slowing down our line speeds. The issue I (And I'm sure many are experiencing) is that the connection does a timeout for basic tasks (Gmail; banking ; updating android apps off play etc) even if the connection it self is fine. I don't know if that makes sense.

The help desk and fault reporting refuse to acknowledge that that is the complaint and even imply that its the new throttling policy (refusing to investigate why webpages are timing out) and hopefully thats not the case as than its a slap in the face of many loyal customers who supported the network and never changed ISP's through thick or thin.

I personally have roughly 6 devices connected and its only an issue with the new throttling policy as connecting with another adsl account the line works fine.

Bottomline: the account becomes useless if I will not be able to do what i need to do eg do a payment via internet banking or check a BMJ medical review article. Uncapped supposed to offer a service where one plugs it in and it works (regardless of FUP)

 

[Bernie]

Thanks ranger. I hope you guys sort out the throttling issues.

Really like I said its not an issue of being throttled ie slowing down our line speeds. The issue I (And I'm sure many are experiencing) is that the connection does a timeout for basic tasks (Gmail; banking ; updating android apps off play etc) even if the connection it self is fine. I don't know if that makes sense.

The help desk and fault reporting refuse to acknowledge that that is the complaint and even imply that its the new throttling policy (refusing to investigate why webpages are timing out) and hopefully thats not the case as than its a slap in the face of many loyal customers who supported the network and never changed ISP's through thick or thin.

I personally have roughly 6 devices connected and its only an issue with the new throttling policy as connecting with another adsl account the line works fine.

Bottomline: the account becomes useless if I will not be able to do what i need to do eg do a payment via internet banking or check a BMJ medical review article. Uncapped supposed to offer a service where one plugs it in and it works (regardless of FUP)

From my experience, once I was throttled, I literally could not open any website, it would load just the "top" of the website and then just hang. Many websites would just not open at all. Like others have said, I have no issue with the throttling as long as I can actually use the internet for basic surfing. My emails also kept on timing out. Had to resort to my backup account to get basic internet.

 

[wingnut771]

Ok so I thought I will raise an issue here, the throttling seems quite bad once we reach the “power user” status, this worries me.

Let’s keep in the back of our minds that this is an uncapped 4mbps account. I have used just over 299.354 GB(1). My calculations tell me that if download 24/7 on my uncapped account I should achieve a total usage of just over 1.02 TB (https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-xx1nvIXK58YW91dkhhcEtLN00/edit?usp=sharing). Now I have downloaded the above mentioned amount of 299.354 GB, which translates to just 28.6% (299.354/1044.48*100) of my total possible usage on an Uncapped account, this amount would obviously decrease if I included uploads (but in my case I don’t use P2P, so it’s negligible).

Firstly - This tells me that if my usage @ 29%* of my total possible usage is having a detrimental effect on Telkom’s Network, what exactly is this network made of? - Two tin cans and some string?
Secondly – Telkom, seems to be throttling the connections really badly, to the extent that the connection is possibly unusable (according to a post above), this is an uncapped account and we’ve used a fraction of the total possible usage why is the throttling that draconian?

(1) Including, my uploads @ 10.24 GB.
*Based on the fact that other people on 4 Meg accounts have achieved usage in similar ranges, before being throttled.

Please let me know your thoughts, because I feel like I am wrong in some way.

It's not their network, it's their bottom line. These accounts and accounts from every single other ISP out there are priced below cost in order to gain economy of scale to make the business plan work, and need a lot of low usage clients to subside your 300+GB usage, to a point, then they apply AUP.

If with what you say about the harshness of the throttling when it does happen, it should be at least "usable", and would motivate me to leave aswell, but I'm sure they don't give a continental as they probably loosing money with you and will only be too glad to see you go.

 

[Diesal]

It's not about what components are in the network, it's about what bandwidth actually costs. Even if we count *just* the IPC cost, your 4Mbps which you seem to think you are paying the full cost of, costs us about R2500. That doesn't include any local (off our own network) or international bandwidth, network equipment, traffic management platforms, provisioning and billing systems, or staff costs.
The recent article by Jan Vermeulen is quite well-researched (even if a bit biased for MWeb's specific situation), if you haven't read and understood it, you should.
If you are basing your complaints about throttling purely on MightyMuffinMan's description, and not your own experience, please note that we are investigating some issues which are unrelated to throttling which may be impacting MightyMuffinMan as well as Electric who was not throttled. (we have some capped users who reported a similar experience while they were in quota). Unfortunately we have some high priority work to be completed during this week (which should hopefully further improve experience), so I haven't had time to keep up-to-date with the investigation of that issue.
There is nothing different in implementation from the in the throttling from what people were paying R199/month for 2 years ago ...

It's not their network, it's their bottom line. These accounts and accounts from every single other ISP out there are priced below cost in order to gain economy of scale to make the business plan work, and need a lot of low usage clients to subside your 300+GB usage, to a point, then they apply AUP.

Ok, as a student studying finance management I can appreciate that there are other costs to consider as you have mentioned. However the issue I have is that ISPs, not just Telkom Internet are offering uncapped accounts, which they can’t sustain because they need low end users to sustain “power users” like me, let’s remember that only a fraction of South Africa’s population have access to ADSL and even less, may use an uncapped account. Users have evolved, like myself from using 5 GBs of data a month to 300GB, for the same price as a 5 GB account in 2006/2007.

Do you not think it would be logical then to factor in the increased usage trends into the threshold calculation? (and possibly, overall product cost calculation) The reason why I mentioned the state of ADSL users in South Africa is that in the future, others might want uncapped internet access too, and based on the trend of peoples usage increasing, as more content is consumed on the internet (Netflix, Steam, Xbox Live, etc.) will this not further decrease the thresholds, assuming cetris parabis on the part of ISPs. What we can’t have is an operations manager lowering the thresholds every quarter, thereby increasing the bottom line substantially. What I take away from this experience is that these accounts (again, not just Ti) are not true "uncapped" they faux-uncapped accounts.

Also I haven’t experienced any throttling yet, so please excuse that point.

The recent article by Jan Vermeulen is quite well-researched (even if a bit biased for MWeb's specific situation), if you haven't read and understood it, you should.

Are you indirectly saying Telkom Internet’s thresholds are better than MWeb

 

[wingnut771]

Ok, as a student studying finance management I can appreciate that there are other costs to consider as you have mentioned. However the issue I have is that ISPs, not just Telkom Internet are offering uncapped accounts, which they can’t sustain because they need low end users to sustain “power users” like me, let’s remember that only a fraction of South Africa’s population have access to ADSL and even less, may use an uncapped account. Users have evolved, like myself from using 5 GBs of data a month to 300GB, for the same price as a 5 GB account in 2006/2007.

Do you not think it would be logical then to factor in the increased usage trends into the threshold calculation? (and possibly, overall product cost calculation) The reason why I mentioned the state of ADSL users in South Africa is that in the future, others might want uncapped internet access too, and based on the trend of peoples usage increasing, as more content is consumed on the internet (Netflix, Steam, Xbox Live, etc.) will this not further decrease the thresholds, assuming cetris parabis on the part of ISPs. What we can’t have is an operations manager lowering the thresholds every quarter, thereby increasing the bottom line substantially. What I take away from this experience is that these accounts (again, not just Ti) are not true "uncapped" they faux-uncapped accounts.

Also I haven’t experienced any throttling yet, so please excuse that point.



Are you indirectly saying Telkom Internet’s thresholds are better than MWeb

Only way to factor that in is to increase the cost you pay.

6 months ago we saw doubling of linespeeds, but hardly any drop in IPC rates, this is why the threshold is harsher right now IMO.

IPC cost is limiting us at the moment, and as more and more people learn about netflix and dump their DSTV, we are going to see uncapped deteriorate more and more until Telkom (not TI) do something about that if they want people to stick with uncapped.

We need another massive drop in IPC cost to make uncapped at least sustainable, and cheaper allowing more people access improving economies of scale, while they at it, they can introduce naked adsl too.

This is how I see things

 

[reactor_sa]

Until the cost per gigabyte is 1c then some people just never going to be happy. Geez, look at the cost per gb on 4mbps uncapped if you use 300gb.