Telkom Internet changes the way they collect usage stats

[Hxx]

From Bonobo:

TelkomInternet never used to calculate stats. We relied on what was sent from SAIX. Now we manage our own usage and the only real confusion is the way SAIX and Telkom Internet display the same information. Remember your usage information is only collected when you disconnect and that information is consistent with SAIX & Telkom Internet. But now interim usage information is sent from SAIX to us while you are online, so we can now tell when you go over your cap while you are online.

You can tell the forum that the usage collection has changed, because it has. You can also tell them that it is more accurate and less susceptible to leakage - ie, when you reach your cap, you reach it. No more 70Gb+ on a 3Gb account

Remember this is not done to short change people. It is actually done to prevent the people abusing the policy so that everyone can in future get larger limits.

thanks

 

[stoke]

Thank hxx.

 

[MrG]

lolz, well there goes me abusing the system

 

[Mze]

Lies, damn lies & statistics

From Bonobo:

TelkomInternet never used to calculate stats. We relied on what was sent from SAIX. Now we manage our own usage and the only real confusion is the way SAIX and Telkom Internet display the same information. Remember your usage information is only collected when you disconnect and that information is consistent with SAIX & Telkom Internet. But now interim usage information is sent from SAIX to us while you are online, so we can now tell when you go over your cap while you are online.

You can tell the forum that the usage collection has changed, because it has. You can also tell them that it is more accurate and less susceptible to leakage - ie, when you reach your cap, you reach it. No more 70Gb+ on a 3Gb account

Remember this is not done to short change people. It is actually done to prevent the people abusing the policy so that everyone can in future get larger limits.

I don't want to pi$$ on anyone's parade, but my ADSL usage on Telkomsa.net has been erroneously reported all day as 262.2MB, and certainly does not reflect any movement since early this morning. This figure is way too high by hundreds of MB's.

Is the usage only measured at LCP down occurence, or is it measured real time?

TelkomInternet regularly put LCP down to establish BW usage. The times recorded by SAIX correlated accurately with the LCP downs recorded by my Netgear router.

BW usage reported by Telkomsa.net is ±4 times the BW reported by SAIX.

 

[bonobo_slr]

I don't want to pi$$ on anyone's parade, but my ADSL usage on Telkomsa.net has been erroneously reported all day as 262.2MB, and certainly does not reflect any movement since early this morning. This figure is way too high by hundreds of MB's.

Is the usage only measured at LCP down occurence, or is it measured real time?

TelkomInternet regularly put LCP down to establish BW usage. The times recorded by SAIX correlated accurately with the LCP downs recorded by my Netgear router.

BW usage reported by Telkomsa.net is ±4 times the BW reported by SAIX.

Here is the issue.
When you disconnect, a stop record is generated with all the usage info for that session. However, if you connected the last day of the month and then disconnect only the next day which is the first of the next month. The tracker tool shows that usage to be on the first of the month as that is the day the stop record was generated. This is an issue and the developers are addressing it as we speak. However, this is only the tracker tool that is displaying it like that. The mechanisms to check user's caps is different.

You can send me your uname and I can send you back the correct usage that is being monitored for capping purposes.

Cheers.

 

[gregmcc]

aah cr@p! So now I won't be able to abuse telkom either. Might as well move to another isp then

 

[werries2]

So the Soft cap policy is now gone?
Any reason to stay with Telkom internet?

 

[gregmcc]

Who knows...but I see the daily usage mails I get from telkom have changed. THey now include a whole bunch of cr@p about thresholds including

"Should you exceed both your service threshold and that of the collective, you will be placed within restrictive limits, allowing access to e-mail and the four major banking sites."

Where's that moron Steve who keeps saying local bandwidth is free and you will not get capped? My fat @$$!!

 

[eremos]

Does this mean you can finally do away with the 24 hour reset?

 

[hj2k_x]

So there is no more reason for anyone to be with TelkomISP at all??

 

[gregmcc]

good question. from the sounds of it - yes. your now screwed whether you reset or knot.

I'm also wondering if there's a reason to stay with telkom. we need someone to use up their cap in a day or two and tell us if they get capped

 

[MrG]

yeah that 24 hour resets are now actually officially not needed. There are some ISPs not doing it yet (Live Stats Monitoring), but everyone basically can if they wanted to technically.. probably just cost issues.

Ill see howmuch I get from my two TelkomInternet accounts this month. If I dont atleast get 12GB from my two TI accounts, im jumping ship

 

[Mze]

bonobo_sir,

I have PMed you my details and I look forward to your email giving me my actual usage.

SAIX recording of my May usage commenced May 01 at 07:43:43.
This was as a result of LCP being dropped either by Telkom ADSL or TelkomInternet - I don't know which. Please tell me which part of Telkom was dropping LCP.

At 15:38:49 today I dropped LCP to get SAIX to give me a total usage figure for May. This is 138,108,848 bytes, or 134.871922 MB.

Telkomsa.net ADSL usage tracker still tells me that my May usage is 262.2000 MB as it has been doing all day. Someone in Telkom's development section has managed to now get the graphs working, but they show the rubbish usage of 262.2000 MB.

Reviewing my ADSL usage from when it started on February 9, with very poor line quality, LCP was dropping because of line quality but the SAIX stats refelected session usage reasonably fairly.

Once my circuit had been checked and rewired where needed, my ADSL has worked perfectly at 4096, with LCP being dropped, usually at 24 hour intervals to derive the SAIX stats which were passed on to Telkomsa.net.

Tell us all, what is the procedure going to be from Telkom's side to give us usage stats? Will LCP be dropped as has been done in the very recent past?

There are several ICASA requirements which Telkom ignores:

Subscribers that have reached the monthly cap shall be allowed to top-up or purchase extra bandwidth without the need to purchase a new account.

Local bandwidth shall not be subject to the cap. the cap shall be increased to a minimum level of 10GigaBytes (GB) per month.

The network operator shall not periodically reset the ADSL service. Any such reset if required for the service maintenance shall be done with a prior notification of at least seven (7) days to the subscribers.


We realise that some of the forgoing is beyond your or your department's control, but one of the procedures, such as dropping LCP to gather stats, seems to be squarely in your area.

Random dropping of LCP to collect usage data is a procedure NOT to be followed as it can compromise automatic software and operating system updating processes.

Please elucidate the procedures that will be followed in this new method of calculating daily usage, daily emailing of usage to users, and what will happen when users reach their cap.

I am sure that many of us forumites look forward to your response.

 

[hj2k_x]

yeah that 24 hour resets are now actually officially not needed. There are some ISPs not doing it yet (Live Stats Monitoring), but everyone basically can if they wanted to technically.. probably just cost issues.

Ill see howmuch I get from my two TelkomInternet accounts this month. If I dont atleast get 12GB from my two TI accounts, im jumping ship

Well according to this, you should get 3GB off each and no more.

Jump ship!

 

[gregmcc]

Aggghh - the end is near! Its definitely time to jump ship. The problem is where to - aren't all the ships sinking! Who wants to sacrifice their bandwidth so we will know for sure

 

[hj2k_x]

Aggghh - the end is near! Its definitely time to jump ship. The problem is where to - aren't all the ships sinking!

Webafrica or Openweb.

 

[eremos]

There's still the "collective cap" which might let you get more than 2 or 3 GBs, but there's no more raping your account in the last 24 hours.

That's according to the following anyway:

Who knows...but I see the daily usage mails I get from telkom have changed. THey now include a whole bunch of cr@p about thresholds including

"Should you exceed both your service threshold and that of the collective, you will be placed within restrictive limits, allowing access to e-mail and the four major banking sites."

 

[gregmcc]

we'll know exactly in 29 days

 

[bonobo_slr]

yeah that 24 hour resets are now actually officially not needed. There are some ISPs not doing it yet (Live Stats Monitoring), but everyone basically can if they wanted to technically.. probably just cost issues.

Ill see howmuch I get from my two TelkomInternet accounts this month. If I dont atleast get 12GB from my two TI accounts, im jumping ship

You may get 12gb from 2 accounts depending on which types of accounts they are, but you will not get much more than that, I can assure you.

Just out of interest, where will you jump ship to?

 

[ranger]

Well according to this, you should get 3GB off each and no more.

Jump ship!

No, it is to let you get exactly (within a small percentage of) what is determined to be acceptable use on the plan you are subscribing to (which may be more than the marketing term used for the plan, but will not be less).

Do note that this change is not to prevent users from going over the limit that is advertised, but to prevent rampant abuse (e.g. no one will hit 60Gb this month as has been the case for the last few months), allowing the "acceptable use" limit to be raised. Thus abusers will be abusing less, everyone else should benefit.