The story behind MWEB ADSL abuse notices

The story behind MWEB ADSL abuse notices

MWEB’s warning to users that “we may have to slow down your Internet speeds” caused an outcry online, but there are good reasons for these warnings

There may be good reasons for the warnings, but there is no longer any good reason to continue calling the product 'uncapped'.

That was a misnomer from the start.
 
without them disclosing these stats they can go get fecked
 
Shame bandwidth hogs, cry me a river :p

Fair is fair, pay for the service you make use of. Throttle their A$$es :D
 
There may be good reasons for the warnings, but there is no longer any good reason to continue calling the product 'uncapped'.

That was a misnomer from the start.
This is the issue - don't call it uncapped, unlimited or any other term implying the service has no restrictions.
 
What I don’t understand is why the threshold can’t be made public, this is surely part in the AUP (that includes the FUP), and it is a measurement so it should be made available so that the users can calculate possible excessive usage.

Why can’t it be made known?

All Mweb users who agreed to the T&C’s (and all related policies) should have a right to know the amendments (when and what changed). How come they cannot provide an answer on this?

Mybroadband should ask the Michaelson's Attorneys representative to enlighten us on this issue.
 
This is the issue - don't call it uncapped, unlimited or any other term implying the service has no restrictions.

No, the issue isn't capped vs uncapped. They're throttling, not cutting off access, so it'll still be "uncapped" even though you might have to wait 3 days for Google to load...
I do take issue however with the fact that I signed a contract based on it being advertised that they will not throttle at all... At least the 1mb uncapped account was advertised as such, I can't comment on the other products.
 
“We monitor the usage on our network and make sure that customers are not abusing certain defined parameters. This is in line with our Acceptable Use Policy (AUP),” MWEB’s notice stated.
What are these defined parameters? So if I download all my games legally from Steam & Origin and this uses 100`s of GBs am I within or without these "Defined parameters" ?

MWEB ISP CEO Derek Hershaw said that it is unsustainable for the top 3% of their users to continue to consume more and more of their network capacity.
If you oversell. This statement is true. If you are selling the same item to many people and they all cash in at the same time....

The biggest culprit for the high usage is peer-2-peer (P2P) traffic, which is mainly used to download TV series and movies.
I just reinstalled WOW on my computer, that was 30GB of P2P traffic. How does Mweb tell the difference between legal and illegal traffic? Or do they take it out on the protocol?


I dont have a problem with Mweb slowing stuff down, it would just be great to have clarity.
 
MWEB, you received my cancellation notice on Saturday and on Sunday, just cancel and let me know please, good riddance to STROND!
 
What I don’t understand is why the threshold can’t be made public.

The moment they make a threshold public, a larger proportion of users who are paying for the "uncapped" will see it as a "target" and not a limit. It's human nature.

Personally I have no issue with being throttled if I'm among the top few %, but why not make it a graduated throttling, so that as your usage goes up, you get progressively throttled more and more .... much better than crashing from 4Mbs to 12kbs one fell swoop.
 
Why WON'T it be made known - because then users can compare to other isp's who do publish their threshold limits.

Ja, man :p

Interesting though is that Hershew seems not to remember that they advertised this as an uncapped product.

Carolyn Holgate:

http://www.mweb.co.za/portals/25/Pr...2_MWEB_PressRelease_GetUncapped(Consumer).pdf

“Uncapped Internet access opens up a new world of opportunity, enabling you to enrich your personal and professional lives with information and entertainment, community and commerce. From watching your favourite shows online to making VoIP calls; shopping or gaming online; you can now explore content without having to worry about being capped,” says Holgate.

All I want to know is that is there any legal discrepancy here?
 
A better way may have been to identify the specific users who were bypassing protocols (to get to the 1.5TB/m) and issue them notices that they were in contravention of Mweb's AUP.

Multiple devices? You cannot be serious! In this day and age who only has a single device linked to their router/modem?

Top 3% account for 25% of all data downloaded - possible... again, instead of a shotgun approach why not target specific users, NOT based purely on usage? How did Mweb distinguish between legitimate downloads (Steam, distros, etc) and other not so legitimate downloads? To me it appears they did nothing of the sort.
 
uncapped unthrotteld please goodbye mweb hello AFRIHOST, at least afrihost tells you that P2P is shaped during business hours which is usually between 9 and 5pm on weekdays, I can live with that
 
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter