PostmanPot
Honorary Master
The answer accounts for a case of three accounts being given out, which is unheard of in the Feedback thread. It definitely wasn't discussed there in the last 6 - 12 months, and I doubt it's been discussed publicly on this forum. Nobody has ever referenced this case. It sounds made up.
The article asks the questions that people used to ask many months/years ago, when there weren't as many problems. When there was not as much doubt surrounding OpenWeb. By now, these questions are far too easy to answer. The answers given are the usual vague, neither here nor there ones. The important questions, which hold so much more weight nowadays, since the recent mass of people posting their problems and doubts on the forum, have not been asked.
The fact which really brought the cat out of the bag, with written proof, was about one person on an entry level product having the exact same username and password as their colleague, who was on a more expensive account (presumed to be Gold).
His colleague... The implications of this were massive. Account sharing. Advertised account tiers and features. Based on price and different marketing. These are some of the biggest skepticisms those curious enough have had. Confirmed. It fell on deaf ears.
So the answer's not that odd, Zenbaas. It's about an unheard of case on these forums, nothing that has been asked to be answered. It doesn't answer the important questions. It's in line with the same answers used in the past, when account sharing had been brought up on the odd occasion. One of the last answers was "A bug in the system giving out two of the same accounts because people signed up at the same time". One has no choice but to believe the CEO of their ISP.
There have literally been hundreds of people raising account sharing, and other issues, recently, and that's only on this forum. Their Facebook and Hello Peter pages are full of the exact same complaints. And this is off the forum, more evidence that an even wider spectrum of clients are being affected. There has never been so much negative attention around it all. Account sharing of course has big implications. What are its implications are on speeds, usage, shaping, authenticating, contention?
To diversify from the problem of account sharing, there are office hours problems, with shaping of 'Gold' accounts to the point basic services do not work and pages time out. This was felt by many more people over the recent public holidays and long weekends, when they were not using their office connections. I would say it was the biggest catalyst for the growing doubt and negativity.
There is no consistency with accounts and their marketing, with many reports of lesser and cheaper tier accounts outperforming Gold accounts, not having issues while people on Gold do.
There are speed problems after hours, when it's supposed to be unshaped. Add the sharing of accounts. The '08h00 - 17h00/evening' and 'downloads causing the shaper to kick in' shaper cannot cover for this.
All the authentication issues, due to accounts advertised as having one concurrent connection actually allowing two.
The shaping, like clockwork from 08h00. Nothing about being shaped dynamically when the network is busy, or by a shaper being triggered for an hour if you download.
The dishing out of new accounts to solve problems. New, and often shared, with usage history. Who does this?
And on top of it all, the lack of answers to the serious questions. Or the ever unclear and non definitive answers for everything else.
The repetition of these issues was far too widespread, and it all led to the first real mass evidence, publicly, of a seriously worrying and widespread trend.
Everything became too much for OpenWeb on this forum. Keoma / MrBEEP withdrew, and cableguy stepped in, who has quite a history, and based on similar styles, is suspected to be MrBEEP, or some sort of outlet of his. And now, as we know, OpenWeb have completely withdrawn from MyBroadband and other social media.
This was all the result of discussion and sharing of experiences on this forum, which there was so much of. Publicly, and not allowing it to be dealt with in PM or email where it was hidden. And, of course, largely due to the snowball effect of getting too comfortable and being too confident in sharing accounts without consequence. Which we know would have been the ethical way, and is the ethical way, of doing things. Which would have been the solution to solve all the constant problems of account sharing and authentication issues.
It would, of course, lower profit.
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