Uncapped ADSL – what does it mean?

davemc said:
The terminology used with bandwidth is confusing as heck:

- Bandwidth =
1. The width of the transmission medium. e.g. A bandwidth of 348 KB/s = Correct.
2. A measure of how many bits you have used. e.g. 3 GB of bandwidth. = Correct.

You could say: Here, a product offering with 384 bandwidth and 3GB of bandwidth. :confused: Need more adjectives!

- UNCAPPED =
1. No maximum allowance of bandwidth consumption before you are cut off = Correct.
2. Pay per unit of bandwidth consumed = Correct.
3. Pay per unit of bandwidth consumed after a specific initial allocation = Correct.

You could say: Our brand new internet offering is uncapped at R9 per MB after the first 1GB. :confused: Need more adjectives!

:D
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I didn't trim this, how could I? LOL. Good one! :D
 
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Within the technical confines of the definition he was given he was correct, but let’s face it; a blow job is sexual relations.
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Yip and we are still technically getting screwed.
 
MraL said:
Hi,

I'm responding as the person responsible for the R39 uncapped advert. I've been in the ISP business - providing access - for 15 years and I participate in various global forums for the governance of the Internet infrastructure.

My dictionary defines a cap in this context as: "an upper limit imposed on spending or other activities e.g. a cap on legal immigration". This is my understanding of the term and as an ISP we believe that the term cap is a swearword. It creates grief for people who need access but have been cut off because they reach their cap. It also has been a way for the big ISPs to convert customers and obtain revenue for bandwidth which is NOT used by the customer (i.e. when we started offering this product - almost three years ago - the average usage on a 3GB account at one of the largest ISPs was 1.1GB, in this case the ISP collected moneys for 3GB and pocketed the profits made when the customer only used 1.1).

I admit that our offering is different because we advise our customers to buy the 'least' amount of bandwidth that they use in order to make sure they are not paying for what they don't use (e..g in December most people go away and use a fraction of what they have paid for). This almost always works out cheaper for the customer and because we're delivering metered bandwidth we can afford to deliver the highest quality of bandwidth. The economics does not allow for fixed price uncapped services to be of the best quality and we try to provide the highest quality connectivity.

One of the reasons we developed the 500MB unshaped uncapped product is for gamers (mostly WOW) and individual share traders that need low latency connections for this specific purpose. We also support these users to setup their routers (and clients) to be able to use both shaped and unshaped when they need to.

Rudolph, I respectfully disagree with your comment that post paid uncapped accounts are not uncapped. By definition they are, and any presupposition in the market that these are not uncapped is wrong. I also respectfully request that anyone that accused us of 'lying' please backup your statement, it is unjustified.

In future please refer to a "fixed price uncapped service" as a fixed price uncapped service. Caps are not good because it means people pay for bandwidth they don't use. In the South, metered bandwidth is essential if we want any access to high quality bandwidth. Metered bandwidth also puts South Africa (and Australia) in a good position for the future (in the North there will be more demand for metered bandwidth as quality does not continue to improve and as users have more demands for IPTV and VOIP).

We do also provide competitive fixed price uncapped services but these are for a different market segment. As another example think of the retired person (we support the South African Association of Retired People - SAARP) who a) cannot afford to pay for a 1GB account when they only use 200MB and b) don't know why the Internet is not working when they are cut off (and can't afford to sit waiting at the end of a support IVR). For them the R39 option is ideal. Similarly a user that uses 1.3GB will only pay R69 prepaid + R27 postpaid [300(MB) x 9c] = R86 as opposed to have to prepay for 2 or 3GB. For those users that don't want a fully uncapped service (in case their machines/connections are exploited) we also use a term called provisioning, where we will provision their account with what you may refer to as a security 'cap' - although they don't pay for that.

I hope that you can consider my comments and hopefully I have explained well enough for you all to see the benefits of a prepaid/postpaid uncapped service.

Sincerely,

Alan
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Yes, there is a business case for the R39 product, fair enough. But let me challenge you, go to your grannies and 'average' users that only used 1 Gig of data a month (of their 3 gig) and ask them to explain to you what bandwidth is, what their cap is and how exactly it relates to their internet experience.
If you can count the ones who could successfully answer you with your one hand then well done.

So in reality what does this mean? It means, you are wording your R39 add such that you mislead people. You are misleading the very same people who you claim to be helping.
Further, none of us care how many years you have been in business. Frankly told, from where I'm sitting it really just looks like you went back to your roots. Anyone who's been on the internet for 15 years (me included) would have started off carefully monitoring their own online time to limit themselves to not get a surprize at the end of the month. Luckily for us, time was not a new conectp and we could monitor it easily using age old methods. We were being charged for merely being connected. I say you went back to your roots because it is exactly that model that you are defending right here. Being connected means nothing. It's being connected and actively passing packets of data that matters. As such, any client who uses your service has to actively monitor themselves. But don't forget, the time is no longer an issue here! It's the bandwidth that becomes important. Therein lies the difference again, your same granny who used to pay a fixed fee and was capped never experienced the cap in the first place. So, she doesn't know how it applies or what it means. All she knows, is instead of paying a fixed amount, she's paying much less for the same thing. In trots the next [nasty virus][failed MS Update][Torrent left open][application updates][a couple of hours of youtube] and before you know it you have 1000's (I fear) customers calling your company to complain about the massive charges they have incurred.
So, while you have a business case your argument is flawed, not because of your service but because of what it implies and how the average person understands it.

Maybe we should start talking in real techie talk and hold you to it and see how happy you are?

Thanks for this post. Sincerely. All you've proven to me is that donkey's are donkeys and asses are asses.
You my friend, just happen to have with a dictionary under your arm.
 
It is so blatantly obvious that in line with the "New South Africa" someone is filling someone's back pocket!

Capped = Screwed!
SIMPLE!

Uncapped = Reasonable Service!
SIMPLE!

Bottom line...at what Price???

There is simply NO justification in the charges that this country is faced with!

My curse...
May the hungry fleas of a thousand camels fill the crotches of all people in South Africa who enforce these high prices of internet connectivity.

Look at Sweden...
A country with a population the size of greater Durban....
Amazing how they can offer their country UNCAPPED as an entry level to international internet access in the TRUE sense of the word for so much less than we ever could dream of!
Nevermind the fact that they earn 10x more than us!!
When WILL we ever be able to DO something about these legal thieves I do not know! May the Hellkom bosses and thieving ISP bosses all rot in hell!
 
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Hand this over to the ASA and let them deal with these people taking uncapped out of context!

MyADSL should have a "name and shame" section that's easily viewable & accessable from the main page so that anybody visiting this forum/website can see which ISP's are good or bad, which costs more or less, what are the pro's and cons of each. When it comes to True Uncapped, (if they say its uncapped) we could then say Yes or NO... I think Hellkom has got something like this, but really, This forum needs something similar so that ISP's who intentionally try to pull the wool over ignorant people's eyes can be named and shamed! I say rub in the salt where it hurts most, and promote the ISP's that play the game like it should be! The option that ISP's can pay off a website to take down complaints or bad write ups should not be allowed! (yes you hellopeter!)
 
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MraL's wordy explanation does not convince.

uncapped is uncapped...........in SA context it might be with throttled speed after certain threshold, but what you doing is simply false and misleading advertising.

MyBroadband should expose and ban such advertising on this site.

The telecom reality in SA is sad enough...we don't need bulldust on top of that! :rolleyes:

I had to laugh again at Telkom's ability to wear different hats when it suits them:

“ISPs, including TelkomInternet, obviously need to comply with the ADSL Regulation in this regard. Please note that Telkom, as a wholesale provider of Internet connectivity to ISPs does not cap customers as this is a functionally of the ISPs. Accordingly, we suggest that you take this matter up with your ISP,” Telkom said at the time.
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davemc said:
The terminology used with bandwidth is confusing as heck:

- Bandwidth =
1. The width of the transmission medium. e.g. A bandwidth of 348 KB/s = Correct.
2. A measure of how many bits you have used. e.g. 3 GB of bandwidth. = Correct.

You could say: Here, a product offering with 384 bandwidth and 3GB of bandwidth. :confused: Need more adjectives!

- UNCAPPED =
1. No maximum allowance of bandwidth consumption before you are cut off = Correct.
2. Pay per unit of bandwidth consumed = Correct.
3. Pay per unit of bandwidth consumed after a specific initial allocation = Correct.

You could say: Our brand new internet offering is uncapped at R9 per MB after the first 1GB. :confused: Need more adjectives!

:D
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lol and lol @ the term being bastardized.
 
MraL said:
One of the reasons we developed the 500MB unshaped uncapped product is for gamers (mostly WOW) and individual share traders that need low latency connections for this specific purpose.
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What? That makes no sense, no matter how you try to word it. You cannot develop your own vernacular then impose it on the (mostly ignorant, or at the very least, uneducation about technical internet terms) masses.

Which ISP do you represent just by the way? Would love to complement your marketing manager. ;)
 
Jack_Hammond said:
There is no feasability for true uncapped, unbilled, unlimited, unthrottled, unshaped packages in this country, and even in the US now, ISP have begun introducing caps, albeit extremely high ones, just to crack down on those really sick bandwidth abusers (200 GB data a month!).
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YES there is. Remember that UNCAPPED does not mean INFINITE data. You are limited by speed and duration. Speed is given = say 1Mb/sec while duration is 30-31 days per month - given that an uncapped account does have a cap. ISPs are able to provide such accounts - with contention ratios - as not every user downloads 24h per day, 7 days per week.

In Japan caps of 200GB per day for UPLOADS have been imposed by some ISPs, while downloads are still uncapped or unmetered. In the US the higher tier 8Mb or 10Mbit plans are also truly uncapped.
 
Charging for bandwidth as an absolute (1Gig for example) rather than the relative value (2MB per second for example) it is, is just pure greed on the part of ISPs. 1st and 2nd tier ISPs do not buy their bandwidth like this, and neither should we the consumer.

Bandwidth is not a commodity like water that is finite. It doesn't cost a top tier ISP any more to transmit 1 GIG or 100 GIGs. What is valuable, and what can be billed for is the speed at which it can be transmitted. This speed is clearly a fixed cost to the ISP and as such should be passed down to the consumer as a fixed cost too. The consumer should be able to choose at what speed they would like their broadband experience delivered to them, and choose a speed which corresponds to how much they are willing to pay.

Would you be happy to pay your municipality for the amount of times you use the roads? No, we pay a flat rate for the use of the roads, and we should definitely be paying a flat rate for bandwidth.
 
As I understand it, in the context of data transfer, the term uncapped, as defined in a dictionary, means without limit.

Unless you are dealing with an ISP, in which case it means anything and nothing simultaneously.
 
deweyzeph said:
Would you be happy to pay your municipality for the amount of times you use the roads? No, we pay a flat rate for the use of the roads, and we should definitely be paying a flat rate for bandwidth.
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Fitting analogy.

Exactly what happens on our roads during peak times (e.g. crawling along the highway at 20Km/h when you could be doing 120) would occur with Internet access performance should there be unmetered usage at unfeasibly low prices.

Reason why this isnt such an issue in other developed markets is that for what it costs us to build a 2 lane highway, they can get a 10 lane one. Historical monopolies & regulatory ineptitude aside, this is mainly due to insufficient market scale i.e. too few users, too little money being generated, too little investment in infrastructure ... its a vicious circle (but slowly improving).
 
porchrat said:
Garyvdh said:
Uncapped = One rate for unlimited access (up front).
Soft Cap = threshhold with out of bundle pricing (up front AND post paid).
Hard Cap = threshhold and then no access (up front cost).
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+1 This is the way I see it too, and don't even get me started on "uncapped express" accounts :rolleyes:
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+1

Why is it that it's only some sharks trying to sell these services that use convoluted definitions that make no sense, whilst the meaning is obvious to most of us trying to buy the services?
 
bekdik said:
As I understand it, in the context of data transfer, the term uncapped, as defined in a dictionary, means without limit.

Unless you are dealing with an ISP, in which case it means anything and nothing simultaneously.
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You got it. That's what the article is saying... ISP's at all levels do not have to change because the term uncapped is poorly defined in the Regulations...

Now, if uncapped becomes clearly defined and ICASA wasn't absolutely useless...

Not withstanding that the regulation might need to be promulgated into an act of law...
We would be able to kick every Telecomms provider who sold a volume of data instead of a level speed, right in the packet...
 
ads said:
+1

Why is it that it's only some sharks trying to sell these services that use convoluted definitions that make no sense, whilst the meaning is obvious to most of us trying to buy the services?
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That would be "only the sharks"...

Imagine we had an ISP who sold his/her bandwidth (a speed related service) at cost plus x%. (Note, not xx%).

In my thinking this would mean that the person running the business was making a difference and a profit (not a large one)...

The sharks you refer to will charge you for "What you will settle for" - aka "What the market will bear..."

I believe you are heading in the direction of a business model that includes EQ (Emotional Quotient) and an element of SQ (Spiritual Quotient)...

Dissolve ICASA (Preferably with something volatile).
 
deweyzeph said:
Charging for bandwidth as an absolute (1Gig for example) rather than the relative value (2MB per second for example) it is, is just pure greed on the part of ISPs. 1st and 2nd tier ISPs do not buy their bandwidth like this, and neither should we the consumer.

Bandwidth is not a commodity like water that is finite. It doesn't cost a top tier ISP any more to transmit 1 GIG or 100 GIGs. What is valuable, and what can be billed for is the speed at which it can be transmitted. This speed is clearly a fixed cost to the ISP and as such should be passed down to the consumer as a fixed cost too. The consumer should be able to choose at what speed they would like their broadband experience delivered to them, and choose a speed which corresponds to how much they are willing to pay.

Would you be happy to pay your municipality for the amount of times you use the roads? No, we pay a flat rate for the use of the roads, and we should definitely be paying a flat rate for bandwidth.
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Very well said. Sadly in SA there are issues of local b/w and somehow the Cape Town to JHB fiber and other fiber connections and what-not have not been developed because there was no need - people had tiny caps and lack of international connectivity could be blamed.
 
BrianStephan said:
U think we will ever get uncapped unless at a huge price
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I trimmed your post into the bit I wanted to answer...

At the rate we are going we will need a kind of "Isabel Jones" on Steroids with Bill Gates' money for the legal cost...
 
Seamus6917 said:
I trimmed your post into the bit I wanted to answer...

At the rate we are going we will need a kind of "Isabel Jones" on Steroids with Bill Gates' money for the legal cost...
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We have uncapped NOW at R999 from Neotel.
 
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