Uncapped ADSL fair use and throttling in SA

It's been one long steady stream of complaints since Mweb "peed on the web"....
 
Garyvdh said:
It's been one long steady stream of complaints since Mweb "peed on the web"....
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Yup, but if they did not pee on the web, ISP's would still be sucking in high amounts per GB, and have bigger fancy offices with bigger benefits (probably massages for their over stressed employees, etc)

How much we despise mweb, they brought change.
 
Anybody complaining about any uncapped ADSL product in South Africa needs their head read.


Here it is in a nutshell.... They are all crap.


You get what you paid for - a cheap and nasty internet data product. So don't complain about the sub-standard quality that you are getting, rather dig deeper into your pockets and pay for a decent product.
 
MickeyD said:
Anybody complaining about any uncapped ADSL product in South Africa needs their head read.


Here it is in a nutshell.... They are all crap.


You get what you paid for - a cheap and nasty internet data product. So don't complain about the sub-standard quality that you are getting, rather dig deeper into your pockets and pay for a decent product.
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Of course the never ending promotion of the crazy drive to the bottom... have to wonder who started this mad rush ;)
 
Instead, its thresholds are based on the profitability per user.

Its acceptable usage policy kicks in when the rate per Gigabyte it recovers from subscribers is too low to be sustainable.

Cybersmart Failkov still not winning with his greed.
 
MickeyD said:
Anybody complaining about any uncapped ADSL product in South Africa needs their head read.


Here it is in a nutshell.... They are all crap.


You get what you paid for - a cheap and nasty internet data product. So don't complain about the sub-standard quality that you are getting, rather dig deeper into your pockets and pay for a decent product.
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Not all uncapped is cheap and nasty. :p

But yes, you do get what you pay for. An uncapped account will have profitability or usage based thresholds, whether these are usage pattern based, time of day based, overall usage based, or a combination of the above. The "penalty" may be throttling, heavier shaping, deprioritisation, or a combination of the above as well. It's kinda like unlimited refill soda fountains at take-away joints. If everyone (or the majority) who ordered a burger stayed at the restaurant all day, and returned every day, buying only a burger and refilled their sodas every few minutes, the unlimited refill product would be discontinued, or the restaurant would go out of business. With internet, the margins are unfortunately far slimmer than a restaurant take-away, so there's less leeway a business can afford to provide.

We find that your typical household that streams their entertainment, enjoys online gaming, checks their mails and social networks, downloads their updates and apps, and occasionally downloads a tv show or movie here and there, is perfectly sustainable on our premium uncapped. However the moment you switch on a download machine and just leave it all day every day, or combine the above usage with business usage as well on a home uncapped product, you breach all variables of the aforementioned network checks and balances to maintain a solid network, and as a business where you as the consumer are paying a fixed amount, one has to take some form of action to prevent it potentially becoming detrimental to the overall experience for others, or to your bottom line (that's the reality of running a business I'm afraid).

We've always advocated identifying the right account for your needs, and is why we highlight our FAQ, and why we also try to be as transparent as possible about it. There's no benefit to an ISP signing up a customer for the sake of revenue, but losing on profitability thereafter through un-managed and excessive usage that you actively encourage. Some ISPs are learning that the hard way these days. Now I'm probably going to take flak for being candid about this, but it's unfortunately the reality with any product where it is advertised as uncapped or a variation thereof - you will always have input costs to recover, at the very minimum. The problem as well, even if you have spare network capacity to absorb a large degree of "excessive" usage, is that once word breaks that you don't manage accounts based on usage or any aforementioned variation, the "download machine" customers flock to your network in droves. The same problem exists where your business products are priced for business use but then marketed to consumers as "high volume download" accounts. It would be nice to be able to handle that volume with financial ease, but there's a finite amount of capacity that any network can handle, and that finite point is primarily dictated by your finances as a business.

The same applies to mobile networks, who have far more limitations in terms of spectrum availability (bandwidth, in simple terms), and higher costs to send the data to your last mile. The same problem exists for VOIP providers who operate their own network. The same problem exists for any business where you have a finite capacity or stock - it's not unique to internet.

Uncapped internet remains a perfectly viable and healthy product for your typical home user, who occasionally has a heavy download month but on average is able to remain below the "thresholds" imposed by the ISP. You can typically squeeze more value from these products than on a capped equivalent. However a capped product offers ISPs benefit, so there's incentive to encourage them as well.

Bottom line, network management of uncapped accounts will always exist as long as there is usage behaviour in general that threatens the pricing the provider has put in place...
 
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Necuno said:
Of course the never ending promotion of the crazy drive to the bottom... have to wonder who started this mad rush ;)
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And there's the crux - the race to the bottom in pricing did not coincide with equivalent pricing reductions in the wholesale market. So while pricing in general decreased, it was tied with a decrease in quality.

ISPs pretty much all pay similar pricing for IPC, national, and international transit (which is the bulk of your cost). So the differentiator primarily is on network performance and management, other related input costs, and the quality and availability of support. There are naturally other differentiators but that's primarily the customer-facing "experience-based" metrics one can tangibly measure or at least infer...
 
DJ... said:
Not all uncapped is cheap and nasty. :p

But yes, you do get what you pay for. An uncapped account will have profitability or usage based thresholds, whether these are usage pattern based, time of day based, overall usage based, or a combination of the above. The "penalty" may be throttling, heavier shaping, deprioritisation, or a combination of the above as well. It's kinda like unlimited refill soda fountains at take-away joints. If everyone (or the majority) who ordered a burger stayed at the restaurant all day, and returned every day, buying only a burger and refilled their sodas every few minutes, the unlimited refill product would be discontinued, or the restaurant would go out of business. With internet, the margins are unfortunately far slimmer than a restaurant take-away, so there's less leeway a business can afford to provide.
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Now I want that burger king :mad::mad::mad:
 
So advertise a service as uncapped, then when people buy it and use it, restrict it or ditch them? This must be called bait marketing.

There are people who buy uncapped and don't use it to its full who then subsidise those who use it a lot.
 
MickeyD said:
Anybody complaining about any uncapped ADSL product in South Africa needs their head read.


Here it is in a nutshell.... They are all crap.


You get what you paid for - a cheap and nasty internet data product. So don't complain about the sub-standard quality that you are getting, rather dig deeper into your pockets and pay for a decent product.
Click to expand...

I took me a long time to realise this. I tried them all and yes they all are crap. So. I switched to capped internet coupled with after hour downloads. This model allows me to enjoy unshaped internet during the day and do all my downloads at night, also unshaped.
 
cozinsky said:
I took me a long time to realise this. I tried them all and yes they all are crap. So. I switched to capped internet coupled with after hour downloads. This model allows me to enjoy unshaped internet during the day and do all my downloads at night, also unshaped.
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They only start becoming crap after you pay for them and use them for a while.
 
AntiGanda said:
So advertise a service as uncapped, then when people buy it and use it, restrict it or ditch them? This must be called bait marketing.

There are people who buy uncapped and don't use it to its full who then subsidise those who use it a lot.
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AFAIK all uncapped accounts come with a standard FUP disclaimer.
 
MickeyD said:
You and I have had these discussions already and agree on most issues.

But my opinion remains the same and will only change once you can convince me that the SA users' usage patterns and nasty habits have changed.
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Been running month-end numbers all day. I'll pop you some stuff on the anti-social media later...
 
I'm on a 4mb premium from Mweb, no complaints really.
I hardly come close to the caps indicated by a long shot but acknowledge some people do and its irritating being throttled speed wise.

My only point is based on my current usage profile,I am still subject to the isp's general policies of shaping/time/etc.
I will be prepared to pay a premium for a premium service and speed, which is unthrottled irrespective of the time of day or content or source or whatever.
I just want what I apparently pay for 24/7/365.

Also, if you can consider a 'data usage profile' the same way as for instance credit record, why can one not leverage a better deal with an isp if you have a ' favorable data usage history' versus the package you are trying to subscribe to???

It seems reasonable and a win win for both user and isp to engage in this.

If we are forced to operate in these restrictive markets then perhaps usage history and such the like should be able to leverage a position, one way or another.
 
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