Uncapped ADSL must mean uncapped

diabolus said:
So i'm not sure what exactly we're debating. Who offers "true uncapped" then? Are you saying Afrihost's 4096-tiered-throttling offering is not uncapped, but Mweb's 512 offering is?

Trick Question: If Afrihost made their mixed "4096kpbs uncapped" offering [with all the throttling which is clearly stated] service the same price as the "512kpbs uncapped" service of MWEB ....which one is the most uncapped?
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well said :)

The thing that most people misinterpret with uncapped ADSL, is that it's NOT unlimited ADSL, but rather "unmetered", i.e. the ISP's don't keep a tab on how much you download. i.e. whether you download 5MB, or 5GB, the price remains the same. They do, according to their T&C's, limit / throttle the speed at which you download
 
diabolus said:
So i'm not sure what exactly we're debating. Who offers "true uncapped" and who doesn't? Is MWEB's latest offerings uncapped or not? Are you saying Afrihost's 4096-tiered-throttling offering is not uncapped, but Mweb's 512 offering is?

Trick Question (assuming you have a 4 MB/s line) : If Afrihost made their mixed "4096kpbs uncapped" offering [with all the throttling which is clearly stated] service the same price as the "512kpbs uncapped" service of MWEB ....which one is the most uncapped?
Click to expand...

The Vodacom Business Uncapped Offerings are true uncapped since there is no threat of being cut off. The IS Uncapped Fibre Express Offerings are true uncapped because there is no threat of being cut off.

I have not kept up with all of the latest FUP/AUPs posted by these new uncapped offerings (because they have changed their terms so frequently). But there can be no threat to cut users off if they download "too much". Any threat to disconnect implies a cap. if they plan on cutting anybody off then they need to change the name of their product.

But we have already discussed all of this before.
 
Another trick question:

So would this be uncapped?

"128kps uncapped, burstable to 4096kpbs" (guaranteed burst speeds when below specified thresholds) .

:D
 
SoftDux-Rudi said:
well said :)

The thing that most people misinterpret with uncapped ADSL, is that it's NOT unlimited ADSL, but rather "unmetered", i.e. the ISP's don't keep a tab on how much you download. i.e. whether you download 5MB, or 5GB, the price remains the same. They do, according to their T&C's, limit / throttle the speed at which you download
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That's fine if that is all they do... but most of these AUPs also include a clause about terminating for "abuse". It remains to be seen what they mean by that, but if it means cutting people off because they downloaded too much then they are not uncapped.

this has been repeated multiple times in this thread and others.
 
The Afrihost uncapped account isn't uncapped at all. You won't break 200GB with Afrihosts account. Calculating MAXIMUM theoretical download per day, keeping in mind when the next throttle kicks in, you won't break 175GB in a month.
Roughly Cumulative totals:
Week 1 116GB
Week 2 145GB
Week 3 162GB
Week 4 171GB
Week 5 174GB
Call a spade a spade.
 
I could be a dumbass

Forgive me if this has been mentioned but what I found amusing was this: "(ISPA) said that while some consumers might attach an incorrect interpretation to the term ‘uncapped’"
Aren't they the ones with the misinterpretation? I could be a dumbass, but what is the correct term for an internet service has a fixed downloading rate where how much you download in any time frame is in any way applicable? :wtf:
 
MWEB are offering true uncapped!

I have a 4mb line and the uncapped package from afrihost. After downloading an average of 5GB per day for a week they throttled me to speeds lower then dialup. I called MWEB and they informed me that they allow up to 80GB per day on their uncapped 4MB. The limit is at 80GB to prevent excessive use from internet cafe's etc. They have no issues with us downloading over a Terrabit a month at all

Isnt it time we all moved to MWEB as they are the only ones offering a fair deal at a great price?

Its time to use the power of competition to drive down the prices even more, MWEB have their own network and have the capacity for us. The new ISP's are all using IS who want to position themselves as the next hellkom in the market!
 
Not really uncapped

As I understand it, uncapped enables me to download and browse as much as I want to at the speed I pay for. However my account has now been shaped and paint dries faster than webpages like mybroadband.co.za loads. I did not read anything about being shaped if I exceed an amount of GB's? but why should I be shaped I pay for uncapped don't I?
 
I am at Afrihost, they throttled me at just over 16GB, I subsribed to the uncapped at the beginning of the month?
 
SoftDux-Rudi said:
well said :)

The thing that most people misinterpret with uncapped ADSL, is that it's NOT unlimited ADSL, but rather "unmetered", i.e. the ISP's don't keep a tab on how much you download. i.e. whether you download 5MB, or 5GB, the price remains the same. They do, according to their T&C's, limit / throttle the speed at which you download
Click to expand...

If they throttle you by how much you use, it is metered. AfriHost is metered. They slow you down if you go over 30GB etc. MWEB on the other hand does not slow you down and you are never throttled BUT your downloads are shaped. The busier the network the worse the shaping. Look it is theoretically and practically possible to eliminate 'ABUSE' on a temporal basis. Say it is 11:00 AM and the network is busy with browsing and email. All ABUSIVE usage at this stage will be shaped excessively heavily, in fact the more priority traffic there is and/or the more non-priority traffic there is the more the non-priority stuff is shaped. MWEB should be able to effectively KILL all Rapidshare/P2P/Newsgroup downloads by slowing them down to 0-56kbps (dial up) speeds or whatever is best effort to ensure that HTTP browsing, email and VPN/VOIP remains viable. In the strict sense of the word, one could say that MWEB is also metered, but in a different way. Different protocols get measured differently and if you're pulling filez at 440KB/sec while mainstream users want to access Google and suffer, your 440KB/sec will approach 0KB/s very quickly. After all protocol based throttling is shaping.

MWEB is doing protocol specific, non user specific, temporal metering.
AfriHost is doing protocol independent, user specific, commulative metering.

It may be that since AfriHost is a smaller ISP they can only buy traffic per GB. Even if no-one is downloading and you're sitting pulling GBs, they are losing money.
MWEB is much bigger. They get a flat rate connection - x Mb/sec - and they pay the same no-matter how much people download or not. If you're sitting alone on their network, they shouldn't mind if you pull 1.2TB per month if it didn't force them to upgrade connectivity to allow other people to have a similar experience to yours.

Afrihost may email everyone who goes over 30GB and slow them down because they don't want ppl to download more than that at this price. On the other hand MWEB has a flat rate connection and as long as you're not slowing others down they won't lose money in forced upgrades or lost customers (people who quit because the web is too slow).
 
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wernerb777 said:
As I understand it, uncapped enables me to download and browse as much as I want to at the speed I pay for. However my account has now been shaped and paint dries faster than webpages like mybroadband.co.za loads. I did not read anything about being shaped if I exceed an amount of GB's? but why should I be shaped I pay for uncapped don't I?
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The thing is that the residential plans are all advertised as best effort. So if the network is congested you won't get full speed. Expensive plans have certain guarantees and I guess being a huge conglomerate and leasing your own 100Mb/sec connection would guarantee you such a speed (technical failures notwithstanding).

Remember that residential = best effort, business = guaranteed (with caveats).
 
@PeterCH

Your explanations of what id happening are fine, but I see it more like selling an unlimited mileage hire car, and then ensuring that the fasted you can travel is 1Kph. Just a tad misleading. No?
 
bekdik said:
@PeterCH

Your explanations of what id happening are fine, but I see it more like selling an unlimited mileage hire car, and then ensuring that the fasted you can travel is 1Kph. Just a tad misleading. No?
Click to expand...

You are right but that is something only found in the IT/software industry. If you buy a car, that should work. In the software world, if you buy Windows, that Windows can fail, you could lose all your info and then you could wait forever for MS to release a patch to fix your issue.

Although a traffic control system at an airport should work 100% of the time, while ordinary Windows or Exchange server is more of less a best effort thing.
 
Lol this argument is going on forever!! lol
AfriHost pays per GB!! so users would break their bank if every one downloaded over 200GB a months!
Thats why they have imposed the speed throttling!
They are effectively "metering" you so that you don't exceed a threshold!
But by doing this they can call it "uncapped" since they don't cut off your internet when you reach a set number!!
I agree that the "4096 uncapped" is false advertising as it is a mixed speeds (4096,1024,512,384,128)
If they were to be fair they should charge according!

Example:
Cant remember the exact thresholds but for argument
gigs <=30GB = 4096
30<gigs<=60 =1024
60<gigs<=90 =512
90<gigs<=120 =384
120<gigs =128

Take some arbitrary month that has 30 days..
in 5 days I reach 30GB therefore i should be charged R497/30 *5= R82,83
in the next 10 days I reach 60 thus (assuming a 1024 package would cost R397) R397/30 *10 = R132.3
then 10 days i reach 90 so i've been on the 512 package for 10 days, thus R297/30 *10 = R99
then for the last 5 days i'm on 384 package so, R197/30*5= R32.83
Thus for that month i should be charged R346.96 and not R497!
 
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i'm with afrihost at the moment, some problems withtheir throttling have been sorted but not enough to make me stay. I'm moving over to mweb asap.
 
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