Warning about Axxess Uncapped - 36 gigs is abuse...

[Rickster]

DJ, this is your fault for choosing such a crappy ISP. Axxess? Seriously?

When it comes down to downloading limits, mweb takes the cake, they don't even have an abuse threshold.

I even asked mweb guy on Facebook, he said mweb will never throttle a uncapped account.


There is my 2 cents.

 

[Bryn]

DJ, this is your fault for choosing such a crappy ISP. Axxess? Seriously?

When it comes down to downloading limits, mweb takes the cake, they don't even have an abuse threshold.

I even asked mweb guy on Facebook, he said mweb will never throttle a uncapped account.


There is my 2 cents.

Mweb are famous for kicking heavy users clean off their network. Everyone knows that Openweb Gold is the best for obscene amounts of data. They never bother you.

 

[Unhappy438]

DJ, this is your fault for choosing such a crappy ISP. Axxess? Seriously?

When it comes down to downloading limits, mweb takes the cake, they don't even have an abuse threshold.

I even asked mweb guy on Facebook, he said mweb will never throttle a uncapped account.


There is my 2 cents.

Lol , Mweb most certainly do have an abuse threshold.

 

[grim]

What I do with my line is of not their responsibility to manage. I don't understand the non-real-time aspect you're talking about, but as an end-user I don't discern between traffic and I don't expect my ISP to either. If I'm doing 20 gigs a month of torrents or 20 gigs a month of downloading ebooks, how much difference does it make to their network stability and capacity?

Real time services are things like YouTube that require constant bandwidth and won't be usable if it gets slowed down.

Non-real time services are downloads like torrents, news hosts, HTTP downloads and will get managed before real time services as to not affect them.

Because of the high cost of bandwidth in SA all the ISPs have to heavily contend users to make their services affordable. An example of contention would be a ratio of 1:50, so for every 50Mbps that the ISP sells they only buy 1Mbps bandwidth

Some ISPs offer accounts with lower contention ratios, but this comes at a price, a lower contention ratio will translate into more overall bandwidth available per user.

To give you an idea of what bandwidth costs in SA, here's a breakdown of what it would cost to provide a single user 1:1 contention for a 10Mbps ADSL connection:
Telkom IPC access: R1400/Mbps/m X 10Mbps = R14000/m
International Transit: ~R700/Mbps/m x 10Mbps = R7000/m
Local Transit: Depends on the network being used, I don't have pricing for this.
Total: R21000/m+Local transit

Prices are ex vat

 

[Progenix Oj101]

Even with the Seacom issue I've done over 150 GB on my 1Mbit about this month and now one complaint from Mweb. This will be my most tame month even since I started with 1Mbit.

 

[NomNom]

Done 80GB on my 1mb home uncapped account with Webafrica and no issues, costs R339 a month for package and line.

 

[spiderz]

Mweb are famous for kicking heavy users clean off their network. Everyone knows that Openweb Gold is the best for obscene amounts of data. They never bother you.

+1
and without warning.
There abuse threshold is about 60Gb a month.
Theoretical download limit on a 1Mb line is close to 400Gb p/m.
I'm moving away from Mweb and was looking at Axxess, but this might just change my mind.

 

[Progenix Oj101]

Sorry, that was supposed to be NOT one complaint. O average over 200 GB per month and they seem happy.

 

[nihilist]

Axxess have replied to me via email to state that this is simply because of the cable break and I might be able to achieve 60 to 70 gigs per month. MIGHT! Seems this isn't an uncapped offering at all if you plan to download anything. It is max a 50-60gig account at which point it is effectively capped for downloads.

And I thought they weren't hampered by the Seacom cable problems?

This is what bugs me, "might" - and vague FUPs and AUPs from most (if not all) of the ISPs in this country. I may jump ship from MWEB but gosh, even a geek like me is trying to wrap head around all the options and which AUP is the least restdctive, and to get solid answers.. oooo, those be tough questions for some ISPs!

I do 300GB a month easily and never seem to enter into any 'managed' zone with MWEB, granted at the moment it's Seacrumbs so the **** has hit the fan, but when it's working is great.

 

[whatwhat]

Leave them and go somewhere else. If they get better later on, you might consider moving back.

People need to vote with their money, and the companies need to see a drop in their income when they introduce limits from 1997.

 

[AfricanTech]

+1
and without warning.
There abuse threshold is about 60Gb a month.
Theoretical download limit on a 1Mb line is close to 400Gb p/m.
I'm moving away from Mweb and was looking at Axxess, but this might just change my mind.

Huh, dunno where you got that number from.

Been so used to uncapped on MWeb that I haven't checked usage for months - based on this thread had a quick look and realised that usage has crept up to about 100 gig for the last 3 months and haven't received and warnings.

This 36 gig story coupled with the latency experienced on D3 last night is shifting me away from Axxess (even though rest of the home is very happy with the performance on general internet (FB, YT, PIN, etc).

So, looks like I'm going to test either Plugg or Openweb for next month

 

[Bryn]

+1
and without warning.
There abuse threshold is about 60Gb a month.
Theoretical download limit on a 1Mb line is close to 400Gb p/m.
I'm moving away from Mweb and was looking at Axxess, but this might just change my mind.

I moved to Afrihost 6Mbps Business Uncapped yesterday. Submitted cancellation long before this Seacom stuff. Best decision ever. Hardly any more money, I'm able to go as fast as my line permits, it's unshaped and Afrihost has by far the best website and technology in general.

 

[fonoi]

Axxess have replied to me via email to state that this is simply because of the cable break and I might be able to achieve 60 to 70 gigs per month. MIGHT! Seems this isn't an uncapped offering at all if you plan to download anything. It is max a 50-60gig account at which point it is effectively capped for downloads.

And I thought they weren't hampered by the Seacom cable problems?

Change your ISP, even with MWEB I was able to pull 100+ per month on 2mb with no complaints. I am on Openweb Silver 4mb now and I love it, full speeds the whole month so far and more then 200GB.

Edit: Full speeds even after the cable break.

 

[The Axxess Lady]

Dear DJ,

In response to your complaints above we would like to point out that as per our AUP we evaluate the available capacity and the performance of the network regularly. Should we find that the available capacity is under pressure we will manage customer’s accounts where necessary in order to give all our customers the best possible internet experience. In your case this is what occurred last night.

If you refer to your Control Panel on our website, you will find that you are not being managed at the moment.

 

[AfricanTech]

Dear DJ,

In response to your complaints above we would like to point out that as per our AUP we evaluate the available capacity and the performance of the network regularly. Should we find that the available capacity is under pressure we will manage customer’s accounts where necessary in order to give all our customers the best possible internet experience. In your case this is what occurred last night.

If you refer to your Control Panel on our website, you will find that you are not being managed at the moment.

Okay, sounds fair - so the 36gig is unrelated to the individual per se - in other words, the amount that an individual has used is irrelevant - if you find the network under strain, irrespective of how much an individual has used, he/she may find their torrents restricted.

PS: Do you have list of protocols that are restricted when the network is under strain? From the above it's clear that torrents are squeezed - what about newsfeeds (nntp; nzb's)? does the same apply to YouTube (SD or HD), etc.

Edit: The above would explain why my 3 day old account with 10 gigs of usage is showing as managed in the control panel.

Depending on the answer to the question re: which protocols are "managed", I suspect this may not be the type of account I need.

Sigh

 

[Rickster]

I pull about 130gb every month on my 1meg mweb uncapped account, and I have never received a email saying that I'm abusing their network and I'm being throttled.

 

[XxZroyaxX]

I've done well over 300GB thus far this month and still going on my 4Mb/s line with no degradation of speeds or throttling at all, a friend of mine who's with the same ISP (the new "kid on the block, RazoWeb) has done much more than that and still going as well. Suppose sometimes it just might be worth it giving the smaller guys a look see.

 

[The Axxess Lady]

In answer to your question "Which protocols are restricted when the network is unders strain?"
We will only manage your Peer to Peer, HTTP download and NNTP traffic.

Okay, sounds fair - so the 36gig is unrelated to the individual per se - in other words, the amount that an individual has used is irrelevant - if you find the network under strain, irrespective of how much an individual has used, he/she may find their torrents restricted.

PS: Do you have list of protocols that are restricted when the network is under strain? From the above it's clear that torrents are squeezed - what about newsfeeds (nntp; nzb's)? does the same apply to YouTube (SD or HD), etc.

Edit: The above would explain why my 3 day old account with 10 gigs of usage is showing as managed in the control panel.

Depending on the answer to the question re: which protocols are "managed", I suspect this may not be the type of account I need.

Sigh

 

[DJ...]

Dear DJ,

In response to your complaints above we would like to point out that as per our AUP we evaluate the available capacity and the performance of the network regularly. Should we find that the available capacity is under pressure we will manage customer’s accounts where necessary in order to give all our customers the best possible internet experience. In your case this is what occurred last night.

If you refer to your Control Panel on our website, you will find that you are not being managed at the moment.

Then your AUP needs revision as far as I'm concerned, as does your communication with your customers when their accounts are about to be "managed". Evidently I've used above the average, but is this an average of all 2 meg users or overall? Evidently others are able to pull hundreds of gigs a month without issue, so clearly this must be 2 meg related only. If so, how about some transparency of the network moving forward so that we can at least be made aware prior to being managed?

Additionally, if 13.6% usage of a line results in management, then the end user experience is inevitably going to be shocking quite often. Clearly your AUP needs some adjusting in that respect imo...

 

[AfricanTech]

Then your AUP needs revision as far as I'm concerned, as does your communication with your customers when their accounts are about to be "managed". Evidently I've used above the average, but is this an average of all 2 meg users or overall? Evidently others are able to pull hundreds of gigs a month without issue, so clearly this must be 2 meg related only. If so, how about some transparency of the network moving forward so that we can at least be made aware prior to being managed?

Additionally, if 13.6% usage of a line results in management, then the end user experience is inevitably going to be shocking quite often. Clearly your AUP needs some adjusting in that respect imo...

LOL - DJ, you moaning about your 32 gigs - what about my 10 gigs (on a 4 meg line at that)