What does uncapped broadband really mean?

[SirFooK'nG]

This is still too broad and open ended. Lets use MWEB's uncapped packages. Yes technically you never get disconnected, hence uncapped. But truth is its shaped heavily on many protocols. You will never be able to achieve the full potential of your line speed. This I have no issue with. These "draft" guidelines do not specifically address the issues users have when the term uncapped is used by ISP's. On the one end of the guidelines, the ISP's are playing ball. ie. MWEB has a FUP for code and conduct on the uncapped packages. This follows the guidelines correctly. But now you need to take how an ISP regulates its throttling (aka shaping). Does the 256kbs stipulation to be termed "Broadband" get contravened when your line is shaped to less than that on specific protocols? Remember that the Guideline specifies a minimum of 256kbs for download speeds, it does not say for HTTP only protocols?? This is where they need to be particularly clear once and for all....

 

[dakhaas]

i agreed to what Dakhaas said. if the no cap policy says : Acceptable use policy may only restrict illegal activity, Not usage behaviour.

They can take uncapped and throw it away coz that is not what we are getting in this country.

sorry if this is going off topic, but I dont mind if they give you a warning if you break crearly stated rules, but at least state the figures somewhere, and dont let us figure it out ourselves and give us a warning AFTER we broke the rules that were unclear to us.

Mweb reps are now advising against using STEAM to constantly download new games that you buy, averaging around 10gb+. then why would we go for uncapped if we arent allowed to download these legally purchased games from a system they are promoting all the way?

I would then rather pay R530 a month for a capped account from mweb giving you CLEAR figures for example 150gb (which is way below the rumoured max of 20gb a day). then at least i would know what to expect.

 

[Ant_Brooks]

This sentence is contradictory; If you are restricting usage you are obviously limiting the total volume of traffic!

That's not true. "Restricting usage" does not mean the same thing as "restricting traffic". For example, someone could provide an email-only service which allows a customer to download an unlimited amount of email (so no restriction on the total volume of traffic), but that would still be very much a restricted usage service. If you are restricting traffic then you are restricting usage, but the opposite doesn't hold -- it is quite possible to restrict usage based on the type of traffic instead of the volume of traffic.

Now they're just making up their own terms. The entire document is circular and contradictory. Is this really the best they could come up with?

You are quite correct that we made up "unrestricted, uncapped" as a definition for an uncapped service that doesn't contain any restriction other than illegal or unlawful use of the service. We wanted to differentiate between a service which is uncapped, but has some sort of AUP stating "this service is uncapped but there's a limit on how much peer-to-peer traffic you can push/pull before you get restricted" and a service which is uncapped and doesn't have any restrictions (except for illegal or unlawful use). We settled on "unrestricted" as being a reasonably descriptive term to use for that.

Valis, if you think the document is circular and contradictory, please give us some constructive criticism on the parts that are circular or contradictory. We don't want the document to be either of those things, and if any parts are genuinely confusing, we'll try to fix them.

 

[Ant_Brooks]

then why does mweb abuse department warn users if they do over 20gb a day or download for more than 9hours consecutively per day ?

What it sounds like MWeb is providing in this case is what the document considers to be an "uncapped" services, but not an "unrestricted, uncapped" service. We felt that it was important to distinguish between those two types of services.

• "unrestricted, uncapped" = no restrictions on usage, other than illegal or unlawful use.
• "uncapped" = can have restrictions on usage, provided those are clearly set out up-front in the ISP's AUP.

Yes, of course we know that consumers would really like everything labelled "uncapped" to actually be "unrestricted, uncapped", but the reality is that the majority of existing "uncapped" services do have AUP-based restrictions. Hence the decision to add the extra word "unrestricted" to highlight uncapped services that don't have those sorts of restrictions. We hope that ISPs who are providing a truly "unrestricted" service will now use that as a distinguishing factor, so that consumers have a clear way of telling the two categories of service apart.

 

[dakhaas]

hehe thanks for the reply Ant_Brooks. I just want them to man up and give more info and not hide behind unclear AUP's

 

[Wolfy]

LOL this is the biggest HOGWASH EVER!!!! Seriously why explain to people what uncapped is when it isnt even what the term describes. If it isnt uncapped but rather a ... Lets say a 100GB account.. THEN SAY SO! Dont try and trick your customers saying "well um sir... You have abused our uncapped download as much as you like account... But you have to remember the fair usage policy."

Cant even reach my full downloading speed of my ADSL line if I wanted to, and Ive barely used 40GB this month. This uncapped story is just turning into a real nightmare

 

[Ant_Brooks]

What bs that 256 qualifies for broadband. I have a 384 connection and thats slow as hell. I don't consider that as broadband so how the hell do they qualify 256 as broadband. The guys that write these reports should be forced to work on ONLY 256 accounts. We will see how quickly they get pissed off.

Qrox, just for the record, one of the "guys that write these reports" lives in rural North West Province, where there is no ADSL available at all (too far from the exchange). I rely on a long-distance wireless connection for my connectivity. On a good day, I can get about 384 kbps across my link, so I share your pain in living with slow connectivity.

 

[Ant_Brooks]

LOL this is the biggest HOGWASH EVER!!!! Seriously why explain to people what uncapped is when it isnt even what the term describes. If it isnt uncapped but rather a ... Lets say a 100GB account.. THEN SAY SO! Dont try and trick your customers saying "well um sir... You have abused our uncapped download as much as you like account... But you have to remember the fair usage policy."

If this document had been written 10 years ago, perhaps we'd have used "uncapped" to describe what we've ended up calling "unrestricted, uncapped". But the reality is that the vast majority of services currently marketed as "uncapped" do have some AUP-based restrictions on what can be done using that service. It's just not practical for ISPA to expect every ISP currently marketing an "uncapped" service to change their terminology to something different.

But what we can do though -- and have tried to do in this discussion document -- is distinguish between an "unrestricted, uncapped" service and a vanilla "uncapped" service. We want it to be clear to consumers that if they are buying just an "uncapped" service, then they should read the AUP carefully and expect some limitations on peer-to-peer traffic and the like. But if they are buying an "unrestricted, uncapped" service, then they should expect no restrictions on what they do with that service (other than illegal or unlawful use, obviously). We hope that ISPs who are providing a truly unrestricted service, will use this terminology, so that it is clear to customers that what they are getting is unrestricted, and not just uncapped.

 

[rambo919]

Ensure that “broadband” is only used in your advertising to refer to services which have a minimum download speed of 256 kbps.

This has been the definition for a long time, which is why I have never considered 384 to be broadband as it in practice consistantly gives a speel LOWER than 256. For those that missed it the specific guideline says "minimum download speed" not "line speed".

 

[latro]

Hi all,

ISPA's General Manager here -- thanks to MyBroadband for giving our discussion document some attention. I would like to stress that it is a discussion document. In other words, ISPA greatly appreciates comments on the document. We do plan to update it from time to time, and we'll take any suggestions into account. I'll try to stop by this thread over the next couple of days to read the comments from the MyBroadband community.

First, to answer latro's second concern, thus far only ISPA's members have had a chance to comment on the document. Telkom isn't an ISPA member and thus has not yet had any opportunity to comment on it. I can also assure you with confidence that Telkom has no kind of grip on any part of ISPA's anatomy!

Then, I'd like to tackle the decision to make "256 kbps" the most basic meaning for "broadband" in South Africa. It might surprise some of you to know that setting the number so low was also a key concern within ISPA. We also think that's far too low. It should be much higher. However, the goal of the document is to provide some guidance to ISPs, consumers and journalists who are marketing, buying or comparing broadband services. Given this, we decided that it would be highly problematic for ISPA to choose a number that was different from South Africa's National Broadband Policy.

Let's say we'd decided to pick 1 Mbps instead of 256 kbp, and someone decided that they wanted to market 512 kbps as "broadband" despite ISPA's recommendation. What would the ASA do in that case? Well, it's a reasonable assumption that our country's National Broadband Policy will trump anything ISPA publishes, so the ASA would be quite likely to rule in favour of the ISP advertising the slower service as "broadband", making our recommendations document a bit worthless. After a lot of internal discussion, we felt that we had to stick with the official number, and we added the following text to highlight that we think this number is on the low side:



I can guarantee that as soon as the DoC increases the national definition, ISPA will also do so.

Hi Ant

Thanks for taking the time to clarify this, and especially in such a lighthearted manner It's revitalizing to know we got somebody on our side!

@Dominic- Thank you too.

 

[rambo919]

It's revitalizing to hear someone NOT bs us u mean.

 

[Stalker]

Broadband Guidelines: what does uncapped really mean?

Obviously some of these ISP cannot understand english. UNCAPPED means UNCAPPED not uncapped with conditions attached

 

[latro]

It's revitalizing to hear someone NOT bs us u mean.

That too And like Ant told Valis, they are open for suggestions which is something you don't see everyday.

 

[caroper]

Rather then inventing terminology as in:

Unrestricted, uncapped Internet access:
Uncapped Internet access:

How about saying:

World class uncapped Internet access:
South African Uncapped Internet access:

I would also suggest the the document include the Internationality accepted definitions of the terms and then a section that states what is an acceptable standard in South Africa for them.

 

[ThinkCentre]

Will this allow MWeb to use the term "UNCAPPED" again?

 

[Vrotappel]

Uncapped Internet access

I think it would be better understood if it is stated as 'Restricted Uncapped Internet access' (and advertised as such).

 

[devilfp]

I have issue with this. I think this should be changed to 1Mb/s.

+1

 

[mRsKu11]

This is way too broad and vague and can cover a vast multitude of sins. Uncapped until you reach the 5gb AUP and then you get a 64kbps trickle until the following month. Something like that can be advertised as uncapped? Seriously. 4MB/s uncapped subject to shaping on everything that restricts your access speed to 20KB/s. Uncapped? No way. Rather call the unrestricted uncapped "uncapped" and this category "restricted access." This new ISPA "uncapped" definition needs a mountain of work, because all it will do is cement the deplorable status quo. If there are restrictions it should not be advertised as uncapped, it should be advertised as restricted, with the restrictions clearly spelled out.



How does this differ from "Uncapped?" once restrictions are applied? It doesn't.

And 256kbps is certainly not broadband. Broadband should be at least 1Mbps and probably 2Mbps.

Toke the words right out of my mouth. +1 etc

 

[PsyWulf]

You will never be able to achieve the full potential of your line speed.

ADSL by design isn't meant to achieve those speeds for extended amounts of time. You are renting only part of a line that has a Maximum Burst-speed of the line specification,and splitting this rental with other users. This is known as your Contention.

The average contention ratio of 1:20 means on a full 10Mbps line you are expected to get a maximum sustainable rate of 512kbps in ideal circumstances before protocol shaping and overheads. Now applying this to a 1mbps service gives a maximum sustainable rate of 51Kbps. Obviously this is assuming the other 19users in your contention-block are trying to reach their maximum-download speed at the same time

http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/contention.htm
http://usertools.plus.net/tutorials/id/11

Contention is defined as follows:-

Competition by users of a system for use of the same facility at the same time. The term contention ratio applies specifically to the number of people connected to an ISP who share a set amount of bandwidth.

When too many users are using their connection at the same time, speeds will start to slow down for all those users sharing the set amount of bandwidth. This is known as congestion.

IPStream adsl has never been intended to be used for constant downloading and you share your bandwidth with a number of other adsl users.

BTw SIN 386 4.1 states:-

... the End Users require occasional fast but ‘bursty’ access to private network facilities and / or the Internet (via the Customer). The products are not suitable for End Users who require continuous bit-rate, fullbandwidth services.

Cold hard fact:
The word Contention means to "To compete in order to win something".

To extend that, it means that when you are using your ADSL connection, you are competing with other people, in order to gain certain aspects of the service.

Be your account a 20:1 or 50:1, this means you are competing with either 19 or 49 other users/connections, in order to get the full 512Kb, 1Mb or 2Mb line speed of the product you are on.

That is only a basic concept of contention, or at least the contention that ISPs report. At this point, many will still be confused, or have a pretty good grasp. To understand it further, we have to look at exactly how your ADSL connection traverses the BT network, from your premises to your selected ISP.

This should give you a better understanding of what ISPs call ADSL contention, but it is likely to disturb others of you, when you understand how deep it actually goes.

The fact that some users are able to continuously reach near-limit speeds is pure luck and to a lesser extent ISP choice. As soon as they get 19(0) neighbours with similar behaviour their speeds are likely to get a knock down to the specified ratio limit

 

[Ant_Brooks]

Rather then inventing terminology as in:
How about saying:

World class uncapped Internet access:
South African Uncapped Internet access:

I'm guessing that the marketing folks at ISPA's members might have objected to that plan!

I would also suggest the the document include the Internationality accepted definitions of the terms and then a section that states what is an acceptable standard in South Africa for them.

There aren't actually very many internationally accepted definitions for most of these terms. Ironically, the term that has taken the most flak so far in this thread -- the 256 kbps definition of broadband -- is actually based on the ITU's definition of broadband for developing markets. (The ITU is the United Nations specialized agency for information and communication technologies.) So be careful what you wish for there -- international definitions aren't always that helpful to lean on.