What is deemed as Internet Solutions' "top 20% user"?

[[TGSA] Laggy]

So apparently my service has been downgraded from 5-star to 3-star because of abusive usage on my 10meg

So far I discovered that with this 3-star network, my IP is located on Johannesburg (usually Cape Town), effectively tripling my local pings and making it impossible to game and download at the same time, which I usually could do.

I only discovered that I've been downgraded when I enquired my ISP because of the above. I was never warned.

My "abusive" usage seems to be a 10 GB average daily use every day. It is more than my usual of about 3 gigs.

My questions:

• What is deemed as IS's top 20% user on each package?
• Why don't they warn us if downgraded?
• What effects does each star have on your service?
• Do you think that 10GB average on a 10meg is abusive?

The questions above might have been covered and my ISP is just quiet..

 

[biometrics]

Do the bulk of your downloads from 23:00 to 6:00.

 

[SYNERGY]

I do 10gb a day with Mweb - 4MB Premium...

 

[techead]

I do 10gb a day with Mweb - 4MB Premium...

Im sorry but how it this relevant in any way or form to his question?

 

[Electric]

10gb on a 10mb line is not abusive.
Can't see how it could be.

 

[techead]

snip

Its complicated, and I suggest you read the below carefully.

with regards to shaping

"All the uncapped accounts make use of a progressive priority system. In other words, if your usage is high, generally the top 20% of the users, your network priority will be dropped; this starts by dropping the priority of downloading protocols. If you remain a top user eventually all of your usage will be low priority.

As an example, if your main priority is downloading you will find that during peak-hours your downloads will "slow-down". If there are however spare network capacity, you might find your downloads even during peak-hours at normal speed.

As for peak-hours; it will "normally" line-up with business and after hours:

06:00 - 18:00 - Business hours
18:00 - 23:00 - After hours
23:00 - 06:00 - Off peak
weekends - Off peak

That "slow-down" I mentioned, that would occur during the Business hours and a lesser impact during After hours.

Off peak should always be full speed.

It is important to keep in mind the priority is applied in real time, so it is not really as much -fixed times-, but more depending on usage on the network from minute to minute.

When there are plenty of capacity available on the network you will be able to use more per month, of course the opposite is also true for when everybody starts to pull as much as possible. We do not have a hard limit set when it comes to shaping (ie after 250Gigs, now we will start shaping your connection).

See shaping as a hint system for your usage.

With regards to how to make sure you do not get capped/how to get your star rating back up

Internet Solutions makes use of a rolling ten day window to determine your account status based on your usage. The rolling window is always today plus usage of the previous ten days; there are no specific days. Rolling ten days.

If you do find yourself 'flagged' the quickest and easiest way to get 'unflagged' is to schedule your downloads during 23:00 - 06:00, Mon - Sun. [Edit on 02/10/2013 to avoid further confusion]

If you schedule the majority of your downloads during this time, you will never be flagged

SOURCE : from the Plugg thread, the consumer arm of Internet Solutions.