What is the logic in limiting bandwidth?

alphabyte

alphabyte

Senior Member
Joined
Jun 17, 2008
Messages
520
Reaction score
130
Location
Pretoria
Just wondering from a technical point of view: what is the logic in limiting the bandwidth (i.e.speed) of an ADSL connection? :confused:

If my telephone line is of good enough quality to be capable of 1Mbps then why must I be artifically restricted to 384Kbps? Granted, I'll be using more capacity while downloading, but on the other hand I'll be using this capacity for much less time. Why don't they just let the speed be governed by what the overall network can handle at any given time - which obviously it is as many downloads are VERY slow, while others flow like a breeze.
 
Telkom logic . . . they can charge you more.
 
different speeds -> different packages -> product diversity -> different prices -> different target markets = business makes money + customer has package suited to them
 
Because the backhaul is dimensioned according to what combination of 384, 512 and 4096 services run on each DSLAM. A free for all means everyone get's a slow, congested, high latency link.
 
Something like this:

There's the physical costing:
The cost of financing, installing, maintaining, marketing and operating a fibre line is FIB.
Now, FIB can handle MBS throughput maximum.
Then, sell MBS off in slices. until the MBS is used up 600% and then install another FIB.

There's the hook them strategy:
Sell the bottom of the line MBS slices off to customers at a lower than cost price to get them hooked.
Overcharge the higher usage MBS's to cover the lower cost ones.
Make it dead easy to upgrade.
Make it horribly expensive to downgrade.
 
Okay - thanks guys.

So I drive a certain car on the road; it is capable of 120Km/h, but the licence only allows me to drive at 80. I pay more for my licence then I may drive at 120: same car, same road, same driver, same traffic...

Hey guys: talk more slowly on your 'phones - it'll be cheaper!! :rolleyes:
 
Well, other than the money aspect, there's a more obvious reason:

It's to ensure -everyone- on the same line gets the quality of service they are paying for. IF they just opened it up unrestricted, it'll basically look like the N1 highway in peak-traffic....yea..you'll be going at 20kmh and nothing you can do about it!

Now imagine [to abuse the traffic thing] if they told you ,

[a]you get a special "slot" on the highway, where you are forced to drive all the time. The catch is, you can not go faster than 80kmh...however you will generally be able to drive 80kmh all the time. Would you take it?

vs.

No slot, first come first serve, sometimes you get to drive 160kmh, but most of the time you end up standing still ?


In [a] you might actually be driving 80kmh and the entire highway is empty and you will go "wtf" , why am i limited? But on the flipside, you might be driving that speed even in peak traffic.

In if you're lucky to be in a area where no one drives on your particular highway, great, you'll be having a blast, however if you're unfortunate and with a bunch of other heavy users...bad luck for you .

Now i believe MTN/Vodacom etc, are all using , with the side effect of no-one actually ever remotely getting the bandwidth they advertise, simply because there's too many people all contending for the bandwidth. The end result is, sometimes it flies, sometimes you can't even get online. Very unpredictable situation.
 
Last edited:
Protect ISDN. + the fact telkom don't invent any technology of their own to sell to the rest of the world. They're an end user playing with the big boys.
 
diabolus said:
Well, other than the money aspect, there's a more obvious reason:

It's to ensure -everyone- on the same line gets the quality of service they are paying for. IF they just opened it up unrestricted, it'll basically look like the N1 highway in peak-traffic....yea..you'll be going at 20kmh and nothing you can do about it!

Now imagine [to abuse the traffic thing] if they told you , you get a special "slot" on the highway, where you are forced to drive all the time. The catch is, you can not go faster than 80kmh...however you will generally be able to drive 80kmh all the time. Would you take it?

vs.

No slot, first come first serve, sometimes you get to drive 160kmh, but most of the time you end up standing still ?
Click to expand...
The road analogy doesnt work for me but if you want to use it then keep in mind its easy enough to build additional lanes to accommodate for the traffic.

This is 2009 and they're still offering consumers sub-mb connections. There is no justification. If ICASA hadn't set the 'broadband' definition to 384 and above Telkom would probably still be trying to peddle 192kbs lines.
 
I read an article about how in America the internet companies are going to introduce caps because of the over use of internet which is causing a lag in the national systems.
I think it is the same with speeds, if everybody had high speed internet, there would be a bottleneck situation
 
Tpex said:
I read an article about how in America the internet companies are going to introduce caps because of the over use of internet which is causing a lag in the national systems.
I think it is the same with speeds, if everybody had high speed internet, there would be a bottleneck situation
Click to expand...

They already have, AT&T has already starting to take steps to limit bandwidth. They not only limit the amount now, they are now limiting the applications as well. The latest thing they did was to force a software developer to remove "media streaming abilities" from their IPhone application to prevent users taking the network down with it...... The sofware developer had to remove it otherwise Apple remove the app from their Apple Store.

bwana said:
The road analogy doesnt work for me but if you want to use it then keep in mind its easy enough to build additional lanes to accommodate for the traffic.

This is 2009 and they're still offering consumers sub-mb connections. There is no justification. If ICASA hadn't set the 'broadband' definition to 384 and above Telkom would probably still be trying to peddle 192kbs lines.
Click to expand...

Well yea, i wouldn't say it's -that- easy to build more lanes, otherwise we wouldn't be sitting in traffic every day.

As for the actual bandwidth speeds and definitions, i don't know what is Telkom's capacity vs. load...only then can we actually speculate as to whether Telkom is limiting bandwidth based on money or quality. If the Telkom network is totally underutilized and they're peddling 384kbps where they could peddle 4Mbps without any additional costs, then yes, i would agree Telkom is ripping us off.....
 
diabolus said:
Well, other than the money aspect, there's a more obvious reason: It's to ensure -everyone- on the same line gets the quality of service they are paying for.
Click to expand...

Thanks Diabolus - that makes sense to me. It also makes me happier to stick to my 384Kbps service (which is a reasonable speed), and let the other speed freaks subside me!! :p:p:p
 
It's the Internet. Too much is never enough, and you cannot have a connection that is fast enough. SA speeds are low- 384k is BS, but what will we settle for?

Speed increases, downloads increase in size and number.

I used to download individual MP3s. Then it was albums. Then it was movies. Then it was series, seasons of series. Now it is HD movies and series @ ~6GB a pop.

I eat all I can as often as I can, with my appetite growing all the time. Seems the users in the States are the same- even with their 20MB/s connections, they are unhappy. Long live the Internet!
 
If the telkom network is only capable of maintaining service levels at 384kbps per user then i think we should all call it quites and move to hongkong. I find it impossible we can be that far behind. The interweb is a much more sturdy beast than what we seem to think it is. The technology has been out there for the better part of a decade to handle the trickle which we impose on it.

Well it may be possible, i refuse to believe our network in this country is literally tens of thousands of times worse than what you find in other countries.

Switches have even reached zettabyte capacity.

http://www.telecommagazine.com/NewsGlobe/article.asp?HH_ID=AR_4596

To think we shoudl accept 384 as our infrustructure limit is laughable. If it is, well then we are well and truly done for.
 
This is one of the things that I wonder too.
Either cap or speed should be unlimited, with a "you get what you pay for" restriction on the other. Having a two-level layer of restrictions for the same service is somewhat absurd.
As far as I'm concerned, sync speed should not be governed but completely dependant on what your line is capable of. It's not like everyone's going to be downloading at 12Mbps 24/7. I have a 4mbit line and 95% of the time it's doing no transfers.
If you have a modestly sized bandwidth cap of say 10GB which is what you pay for, then consuming that 10GB is what you set out to do - whether you're on 384k or 12Mbps you're going to probably end up consuming it anyway, so there's no point in having a speed-limit on traffic if you're going to be using the same amount of total traffic in that month. Infrastructure isnt such a factor, because as I just pointed out:
- Most of the time most connections are idle or using small amounts of capacity. Rarely do users max out their lines, and even if they do:
- If there's a capping policy in place (as there is), people wont 'rape' their superfast connections

Doesn't this make sense?
Either capping should be scrapped completely, or speed limits should be removed...

... At least that's what I think
 
What's really funny is that a 384 line will be congested more than a 4MB line because things take so long on a 384 line.

It's kind-of a self built trap.

However, if we all had 3GB/s lines, congestion would be laughable initially, until a web service hosting 1 billion streaming hi-definition web-cams arrives.

It's an eternal battle, each step of improvement just changes the goalposts.

But to be stuck with a 384 connection when even the wireless (CELL) connections are way past that limit is absurd.
 
jak3 said:
If the telkom network is only capable of maintaining service levels at 384kbps per user then i think we should all call it quites and move to hongkong.
Click to expand...

I know it sucks here but you cannot compare the two markets. You cannot even compare the USA to HK. Deploying high speed broadband in places like HK, Japan etc where the population density is so high is relatively easy.
 
davemc said:
What's really funny is that a 384 line will be congested more than a 4MB line because things take so long on a 384 line.
Click to expand...
EXACTLY.
Another example would be iBurst - I get throttled on my iburst connection once i've reached my cap. It throttles to like 3KB/s (better than nothing, sure), but then when I load a website sometimes the site stops loading half way through, and I have to refresh it so it loads fully - all that's ultimately doing is using up MORE bandwidth than I'd have used if I wasn't so badly throttled in the first place, but rather placed on a more reasonable & usable 'ISDN-like' speed. Then I wouldnt have to pull my hair out, and the provider wouldn't have to worry about fed up customers or unnecessary extra usage caused by the TOO-SLOW throttled speeds.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X