whats the difference between shaped and unshaped adsl?

[Megamuffin]

i honestly cant tell whats the difference between shaped and unshaped, and why is unshaped so much more expensive. only difference ive noticed is torrenting is slow as hell in the day with shaped internet.

 

[Latif786]

uhmm how do i this. Shaped is when the ISP throttles you to a certain speed during day time(espicialy torrents but http is also slower than normal) and you get maximum speed from off peak hours (7pm-7am) but if your ISP is wishes to slow down your speed at night (because youve downloaded so much they may throtle you to slower speeds)
Unshaped im not 100% sure but you get full speed during anytime of the day

 

[Megamuffin]

ah that makes sense, though why is unshaped so much more expensive (about double the price of shaped)? just for getting full speed all the time?

 

[ichigo]

ah that makes sense, though why is unshaped so much more expensive (about double the price of shaped)? just for getting full speed all the time?

Shaped is when certain ports are given higher priority on the network like port 80 for Browsing and Ports for Torrents and downloading are shaped so bad that it gives you lowest kb possible.

Unshaped is when no ports are shaped at all and gives you the max speed of your current line speed without affecting anything.

On both accounts Http/browser downloads will download at max speed

So you paying for faster easy downloads and good latency on games

 

[Megamuffin]

i used to have a unshaped 4gig telkom acc, then i changed to mweb shaped 4mbps only differences ive noticed is slower torrent speeds during peak times, otherwise http/browser downloads are always at full speed( 400-425 kb/s) and i play WoW overall latency is the same 200-300 ms. and ive downloaded 200gigs this month... which is much better than only getting 4 gigs cap for a unshaped account at the same price

 

[ichigo]

i used to have a unshaped 4gig telkom acc, then i changed to mweb shaped 4mbps only differences ive noticed is slower torrent speeds during peak times, otherwise http/browser downloads are always at full speed( 400-425 kb/s) and i play WoW overall latency is the same 200-300 ms. and ive downloaded 200gigs this month... which is much better than only getting 4 gigs cap for a unshaped account at the same price

I think they only shape torrents not games on mweb accounts since torrents use most of bandwidth compared to games which is minimal

 

[Pada]

I think Mweb actually gives games a high priority, as well as HTTP, E-mails & VPN's amongs other things.

Nowadays the ISP's don't really shape according to ports any more, because stuff like torrents also makes use of the HTTP ports, which is why they have to make use of Layer 7 packet inspection to determine the protocol by which they can then shape the traffic.

 

[NomNom]

http://www.cyberconnect.co.za/joseph/blogs/broadband/hsdpa/shaped-unshaped-ADSL
http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php/24253-Shaped-vs-Unshaped
http://kb.webafrica.co.za/article/AA-00741/0/Shaped-vs.-Unshaped.html

 

[Srack0verflow]

in some cases it involves a shaped account making use of a totally different backbone than an unshaped account resulting in little longer or shorter routes. but things have become so blured nowadays that it comes down not much else than throttling, even though ISPs deny that`s what they do

 

[Chevron]

ah that makes sense, though why is unshaped so much more expensive (about double the price of shaped)? just for getting full speed all the time?

Shaped bandwidth is shared by more people(higher contention ratio), unshaped is shared by fewer people(lower contention ratio).

You pay more because you are getting a better quality connection.

 

[Dean]

Wow, I'm not going to add to the confusion, so will only say that there are a few inaccurate responses here.

But I would look at Merenwenrago and NomNom's responses for the answer(s).