Why is Uncapped internet actually Limited connectivity in SA?

innovator

innovator

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I am with Web Africa presently on their so called "Uncapped 10Mbps connection". If I use the connection for streaming YouTube media through my media centre as I intended, as a replacement for DSTV and what Web Africa advertises the connection for I get throttled. most days I am lucky if I achieve 3Mbps but if I do the weekend thing or the kids on holiday thing with YouTube I am throttled down to about 0.3Mbps if that. Yet I am paying for a 10Mbps solution Uncapped.

So my question for this debate is:
Should providers not be forced to correctly advertise their "Uncapped" service as a "Limited" service and discount their customers pro-rata when they throttle the a 10Mbps connection down on this "Limited" service. If you are paying for uncapped you should get uncapped and exceeding some invisible barrier should not affect your service!

and if you are accepting and paying for a "Limited" service (as it should be advertised) with throttling for high activity you should then not be charged for 10Mbps when you are being only delivered 3 or 0.3 Mbps!

OK so while I am rather disapointed with my service provider it doesn't help to change as , from what I hear , they are all doing this and getting away with this!

Please weigh in on this conversation and lets start putting the pressure on!
 
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Well I'm just gonna answer the thread title and ignore your rant for now. (I'm on Web Africa 10Meg Business btw.)

Challenges:
1. The problem in SA is we have capped and uncapped options. The only way for uncapped to really work out properly for ISPs is if we banned capped accounts and all used uncapped. Then the model would work.

2. People want low price. Not quality. By moving to the cheapest accounts the whole time consumers basically told the ISPs that we don't care about a good connection. We just want cheap. That's why many of us are on Business accounts.

3. Home uncapped accounts are designed for people that go to work during the day and only use the internet when they get home in the evening. Consumers don't get this. This is one of the sacrifices that need to be made when you go cheap.

My Advice:
If you need day time usage then you need capped or Business.

Pressure needs to be put on consumers to choose the right account for their needs.
 
BTW WA/IS recently (i.e. this month) changed their stars rating system to become even more stringent: you can now be throttled even if you use the 10meg uncapped line for browsing during the day.

WA's solution: go capped.
 
I think you probably just work for WebAfrica or some other ISP and so your answer just sounds a lot like the call centre rhetoric they spout when you catch them out with there false advertising!

So I will just ignore your jibe altogether as you have not addressed the issue I have raised and just like support and call centre opperators you generally just apply the answer that most closely fits your cheat sheet.
Try understanding my point!
I don't give a hoot what cheap packages are offered advertise them honestly and bill honestly.
 
I think the really irritating thing is the whole lack of transparency. When I was with Mweb, they throttled the **** out of my 'uncapped' account. They refuse to tell me how many gigs of download until I am throttled(It seemed to be 40-70gb). ISP's should be upfront about how it really works! "Limited" is a truly befitting word for all those 'uncapped' accounts.

It is too expensive to go for those Gold/Platinum/Business accounts, I just want to use steam/GOG & Youtube Not download 5tb of **** knows. I am with Afrihost now (4mbps 'uncapped'). I can consistently watch Youtube and MGL at 720p with no buffering. They throttle all form of downloading to 10 -12kbps during lunch to midnight(I get 400kbps afterwards). It sucks but it is the best deal I have available for my budget. They call it "shaping", it beats throttling but is still designed to 'entice' you to buy their business package(It REALLY sucks big time if you want to download something during the day).

You just have to choose the lesser of the evils. They all suck, just choose which one sucks slightly less :'(
 
3898460-8864152835-
 
No ! As consumers we should not settle false advertising and theft from our ISP.

So UNCAPPED actually means LIMITED. Then call it LIMITED!

If you offer me a 10Mbps line then if I accept that UNCAPPED actually means LIMITED (Which I don't) why not discount me pro-rata when you only deliver a 3Mbps or 0.3Mbps solution.

And for Chevron who didn't quite get that point! I use my connection to watch Youtube instead of DSTV at NIGHT and possibly for the children to watch cartoons over the weekend and in the school holidays! That is domestic use "HOME" !! The only business i do during the day is, I use is to receive and send some emails and that most certainly would not affect usage one way or the other!

So if they want to rather sell evenings only don't call it "UNCAPPED home" rather "LIMITED night only"! and I bet you they would also throttle that and cheat you out of the money you are paying for a 10Mbps connection!

So please could we have some none clock-card visitors (ie actual ISP customers weighing in on this instead of call centre personnel.
 
You said it YangWenli

But I just feel that this transparency will never come unless something big happens and I think it is on the horizon. If the WP government gets it right to set up their Provence wide free intranet grid for access to information I have a feeling many smaller ISPs will be able to offer break out off it and this will really dent the big boys monopoly and dishonesty. They will be forced to be honest just to compete.
 
innovator said:
You said it YangWenli

But I just feel that this transparency will never come unless something big happens and I think it is on the horizon. If the WP government gets it right to set up their Provence wide free intranet grid for access to information I have a feeling many smaller ISPs will be able to offer break out off it and this will really dent the big boys monopoly and dishonesty. They will be forced to be honest just to compete.
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Sorry but you are misinformed. The biggest cost components are IPC and international links. If you are planning a WC intranet you might save costs but how are you going to break out?
 
innovator said:
between 50 and 100 gigs depending on whether the kids are on holiday or not
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Would a 100-150GB capped account not be cheaper and even better?

Most of the residential uncapped products are shaped/throttled on certain protocols during the day, which is when you are mostly using your ADSL service.
 
The part that gets me is the package I am on was promoted for a while as a "media centre" / "entertainment compatable" package as an alternative to DSTV, I am not sure if they are still punting it as that, but it is the reason I went for it and chose to rather cancel DSTV, which is just a big fat waste of money presently unless you are a sports/news nut in which case you have to love repeated adverts too.
No surely if you use it for what it is intended for ie watching YouTube / Internet entertainment you will slam their invisible tipping point so what. Now that you have hooked me I must upgrade to a business package to get what you originally pushed on me as a home entertainment package that actually works. If I could afford the money to moved to the business package I probably would do it with a bit of a moan and a groan but I don't have. So I think I will just moan and groan and hope that if enough people moan and groan with me the noise will force the ISPs to readjust their marketing and even hopefully stop stealing from us. I am sorry to take my money for a 10Mbps connection and then throttle it to suit your demand and not reimburse me for the slower service is stealing point blank!
 
Hi MickeyD
I hear you mate, you do speak words of wisdom... ... but that is just a cop out!

I was sold UNCAPPED and with 10Mbps connection why should I settle for anything else.
If I wanted to watch youtube 24 hours a day or stream music throughout my house 24/7 on this and use 300gigs I should be able to do it until they market the package as something else or discount the drop in Mbps because they choose to "shape" to fit their pocket!
 
MickeyD said:
Sorry but you are misinformed. The biggest cost components are IPC and international links. If you are planning a WC intranet you might save costs but how are you going to break out?
Click to expand...

The setting up of a Provence wide free wifi is actually happening I sat on the forum that investigated the viability and proposed a solution to the WP Gov. To break out from there can happen at at least three points and bypass SITA and Telkom infrastructure completely thus cutting the cost to that of true international connectivity not what the National Gov and Sita would like us to believe is the cost. The problem will be the old one will the National Gov bring in new legislation to roadblock this or will it slip past them. I'm routing for the latter.

Anyway the writing is on the wall for the National Gov, SITA and Telkom as South Africa has dropped from the most advanced Telecommunications infrastructure in Africa to one of the worst in less than ten years,

If they want to enjoy any sort of business growth and investment in resource development in SA they are going to have to begin offering connectivity at the real cost and not their milking markup!
 
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innovator said:
Hi MickeyD
I hear you mate, you do speak words of wisdom... ... but that is just a cop out!

I was sold UNCAPPED and with 10Mbps connection why should I settle for anything else.
If I wanted to watch youtube 24 hours a day or stream music throughout my house 24/7 on this and use 300gigs I should be able to do it until they market the package as something else or discount the drop in Mbps because they choose to "shape" to fit their pocket!
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I know exactly what you are saying and we have bitched about this aplenty on MyBB, to no avail.

ASA (iirc) ruled on the definition of uncapped and the ISPs stick to it. Effectively they said that uncapped is not limitless.
 
I feel your pain innovator:cry:. I hate being blatantly lied to and when you confront them they tell you to just "upgrade"!
Oh, to MickeyD : "100-150GB capped account not be cheaper and even better?" It would not be cheaper, better for average speed but you still don't get top speed out of it(I was given a 1gb capped account and found the speed to between 200 to 600kbps * at peek). I pay +- R400 for my 4mbps 'uncapped', and my usage is any where between 100 to 250GB per month. Last I checked Afrihost had R8/per GB: 150gb * R8 = R1200. For R400 you could only get 50GB! I mostly use video streaming sites(Twitch, MLG, Youtube, etc...) and then it is gaming with the odd download every now and again.

I have even seen some Forums where people have found their Gold and Business accounts throttled! It is very frustrating when you can't get straight reliability from ISP's! :mad:
 
YangWenli said:
I feel your pain innovator:cry:. I hate being blatantly lied to and when you confront them they tell you to just "upgrade"!
Oh, to MickeyD : "100-150GB capped account not be cheaper and even better?" It would not be cheaper, better for average speed but you still don't get top speed out of it(I was given a 1gb capped account and found the speed to between 200 to 600kbps * at peek). I pay +- R400 for my 4mbps 'uncapped', and my usage is any where between 100 to 250GB per month. Last I checked Afrihost had R8/per GB: 150gb * R8 = R1200. For R400 you could only get 50GB! I mostly use video streaming sites(Twitch, MLG, Youtube, etc...) and then it is gaming with the odd download every now and again.

I have even seen some Forums where people have found their Gold and Business accounts throttled! It is very frustrating when you can't get straight reliability from ISP's! :mad:
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Well now you know why uncapped is shaped. Data is expensive.
 
Btw, even if ISPs didn't shape, line performance is not entirely in their control, so they couldn't guarantee it even if they wanted to or were 'forced' (God forbid) to do so.

There's a point where the traffic from multiple users reaches the limited and finite capacity of the connection at your exchange, and contention causes everyone to experience reduced throughput.

It's not Ferrari's fault or the City Roads Dept's fault that your average speed is below the legal minimum speed on the M1 ... at 08h17 on a Tuesday morning as you approach the Katherine St turnoff.

The only way your ISP can survive beyond one month is if they sell data for more than it costs them to buy and deliver it to you. With uncapped users, where the next month's usage is unknown to anyone, they have to take a guess, and manage (shape) throughput to what they've bought from the wholesaler, or pay their own form of OOB pricing, and face going bust.

They'd be much happier if you told them in advance what the maximum is you plan to buy in a month (ie a capped account). That allows them to plan and buy profitably, and in return the good ISPs give you a more predictable performance.

Rule of thumb: Uncapped accounts are for people who don't care much about performance consistency. Capped accounts with high caps are for people who prefer predictable and stable performance. There are always exceptions to prove the rule.
 
Arthur said:
Btw, even if ISPs didn't shape, line performance is not entirely in their control, so they couldn't guarantee it even if they wanted to or were 'forced' (God forbid) to do so.

There's a point where the traffic from multiple users reaches the limited and finite capacity of the connection at your exchange, and contention causes everyone to experience reduced throughput.

It's not Ferrari's fault or the City Roads Dept's fault that your average speed is below the legal minimum speed on the M1 ... at 08h17 on a Tuesday morning as you approach the Katherine St turnoff.

The only way your ISP can survive beyond one month is if they sell data for more than it costs them to buy and deliver it to you. With uncapped users, where the next month's usage is unknown to anyone, they have to take a guess, and manage (shape) throughput to what they've bought from the wholesaler, or pay their own form of OOB pricing, and face going bust.

They'd be much happier if you told them in advance what the maximum is you plan to buy in a month (ie a capped account). That allows them to plan and buy profitably, and in return the good ISPs give you a more predictable performance.

Rule of thumb: Uncapped accounts are for people who don't care much about performance consistency. Capped accounts with high caps are for people who prefer predictable and stable performance. There are always exceptions to prove the rule.
Click to expand...

Only issue with your analogy, ISPs pay for the line speed, not data. I think afrihost has a local 20Gbps network.
 
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