Mweb uncapped ADSL thresholds and throttling

In a controversial move that resulted in a tremendous backlash from users, Mweb sent out letters to a portion of its user-base in August 2013, warning them that they would be throttled due to “excessive usage patterns”.

Mweb argued that it was simply enforcing its acceptable use policy (AUP) to ensure a high quality of service for all its subscribers, albeit in a slightly different way.

Where Mweb had previously intervened manually when they picked up on excessive usage, it had now implemented an automated system that would look at subscribers’ usage over a 30-day rolling window.

Rolling windows are nothing new, with many Internet service providers (ISPs) using it as a bandwidth management technique for their uncapped products in the past.

However, ISPs such as Web Africa and Afrihost have said that they dropped the plain rolling window for bandwidth management policies that offer a more granular approach, albeit still linked to individual usage.

Among the concerns raised about Mweb’s changes last year was that they initially declined to provide the usage thresholds they use to determine whether to throttle a user.

Mweb also didn’t offer users the ability to cancel their accounts before the new throttling policies were set to kick in on 1 September 2013.

The ISP allows subscribers to request a cancellation that takes effect at the end of the current month until about the 4th of that month. Its warning letters about the changes to its AUP enforcement hit the MyBroadband forums on 8 August 2013.

Mweb ISPA complaint

A MyBroadband forum member, Paul Hjul, lodged a complaint with the Internet Service Providers’ Association of South Africa (Ispa), of which Mweb is a member, on 1 October 2013.

Hjul requested that Mweb do the following to resolve the complaint:

1. Issue an unambiguous and clear public apology for the “warning letters” sent to customers including an undertaking to desist from sending such letters until reasonable and rational criteria for abuse are determined by Mweb which are not based on an unpublicised quantity of data transferred and are in proper accordance with existing industry standards.
2. Refund customers who cancelled in August due to the changes and were made to pay for September.

After some to-and-fro between Ispa, Mweb, and Hjul, an Ispa adjudicator dismissed Hjul’s complaint.

According to the ruling, the complaint did not describe in enough detail where Mweb had infringed the Ispa Code of Conduct.

Responding to the outcome, Hjul said that he was deeply disappointed by the process.

“Ispa has demonstrated that they are not an effective industry self-regulatory body and are simply a section of the industry representative association,” Hjul said.

“This is deeply disappointing – not the outcome as much as the inefficiency of process and attitude from ISPA – and provides more than an explanation for the hostility of Telkom towards ISPA,” Hjul said. “I have found significantly better process from Telkom.”

He is taking the matter further with Icasa, Hjul said.

Thresholds revealed

Although Ispa eventually dismissed Hjul’s complaint, Mweb has subsequently revealed the thresholds it uses to determine whether a user should be throttled.

Mweb’s disclosures came after enterprising MyBroadband forum users started gathering data on when Mweb throttled users and figuring out from that what the thresholds are likely to be.

The thresholds (and prices) of Mweb’s various uncapped ADSL accounts are summarised in the table below.

Original Mweb abuse notices complaint forum thread

Original Unofficial Mweb Throttle Limit Theory thread

Related uncapped ADSL shaping and throttling articles

Are you killing your ADSL ISP?

MWEB ADSL abuse notices: the real story

Beware excessive usage, MWEB warns ADSL users

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