MWEB ADSL Acceptable Use Policy: Fair is fair
Fair and acceptable use policies (FUP/AUP) with subsequent warnings and service discontinuations due to users contravening them isn’t anything new in South Africa’s uncapped broadband market.
Unsurprisingly, MWEB subscribers have also reported receiving abuse notifications.
These notifications are sent out to subscribers who MWEB suspects aren’t “playing fair,” explained Ettiene Cloete, General Manager for operations at MWEB.
Unfair usage: What is it?
The most well-known example of unacceptable use on MWEB’s network is bypassing the shaping policies of products like MWEB’s “Bigtime surfer” uncapped ADSL.
One MWEB subscriber said that he received a warning stating that “The usage we have detected is as follows: Excessive use of unshaped network protocols on a shaped product indicating an intentional bypassing of the network shaping.”
According to the user about half of their data usage is for personal purposes while the other half is used for his business. He explained that he runs services such as remote desktop, web browsing, Microsoft Exchange, server replication and backups over a secure connection (SSL) for additional privacy and security.
Cloete said that tunneling or using a VPN isn’t against the terms of use of MWEB’s uncapped ADSL accounts for private users.
“There are legitimate uses of VPN,” said Cloete, “but certain usage patterns raise a red flag on our end.”
Fair usage is also not determined by the amount of data consumed, Cloete explained. Whether someone uses ten gigabytes (GB) or hundreds, it comes down to how they use the network, not how much they use the network.
While Cloete didn’t want to divulge the private details of the user’s case, a later email forwarded to MyBroadband by the subscriber shed some light on the matter.
“According to our records, you are subscribed to a Shaped ADSL product. Our network reports however, indicate that you are downloading data using Internet privacy protocols, which are not shaped, at near maximum throughput on a constant and ongoing basis,” the email from the MWEB abuse team said.
“This is not in keeping with the terms and conditions of the product, which clearly state that you are not to behave in such a manner as to intentionally place an unnecessary burden on our network.”
Due process
According to Cloete, MWEB doesn’t immediately suspend a user when they detect unusual usage patterns. “MWEB looks at the potential infractions of their policies on a case-by-case basis,” Cloete said.
After sending the abuse notification to a user they wait up to a week for a response. If MWEB hasn’t received a response after ‘three or four days’ they send the user a second notification which refers to the first.
If the user still doesn’t respond MWEB will try to contact them telephonically as well, said Cloete. “We pull out all stops to make contact with the customer first,” said Cloete.
MWEB Connect not for business use
In this specific case the bottom line was that using MWEB’s shaped uncapped service for business purposes is against MWEB’s general terms and conditions.
“Section 13.4 of MWEB Connect’s general terms and conditions states that unless you are subscribed to a business package, you may not use any services for anything other than your own personal use,” said Cloete.
As such the particular user whose complaint was mentioned would have to migrate to MWEB’s unshaped service which was designed for business use, or stop using the connection for business purposes.
Fair is fair
While the actual usage policies on MWEB’s website are more generic, the current terms for their shaped, uncapped ADSL products seem simple:
- If you’re downloading files using protocols known to be shaped such as BitTorrent and Usenet, don’t try to circumvent MWEB’s shaping policies.
- Don’t use non-business packages for business services or applications.
At R539 for uncapped, given the wholesale cost for ADSL, are these restrictions not fair?
MWEB uncapped ADSL FUP << Is it fair?
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