ADSL12.08.2013

MWEB ADSL abuse notices: the real story

MWEB recently sent notices warning high-end uncapped ADSL users that they “may have to slow down your Internet speeds” unless they lower their usage. This caused an outcry by many MWEB subscribers, but there are good reasons for MWEB to address this issue.

In its e-mail to some high-end users (around 3% of the ISP’s subscribers) MWEB said that it needs to monitor usage on its network to ensure the best possible experience for customers.

“We monitor the usage on our network and make sure that customers are not abusing certain defined parameters. This is in line with our Acceptable Use Policy (AUP),” MWEB’s notice stated.

These customers were warned that their usage is close to exceeding these parameters.

“We will enforce our AUP from 1 September, and should you continue to show excessive usage patterns … you will experience slower connection speeds,” MWEB warned.

Many users who received warnings were furious, saying that MWEB should not call their service uncapped if they want to impose throttling. Some users threatened to leave the ISP.

Reasons behind MWEB’s decision

MWEB ISP CEO Derek Hershaw said that it is unsustainable for the top 3% of their users to continue to consume more and more of their network capacity.

This, Hershaw said, will result in the rest of MWEB’s customers experiencing worse service levels, and not getting the value they are paying for each month.

“Just to be clear, we see that on average all our users are consuming a bit more data every month,” Hershaw said.

“It’s driven by things like multiple devices in the home, more HD content and even the fact that Telkom has bumped up lines speeds a couple of times. So we expect this sort of trend.”

Hershaw said that the customers who MWEB contacted for excessive usage patterns are “way, way over the top compared to the rest of our base”.

“For these very heavy users we have high-end products that cater for their needs, but they come at a higher price,” said Hershaw.

Basic economics of ADSL data costs

Hershaw said that the top 3% of their users – those who were sent notices – currently consume 25% of their total network capacity.

The biggest culprit for the high usage is peer-2-peer (P2P) traffic, which is mainly used to download TV series and movies.

While most of the traffic is international, Hershaw said that the real problem is that it all has to go through MWEB’s local IPC nodes and that accounts for the biggest cost component.

Some of the high-end users consume in excess of 1.5TBs of data per month. At a price of R999 per month for an uncapped 10Mbps service, this equates to less than 70c per GB.

The cost per GB of wholesale ADSL data is multiple times higher than 70c per GB, which means that these high-end users are getting their service at well below cost.

Cross subsidization on a broadband network – where low-end users subsidize high-end users – is commonplace and can work, but only where the bandwidth consumption of the top users is not excessive.

If a point is reached where a small group of top users’ bandwidth consumptions starts to affect the majority of standard users, an ISP must take action. This is exactly what MWEB is doing now.