Broadband22.10.2014

Is uncapped really uncapped?

Many telecommunications operators and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in South Africa are promoting their data products as “uncapped” or “unlimited”.

While most of these products offer lots of data for their price, they typically come with a fair use policy (FUP). When users exceed the monthly FUP, their connection speed is usually throttled.

Throttling and shaping do not go down well with some subscribers, and unhappiness with uncapped advertising has resulted in many Advertising Standards Authority of South Africa (ASA) complaints.

In the latest incident the ASA dismissed a complaint which claimed that Telkom’s uncapped Internet advertising was misleading.

The ASA agreed with Telkom’s view that it reserves the right to apply restrictions on an uncapped account if a customer’s behaviour is affecting the user experience of other customers on its network.

The Internet Service Providers’ Association (ISPA) defines capped, uncapped, and unlimited as follows:

Capped refers to products which have a predetermined limit imposed, and once a user reaches this limit, connectivity is severed completely – much like pre-paid electricity or cell phone pre-paid airtime bundles.
Uncapped refers to products where predetermined limits may still be relevant, but connectivity is never severed. It does, however, appear to be common practice for service providers to reduce speeds when thresholds are reached.
Unlimited appears to refer to products which have a bare minimum of control measures imposed by service providers. These packages seem to be the most expensive generally speaking, and users tend to be able to surf or download as much as they want with virtually no interference, irrespective of how much data has been used.

ISPA’s summary is commendable and gives a broad outline of how the industry describes its data services.

However, not everyone is following these guidelines, and some of the fair use limits are rather low.

Here are some of the fair use policies which consumers will be well advised to read before they sign up for an uncapped or unlimited data service.

MTN Sky: Uncapped data

MTN promotes its Sky contract as offering uncapped data, where a “Fair Use Policy will apply”. Here is the fair use policy:

Customers shall be able to generate uncapped data usage, however, a fair use of 5GB (five gigabytes) will apply whereupon the speed will be limited to 384kbps. Should the Customer use more than 5GB before the end of the month (the Customer’s bill run), the MTN SKY Fair Use Policy shall apply.

Telkom: Unlimited data

Telkom is promoting its Completely Unlimited mobile package as offering “unlimited data”, where a fair use policy applies.

The Completely Unlimited Data benefit is only applicable for Telkom Mobile’s data network and is governed by a Fair Usage Policy (FUP) of 10GB per month. The speed shall be throttled to 128kbps if a subscriber reaches a data usage soft cap of 10GB before the end of the month. The speed shall be reset to normal speed at the beginning of each calendar month, alternatively subscribers can purchase once off or recurring data bundles.

Telkom: Free Unlimited Wi-Fi

Telkom is offering “Free Unlimited Wi-Fi” access to its hotspots with many of its mobile packages. The company explains that:

Free Unlimited Wi-Fi with a Fair usage cap of 10GB per month shall apply. The Free Unlimited Speed shall be throttled to 128kbps if a subscriber reaches a data usage of 10GB via Wi-Fi access before end of the month. The speed shall be reset to normal speed at the beginning of each month.

Telkom: Uncapped data

Telkom is promoting its Uncapped DSL data bundles as providing “uncapped data”, but warns customers that there is a “Telkom Internet Acceptable Use Policy”.

Telkom reserves the right to apply restrictions on an uncapped account if a customer’s behaviour is determined to be affecting the user experience of other customers on Telkom’s network. Such restrictions may include but are not limited to throttling a customer’s throughput speeds to an appropriate proportion of the actual port speed and / or shaping a customer’s bandwidth to limit the use of bandwidth intensive protocols and applications.

Examples of customer behaviour which may compromise Telkom’s network performance include, for example, causing network congestion, include running excessive concurrent internet sessions or accessing excessive bandwidth intensive protocols such as peer-to-peer.

In the event of such behaviours, Telkom reserves the right to terminate the account of a customer whose usage is continuously affecting Telkom’s network performance, as a customer of Telkom Internet uncapped products.

Web Africa: Home uncapped

Web Africa is promoting its Home uncapped service with the tagline “Keep browsing, keep playing and stay up to date with reliable uncapped home internet”. Here is the fine print:

To ensure that all customers have fair and equal use of the Home Uncapped service and to protect the integrity of the network, Web Africa reserves the right and will take necessary steps to prevent improper or excessive usage thereof.

Web Africa may undertake the following action(s) to ensure fair and equal network performance for all customers:

Adjusting the throughput of the aforementioned service based off the current and historic usage of the service.

Limiting or preventing service through specific protocols and/or ports.

Continuous excessive usage of a service may result in termination of the Home Uncapped ADSL account.

Any attempt to bypass Shaping Policies may result in termination of the Uncapped ADSL account.

MWEB: Uncapped ADSL

MWEB is using the tagline “Surf the net, update your Facebook and tweet to your heart’s content” to promote its uncapped ADSL service. It comes with the following terms and conditions:

Uncapped means there is no limit placed on the total volume of traffic uploaded or downloaded, however the AUP may place additional restrictions on usage behaviour beyond illegal or unlawful usage. Customers not adhering to the AUP may have their services limited or soft capped.

Afrihost: Uncapped DSL

Afrihost describes its uncapped DSL service as follows: “Download to your heart’s content. Why count your Bytes? Get the power of unthrottled, unmetered Broadband and make sure you always get the best of the internet without having to watch your usage – ever!”. Here is the ISP’s terms and conditions:

In order to ensure that everybody has the best experience possible, we will manage our network by prioritising the types of traffic to make sure that our clients’ Internet experience is as fast as it can be – no matter the time of the day or the utilisation of our network. We will never throttle nor shape any of the Realtime services at any time of the day or night – no matter what your overall usage is. Your speed will be as fast as your Telkom ADSL line allows for Realtime traffic.