Vodacom anti-abuse BlackBerry system kicks in

Vodacom has migrated all of their BlackBerry users to a new system which gives priority to non-bulk download traffic during peak times.

The new system essentially throttles large downloads – similar to how some Internet services throttle peer-to-peer (P2P) traffic – and prioritizes standard services such as e-mail, web surfing and social networking.

According to Vodacom the new system has no impact on normal usage of the BlackBerry service.

Vodacom’s new traffic monitoring and management system was built in partnership with Research in Motion (RIM), making it possible for the operator to view ‘inside’ the BlackBerry network.

“The solution provides the functionality typically used by Internet Service Providers to manage Internet traffic according to various parameters. These parameters can include applications, protocols, users, URLs and other criteria,” Vodacom said previously.

Vodacom said that the “overall plan is to implement the same approach taken by all other ISPs and manage specific protocols which will give BIS users the best possible on-device browsing experience.”

In September last year Vodacom said that they have studied usage patterns to better understand the causes of congestion at peak times, and one finding was that more than 95% of BlackBerry data usage was attributable to less than 5% of users.

The high usage from a small group of users was typically related to large file downloads (movies and TV series), negatively affecting the BlackBerry experience of most users.

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