OpenWeb Gold Shaping Policy

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JohnRambo

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Hi,

This is directed at MrBeep but any comments would be appreciated.

Newly arrived in SA and a bit new to all the various traffic control methods deployed here.

With regard to the OpenWeb Gold Uncapped (or any other OpenWeb service where relevant) - how does the shaping work?

Specifically, I am not a heavy downloader but I do use a lot of non-standard ports and need quality connections during the day to connect to my workplace, i.e. RDP on several non-3389 ports (we use port forwarding for the firewall to distinguish which machine we are remoting into), or some Lync ports that are not common like 5061, 444 etc.

Does shaping target specific P2P ports (or using SPI, specific protocols) in which case I would be fine - or does it give priority to specific ports (80, 443, 25 etc) and relegate everything else - in which case I'm screwed :cry:

Any enlightenment greatly appreciated.
 
I use a Gold Uncapped account and do a lot of RDP on non-standard ports as well as lots of RTMP streaming, with randomized ports. Never had an issue. It is the best you can get as far as I'm aware.
 
I took your advice and got the 4Mb Gold that was on promotion at the time. First few months were peachy but I guess the honeymoon is over.

For the past month or so, anything apart from browsing is very, very slow - day or night. Speedtest reports ok and VPN tunnelled traffic is ok, so I can assume I am being shaped - despite only averaging about 60GB per month.

I hope this is just a bad patch rather than the first few months just being a new customer sweetener.
 
Have you emailed [email protected] for assistance?

JohnRambo said:
I took your advice and got the 4Mb Gold that was on promotion at the time. First few months were peachy but I guess the honeymoon is over.

For the past month or so, anything apart from browsing is very, very slow - day or night. Speedtest reports ok and VPN tunnelled traffic is ok, so I can assume I am being shaped - despite only averaging about 60GB per month.

I hope this is just a bad patch rather than the first few months just being a new customer sweetener.
Click to expand...
 
Shaping in SA is generally done via deep packet inspection. Meaning it looks at the data directly & tries to figure out what it is from patterns in it. I doubt anyone still uses port based shaping.

You can always buy a bit of capped unshaped data if its really an issue.
 
agentrfr said:
I use a Gold Uncapped account and do a lot of RDP on non-standard ports as well as lots of RTMP streaming, with randomized ports. Never had an issue. It is the best you can get as far as I'm aware.
Click to expand...

Yes, this used to work fine. But starting around April it went totally pear-shaped during business hours. Anything non-http was slowed to a crawl. So much so that I moved from OpenWeb Gold to Afrihost Business.
 
Mr Beep, I will mail support. I had tried to call first to ascertain what level I should expect, but they also told me I should mail in.

Let me explain my confusion about expected level of service - I signed onto a Gold service promotion at a reduced price in January. I thought I was getting a 4Mb account that usually costs R738 for a discounted price of R589.

But then I noticed this:

MrBEEP said:
Each promotion has different tweaks that allow us to offer it at that specific promotions price point.
Click to expand...

And now I am wondering - did I actually get the same Gold account that is usually sold for R738 or do I have something with "different tweaks"?

Regards
 
the 4mbps refers to your line speed. the actual speed you get depends on how much load there is on the network etc
 
No, the 4Mbps Gold Uncapped original can only be purchased from:

http://www.openweb.co.za/go_gold_uncapped.html

JohnRambo said:
Mr Beep, I will mail support. I had tried to call first to ascertain what level I should expect, but they also told me I should mail in.

Let me explain my confusion about expected level of service - I signed onto a Gold service promotion at a reduced price in January. I thought I was getting a 4Mb account that usually costs R738 for a discounted price of R589.

But then I noticed this:



And now I am wondering - did I actually get the same Gold account that is usually sold for R738 or do I have something with "different tweaks"?

Regards
Click to expand...
 
Sorry, let me get this straight - I don't have the original Gold account?

Because that is what was explicitly offered by the January promotion. Any 'Orange' or whatever promotions came later.
 
If you were offered the original Gold, then you will have the Original gold.

If the promotion says: Gold Uncapped Original, then you will have the Original Gold.

I don't know who you are, as we have not received your ADSL username or similar yet. I will refrain from further comment until I receive your details via PM, as all I am doing is speculating based on zero information, which you are getting angry with, which makes no sense



JohnRambo said:
Sorry, let me get this straight - I don't have the original Gold account?

Because that is what was explicitly offered by the January promotion. Any 'Orange' or whatever promotions came later.
Click to expand...
 
I sent my username earlier this morning and a ticket has been issued.

I am not getting angry, I am trying to get clarification - surely you must know what type of promotion you were running regarding the Gold account in January.

[4Mbps Gold Uncapped Promotion] - R 589.00 Monthly

That is what appears on my statement. I am sure you can appreciate that it gives me no reason to have expected anything less than the standard Gold account at a discounted rate.
 
Mr Beep, I have clarified with your support people that I (and anyone else that took out the January Gold promotion) is not on the 'original' Gold account.

"You are on a promotional Gold package, not the original. Unless the promotion specifically states Original, it is not the original." - your email support team.

'Original' did not come into it, at that time you were only offering one type of Gold Uncapped service (apart from the Unshaped one) so there was no reason to look for 'original'.

You had one Gold uncapped service on offer, and a promotion for Gold uncapped. Same name, one expects the same service - unless explicitly told otherwise which your advert did not do.

How would you as a consumer feel about paying a special promotional rate of 50% off for a Big Mac then finding one of the beef patties missing? And them telling you 'oh, but that was a promotional Big Mac'? And 'oh, you should have asked for the ORIGINAL Big Mac!'

I have spent the last 5 months thinking I was getting a discounted rate on a particular service when in fact I was receiving a watered down version of that service under the same name.

I am assuming an oversight about the confusion you are creating with this approach rather than any willful attempt to mislead. I have therefore asked your support team to continue with their efforts to bring my account into a respectable state.

However, I have visited 2 family members today during business hours, both of whom are running 1Mb MWeb accounts and have been in complete awe of the responsiveness I am getting in RDP/DameWare sessions. And they are paying third of what I am.

I wait in hope.
 
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The R589 account is not the Original Gold product for R738. This is why it is called the 4Mbps Gold Uncapped Promotion.

It is not vastly different from the Original Gold, but does have a slightly higher contention ratio. It still falls within the Gold profile, thus it bears the title.

I do believe nowhere did we promise you an Original Gold product. If we did, please send me the screenshots and similar so that we can correct your account.

If you are experiencing support issues, please PM me your username so that I can take a look at the account.

JohnRambo said:
Mr Beep, I have clarified with your support people that I (and anyone else that took out the January Gold promotion) is not on the 'original' Gold account.

"You are on a promotional Gold package, not the original. Unless the promotion specifically states Original, it is not the original." - your email support team.

'Original' did not come into it, at that time you were only offering one type of Gold Uncapped service (apart from the Unshaped one) so there was no reason to look for 'original'.

You had one Gold uncapped service on offer, and a promotion for Gold uncapped. Same name, one expects the same service - unless explicitly told otherwise which your advert did not do.

How would you as a consumer feel about paying a special promotional rate of 50% off for a Big Mac then finding one of the beef patties missing? And them telling you 'oh, but that was a promotional Big Mac'? And 'oh, you should have asked for the ORIGINAL Big Mac!'

I have spent the last 5 months thinking I was getting a discounted rate on a particular service when in fact I was receiving a watered down version of that service under the same name.

I am assuming an oversight about the confusion you are creating with this approach rather than any willful attempt to mislead. I have therefore asked your support team to continue with their efforts to bring my account into a respectable state.

However, I have visited 2 family members today during business hours, both of whom are running 1Mb MWeb accounts and have been in complete awe of the responsiveness I am getting in RDP/DameWare sessions. And they are paying third of what I am.

I wait in hope.
Click to expand...
 
Sorry Mr Beep, but you are just wrong about this.

4Mbps Gold Uncapped Promotion to any normal consumer means Gold Uncapped at a promotional rate and as a someone with a background in corporation regulation compliance in my native, UK, please be assured that any regulator would take the same view. You are not under those regulations but I would assume you would want to adopt a clearer product labelling policy due to customer care concerns.

You are basing your argument on the term "Original Gold" as if it were a noun, but it is not - the product is called "Gold Uncapped", you are were running a Gold Uncapped Promotion.

Even in the adjective sense, the term original Gold was not relevant until the Gold Uncapped Orange Edition page went up several weeks afterwards.

Accept the feedback and drop the silly semantic justifications for shoddy labelling/comunication.
 
Gosh, I have to agree with John, its very confusing naming. I was planning on getting an uncapped gold promotion thinking I would be getting Uncapped Gold on promotion, but now see its a variation of the product, not the same thing! Very disturbing news and not what I think of when I see promotion. Where are the exact specs for what you are actually getting?
 
rdm said:
Gosh, I have to agree with John, its very confusing naming. I was planning on getting an uncapped gold promotion thinking I would be getting Uncapped Gold on promotion, but now see its a variation of the product, not the same thing! Very disturbing news and not what I think of when I see promotion. Where are the exact specs for what you are actually getting?
Click to expand...

Join Date
Jan 2004

Posts: 1

:confused:
 
Uhm....not to pick sides or anything, but I was also under the impression that I had the "Original" Gold uncapped. I took the 6mb promotion in January. I can't complain about line quality or support though, it is pretty much flying based on what I use it for and the support has always been top notch. Can't help to feel kind of stupid right now though....not sure if I should congratulate you on that piece of marketing or what because you definitely had me.

MrBEEP said:
The R589 account is not the Original Gold product for R738. This is why it is called the 4Mbps Gold Uncapped Promotion.

It is not vastly different from the Original Gold, but does have a slightly higher contention ratio. It still falls within the Gold profile, thus it bears the title.

I do believe nowhere did we promise you an Original Gold product. If we did, please send me the screenshots and similar so that we can correct your account.

If you are experiencing support issues, please PM me your username so that I can take a look at the account.
Click to expand...
 
The best test of whether the variation will suit you, kindly email [email protected] so that we can offer you a complimentary trial account. Theorizing about this will not change the matter. We need to enable as many South Africans the right to get onto a Gold profile through attractive pricing. Gold is one of South Africa's fastest and most reliable premium products, and if we can tweak a few things to bring costs down to the client, we will do it. Trust me, I will not name something Gold unless I have faith in the product.

I am sorry you do not agree, however, I am not stopping the Gold promotional offers due to this disagreement. I'm afraid we also cannot afford to provide you the Original Gold product at the price point you are paying. Making a loss will unfortunately not be good business sense.

You are getting a Gold grade product, as explained earlier, paying almost R140 less per month. This is a true bargain, so to speak.

rdm said:
Gosh, I have to agree with John, its very confusing naming. I was planning on getting an uncapped gold promotion thinking I would be getting Uncapped Gold on promotion, but now see its a variation of the product, not the same thing! Very disturbing news and not what I think of when I see promotion. Where are the exact specs for what you are actually getting?
Click to expand...
 
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