Telkom Night Surfer / Soft Cap

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wonduhboy

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I've got a 10mb line with 50gig softcap through Telkom (Smarthome Premium)
My problem is my softcap is getting used way too quickly.

This how I use it:
7am - log into my FNB Connect account, use this throughout the day for normally use, no downloading.
10pm, switch over to Telkom account before going to sleep, normal usage.
All my downloads are scheduled to start at midnight and stop at 7am.

When I called Telkom now, they say I need to disconnect and reconnect after midnight in order for my night surfer data to be used, otherwise it will be off my softcap.

Surely this cant be right?
So I have to stay up till after midnight to end the session?
 
wonduhboy said:
So I have to stay up till after midnight to end the session?
Click to expand...
This has been debated in the past with ranger who says that it is not necessary to start a new session, I'm not convinced though given the note at the bottom of the ADSL usage report:

TI Sessions.jpg

I prefer to start and end a session within the nightsurfer time slot just to be sure which I can do using my routers scheduler (and still get my eight hours beauty sleep :))
 
MickZA said:
This has been debated in the past with ranger who says that it is not necessary to start a new session, I'm not convinced though given the note at the bottom of the ADSL usage report:

View attachment 185560

+1,

I prefer to start and end a session within the nightsurfer time slot just to be sure which I can do using my routers scheduler (and still get my eight hours beauty sleep :))
Click to expand...

I disconnect webafrica account at 11:55 and then reconnect telkom @12:05. Then in the morning I switch back.
Being going good.

I also schedule a PPPOE to dial telkom account. So I sleep away for work.
 
Last edited:
I bring up my Telkom account at 23:55, and downloads start as 00:01. Downloads stop at 06:59 and Telkom account is disabled at 07:05. I moved to this approach about 2 months ago, and it works fine - and i maximise the download time :-)
This account is ONLY used for my media server... all my other surfing goes through my Vox account that is on the router and is on permanently.

I just checked my TI account - I am using the 10gb account, and my usage for Jan so far is 1%.
(My actual downloads is on 447gb.)
 
So it then seems I'll have to do something similar and start my telkom account/session after 23.59, because it's definitely eating into my softcap in the current way.
Is there a way to automate this process?
 
MickZA said:
First check that this is the case by comparing the TI usage percent - https://secure.telkomsa.net/titracker/servlet/LoginServlet

... with your actual usage - http://userstats.adsl.saix.net/
Click to expand...

So TI usage is:

Night Surfer Social Networking and Education do Gaming
Status Active Active Inactive
Usage 273.8281 GB 1.6387 GB 0.0 GB

and SAIX is:

Sessions =39, Online Time (Seconds)= 1418116, Upload (Bytes)= 8 352 071 871, Download (Bytes) =349 784 401 301, Combined (Bytes) = 358 136 473 172


So I'm not sure what this means?
 
wonduhboy said:
I've got a 10mb line with 50gig softcap through Telkom (Smarthome Premium)
My problem is my softcap is getting used way too quickly.

This how I use it:
7am - log into my FNB Connect account, use this throughout the day for normally use, no downloading.
10pm, switch over to Telkom account before going to sleep, normal usage.
All my downloads are scheduled to start at midnight and stop at 7am.

When I called Telkom now, they say I need to disconnect and reconnect after midnight in order for my night surfer data to be used, otherwise it will be off my softcap.

Surely this cant be right?
So I have to stay up till after midnight to end the session?
Click to expand...

complete BS if other isp's can switch between accounts automatically successfully why cant they do it?
 
MickZA said:
:D means nightsurfer is working - you've done around 350GB on a 50GB account.
Click to expand...

haha, thanks.
I know it's working, for the most part. But seems like part of my midnight-7am usage is coming off my softcap still
 
wonduhboy said:
haha, thanks.
I know it's working, for the most part. But seems like part of my midnight-7am usage is coming off my softcap still
Click to expand...
I suspect it's the fact that the TI 50+50 promo where you where getting 100GB softcap ended in December so your softcap has been halved this month that has got you worried.

... scared a couple of my clients as well.
 
MickZA said:
I suspect it's the fact that the TI 50+50 promo where you where getting 100GB softcap ended in December so your softcap has been halved this month that has got you worried.

... scared a couple of my clients as well.
Click to expand...

i thought the night surfer was uncapped? or is there some people that have a softcap and others uncapped night surfer?
 
MickZA said:
I suspect it's the fact that the TI 50+50 promo where you where getting 100GB softcap ended in December so your softcap has been halved this month that has got you worried.

... scared a couple of my clients as well.
Click to expand...

Not really, I knew about the 50+50.
What worries me is that most of the day I use my FNBConnect account, and my TI account only from 10pm - 7am, and 50gb is gone in 22 days...
 
wonduhboy said:
Not really, I knew about the 50+50.
What worries me is that most of the day I use my FNBConnect account, and my TI account only from 10pm - 7am, and 50gb is gone in 22 days...
Click to expand...
You can move quite a few gigs in 44 hours on a 10MB line, suggest you start scheduling your TI session within nightsurfer by some means, I use an IPCop firewall/router but that's an overkill for your requirements.
 
zahpat said:
i thought the night surfer was uncapped? or is there some people that have a softcap and others uncapped night surfer?
Click to expand...
Nightsurfer free GBs applies to both TI Softcap and Uncapped accounts (I believe TI Mobile also features nightsurfer).
 
MickZA said:
You can move quite a few gigs in 44 hours on a 10MB line, suggest you start scheduling your TI session within nightsurfer by some means, I use an IPCop firewall/router but that's an overkill for your requirements.
Click to expand...

thanks for the advice.
That's what I'm looking for - an easy way to automate the changeover to TI at 12.05am
 
I'm just going to chime in here. I've never had issues with Night Surfer coming off my cap. I schedule downloads from 00:30 to 06:30 to be totally safe. I have never needed to create a new sessions, the account stays connected the entire time.
 
DrJohnZoidberg said:
I'm just going to chime in here. I've never had issues with Night Surfer coming off my cap. I schedule downloads from 00:30 to 06:30 to be totally safe. I have never needed to create a new sessions, the account stays connected the entire time.
Click to expand...
Confirms what ranger said. OP needs to discover what's chowing data during that 22:00 to 23:59 period.
 
What apps do you use to download with? Most torrent & nzb clients include a scheduler so you can set them to start at 00:05 and finish at 07:00. Also make sure your pc time is synced to a ntp server (I use the saix ones) just to be sure your time is accurate.

Not sure how your router is configured but you could set it to bridged mode with the fnb account always on and then on your pc scheduled it to dialup pppoe session with your telkom account at 12:05 and disconnect at 07:00 and at those same times also scheduled it to start/stop whatev clients you use to download with.
 
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