Netsource - Have You Been Capped?

ShevY

Just want to gat idea of how many people this has happened to.

Kenshin

They are capping netsource now? wtf?
Why are they doing that?

STaN

??

How do you know you've been capped?

MrPinK

They are capping netsource now? wtf?
Why are they doing that?

It's not a cap. Apperently they've start throttling the top 10 heaviest users.

Kenshin

Originally posted by MrPinK
It's not a cap. Apperently they've start throttling the top 10 heaviest users.

How do you know about this?
I wonder how much those people download... Luckily, I'm nowhere near that list as I don't download that much...
Does the contract say they can do that?

MrPinK

Originally posted by Kenshin
How do you know about this?
I wonder how much those people download... Luckily, I'm nowhere near that list as I don't download that much...
Does the contract say they can do that?

Well I don't know it for certain. It was posted in the bad ping thread. Some ppl are saying that there d/l speeds won't go past 22Kb/s. The contract doesn't say that they can't. I'm guessing that any ISP would have a clause to give themselves the right to change the service if they have to

Blank

they dont contact u to tell u your speed has been throttled down, i thought it was my setup at first. But when i phoned them they told me netsource did it themselves because i was on their list of top ten downloaders for my area...

blorg

What sort of download quantities are we talking about Blank? (Or anyone else who has been throttled)?

DaithiSurfer

I heard they were going to do this ages ago but it died down when i posted it here.
They have broken their contract with you.
They have sold you 512 with 256 guaranteed based on LINE QUALITY not them CAPPING YOU.
Now they are giving you half the service you paid for.
They cannot do this.
You should call comreg, call netsource, tell them that you are not receiving the service you pay for and terminate your contract there and then on the spot.
This is now a worse service than any other provider.
All on Netsource should provisionally give their notice to quit if anything happens to their download speeds.
That will serve as your 2 months notice whether you do decide to quit in 2 months, 6 months or a year or not quit at all you have still given them their notice.
I think COMREG will make them back down here anyway if they have power over Netsource (don't know if they do) and if you bring it to their attention.

Mutant_Fruit

Yes you might THINK they have broken the contract by capping users at a lower download speed than the min they say they can supply (256) but did you check for another clause like the following. "Netsource reserve the right to change the terms of the contract at their discretion". I'm pretty sure even my IBB one has that clause on it. Also, check for one that says they can cap.

DaithiSurfer

I dont think they can change the terms of the contract without telling you first, whatever it says in the contract.
All give your notice in advance anyway. It can't do any harm to you but will keep net$ource on their toes. They will then be in a position wehere they can lose at the drop of a hat any customer 2 months from now.

blorg

Losing the heavy users might be in their best interest, they might not be too worried about this if it is only a small minority.

DaithiSurfer

The thing is though.
If you are not a heavy user (over 5 gigs a month) then you should not be on Netsource anyway.
You are just wasting your money with them if you download less than 5 gigs.

blorg

Sure, I'm thinking of 'heavy user' as a number far over this, perhaps over 30g/month, perhaps over 15g/month. In which case Netsource is still a good option for most people. It would just be nice to know what this number is.

I think it's obvious that the service can't be completely 'unlimited', it would just be nice to know what the reasonable limits are.

DaithiSurfer

Blorg,
I think you've got it in one there.
Netsource are changing their terms.
Even if the limit is now 15gigs, how are we to know that it wont be 3 in 2 months.l They've just proved that they will mess with customers if it suits them.
How can they be trusted now.
People will not stand for and shouldnt stand for another no limits Fiasco.

blorg

Unfortunately I think people may have to stand for it if there isn't any alternative. I'm sure they have an excessive use clause in there somewhere. Were you throttled yourself, Daithi? And if so, about what amount were you downloading? I think it would be a very useful contribution to the debate if someone could provide any sort of idea what amounts we are talking about...

100 gig?
30 gig?
10?

DaithiSurfer

I wasn't throttled mmyself, but my business paid for a particular service. If i pay for it i expect to get this service as should anyone else who pays for it.
The most i have ever downloaded is about 8 gigs a month. Usually though its around 5-6gigs.
I probably wont be effected by this action but i really do consider it unbusinesslike to do this to customers.
I'm a firm believer in 'You should get what you pay for.'
And this should apply to all.

PrecariousNuts

I believe I have been capped too. www.clubi.ie/bigfile.zip will not download at anything faster than 20.0kb/s. Now I do download a lot of stuff, especially from fileplanet etc. The planetside free trial was 1.4GB alone. I usually have something downloading every odd night.

Now I am very annoyed that netsource would do this as a lame measure to try sort things out. They made it an uncapped service so they should be able to cope with it. I would be more than happy if they had capped it officially instead of doing it on the sly. The only reason I download so much is that I feel that I should make the most of an uncapped service since that is what I'm paying for. If it was capped I would not have a problem with it.

Blank

I would say ive downloaded nearly 40 gigs in the first month I had netsource. I feel perfectly justifield with that figure seeming as this is what im paying for but having said that if i was given a chance by netsource they would see that would have been an exception.

Of course my downloads would be high the first month when its new to me but i dont see how its possible to keep that figure anywhere near that level again.

But if netsource dont change their ways ill never know will I?

blorg

Thanks for the info Blank, I'm not criticising, it's just useful to have an idea of what Netsource consider 'excessive'. Wasn't over 1gb/day what BT or NTL considered 'excessive' on their 'uncapped' service in the UK?

MrPinK

I didn't think they'd even be able to last this long without a cap. I think throttling is a far better idea than a cap tho, but what they really need to do is sort out an offical policy on it. Throttling for the remainer of the month once someone reaches 20gigs or something. Just doing it when they feel someone has d/led too much is not on.

ozmo

Originally posted by Blank
I would say ive downloaded nearly 40 gigs in the first month I had netsource.

Thanks for sharing that Blank - 40G is high - but if NS said there was no limit, then it is understandable. Hopefully its just til the end of the month for you
- I believe this is common practice in other European countries when you go over the limit - its still better than being charged per mb when you go over.

But NS should make the rules available for all to see.

Now the important question - Has anyone noticed an improvment in service since this new policy was implemented?

ozmo
(work istream user - still waiting for Netsource to be installed at home)

Blank

But NS should make the rules available for all to see

Absolulutely, i would certainly feel better if they had made some kind of anouncement. Maybe they wanted to test the water, see the reaction and the improvements - though so far ppl havent reported better pings, guess we`ll see tonught.

As for throttling instead of a cap? Well obviously id prefer neither but it is reasonable if the problems really cant be sorted and i would be willing to stick with netsource if the restrictions were reasonable.

If the limit was 5gigs before u get throttled for a month i wouldnt stick around.

DaithiSurfer

i can see already that epople are taking the line.
'ah sure they've done it now we cant do anything'.
If i was being throttled i'ld be kicking up blue murder.
Remember, you paid for a service and now you are getting half that service.
If you paid for 20 litres of petrol and only got 5 what would you do?

Anyone getting throttled, kick up.
Don't let them away with it.

Blank

but it looks like we also paid for that includes "we can change the service without telling you "clause. Either - contract or no contract that breaches our rights as a consumer or - tough pal there allowed do that and u agreed to it ya stupid son of a b*tch

Personally im hoping on the former...

spongebob

simple.

Eircom = Min 256k and Max 512k RADSL
ESAT = Min 256k and Max 512k RADSL
Netsource = Min 170k and Max 512k RADSL

not what you signed up to .

M

DaithiSurfer

I may be wrong, but i remember in my Law days at uni a statement like that doesnt mean ****.
They cant use it in court. its just there to fob people off.

²°°³webkev²°°³

I was given a 22kb cap too..
On the phone the representative told me that customers who had been calling up said they would definitely prefer download speeds to latency, can a happy medium not be found?

22kbs is too low, I cant even watch news on yahoo now which streams at 300kbps

guarantees on latency were never advertised.. a 512/128 unlimited service was advertised, and thats the reason i signed up and recommended it to so many people :mad: :rolleyes:

do i feel silly now..

Piliger

My speed is lmiited to about 47k by Netsource I am convinced, but after complaining a number of times I am delighted that they have throttled these insanely huge downloaders and my speeds can improve.
A non capped service doesn't mean that there will be no consequences for people who abuse that lack of a cap. I have urged them to throttle a number of times and it looks like they've listened .... wheeeee !!

d0gb0y

I got a reply to my cancellation email more bull**** & worst of all they try & sell me their SME product

Netsource are not imposing a cap on your downloads, you may still download
as much as you like at no extra cost.

The Soho service is the rate adaptive service which means the speeds will
vary between 256K downstream/ 512K Downstream, there is also a contention
ratio of 48:1 on the service.

I would advise moving to the SME service which has a contention ratio of
24:1 and a guaranteed speed of 512K downstream with no download cap for 89
euro a month.

If you are downloading a lot then the Soho service is not suitable for your
needs, if you move to another providers starter package you will have the
same speeds and contention ratios and as more users sign up for Broadband
the contention issue will get worse.

If you wish to go ahead and cancel the service then you will be subject to
the 60 days cancellation notice as there is still no cap on your downloads
and a will need written confirmation by fax or by post that you wish to
cancel the service.

utter crap

Blank

same old lie our same old point if contention is causing ppl to be stuck at 22 kb shouldnt everyone be stuck on 22 kb.

Mr Mojo Risin

Contention happens at the exchange. Your line is split there where one end goes to a voice switch, and the other gets chucked into a DSLAM. The DSLAM is plugged into a 512k ATM.
Up to 47 other people are plugged into the same DSLAM as you.
If you're lucky enough to be the only person on your exchange with RADSL, then great. If not, tough. If you don't like that, get a leased line with 1:1 contention ratio.

Bandwidth costs money. You pay a flat fee, your ISP pays per MB. If your (and by association, their) usage is astronomical, they get charged for it. Netsource are not going to calmly sit there and let you download as much as you want for a fixed fee while they fork out cash. They're in business to primarily to make money, not to facilitate leechers.

Supercell

Top 10 downloaders have restricted bandwidth, yet 11 people here claim to have such restrictions?

I do download a lot, more than i'm prepared to admit here, and don't see any such limitations being imposed.

Blank

mojo to clear this up for me how many users does it take to be sharing the same DSLAM as myself before one would expect to any kind of performance loss?

And as for netsource business difficulties, i dont work there, their problems shouldnt have to be my problems. If there service is having difficulites because of me they should talk to me about it dont u think? While u may have a point surely u cant agree with the treatment of there customers. Thats an important part of business after all

qwertyup

Not capped here, downloading at a health 52+ KB/s. However, only been on for a few weeks, so probably haven't had the chance to get capped.

Maybe I am wrong, but surely limiting some people's download speed will not actually improve the service for everyone else directly? Is the point to try and discourage heavy/continuous use of the service? Because there is no improvement to pings here at all with these measures.

It is worth remembering that even at 20Kb/s, you can get 51Gb in a month, especially if you've recently come off 56K land.

MrPinK

Originally posted by Piliger
My speed is lmiited to about 47k by Netsource I am convinced, but after complaining a number of times I am delighted that they have throttled these insanely huge downloaders and my speeds can improve.

If you're getting 47Kb/s then it's due to distance from the exchange or the quality of your line. It's RADSL after all.

mojo to clear this up for me how many users does it take to be sharing the same DSLAM as myself before one would expect to any kind of performance loss?

If more than 4 ppl are downloading at the same time then everybody starts taking a performance hit.

Maybe I am wrong, but surely limiting some people's download speed will not actually improve the service for everyone else directly? Is the point to try and discourage heavy/continuous use of the service? Because there is no improvement to pings here at all with these measures.

Limiting their bandwidth means less traffic will be going through their routers, which will mean less delay for the traffic passing through. There is a noticable improvement on latency, I don't usually average at 25ms to boards.ie at this time of the day.

Mr Mojo Risin

Originally posted by Blank
mojo to clear this up for me how many users does it take to be sharing the same DSLAM as myself before one would expect to any kind of performance loss?

MrPinK answered that one.

Originally posted by Blank

And as for netsource business difficulties, i dont work there, their problems shouldnt have to be my problems. If there service is having difficulites because of me they should talk to me about it dont u think? While u may have a point surely u cant agree with the treatment of there customers. Thats an important part of business after all

If they are having problems with users, they will take steps to remove the problem. Which they have done. They don't have to talk to you about anything. If you don't like it, go elsewhere, where they charge you money for excessive usage.
Customers are an important part of business, but if there are a (small) number of them driving you out of business, it's not unreasonable for netsource or any other company to take steps to protect themselves. I think that what they are doing/have done is completely reasonable.

(Note: I am not employed by Netsource, nor affiliated with them in any way. I am merely a happy customer)

DeVore

What IS unreasonable (and illegal) is to advertise something as uncapped and then change it to capped.

I've been out of the loop for a while but can someone confirm that NS were proclaiming No Limits and now suddenly are imposing limits and turfing people off and not dropping the price?

Can someone give me the headlines here?

Thanks,
DeV.

MrPinK

It's still not capped. You can still d/l as much as you like. What they have done is started throttling the really heavy users (over 30gig a month is what it seems so far) down to 170Kb/s or so. A lot of ISP's in other countries use throttling

ShevY

Some warning would have been nice

Mr Mojo Risin

Originally posted by DeVore
What IS unreasonable (and illegal) is to advertise something as uncapped and then change it to capped.

I've been out of the loop for a while but can someone confirm that NS were proclaiming No Limits and now suddenly are imposing limits and turfing people off and not dropping the price?

Can someone give me the headlines here?

Thanks,
DeV.

Netsource are throttling connections for excessive users. There is no cap involved.

The bottom line is this: RADSL is NOT guaranteed by any measure. Since there have been some serious abusers, Netsource have enforced a bandwidth throttle on the users eating the most bandwidth. You can still download as much as you want - they're not carging you any extra, nor are they enforcing a download allowance - it'll just take longer. Those of us who haven't abused the service still get the full whack (of a rate-adapted service, which can go up and down to 512k max).

d0gb0y

On Friday I came across a post from Blank(link for his post is at bottom of this post) saying that he had his bandwdith capped to 164kpbs so I checked mine & sure enough I was capped. From what Blank says in the Lagsource bad ping thread, Lagsource have capped the top downloaders on each exchange(not sure if they have set a figure yet). Sure enough I checked mine & i'm now limited to 164-176kpbs about 20k a second. I got on today to cancel my connection because of this and I got a reply where they denied capping my service & recommended me to switch to their SME product where I could download all I want. I'm in the process of doing a very long complaint to comreg about this since it is & was advertised as uncapped. Below is my reply from lagsource

Netsource are not imposing a cap on your downloads, you may still download
as much as you like at no extra cost.

The Soho service is the rate adaptive service which means the speeds will
vary between 256K downstream/ 512K Downstream, there is also a contention
ratio of 48:1 on the service.

I would advise moving to the SME service which has a contention ratio of
24:1 and a guaranteed speed of 512K downstream with no download cap for 89
euro a month.

If you are downloading a lot then the Soho service is not suitable for your
needs, if you move to another providers starter package you will have the
same speeds and contention ratios and as more users sign up for Broadband
the contention issue will get worse.

If you wish to go ahead and cancel the service then you will be subject to
the 60 days cancellation notice as there is still no cap on your downloads
and a will need written confirmation by fax or by post that you wish to
cancel the service.


Kind Regards,


Netsource – Your Internet Rippoff Partner

I think the poll was a good idea to see if they where targeting residential users & not business users but it seems that Lagsource is just as stupid when it comes to business clients.
So far from what I can make of it Lagsource are blaming it on contention ratio's which is kinda annoying as they are playing use for fools. I would also like to point out that pings are still very high after 7pm which was the problem in the first place so maybe they should cap the next level of downloaders. Prsonally I would prefer to be kicked from the service, maybe a nice letter like the nolimits one. Theres no way i'm paying for this connection for another 2 months if its only 164-176kpbs.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?threadid=109120&perpage=20&pagenumber=11

d0gb0y

Throttling = cap
It was also not mentioned when I signed up for the service.
Btw how can they judge whos an excessive user from 1 or 2 months, most people in Ireland have been stuck on 56k's for years so when they get broadband they go a bit mad for the first few months but after that it dies down as they have most of the things they want.

silent

you are not being caped, so your complaint has absolutely no point at all, your speed is simply lowered but still within your contract
did you really expect to download 40-50gigs each month and only pay the 12E extra on top of those offerings that are capped at 4/5gigs?

to be honest I am suprised it took them this long, I have been saying it to my work colleague who is on netsource to not download night&day

d0gb0y

Jebus what r u on define a cap = to limit
Throttling occurs in other countries after you reach a certain amount each month then for the rest of the month u have lower speeds that would be acceptable if it had been in the contract. What they have done to me & the other users who have been CAPPED is taken nearly 2/3rds of my bandwidth period. Thats a cap and a very unreasonable one in my opinion since they didn't even inform me or give me the option to back out of the contract. Btw I don't download 40-50gb's every month, i'd say i've downloaded 55gb's since I started with them thats 3 months so do a little maths.

PrecariousNuts

I agree throttling does = cap. They can throttle you and define how much you are able to download per month.

There is no such thing as excessive downloading on an uncapped service. If they thought 50 gigs a month was excessive for people to be downloading then they would have capped the service at that would they have not? If they can't live up to their claim for uncapped broadband it's their problem. They should not have to resort to slyly throttling heavy users without any sort of warning.

STaN

Originally posted by Mr Mojo Risin
Contention happens at the exchange. Your line is split there where one end goes to a voice switch, and the other gets chucked into a DSLAM. The DSLAM is plugged into a 512k ATM.
Up to 47 other people are plugged into the same DSLAM as you.
If you're lucky enough to be the only person on your exchange with RADSL, then great. If not, tough. If you don't like that, get a leased line with 1:1 contention ratio.

Bandwidth costs money. You pay a flat fee, your ISP pays per MB. If your (and by association, their) usage is astronomical, they get charged for it. Netsource are not going to calmly sit there and let you download as much as you want for a fixed fee while they fork out cash. They're in business to primarily to make money, not to facilitate leechers.

Thats not entirely true

search for contention threads

KILLER.BEE

well i am going to NS soon ..but i tell you one if they start throttling me i will throttl my bank ACC dam sounds like a NOLIMITS thing again boys

Supercell

Originally posted by MrPinK
It's still not capped. You can still d/l as much as you like. What they have done is started throttling the really heavy users (over 30gig a month is what it seems so far) down to 170Kb/s or so. A lot of ISP's in other countries use throttling

The "cap" is a LOT higher than 30gb (if there is one and not just radsl being radsl).

Diabolus

In my first month i downloaded roughly 20 Gigs. I know this because i had merely 20 Gigs free on my drive. I too am "capped" by these lovely people. I bought 2 extra 120 Gig drives especially to download onto over the coming months as i had planned to stay with this great 52k per sec service.

But as far as i can see Netsource have not a leg to stand on.
They're idea of "throttling" excessive users who pay what they do to d/l all they like seems to be misguided if not illegal. I'm sure they have the famous "we can change whatever we like so ha!" in their contracts.

"IOL NoLimits" did what they did legally. Netfarce it seems has broken the original contract and is therefore liable to see themselves in a very negotiable position. I say all capped users and all those against the capping idea speak up. Get a full thread for people for moving against Netfarce and Get onto the proper commision about this insult to the people who pay €63 Euro a month to their false connection.

flamegrill

From my communications with netsource about the current choke on bandwidth is that the throttling is a temporary measure until eircom get their finger out and connect more bandy up to netsource.

Netsource don't have a lack of it, merely a lack of alotted bandwidth for this particular application. From what I've gather talking to people in there, they have 2 main links which are STM1's which we all know are 155mbit/s links. More than enough to do thousands and thousands of users on RADSL ***

By the end of this week things should be looking up, lets hang on and see shall we?

Paul