[Irish Broadband] impelemting net usage allowance

soreal

"Apologies for this interruption to your service


One of our key objectives it to continually improve the service that we deliver to our customers.
We aim to provide everyone with the same great broadband experience.

Over the last few weeks we have looked at the usage on our network, spoken to our customers and listened to their views.

What we discovered was that a small number of exceptionally heavy users are causing congestion and affecting the enjoyment of others.

To create an even playing field for our customers, we are implementing a upload/download allowance solution, giving all our customers the opportunity to maximize their broadband experience.

We set the allowance based on the fact that the vast majority of our customers, using the service on a daily basis, use below the allocated 10GB a month and will therefore never be affected by these changes.

We will contact you if you exceed this limit and also give you the option to upgrade your allowance.

Your usage stats will be made available through our My Account facility."


this is what i got this morning when i opened my browser... in respose i sent them the following email:

to:info@irishbroadband.ie

Dear Madam:

am writing to you in responce to the announcement i just read about implementing usage allowance on my ripwave BB.

if implemeting those measures is "To create an even playing field for our customers" you wouldn't have offered the option to upgrade the allowance. and hence its quite obvious that this is only a way to get more money out of your customers

I have to explain to you that the only reason am still with Irish broadband inspite of the availability of faster options under exactly the same price in the market is not having to worry about my net usage.. am sure am not the only one.

actually, being a student means i can get 1 mg line from O2 with even less than what am paying you at the moment for a (500k?) line with contention rate of 1:40.

as far as i know, you are the only ISP that does not implement net usage policy-so far.. IMHO this is one of your strongest points in the compitative communication market in ireland
please dont lose that wining ticket, along with your loyal customers who has been with you since the start of the service

best regards

me


if you are affected by this and think its unacceptable, please take the time to make them hear your voice...

also , if you can share with me any ideas, thoughts, or even alternatives in the market that will be highly appreciated

Cabaal

Is this for Rippwave, there ADSL packages or fixed wireless?

neGev

Ripwave, I'd imagine.

Does anyone know what happens if you exceed the monthly cap?

soreal

am a ripwave custumer on 528k , they offered me an upgrade a year ago to 1 mg but i refused because the upgrade comes with a one year contract
accourding to their site, and the message they force on my while browsing, there will be a 10gig cap on ripwave 1mgs, and 2 mgs
the message mention something about a chance to upgrade your allowance.
thier site says you can add an extra 10 gis for 3 euros excluding vat , i guess
if i understood correctly, the first 10 gigs is for both download and upload
the second is for download only..

not sure about what happens if u got above the the first 10 gigs, without buying the upgrade

MrVestek

You get rate limited to 10kbps. They're perfectly within their rights to do this and yes the measure is being put in place because about 10% of the users are currently using 90% of the bandwidth which is making the service horribly slow for the rest of the users.

soreal

well, am not sure where u got those 10%-90% figures, care to declare ur reference?

i have been with irish broadband since 2005, when every body was complaining about the service.
i didnt because i understand what it was, a 24/7 dialup quality bb with no strings attached, no caps, no contract.
IBB came long way since then. i have to confess that am very well satisfied with what am getting.. and i never suffered any unusual throttling

even with no cap, the speed of the service , and the contension rate of 1:40 are quite enough to keep the usuage under control.

neGev

Thanks for spouting the party line there, Achilles. Still, €20 per month for the terrible quality that IBB provide is bad enough, never mind this 10gb cap.

If i had a choice, I'd leave them in a second.

watty

It's generally true that ANY ISP that provides unmanaged connections that 80% to 95% of the traffic gets used by 5% to 10% of the customers. Most people never go near 1/2 a cap. Thus logically with a rolling cap (no end or begining of month spikes) the latency and speed will improve hugely for the vast majority of customers due to dramatic drop in contention. No matter who took over IBB, the cap free was bound to end. True contention free service is x100 cost on Wireless and only via LLU on DSL.

The introduct on this is because the quality is bad. It'll take a few months to to fully implement and see effect improve Ripwave from a <100kbps experience for many to a 250kbps + experience.

soreal

am not convinced by that view watty...

just for the sake of argument, logically speeking, under ripwave's operation conditions, the only way this 80-90 traffic can happen is because others are not using the connection all the time while some are.

correct me if am wrong but heavy trafficker or not, once online all will be treated the same.... no one is different, no one is taking any thing from any body... considering the usually expected customer usage patterns, WITH A CAP IT WILL STILL BE THE SAME

if u want to improve the service u reduce the contention rate, simple as that.
but no, reducing the contention rate means higher operation cost, while putting a cap means reducing those costs.

IBB's service is not bad at all. it actually improved over the past few months BEFORE the cap...
what use is the good speed if i cant use it because of the cap?
BB with a cap is not truly BB :rolleyes:

it was a sad day when the only no cap ISP changed their policy... there are now better options in the market...

MrVestek

soreal wrote: »

just for the sake of argument, logically speeking, under ripwave's operation conditions, the only way this 80-90 traffic can happen is because others are not using the connection all the time while some are.

I really don't think you understand how networks work. There are plenty of people on the Ripwave network who would be online and downloading smile files, the odd MP3 or email attatchments. It's a basic entry level broadband product, what more do you want? If you want a truely 1:1 connection with any ISP you'd be paying through your nose. And I don't mean the 1:1 connections that the likes of smart offer as they're not truely uncontended.

soreal wrote: »

correct me if am wrong but heavy trafficker or not, once online all will be treated the same.... no one is different, no one is taking any thing from any body... considering the usually expected customer usage patterns, WITH A CAP IT WILL STILL BE THE SAME

Again, you don't seem to understand how big networks work. There is a set amount of bandwidth in place for the entire Ripwave network. 10% of the users ARE taking up 90% of the bandwidth as it's a shared bandwidth service with a contention ratio of 40:1 but that just means what pipe your in. The network as a whole can't create bandwidth from nowhere... it has to come from somewhere. It doesn't matter what type of traffic either, ftp, irc, telnet, bittorrent, http etc etc it's all using data and that data has to come from somewhere.

Of course if torrenters are just constantly downloading then the service is going to degrade. The service *will* get better with a cap over time as the people who have been using the service for a purpose it wasn't designed for (heavy constant downloading) will get rate limited eventually causing their connection speeds to drop to 10Kb/sec meaning that they're not maxing out the bandwidth of another 40 users.

I'm not going to lie I download the odd torrent or TV series myself (shock horror) but I don't leave any of my servers constantly downloading 24/7 and I'm currently on a contract that's uncontended with *no* cap (thanks smart telecom) but I know from working within an ISP how crap heavy bandwidth usage can make a service for other users in an area (even though my connection is 1:1 I'm still taking bandwidth from the same switch / hub / router / deg that a neighbour would be connected to.

Erm... I hope I made that clear enough. Ohhh also where did I get those figures? Well... let's just say I'm very familiar with the company and how it works.

neGev

Achilles, seeing as you work or the company, perhaps you could answer this question. Why can IBB not regulate the cap during the peak hours - between midday and midnight - and disregard the cap during off-peak hours - between midnight and midday?

To clarify, if I download between 12:00 and 23.59, it counts towards the 10Gb cap, but if I download between 00:00 and 11:59, it does not. Personally, I have no problem with keeping heavy net usage to off-peak hours and have always tried to do so.

Actually, if anyone else feels they have a decent explanation why a system along these lines isn't used, feel free to wade in.

MrVestek

neGev wrote: »

Why can IBB not regulate the cap during the peak hours - between midday and midnight - and disregard the cap during off-peak hours - between midnight and midday?

Actually this system is already in place. The cap or rate limiting isn't in effect between the hours of 12:am and 6:am if I'm not mistaken (can't verify that correctly thought as I'm not in the office at the minute).

Wormking2002

from what i've heard, IBB have been bought over by imagine so maybe that has something to do with the changes....ie download limit etc...i might be changing as that was the only reason i stayed with IBB...the service was pants anway...., slow connection etc ..was using ripwave and it was crap...will actually suss out a decent connection if i have to pay more....dont mind ..internet in this country is a joke...developed country my arse!!!!!

Bros123

Achilles wrote: »

Actually this system is already in place. The cap or rate limiting isn't in effect between the hours of 12:am and 6:am if I'm not mistaken (can't verify that correctly thought as I'm not in the office at the minute).

Is that just for Ripwave or will Breeze be getting similiar??

MrVestek

Bros123 wrote: »

Is that just for Ripwave or will Breeze be getting similiar??

Just for Ripwave at the minute. The breeze network is quite stable at the minute bar the odd highsite issue with interference certain sites.

soreal

neGev wrote: »

Personally, I have no problem with keeping heavy net usage to off-peak hours and have always tried to do so.

this is exactly how i try to do it too..

Achilles wrote: »

Actually this system is already in place. The cap or rate limiting isn't in effect between the hours of 12:am and 6:am if I'm not mistaken (can't verify that correctly thought as I'm not in the office at the minute).

Achilles, if that is the case, dont u think that they should have included that in their aforementioned net cap announcement?

if you can verify that correctly that would be much appreciated.

p.s. i DO understand how a contention rate work..

neGev

Achilles, could you clarify whether or not net usage during off-peak hours counts towards the monthly cap?

neGev

Bump.

daffy_duc

All usage counts towards the cap.

soreal

that, or its an undeclared- non obliging policy

hong9651

i called last week to their custom service and has been told just ignor the message. there's no cap on usage as they're looking after the old cusomers. :)

thenightrider

They do seem to be looking out for there old cusomers ive got the dsl with them im paying for 3mb BB geting 6mb and its unlimited

soreal

considering that the previous two messages has been posted in october... and as much as i would love to believe that what hong9651 and thenightrider have said is true, here is what happened with me last month...
after the announcement, i kept getting good speeds up until the 20th of the month
afterward, the browsing speed has been significantly reduce except between 12 and 6 am, am assuming that this started once i used my net allowance
the service is now back to normal once november has began.

so i guess what achilles has said is exactly what IBB is doing.