IBB Trials - Conclusions:- 2Mb or 3Mb?

OldTitan

Guys, some market research with the 'Boardsters'.

Following the recent IBB trials, the technical teams are having difficulty with the QoS tools available to them.

IBB therefore needs some input as to preference:

Which is preferable?

2Mb for E40 plus VAT, no caps, or 3Mb for the same price, with a 1Gb per day data limit after which you rate limit down to say 256kbps for the rest of the day before it opens up again?

A 3Mb connection with rate limits when you exceed your daily allowance provides a fairer distribution of bandwidth.

IBB has to make a decision this week-end, so no matter whether you have an IBB connection or any other connection, your opinion counts please.

Thanks

OT

Ciaran500

I would have to go for the 2mb. Its not unusual that I would download 2gb+ files in a day. Then just browse/play games for the next few days.

optiplexgx270

2Mb Same as above


I think many customers would find the 3Mb line frustrating when they do actually go over the limit and i can see the call center being swamped with my line is going slow fix it or i will kill calls.

For games / browsing the visible difference between a 2mb / 3mb line is non existant.

And 1Gb is a bit low.

ozt9vdujny3srf

I'd say 3mb with 40gb per month limit. Would stop people sapping bandwidth while still giving a faster connection.

1gb a day is far too rigid, in my case for example I often download 2/3 gb in a day and yet only download about 6 gb overthe entire month.

Blaster99

I would go for 3Mbps with cap if the cap is a bit more flexible, like a weekly or bi-daily cap perhaps so that a sudden usage spike doesn't kill the performance. I'm a moderate user who values consistent performance so if there's any risk of losing speed I would go for a 2Mbps that delivers that performance all the time over a product that gives me 3Mbps a lot of the time but might give me 256kbps sometimes. I would pay extra for a 3Mbps service that delivers all the time.

Narcom

Would have to agree with the above and go with a reliable and transparent 2Mb service than 3Mb with strings attached.

The second option is open to ping pong accusation/counter claim between the customer and support and will likely lead to huge issues with customer service. And to be honest, customer service is one of the major failings with IBB, so this would only worsen the situation. To recap, a stable, reliable 2Mb is preferable.

Ciaran500

Not sure of the legalities of this but if you decide to change the service this drasticly (to the capped 3mb line) can we break our contract for free?

Steffano2002

Blaster99 wrote:

I would go for 3Mbps with cap if the cap is a bit more flexible, like a weekly or bi-daily cap perhaps so that a sudden usage spike doesn't kill the performance. I'm a moderate user who values consistent performance so if there's any risk of losing speed I would go for a 2Mbps that delivers that performance all the time over a product that gives me 3Mbps a lot of the time but might give me 256kbps sometimes. I would pay extra for a 3Mbps service that delivers all the time.

+1

Couldn't have said it better myself!

Drapper

2mb no CAPS.

Old Titan that would be best in my opinion.

But NTL are going to 3gb in the next 10 days !! and will be intoduing the 1 gb a day CAp

Infini

It would have to be 2MB. I'm on the NTL and it's quite simply too much of a headache to stick with a 1GB cap a day. Honesty I wouldn't mind paying a little extra if I could have the 3MB line for the same conditions as the 2MB.

Stark

I would say go with whatever provides the most reliable service.

I'd be more than happy with either. I'll take slowdown after 1GB over total cutoff after 250MB any day

spooky donkey

Oh the 2 meg connection with out a doubt and no limits there is no doubt im my mind. If i had already downloaded my 1 gig for the day with out realising and then realising i had an online game match later on in the day and being stuck with 256 would be a killer. I would take a 1 meg unlimited over the 3 meg 1gig anyday. Im not with NTL for a reason! NTL are the the 1gig cap boys. "30 gigs a month is loads" ..... famous last words. I think there is a world market for at least 5 coputers......

Are the contention ratios going to change?

Mutant_Fruit

I'd go for the 2 meg, uncapped (but assumably with QoS). Because 2 meg uncapped with QoS would still allow me to download more per day if i wanted it. Also, you have to remember one of IBB's main perks is the lack of cap. No limits is a very strong pull factor. If you introduce a cap (even though you don't charge for going over it) you remove this pull factor.

Then its up to people to decide if Smart would be a better option, as currently (afaik) smart are also offering an uncapped service, but with a "fair usage" policy attached. The only drawback on this is the insanely slow upload speed that comes with the 2meg download.

My usage can vary hugely. Over the last 3 days, i think i've downloaded about 20 megs (yes, 20 megabytes in 2-3 days ). But between 3 and 7 days ago i think i downloaded a fair few gigs each day. I found some live shows

To summerise: Two things but you ahead of the pack at the moment.
1) Lack of cap.
2) Symmetrical connection.

Don't lose those advantages.

Legion

Blaster99 wrote:

I would go for 3Mbps with cap if the cap is a bit more flexible, like a weekly or bi-daily cap perhaps so that a sudden usage spike doesn't kill the performance. I'm a moderate user who values consistent performance so if there's any risk of losing speed I would go for a 2Mbps that delivers that performance all the time over a product that gives me 3Mbps a lot of the time but might give me 256kbps sometimes. I would pay extra for a 3Mbps service that delivers all the time.

He's said it all for me really

Infini

Mutant_Fruit wrote:

To summerise: Two things but you ahead of the pack at the moment.
1) Lack of cap.
2) Symmetrical connection.

Don't lose those advantages.

Ditto. If you still have those advantages in a few months I'll probably switch from NTL to IBB.

Skud

I wouldn't mind the capped service of 3 megs... But how about a 2.5meg uncapped service? You still remain ahead of competitors in speed and download allowances Best of both worlds. I signed up for IBB first day because of its speed. Don't lose that. Got added bonus of uncapped thrown in. But I still think IBB should remain faster than most services. This is purely from a market point of view at least. Smart started it off you continue it. Market competitiveness. Most ppl will see a superior service in a 2.5meg offering and then the uncapped too. This will give you more new aspiring customers (and keep your exsiting ones)

optiplexgx270

2048/2048 IS a superior service 768K superior

For the €20 extra if i was looking to get a connection id go for IBB

1. They are semi establihed
2. I dont like the way smart want your eircom line signed over to them or get a second line in (I get LOADS of free eircom calls)

mag

3Mb with a 7Gb per week data limit

pete

Out of interest, how long would it take to download 1gigabyte @ 3Mb/sec?

(~45-50 minutes or so?)

I'd have to say I like the sound of 3Gb - and i mean that literally. I liked being able to say i had 1Mb symmetrical, compared to the 512k/128k DSL proles. Let's keep them braggin rights, guys. Sad? Sure, but 2Mb just won't cut it these days.

Not so keen on the strict 1Gb/day though... maybe if the rate limiting wasn't so severe... say 512Kb instead of 256Kb, or perhaps only implementing rate limiting where dictated by demand (ie necessary to ensure quality of service for all customers at that time)?

Also, will the 2Mb really be 'uncapped', or will the existing (somewhat unspoken) ~1Gb/day that's been mentioned in other threads be enforced?

padraigf

I'd say the 2meg no cap service sounds best to me. The problem is that it won't sound best to average joe... He'll just think its the exact same as his piss-poor eircom DSL.

*drools at the thought of 2048/2048 uncapped*

Mutant_Fruit

How about something like this.

2.5meg uncapped service, €40+VAT a month. With QoS enabled.

1) Its faster than the competetion. A bonus point for joe soap.
2) Same great price we currently pay.
3) Its still uncapped.
4) You can use your QoS to only limit people to 1/4 or at most 1/5th of their max speed when they've gone over X gigs a day, and the bandwidth is needed elsewhere. As soon as the bandwidth frees up, the person who was limited can use it again.

Whether that'd be easy to implement or not i don't know.But it seems to combine (roughly) the best of all the options being mentioned.

joolsveer

What I would like would be a service that would guarantee a minimum speed of 1Mbit with a cap of say 40GB per month. Over the last week I have had speeds as low as a 56Kb dialup on a number of occasions and I would like this situation to be remedied.
I am not really interested in the advertised maximum speed I am only concernedabout the actual download/upload speeds.

bonoman66

After having what's supposed to be an upgrade from 512 to 2Meg with IOL BB+ for the last few days in Celbridge I'd say -

A RELIABLE 2Meg connection (not one that swings all over the place depending on the hour of the day ) & No Cap at all as I easily could either knowingly or unknowingly exceed 1Gb a day at times depending on what I'm try to get etc.. Also the symmetic up would be bloody brilliant compared to the crappy 128K up I have at present. That would be good for €40 pm Ex VAT

I'd even willingly pay €55-60 pm Ex VAT for 3MB service that was symmetric, uncapped & RELIABLE - CONSISTENT etc..

puma5k

Blaster99 wrote:

I would go for 3Mbps with cap if the cap is a bit more flexible, like a weekly or bi-daily cap perhaps so that a sudden usage spike doesn't kill the performance. I'm a moderate user who values consistent performance so if there's any risk of losing speed I would go for a 2Mbps that delivers that performance all the time over a product that gives me 3Mbps a lot of the time but might give me 256kbps sometimes. I would pay extra for a 3Mbps service that delivers all the time.

-- I would agree with this to. Stable performance is better then an up and down connection. not gone the download cap.
We nearly crashed our college network before because of to much bandwidth usage in our downloads on a 30Mbps leased line! They didn't use QoS services that would have kept it stable
I am still waiting for IBB service to connect me but I hope it to be a good service.

On another note the BreezeACCESS VL Gear supports a maximum data transfer rate of 3Mbps. If in later months you plan to upgrade again to 4, 6Mbps due to Competition. I would see it more viable to have the connection to peak at 3Mbps but average around 1.2 to 2Mbps. This would make full use of the Equipment.

enigma_b17

I rekon 2mb with no caps would be the best, dont particulary want to check my how much ive dloaded every 5 seconds incase i go over the limit and my conn gets nerfed.

jesus_thats_gre

To be honest I think I have only ever downloaded more than 40 gigs in a month on one occassion. However, I do like having the option of being able to download more if I need to.

For IBB is the only "proper" supplier in the country and the lack of caps is the main reason. The fact that the service is symetrical is a massive deal also.

Would ye not consider leaving the 2 meg service as it is and offer the choice to move to 3 megs for a little extra a month with the same conditions as the 2 meg service.

Nevyn

2Mb for E40 plus VAT, no caps

Not everyone has thier broadband to them selves, ie there may be more then 1 pc in a household and the cap will be a right pain.

I think you will get bandwith hogs when someone gets their connection at first as they havent quite cottoned to the fact that they dont need to dl the whole interweb in thier first mnth. But the binge downloading stops eventually.

enigma_b17

thats a very good point, the cap would certainly hurt those ppl.

gsand

3mb with a 1gig a day cap actually made me snort

2mb no cap is far preferrable.

as mutant fruit said if you lose unlimited and same up/down speed(assymetrical)

you will be saying bye bye to a lot of customers i think.

sinkingfish

It’s often the case that a single download can exceed 1GB so with this in mind I reckon a 2mb no cap connection would be better. How frustrating would it be to be downloading say a 1.6 GB torrent of your fav homemade movie and then all of a sudden your rate drops to 256 when the file is 60% complete, stress!!

2mb, no caps.

julius

People dont like restrictions to be forced on them!!!

I would prefer a 1MBit with good service quality and no cap...rather than a 10MBit service with a 500MB a day CAP.

Im on iolBB+ so I know all too well of the misery of CAPS!!!!!!

julius

julius wrote:

rather than a 10MBit service with a 500MB a day CAP.

When has that ever happened? Having a 1GB cap is perfectly reasonable. The small percentage of bandwith hogs will be the only ones moaning. It allows everyone to have fair usage of their connection.

Mutant_Fruit

A 1 gig a day cap is less than some ISP's are already offering :P Didn't one of the ADSL resellers offer a 32 gig cap on their highest package?

Introducing caps would be a bad move from IBB. QoS tools are there to make sure everyone is getting a fair service. But they definately shouldn't be used to impose an artifical cap by limiting someone 24x7.

Random

Not with IBB yet but hoping to soon if you guys offer some free installs (it's the install costs killing me )

I'd say 3Mbit/3Mbit would be dam good, followed up by a (fairly relaxed) 1GB a day cap. By fairly relaxed I mean that you should have a bit of leeway each day and compare it to how much they've been downloading the few weeks previous etc. 1GB a day cap and then drop the speed to 1Mbit/1Mbit for the rest of the day seems perfectly acceptable to me aswell.

Random

Also, maybe offer an extra option of paying an extra E10(inc VAT) per month for unlimited downloads or something.....

Boston

I have to say the main attraction for me, would be the no cap. Going to a situation where I have to concern myself with daily caps would be a pain in the ass. I'd rather a 1mb constant service and unlimited rather then a daily cap. Simple reason being that I know that there will be days when such a cap will effect me, completely un avoidable, and I'm a user thats never exceeded his 16gig utv cap. Also thats going to be a pain in the arse for oyu guys to sell to people, complicates your product.

Lemming

I would be inclined to say uncapped over capped any day for two reasons. Consistency and reliability being one of them. The other is that whilst the practicalities of providing bandwidth (someone somewhere has to pay for it), part of the whole thing about broadband was not having to start "watching the clock" so to speak and this would equally apply to data transfer.

I've been with IBB over two years and have never really been a heavy downloader by any stretch of the imagination. But at the same time it's nice to know that I'm not going to get screwed when I decide to download a large file like an ISO image.

With that said, *IF* a cap were to be introduced with a high-bandwidth product in order to ensure decent throughput for users, I would be in favour of something that would be say, weekly, as opposed to daily. If someone maxes out a week's worth of data-transfer in two days then there is something seriously wrong and they're taking the piss and with no-one but themselves to blame. But at the same time, you're going to kill people trying to download things like new releases of *NIX distros with a daily 1GB cap. Granted, new releases aren't done everyday, but you should be seeing the argument I'm tryig to make.

Nephew

i have breeze 1mb nearly 6 weeks now and its been absolutely amazing.

i like the idea of a 3mb line but a 1 gig daily cap isn't winning me over, because on average i'm downloading 4gigs a week but the bulk of my downloading is usually over a couple of days so i'd be inclined to break the daily cap once or twice a week.

a 3mb line with a daily cap of 1.75 or 2 gigs would be more appealing to me.

Random

Cap it at something like 100GB a month? 90% of users won't go near this but it may lesson some concerns (mine anyway) about not having enough bandwidth.

Boston

With a 1 gig cap your taking about less then an hour a day where you will see full speed. So whats the bloody point of have a 3mb connection. On top of that I doubt all people could recieve 3mb, so they would be on something like 2mb but with a 1gig a day cap. Doesn't seem fair. No I don't like this at all, and if I was upgraded to this from a 1mb connection I'd ask to be downgraded again.

Mutant_Fruit

People, think of it this way.

3meg connection, with a 1 gig a day cap? Or a 2 meg connection with no cap. I think we all know which is preferable. Clock watching, or metre watching isnt what anyone wants. Thats why a lot of us moved to broadband, so we wouldn't have to watch the clock anymore. Why switch one constraint for another.

I'm all for limiting people who download 24x7. (Which can be me at times ) But i'm not in favour of caps in any way, shape or form.

Random

Mutant_Fruit wrote:

I'm all for limiting people who download 24x7. (Which can be me at times ) But i'm not in favour of caps in any way, shape or form.

Forgive me, but haven't you just contradicted yourself?

Boston

No, a one gig cap has nothing to do with people that download 24x7, an acceptable usage agreement is what would be used to deal with 24x7 downloaders.

Random

"i'm not in favour of caps in any way, shape or form."

"No, a one gig cap has nothing to do with people that download 24x7, an acceptable usage agreement is what would be used to deal with 24x7 downloaders."

an accept usage agreement (which limits usage) is a cap "in any way, shape or form".

Mutant_Fruit

Yup, gotta love those contradictions :rolleyes: In future, when i refer to caps, i mean download allowances. I dont like being told you can only download X GB a month.

QoS should only affect me if IBB are running low on bandwidth, and i'm a 24x7 downloader. If they do run low, i should be given lower priority, but as soon as bandwidth frees up, i should be allowed return to max speed. Thats the way QoS should work.

Thats the difference i see between caps and QoS. QoS is only temporary, caps are permanent.

EDIT: When i said "But i'm not in favour of caps in any way, shape or form." i meant it in the way that i don't like caps at all. There is no way you could get me to agree they are a good thing. I didn't mean it in the way that anything that limits your ability to download is bad.

enno

Narcom wrote:

And to be honest, customer service is one of the major failings with IBB, so this would only worsen the situation. To recap, a stable, reliable 2Mb is preferable.

I agree about the customer service.

I'd be happy with the 512k I'm paying for if they'd only stop dropping my packets when I'm using less than my contention-ratio share.

Random

@ Mutant_Fruit

Fair enough, seems I took you up completely wrong (or can we blame you? :P )

As for QoS I'll agree to that

enno

enno wrote:

... if they'd only stop dropping my packets ...

If they must drop packets, they could start with all those malware packets they insist on delivering!

Infini

Boston wrote:

No, a one gig cap has nothing to do with people that download 24x7, an acceptable usage agreement is what would be used to deal with 24x7 downloaders.

Or offering them their own private fibre optic line for E200 a month. Wonder if anyone will sell those in the future here.

OldTitan

OK, read the whole debate. The idea behind QoS /limiting 24/7 bandwidth is that we can offer a more stable service if we reduce the guys who are doing maximum downloads 24/7 during peak times. It gives the other users better service.

What I have seen above is:
a) totally against any form of a 'cap', but OK with QoS management
b) OK with a 'cap', but with greater flexibility.

Next debate, 2 scenarios:-
1) 3Mb symetric service replaces the 1Mb service, with 8Gb per week. Once you exceed that, you are rate limited to 1Mb. After a further 2Gb, you are ratelimited to 512kbps.
2) 3Mb symetric service. After 8Gb in a week you are ratelimited to 512kbps during peak hours, say 07h00 to 10h00 and after that you get full speed again till the next period commences. Assume each period starts on Friday at 18h00.

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