Capping and Reality and the Eircom official price

Dangger

Does any one have details of capping and how it is carried out by other telcos?

Is it the responsibility of the service provider to give a 3gb proximity warning? Should users not have the facility to check there traffic WITHOUT using 3rd party timers, eg an autoresponse to a traffic email query quoting a user name? I realise many feel that Internet traffic should be treated like a utility usually we can read our gas meter to get an idea of use of such a utility, and this meter is provided by the gas company. Many people will not be handy with 3rd party timers no matter how easy they are to use and so once again are wide open to the phone bill shocker.

The official info sent to I-Stream trialists quotes the following prices for the eircom i-stream solo package


eircom i-stream solo will cost (according to Eircom!)
€ 118.80 (IEP£ 93.56) per month,
€ 150 (IEP£ 118.14) for connection
€ 174 (IEP£ 137.04) for equipment
€443.80 (IEP £348.74) total for first month

Prices include VAT at 20%.

It only mentions in the terms of service about caps not in the actual product offering sheet. The terms of service sheet states:

"2.2 The Customer agrees to be bound by the monthly download allowance attaching to its chosen eircom i-stream product . In the event that Customer usage exceeds the download allowance attaching to its chosen eircom i-stream product, eircom may, without prejudice to its right to charge the Customer for the excess usage in accordance with the Regulations, request the Customer to select an alternative eircom i-stream product more appropriate to its usage."

b20uvkft6m5xwg

Some good issues raised there David.
The issue of having to use 3rd Party calculators definitlety needs to be clarified.

From my initial reading as well I would also express my concern @ the terms of Service section 2.2...
"2.2 The Customer agrees to be bound by the monthly download allowance attaching to its chosen eircom i-stream product . In the event that Customer usage exceeds the download allowance attaching to its chosen eircom i-stream product, eircom may, without prejudice to its right to charge the Customer for the excess usage in accordance with the Regulations, request the Customer to select an alternative eircom i-stream product more appropriate to its usage."

This sounds exactly like the €$at No Limits situation except €ircom are covering their arses. The request to the customer to select a more appropriate product is in effect a licence for €ircom to kick ppl off & tell they must use the higher spec products if they want to remain customers. This sounds remarkably like...We're kicking you off SNL but you can become an IOL Gold Member??

I'd like to know what others think of that term??

BTW...
Just another technical Q.-
I know its been thrashed about before but is there any technical reason for monthly capping? Is there a threat to the infrastructure or possible crash situation if there is none, or is it as I suspect...Simple Profitering??

[Just to point out to keep this thread tidy-Please post any tech responses here...http://iewebs.com/~dahamsta/wiki/]

Fergus2

I know its been thrashed about before but is there any technical reason for monthly capping? Is there a threat to the infrastructure or possible crash situation if there is none, or is it as I suspect...Simple Profitering??

If anyone is putting forward any such technical proof against pricing policies, can you please add them in here:

http://iewebs.com/~dahamsta/wiki/index.php?PricingCounterArguments

infomat

Originally posted by 80project.com
Some good issues raised there David.
The issue of having to use 3rd Party calculators definitlety needs to be clarified.

From my initial reading as well I would also express my concern @ the terms of Service section 2.2...
"2.2 The Customer agrees to be bound by the monthly download allowance attaching to its chosen eircom i-stream product . In the event that Customer usage exceeds the download allowance attaching to its chosen eircom i-stream product, eircom may, without prejudice to its right to charge the Customer for the excess usage in accordance with the Regulations, request the Customer to select an alternative eircom i-stream product more appropriate to its usage."

This sounds exactly like the €$at No Limits situation except €ircom are covering their arses. The request to the customer to select a more appropriate product is in effect a licence for €ircom to kick ppl off & tell they must use the higher spec products if they want to remain customers. This sounds remarkably like...We're kicking you off SNL but you can become an IOL Gold Member??

The more I see the worse it gets ... I too feel that this is very similar to the Esat situation.

I am also worried by how the throughput is actually measured and from past experience I very much doubt that Eircom will accept any claims based on the user's use of third party software.

NeilF

What annoys me most is how rigid the cap is. Let's say I only use 2GB one month, and 4GB the following month. Eircom will bill me for an extra thirty quid just because they can. Spirit of the service :rolleyes:

If the service is run like that I am happier with my nolimits because I know what I will pay at the end of the month. I might use nolimits a bit too much some months but it is balanced out by the months I use it infrequently. I'm happy to pay Esat £20 a month for the service and they are happy to take it.

I wouldn't mind the Eircom thing as part of some guidelines in an AUP. The biggest fear people have with the net is the cost. Eircom should just let people use it and if some are causing a problem to the point it is hurting their bottom line they should deal with them. I would rather get a polite letter asking I use the service less rather than a bill for twice what I expected. You should be allowed to go crazy the odd month or two.

ando

I have to be honest, but if I was an ISP just starting up a new service, like adsl, I would infact introduce a Cap, just like what eircom is doing. My reasons for this would be to limit the amount of bandwidth going through the servers so that no-one can abuse the bandwidth. Especially as it is only a new service, many ppl loggin onto adsl for the first time will be in a state of 'WOW, LOOK AT THE SPEED' and will be downloading like crasy not realising how much stress they are putting on the network. Over time I would increase the cap size if I had the equipment to handle the stress.

I work IT networking and often see companies 128Kbps ISDN line be dragged down by 1 or 2 users to somthing like 10Kbps. Eventually I'd have to install 'Bandwidth Capping' in order to take control of the situation. (BTW, at least 80% of internet traffic in companies is porn and funny mpegs/sites , especially on fridays )

I think eircom is doing the right thing introducing a cap (if I was them), but 3GB is a bit extreme, especially at the price of 100quid a month. But, I would expect eircom to relax their capping or pricing over time as Esat and COLT introduce their own DSL... all depends on wholesale price

Orcus

Originally posted by ando
I have to be honest, but if I was an ISP just starting up a new service, like adsl, I would infact introduce a Cap, just like what eircom is doing. My reasons for this would be to limit the amount of bandwidth going through the servers so that no-one can abuse the bandwidth. Especially as it is only a new service, many ppl loggin onto adsl for the first time will be in a state of 'WOW, LOOK AT THE SPEED' and will be downloading like crasy not realising how much stress they are putting on the network. Over time I would increase the cap size if I had the equipment to handle the stress.

I can understand some cap, but 3GB is very little and you know it is just an excuse for Eircom to get lots more money off people who aren't aware that they have gone over this very low cap.

Something like 15 - 20GB would be fair to make sure people aren't totally abusing the service, but you do know that the 3GB cap and per Mb billing after that is just a set up to rip the customers off and not a technical consideration.

No British DSL service has a cap like Eircoms, Kingston have said that if you go over 750MB a DAY you might be cut off, but that is really only if you are abusing the service continually and not if you just happen to go over it one day and you are not charged per Mb when you do go over it.

dahamsta

I work IT networking and often see companies 128Kbps ISDN line be dragged down by 1 or 2 users to somthing like 10Kbps. Eventually I'd have to install 'Bandwidth Capping' in order to take control of the situation. (BTW, at least 80% of internet traffic in companies is porn and funny mpegs/sites , especially on fridays )

Apparently - I don't know, I'm not an engineer - that doesn't happen by default, see here[ for an IrelandOffline members arguments against this. Whether it does or not by default, I do know that abuse can be handled technically, without caps.

Personally, I too have no particular objection to caps, as long as they're realistic and related to the price. Chorus set a precedent here that Eircom are trying to follow, but with pricing that is simply not in line for current standards for the product. They should not be allowed do this.

adam

hudson806

Apparently - I don't know, I'm not an engineer - that doesn't happen by default, see here[ for an IrelandOffline members arguments against this. Whether it does or not by default, I do know that abuse can be handled technically, without caps.

Since DSL connections are overbooked, there are plenty of good reasons to impose a d-l limit to avoid one or two people ruining the service for everybody by downloading all day, and its not really related to the price of Internet bandwidth, since the connection is choked before that stage.

I think there are less intrusive ways of forcing people to control themselves though - say a _much_ lower per-mb charge, that better reflects the cost of providing the service - maybe IEP3-4 per GB, or just a simple warning by snailmail to any user that goes mad downloading.

Dustaz

I agree with Hudson here (and the other posters supporting caps). I really have no problem with a realistic cap (even 10gb pm would be ok) as long as the price reflects this. Eircoms pricing for DSL is just WAY over the odds, and that is my main problem. Even with a 3gb cap and the charge thereafter I might be able to live with it if I wasnt paying one HUNDRED bloody pounds per month PLUS line rental.

kamobe

This has been mentioned before ....

But a reasonable price with a cap, or a higher price without the cap. Fact remains that what has been offered is not acceptable.

dahamsta

I agree with Hudson here (and the other posters supporting caps). I really have no problem with a realistic cap (even 10gb pm would be ok) as long as the price reflects this. Eircoms pricing for DSL is just WAY over the odds, and that is my main problem. Even with a 3gb cap and the charge thereafter I might be able to live with it if I wasnt paying one HUNDRED bloody pounds per month PLUS line rental.

I feel it has to be said that even with a 10GB cap, £100 per month is still totally unacceptable, the price is completely out of line with worldwide averages. If was just a conumer, I would be very disinclined to pay more than £30-40 for a service capped at 3GB, and I think even at that price the cap is too low. It defeats the entire purpose of broadband.

adam

E-Hub

i disagree with hubson, caps are just to make money, and its as simple as that,

there are many ways to prevent what your talking about from happening, like in the contrat it stateing that if you download, say 3 times the average monthly about of data a user downloads. your service can and will be cut off after stay 2 warnings,
this will stop people abusing the system, as you yourself said its not really about the costs of the service but trying to keep up QoS

ando

I think ppl saying that they won't purchase the service until we have £20 a month bills with no caps are simply being unrealistic. Sure, I'd love to pay £20 a month and have a no cap limit, but it just won't happen for another 1 or 2 years at least. Even though this technology has been around since the mid 90's, this IS a new product in Ireland commercially, and Eircom will advertise it as a technology that has just been invented, and will bill accordinally.

I must admit, a 3GB limit on an ADSL 512/128 connection is just being unreasonable. Either they are being VERY cautious about their network speed or they are just being selfish and arrogant. They seriously cannot be expecting the normal joe bloke to pay close to 100 quid a month for such a limit on the service. I would consider my dad to be a normal internet user, just wanting to check his email and surf the net every night or two, but even he was very hard to convince to pay £20 a month for the IOL nolimits... I can't see him paying 100quid for a faster but limited package.

Its like Eddie Jordan giving you one of his Formula 1 cars to keep, and only being allowed drive 100 feet in it, once a month.... ??

Eircom, please up the cap or drop the price... There is no way you can honestly expect ADSL to take off with such a limited service. History has been full with things like this.. TCP/IP is now the internet standard because it was the only one that was free and available to everyone... Microsoft are in serious threat of been passed by Linux.. a FREE Operating System.. none of these would of gotten anywhere if there was a large price tag attached to them...

sorry, i just had to add.. a 1 MEGABITE connection has a 6GB limit......... OH MY FU**ING GODDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD........... AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH ...

As someone else so nicely put it..... I-SCREAMMMM


ando

PiE

Question: If I left my "always on" connection always on, but not actually downloading anything, would I be breaking the "Spirit of the Service", so to speak?

chernobyl

Originally posted by PiE
Question: If I left my "always on" connection always on, but not actually downloading anything, would I be breaking the "Spirit of the Service", so to speak?

Thats what DSL is, so by just being connected no, but you leave you a$$ open to attack on other fronts [the script kiddy kind]

PiE

Bl3h to them.

qwertyup

Question: What happens if you got targetted with a crapload of spam, and went over your limit due to it.

I mean, not everyone knows how to stop incoming mail, let alone block specific addresses. Can you imagine coming home one day, only to find your jerk room-mate signed you up for hundreds of spam emails a day, and to see that as you've been recieving emails all day, you are now a 100 or more Mb over your limit.

Ok, so Eircom wont care, but this is just another reason I dont want a cap.

E-Hub

id just like to remind people, that many feel that bts prices for adsl are way over the top

Urban Weigl

Some weeks ago, there was an article in The Register which claimed that the cost of ADSL in the UK was the highest in the world. Well, now that we have Eircom launching it here, not anymore. Now the Brits can celibrate that they only have the second-highest price for ADSL in the world, after The Republic Of Ireland.

chernobyl

Originally posted by qwertyup
Question: What happens if you got targetted with a crapload of spam, and went over your limit due to it.

Can you imagine coming home one day, only to find your jerk room-mate signed you up for hundreds of spam emails a day, and to see that as you've been recieving emails all day, you are now a 100 or more Mb over your limit.

if you could prove that you were not at the computer when you were being spammed.
this would not apply for your *jerk roomate* scenario though, as you can police this kind of activity.
but if some guy on a t3 decided to flood you out of existence for a day and pushing you over the 3[uhh]Giger limit, then you must prove that you were not sitting at the computer during this.

Balfa

Originally posted by chernobyl


but if some guy on a t3 decided to flood you out of existence for a day and pushing you over the 3[uhh]Giger limit, then you must prove that you were not sitting at the computer during this.

Oh sure. And how is the average technophobic family user going to know that this is going on while they ARE sitting there using the internet, apart from it going slower than usual, which isn't the kind of symptom that would cause any of us to jump to suspicions that someone else is wasting their bandwidth.

chernobyl

peeps lack on IT intelligence is not Eircom problems.

Balfa

A point about capping:

Every vendor, including Eircom, advertises ADSL using a number of key points including:
A) Very fast speed!
Always-on connection!

So if i was to take them up on their offer, and purchase this ALWAYS-ON 512kbps connection and, say, i was to sit and use it all the time (after all, it is an ALWAYS-ON connection!) then, providing i want to stay within my 3GB download limit, i can get exactly 9,200 bits per second, every second, for the duration of the month.

Now, something just doesn't add up here. I know that 9,200bps modems were all the rage 10 years ago, but not today. doesn't this cap completely annihilate any of the benefits of ADSL?

Out the window goes streaming audio and video, and high-definition video on demand, which are further marketing points of ADSL vendors. Apparently it was also Eircom's intention to provide a video-on-demand package over ADSL to rival NTL's TV package, but with the news of this 3GB cap, they've kept unsurprisingly quiet about the possibilities of streaming video.

Balfa

Originally posted by chernobyl
peeps lack on IT intelligence is not Eircom problems.

FFS, it's nothing to do with a lack of intelligence. Just because people may not know as much about the internet as you, it doesn't mean they're not as intelligent as you... The fact is, you may have a very intelligent purpose who is unaccustomed to computers and the internet, and he or she may be completely unaware that such a threat even exists, and then come the end of the month they find they apparently owe Eircom over a grand.

chernobyl

Balfa i dont wanna start b|tching with you.:)

but i did say "lack of IT itelligence".

Balfa

more reasons why 512kbps, 3GB, and 1 month are mismatched:

1) as stated above, if i stay under 3GB for 1 whole month i get 9.2kbps

2) if i use the full theortical maximum of 512kbps nonstop for a whole 30-day month, then i end up going exactly 158,928MB over my 3GB limit, which ends up costing me (at 2.8p per MB) exactly £4449.98 on top of my £93.56 monthly fee.

3) if i use the full 512kbps while i use the internet, but choose to stay below the 3GB limit, then i must stop using the internet after 13 hrs 39 mins 11 secs, and wait for a further 29 and a half days for the next month so i can start again.


I'm sure there are other ways of pointing out just how bad this deal is (i haven't even taken into consideration the high monthly cost), but i'm all mathsed out for now


EDIT: btw, going by these figures, i think Eircom should advertise it as either always-on -or- very fast, but not both.

chernobyl

you are assuming that everything you do on the net with give you the full 64kbytes/sec down and 16kbytes/sec up [or did you take up stream into account?].


The cap is restrictive and it sux, but if you want better then move.

Balfa

once again, i scream TIERED PRICING

Let us look at a real world case where a multi-pricing-plan product WITH caps exists, and works well:

EIRCELL (excluding ready-to-go)

As you know, there are many different pricing options for Eircell. The people who rarely make calls from mobiles and just have them for the sake of handiness (like myself) use Eirtime 10.

Eirtime 10 costs £12 per month, and is capped to 10 minutes of talk time. Every second over this costs money.

Eirtime 50 costs £24 per month, and is capped to 50 minutes of talk time. Again, every second over this costs money.

The list goes all the way up to Eirtime 750 for people (usually a company phone) who make serious use of their phone, and are charged £144 a month but is capped at a whopping 750 minutes, and again every second over this costs, but at a slightly cheaper per-minute rate.

There are higher still options, for companies, such as Sharetime 1000, but you get the idea.

Now i'm not saying mobile phone call rates in Ireland are cheap, but at least they work. People in general aren't screaming about the ridiculous costs.


Eircom could take advice from Eircell and do the same sort of thing for ADSL, having say, a 1GB cap for £20 a month, and at the top end, a totally cap-less solution for a little over £100. In order for this to work, as it gets more expensive, the price-per megabyte over the cap should drop dramatically (certainly more so than Eircell) from about 2p per MB to 0.2p per MB. There can be even more variety if the do tiered bandwidth as well, offering say 64kkps at the bottom and 2Mbps at the top. Although, of course, i strongly disagree with capping, and i think the tiered product should be based completely on bandwidth, rather than cap.


On a similar point, Eircom, if you're looking for a marketing / product-branding manager, drop me an email and i'll send you my CV


PS - chernobyl, i did make the assumption that everything takes the full 64kBps, but didn't take upstream into account

Balfa

by the way, in my last post, i stated they could have a cap-less solution for over a hundred quid. I'd just like to mention i still think that's an outrageous price considering you can get cap-less ADSL in the rest of europe for £30 to £40, and even as cheap as £15 from AOL Germany.

E-Hub

been with eircell since before mobiles got going, have a special discontinued deal, 2 hours take time a month with one hour carry over, for £20,
so basically if i dont use all my tiem i can carry over up to 60 minutes, which i allmost allways do so i have 3hours talk time for £20 a month, kinda kicks the heel out of ready to go,

it just goes to show what telecoms operators charge and what it cost are two totaly diffent things, were no different then england, theres no need for caps, and as soon as a competitor like esat or colt offer a service without caps so will eircom

chernobyl

Eircom will force Esat to have a cap by charging Esat per mb that each Esat DSL user goes over 3GB.
Esat could only offer uncapeed DSL if they availed of LLU and that would only be viable in dublin, but Esat have no intentions of trying to put their hardware in Eircom Exchanges as they tried and failed before.

E-Hub

for what its worth, i agree, as pointed out with Friaco, once eircom provide a service they have to provide a wholesale one, but only under the same terms, I.E. if eircom bill eircom.net per mb, then they can legaly bill anyother isp per mb,
ITs the ADSL of what our 56k access is today, instead of per minute its per mb. with the exact same reason being used.

Lemming

Just a quick question folks ....

This (shocklingly pathetic) 3GB limit. Does that include both downstream AND upstream traffic? Or just down-stream traffic?

I'll throw in a little rant whilst I'm here

When Eircom allegedly revealed that it upped its limit from 1GB to 3GB because of the reaction on the boards, do they think that we should be grateful to them for being 'generous' and upping the limit to a whopping 3GB?

chernobyl

Its a transfers CAP, so download/upload.

3GB although to download it is huge, no matter what connection your on, it defreats the purpose of DSL as an "always on" connection, so you can leave it on for days and days without disconnecting and just browse when you like and because of its speed, download when you like.

SkepticOne

Originally posted by Lemming
When Eircom allegedly revealed that it upped its limit from 1GB to 3GB because of the reaction on the boards, do they think that we should be grateful to them for being 'generous' and upping the limit to a whopping 3GB?

The 1 GB limit was never officially announced. It was rumoured here and elsewhere. I heard about it independently from an eircom employee several months ago and I tend to believe it was true.

chernobyl

there was a 1GB limit on the trial users and it was assumed[logically] that this would be the cap when it retailed.

Son of Blam

Originally posted by chernobyl
there was a 1GB limit on the trial users and it was assumed[logically] that this would be the cap when it retailed.

There was no download cap/limit on the Eircom DSL trials. PHB, Renton, Kaids and a few other CS heads were all on it and downloaded loads of stuff. The trial was also free, so where would be the point in suddenly charging for over 1/3/whatever gigs downloaded?

-Son of Blam