Is ADSL download limits the way to go?

pepsiman

I'm not sure if it belongs in here, but I'll give it a go.

As a Norwegian I [try to] follow what's going on back in Norway. On Tuesday the incumbent operator Telenor launched residental ADSL subscriptions with download caps, in addition to their existing three uncapped offerings.

Now, that's nothing new for us in Ireland with Eircom's ADSL offerings. What is different is that Telenor won't charge extra for those who go over the limit. Instead, they lower the download speed to ISDN speed, i.e. 64kbps for the remainder of the month.

Their new package has 704kbps downstream and 128kbps up with a 1gb cap, costing € 47 (retail price, inc. VAT). You can buy extra download with 5gb packs for an extra € 14 per pack/month. For € 7 (seven) per month you get unlimited download between 1am and 9am any day. A DIY installation pack with a 12 month contract will cost you € 34. Either a PSTN or an ISDN line is required.

Other telecom "experts" claim that the current ADSL setup, with unlimited download, will disappear as it's not economically sound to keep them. A couple of years ago, a company tried to offer flat rate access (PSTN and ISDN) but had to throw in the towel as it was a money drain.

What is interesting is a comment (to Norwegian online newspaper Digi.no) from a programmer working at the Norwegian software company Funcom, which some might know from the online game "Anarchy Online". He, Frank Stevenson, suggest that if a malicious user were to send UDP packets to someone on a capped ADSL line, these packets would eat from the download limit. Consider the following, he say: "-Sending a user a 1024 byte pack three times a second - which would be near un-noticable on an ADSL connection - would use up the download limit of that capped ADSL account in three days."

Others claim that the use of pop-up windows, for many an unwanted feature, also would contribute to use up their download limit. On Norwegian web sites the use of boards (large ads, 468x600 as one example) is on the increase and so is the size of these files (as more and more get on faster connections). "-And it's not ads just in the pop-up windows, these boards fills the pages as well." one say.

Now, what I really want to know is whether this should be seen as a problem. At least the comment from Mr Stevenson of Funcom.

I thought this might be of use, sorry for starting a new thread that might be seen as ot

You can read more (in English) on Telenor and its internet subsidiary Telenor Plus here: http://www.telenor.com/. It is interesting to see that Telenor define PSTN and ISDN as narrow-band, and ADSL and cable internet as "high-speed" (I believe Telenor define broadband as 2mbps and up. Most of the companies that offer 2mbps+ connections market these as "true broadband".)

/Thomas

MDR

v. useful stuff thanks ...

spongebob

hUM

Interesting because Norway is very like Ireland, 4m population, 25% in one main city and some very rural areas.

Were Eircom to offer what Telenor do here

Their new package has 704kbps downstream and 128kbps up with a 1gb cap, costing € 47 (retail price, inc. VAT). You can buy extra download with 5gb packs for an extra € 14 per pack/month.

You would THEREFORE have

1. A 50% faster download.
2. A 700% greater cap being:
1 x connection with 1Gb = €47
4 x 5Gb packs @€;14ea = €56

ALL this for €4 euros more than €ircom charges!

This calculation gives 21Gb a month for €103 which compares most unfavourably to the scum €ircom offering of 3Gb for €99

Why can an incumbent in a country with greater geographical / population dispersal problems than Ireland offer ~700% more for the same price I ask!!!!!!! If the ODTR hasn't asked this then why?

As for the installation cost!

M

pepsiman

Muck,

as for installation costs more similiar to the Eircom situation, where an engineer does the installation:

Installation with 12 month contract is € 134, and installation without any contract is € 268. Also, you need to buy an ethernet card for your computer as it doesn't come with the installation package.

A side note: A neat feature is that you enter your 8 digit phone number (area codes are no longer used in Norway) into a search form and it (sort of) instantly tells you whether your exchange is ADSL enabled.

/T

MDR

pepsiman,

check your pm messages please ...

spongebob

but at least Telenor TRUSTS its customers whereas our dear €ircon don't even trust their own wiring.

Most persons here (in the groups) would self install and can self install but are not allowed to!

M

Dustaz

Being completly honest, I think Capped hi-speed/broadband is the way to go. Whats open to debate is where the line is drawn.
Personally i think 1gb per month is too low for anyone using broadband. Limits of 5,10 and 20 would seem much more suitable. Thats just my takle on it. Whats not in doubt however, is that capped connections will become increasingly more common as time passes (its happening in bandwith-liberal america already).

Im actually quite suprised that Telenor's prices are that high. I Know one or two norweigans with dsl and they never used to pay that much for there connection.

pepsiman

Dustaz

A quick search on residental DSL offers from all 32 Norwegian DSL suppliers returned 35 results. The cheapest being € 41 per month for 300/64 ADSL from Smartcall ASA, and the dearest being € 720 per month for 2048/2048 SDSL from Aalesund.net.

You'll find the search thing here (in Norwegian though): http://www.dinside.no/ds/owa/BREDBAND.vis

As for capped bandwidth: There'll be a lot of people paying for bandwidth though... Web sites pay their host (and they their supplier) to upload their pages and files to their visitors, and the visitors pay their telco to download the same... :rolleyes: Oh, well...

/Thomas

irishguy

Other telecom "experts" claim that the current ADSL setup, with unlimited download, will disappear as it's not economically sound to keep them. A couple of years ago, a company tried to offer flat rate access (PSTN and ISDN) but had to throw in the towel as it was a money drain.

how is this so because dont the telcos buy lines with unlimited bandwith usage off companys such as worldcom ect??so it wouldnt really cost them much more.the idea of reducing ur line speed is a great idea better than charging per mb also there per mb charges are alot more reasonable than any irish ones only 1/4 of a cent per mb compaired to 3 pence from chorus and 3cent from eircon.but we are catching up, the cablenet service from chorus is a good offer with a 10gig limit 512 down 128 up and only for €50 thats what i pay for my powernet and i am very happy with it saves me a fortune and if they get there act togeather they can give eircon a run for there money, because there product is rock solid very reliable and it is never down for more that 12 hours [and never on a weekday] thank god for this because there customer service is crap [but improving]

Xian

Originally posted by Dustaz
Being completly honest, I think Capped hi-speed/broadband is the way to go. Whats open to debate is where the line is drawn.

No, what's open to debate is how overuse is handled.

Originally posted by pepsiman
What is different is that Telenor won't charge extra for those who go over the limit. Instead, they lower the download speed to ISDN speed, i.e. 64kbps for the remainder of the month.

This goes back to the post of fabien's: a static cap is unfair to the 95% of users who use the service within the limits of fair use. To say that downloading over 3Gb a month is unfair use is nonsense. Downloading 3Gb in one sustained session is unfair use and should be discouraged but that sort of traffic evenly spread over the course of a month wouldn't register as a blip on the performance of other users or the network and is therefore fair use. There should be a disincentive to overuse the service but pay-per-byte is no more cost or quality-of-service related than pay-per-minute is to dial-up users.

[edit]removed the contentious ISDN bit, as it's already been moved to another thread[/edit]

Dustaz

Off topic posts split to another thread.

Please discuss the basic thrust of the original post on this thread - The basic idea of capping.

STaN

i hate to say it but i agree with dustaz that unlimited bandwidth just wont happen for us for the forseeable future.

Personally i would be happy with something around the 8Gb mark because a person is bound to be using the internet to a greater degree than one did on cumbersome 56k. Filesharing and transfering is also another thing that would take off with widespread broadband and a limit of 3gigs is a bit to low and only offers in the region of 17 hours of 50kb/s transfers and spread over a month your going to be crossing the 3GB line a few days in if your anywhere near a moderate user.

byte

Originally posted by pepsiman
Now, that's nothing new for us in Ireland with Eircom's ADSL offerings. What is different is that Telenor won't charge extra for those who go over the limit. Instead, they lower the download speed to ISDN speed, i.e. 64kbps for the remainder of the month.

That's a good idea. Pity Eircon didn't do this. Tho at the moment I would be happy with unmetered ISDN or similar! Anything better than 28kbps!:rolleyes:

stormkeeper

That's what it's like over in Belgium. My friend has a dl limit on his cable connection, ie: when he reaches his limit, his connection slows. I like the idea