Vodafone (UK) 'fair usage' sting

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cokemaster

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#18146 29-Dec-2007 20:39

I guess thats an expensive reminder to read the terms and conditions... I wonder if there is a OCED rating for shock bills

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#102207 29-Dec-2007 21:24

The guys was dumb.

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#102209 29-Dec-2007 21:38

I recall reading a couple of weeks ago about a Canadian guy who clocked up a bill of similair proportions .

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#102210 29-Dec-2007 21:40

hmmmm downloading tv shows eh?

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#102211 29-Dec-2007 21:40

Yep, same thing: dumb.

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#102217 29-Dec-2007 23:00

Can short of a 6 pack

paulchinnz

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#102223 29-Dec-2007 23:45

Processor short of a quad-core?

He does make a reasonable point though, I'm surprised too that "by the time our systems flagged anything up he had already racked up a massive bill": is it so difficult for an automated email to be sent ("This is an automated message from XXX to let you know that you have used more than 80 per cent of the monthly high-speed allowance") out after 1GB or something had been moved ... I mean, he's not going to be the last poor noob to do it, and it's probably in Vodafone's interests to make sure it doesn't happen because, as seems likely in this situation, they ain't going to see much of that 30k ... wonder what readings he was getting off speedtest.net?!

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cokemaster

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#102228 30-Dec-2007 00:07

paulchinnz:

He does make a reasonable point though, I'm surprised too that "by the time our systems flagged anything up he had already racked up a massive bill": is it so difficult for an automated email to be sent ("This is an automated message from XXX to let you know that you have used more than 80 per cent of the monthly high-speed allowance") out after 1GB or something had been moved ... I mean, he's not going to be the last poor noob to do it, and it's probably in Vodafone's interests to make sure it doesn't happen because, as seems likely in this situation, they ain't going to see much of that 30k ... wonder what readings he was getting off speedtest.net?!

The thing is that in many instances, most data sessions are not billed in real time. They usually are counted after a delayed period of time or at the conclusion of the data session.

Given that he was using the mobile as a modem, its entirely possible for him to pull massive amounts of information within a short period of time... which if usage alerts had been put in place, they would have been generated far too late - particularly when you consider that the plan had a 125MB limit.

I know that with both mobile data providers here, it would take a while before data sessions would appear on the portals (MYA and 'your telecom' portal) and the data alerts are not generated straight away.

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#102250 30-Dec-2007 09:50

cokemaster:
I know that with both mobile data providers here, it would take a while before data sessions would appear on the portals (MYA and 'your telecom' portal) and the data alerts are not generated straight away.

It's just poor BSS design by the telcos here that makes it slow. There is no reason it has to be that slow - they could have it update within 10 minutes of traffic on the air if they wanted to.

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#102307 30-Dec-2007 15:59

PenultimateHop:
It's just poor BSS design by the telcos here that makes it slow. There is no reason it has to be that slow - they could have it update within 10 minutes of traffic on the air if they wanted to.

Perhaps the ISPs would like to respond to this one: how long does it take (e.g. average or a range) for data traffic to be counted? My Xnet Usage Monitor seems reasonably responsive, although I've never taken a stopwatch to it: has anyone?

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#102317 30-Dec-2007 17:45

paulchinnz:
Perhaps the ISPs would like to respond to this one: how long does it take (e.g. average or a range) for data traffic to be counted? My Xnet Usage Monitor seems reasonably responsive, although I've never taken a stopwatch to it: has anyone?

Not speaking for an ISP here, but it really depends on how the usage is being metered:

IMS Charging interface
RADIUS (or Diameter) off a BRAS/BNG
Flow based statistics off the BRAS or upstream router or network probe
Proprietry mechanisms (e.g. Juniper SDX)

All of these vary from instant, to slightly delayed, to very delayed. For most usage it will be collected directly via RADIUS giving a summary total of octets in each direction. Since Xnet differentiates local/domestic/international traffic (afaik) they would then probably use either flow accounting (netflow/cflow/jflow); or perhaps class based accounting on the BRAS reported via RADIUS.

RADIUS depends heavily on the performance of the BRAS and the backend RADIUS infrastructure as to how many transactions per second it can handle; and thus your interim time. Typically this is 15 - 60 minutes, then any other backend overhead to get it to the usage meter, if the usage meter doesn't query it in real time out of the storage db.

In the case of a flow analysis, you would have to wait for the flow collection period to end (say, 5 minutes), the flows to be analysed (say 2-3 minutes), then associated with each subscriber and tallies written to the database. This might take 15 minutes.

You could get it as low as say 2-3 minutes but it's expensive; 20 to 30 minutes is reasonably practical for moderate numbers of subscribers (say less than 1 million).

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#103745 9-Jan-2008 09:48

"Few customers exceed the fair usage. But it seems clear Ian has run up these charges legitimately."

lol

Ah well, I'm sure Ian is not the only one who is hoping mobile broadband prices are going to come way down....

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