At 4am you are battling with other users of bigtime, perhaps due to Telecom's plan design it had to increase the pipewidth to give all Big Time users full speed...
"And is this heavy use by BigTime users negatively affecting users on other plans, or just other BigTime users? If the problems are limited to BigTime users then I tend to think "so what"? If you don't like it, change plans."
Just look at what happened when it did happen a couple of months ago -> users got up in arms and said left right and centre that they're not happy with what they were promised.
The problem with 'fixing the glitch' is those who are determined to work around traffic management will simply continue to find new ways to get around it it seems, in the same way people get around DRM no matter what they do and as soon as someone works a way around it, they tend to share it around with people!
Hubchy: I wonder if it would be physically possible to download 'thousands of movies a month' on the Big Time plan. Possibly those who were lucky enough to now have ADSL 2 enable might but I still doubt this. Many who have found that they can't get beyond 1Mbs on Big Time (let alone Go Large) might be forgiven for wondering if Telecom aren't simply inventing (or at least exaggerating) tales of great greed. Why would they do this? Simply to increase revenue. They can see that no competitors have yet emerged to offer such a plan so they have decided to can it.
I, as well as many others here, know people who have hit 1TB. How they could need to do it consistently is beyond me, but it is easily achievable. Most I did in 1 day when I downloaded a COMPLETE backup of my family's photos and videos was 40GB, took about 10 hours IIRC, and that was started at about midday. At that rate, you could easily do 2TB in a month I reckon. Never heard anyone who claimed that much though!
10% big time users consume 80% data and Telecom decides to kick the other 90% people out of the game? It's not fair. I definitely will change the provider and I'm not going to pay ETF.
(I'm not sure about the figures but I presume it's the case. Most Big Time users only use 20-30G per month)
Detruire: If the problem is heavy users doing over 1TB, impose a limit of 500GB. (Once reached, shaped to at least 128k)
With a handful of exceptions what possible legitimate uses are there for a 500GB cap for a residential plan?
If Big Time was a $129 plan I think we'd still see it hanging around. The biggest problem was the fact it was simply priced far too cheaply for what it delivered.
At 4am you are battling with other users of bigtime, perhaps due to Telecom's plan design it had to increase the pipewidth to give all Big Time users full speed...
"And is this heavy use by BigTime users negatively affecting users on other plans, or just other BigTime users? If the problems are limited to BigTime users then I tend to think "so what"? If you don't like it, change plans."
Just look at what happened when it did happen a couple of months ago -> users got up in arms and said left right and centre that they're not happy with what they were promised.
The problem with 'fixing the glitch' is those who are determined to work around traffic management will simply continue to find new ways to get around it it seems, in the same way people get around DRM no matter what they do and as soon as someone works a way around it, they tend to share it around with people!
So instead of having some users pissed off with what they perceive as poor performance, they are going to scrap the whole thing which pisses everybody off!
I'm the first to admit I know very little about how traffic management works, but why not just change the rules to something simple and easier to manage? E.g. say in peak time all traffic is limited to 150KB/s (for example). They impose a similar rule to users who exceed their usage on regular plans, and people obviously aren't beating that system.
Because even at 150kB/sec you can do some serious amounts of transfer when left running all the time.
The internet has grown up far faster than NZs connectivity options have. Dont be angry at telecom, this is an industrywide problem with data caps that are well below what is needed for even a few HD youtubes a day, let alone someone getting lots of their entertainment content thru the connection.
At 4am you are battling with other users of bigtime, perhaps due to Telecom's plan design it had to increase the pipewidth to give all Big Time users full speed...
"And is this heavy use by BigTime users negatively affecting users on other plans, or just other BigTime users? If the problems are limited to BigTime users then I tend to think "so what"? If you don't like it, change plans."
Just look at what happened when it did happen a couple of months ago -> users got up in arms and said left right and centre that they're not happy with what they were promised.
The problem with 'fixing the glitch' is those who are determined to work around traffic management will simply continue to find new ways to get around it it seems, in the same way people get around DRM no matter what they do and as soon as someone works a way around it, they tend to share it around with people!
So instead of having some users pissed off with what they perceive as poor performance, they are going to scrap the whole thing which pisses everybody off!
I'm the first to admit I know very little about how traffic management works, but why not just change the rules to something simple and easier to manage? E.g. say in peak time all traffic is limited to 150KB/s (for example). They impose a similar rule to users who exceed their usage on regular plans, and people obviously aren't beating that system.
While I would love for Telecom to come out with a new plan along those lines, if they set a cap of 150KB/s during peak times I bet users would go out and use as much of that 150KB/s as possible, even 150KB/s sustained during peak time would be uneconomical for telecom. The problem with having some users pissed off is that I believe Telecom feel that is has a negative look on their reputation and public image - for example the big time thread.
(150kB/s sustained = 388GBs a month download, double that if upload is the same)
If Big Time was a $129 plan I think we'd still see it hanging around. The biggest problem was the fact it was simply priced far too cheaply for what it delivered.
I agree
I'll make a sweeping generalisation and say that many of the very high users are probably students and twenty somethings who can afford a $60 plan, but not a $130 plan. Possibly even many teens living at home with there parents happy to pay the $60. Most parents wouldn't pay $100+ though!
However, it would be difficult for telecom to justify increasing the price this much on a current plan.
I'd like to see them immediately take BigTime of their webpage and not allow any new signups. Then announced the plan will be fully discontinued in two months....
Then in 6 weeks announce a "new and improved" high usage plan at a higher price point.
If Big Time was a $129 plan I think we'd still see it hanging around. The biggest problem was the fact it was simply priced far too cheaply for what it delivered.
I agree
I'll make a sweeping generalisation and say that many of the very high users are probably students and twenty somethings who can afford a $60 plan, but not a $130 plan. Possibly even many teens living at home with there parents happy to pay the $60. Most parents wouldn't pay $100+ though!
However, it would be difficult for telecom to justify increasing the price this much on a current plan.
I'd like to see them immediately take BigTime of their webpage and not allow any new signups. Then announced the plan will be fully discontinued in two months....
Then in 6 weeks announce a "new and improved" high usage plan at a higher price point.
Yep, I live at home and pay for my phone line and internet, its going to be difficult to find a replacement plan that will meet my requirments.
I am picking that Telecom will be introducing a new plan or two (with larger caps) in the not too distant future.......or at the very least revising the data caps up on the existing plans.
daskip: They could have, you know, let me know? Surely even in a big firm like Telecom Retail the word would be out not to allow signups from a decent time before the switch.
How are they supposed to do this when it's only just been decided and then announced this morning? Did you even read the original post?
Ah, so you are saying they performed all the web site updates, got internal provisioning systems changed, etc etc all this morning huh? Like snap of the fingers and its magically there? Not how these changes happen. Internally they would be aware of the change.
richms: Because even at 150kB/sec you can do some serious amounts of transfer when left running all the time.
The internet has grown up far faster than NZs connectivity options have. Dont be angry at telecom, this is an industrywide problem with data caps that are well below what is needed for even a few HD youtubes a day, let alone someone getting lots of their entertainment content thru the connection.
I'm not mad at Telecom for not continuing a plan that is unsustainable, but give us an alternative that is sustainable. $60 for what they were offering was ridiculously low. Increase that up to $130 or even $150 (with maybe a little less shaping on web browsing) and suddenly they might have something that will work.
Obviously I'm not privy to the actual figures that Telecom is working with, but at one point they thought a $60 price point was sustainable - surely their calculations weren't so far off that $150 for the same product would also be unsustainable?
I am told that the reason the plan was pulled what that there was the wide spread use of tools that defeated the packet shaping technology that Telecom used and it was cheaper to pull the plan than upgrade the traffic management.
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