Plan suggestion for Telecom

Forums › Spark New Zealand (including Skinny and BigPipe) › Plan suggestion for Telecom

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42 posts

Geek

#334084 24-May-2010 15:14

rayonline:
SauronJones:
k1wi:
rayonline:
My fear of peak and offpeak is that you get the heavy downloaders who set their download managers and their p2ps up while they get their beauty sleep.
Isn't that what the whole point of bigtime was (from a network usage pont of view)? Reduce the peaktime load and shift it to the offpeak load? It wouldn't be too hard to qualify the plan with 'best effort speed' during off peak times.

Agreed, and people setting download managers and torrent clients on a schedule to use this bandwidth seems an ideal situation. Frees up peak bandwidth for other users; and utilises off-peak bandwidth that is already paid for, but otherwise unused.

Would people overload the offpeak times? From what I read some people complain about offpeak service being too crummy.

The most likely reason you would hear people complaining about poor off-peak performance is probably with the likes of SlingShot who offer unlimited off-peak. By making off-peak completely unlimited everybody tries to "get their money's worth" and so it becomes congested.

In my opinion SlingShot had the right idea by differentiating between peak and off-peak, but dropped the ball by making off-peak completely unlimited. Instead of enrouaging customers to shift a reasonable amount to off-peak, this had the effect of giving users a free-for-all in off-peak

If I have any of this wrong, please feel free to correct me.

NOTE: I have no personal experience with SlingShot, I am basing this on what I have read about others experiences.

SauronJones

42 posts

Geek

#334087 24-May-2010 15:22

lostangel: There's a lot of possible plans submitted in this thread, and I just can't help but add some more :)

This is what I'd like to see(and not just from telecom):

512kbps/128kbps 25 GB peak, free offpeak(to set limit). $60-70 ish a month.
Rate limit to 128kbps/64kbps or overage charges at customers choice.
Fair use policy of 150 GB max off peak traffic or be moved off the plan.

Why?

This will be enough bandwidth for heavy downloaders and still enough to be useablefor familys wanting price seurity.
With enough heavy users on this type of plan, the congestion isps have been facing would be greatly reduced.

Daytime/peak speeds will be stable due to the peak transfer limit.
Apart from the hard limit to the speed attainable, there shouldn't be any shaping of the traffic, as it would not be needed.

Surely somthing like this is possible?

Currently slingshot offers fullspeed like above(which I currently have) but I beleive the limited speed version would be more beneficial to the wider internet community while still working out ok for the heavy/large family users.

Perhaps even higher speed versions of the above plan would be possible too(for higher charges also).

lostangel and others, when suggesting speed limited plans, have suggested slower upload speeds. However BigTime never had any shaping or restrictions on uploading, as such would any new plan require upload restrictions to be viable?

I'm not taking a shot any anyones suggestions, I am legitimately wondering if any throttling of upload speeds would be nessecary?

I thought (please correct me if I am wrong), that Telecom purchases symmetric international bandwidth. This being the case, wouldn't there currently already be a surplus of International upload bandwidth?

Could anyone with a bit more knowledge chime in on this?

lostangel

163 posts

Master Geek

#334091 24-May-2010 15:37

SauronJones:

I thought (please correct me if I am wrong), that Telecom purchases symmetric international bandwidth. This being the case, wouldn't there currently already be a surplus of International upload bandwidth?

Could anyone with a bit more knowledge chime in on this?

This is a good point, as I have only assumed it is part of the cost equation due to being charged higher to have full upload speed.

Anyone from telecom(yes I'm talking about you doozy) able to comment about this?

rayonline

1734 posts

Uber Geek

#334108 24-May-2010 16:11

Thanks for the info.

Here is a philosophical point. If Telecom has bought this GB/sec bandwidth and they have these units unutilised. Is it fair to give all the spare bandwidth to this group of customers? Would that amount be significant? Or invest it elsewhere that helps more people.

Some countries have diff speeds, NZ appears to have FS/128 or FS/FS only, a few ISPs have a 256k as their cheapest plan thou as a outliner. What about providing customers a 2 or 4Mbit connection that limits the bandwidth used and it meets the customers needs. Some customers may only need a 2Mbit connection, a 256k is a bit slow. A 2Mbit I can stream videos.

crazymao

5 posts

Wannabe Geek

#334118 24-May-2010 16:24

i want to know if Telecom will review our post here.....................

SauronJones

42 posts

Geek

#334122 24-May-2010 16:29

rayonline: Thanks for the info.

Here is a philosophical point. If Telecom has bought this GB/sec bandwidth and they have these units unutilised. Is it fair to give all the spare bandwidth to this group of customers? Would that amount be significant? Or invest it elsewhere that helps more people.

Since Telecom are paying for a set amount of bandwidth 24/7, the only people they can 'give' this unutilised bandwidth to are people who are happy to use it in off-peak hours (2am-9am according to Telecom).

Realistically, scheduled downloads and torrenting are some of the only things that this is useful for (unless the user wants to get up at 4am to watch YouTube).

Think of it as a water tap that is running all the time. If no one is there to drink at 4am the water is wasted.

Taking this analogy a step further. If we encourage some people to drink during off-peak hours, there will be less people fighting for water during the day.

Kiwi1971

696 posts

Ultimate Geek

#334124 24-May-2010 16:38

Realistically, scheduled downloads and torrenting are some of the only things that this is useful for (unless the user wants to get up at 4am to watch YouTube).

Think of it as a water tap that is on all the time. If no one is there to drink at 4am the water is wasted.

I would happily schedule my p2p activity for after 2am if it meant keeping something akin to Big Time. A different cap or no cap for off-peak sounds like a great idea. I don't need to do what I do at any specific time of the day.
I have never measured it but I must go through 100GB a month, I would hate to start paying per GB. Although it would make me think more realistically about the amount of c rappy TV I watch.

Is this in any way grounds for getting out of a Telecom contract early [3 months] if the reason I joined was for unmetered internet?

DLS

Tradepub

Free professional, reference and technical white papers (affiliate link).

NonprayingMantis

6434 posts

Uber Geek

#334125 24-May-2010 16:38

rayonline: Thanks for the info.

Here is a philosophical point. If Telecom has bought this GB/sec bandwidth and they have these units unutilised. Is it fair to give all the spare bandwidth to this group of customers? Would that amount be significant? Or invest it elsewhere that helps more people.

Some countries have diff speeds, NZ appears to have FS/128 or FS/FS only, a few ISPs have a 256k as their cheapest plan thou as a outliner. What about providing customers a 2 or 4Mbit connection that limits the bandwidth used and it meets the customers needs. Some customers may only need a 2Mbit connection, a 256k is a bit slow. A 2Mbit I can stream videos.

IIRC a few years back ISPs did offer speed based plans, but the commerce commission decided that unless the speeds can be guaranteed (and they can't) then you are not allowed to claim a certain speed and use it to differentiate your plans. Other countries governments allow it, but not here. the only other options were 'as fast as your line allows, which is what we have now.

SauronJones

42 posts

Geek

#334127 24-May-2010 16:39

Kiwi1971:
Realistically, scheduled downloads and torrenting are some of the only things that this is useful for (unless the user wants to get up at 4am to watch YouTube).

Think of it as a water tap that is on all the time. If no one is there to drink at 4am the water is wasted.

I would happily schedule my p2p activity for after 2am if it meant keeping something akin to Big Time. A different cap or no cap for off-peak sounds like a great idea. I don't need to do what I do at any specific time of the day.
I have never measured it but I must go through 100GB a month, I would hate to start paying per GB. Although it would make me think more realistically about the amount of c rappy TV I watch.

Is this in any way grounds for getting out of a Telecom contract early [3 months] if the reason I joined was for unmetered internet?

DLS

Telecom will aparantly not be charging early termination fees for BigTime users who wish to change ISPs.

profrink

257 posts

Ultimate Geek

#334160 24-May-2010 18:02

I would like to see some sort of 'faimly' plan introduced into the line up, to cater for those of us who are either in a flatting situation or families with multiple computer users.

Being a family of 4, all with their own computers, we easily go through 60-100GB p/m. Go Large and then Big Time were great because we didn't need to worry about blowing a cap and ending up at dial up speed.

I would like to see something like this:

idea 1)

FS/FS

100GB (Traffic managed)

Slowed to 256k upon reaching cap

$59.95

idea 2)

FS/FS

40GB (No restrictions)

UNMETERED Access with:

          -Youtube
-Facebook
          -Trademe
          -iTunes Store
          -etc

Slowed to 256k upon reaching cap

$59.95

Before people go and say "why would they make those when they are better value than the other plans", all the other plans need to be re-done in my opinion.

With a 'family' plan, it still needs to be FS/FS. In reality, there are going to be many occasions when most, if not all of the family/household may be online at the same time. Not too sure about the 'slowed to' speed, but I imagine 256k spread across say 4 people wouldn't be pretty. It could be enough to do basic browsing, but would surely remind them to stay within the cap.

I really believe in the majority of family or flat situations, things like Youtube and other popular websites do rack up data fast, so offerring some sort of unmetered deal on a plan could be good. Offer them the option to sit down and find out what they use the most on the net and deciede if a lesser data cap with unmetered access fits their needs, or a larger traffic managed cap.

I really think a 100GB managed cap plan for $60 is reasonable Telecom. It's far less than what was achieveable on Big Time.

cafeg

697 posts

Ultimate Geek

Trusted

#334170 24-May-2010 18:35

Actually, thats a point..
The traffic management is already in place for BiGtime so why can't they use it for a capped plan with the same price and times as before, 2am to 9am fullspeed, managed outside those hours, with a choice of overage charges or throttled or a extra block purchase.

If they put a cap at 100gig or 150gig on it and a fair use policy all the big downloaders will take off anyway and they wouldn't have to worry about them bypassing the shaping.
Then without the big downloaders bypassing the shaping it would probably be pretty fast all the time..
And their pipes would stay within their management.
If I do torrents I schedule them for the offpeak hours already as most probly do now anyway.

tdgeek

29746 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#334238 24-May-2010 21:30

----------I would like to see some sort of 'faimly' plan introduced into the line up, to cater for those of us who are either in a flatting situation or families with multiple computer users.---------------

That was the whole point of Big Time and Go Large!

rayonline

1734 posts

Uber Geek

#334242 24-May-2010 21:37

tdgeek: ----------I would like to see some sort of 'faimly' plan introduced into the line up, to cater for those of us who are either in a flatting situation or families with multiple computer users.---------------

That was the whole point of Big Time and Go Large!

I think regardless of the target market, if you begin a unlimited plan peak or offpeak, a group will just bowl in and schedule their download managers. After a nice sleep and hey all these goodies ready for them....

I don't see myself a family plan or not, maybe if Telecom is sympathetic. A family is no diff to a flatting situation to a group of computer geeks to a group of poor varsity students. If it was for family then you may not even have a off peak factor. Family people may not wanna download GBs overnight .... If you introduce another plan - you think Telecom would be third time lucky?

cafeg

697 posts

Ultimate Geek

Trusted

#334250 24-May-2010 21:56

rayonline:

I think regardless of the target market, if you begin a unlimited plan peak or offpeak, a group will just bowl in and schedule their download managers. After a nice sleep and hey all these goodies ready for them....

I don't think that was the problem from what I have been reading on here. If they have a plan like this with offpeak thats what they want you to do is schedule your downloads etc to be done in offpeak times when traffic loads are low, so you don't impact on all the other telecom users.

It sounds like the problem was more people using download accelerators and proxies and downloading from secure newsgroups to bypass the shaping/restrictions that were in place during peaktimes to get fullspeed which affected all of the other telecom users, slowing them down..
Apparently using a download accelerator or using secure newsgroups could get you upto 800kbps during peak time instead of the 40kbps you would get with the shaping in place. Its already been discussed on a few forums here before.

Not the offpeak downloads when everyone was asleep in the early hours...

Like I said above, if they got rid of the heavy downloaders by putting caps in place it would be a great plan for large families or anyone with a lot of people in the house...
There are 5 laptops running here all the time, myself and my wife and 3 overseas students. The plan was great for us !

rayonline

1734 posts

Uber Geek

#334256 24-May-2010 22:04

I just heard that some BT customers were complaining with offpeak times as well ..... Not sure if I would put unlimited for off peak.

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