Telecom Big Time plan trouble thread

Forums › Spark New Zealand (including Skinny and BigPipe) › Telecom Big Time plan trouble thread

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33 posts

Geek

#323556 27-Apr-2010 12:44

there is a difference between shaping a service and capping it so much that it becomes unusable.

I dont have an issue with shaping going on but when basic browing is affected, and simple things like virus updates, PDF downloads etc then that is shaping gone too far.

I think there is a fundamental underlying root cause

too many users on too small a pipe.

now where that choke point lies is a diff matter.

if thats in telecoms network,internationally or locally?

I come from Europe and sorely miss 32mb to the door and unlimited service for 60 bucks a month!

and I never in 7 years had any outages like I have on telecom

There must be a basic bottom line in that there has to be a limit to whats acceptable and I think that is not being met.

now the question is how to challenge telecom on that

bad press on TV seems a highly punchy way to sort it

I think some of the fair go type programmes should have a look at it

nzpossum

42 posts

Geek

#323559 27-Apr-2010 12:49

Now I knew all that before I signed up for the Bigtime plan last year. I'm not defending Telecom, or the Bigtime plan, I'm just stating what is clearly visible on the website, We know from Telecoms website that Yes there is caps. Maybe too many people were blinded by the word"Unlimited".

People are not asking for miracles on this plan but we don't expect dial up either. I hope the Commerce Commission investigates this egregious company.

k1wi

476 posts

Ultimate Geek

#323624 27-Apr-2010 14:07

doozy:
Given the amount of threads and such around people trying to get around shaping, much like how we wouldn't publish how a spam filter works, I really don't think it would be wise for me to give any details on the configuration of the traffic shaping policy

http://allyours.virginmedia.com/html/internet/traffic.html

If Virgin Media can get it right, why can't Telecom?

Even Comcast provides a better explanation of its 'network management' than Telecom does:

http://customer.comcast.com/Pages/FAQViewer.aspx?seoid=Frequently-Asked-Questions-about-Network-Management&fss=management

I don't agree that people should game the shaping policy and will not do so myself. As we can see from the net outcome people gaming the system is ruining it for everyone else.

Telecom needs to improve the amount of information it gives its consumers [b]while[/b] ensuring that it doesn't allow users to game the system. This is their responsibility and using "people will use it to get around shaping" is not a good enough justification for the situation it now finds itself in. Personally, it suggests to me that the traffic management system isn't up to scratch and is proof that Telecom needs to put more work into its communication with its users.

Telecom has a responsibility to the consumer: is it not prepared to properly advise the consumer as to the service they can expect from the plan?

k1wi

476 posts

Ultimate Geek

#323633 27-Apr-2010 14:11

crazed

484 posts

Ultimate Geek

Trusted

#323645 27-Apr-2010 14:21

asylum: Do you believe telecom is accurately representing those caps though? In it's terms and conditions? I read it at best as misleading more inclined to view as fraud because it is deliberate.

Because Telecom is not detailed in their explaination of what they mean by Caps or Traffic management, then it is only what we believe to be incorrect application of the cap or traffic management that is causing our current situations, for all we know our current experience of the Bigtime Plan could be exactly what Telecom refers to as being a Cap or by the use of the term Traffic managment.

Telecom sets no clear benchmark or guideline to what is a cap or what is Traffic Management under their definition, therefore we are left with guesswork and our own opinions as to what the Bigtime Plan should be like.

CraZeD,
Your friendly Southern Geeky Fellow :P

Kilack

515 posts

Ultimate Geek

Trusted

#323680 27-Apr-2010 15:00

crazed:
asylum: Do you believe telecom is accurately representing those caps though? In it's terms and conditions? I read it at best as misleading more inclined to view as fraud because it is deliberate.

Because Telecom is not detailed in their explaination of what they mean by Caps or Traffic management, then it is only what we believe to be incorrect application of the cap or traffic management that is causing our current situations, for all we know our current experience of the Bigtime Plan could be exactly what Telecom refers to as being a Cap or by the use of the term Traffic managment.

Telecom sets no clear benchmark or guideline to what is a cap or what is Traffic Management under their definition, therefore we are left with guesswork and our own opinions as to what the Bigtime Plan should be like.

My issue is that from reading their description of the plan it sounded like offpeak times (after 2am) would not be shaped. That was the case for many months so it became the norm. Even during peak times http traffic seemed to roar along. While I can understand them needing to shape http traffic during peak hours especially to file hosting sites like rapidshare etc I can't really see why they would need to shape it at 4am in the morning. To me that is an artificial cap and completely goes against their generally we will not shape the traffic offpeak part. They arent even shaping http traffic at 4am in the morning, its just been capped.

I can't see how that can be taken any other way.

Anyway will be interesting to see how the com com view it. They are very used to dealing with telecom and telecom have a very bad record with them, many losses...

shiroshadows

165 posts

Master Geek

#323744 27-Apr-2010 16:26

crazed: By providing to much information or answering questions in relation to a piece of software or technology can allow a person to build up enough knowledge on how it works to eventually break through. Telecom isn't going to provide that information on how or what the traffic shaping does. Its like a Jigsaw puzzle, The more pieces you put on the table, the better understanding you have to what it looks like and the easier it is to finish. Same with traffic shaping, the more pieces of information out there, the easier it is to break.

If enough information is release on how and what the traffic shaping does then eventually someone will click and design a work around based on the technology.

Its a simple yes or no question. The question wasn't asking him to type an essay on how BigTime works.

nzpossum: Doozy is an example of why people have such hostility towards Telecom at the moment. As an employee he obviously could lay out the cold hard facts about the throttling going on but instead gives us some absurd excuse that he does not what to be seen as helping people bypass the traffic management ( or should i say capping) that is going on. If your not allowed to disseminate this information Doozy because it would mean people finding out the truth about capping then say so, but people on this plan have been screwed for the last 2 weeks now that these kind of ridiculous excuses make people more angry. Some people have been getting international speeds of less than 20KB/s and Telecom give you a different answer at every turn. Do you think it is ok for people to have to pay $60 for dial up speeds only to be shafted when they ask if this is permanent. Doozy how about providing people with some real information so they can make informed decisions. Some people may decide to change plans but how about some honesty.

Sooo true

powerforce

162 posts

Master Geek

#323764 27-Apr-2010 16:52

asylum: At present big time is a traffic managed one megabit connection except for local traffic. It is presently being fraudulently advertised especially under traffic management

# Traffic Management - We don't place an artificial cap on the download or upload speed on the majority of the internet activity our customers have on this plan. But because it has no fixed data allowance, we do manage all the traffic on it to optimise the experience for everyone on the plan. When the network is busy (generally inside the hours of 9am and 2am) you may notice reduced speeds, in particular you are likely to see reduced speeds in relation to file sharing traffic and online gaming.

A data cap on virtually all international traffic is an artificial cap on the overwhelming majority of internet usage. If telecom wants to throttle back file sharing related activity that is it's perogative as it is stated in terms and conditions.

The part where it says when the network is busy you may notice reduced speeds. Speeds are presently reduced constantly regardless of time of day or level of network activity.

Hi there, have read a fair bit of this thread out of interest, 100 pages...its gotta be interesting, or atleast informing!?

Here is my take on the Bigtime policy quoted above - in particular the bolded section.

As i understand it there is a "big time pool" a rough example could be bigtime has 10gbps bandwidth shared accross 10000 Bigtime internet users. (example only!)

As more users are online, the same amount of bandwidth (or pool space) has to then be shared between the increased amount of users. This would then lead to reduced performance as more people online = less bandwidth for you or less room for you in the pool.

My take on the above quoted bolded statement assuming what i typed above is indeed correct i dont think it would be an "artifical cap" imposed by Telecom -as they themelves are not imposing it or capping you, other users are dipping into your pool of bandwidth as thats simply what you paid for - a public swmming pool no guaranteed / uncapped/unregulated speeds.

All of what i have typed is only based of what i have read in this thread.
PS - i was with telecom, my flat got disconnected due to slight a bill variance. They imposed the $199 fee on us. This was the best thing that could have happened to us as we were unwilling to commit to pay the $199 to leave telecom ourselves- but they did that for us didnt they!

Peace hope it works out for you guys :)

mattk

255 posts

Ultimate Geek

#323776 27-Apr-2010 17:16

DravidDavid: Is international traffic shaped at 1mbps 24/7 for good:

I fail to see how a simple yes or no would leak so much information that it would compromise the shaping to the point where the people that can be bothered getting around it can get around it more.

We aren't exactly asking for the source code here...

I've noticed a 100KB/s cap for the last few days... It'd be nice if it was actually advertised as the 1MB connection that it is. I'd go as far as to say there IS a fixed data cap, it's how much you can get down a 1MB pipe!

It shouldn't even be promoted as an ADSL2+ service IMHO. It's barely one step up from Jetstart.

asylum

19 posts

Geek

#323783 27-Apr-2010 17:23

Telecom have not stated that they have imposed a one megabit cap on international traffic. There is powerful anecdotal evidence to infer that they have. I have observed this cap myself and these observations are backed up by many others. I would be interested to hear from people on big time whose international traffic is not capped at one megabit. To suggest that this same amount of throttling would occur across so many other users, so consistently, regardless of time of day or amount of network traffic and have it not be by design is ridiculously improbable. No offense intended. It is an artificial cap, telecom is lying if it claims otherwise.

Kilack

515 posts

Ultimate Geek

Trusted

#323784 27-Apr-2010 17:24

powerforce:
asylum: At present big time is a traffic managed one megabit connection except for local traffic. It is presently being fraudulently advertised especially under traffic management

# Traffic Management - We don't place an artificial cap on the download or upload speed on the majority of the internet activity our customers have on this plan. But because it has no fixed data allowance, we do manage all the traffic on it to optimise the experience for everyone on the plan. When the network is busy (generally inside the hours of 9am and 2am) you may notice reduced speeds, in particular you are likely to see reduced speeds in relation to file sharing traffic and online gaming.

A data cap on virtually all international traffic is an artificial cap on the overwhelming majority of internet usage. If telecom wants to throttle back file sharing related activity that is it's perogative as it is stated in terms and conditions.

The part where it says when the network is busy you may notice reduced speeds. Speeds are presently reduced constantly regardless of time of day or level of network activity.

Hi there, have read a fair bit of this thread out of interest, 100 pages...its gotta be interesting, or atleast informing!?

Here is my take on the Bigtime policy quoted above - in particular the bolded section.

As i understand it there is a "big time pool" a rough example could be bigtime has 10gbps bandwidth shared accross 10000 Bigtime internet users. (example only!)

As more users are online, the same amount of bandwidth (or pool space) has to then be shared between the increased amount of users. This would then lead to reduced performance as more people online = less bandwidth for you or less room for you in the pool.

My take on the above quoted bolded statement assuming what i typed above is indeed correct i dont think it would be an "artifical cap" imposed by Telecom -as they themelves are not imposing it or capping you, other users are dipping into your pool of bandwidth as thats simply what you paid for - a public swmming pool no guaranteed / uncapped/unregulated speeds.

All of what i have typed is only based of what i have read in this thread.
PS - i was with telecom, my flat got disconnected due to slight a bill variance. They imposed the $199 fee on us. This was the best thing that could have happened to us as we were unwilling to commit to pay the $199 to leave telecom ourselves- but they did that for us didnt they!

Peace hope it works out for you guys :)

Well yeah partly right about the pool etc but that doesn't explain why speeds were the same for at least 3 months then dropped by over 9 times one morning (about two weeks ago) and have remained at that speed ever since which means its artificial, unless you are implying that they had a massive influx of customers on one day that meant that the speed went from 1000 kilobytes down to 100 kilobytes.. hmmm yeah.. seems pretty artificial to me.

aimsy007

145 posts

Master Geek

#323790 27-Apr-2010 17:34

Time for me to vent my spleen!

What is Telecom up too? I am getting no downloads above 12kbs. It appears (for me at least) that over the last few days that download speeds have certainly been capped.

It is 5:30pm on a Tuesday evening and I am downloading vlc media player from a local source. The total size of the download is 30.6mb. I am currently downloading at 11kb/s!!!!! I have another 32 minutes remaining on this download.

It is not like the big time plan is the cheapest option available. What do 'we' do. This is an absolute disgrace!

k1wi

476 posts

Ultimate Geek

#323794 27-Apr-2010 17:41

aimsy007: What do 'we' do.

Set up a bittorrent site for Telecom users only that tracks legitimate downloads. It seems bittorrent speeds aren't managed domestically, so we should set up a bandwidth pool. :)

DravidDavid

1892 posts

Uber Geek

#323804 27-Apr-2010 18:19

k1wi:
aimsy007: What do 'we' do.

Set up a bittorrent site for Telecom users only that tracks legitimate downloads. It seems bittorrent speeds aren't managed domestically, so we should set up a bandwidth pool. :)

I am interested in this....

I don't know why Telecom dosn't just set up a 256K/256K unlimited connection that is unshaped. You certainly couldn't pull 2B per month, thats for sure.

Talkiet said that a 1mb up and down connection that is unshaped would cost over 350 dollars. I find this does not compute since Telecom have pretty much just done this and if I wanted too I could get a Full Speed unlimited ADSL 2+ connection from Actrix for 450.

256K is all I need for ventrilo and gaming. I don't care about filesharing. Although it is nice to be able to rip something down in seconds rather than minutes at 3AM without having to think twice about Data allowence.

That is pretty much the only perk keeping me on the plan.

Note: 6:20PM and had a full speed connection. I reset the router and it went dog again. I must experiment! Next time I think I will take note of my IP maybe?

Sometimes what you don't get is a blessing in disguise!

shiroshadows

165 posts

Master Geek

#323809 27-Apr-2010 18:32

You forget. Its Telecom and they tend to not care bout their customers

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