Capped Plans and their Capped Speeds

Forums › Spark New Zealand (including Skinny and BigPipe) › Capped Plans and their Capped Speeds

crazed

484 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 26

Trusted

#90174 16-Sep-2011 07:57

What is the speed that the capped plans slow to once you have used your Data allowance for the month? and why the hell is it so unreliable?

From what I understand it's meant to be Dialup or similar to it? 56k? or 64k?

The reason I ask is that the speed seems wildly all over the place and the connection is completely unusable even for the most basic of tasks.

IRC drops connections
POP3 and IMAP times out
even the most basic of NZ based HTML pages will time out or stall.

Other times it appears if we are back at our normal fullspeed for minutes at a time.

Now I have no problems with the slowdown after we reach our limit, more than happy with it, but I find my dialup account I have for my laptop is faster than the capped speeds that are provided after the data cap.

Our normal connection syncs at 16.3mb down and 1.2mb up with a perm splitter and new internal wiring installed. We are 200m from a brand new cabinet. I have tried two different modems and both give the same result.

CraZeD,
Your friendly Southern Geeky Fellow :P

1 | 2

489 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 3

Trusted

#521819 16-Sep-2011 10:22

Details are here:

http://www.telecom.co.nz/broadband/plansettings

If you exceed your data allowance, you can keep using the internet at no extra cost but your speed will be significantly reduced (to a maximum of 64 kilobits per second).

crazed

484 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 26

Trusted

#521832 16-Sep-2011 10:50

Already read that, The problem is the speed doesn't stick to 64Kb, it jumps about wildly.

If the speed stuck to 64Kb or even 56Kb's I'd be happy, but it doesn't. In some cases dropping well below 2Kbps. Making even the loading of Googles Homepage impossible.

CraZeD,
Your friendly Southern Geeky Fellow :P

NonprayingMantis

6434 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 1528

#521845 16-Sep-2011 11:06

you know you can change plans so that you don't get speed capped right? (the tradeoff being you pay for the extra data you use)

crazed

484 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 26

Trusted

#521849 16-Sep-2011 11:10

hmmm yes I know.

CraZeD,
Your friendly Southern Geeky Fellow :P

graemeh

2080 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 226

#521861 16-Sep-2011 11:25

crazed: Already read that, The problem is the speed doesn't stick to 64Kb, it jumps about wildly.

If the speed stuck to 64Kb or even 56Kb's I'd be happy, but it doesn't. In some cases dropping well below 2Kbps. Making even the loading of Googles Homepage impossible.

Well it does say a maximum of 64kb.

You'll just have to change plans each month when your connection is throttled.

hellonearthisman

1819 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 52

Trusted

#521864 16-Sep-2011 11:33

Cap speeds are dialup speeds but not dialup performance.

Now that 256kbps plans are gone, why not increase the capped speeds to 128kbps,
it would make capped internet usable.

Geekzone support

Support Geekzone with one-off or recurring donations Donate via PressPatron.

crazed

484 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 26

Trusted

#521865 16-Sep-2011 11:39

We usually don't go over our cap that often, this month it was done, when 26Gb was used in a 48 hour period.

CraZeD,
Your friendly Southern Geeky Fellow :P

PassiveFever81

367 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 13

#521869 16-Sep-2011 11:44

I find on Vodafone when I get capped my upload is still maxing out, download is a miserable 64k ish, I find when your capped most pages just stall and time out, they don't load at the 64k, it's shocking, dialup would be faster, atleast it would attempt to load not just stall all the time... time for 256K capped speeds, aussie get that...

graemeh

2080 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 226

#521875 16-Sep-2011 11:52

brandonruscoe: I find on Vodafone when I get capped my upload is still maxing out, download is a miserable 64k ish, I find when your capped most pages just stall and time out, they don't load at the 64k, it's shocking, dialup would be faster, atleast it would attempt to load not just stall all the time... time for 256K capped speeds, aussie get that...

+1 capped is OK but it still needs to be usable.

DonGould

3892 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 164

#521880 16-Sep-2011 11:59

crazed: We usually don't go over our cap that often, this month it was done, when 26Gb was used in a 48 hour period.

Sounds like you really need a provider or plan that just lets you buy more data when you need it.

Does Telecom do this?

www.telme.org.nz ?

Promote New Zealand - Get yourself a .kiwi.nz domain name!!!

Check out mine - i.am.a.can.do.kiwi.nz - don@i.am.a.can.do.kiwi.nz

NonprayingMantis

6434 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 1528

#521906 16-Sep-2011 12:35

DonGould:
crazed: We usually don't go over our cap that often, this month it was done, when 26Gb was used in a 48 hour period.

Sounds like you really need a provider or plan that just lets you buy more data when you need it.

Does Telecom do this?

yes.

Geekzone

Want to support Geekzone and browse the site without the ads? Subscribe to Geekzone now (monthly, annual and lifetime options).

jonb

1796 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 545

Trusted

#521926 16-Sep-2011 13:09

graemeh:
brandonruscoe: I find on Vodafone when I get capped my upload is still maxing out, download is a miserable 64k ish, I find when your capped most pages just stall and time out, they don't load at the 64k, it's shocking, dialup would be faster, atleast it would attempt to load not just stall all the time... time for 256K capped speeds, aussie get that...

+1 capped is OK but it still needs to be usable.

I noticed that on Vodafone, but now on telecom and the upload is throttled right back too when reduced to dial up. Maybe that's where the problem lies with the variability experienced here - the upload capacity is being exhausted, causing download packets to not be acknowledged?

I like being on the capped plan, like the OP most months it works well, especially if you manage it well :) . Only if you get the unexpected downloads where it causes a problem.

But, yeah as others said - just change the plan for this month as a one off, to reset the data allowance.

pwner

423 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 96

Trusted

2degrees

#521932 16-Sep-2011 13:24

There is also the fact that we are all so used to broadband we forget how slow dial up was! even the size and scripting now on the google homepage require way more bandwidth than they did 3 years ago yet alone 10 years ago when dial up was the norm.

Any posts are personal comments and not that of my employer

digitaldivide

94 posts

Master Geek
Inactive user

#521946 16-Sep-2011 13:40

My experience is the same as what crazed said.

* 1 DSL connection. 1 Ethernet cable. 1 PC

* Once capped, the peak DSL speed and average overall DSL speed was less than dialup.

* Loading web pages (not cached on the pc) were "all over the show", from an end users point of view. Some loaded at dialup speed, "stalled" partway through loading and timed-out. Adverts on pages would often display as an error. Gave up on POP3.

* Unconnecting the DSL modem and using a dialup modem on the same line and the experience was, well, dialup. Peak dialup speed was pretty much the maximum, overall speed was bear-able and could surf web pages ok. POP3 was ok.

* Ended up moving off of the capped plan to uncapped & additional-usage billing, never going back.

* Maybe it's to do with the forecasting they do, to determine the available bandwidth required to service DSL customers who have been capped

graemeh

2080 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 226

#521955 16-Sep-2011 14:03

pwner: There is also the fact that we are all so used to broadband we forget how slow dial up was! even the size and scripting now on the google homepage require way more bandwidth than they did 3 years ago yet alone 10 years ago when dial up was the norm.

It's not just that though, when my connection is throttled it's a battle to just collect email using POP. The connection speed is not the issue.

1 | 2