[TelstraClear] Internet usage when modem is off!!

Forums › One NZ (including Farmside) › [TelstraClear] Internet usage when modem is off!!

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#519650 11-Sep-2011 18:55

I rember back in the day when paradise were running the show LOCAL data was charged at 1/10 of international, and i "THINK" from memory local paradise servers were free.... seeing how TelstraClear in there terms and conditions are charging for the download of email and even to log into your own profile to check your bill.

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freitasm

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#519654 11-Sep-2011 19:12

It is how it works. Calling it fraudulent is a bit too much on my opinion. I donthink they dp it deliberately.

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phantomdb

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#519657 11-Sep-2011 19:17

its definately not in the customers best interest, it wouldent be so bad if you got e-mail service for free to off set the bill everything senario.

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PenultimateHop

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#519661 11-Sep-2011 19:21

jnawk: Here's a suggestion for how they could do endpoint detection - say, once per hour, ARP for the customer's IP address. If they get a MAC address back, the endpoint is up. If they don't (after retries), the endpoint is down. And its not something the customer could block without completely disabling their internet connection anyway.

This is exactly what any sensible BNG does, for exactly this sort of reason.

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#519662 11-Sep-2011 19:22

but the real point here is, even with the connection turned off you are still using your data cap.
And when i say off i mean SB5101I Cable Modem Turned Off not on standby.

Imagine if the power companys started billing for electrons that hit your mains switch while it was off,
Im sorry sir we had allocated that electron for you and are charging accordingly, its a pity you never got to use that electron.

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jnawk

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#519663 11-Sep-2011 19:23

freitasm: It is how it works. Calling it fraudulent is a bit too much on my opinion. I donthink they dp it deliberately.

They may not do it deliberately, but they certainly do not back down without a hell of a fight. Its the complete lack of intent to charge the customer correctly that constitutes fraud. Its the fact that it has happened in the past to other people yet they do nothing about it that constitutes fraud. Its the fact that it is demonstrably possible to bill correctly, yet they don't bother that constitutes fraud.

I don't think calling it what it is (Dilbert reference?) and just rolling over actually helps the little guy (ie, us)

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geocom

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#519668 11-Sep-2011 19:45

jnawk:
freitasm: It is how it works. Calling it fraudulent is a bit too much on my opinion. I donthink they dp it deliberately.

They may not do it deliberately, but they certainly do not back down without a hell of a fight. Its the complete lack of intent to charge the customer correctly that constitutes fraud. Its the fact that it has happened in the past to other people yet they do nothing about it that constitutes fraud. Its the fact that it is demonstrably possible to bill correctly, yet they don't bother that constitutes fraud.

I don't think calling it what it is (Dilbert reference?) and just rolling over actually helps the little guy (ie, us)

Thats like saying you brought something from someone that you soon find out is counterfeit and going after the shipping company because they delivered it to your door

This still does not help the OP there is still data being delivered even when the router is on.

If it is the case that your being sent data without asking for it then a change to your IP address should fix this as they will be unable to send you the data

Geoff E

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#519689 11-Sep-2011 20:49

if you dont like you can always use a dynamic ip mobile broadband connection. they dont allow any incoming requests period. ;)

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#519701 11-Sep-2011 21:36

jjnz1: if you dont like you can always use a dynamic ip mobile broadband connection. they dont allow any incoming requests period. ;)

Depends on the APN. Some allow uninitiated traffic, some don't.

BiDi

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#519705 11-Sep-2011 21:54

geocom: This still does not help the OP there is still data being delivered even when the router is on.

Exactly, notwithstanding my limited understanding of the finer points of this discussion, it seems fundamentally unjust to be asked to pay for something that I did not ask for, want, or use.

TC 'solved' this problem by charging us more for a larger monthly download limit. It seems to me highly likely that our metered usage is distorted (We now pass in 2 weeks the ceiling that used to be more than enough for the month).

If this interpretation (of the problem) is correct, it sure feels like a rip-off to me.

geocom

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#519724 11-Sep-2011 22:59

As has already been alluded to in this thread. The internet would not work in any form without the ability to make requests.

The ISP is not able to connect what is wanted data and what is not. Even if they made it so that you only receive data from a server that you have recently requested data from. This would affect the day to day runnings of a end users internet. VPN & VNC(or RDP) data (just to list a few) would not work as the computers within the local network would not have made the request.

So you would end up with a very broken internet if the ISP tried to do anything to shape your connection.

Consider your internet connection as in a phone number. Which is really what a IP Address(e.g 000.000.000.000) is. As your phone number becomes more known you will start to receive more calls that you don't want. If your phone number never changes then the phone calls will keep on coming, unless you tell the person calling you to stop or you change your phone number.

In the case of the internet a Static IP Address will never change. You will keep that IP Address till your connection is disconnected or you change your IP Address.

If you have a Dynamic IP address then your IP Address will change from time to time, but this can have negative effects. As if you inherit a IP Address from someone who has been blacklisted from select sites then you will now find yourself blacklisted from these sites and this will change all the time depending on the IP Address you have.

I'm sure if you ask TelstraClear for a new Static IP address they would be willing to give you one. If you currently have one. But you will again inherit blacklisting's etc.

Also I don't know if this is the case with TelstraClear but on Telecom(as that is who i have my internet connection with) the usage meter is delayed by 4 hours. If this is the case then the data usage your seeing could be a delayed version of data that you have in fact used.

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#519726 11-Sep-2011 23:07

geocom: Also I don't know if this is the case with TelstraClear but on Telecom(as that is who i have my internet connection with) the usage meter is delayed by 4 hours. If this is the case then the data usage your seeing could be a delayed version of data that you have in fact used.

That would be useful to know. Does anyone know if the reported time of traffic is correct?

It would be very silly to timestamp with a 4 hour delay, and we do recognise peaks that we know are our own use. So, my guess is that TC's system is not that far off.

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#519744 12-Sep-2011 03:07

Some of you seem to be saying that Telstraclear seem to have no idea whether or not an cable modem is ON or OFF and that I find is just total twaddle... My ISP (Orcon) knows exactly when I've disconnected and reconnected all they need do is look up the logs for my account so why isn't telstraclears billing department checking connection logs vs data usage before creating the bill and saying oh there wa incomming DATA but the connection was OFF we'll discount that data then

PenultimateHop

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#519747 12-Sep-2011 05:03

Athlonite: Some of you seem to be saying that Telstraclear seem to have no idea whether or not an cable modem is ON or OFF and that I find is just total twaddle... My ISP (Orcon) knows exactly when I've disconnected and reconnected all they need do is look up the logs for my account so why isn't telstraclears billing department checking connection logs vs data usage before creating the bill and saying oh there wa incomming DATA but the connection was OFF we'll discount that data then

It's entirely possible for a BNG (with L2 CMTS) to not recognize that a cable modem is offline, especially if the lease times are long; although it's reflective of a poor network environment.

Comparing Orcon and DSL to cable is not reasonable since the paradigms are completely different. Your PPP session is only present because the modem is up, and will tear itself down (due to LCP keep alives failing*) when the modem goes away, showing the session has ended. With L2 CMTS + separate BNG this isn't so easy since there's no PPP, and there's no physical (or even logical) link to tear down, only a pseudo session with a DHCP binding that may be valid for many more hours or days. As another poster proposed, unicast ARP is the easiest mechanism to fix this (BFD is another, but it's much harder on the BNG control plane).

* there was a problem a number of years ago with crappy DSL modems that didn't implement LCP correctly (no keepalives, or extraordinarily long keepalive intervals, or simply didn't do anything when the keepalives expired), and consequently didn't recognize when they had lost connectivity to the BRAS. So even in PPP this can occur.

jnawk

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#519781 12-Sep-2011 09:05

As another poster proposed, unicast ARP is the easiest mechanism to fix this (BFD is another, but it's much harder on the BNG control plane).

From the very little I've read about BFD, unicast ARP would be better at detecting any computer / router at the customer end without requiring that PC / router be set up in some specific way, rather than just the cable modem itself. (ie, I could switch my PC off (assuming I do the whole PC direct to cable modem thing), and ARP would fail, and I'd not be billed, even though my cable modem itself is on. That would be the fairest solution.

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