[WXC/VFX] New Plan?/

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#129190 7-May-2008 17:51

Some P2P Programs like Azureus have plugins for downloading, so if you do download via P2P simply set it up to download at a specific time, leave your pc on and bam, way you go, easy as pie.

euanandrews

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#129191 7-May-2008 17:53

I get tired of hearing the argument from people, that large downloaders must be doing something illegal, or that its not necessary...

This is the way of the future, it will become mainstream as more tv and radio stations make all their content available online and cheap and easy to access...

Everything will be done online, tv episodes and movies, radio broadcasting and music, gaming, shopping, home networks streaming and streaming to remote PC's/networks via services like Microsoft's new LiveMesh...all this will use more and more bandwidth, and everyone will be doing it.

Its happening right now, and been happening for a long time, just as technology makes all this easier and cheaper, it becomes more mainstream, so the bandwidth requirements grow...and with time, its price, limitations and restrictions on data quota etc will come down and/or disappear too.

I like the idea behind this plan, as it offers yet another choice to consumers, an incentive...and for many like myself who are awake at those hours anyway, this will be no change anyway and will result in savings.

I congrat WXC on brining this to the market...forgot all about it as I actually discussed it in detail with Maverick at the Geekzone pizza event...

I will sign up, especially as with WXC there is no contract, so there is no risk, so why not try it?

My only concern, that would not be welcomed, would be if WXC rate shaped or certain protocols throttled in any way between these off peak times, as that would then defy the purpose of moving to such a plan.

People might say, 'its free', but the reason why its 'free' is because its being done at unsocial hours, and its not free, as extra is being paid for going over the quota, $1.50 as opposed to $1.00 GB, so one would expect that something in return for paying extra for overage, and having a plan that favors downloading during unsocial hours. Hence the 'free' unlimited quota during those off peak hours, really is paid for in other ways.

Maverick...can you confirm or deny that WXC will rate shape or throttle certain protocols in any way on this plan?
Will there be any restrictions?
And can I sign up now?

insane

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#129198 7-May-2008 18:29

yeeeahboy: well i just got home from work and looks like the wait has ended.

I am now able to watch you-tube like never before at peak times.

and speedtest was 3x faster than normal

hopefully it stays this way

The bizarre thing is that the speeds have been fixed and they havnet implemented the plan yet, let alone move pepole onto it.

Why is it that now the floodgates are open? Maybe they started to see customers leaving in droves and had to open the pipes.

I think its great that they have finally fixed their %^%& but to me it shows that they really were short on int bandwidth all along and only now decided to buy when folks started to leave, b1tch and moan.

exportgoldman

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#129199 7-May-2008 18:30

TheBartender: I get tired of hearing the argument from people, that large downloaders must be doing something illegal, or that its not necessary...

This is the way of the future, it will become mainstream as more tv and radio stations make all their content available online and cheap and easy to access...

I agree fully, I already watch TV3 News/Campbell Live every day on the internet (on my shiny 24" iMac) and am looking forward to more live streaming. I wish Freeview was available as well.

TheBartender:
People might say, 'its free', but the reason why its 'free' is because its being done at unsocial hours, and its not free, as extra is being paid for going over the quota, $1.50 as opposed to $1.00 GB, so one would expect that something in return for paying extra for overage, and having a plan that favors downloading during unsocial hours. Hence the 'free' unlimited quota during those off peak hours, really is paid for in other ways.

The interesting thing is, it now appears that XNET are now looking like they will be using their international pipe 24/7, as Business customers will be 8am-5pm, Residential will be 5pm-midnight and the bulk data users will be midnight to 8am.

It's a smart way to utilise your otherwise 'dead' resource.

From the statistics I've seen only 10% of people are heavy users (and 4% make up 50% of a ISP's traffic) so it will be interesting what the speeds are going to be during the offpeak hours (if they will end up filling up the pipe) but I have a feeling that it will balance out.

TheBartender:
Maverick...can you confirm or deny that WXC will rate shape or throttle certain protocols in any way on this plan?
Will there be any restrictions?
And can I sign up now?

From the press release, they didn't want to do deep packet inspection (i.e. throttling certain protocols) because it added to the latancy of the connection. XNET is a protocol netural.

I can see them putting a limit of 200GB or something per month (either now, or three months from now after some users start downloading terrabytes a month.)

My connection at work can download 1MB/s so I can easily see people hitting this, but Maverick's Team must have crunched the numbers... :-)

To be honest, I'm just looking forward to watching utube again.

Tyler - Parnell Geek - iPhone 3G - Lenovo X301 - Kaseya - Great Western Steak House, these are some of my favourite things.

exportgoldman

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#129201 7-May-2008 18:35

insane:

The bizarre thing is that the speeds have been fixed and they havnet implemented the plan yet, let alone move pepole onto it.

Why is it that now the floodgates are open? Maybe they started to see customers leaving in droves and had to open the pipes.

I think its great that they have finally fixed their %^%& but to me it shows that they really were short on int bandwidth all along and only now decided to buy when folks started to leave, b1tch and moan.

From what other people are saying in the forums, XNET has been phoning the heavy users and moving them to this new plan already, and from the statistics I've seen, moving only the top 4% of your users, will reduce traffic up to 50%.

The problem with buying more and more international bandwidth is it becomes prohibitive as it's only used to full potential for 6 hours of the day. If they were to ensure every user could get a 1MBits to Los Angeles, it works out to several hundred dollars a month simply in connection costs.

I think they have done this in a very smart way to keep everyone happy, but changes like this take time to get right through the billing system, provisioning, helpdesk changes etc.

Tyler - Parnell Geek - iPhone 3G - Lenovo X301 - Kaseya - Great Western Steak House, these are some of my favourite things.

euanandrews

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#129211 7-May-2008 18:57

exportgoldman: From what other people are saying in the forums, XNET has been phoning the heavy users and moving them to this new plan already, and from the statistics I've seen, moving only the top 4% of your users, will reduce traffic up to 50%.

That being the case, where is my phonecall?

I may not download 80GB+ right now, but only because I don't want to pay additional overage charges...
And the market is there, for them to not just offer such a service to current heavy users, but those who want to use more, but don't due to the costs associated with going over their quota...

The question being though, will this plan suffer in the long term, as did Go Large and Woosh Orbit Flat Rate did, due to them not realizing how popular the service/product will be, and then finding those who sign up use massive amounts of data, far exceeding there expectations, and leading them to throttling the plan by stealth at first, then later admitting and canning the service, as the other ISP's have done, when confronted with this problem?

Once again, the best thing about WXC, is no contract, so one can try these services, and if they receive poor service, dont get what they paid for or the service unfavorably changes from what it originally was, it is easy to change ISP.

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hpj2007

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#129212 7-May-2008 19:03

Will it be possible to move to this for Fusion customers and can it be done online :/. I didn't receive the email but download most of the stuff after 12am anyway.

kfella2000

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#129214 7-May-2008 19:08

hpj2007: Will it be possible to move to this for Fusion customers and can it be done online :/. I didn't receive the email but download most of the stuff after 12am anyway.

The person who started this thread is on fusion

simon14

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#129215 7-May-2008 19:11

I wouldn't change to this plan as i like to actually sleep during the night.

However, I like the idea as it may free up bandwidth so we can actually watch youtube without waiting for ten mins.

JUPITER2K

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Master Geek

#129225 7-May-2008 20:04

If 12pm modnight to 8 a.m traffic is free. rest is $1.50/G. Users will have a problem.
If traffic is free then ISP can do whatever they like!, shape /throttle etc.. right?

Anyone?

One point though can someone define peak time and off peak time?

Below is my definiton

Peak time 5p.m to 11 p.m or 6 p.m to 10 a.m. and all day Saturday/Sunday 8.00 a.m to midnight.
every school holiday up to midnight?

Detruire

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#129234 7-May-2008 20:35

Here's my definition of peak times:

Sunday-Thursday: ~6PM->~10PM.
Friday, Saturday, School holidays: ~6PM->~1AM.

That's not to say other times on Sat/Sun/Holidays aren't high usage, but they're not the general "peak" times: people still do other things in the middle of the day!

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euanandrews

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#129239 7-May-2008 20:54

JUPITER2K: If 12pm modnight to 8 a.m traffic is free. rest is $1.50/G. Users will have a problem.
If traffic is free then ISP can do whatever they like!, shape /throttle etc.. right?

Anyone?

Read my above post...while it may be marketed as 'free', the reality is it is not...reasons being:
- You are downloading/using bandwidth during unsocial/off peak hours, that ISP's otherwise have a hard time selling/using...and as a result of everyone/most users using peak hours, their service/product gets congested/slows to a crawl and appears inferior, so less attractive...
- You are paying more ($1.50 instead of $1.00) for overage

So I do not see it as free...the user is paying more for overage, hence that pays for the 'free' bandwidth, and they are choosing to use the bandwidth at a time that is otherwise unsellable/unused, so hence that merits 'discounted' bandwidth.

It is in the interest of everyone to have the load spread out as even as possible, so everyone gets the best possible speed/service, and this is what they are trying to accomplish, and makes their service/product appear more attractive and sellable, hence in the long term they will sign more people up and make more money from happy customers...but to do this, they have to offer 'concessions' or 'discounted' bandwidth, to get people to use such an unattractive time slot.

Having said that, No, I dont think they will automatically have the right to what they want...unless the clearly state it in the terms at purchase, then at least there is no misleading and people know what to expect, what they are paying for.

insane

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#129251 7-May-2008 22:37

exportgoldman:
insane:

The bizarre thing is that the speeds have been fixed and they havnet implemented the plan yet, let alone move pepole onto it.

Why is it that now the floodgates are open? Maybe they started to see customers leaving in droves and had to open the pipes.

I think its great that they have finally fixed their %^%& but to me it shows that they really were short on int bandwidth all along and only now decided to buy when folks started to leave, b1tch and moan.

From what other people are saying in the forums, XNET has been phoning the heavy users and moving them to this new plan already, and from the statistics I've seen, moving only the top 4% of your users, will reduce traffic up to 50%.

The problem with buying more and more international bandwidth is it becomes prohibitive as it's only used to full potential for 6 hours of the day. If they were to ensure every user could get a 1MBits to Los Angeles, it works out to several hundred dollars a month simply in connection costs.
...

Yes that last paragraph is spot on (I made a pretty graph of this over on the GP forums a few weeks ago), but I someone doubt that its move than 4% of customers who are doing the damage given the kind of users the xnet plans attract.... they are /were probably being swamped with p2p traffic.

I wonder why they dont simply ask these heavy users to leave xnet altogether as surly there must be some provision for this in the T&C. Maybe they were desperatly trying to be 'nice' or a large percentage of their customrs are causing them head aches.

I guess only time will tell.

euanandrews

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#129259 7-May-2008 23:24

insane: I wonder why they dont simply ask these heavy users to leave xnet altogether as surly there must be some provision for this in the T&C.

That is just ignorant.

Company's need to plan for the future, and the reality is bandwidth use per user is going to get heavier and heavier, as all forms of media is available online and becomes mainstream, and prices will eventually come down as technology improves/new technology becomes available.

A company would be shooting themselves in the foot if they said to customers 'go away, we don't want your business'...
Instead ISP's need to structure their plans so that they manage the peak hours congestion problem more efficiently and are no matter what, profitable, so to provide a better service for all.

There is nothing wrong with heavy bandwidth users, they can be very profitable if a ISP's plans are setup correctly.

brucie44

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#129261 7-May-2008 23:48

insane:

I wonder why they dont simply ask these heavy users to leave xnet altogether as surly there must be some provision for this in the T&C. Maybe they were desperatly trying to be 'nice' or a large percentage of their customrs are causing them head aches.

I guess only time will tell.

so you turn away customers who want to buy more of your product (volume of data) ????

maybe they should get shot of anyone who uses less than 20 GB/month

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