[WXC/VFX] The Torrent plan and what it's done...

Forums › One New Zealand (including Vodafone, WxC, Farmside) › [WXC/VFX] The Torrent plan and what it's done...

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213 posts

Master Geek

#170337 10-Oct-2008 08:22

Hmmm there was a kid in the other thread, quoted me, called me all kinds of names, and went on to agree with everything I say hehehe. Either he don`t speak English or is sniffing too much glue. Because of him, the thread was closed.

Anyway, Sbiddle, it`s not that simple. First we wanna be sure what is really going on. Are Xnet limiting the Torrent plan`s bandwidth, or have they just been oversubscribed? Limiting the plan`s bandwidth would be against any commercial law in the universe. We are not all leechers, we just choose to do most of our internet traffic during the night, and so we help other users to more bandwidth during peak times. We are paying customers just like people on the regular Fusion plan, we cannot be discriminated against. If they wanna adjust their plans, cancel the Torrent plan or whatever, then let them do so. But tell us what`s going on.

I started off with the regular Fusion plan. I was going to play online games, watch videos etc, never thought about downloading lots of stuff. But the peak time speeds were so useless that I decided to move to the torrent plan and completely change my internet habits. No more online gaming during peak hours, haven`t watched streaming videos for ages. My pc is in my bedroom, I can`t leave it on all night, so I needed to buy an old laptop, put it in the kitchen and use that for my new internet habits, ie. night time torrenting, when hardly anybody is online.

And now we get people come here complaining about the torrent plan, when in fact it has done what it was meant to do: free up bandwidth at peak times for people who are not on the torrent plan.

If honest work and justice are not enough - we'll get a lawyer.

sbiddle

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#170339 10-Oct-2008 08:33

attilathegorilla:
Anyway, Sbiddle, it`s not that simple. First we wanna be sure what is really going on. Are Xnet limiting the Torrent plan`s bandwidth, or have they just been oversubscribed? Limiting the plan`s bandwidth would be against any commercial law in the universe.

How would limiting bandwidth be against any commercial laws? I don't recall any consumer ISP plan in NZ offering guaranteed speeds. I'm also not quite sure what's not simple about moving ISP's - it isn't a particularly hard thing to do.

As an outsider (who has no interest in WxC and the only thing I have with them is voice) I'd almost speculate that Wxc don't care if they lose some high usage customers - losing the few hundred customers who are the root cause of the bandwidth problem might be a good thing.

sbiddle

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#170340 10-Oct-2008 08:33

attilathegorilla:
Anyway, Sbiddle, it`s not that simple. First we wanna be sure what is really going on. Are Xnet limiting the Torrent plan`s bandwidth, or have they just been oversubscribed? Limiting the plan`s bandwidth would be against any commercial law in the universe.

choccers

64 posts

Master Geek

#170343 10-Oct-2008 08:42

Just rung XNet again and asked them what was going on.

Yes yes said the CRM dude, we have been working on it, we have fixed the problems the normal peak users were having and now we are trying to fix the torrent plan back to what it was.

Yes he said I realise that a down speed of between idle and 10kbs is not good. People here at xnet are on the torrent plan and they are suffering as well. Yes and we do need to stop advertising it as a torrent plan great for P2P and file sharing if its not fixed.

Working on it now, should be fixed soon.

Oh well.

But they really do have to think about not advertising something as great for download users when obviously at the moment its not.

and yes I know about leeches and users on other plans and its just not fair we take up all the bandwidth etc. I am fairly happy to be traffic shaped and bandwidth managed and running off-peak periods, no issues with shrinking the number of hours off-peak, but what I do have an issue with is the extent that the plan is currently less than useless for its subscribers and not what is still being advertised.

mini rant over

attilathegorilla

213 posts

Master Geek

#170345 10-Oct-2008 08:54

sbiddle:
How would limiting bandwidth be against any commercial laws? I don't recall any consumer ISP plan in NZ offering guaranteed speeds. I'm also not quite sure what's not simple about moving ISP's - it isn't a particularly hard thing to do.

It`s called discrimination.

sbiddle:
As an outsider (who has no interest in WxC and the only thing I have with them is voice) I'd almost speculate that Wxc don't care if they lose some high usage customers - losing the few hundred customers who are the root cause of the bandwidth problem might be a good thing.

Where did u get that from? Don`t u remember that before the Torrent plan was started, these fora were full of new threads every day complaining about peak time international speeds? The Torrent plan was started exactly to ease that problem, and it has made things better as far as I can tell.

If honest work and justice are not enough - we'll get a lawyer.

Talkiet

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#170347 10-Oct-2008 09:05

attilathegorilla:
sbiddle:
How would limiting bandwidth be against any commercial laws? I don't recall any consumer ISP plan in NZ offering guaranteed speeds. I'm also not quite sure what's not simple about moving ISP's - it isn't a particularly hard thing to do.

It`s called discrimination.

I see what you've done there... You've used an emotive word but in reality have absolutely no basis in fact or law to back you up.

ISPs are allowed to manage traffic. They are allowed to make commercial decisions on the level of service they provide.

I expect a quote from relevant NZ law or a clear statement from Xnet's T&Cs in your next post to back you up. Anything else is empty rhetoric.

In fact, I'll start - here's a quote from their usage policy that you have agreed to:

----- cut here -----
Excessive Use

As Xnet is a shared access to the greater Internet, it is the users responsibility to ensure that their actions on Xnet do not impact on the experiences of other Xnet users. Therefore WxC will take action on specific users that are deemed by WxC to be utilising XNet resources excessively with the possibility of impacting other users. This includes but is not limited to the amount of data that may be downloaded in a month or part of a month.

WxC may:

Warn the customer that continued excessive downloading may result in further action
Shape, filter, exclude or prohibit the further downloading of further data - either in its entirety or apply this on certain types of traffic
Continued excessive downloading may result in the cancellation or suspension of the account without warning
With regards to a dial-up connection, this connection must not be used as a permanently connected service

WxC will at its discretion reset your connection to ensure that the service cannot be used in this manner.

----- cut here -----

Emphasis mine.

Ta-da!

Regards - N

Please note all comments are from my own brain and don't necessarily represent the position or opinions of my employer, previous employers, colleagues, friends or pets.

wh0beme

58 posts

Master Geek

#170350 10-Oct-2008 09:13

Talkiet:
attilathegorilla:
sbiddle:
How would limiting bandwidth be against any commercial laws? I don't recall any consumer ISP plan in NZ offering guaranteed speeds. I'm also not quite sure what's not simple about moving ISP's - it isn't a particularly hard thing to do.

It`s called discrimination.

Excessive Use
As Xnet is a shared access to the greater Internet, it is the users responsibility to ensure that their actions on Xnet do not impact on the experiences of other Xnet users. Therefore WxC will take action on specific users that are deemed by WxC to be utilising XNet resources excessively with the possibility of impacting other users. This includes but is not limited to the amount of data that may be

Note the bold, the reason why Xnet made the torrent plan was "taking action" on 24/7 hardcore leeches.

People were complaining about Inational speeds at peak time.

The torrent plan was designed to help the problem, which it did. It certainly got better.

Xnet took its action against the heavy users, and it was all good for a while until everybody started flooding with 5k connections each night. I limit mine to 100 max, and upload to 8KB/s. So should you all.

@attila im sure they are WAY oversubscribed, what im wondering is why did they not make the torrent plan like go large, no more users signing up, but if you want to keep it you can.

Sharesies

Trade NZ and US shares and funds with Sharesies (affiliate link).

attilathegorilla

213 posts

Master Geek

#170352 10-Oct-2008 09:15

Talkiet, your blurb is 100% irrelevant. We are not talking about excessive users. We are talking about the entire bloody Torrent plan. Besides, if Xnet do not want to have `excessive users` during the night, then why are they offering them 75GB free data per month? It don`t add up.

If honest work and justice are not enough - we'll get a lawyer.

Talkiet

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#170356 10-Oct-2008 09:22

attilathegorilla: Talkiet, your blurb is 100% irrelevant. We are not talking about excessive users. We are talking about the entire bloody Torrent plan. Besides, if Xnet do not want to have `excessive users` during the night, then why are they offering them 75GB free data per month? It don`t add up.

In your last sentence, you've hit the nail on the head.

"It don't add up"... 75GB per month at any time of the day "Free" is going to disrupt the network badly. I don't care what you say about subsidising it with the $1.50/GB during other times - that doesn't even come close to paying for the 75GB. Plus, at least one user has admitted they download almost nothing outside the "free" hours - and I suspect a LOT of the torrent users behave like this.

It certainly don't add up - and that's why it's broken. The economics of the torrent plan simply don't add up. Xnet only have a limited number of options.

1) Leave it as it is, with terrible performance during those times, BUT not losing money.
2) Add massive amounts of bandwidth at high cost to support users that are not providing any more revenue.
3) Stop signups and the plan will slowly get better as people drop off the plan - note it'll never get good again.
4) Kill the plan and force migrate users back to the standard plan - this may be legally problematic.

If you can think of other options, I'd like to hear them - but remember - options that cost Xnet a lot of money and don't bring any more revenue in simply aren't real world options.

Wishing for better performance won't make it so - the option needs to work financially for Xnet.

Cheers - N

Please note all comments are from my own brain and don't necessarily represent the position or opinions of my employer, previous employers, colleagues, friends or pets.

attilathegorilla

213 posts

Master Geek

#170359 10-Oct-2008 09:29

Talkiet, don`t u appreciate why the Torrent plan was created in the first place? It was created because peak time international speeds were absolutely abysmal. With the Torrent plan, most heavy downloaders and leechers have moved their traffic to periods when very few others are online. And just last night I ran a quick speedtest at half past 9, my speeds to LA were about 2mbps down and 500kbps up. More than useful. Before the torrent plan was started, those speeds would be more like 200kbps down and 70kbps up.

If honest work and justice are not enough - we'll get a lawyer.

bazzer

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#170360 10-Oct-2008 09:30

wh0beme: I limit mine to 100 max, and upload to 8KB/s. So should you all.

How does limiting your uplaod to 8KB/s help? Isn't that kind of against the principles of torrenting? What's your share ratio like?

bazzer

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#170362 10-Oct-2008 09:32

attilathegorilla: Talkiet, don`t u appreciate why the Torrent plan was created in the first place? It was created because peak time international speeds were absolutely abysmal. With the Torrent plan, most heavy downloaders and leechers have moved their traffic to periods when very few others are online. And just last night I ran a quick speedtest at half past 9, my speeds to LA were about 2mbps down and 500kbps up. More than useful. Before the torrent plan was started, those speeds would be more like 200kbps down and 70kbps up.

They give you 75GB free each month, but they don't guarantee speeds. How could they? You can't have your cake and eat it too. If you don't like the torrent plan, go back to Fusion and do your downloading at peak times.

slayer123

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#170363 10-Oct-2008 09:33

Well today's help desk person was allot better. :) At least they admitted fault and the problem was currently been worked on although he had no idea when it would be solved. Also mentioned the lack of activity here and poor information on their site relating to the issue. He said he'd look into that too.

Been with Xnet for nearly 3 years and I think their an excellent ISP, and don't want to have to change as someone mentioned here. Just the handing of this situation hasn't been the greatest - I'm sure it can be resolved.

attilathegorilla

213 posts

Master Geek

#170366 10-Oct-2008 09:39

bazzer:
They give you 75GB free each month, but they don't guarantee speeds. How could they?

That`s not the point. I just wanna know why my speeds have decreased tenfold (more like thirty-fold) from one day to the next. That`s all. But like Slayer is saying, there has to be a fault somewhere, cos Xnet wouldn`t just go and mess things up on purpose, for no reason at all.

If honest work and justice are not enough - we'll get a lawyer.

Talkiet

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#170368 10-Oct-2008 09:40

attilathegorilla: Talkiet, don`t u appreciate why the Torrent plan was created in the first place? It was created because peak time international speeds were absolutely abysmal. With the Torrent plan, most heavy downloaders and leechers have moved their traffic to periods when very few others are online. And just last night I ran a quick speedtest at half past 9, my speeds to LA were about 2mbps down and 500kbps up. More than useful. Before the torrent plan was started, those speeds would be more like 200kbps down and 70kbps up.

Yes I do understand - One of my internet connections at home is with Xnet. I was happy with the performance until the torrent plan was implemented since I browse sometimes after midnight.

Making the torrent users plan in their own pool is the Right Thing to do - if nothing else it illustrates the economics of flat rate plans for all to see.

ie. THEY DON'T WORK.

Cheers - N

Please note all comments are from my own brain and don't necessarily represent the position or opinions of my employer, previous employers, colleagues, friends or pets.

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