[WXC/VFX] New off-peak time ?

Forums › One New Zealand (including Vodafone, WxC, Farmside) › [WXC/VFX] New off-peak time ?

xpd

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#28476 1-Dec-2008 14:06

Friend who actually still gets invoices , has mentioned that the new off-peak hours are 2am-8am as of 1st Jan 2009 according to the invoice
Nice of Xnet to mention that publicly...... oh well... good luck to them.....

Gavin / xpd / FastRaccoon / Geek of Coastguard New Zealand

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kiwicam

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#181364 1-Dec-2008 14:29

Wow that was sneaky. I get invoices and just had a look at my last one... it's there:

"To Internet customers who have opted for the Torrent option, please be advised that as of January 1 2009, the hours for uncharged data usage will change to 2am to 8am. The change in times is the result of customer feedback over the past few months."

I'd like the think there was some more official notice of this coming... but based on their service over the past few months, I'm not holding my breath.

3puttssuck

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#181367 1-Dec-2008 14:55

Wow....come on guys what more do you want. It's on the invoice to read. The fact that you didn't see it and had to go back after it was posted here about it, is not xnets fault. Do you expect them to call you personally. How to do expect companies to tell people of changes ? By putting it on an invoice is the most cost effective way I can think of. I guess some people need their hands held all the time. :-) And no I don't work for xnet.

cranz

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#181371 1-Dec-2008 15:21

Dear cranz,

This email is to advise you of a change in hours to your Xnet Torrent pricing option.

After significant feedback from our customers, WorldxChange will be changing the hours where you can transfer up to 75Gigabytes at no additional charge from the current Midnight to 8am window, to a later start time of 2am. All other aspects of the service remain the same.

This email is to provide you with 30 days notice of the change.

The amendment in start time will be implemented at midnight on the 31st of December to improve the experience of service to the majority of the Xnet subscriber base, who has expressed concerns that many people routinely continue to access the Internet real time after midnight and the activity of Torrent subscribers is impacting their experience.

If the change in start time affects the desirability of the Torrent option and you would like to change to another pricing option or discontinue the service, please contact Customer Care and we will assist you.

Regards,

The Team at WorldxChange

There's your notification ;)

kiwicam

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#181379 1-Dec-2008 16:09

Awesome... that's more like it :-)

Sorry, I've become a little pessimistic.

paradoxsm

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#181398 1-Dec-2008 17:41

I'll give it to them, at least they are up front and honest about it. no trying to hide behind some cover of "network issues"

betel

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#181433 1-Dec-2008 19:05

What are people opinions about the new off peak time? I'd be interested to see what torrent plan users and non torrent plan users think about it?

Also I'm curious as to how many torrent plan users there are out there?

Personally, I am a torrent plan user , so naturally I don't particularly like the new time.

Also the way I see it , Xnet is cutting down on the off peak hours , which is the basis of the torrent plan, but yet you don't cut the price of the plan , I'd like to know what kind of business model that is?

Thanks,
Chris

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#181435 1-Dec-2008 19:24

This dosen't really concern me anymore as Im leaving xnet this month to xtra but being a ex torrent plan user, I would say if xnet are doing this I would like to see the peak time data cost drop.

It is hard enough to use 75gb atm with the slow intl speeds so giving less time to do this there should be some sort of compensation in my mine.

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xpd

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#181443 1-Dec-2008 20:02

Yeah Im off as well, just waiting for new ISP to let me know its ready to go....

The network will still be the same for torrent users IMHO...theyre just freeing it up a bit more for the pay-per-mb users.
Which is nice for those users.....

Gavin / xpd / FastRaccoon / Geek of Coastguard New Zealand

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rphenix

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#181667 2-Dec-2008 21:12

xpd: Yeah Im off as well, just waiting for new ISP to let me know its ready to go....

? I hope its not slingshot and say someone like orcon? Good luck anyway :)

I've noticed the speeds are more "normal" of late been quite happy with the speeds I'm getting.? Changing the torrent time to 2am is great I'm often still working on a server or something at 12am but as often at 2 :)

createcoms

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#181700 3-Dec-2008 06:01

As soon as I saw it on the invoice I wrote to them and said I wasn't happy, they said it was well thought out so I wrote to them again:

With all due respect to the directors, the decision has not been carefully considered unless they are operating under constraints dissimilar to those of every other ISP on the planet.

Here's a more detailed analysis of why this is wrong:

Lets start with some basic truths, because if we don't agree on these then the argument further on cannot be reasoned with.

Truth 1

Every Consumer-level ISP has less carrier bandwidth to allocate to their customers, than it has bandwidth between the customers and itself. Thus it is impossible for every customer to simultaneously utilise their immediate CPE-to-ISP bandwidth capability because the numbers fall well short. To manage this, an ISP implements a Data allocation which discourages the Customers from utilising their bandwidth at a level which aggregates to that beyond which the carrier bandwidth has capacity for. This is highly effective, and increases (or allows for) profitability (for the ISP) and affordability (for the customer, who would otherwise pay exponentially more if they were to buy exclusive access to a slice of the carrier capacity).

Truth 2

In recognising the fact that the majority of bandwidth used by consumers is that which belongs to filesharing (and within that category, Bittorrent stands at the forefront), Xnet has sought to further relieve their burdened network by encouraging this bandwidth intensive activity during a period when other activities(which whilst not being so consuming, still experience a negative impact due to the effect on latency (packet round trip times) when sharing the interconnects with P2P) are not being demanded of by most users (because they would be asleep).

Now onto the Torrent plan situation, present and future (as the intention stands).

The torrent plan has failed and succeeded at the very same time. Inside the defined peak period, the aggregation of the finite carrier capacity which Xnet has purchased has achieved a respectable level of performance - something which the existence of the torrent plan would definitely being playing a part in. Outside this peak time, where the P2P users find themselves conducting their activity - it has failed miserably.

Why has it failed?

Because users have been allocated 75GB of "data", they are conducting their P2P habits based upon the expectation of consuming an amount close to this allocation. 75GB divides into a 30 day month as 2.5 Gigabytes per offpeak day, which then divides down to 320 Megabytes per hour of traffic. That's 5 1/3 of a megabyte a minute or 91KB/sec

Obviously, the amount of users and the amount of carrier bandwidth means that the aggregation has fallen short of user expectations and therefore the capacity of the obviously crippled network .

There is a clear difference, during this time however between *National* traffic and *International* traffic - International suffers the most whereas National traffic performance is less affected. This proves the choke point is the international carrier capacity for the most part, but also the slight impact on National performance lends weight to the idea that the Xnet National peering is also running moderately high on capacity utilisation (or operates with a low bits per second packet rate, e.g. 1Gbps links instead of 10Gbps links)

Now to the future, the point of this which is the notification via invoice that the offpeak period will be reduced by 2 hours.

Numbers time again,

We take the calculated 2.5GB per offpeak day (based upon a 30 day month) and spread that across the now 6 hours we have available.

2.5GB divides into 426 2/3 Megabytes per hour
Which then gives us 7.11 Megabytes per minute
Thus pushing our rate to 121.36 Kilobytes per second.

Lets examine in the context of the above what this achieves:

Peak Period, it does nothing for the existing peak period but adds an extra 2 hours onto the peak time thus allowing for easier bandwidth aggregation for the 0000-0200 period. I'd love to know how many people are surfing the net or checking their email during this period.

OffPeak Period, it simply makes the situation WORSE. We've now increased the bandwidth demands during this time and so with everything else remaining as is - the already substandard performance of the network during this period, will now be so bad that dialup might seem attractive.

This action clearly demonstrates that Xnet does not wish to meet a level of excellence with it's Torrent plan - it's simply a dumping ground for "bandwidth hogs" so the grandma and grandpa can cross the internet road during peak traffic.

This is unacceptable.

So again, here's a revision of what I believe would better accommodate ALL involved:

The Aggregating Data cap of 75GB. Let's face it, 6 hours or 8 hours you don't have enough *International* bandwidth pie to go around for everyone at that level of cap. Unless you are able to further invest in you carrier capacity it must be reduced. Bring it down to a level which is still generous (when compared to other offerings).

I suggest 45GB. I'll skip the full equation this time around and say with an 8 hour offpeak period this means a demand per user of 54.61KB/sec - a significant reduction compared with the current numbers (which are 91KB/sec for 8 hours or 121.36KB/sec for 6 hours)

That's only one part of the angle to reduce international bandwidth consumption, the other being to differentiate between National and International Traffic.

The 45GB should be for International traffic, and National should either be capped at a VERY generous amount (100GB+) or be completely flatrate. This encourages National P2P efforts and also use of the Ono plugin (as is explained on my homepage, http://homepages.xnet.co.nz/~createcoms/). The effect is that the demand of the international link would be further discouraged as users seek to get their fix through the more generous local offerings. The perceived "freedom" of a National offering that vastly exceeds the majority of P2P user demands (because most people aren't sitting around with hundreds of terabytes of HDD space, they can only get so much) would be like ducks to water - and drying up the international link whilst still making it relatively accessible would induce this.

And lastly, the Peak rate should NOT be higher for Torrent users - why would you penalise a P2P user whom is doing YOU a favour by conducting their most intensive activities during your offpeak periods? It makes no sense, and is a further sign that Xnet does not take seriously the P2P community.

xpd

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#181715 3-Dec-2008 08:10

rphenix:
xpd: Yeah Im off as well, just waiting for new ISP to let me know its ready to go....
? I hope its not slingshot and say someone like orcon? Good luck anyway :)

I was eyeing up SS but nope... went to Orcon. Well... once they connect me Ill be with them :)

Gavin / xpd / FastRaccoon / Geek of Coastguard New Zealand

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Baboon

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#182184 5-Dec-2008 02:01

Amazingly the Xnet Xnet HSI Broadband page still contradicts itself in several places.

As to what I think of the new hours? I thought being charged 1.5x the usual peak rate for awful, awful 'free' off-peak service 12 - 8am up to 75GB was a utter sham. In fact you had to download most of what you needed during peak hours because 75GB free per month is a joke. I was lucky if I could manage 200MB a day off-peak!

Now that they've reduced 'free' hours it's even more a sham. Why anyone would continue to pay 1.5x the usual rate 18 out of every 24 hours so they download SFA for six measly hours is beyond me. Especially when nothing else works during those six hours.

The Torrent plan is such an unbelievable rip-off I can hardly believe it. Xnet should be taken to the Commerce Commission for the totally bogus suggestion the Torrent plan will save customers money.

"The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us."

- Calvin and Hobbes (Bill Watterson)

xpd

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#182202 5-Dec-2008 08:28

But as I got told when I complained..... "We are still giving you the service....." - albeit cut down to a trickle....
Anyway, over it, off to Orcon where I might be able to browse the ANZ site anytime I like rather than having to wait until 8am.

Gavin / xpd / FastRaccoon / Geek of Coastguard New Zealand

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