[ihug] Incorrect data count

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siyuan

189 posts

Master Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#13100 22-Apr-2007 17:22

Has anyone here noticed anything abnormal regarding your monthly data count? I strongly believe there's something seriously wrong with ihug's data counting system. I'm on the old 2Mbps/128Kbps plan. My allowance is 10GB + 10GB for peak and off-peak.

Lets see what's unusual this month:

1) 17/04, fresh new start of the month, I started the download at 12am (eMule) but set the scheduler to limit both download and upload speed to 3KiB/s, and unlimited the download speed at 2am (start of off-peak hour). Stopped the download at 10am (start of peak hour).

I was absolutely shocked to find 2804MiB counted towards peak hour and a whopping 6617MiB counted towards off-peak. Why am I shocked? First is the off-peak, theoretically it's possible but it just never happened in my experience, 4.xGiB was the highest I've ever encountered during 8-hour off-peak time. The data count for peak hour is also incorrect, not only I've limited the download/upload speed during 12am~2am, but it's beyond the theoretical maximum amount I can download in 2 hours.

Assume the download speed is sustained at 250KiB/s and upload at 16KiB/s, in 2 hours I can use up to 250*60*60*2+16*60*60*2=1915200KiB=1870MiB. So where the hell the additional ~1000MB come from? And guess how much is actually downloaded recorded by eMule for the night? 2.xGiB only!

2) There were nights when my router was completely powered off, but there's still ~1GiB counted towards off-peak.

3) Today 22nd, I think this is evident enough something is seriously wrong. As an experiment I started a download (~700MB Kubuntu Feisty Linux ISO) from an NZ local ftp at 2am (manually). Because off-peak data allowance has already gone over the limit, the speed is kept at 64kbps which I have verified using NZDSL speed test (60kbps max). At 10am I stopped the download and as I've calculated I've only downloaded 200MiB. I then check the data count for the night, 1028MB!! At 60kbps there's no way you can reach that number!

I've already rang ihug a few days a go and a customer rep told me he'll ask the technician to take a look, but this won't be treated as high priority. I'm going to ring them again to explain the situation and hopefully they take it seriously.

If anyone here has the same experience, please also let ihug know, we need more attention from them.

Regs

4066 posts

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Snowflake

#68074 22-Apr-2007 18:51

when you are using software loaded on your own machine to do the rate-limiting is it possible that the application is forcefully dropping packets it doesnt want to receive - i.e. the ISP has delivered them to your computer but your computer is discarding them? If this is the case then the ISP could argue that it has indeed delivered the data packets and legitimately charge you for them.

i'm not sure exactly how the rate-limiting works but i would not be surprised if the endpoint that is sending the data out is doing it as fast as it can without observing arbitrary rate-limits that you impose at your end

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lokinz

298 posts

Ultimate Geek
Inactive user

#68090 22-Apr-2007 22:02

I had a similar problem last month, the data count reported using 40GB in a 24hr period, I ran iHug, they were very helpfull and told me they had been experiancing some issues with it and reset my usage for the month.

You should definatly give them another call, but do it during buisness hours as a supervisor/manager needs to reset it.

siyuan

189 posts

Master Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#68093 22-Apr-2007 22:25

Regs: when you are using software loaded on your own machine to do the rate-limiting is it possible that the application is forcefully dropping packets it doesnt want to receive - i.e. the ISP has delivered them to your computer but your computer is discarding them? If this is the case then the ISP could argue that it has indeed delivered the data packets and legitimately charge you for them.

i'm not sure exactly how the rate-limiting works but i would not be surprised if the endpoint that is sending the data out is doing it as fast as it can without observing arbitrary rate-limits that you impose at your end

The data sender cannot send too much faster than the receiver, otherwise the network devices' buffer run out quickly, there are control protocols to avoid this. Also this client rate limiting does not apply to situation 3) I described above, my speed is capped by ihug, not limited by myself.

lokinz: I had a similar problem last month, the data count reported using 40GB in a 24hr period, I ran iHug, they were very helpfull and told me they had been experiancing some issues with it and reset my usage for the month.

You should definatly give them another call, but do it during buisness hours as a supervisor/manager needs to reset it.

Agreed, I really need to ask them to reset it, but I fear this problem is going to remain in the future. I cannot ask them to reset it every month. Their data capping system has almost always been very unreliable, like if I'm capped during off-peak hours but not peak hours, when it comes to peak hour, my speed should be uncapped automatically again, but this is not always the case. I have to manually reset my router to get back to normal speed again.

I'll keep observing for the next few weeks and see if any thing improves.

NZtechfreak

4649 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#68104 23-Apr-2007 07:33

Its interesting you mention this, I've been experiencing some inflated data measurements by Ihug this month. Maybe I should contact them, if they get more calls/emails it may raise their awareness enough to lift the priority with which they examine the problem.

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Fraktul

836 posts

Ultimate Geek

Trusted

#68342 24-Apr-2007 19:48

siyuan:
The data sender cannot send too much faster than the receiver, otherwise the network devices' buffer run out quickly, there are control protocols to avoid this. Also this client rate limiting does not apply to situation 3) I described above, my speed is capped by ihug, not limited by myself.

Thats not what he is saying, if you start sending random crap to somebody's connection they are still going to be charged for said crap. Your logic only applies if the sending party actually wants an ACK or if the bit bucket in question is full on their PVC in which case the PDU has already past the LNS for the wholesale service provider and been billed for.

siyuan

189 posts

Master Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#68381 25-Apr-2007 00:22

Fraktul:

Thats not what he is saying, if you start sending random crap to somebody's connection they are still going to be charged for said crap. Your logic only applies if the sending party actually wants an ACK or if the bit bucket in question is full on their PVC in which case the PDU has already past the LNS for the wholesale service provider and been billed for.

Perhaps you are right, but if that's really true, then isn't it so easy to flood the network and cause a whole lot of trouble?

Anyway I've been consistently producing inflated data count for the past few nights by completing the same ISO I started earlier from the same local NZ FTP. I can only download roughly 200MB during the 8-hour off-peak time frame, so it took me several nights to complete it. The data count by ihug for each night is still >3x the actual data.

Having rang them again, I was told they'll forward the information to the technicians. They always say that, but there's just no feedback at all on the current situation.

toki91

12 posts

Geek

#68649 27-Apr-2007 12:35

I have had the same problem rung ihug and they said that theres alot of that around lately they did reset my connection,

But I notice on my connection activity that it is showing wrong amount as well, im on fair use plan use p2p but its p2p downloading at 25k upload 1.5k windows connection saying 250k up 250k down which is impossible
has anyone got ideas what is causing this and how to fix it,
Also If this the case and Ihug uses my report for theirs if i change that somhow to read 0 then my data usege should be zero.

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allstarnz

1719 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#68940 30-Apr-2007 15:46

interesting, their data usage page now says this, guess there must've been an issue

Looking for your data usage?
We're making some network upgrades over the next week which means that the online data checker will be unavailable during this time. Unfortunately our contact centre won't be able to give you an update on your data usage either.

But don't worry, your broadband will still work as normal and your data will be counted and billed for correctly. The online data checker will be back at the end of the first week in May so please check back then.

etc