how long will xnet's 75GB free off peak data last for?

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richgamer

224 posts

Master Geek
Inactive user

#29340 3-Jan-2009 23:41

on xnet's torrent plan they give you 75gb free off peak data per month. how long will this plan last for because it's probably the best broadband cap out of all nz isps. because i thought international bandwidth costs heaps which is why for $49.95 on xtra you only get 10gb, yet for $49.95 on xnet you get 75gb per month free off peak. i mean i could just use the net off peak and only pay $49.95 and use the free 75gb. does anyone think xnet is losing money on the free 75gb because if it is possible to give this very high cap why doesn't xtra offer 75gb for it's $49.95 plan?

Ragnor

8222 posts

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#187273 4-Jan-2009 05:28

Typically ISP's don't pay for data in per GB like consumers (in NZ) do, they pay for sustained bandwidth in terms if MBit/s or GBit/s for international traffic.

An ISP has to buy xyz Gbit/s of international bandwidth in order to provide a reasonable service during peak time when the highest number of their customers are using the internet (typically from 5pm till midnight). Once people (especially mom and pop or non geek users) go to sleep usage drops off significantly and the xyz GB/s the ISP is paying for largely goes unused.

ISP's don't buy bandwidth 1:1 to users connection rates that's simply not economically viable. most ISP's operate on a ratio of anywhere from 25:1 to 100:1. For example say an ISP has 100 customers who are connected to the exchange at an average of 5Mbit each, the ISP doesn't buy 500 Mbit of international bandwidth there's no way they could afford to operate like that, an ISP with a 100:1 contention ratio actually only buys 5Mbit that's shared between those 100 users. Think of it like traffic flowing on a motorway, if there are 100 cars travelling south you would never build a 100 lanes south, you build 5.

p2p can suck up all available international bandwidth in peak time and adversly affect regular users. So some ISP's choose to offer free off peak data in order to entice heavy downloaders/p2p users to schedule their downloads off peak, the idea is to free up peak time bandwidth for regular use stuff www/email/youtube and the international bandwidth they are paying for 24x7 isn't unused offpeak.

Free offpeak is a strong marketing advantage and good for users but it can backfire and be exploited. Xnet and Slingshot have attracted all the heavy downloaders and p2p users to their services. You'll find bang on offpeak time thousands of peoples scheduled p2p applications start downloading and uploading that regular use of the internet goes to crap. There are so many people doing this that actually the offpeak download speeds are very very poor.

I would guess that ISP's make an acceptable profit off of need low usage mom and pop non geek users and not much off of the leechers. Also people who use the internet for regular things like web/email/youtube in offpeak hours (night owls, night shift works etc) best avoid ISP's with free offpeak because generally the performance will be terrible.

JoeRandom

43 posts

Geek

#187936 7-Jan-2009 08:55

spot on Ragnor when i first signed up to Xnet i went on the torrent plan it took me 2 nights befor i called them to tell them to put me on a caped plan During off peak times i was getting 4439kbit/s(85% of my ADSL sync rate) Natonal, 34kbit/s to AU, and 29kbit/s to USA. NOW that i have changed off of the torrent plan i can get 3000kbit/s to AU and USA.
It seems that xnet have set aside a porion of thair internatonal bandwidth for useres who are not on the torrent plan.

Damager

2125 posts

Uber Geek

#187981 7-Jan-2009 11:41

I'm on the Snap Night Owl plan which was offered as an option for about a month until Snap withdrew the plan. It was a special promotion at the time (april/may 2008)

160/160 7am to 7pm
FS/160 7pm to 7am

Unlimited Data, yes.. totally unlimited.

This is the best broadband data plan @ $39.95

I havent used torrents for a while now after switching to downloading from RapidShare servers. I max my download bandwidth all the time. I just set all my downloads to run between 1am and 6am. I average around 40GB a month, a workmate does 100GB a month most months. We were both Ihug before we checked out Snap's special promotion and havent looked back since.

Surfing performance during peak which is around 7pm to 11pm ios great. I can cache 10 minute youtube videos in 2 minutes 30 seconds. Speedtests to LA and San Francisco during peak are around 2800 kb/s.

Cheers

- Telstra HTC Touch Pro2 - Energy ROM WM6.5.5 20 Oct/Cyanogen Mod Froyo 2.2 - R.I.P
- AT&T Galaxy S Captivate 16GB on XT (now with brother)
- Samsung Galaxy S2 on XT- Runs ICS 4.0.3 Resurrection Remix 9.2
- Business Hours - Work In The Electricity Industry, After Hours - DJ/Turntablist - Will Scratch Vinyl For Free'
- What's next??? S3?

deicidal

19 posts

Geek
Inactive user

#189111 13-Jan-2009 00:29

on xnets 75gig plan they pooled all users together and gave them bandwidth. this was around Octoberish.

In about end of December they put in hardware shaping appliances to manage torrent traffic. So much for the torrent plan.

They do not intend on removing these, just tweaking them till everything goes well.

Also some figure like 30% of international pipe is fed to torrent plan offpeak. from memory, xnet is welcome to jog my memory.

I am on this plan, yet I dload torrents at 128k and at the same time pull down a http driver dload at 700k+

so this verifies that something is slowing only torrent traffic.

The above information has been obtained from xnet technical support and weeks of monitoring my own internet dload speeds.

Ragnor

8222 posts

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#189153 13-Jan-2009 10:43

Well there are plenty of people who want to be able to use non torrent stuff like web, email, youtube and gaming after midnight, not everyone works 9-5. It's good to see them finally taking some positive and realistic action.

It's just a shame it's 9 months to late for many customers like me. I bailed from xnet as soon as I saw them announce the start of the torrent plan. It was obvious to me it was going to be a disaster with no real traffic management in place.

At least they finally seem on track now, but I haven't seen any posts or annoucements about the traffic management, not on their official website anyway?

Are Orcon the only ISP brave enough in NZ to openly talk about how they are managing their network?

http://www.orcon.net.nz/lifestyle/page/broadband_service_control_in_the_orcon_network
http://www.orcon.net.nz/lifestyle/page/broadband_service_control_in_the_orcon_network_followup

I would really like to see more ISP's explain their management in their official blogs like Orcon have, as I user I'm far more likely to not be angry at peak timeslow service if I understand how and why things are working.

So Xnet has introded stealth shaping with no official communication or warning? A complete turn around from the anti traffic management stance they have held over the last 12 months. Doesn't give me a lot of confidence or faith in them, sadly.

deicidal

19 posts

Geek
Inactive user

#189162 13-Jan-2009 11:32

Neither does the plan you sign up for and the service you get.

Still, I need 75gig offpeak and will continue to wake up around 2am or just get up around 5, to kick off some useless dloads like PS3 or xbox 360 demos.

I am not going to pay a few bucks towards a game unless I have actually demo'd it and like it. Saves me hundreds in the long run. The dloads are getting crazy, demos going over 1Gig regularly. I know I could go out and buy a magazine with a few demos, but that again is money I dont want to spend.

I would rather dload in a 75gig offpeak time and recieve the demo for free. Which all demos should be.

Put aside all the other things I may or may not dload.

I left Orcon for Xnet by the way. I didnt actually have too much issues with them. But Dloading was expensive. Not many people actually dload a demo to ps3 and 360 then compare then decide which console to buy for.

Yes I have factors that sway. Xbox live subscription for online. G25 for Ps3 but these also are swayed by 1080vs 720 and anything else I can think of at the time.

Ragnor

8222 posts

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#189183 13-Jan-2009 12:47

Why would you wake up early instead of just scheduling the download for that time with a download manager?

Sharesies

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

deicidal

19 posts

Geek
Inactive user

#189184 13-Jan-2009 12:49

Cool, please post a link to your xbox 360 dload manager application, and the PS3 one as well. I didnt know there was any.

They have built in dload managers, but its a start and stop service not a timed one like windows.

Ragnor

8222 posts

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#189307 13-Jan-2009 18:18

deicidal:
Cool, please post a link to your xbox 360 dload manager application, and the PS3 one as well. I didnt know there was any.

They have built in dload managers, but its a start and stop service not a timed one like windows.

Heh don't look at me.. I hate consoles for many reasons including their lack of flexibility.

Damager

2125 posts

Uber Geek

#189313 13-Jan-2009 18:49

deicidal:
Cool, please post a link to your xbox 360 dload manager application, and the PS3 one as well. I didnt know there was any.

They have built in dload managers, but its a start and stop service not a timed one like windows.

Even though i rarely do torrents now (used to for years) i just had bit of a play with my usual download manager Flashget, it is also a torrent client which i keep forgetting about.

just drag the torrent file into the main FlashGet screen, youll see all the torrent pieces appear already ticked already (ala Azureus or uTorrent which im guessing are still the clients of choice these days?).. click okay.. go into the "Download" screen, select all the files.. right click and Pause, and then right click again and select "Schedule"..

go into the options screen and select Schedule and select the timeframe you want eg 2am to 6am which is my usual timeframe for downloading..

In the Download screen, you can move the files around so you can choose what gets downloaded first or last or whatever.. or pause some to schedule the next day or when you want. Do what you want.. you decide..

Learning Curve.. approximately 5 minutes on a bad day

deicidal

19 posts

Geek
Inactive user

#189324 13-Jan-2009 19:24

Damager.

Learning Curve.. approximately 5 minutes on a bad day? you should have invested that 5 minutes on reading my post rather than having a bad day.

Perhaps if you read my post? Thanks for Your advice on Using Torrent clients, I didnt need it.

I have 5 computers, my dload PC actually has a correctly configured Torrent client.

I was referring to Ragnors post about using a dload scheduler on a PS3 or 360, which doesnt actually exist.

Thanks for once again showing me that people on these forums read a post and respond to it as they see fit rather than actually knowing what the OP is about or what someone is talking about.

Your a genius.

If you know how to time delay dloads with a console (360 or PS3)without forcing it on through the power socket you might be useful.

Damager

2125 posts

Uber Geek

#189344 13-Jan-2009 20:51

deicidal: Neither does the plan you sign up for and the service you get.

Still, I need 75gig offpeak and will continue to wake up around 2am or just get up around 5, to kick off some useless dloads like PS3 or xbox 360 demos.

Okay he's inactive now, well i do apologize, i was referring more to this particular quote as opposed to specific xbox 360/ps3 download managers.. Oh well.. can't win em all.