So much for zero-rated Steam

Forums › 2degrees (including Slingshot, Orcon, Flip, Stuff Fibre, MyRepublic, 2talk and Vocus) › So much for zero-rated Steam

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Geek
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#657781 18-Jul-2012 16:26

Get me two of your management. Have them dance for my amusement! DANCE I SAY!

Kyanar

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#657783 18-Jul-2012 16:28

jsr: Get me two of your management. Have them dance for my amusement! DANCE I SAY!

No. Do not make light of such behaviour from a representative of a major ISP. This sort of response is absolutely unacceptable and absolutely must be raised as a concern.

hio77

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Lizard Networks

#657794 18-Jul-2012 16:33

remember, orcon provide the server free, many other isps are happy to make you pay for ALL of the usage.. take the data you have saved already and stop making such a big deal as to why your FREE service from the isp didnt give you a chance to get everything you wanted free.

sure it was misleading, that banner has been changed now.. cant exactly expect a isp to zero rate every single steam content server..

#include <std_disclaimer>

Any comments made are personal opinion and do not reflect directly on the position my current or past employers may have.

NonprayingMantis

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#657795 18-Jul-2012 16:33

detonate: Banner has been updated to remove hopefully what is the last point of confusion from it all.

But realistically I'm probably just going to turn it off.

Let this be public record, stored in the Waywayback Machine, that I'm turning it off because of Kyanar.
This is why we can't have nice things.

Just before I stop replying to this thread, I'd like to say that the Orcon Games Zone, including the Steam Content Server was completely driven by techies at Orcon, and NOT by the marketing team.
It was supposed to benefit not just our customers, but all gamers in NZ.

Gee Gee.

this image springs to mind

Kyanar

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#657805 18-Jul-2012 16:44

hio77: remember, orcon provide the server free, many other isps are happy to make you pay for ALL of the usage.. take the data you have saved already and stop making such a big deal as to why your FREE service from the isp didnt give you a chance to get everything you wanted free.

sure it was misleading, that banner has been changed now.. cant exactly expect a isp to zero rate every single steam content server..

I've said this 5 times before, and I'm sick of saying it. There was no indication in any of the material I'd seen to date that not all traffic would be zero rated, and the banner at the time of downloading said it would be. Therefore, I expect that it would be zero rated at least as a one off good faith gesture in recognition of the fact that the material available at the time did not indicate that it might not be. I'm not budging on that damned point, so stop trying to make me.

The banner has been changed to not imply that it would be zero rated, and if it said this in the first place this entire thread wouldn't exist, because I'd completely understand that no one promised that the download would be free so any free stuff would be a bonus (and a welcome one). However, at the time this was not the case. And the infuriating response from detonate has greatly exacerbated the issue - I have absolutely no intention of backing down in the face of that.

quentinreade

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2degrees

#657807 18-Jul-2012 16:45

Let me try and clarify things and put this in context.
Since we announced our Steam server we have faced complaints from people who expected all Steam content to be zero-rated.
We have credited people back who got bill shock (message me if you need a hand here too).
We have been trying to educate people re: how Steam content is served, and made changes to our FAQs and the like, but haven't been able to educate all.
The reason Det is defensive is we were trying to do something to benefit the NZ gaming community, at our cost.
Since then we have been dealing with the fallout - including a Commerce Commission investigation into both our and TCL's Steam offering.
We genuinely want to offer this, and zero rate the content from our Steam server.
It's gotten to a stage where our bosses are tempted to turn it off.
Det and I have been arguing we should keep it, and that people value it.

So - let us know that you value it - and any suggestions re: educating people about how it works, and we'll fight to keep it.

Thanks for hearing me out.

Comms chap

2degrees

jsr

16 posts

Geek
Inactive user

#657811 18-Jul-2012 16:48

Kyanar:
jsr: Get me two of your management. Have them dance for my amusement! DANCE I SAY!

No. Do not make light of such behaviour from a representative of a major ISP. This sort of response is absolutely unacceptable and absolutely must be raised as a concern.

I'd like to advise you that (in my personal opinion) you're acting like a whiny, shrieking, strident martinet of a man. You may not be one, but you're acting like one. Did you realise? You may not have realised that. Was that your intent? Are you an artist? Is this a performance piece? Are you Banksy or Damian Hirst or what? If so, good job. Stencils and whatnot, pickled cows, excellent, excellent. Not my cup of tea, but Art for Arts sake.

My response to you telling me what to do is to cordially inform you that I intend to continue to make so much light of this that in thousands of years, alien beings walking on distant shores will raise their multiple eyes to strange skies and say "What the hell was that?"

Hope this helps, and good luck with your new ISP. I am sure that Orcon will greatly miss your $10 or whatever.

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Move to New Zealand's best fibre broadband service (affiliate link). Free setup code: R587125ERQ6VE. Note that to use Quic Broadband you must be comfortable with configuring your own router.

Nebbie

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#657812 18-Jul-2012 16:49

Well good to see that the banner that seems to concern some that is miss leading has now been removed however, guys we are all grown-ups here well I would hope so its really sad that its come down to this.

The problem as raised has been address and the issues concerned removed.

As far as I see the matter as been address and resolved, no need for further discussion.

---------------------------------------------------------------
Nebukadnessar

Lias

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#657814 18-Jul-2012 16:50

Kyanar:
jsr: Get me two of your management. Have them dance for my amusement! DANCE I SAY!

No. Do not make light of such behaviour from a representative of a major ISP. This sort of response is absolutely unacceptable and absolutely must be raised as a concern.

I'm unsure if detonate is an Orcon employee or not, but it must be pointed out that even if he is, he is NOT formally identified as one on Geekzone on his profile. As such any opinions he expresses are clearly his own and not necessarily those of Orcon itself.

Personally my opinion of people who use steam without clearly understanding how it works, and using the correct tools to control it's behaviour, then whine that their ISP should pay for it is so low that I don't think I can express it without breaking the FUG. Detonate might be overreacting but I can understand his frustration. To quote teh intertubes.. "The Stupid, It Burns!"

I'm a geek, a gamer, a dad, a Quic user, and an IT Professional. I have a full rack home lab, size 15 feet, an epic beard and Asperger's. I'm a bit of a Cypherpunk, who believes information wants to be free and the Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it. If you use my Quic signup you can also use the code R570394EKGIZ8 for free setup.

Lias

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#657821 18-Jul-2012 16:52

quentinreade:

So - let us know that you value it - and any suggestions re: educating people about how it works, and we'll fight to keep it.

Thanks for hearing me out.

Keep it, alter the banner to tell people to use steamlimiter, charge the people that don't pay attention a data rate that makes data roaming in Uzbekistan look cheap!

xpd

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#657826 18-Jul-2012 16:57

Telling people to use 3rd party software is going to lead to support calls for it and also, its not very professional (no matter how helpful) - "heres our service, but only use it with this 3rd party"

Gavin / xpd / FastRaccoon / Geek of Coastguard New Zealand

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Kyanar

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#657829 18-Jul-2012 17:00

quentinreade: Let me try and clarify things and put this in context.
Since we announced our Steam server we have faced complaints from people who expected all Steam content to be zero-rated.
We have credited people back who got bill shock (message me if you need a hand here too).
We have been trying to educate people re: how Steam content is served, and made changes to our FAQs and the like, but haven't been able to educate all.
The reason Det is defensive is we were trying to do something to benefit the NZ gaming community, at our cost.
Since then we have been dealing with the fallout - including a Commerce Commission investigation into both our and TCL's Steam offering.
We genuinely want to offer this, and zero rate the content from our Steam server.
It's gotten to a stage where our bosses are tempted to turn it off.
Det and I have been arguing we should keep it, and that people value it.

So - let us know that you value it - and any suggestions re: educating people about how it works, and we'll fight to keep it.

Thanks for hearing me out.

Thanks Quentin,

I do appreciate you coming on here and being rational and polite in response to what must seem to be a very aggressive attacker (i.e. me). The reality is, I do think there is value in offerings like these, however it's important to make sure that people aren't misled at the same time - in this instance, the main issue was that there is a banner displayed in the client that touted zero-rating for Orcon customers when that couldn't be guaranteed - if you'd never looked at the O-Zone pages (I haven't by the way) this could have led someone to believe that their download would be free which it might not be. I see that's now been corrected which is awesome.

The main problem is that people don't necessarily look at the Orcon website, so things like FAQ changes go completely unnoticed by ... well, pretty much everyone. Short of doing fancy stuff like detecting large amounts of traffic to something like Steam and sending an email notification of the potential for a large bill, I see little you can do short of after the fact cleanup.

Because of the number of caveats involved, it's probably best that any mention of it being zero-rated should be on the same page as all the info about the exceptions and what can be done about it. If you've seen TCL's Steam page that's a great model to follow - apart from the page I could see no mention anywhere about it being zero-rated so you would only know it's zero-rated if you'd also read their essay on Steam's CDN and what you can do to mitigate the risks of bill shock. This is actually quite relevant to the O-Zone in general - TCL also says upfront with regards to sites in the unmetered zone that things like embedded Youtube videos, advertisements and other 3rd party content on the unmetered sites is still metered, while Orcon doesn't seem to mention that. I suggest you might want to do something like that.

Ideally probably the first response from Orcon in one of these threads should also be someone who's more objective as well. As a developer, I know the feeling when you get an angry customer attacking your work. The advice I received from my manager about this was "Don't reply. Escalate to someone else who can objectively look at the issue and filter the feedback from the customer".

rzn

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#657830 18-Jul-2012 17:01

xpd: Telling people to use 3rd party software is going to lead to support calls for it and also, its not very professional (no matter how helpful) - "heres our service, but only use it with this 3rd party"

You're right. The better option is to just turn it off.

Kyanar

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#657834 18-Jul-2012 17:07

jsr:
I'd like to advise you that (in my personal opinion) you're acting like a whiny, shrieking, strident martinet of a man. You may not be one, but you're acting like one. Did you realise? You may not have realised that. Was that your intent? Are you an artist? Is this a performance piece? Are you Banksy or Damian Hirst or what? If so, good job. Stencils and whatnot, pickled cows, excellent, excellent. Not my cup of tea, but Art for Arts sake.

My response to you telling me what to do is to cordially inform you that I intend to continue to make so much light of this that in thousands of years, alien beings walking on distant shores will raise their multiple eyes to strange skies and say "What the hell was that?"

Hope this helps, and good luck with your new ISP. I am sure that Orcon will greatly miss your $10 or whatever.

I was going to respond with something more in line with your first paragraph, but that second one is way too funny. Good show!

Lias:
I'm unsure if detonate is an Orcon employee or not, but it must be pointed out that even if he is, he is NOT formally identified as one on Geekzone on his profile. As such any opinions he expresses are clearly his own and not necessarily those of Orcon itself.

Personally my opinion of people who use steam without clearly understanding how it works, and using the correct tools to control it's behaviour, then whine that their ISP should pay for it is so low that I don't think I can express it without breaking the FUG. Detonate might be overreacting but I can understand his frustration. To quote teh intertubes.. "The Stupid, It Burns!"

Nice of you to go ahead and violate the FUG by attacking me directly anyway. I'll refrain from doing the same. Exactly what level of "understanding" should I need in order to use Steam? Which university should I attend to complete my "National Certificate in Steam Level 1"? No, stow that. In case you didn't notice it, Steam has this convenient little thing which tells you where it claims to be getting its data from. Once upon a time Orcon told you that you could rely on this. More than likely so did TCL. They no longer do this, but unfortunately they can't update data already in people's heads. This can lead to bad things, like this thread. Someone from Orcon has come in and unfortunately taken a fairly bad tack to approach this. He's bowed out about as gracefully as you can after abusing a customer, and someone else has stepped in to recover the situation. Therefore this thread no longer needs your offensive diatribes.

Satire

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#657835 18-Jul-2012 17:08

Kyanar:

No. Do not make light of such behaviour from a representative of a major ISP. This sort of response is absolutely unacceptable and absolutely must be raised as a concern.

Absolutely unacceptable. You managed to read half a two line advertisement, change the meaning so it suited you then claim the FAQ (Which I recall reading a good year and a bit ago, and it contained the right info then) changes 'weekly' so how could you have known about the different steam servers that your computer would use automagically??!?

THEN you tried to act all high and mighty, invoking the name of the all powerful commerce commission in the hope of forcing these evil Orcon guys to do the unpossible and make all the internets free for you. (OK, maybe just put in a bunch of stupidly expensive DPI boxes or something at a few hundy thousands cost and zero rate it for no perceivable business case just because you are unable to Internet)

Yep, that was highly unacceptable, and now you are wondering why the easier option for them is to simply turn off a free service they were giving you ?

I lold.

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