So much for zero-rated Steam

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

Kyanar

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#106084 17-Jul-2012 22:29

So far today downloaded Skyrim, Fallout 3, Fallout NV and a few other things from Steam. Every single time, I've confirmed that when I click Play it says "Content hosting provided by Orcon". And they've still managed to screw it up and charge me for 12GB of traffic. I'll be putting in a ticket as well, but in my experience the only way to get Orcon to do anything is to complain in public (I've had a line completely out since Friday - nothing back from that either).

Can Orcon do anything right?!? It's all well and good for poor Bam to come on here and apologise for dropping the ball pretty much every day, but could they actually stop dropping the ball in the first place?

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#657292 17-Jul-2012 22:59

To be fair Orcon do warn you that they cannot guarantee you will be getting content from the steam server, post here: http://www.orcon.net.nz/support/gfaq_page/important_o_zone_info_about_steam

You are downloading during the steam summer sale when all steam servers are under huge load, if you look at the stats for Orcon's at one point it was at maximum and couldn't possibly give you the game: http://games.orcon.net.nz/index.php?page=steam

Steam will change your download location if the Orcon server is to busy which is more than likely what has happened.

Edit: It is pretty frustrating but the best thing to do is assume you will be charged for the data then if it turns out it is zero rated think of it as a bonus :)

Kyanar

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#657298 17-Jul-2012 23:12

Well to be fair, none of that is my problem. I absolutely will not assume as you say - it's quite clear when it downloads - "Content hosting provided by Orcon" "Zero-rated for Orcon customers". As an Orcon customer, it should be zero rated as long as the software claims I am receiving data from Orcon. It's not my job to care about the capacity of their infrastructure.

hio77

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#657300 17-Jul-2012 23:18

are you using something such as steam limiter or blocking other steam content servers with your firewall?

steam likes to connect to multiple servers to provide the content faster etc.. so it may show orcon, but you could also be pulling data from say telstras content server..

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Kyanar

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#657302 17-Jul-2012 23:21

Irrelevant. If I see "Provided by Orcon. Zero rated", it's zero rated.

johnr

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#657303 17-Jul-2012 23:23

Kyanar: Irrelevant. If I see "Provided by Orcon. Zero rated", it's zero rated.

alexx

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#657313 17-Jul-2012 23:45

Kyanar: Well to be fair, none of that is my problem. I absolutely will not assume as you say - it's quite clear when it downloads - "Content hosting provided by Orcon"

Have had the same problem here in the past. My son is the gamer in the house and one time I asked him about the internet usage. He told me he checked it was coming from the Orcon steam server. I must admit I didn't really believe him, but the next time I saw it myself "Content hosting provided by Orcon". Then later that evening checked the usage meter and find the download has been added against the billed section, not the zero rated part.

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hio77

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#657314 17-Jul-2012 23:45

and that is where steam should remove the banners fully, its was useful back when files would come from one server and that was it. now its not uncommon to use at lest 2 servers to download off..

only true way to be sure it wont eat your usage is to limit steam to purely just the orcon server, this does comes with an annoying issue of that that server will stop handing you data randomly (could be after 50MB or after a few GB)

least your isp does zero rate some steam data.. if you look at it, thoses games you listed should have totalled more than 12GB down, so all of that was zero rated..

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Kyanar

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#657319 18-Jul-2012 00:19

Frankly, that banner image was provided by Orcon. Should it actually say "Provided by games.orcon.net.nz. Might be zero rated. Probably won't be. Are you feeling lucky?"

No. Orcon provided a banner image to display in the client that quite clearly indicates you will not be charged for the traffic, therefore to then charge for it is simply not on.

mercutio

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#657322 18-Jul-2012 00:34

alexx:
Kyanar: Well to be fair, none of that is my problem. I absolutely will not assume as you say - it's quite clear when it downloads - "Content hosting provided by Orcon"

Have had the same problem here in the past. My son is the gamer in the house and one time I asked him about the internet usage. He told me he checked it was coming from the Orcon steam server. I must admit I didn't really believe him, but the next time I saw it myself "Content hosting provided by Orcon". Then later that evening checked the usage meter and find the download has been added against the billed section, not the zero rated part.

that's one of the reasons zero-rating is dodgy.

(the other being net neutrality)

hellonearthisman

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#657328 18-Jul-2012 00:54

IF they say free, then it should be free, having a statement in the fine print doesn't cut it and I'm pretty sure that it breaches the consumers guarantee act.

kingjj

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#657336 18-Jul-2012 04:04

Any chance of putting a bit of the blame towards Steam as well? Sure Orcon say its zero rated, but steam manages the download and (as mentioned) often adds several servers for speed. Orcon have, IMHO, done their best to provide the content from their server zero-rated, so unless it can be proven to be a billing error perhaps its time to install a Steam Limiter and give Orcon a little credit (and I'm sure they'll recuperate with a credit or 12 back).

1080p

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#657360 18-Jul-2012 07:40

kingjj: Any chance of putting a bit of the blame towards Steam as well? Sure Orcon say its zero rated, but steam manages the download and (as mentioned) often adds several servers for speed. Orcon have, IMHO, done their best to provide the content from their server zero-rated, so unless it can be proven to be a billing error perhaps its time to install a Steam Limiter and give Orcon a little credit (and I'm sure they'll recuperate with a credit or 12 back).

I think the point here is that unless Orcon are willing to zero rate everything from Steam (international or not) they should not advertise Steam as zero rated.

As has been discussed here, it is technically impossible for Orcon to control content delivery so advertising that they can zero rate Steam downloads is not right.

Free Money!*

*May or may not be free depending on where it comes from.

All that is being requested of Orcon is to be good guys about it. If it is too expensive to zero rate all Steam traffic then withdraw the advertising that Steam content is zero rated.

Lias

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#657396 18-Jul-2012 08:57

1080p:

All that is being requested of Orcon is to be good guys about it. If it is too expensive to zero rate all Steam traffic then withdraw the advertising that Steam content is zero rated.

I'm not associated with Orcon in any way shape or form (other than having been there customer many years ago and still having a "free for life" @orcon email address), but I have to defend them here.

They, and all the other ISP's who provide steam content caches are abundantly clear that because of the nature of the steam client, there is no guarantee that what you download will always be unmetered.

In Orcon's case it's spelled out at https://orcon.net.nz/support/gfaq_page/important_o_zone_info_about_steam

But let's be very clear, this issue is NOT specific to Orcon, it applies to any ISP in NZ with a steam cache.

If you use steam, without using a 3rd party tool such as steamlimiter, your just asking for a giant data bill. Also FWIW huge amounts of steam content is no longer cached due to Valve only serving it via it's new HTTP distribution system, and they havn't yet provided any way for ISP's running cache servers to cache the new content.

tl;dr Blame Valve, not Orcon, and use steamlimiter (which you still need to turn off for any game that's HTTP system only)

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1080p

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#657499 18-Jul-2012 11:12

I think you're missing the point. I'm not attacking Orcon for something they cannot control, I am attacking their marketing which, effectively, states:

Steam content is zero rated.*
*Not all Steam content is zero rated.

This is something they and any ISP cannot control. So they need to:

a) zero rate all Steam content regardless or origin.
b) remove the claim that Steam content is zero rated because it is technically impossible to do so.

Use of a third party application is irrelevant, I think it is great that they are running a server but they should be aware that they will mislead a good many ignorant people.

xpd

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#657519 18-Jul-2012 11:24

The content they have is zero rated.
They dont state anywhere they hold all content.

But I can see where the banner can be misleading....

Gavin / xpd / FastRaccoon / Geek of Coastguard New Zealand

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