What exactly are the "limited" speeds?

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RonnieG

12 posts

Geek

Topic # 185227 14-Nov-2015 20:09

We're grandfathered in on our old Snap plan and recently went over our 200GB data cap. The account page says "your speed is now limited" or something to that effect, but in practice we were basically disconnected. It wasn't dial-up speed (I can still remember what using dial-up was like), no webpages would load at all. I had to go to my account page on my phone to get things running again.

I realise now I should've checked the FritzBox stats page for sync speeds at the time, but I didn't. Does anyone know what speeds you're supposed to be limited to after blowing your data cap? It seems like it's as close to zero as makes no difference.

Cbfd

304 posts

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Reply # 1428149 14-Nov-2015 20:13

64kbps

Lumathe

16 posts

Geek
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Reply # 1428150 14-Nov-2015 20:18

That doesn't sound right..We ran into this issue with going over cap recently, and the net was dropping out and having trouble even loading Speedtest or Google, or basic images. Didn't seem like 64k..

Inphinity

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Reply # 1428154 14-Nov-2015 20:35

Lumathe: That doesn't sound right..We ran into this issue with going over cap recently, and the net was dropping out and having trouble even loading Speedtest or Google, or basic images. Didn't seem like 64k..

64kbps really isn't fast enough for most web content to be smoothly usable these days imo... so lots of things will time out or fail. Even Google's basic front search page is 50kB - 250kB these days, depending on the logo state etc, which is 5 - 35seconds on a 64kbps connection.

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Lumathe

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Geek
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Reply # 1428162 14-Nov-2015 20:56

Guess that makes sense, but that seems slightly beyond "limited" and more into the realms of "unusable", even for the most basic of users

Talkiet

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Spark NZ

Reply # 1428173 14-Nov-2015 21:18

3 people support this post

It's worse than that... "Limiting speed" gets harder and less deterministic in its behaviour as the difference between the access speed and the desired limited speed gets bigger. In the really bad old days with 2-4Mbps ADSL sync common(ish)place, and limiting to 64Kbps, it wasn't great even then but it worked. Now that copper accesses can be as high as high 90s Mbps, trying to limit to 64Kbps results in very strange packet flows and timings which means the experience won't be great. It won't even be good. It's my (personal) opinion that being capped should be treated as nothing more than a billshock prevention mechanism and anyone affected should take it as their cue to phone up and get a larger plan (or unlimited)

Note Spark changed from 64kbps to 128kbps partly for some of the reasons above.

The point about all pages being much bigger is completely valid as well... There are CSS files on individual pages now larger than entire arcade or role playing games from my first computer.

Cheers - N

2degreesCare

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2degrees

Reply # 1428901 16-Nov-2015 13:38

Hi everyone,

Our broadband rate limit is set to 256k to allow for basic web browsing and SIP traffic for our Snap Plus users, and only applies to the old Snap plans. This is instead of continuing at full speed and charging overage rates causing billshock, and is designed to prompt contact. Our newer 2degrees plans continue at full speed once the allocation has been exhausted, charged at $2/GB up to a $30 spend, and is then considered unlimited without further charging.

One thing to keep in mind is that this is across the connection, so if other devices are continuing to try and use data, then this bandwidth will easily be filled.

We do issue notifications by email at 80% and 100% of allocation used, and there are a number of options for additional data depending on the plan (plus changing to one of our new 2degrees plans is an option as well).

Cheers

Ralph ^JOB

Dairyxox

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Reply # 1428975 16-Nov-2015 15:18

It always felt like a con to me, as "limited" felt more like 'unusable' or even 'disconnected'.

Admittedly I haven seen this problem for a few years, but I remember friends spark ADSL connection that meant that once they hit their limit, it was no longer even possible to even download an email. Sounds like what Talkiet is saying.

256kbps should be more reasonable, but obviously the OP is still having difficulty.