Adsl User Quota's

[youbet]

I heard via a pal who attended the communicAsia conference in Singapore this week, that all Thai ISP's are giving serious thought to implementing user quotas of about 3gbs per month starting in August.

Any truth to this or just another bad rumour?

[Jimmyd]

I hope it's a bad rumor, I have 3 gigs for breakfast every day!

[INTJ]

Perhaps your buddy was sat at the back of the hall and misheard.

What they really said was "As from August, Thai ISP's are set to increase ridiculously low bandwidth quotas to enable users to download over 3 gigabytes a month"

INTJ.

Edited June 24, 2007 by INTJ

[Firefoxx]

I like the idea of quotas, but 3GB/month is way too low even for the casual user. 3GB per *day* is more like it, and will serve to curb the really heavy bandwidth abusers while still allowing normal users leeway to download. If they did implement 3GB/month, subscribers would cancel their subscriptions in droves, since even checking your mail would drive you over the quota.

[bkk_mike]

This must be about an increase in allowed bandwidth on the cheapest packages surely...

I'm just saying that as I'm definitely doing more than 3Gb a month, although I doubt if much more than 1Gb is emails. (I get a lot of email, but only a small number have large attachments - from Excel, etc.)

All I can hope is that the ISPs have actually found genuine new bandwidth from somewhere, and that this isn't going to make matters worse for those of us paying a lot more than the cheapest packages cost.

[monty]

I would be a very big supporter of starting to use bandwidth caps.

IMHO it would instantly improve pretty much everybody's connection speed.

They would have to set reasonable caps though, something like 25% of what your connection would be able to download.

This would still be over 60 Gb/month for a 1024kbps line, which would be plenty for "home" use.

People need more, then upgrade to business packages...

I hope it's a bad rumor, I have 3 gigs for breakfast every day!

Not in Thailand I would think, running a 1024kbps ADSL line at full blast, 3Gb still would take you 8 something hours. Or you eat slow

[Crossy]

I would be a very big supporter of starting to use bandwidth caps.

IMHO it would instantly improve pretty much everybody's connection speed.

They would have to set reasonable caps though, something like 25% of what your connection would be able to download.

This would still be over 60 Gb/month for a 1024kbps line, which would be plenty for "home" use.

Agreed. Our connection (512k) in Belgium was limited to 20G, we rarely hit the limit even with two apartments sharing the line, when we did everything slowed down to 64k (so no problem getting mail etc.).

[INTJ]

Curious to know what constitutes a "bandwidth abuser" ?

As far as I am concerned I pay for a 1024 ADSL connection, and I am entitiled to use that as much as I want. There are already restrictions on international bandwidth here which makes using the internet here a somewhat antiquated experience.

Instead of whinging about people "abusing bandwidth" (that they've paid for), we should all be campaigning for better service and faster connections. Thailand wants to be an asian "IT hub" ? Then it needs to start looking at the speed and reliability of internet connections in Japan and Korea otherwise its a big joke. Also CAT needs to rethink the ridiculous charges imposed in ISP's for international bandwidth. To place more restrictions on an already krap service is not the way forward IMO.

We are already at the bottom of the barrel here when it comes to internet. I was talking to my mother yesterday, she has a 5MB connection for the same as I pay for a (internationally) restricted 1MB connection.

INTJ

[monty]

You paid for a car that can drive 200 kph, so you'll drive it 200 kph regardless of the effect this might have on other drivers???

Anyway, although in most Western countries they do not have a bandwidth cap per se, but they do have a "fair use" policy.

I can assure you that if you try to use the cheapest home package full blast for 2 consecutive months, you gonna have to shop for a new ISP

Anyway, at a 5mb connection a 500gig hard drive would be full before the end of the month, so probably not too many people using that much bandwidth

You are however spot on with the prices the CAT charges, however they have lost their monopoly, and ISP's can source there bandwidth wherever they please.

[INTJ]

Hi Monty,

If we're equating this to motoring, I would argue that 3 gig a month is like buying a car, then to be told you can only drive it 500km a year.

Regards,

INTJ.

[dominique355]

You paid for a car that can drive 200 kph, so you'll drive it 200 kph regardless of the effect this might have on other drivers???

Anyway, although in most Western countries they do not have a bandwidth cap per se, but they do have a "fair use" policy.

I can assure you that if you try to use the cheapest home package full blast for 2 consecutive months, you gonna have to shop for a new ISP

Anyway, at a 5mb connection a 500gig hard drive would be full before the end of the month, so probably not too many people using that much bandwidth

You are however spot on with the prices the CAT charges, however they have lost their monopoly, and ISP's can source there bandwidth wherever they please.

Couldn't disagree more with you.

If an ISP sells me a package for 1 Mb/s Internet connection, flat, why would it not be fair to use it "flat", i.e. without artificially restricting myself?

As long as these ISPs sell me a 1 Mb/s connection and then deliver at maximum 750 kilobit/sec at best, usually more around 150 kb/s to 250 kb/s, and when complaining they simply say that they don't guarantee the speed, in my opinion it's the ISP who is unfair, not me.

And then, about the 5mb connection and the 500 gig hard drive ... are we mixing up bits and bytes? Mind you, the connection speed is measured in bits, hard drives in bytes. (8 bits = 1 byte).

Just a thought: How can they promote Internet TV with these speeds and then even consider restricting it to 5 MB (per day, months, whatever)?

Does anyone have experience with IT TV?

[monty]

nope, we would not.

A car driven at 60 kph for 24 hours/day, covers some 500,000 km. In my equation the yearly limit would be 125,000km/year (not too many individuals drive this much) which would be pretty plenty to get around.

Use the car professionally (e.g. transport) then the option has to be there to "upgrade your package" allowing you to drive more...

We have a problem with internet here. Undercapacity combined with a high demand created by ISP selling their packages too cheap, and not being clear about what such a package should be used for.

[Mid]

Undercapacity combined with a high demand created by ISP selling their packages too cheap

and that's the subscribers fault ??

you'll do well here .

[monty]

And then, about the 5mb connection and the 500 gig hard drive ... are we mixing up bits and bytes? Mind you, the connection speed is measured in bits, hard drives in bytes. (8 bits = 1 byte).

5 mbps X 3600 sec =18000 Mb/hour (all bits, there's 3600 seconds in an hour)

18000/8 = 2250 MB/hour (now we divided by 8 to get Bytes)

2250/1024 = 2.2 GB/hour (divide by 1024 to go from Mega to Giga)

2.2 X 24 = 52.8 Gb/day (24 hours in one day)

52.8 X 30 days = 1584 GB/month...

Seems I was wrong indeed, it's 3 hard drives needed

As long as these ISPs sell me a 1 Mb/s connection and then deliver at maximum 750 kilobit/sec at best, usually more around 150 kb/s to 250 kb/s, and when complaining they simply say that they don't guarantee the speed, in my opinion it's the ISP who is unfair, not me.

Very true, Thai ISP are notoriously unclear in what they are selling. They should clearly state that ADSL will deliver around 85% of rated speed due to overhead in the IP/TCP protocol, and that they are selling a home package where the 85% is guaranteed only for local content, while for international content the 85% of rated speed is shared with 40 other subscribers, so that what you'll actually get depends on the usage patterns of the other subscribers...

For IPTV there would be no problem since the content is hosted locally, where there are no bandwidth problems.

The monthly cap would only be in place on international bandwidth (where the CAT comes into play).

And I'm advocating a cap at 25% of capacity. Over 60GB/month on a 1024kbps connection running at 85%...

I do know 5GB is ridiculous!

[Firefoxx]

Argh, back to the argument about "I paid for it, so I'm entitled to it" again.

Ok. 1 megabit of real international bandwidth costs a lot of money, in the 10's of thousands of baht. Corporations, when they pay for their leased line internet connections, pay this amount to the ISP and get to use that bandwidth as they like, they practically are paying the total cost. YOU, however, are not paying this much. You're paying a few hundred baht for what costs tens of thousands of baht. Now, how can it be that you pay so little?

It's what's called contentation, or sharing of bandwidth, for consumer broadband. That 1 megabit of bandwidth is shared among 30-50 people, who share the cost, and thus share the bandwidth. Are you "entitled" to use all the bandwidth all the time, 24/7? No. When you pay your 40 baht to get on the expressway, are you entitled to use all lanes of all the highway simultaneously? No. You're supposed to use your fair share. Parking your car in the middle of the expressway and holding a concert is not part of your right, even though it is not explicitly stated. You cause a traffic jam and you make life total hel_l for all the other users of the highway. Same goes for consumer broadband. Eat up all the bandwidth you're sharing, all the time, and there's nothing left for the other users. You can do this by using the biggest abuser of bandwidth, bittorrent, since bandwidth allocation usually will favor the most streams, and bittorrent is king of streams, compared to merely surfing the web or doing VOIP.

So, no, you didn't "pay for it". Cough up around 50k baht per month, and THEN you would have paid for it, and nobody would have issues with your use, since nobody would be affected by your selfishness. Bandwidth is not free, and it does not cost just a few hundred baht per month. Get real.

Now this is where quotas come in. If implemented correctly with reasonable numbers, like those monty suggested, it would still allow you to download lots of files. It would just kill off those people who leave bittorrent on at full bandwidth 24/7. This kind of quota is actually used in many places, and in other places it's actually part of the fair use policy, where if you abuse your bandwidth, either your contract is terminated or your speed is reduced to ISDN (64k) level for the remainder of the month. I rather like the contract termination part.

Edited June 25, 2007 by Firefoxx

[Mid]

So, no, you didn't "pay for it". Cough up around 50k baht per month, and THEN you would have paid for it, and nobody would have issues with your use, since nobody would be affected by your selfishness.

wrong target , talk to the vendors

don't blame me because they promised BS.

[A_Traveller]

So, no, you didn't "pay for it". Cough up around 50k baht per month, and THEN you would have paid for it, and nobody would have issues with your use, since nobody would be affected by your selfishness.

wrong target , talk to the vendors

don't blame me because they promised BS.

Sorry, but no they didn't.

If you have the original agreement for your ADSL connexion, you will find that the small print includes get out phrases, as they do anywhere. Since here the ISP's whom we all love to blame, are caught between a rock and a hard place. The bandwidth capacity is only sourced by CAT, CAT charges for it at a level which makes it unsustainable for the ISPs to remain in business unless they use a high contention policy. Since this data is commercially sensitive it is not published, but I'd take a punt and view it as around 1/50 now, it was about 1/20 a few years ago.

Further the growth in demand for video p2p is creating an impact all over the web, not just here. {Estimates place it at about 5% of request traffic but 45%+ of overall web traffic} Curiously enough MaxNet actually specified in their contract documents p2p as a, if memory's serves, 'non supported' service, in other words if it worked fine, if it was unavailable then that was contractually covered.

The result of a lack of competing sources for international capacity, or lack of growth in facilities at a reasonable cost, the growth of p2p, and the growth {though low by comparison to other SE Asian countries} of the user base leads to the problems we are all seeing on a daily basis.

Presently and until {though this is getting less likely} international bandwidth is cost effectively available there will be no improvement, without managing the user community. Interestingly enough I would expect this type of policy, or the provision of 'high performance' accounts to increase as a percentage of the net landscape and not just here.

Regards

[Mid]

for what it's worth ,

the obvious answer is to build bandwidth ,

do that till you've got overcapacity and what happens to price ??

take it up with the ISP's ,

kinda like buying a red car and being expected to accept a white one .

[A_Traveller]

for what it's worth ,

the obvious answer is to build bandwidth ,

do that till you've got overcapacity and what happens to price ??

take it up with the ISP's ,

kinda like buying a red car and being expected to accept a white one .

Not disagreeing but not sure that the ISP's are permitted to build international connectivity, or at least not without having to pay a 'license' to CAT. Therefore the capacity grows BUT the cost does not. This is not a free market.

Regards

[Mid]

true that ,

blaming the consumers is BS .

[A_Traveller]

true that ,

blaming the consumers is BS .

But if a quota goes ahead {the OP rumour} then they are not blaming the consumer, but managing them within the resources at their disposal.

It would be better in my view if they publicly stated a management policy, rather than, the surreptitious 'shaping', which is in use now. Might even lead to a sensible debate about how to grow the internet connectivity, but then again our gun carrying minister doesn't think the interweb thingy is interesting anyway.

Regards

/edit format //

Edited June 25, 2007 by A_Traveller

[Mid]

true that also ,

my comments were directed at the posters blaming the consumer

anywhere else the consumer would be suing the supplier .......................

[Firefoxx]

I'm not blaming *the* consumer, as in "all consumers". I'm blaming the really idiotic consumers who think that they can pay peanuts and get the full course. It just doesn't happen, no matter what the country. As I said before, bandwidth caps are actually implemented in most countries. It's just that you're usually not aware of it until your account is terminated from "excessive usage".

Really. When you pay the entrance fee to the pool, you're not buying the rights to use the pool ALL BY YOURSELF. When you're paying taxes, it doesn't mean that YOU SOLELY OWN THE ROADS. When you pay the sharing fee for your bandwidth, YOU ARE NOT ENTITLED TO HOG IT ALL TO YOURSELF.

Most consumers don't abuse their bandwidth, so, again, this is not aimed at "consumers". This is aimed at some really selfish folks.

And Yes, the ISPs and the government share the blame (I've stated this fact WAY TOO MANY TIMES and people are tired of it). It's just that they're NOT THE ONLY ONES TO BLAME. OK?

Edited June 25, 2007 by Firefoxx

[CobraSnakeNecktie]

Most consumers don't abuse their bandwidth, so, again, this is not aimed at "consumers". This is aimed at some really selfish folks.

I think the thing that is not being read into this is that the ISP's are probably just phasing in some more tiered pricing offerings to increase their revenues. This would allow them to offer cheaper packages to new and casual usage customers and then offer medium and heavy user packages for customers who want a better product (i.e. lower contention ratios, GB downloads) and don't mind paying a higher price...

This is sorely needed IMO to have more midrange choices and not a big jump between the home package and the small business products.

[INTJ]

To get things in perspective

http://www.pressesc.com/01179677598_us_internet_slow

The AVERAGE internet speed in Japan is 61 Mbps

South Korea 45Mbps

INTJ

[Mid]

"Speed Matters on the Internet", Cohen emphasized. "It determines what is possible; whether we will have the 21st century networks we need to grow jobs and our economy, and whether we will be able to support innovations in telemedicine, education, public safety, and public services to improve our lives and communities. High speed Internet could even help address the global warming crisis by allowing people to get things done without getting into their car."

from the above , well worth citing here .

http://www.pressesc.com/01179677598_us_internet_slow

[astral]

I fear there may be truth in the report.

Here in Malaysia they now tell us how much we have downloaded in a month......

No limit so far.

I recommend Dumeter to keep track and also to

monitor from minute to minute just how well your link is working.

However, last year when I was in Lebanon we were told that downloads over 6Gb per month would be

looked at, and anything over 10 would result in disconnection......

[TAWP]

Adding transfer-caps is nothing about allowing *you* to have a better surf-experience in limiting *other* high-bandwith users, it's about forcing down overall bandwith usage and being able to add more customers per outgoing Mbit of international connection.

And Monty, I think you are as wrong you can be that a cap in any way possible would be in the benefit of the average user.

[ajarnmark]

You paid for a car that can drive 200 kph, so you'll drive it 200 kph regardless of the effect this might have on other drivers???

Anyway, although in most Western countries they do not have a bandwidth cap per se, but they do have a "fair use" policy.

I can assure you that if you try to use the cheapest home package full blast for 2 consecutive months, you gonna have to shop for a new ISP

Anyway, at a 5mb connection a 500gig hard drive would be full before the end of the month, so probably not too many people using that much bandwidth

You are however spot on with the prices the CAT charges, however they have lost their monopoly, and ISP's can source there bandwidth wherever they please.

Couldn't disagree more with you.

If an ISP sells me a package for 1 Mb/s Internet connection, flat, why would it not be fair to use it "flat", i.e. without artificially restricting myself?

As long as these ISPs sell me a 1 Mb/s connection and then deliver at maximum 750 kilobit/sec at best, usually more around 150 kb/s to 250 kb/s, and when complaining they simply say that they don't guarantee the speed, in my opinion it's the ISP who is unfair, not me.

Well, internet speed does not depend only on the ISP but on a variety of factors, including the traffic conditions, congestion and users etc. So I think ISP is not unfair to provide you 1MBps link for only THB599+VAT (roughly USD19)

And then, about the 5mb connection and the 500 gig hard drive ... are we mixing up bits and bytes? Mind you, the connection speed is measured in bits, hard drives in bytes. (8 bits = 1 byte).

He is not. If you are using 5MBps connection that would give you 625 KBytes per second (5,000,000/8) which gives about 37.5 MB per minute and 2145 MB per hour and 50 GB per day and 15 TB per month. So if you use it at even one third of the capacity or time then it could easily fill up 500GB HDD easily

Just a thought: How can they promote Internet TV with these speeds and then even consider restricting it to 5 MB (per day, months, whatever)?

They can provide you free access to their site which means they are not going to access/use international bandwidth.

Does anyone have experience with IT TV?

[monty]

TAWP,

You have a point if indeed the regained capacity gets resold again. Which is indeed an actual risk with some of the truly notorious ISP's (pun intended )

If they do not resell, after a while surfing experience on average should improve.

Very simply put, there are people out there having their P2P programs race all day, downloading stuff they most probably will never use or watch.

There is a group of people out there who run their connections 100% 24/7, because if they don't, they have this nagging feeling they paid for something they didn't completely use.

They don't actually run their connection full blast because they really need the stuff.

Nowadays with the proliferation of the p2p networks, when you are on a contention ratio of 40:1, you have a fair chance that some of these subscribers are out somewhere enjoying a beer, while their connection is laboring away downloading utterly useless stuff, resulting in reduced speeds for you.

Put a cap of 25% capacity and they'll be cut of after a week (or speed reduced to dial-up), they'll soon learn to download what they need, with plenty of GB's left at the month.

This is the main reason most ISP's in the West have these caps, either clearly stated or hidden in the "fair use" policy.