Why do we have CAPS?

colin300

I have thought about this for a long time and still haven't come to any good conclusion. I understand the obvious facts such as the network would be brought to a stand still. But come on thats a bit overboard.
All exchanges that are activated in england for the first time are hammered for about a month then everything goes calm and the reason for this is because the poor people without access to BB are dying to get what they always wanted and try it out.

Its like saying to someone who just bought a ferrari not to go over 30miles an hour.
Caps shouldn't be around. Look at NTL we all know how bad they are for their service in tv but they manage to get BB around at unlimited downloads.
Like utv give u unlimited upload so why not unlimited download. It is pointless having caps. Think about it once the infrastructure is up then it cost nothing to run. Like look at the north they get unlimited downloads just on the northern side of the border and the poor people just south of the border have to take caps.

I can tell you the day Ireland is released into the world of no caps is the day that the irish telephones stop working because the exchanges will be under so much stress from everyone wanting to get BB. Not Irish Broadband (with caps) but real broadband (without caps).

dlofnep

Caps are there to ensure some members do not saturate the network which would inturn reduce the quality for standards users. True story; the minority of users use up the majority of bandwidth.

Secondly, the reason why upstream is not capped and downstream is, is because the bandwidth allowance for an upload is significantly less than that of a download. Also, the download ratio compared to the upload ratio is far greater.

You do the math.

colin300

so why does ntl service survive then?
Anyway they can always monitor people and make sure they aint doing like 5 gigs a day and stuff like that. But come on CAPS so few people in ireland have broadband or even good BB (I'm looking at you Clicksilver). you couldn't go over the limit on are connections anyway. they go off so often.

Englands BB network is able to survive Millions of people downloading everyday why not ours?

Just as i hit enter my connection died i'm on utv clicksilver do i smell a 24hr disconnection time?

Da Man

I'd say it's marketing mostly, an attempt to charge for usage. The thinking is that if you're a high usage user then you should pay for one of the higher caps or an uncapped service. There seems to be plenty of available bandwidth in the [Eircom] network.

Wookie

I think it could be a mixture of the above.

How do the providers pay for their bandwidth etc. After a point a user who is downloading truck loads of data may not be cost effective any more. That one person is eating up enough usage for 20 people (which would you rather 40EUR or 800EUR).

There has to be a happy middle ground though. Maybe something like the 1gig...ish a day seems to be fine for the current entry level BB products 512/128. IMO the 4gig/8gig type limits seem to favour the service provider more than the customer.

Just the way they/we are just getting to grips with terms like mid-band & broadband hopefully products/regulation etc will move towards a more sensible approach to limits. It has been often pointed out before it does not make any point to put an 8gig limit on a 2meg line. So before the bigger and better access arrives I hope the SP move to a more sensible approach.

Creamy Goodness

think it of it this way

london has say about 8million people (double ireland)

say 50% of people in london have broadband uncapped.
that means 4million are using broadband without any serious effect on quality

so why can't we have the same i hear you say??

one word

Eircom

they've let the countries telephone infrostructure get so out of date that it will cost €1bn to bring it up to speed

Capt'n Midnight

Originally posted by colin300
Its like saying to someone who just bought a ferrari not to go over 30miles an hour.
Caps shouldn't be around.

No its like saying - don't drive more than 1,000 miles per month.
Also you can get uncapped products in Ireland - they just cost more.
Netsource used to have a nice way around this - they just put all the warez monkeys on the same port and let them contend with each other.

Gonzo

its good to to have a cap on a service to stop total abuse but the 4gb/8gb caps are excessive, eircoms network is well capable of much higher than this, 30gb cap per month would be fine and it prolly wouldnt even harm the network one bit. Half the subscribers wouldnt even get near the 30gb anyhow. If we do get another cap increase it will prolly be sommet like 12gig or 16 if were lucky.

Ripwave

Originally posted by Gonzo
Half the subscribers wouldnt even get near the 30gb anyhow.

80% of the customers don't get near the 4G cap. Why should they pay to support your download habit?

Gonzo

I was refering to the higher broadband plus package not the smaller one for the light users. What would make more sense is to keep the light package at 4gb cap and have the plus package around 30gb - its aimed at much heavier users anyway. We'll get a 30gb cap eventually but it cud be 2 or 3 years away before we do. And as for going for an expensive uncapped product there is none for radsl users, only for adsl users and some radsl users cannot get adsl.

colin300

lets be serious here people get BB for one reason that is to download if you are getting less then 4 gb a month u really shouldn't be on it. I understand that if you want to get it and are willing to pay be my guest but they really cause no dent in the network.
but look you can get bb for 40euro off ntl uncapped. so why 40 euro for 4gb?
I know its two different networks but they could easily handle it.

Ripwave

Originally posted by Gonzo
I was refering to the higher broadband plus package not the smaller one for the light users. What would make more sense is to keep the light package at 4gb cap and have the plus package around 30gb - its aimed at much heavier users anyway. We'll get a 30gb cap eventually but it cud be 2 or 3 years away before we do. And as for going for an expensive uncapped product there is none for radsl users, only for adsl users and some radsl users cannot get adsl.

Do the maths - 512K for 24 hours a day for 31 days is about 160G in a full month. So if more than 5 people tried to download 30G, they'd use up the full allocation. That's not a major problem on a 4:1 contention ratio, or 8:1, for a 1M service. But it's going to cause problems at 24:1, especially if the only people prepared to pay for the more expensive service are those who care about the cap, and are therefore more likely to push up the average.

"Caps" are related to the contaention ratio. ESAT and UTV both allow higher downloads than are strictly "fair" under 24:1 and 48:1 contention rations because they know that only a small minority of people are "greedy". But there is a point at which those people skew the numbers so much that they cost more than they generate.

cgarvey

Originally posted by colin300
if you are getting less then 4 gb a month u really shouldn't be on it.

Can you qualify that?

Originally posted by colin300
but look you can get bb for 40euro off ntl uncapped.

Originally posted by colin300
Look at NTL we all know how bad they are for their service in tv but they manage to get BB around at unlimited downloads.

NTL is capped at 1GB/Day.

.cg

Ripwave

Originally posted by colin300
lets be serious here people get BB for one reason that is to download if you are getting less then 4 gb a month u really shouldn't be on it.

Not to put too fine a point on it - bollocks!

I understand that if you want to get it and are willing to pay be my guest

That's really gracious of you, Colin.

You wouldn't be able to get DSL at all at €40 if it wasn't for the tens of thousands who are signing up primarily for always on, instant access to the web, e-mail and gaming.

but they really cause no dent in the network. but look you can get bb for 40euro off ntl uncapped. so why 40 euro for 4gb? I know its two different networks but they could easily handle it.

Frankly, given the hundreds of millions of euro that Tony and his cronies have bled from the country in the last 2 years, the question isn't whether eircom could afford to make DSL uncapped, it's why would they? What's in it for them?

meatball

Originally posted by Ripwave
80% of the customers don't get near the 4G cap. Why should they pay to support your download habit?

Because they're suckers, that's why.

colin300

Ripwave as everyone says NTL is in theroy capped at 1gb a day but anyone who goes over it isn't punished. So they dont mind if you go over so that means there network is able to cope. on a 20:1 contention so i dont know what your getting at.
If people did stick to the 1gb a day they would still cope.

Emboss

If people weren't downloading _anything_ ilegal i.e. mp3's divx etc etc they wouldn't come near any of the caps that _any_ of the ISP's have in place.

I find it hillarious that irish people moan about a cap and what they're using it for is robbing other people of money.

My pot is ringing brb

Ripwave

Originally posted by colin300
Ripwave as everyone says NTL is in theroy capped at 1gb a day but anyone who goes over it isn't punished. So they dont mind if you go over so that means there network is able to cope. on a 20:1 contention so i dont know what your getting at.
If people did stick to the 1gb a day they would still cope.

Sure, eircom could give you "free" bandwidth. Why should they? What's in it for them? At some point they will have to upgrade the link to your exchange. Under their current 48:1 model, they don't have to do so until they have almost 200 users signed up on any given exchange. If the average user downloaded 1G per day, they'd only be able to support 20 users per exchange before they had to upgrade. Even for eircom, upgrades cost money.

ESAT and UTV don't have access to that "free" bandwidth, they have to pay based on the total number of users they have, and they can only offer bigger caps precisely because they've signed up enough of meatballs "suckers" that are using broadband the way normal people do, and therefore leave unused capacity.

If there were enough people that actually wanted 1G a day, and were prepared to pay for it, then there's be a product on the market to cater for them. I can only assume that there isn't a demand for such a service at a price that makes economic sense for someone to provice it.

bk

Originally posted by colin300
lets be serious here people get BB for one reason that is to download if you are getting less then 4 gb a month u really shouldn't be on it.

That is not true, I get it because:
- Always on
- Fixed fee (no surprises)
- Low latency (for VNC mostly)
- Easily shared with housemate.
- Doen't interfere with phone line.

Basically the perfect tool for teleworkers. Downloading is an added bonus that I rarely use (the odd iso and patches).

bk

The only reason we have caps in Ireland is because Eircom wanted them as a way to charge more for differnet products that are basically the same.

The reality is the networks could easily sustain reasonable caps (say 30 - 40GB per month). Just look at the UK where most services have no caps and operate just fine. It is all to do with the fact that most people won't download much anyway and therefore heavy users are easily dispersed amongst the light users.

vibe666

thew infrastructure should be able to cope with an uncapped service and eircom should be able to afford to upgade the exchanges to keep up (even on a 20:1 ratio model) with demand without overcharing people and without taking much of a hit in their profits. why? because the rest of europe managed it fine. the problem is mr o'reilly's more worried about what he's got in his pockets than our communications needs.

here's a little story for you. a girl i know recently moved to japan who's teaching english to kids in osaka. she enquired about getting a net connection in her apartment. they told her the basic package was the equivalent of 15E a month. she says OK, what is it? an uncapped 12mbit connection. oh she says. then the guy tells her she can have a 100mbit connection for (equiv.) 7E extra. she didn't think she'd use that tho. :rolleyes:

true story. was chatting on Messenger with her at the weekend.

personally, i think bertie should force them to sell eircom to the japanese so they can do things properly. maybe thats just me.

oh, and is anyone good at maths? i was just adding up the 150 hours eircom flatrate product, and i worked it out you could download up to 4.5gb on a dialup modem with an av. (40kbit) connection in 150 hours. that would make it better value than the lite radsl package. or is my maths crap (which it probably is).?

colin300

well at least i am getting some people to agree with me.

Downloading Illegal stuff or not we shouldn't be forced to take caps.
Nearly every country that has BB doesn't have a cap.

Hopefully in the near future the EU say every BB product for RADSL has to be uncapped and be a certain price because this is a ridculous country for prices.

Emboss

Originally posted by colin300
well at least i am getting some people to agree with me.

Downloading Illegal stuff or not we shouldn't be forced to take caps.
Nearly every country that has BB doesn't have a cap.

Hopefully in the near future the EU say every BB product for RADSL has to be uncapped and be a certain price because this is a ridculous country for prices.

Why are you comparing us to other countries?

who cares what BB they have?

Some countries have no jobs....some have no food.....some you can smoke dope legally and bang a prossie.....some you don't pay 300k for some kip of a 3 bedroom house SOME YOU'RE ALLOWED SMOKE IN THE PUB

I fail to see what another countries are doing has any relevance to this country.
BB is a previlage not a right.

I'm all for a no capped service I'm all for 100mbps connections for a 10 eurons.

but for people who need them. not so horny harry can watch Debbie does dallas or to download an album the hungry fecker want go out and buy....

it's all wanted for the wrong reasons in this country.

and the country has alot more to worry about than it's poxy BB

Kristok

here's a little story for you. a girl i know recently moved to japan who's teaching english to kids in osaka. she enquired about getting a net connection in her apartment. they told her the basic package was the equivalent of 15E a month. she says OK, what is it? an uncapped 12mbit connection. oh she says. then the guy tells her she can have a 100mbit connection for (equiv.) 7E extra. she didn't think she'd use that tho.

No offense but that is the most pointless argument ive ever heard, unlike japan irelands population is mostly spread out over a large area and not built up in small areas like japan is. Its is only possible to have connections that fast because they all live on top of each other and to compare japan and ireland is like chalk and cheese. Even comparing us to england is a bit of a push too as the population is like 10x that of ireland but is in roughly the same goegraphical area as that of irealand so therefore any model that works there cant be fairly compared to that of irealand when you consider how many people will get broadband and also the ammount of competition there is in the english market they are not a really good comparision.

And it is possible that eircoms network could handle more bandwidth but we dont know this and blanket assumsions that it can and they just dont want to is pointless without any proof to back it up. Even if it could why would they waste that bandwidth when they could just as easilly try to fill it with more customers rather than more warez monkeys like me, thats my opinion anyway.

Moriarty

Originally posted by Emboss
I fail to see what another countries are doing has any relevance to this country.
BB is a previlage not a right.

The relevance is that very similar infrastructure is used in every european country and yet we're one of very few countries which has the majority of DSL services provided under an excessively low cap. It's not a technical problem that's holding it back, only a 'management decision'. Remember that eircom wholesale impose no explicit caps in their provision of dsl services to rival isps.

bk

The fact that up until now Eircom haven't actually been enforcing the cap, despite some people downloading 100GB per month and it hasn't had any noticeable effect on anyone else, proves that it isn't a technical problem.

Ireland has some of the cheapest international broadband charges in the world (certainly in Europe, one third of all international bandwidth comes through Ireland).

The decision by Eircom to have caps is to allow them to have a range of different products at different prices. There isn't really any difference between Eircoms e40 product and the e54 product other then the cap (the conention ratio has no effect at the moment).

I'm not saying there should be unlimited caps, but they should be around 30 - 40GB.

BTW Emboss if you don't care about BB so much then why are you on this board. No one said BB is more important then health care, etc. But if we all cared just a little bit more about what we where interested in then the country would be in a much better state.

It is exactly your attitude that the country is in the state that it is.

OfflerCrocGod

Originally posted by Moriarty
Remember that eircom wholesale impose no explicit caps in their provision of dsl services to rival isps.

In other words the caps IOLBB and UTV impose are for NO I repeat NOOOOO reason at all - other then to fit in with €ircon?........






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It seems as if the filter wont let what I think about that to be posted, I wonder why?:mad:

Emboss

Originally posted by bk
The fact that up until now Eircom haven't actually been enforcing the cap, despite some people downloading 100GB per month and it hasn't had any noticeable effect on anyone else, proves that it isn't a technical problem.

Ireland has some of the cheapest international broadband charges in the world (certainly in Europe, one third of all international bandwidth comes through Ireland).

The decision by Eircom to have caps is to allow them to have a range of different products at different prices. There isn't really any difference between Eircoms e40 product and the e54 product other then the cap (the conention ratio has no effect at the moment).

I'm not saying there should be unlimited caps, but they should be around 30 - 40GB.

BTW Emboss if you don't care about BB so much then why are you on this board. No one said BB is more important then health care, etc. But if we all cared just a little bit more about what we where interested in then the country would be in a much better state.

It is exactly your attitude that the country is in the state that it is.

I do care, but not so little johnny can download his 100gigs of ilegal software

which seems to be the only reason people give a ****e about it....

so they can pay less to rip OTHER people off

(i understand not everyone does this)

but the majority

I'm no angel, but i wasn't crying when i was on my dialup i'm not crying now on my BB and i wouldn't be crying if i had to go back to it.

but the irish are never happy

they moaned and moaned about not having BB then they were given it

and we're off again

PING TO HOIGH CAN'T PLAY TEH CS!

CAN'T DOWNLOAD ENOUGH ILEGAL SOFTWARE

will it ever stop ?

and i don't read this forum to listen to it..
isn't that why we have IOFFL so not everyone has to listen to them moaning 24/7

I fail to see how this attitude effects the country tbh

Kristok

lol,

They dont impose caps just to be like eircom they impose caps otherwise their ports would be overloaded, remember that eircom customers dont share the same ports as esat or utv or netsource so each company has to manage the amount of bandwidth they have allocated to that port. If Esat/Netsource/utv had no caps then it would only take one or two customers to leech all the usable bandwidth from a 512/128 connection with a 24 or 48 to 1 contention. And to proove this just look at what happened when netsource got tough with its bandwidth hogs they stuck em all on one port and then they had to deal with contention on a bust port. Its not possible to remove caps with the current system maby one day it will but not for the near future.

milltown

Slightly OT but offered for info purposes only:
Was on the phone to NTL support and questioned him about the cap, specifically whether it doubled if you got the 1mbps service. It doesn't but he said the guideline is, if you exceed 1GB a day, three times in one week you get a letter of warning. He did say that it is rarely enforced in the UK and he can't see it being an issue in Ireland for a good while yet, until contention becomes an issue.

vibe666

Originally posted by Kristok
No offense but that is the most pointless argument ive ever heard, unlike japan irelands population is mostly spread out over a large area and not built up in small areas like japan is.

ok then, here's another story. i lived in tenerife before living here, and i had an uncapped 512kbps connection there which at the time was 60e a month but which has since dropped in price dramatically. when i got the dsl it had only just become available, the ratio was 12:1 (as it happened, wheni got it, i was the only perso on my exchange, so it was pretty nippy) and i had a static IP. afaik, the same setup from eircom would cost me 200e a month, and would only be available if i got it through my company.

if they could do it in tenerife 3 years ago, they can do it here now. the only reaspn they aren't is because eircom are a bunch of robbing bastards and nothing more.

the customers are there.

the technology is available.

the infrastructure is there.