Exceeding netsource cap

Jonnie_Onion

It's quite likely we're going to exceed the cap for the month of April. Do Netsource still place you in contention with other heavy users after exceeding the cap? And if so, how long wil they keep us on this? Hopefully it's the case that after another month we don't exceed the cap and are put back on normal contention?

STaN

As far as i know they don't operate a billing scheme if you go over.

I've yet to be billed or hear anything about it

bk

I believe if you don't go too much over and it is only a once off, then they will leave you alone.

If they do put you on contention, then just ring them up and promise you will never do it again and from what I heard they will take you off heavy contention again.

Anyway, I'd say the whole problem with NS is more or less sorted now. They introduced the cap when people where going berserk. Now that most of the heavy downloaders are gone from NS, I don't think they are actively enforcing the cap, as long as you don't go totally berserk.

Jonnie_Onion

Originally posted by STaN
As far as i know they don't operate a billing scheme if you go over.

I've yet to be billed or hear anything about it

Netsource have introduced a billing scheme for exceeding caps?

BigEejit

Originally posted by bk
Now that most of the heavy downloaders are gone from NS, I don't think they are actively enforcing the cap, as long as you don't go totally berserk.

They have? .... where to?, I thought Netsource was still the best (if you told them to stick that overpriced domain where the sun dont shine) because they dont charge for going over the cap, they just put you in contention with all the other bold boys and girls that went way over the cap.

bk

Originally posted by BigEejit
They have? .... where to?, I thought Netsource was still the best (if you told them to stick that overpriced domain where the sun dont shine) because they dont charge for going over the cap, they just put you in contention with all the other bold boys and girls that went way over the cap.

Some where thrown off, some where forced to upgrade to a more expensive service, some left in disgust.

Those that remain, are now staying within the cap.

STaN

What is the cap on the Enterprise (1024/256 24:1) Service? Just upgraded from SoHo (or Origin Plus as its now called).

bk

Originally posted by STaN
What is the cap on the Enterprise (1024/256 24:1) Service? Just upgraded from SoHo (or Origin Plus as its now called).

24GB

[OT] BTW STaN, that is a sweet setup your selling.

thomasb

Originally posted by bk
Some where thrown off, some where forced to upgrade to a more expensive service, some left in disgust.

Those that remain, are now staying within the cap.

Noone was thrown off. Noone was forced to upgrade.

Noone has ever been billed for downloads in excess of the AUP.

bk

Originally posted by thomasb
Noone was thrown off. Noone was forced to upgrade.

Noone has ever been billed for downloads in excess of the AUP.

Hi thomasb, I know you work for NS, but you will find many stories of people who where pretty much forced off or forced to upgrade here on boards.

Strictly speaking you are correct. What happened was that NS put very heavy downloaders all together on a heavily contented pipe. Here they where getting very slow speeds. They where basically given three options:

1) Stay like that.
2) Upgrade to a more expensive package and they would be taken off the contention.
3) Cancel the contract.

Now, you might not call this forcing people, but that is basically symantics. What NS did was very bad business practice.

I myself have NS, and the service itself is very good. However time after time NS has screwed me and other customers and the minute Eircom have port transfering in place I'm straight off NS.

For instance, why does NS force you to pay about e50 to downgrade from the 24:1 to the 48:1 product, when UTV, IOL and Eircom allowed you to do it for free and Eircom in fact only charge e15 (Excl VAT) to downgrade?

And why did I have to pay a stupid charge for a domain name for a year that I never even used?

Generally I think the service is great, but I have been very disappointed in NS attitude towards their customers and the pricing of their products. As a customer of NS I generally just feel completely jerked around.

This is all very bad business practice, I know that based on my recommendation, you have lost at least 20 - 30 customers, including some large corporate customers (read lots of teleworkers) to your competitors. And now that there is an even more competitive, business focused company in the market (digiweb.ie) I expect you will lose even more customers.

To be fair, yes you have never charged people for going over the cap, but I never said you did, nor was there originally a cap, that is what started this all.

Hopefully now that the guys who setup IOL have joined NS, they will bring a better attitude towards customer satisfaction to NS.

machalla

By the way you can get rid of the domain name requirement now. Its not retrospective though so don't expect any refunds. Just ring them and tell them you want to get rid of the domain name requirement and switch to one of the new equivalent packages.

Also when you attempt to leave Netsources services they charge you €90 or more (including Vat) to do so. Apparently Eircom charge this so Netsource pass it on. I can't seem to find out if anyone else does this. No-one seems to know for definite.

I won't be returning to them when I move house in the near future. Too many hidden charges.

From a residential point of view there are far better packages out there. Netsource want to deal with companies not individuals which is fair enough. They won't miss us and they have made that very plain.

bk

Originally posted by machalla

Also when you attempt to leave Netsources services they charge you €90 or more (including Vat) to do so. Apparently Eircom charge this so Netsource pass it on. I can't seem to find out if anyone else does this. No-one seems to know for definite.

If you are transfering to another DSL ISP, then you don't have to pay NS a penny, you only pay the ISP you are moving to. It is called port transfering. I don't think it is properly in place yet, it still takes a few weeks of downtime to change, however the charging is in place AFAIK.

From a residential point of view there are far better packages out there. Netsource want to deal with companies not individuals which is fair enough. They won't miss us and they have made that very plain.

Actually I was mostly talking about business customers. Digiweb has more interesting business products then netsource and I expect Esat will be releasing equivalent business products soon.

Remember many of the residential customers that originally signed up to NS where probably early adopters, probably people who work in IT. When NS screwed them, they only screwed themselves, for when their employeers decide which ISP they should go with for their companies bandwidth and for teleworking for the rest of the staff, I'll give you one guess who they will ask.

po0k

Originally posted by machalla
By the way you can get rid of the domain name requirement now. Its not retrospective though so don't expect any refunds. Just ring them and tell them you want to get rid of the domain name requirement and switch to one of the new equivalent packages.

Also when you attempt to leave Netsources services they charge you €90 or more (including Vat) to do so. Apparently Eircom charge this so Netsource pass it on. I can't seem to find out if anyone else does this. No-one seems to know for definite.

I won't be returning to them when I move house in the near future. Too many hidden charges.

From a residential point of view there are far better packages out there. Netsource want to deal with companies not individuals which is fair enough. They won't miss us and they have made that very plain.

I rang NS last week. Enquired about having the Domain charge removed. Was informed I could just move to Origin Plus. Was sent the order forms and T&Cs. Before signing I wanted to get clarification on a few points.

> Hi N*****,
>
> Before I sign up I’d like to clarify a few things:
>
> Is there a charge for changing the contract/terminating the current
> one/starting a new one?

Netsource > Our contracts run on a 2 month rolling contract basis. We do incur a charge from Eircom where a customer ceases a DSL connection and so we do
have to charge our customers a cancellation fee. The fee is 75 Euro.

> Who hosts the 100MByte (100*1024*1024bytes I assume?), is there a
> traffic limit? If so, how much and over wht time period?

Netsource > I'm presuming you mean our Web Hosting option?
We sell standard unix web hosting in blocks for the following fees:

25Mb Unix Shared Hosting €199 12 months
50Mb Unix Shared Hosting €299 12 months
100Mb Unix Shared Hosting €429 12 months


> Does it affect, in any way, the amount of data I can download under
> the terms of the AUP?

Netsource > No - the AUP still applies to whichever broadband solution you
choose.

> Am I correct in saying the acceptable download limit is 20Gigabytes
> (20*1024*1024*1024bytes) per month and that the acceptable upload
> limit is “unlimited”

Netsource > The acceptable download limit for the Origin Plus Product is 16 Gb per month. There isn't an upload limit as such. For more please visit http://www.netsource.ie/aup.asp


> Ie if, due to a Trojan, Windows exploit etc. our connection was
> constantly uploading at the 128Kbit/sec rate for 30days (generating
> ~41.5GigBytes) would there be a penalty?

Netsource > We would need to look at that. It's unlikely that you'd have a virus on your machine for over a month without noticing it in some way
in any case. Our heavier users are usually not charged, but rather are
contended with users who persistently exceed the AUP. Therefore service tends to be somewhat slower for those customers.

> I enquire as we are considering running one or two services over the
> connection (some light video-streaming/video comms, lightweight server
> for a project we’re developing etc.) which wouldn’t generate massive
> amounts of traffic, but if something should happen, it would be nice
> to know that we won’t be penalized.

Netsource > We'd suggest perhaps that you monitor your usage. There are some software solutions that can help with this - try searching for "Bandwidth
monitors" using Google.

> Is there some method whereby we can monitor our traffic
> usage/proximity to the monthly traffic limit from the Netsource
> PoP/webpage?

Netsource > See above. We don't have a webpage per se, but some of the above
software may help.

> We have some traffic monitoring software, but it is limited,
> inaccurate and hard to keep track of the various nodes’ usage on our
> LAN.
>
> How do we register the IP addresses?

Netsource > We will assign the initial IP address, and unless requested, we will not assign the three extra ones. Should you need these just let us know at point of taking up the service and we will make these available to you.

> What is the make/model of the USB DSL modem you provide? Could you
> provide an Ethernet DSL modem/router instead or does that cost extra?

Netsource > Generally the modem provided is the Zyxel 630M USB Modem. We can provide an Ethernet solutions but there is an additional cost. For a list of our hardware, please visit:

http://www.netsource.ie/products/hardware_solutions.asp

> Are the 4 public IP addresses provided regardless or must we request
> them?

Netsource > See above. I hope this has been helpful - should you have any
further queries please do not hesitate to contact either myself (D*****
M*****) or A***** O'C***** (N***** is away on leave just at the moment).

Best Wishes,
D***** M*****
Netsource


> John Coleman
>

>
>

---

Original Message

---

> From: N***** R*** [mailto:*]
> Sent: 23 April 2004 17:04
> To: me
> Subject: Origin Plus order
>
>
>
> Hi John,
>
>
>
> I have attached the order form for the Origin Plus service.
>
>
>
> If you wish to complete this and send it back that would be great.
>
>
>
> Kind Regards,
>
> N***** R***
>
> Netsource – Your Internet Partner
>
> http://www.netsource.ie

I'm just a little bit peeved, in particular regarding the first few questions and especially due to the response regarding the traffic monitoring.
Every other ISP I know of provide some form (if often inaccurate) of user-accessible bandwidth management.
grepping a few lines from logs or even SNMP trap system wouldn't put a particular strain on rsources, but it would go some way towards an amicable customer-business relationship.
If NS can monitor it so accurately themselves when they want to enforce caps, why is it so hard to pass this information on to the customer himself?
I'm not a solicitor, but I believe that sort of information may very well be covered under the information act?

po0k

I don't think you realized, but I am an existing Netsource customer, and was in contact with N***** last week with regards dispensing with the domain name charge and having it refunded as we have not had our domain name registered and no longer wish to avail of that particular product. She informed me that all we needed to do was fill-out and sign the Origin Plus order form and submit it to Netsource. I understood the clerical switchover to be a simple operation, one which would not incur an Eircom levy charge of €75 to change something which does not affect the data connection in any way, nor which requires an engineer to enter the exchange.
My question regarding the 100Meg hosting was in reference to the product information as detailed on www.netsource.ie, NOT in reference to a separate product.
I have not had my questions answered, and although I understand that you may only be temporary or out-sourced customer support and as such may be basing your answers on the marketing material on your desk, I would rather wait until N***** returns from leave.
I was rather bemused and saddened when I read the email as I found it to be yet another disappointment from Netsource, lacking in clear and direct information and repeating the vagaries of the advertising from the site. I had tried to be as specific as I could when asking my questions, but I might as well have been using a knife to cut through the Atlantic.

John Coleman

DaithiSurfer

How come ThomasB is never around whenever something is going wrong with Netsource. He pops up now and again to defend them and then disapears again, never to be seen helping out.
Its like ****ing defensive terrorism