Smart begin throttling

Spear

As if Smart hadn't already pissed off the remaining customers enough, they're now throttling connections down to ~100kbps.


http://support.smarttelecom.ie/forums/showthread.php?t=3644

d22ontour

Never been throttled nor will i ever be.There is nothing out there that needs me to dl 6 gigs a day nor most normal people either i would think...

Even if i went over it and wanted to switch providers because they throttled me for exceeding the cap and i whined about it, wait that wouldn't make sense would it ... :rolleyes:

I think the only people they are pissing off are people that exceed the cap,no ? Solution is pretty simple and straightforward.Gotta laugh at the whining at the link you added.

Don't go over the cap,don't get throttled. Result.

jor el

Not really surprising. Smart are now owned by Digiweb, who use throttling to control their bandwidth. I'm surprised that their cap hasn't reduced from 170GB a month.

d22ontour

170gb isn't the worst of caps so lowering it would be a step backwards for digiweb.The only worry i have is how they feel they can make home users a profitable margin.Am pretty sure they can continue to be a private sector success but that isn't much comfort to me...

weisses

CAPS are for third world country's .... dont give me the crap that providers have to pay for their bandwidth .... half of europe is working fine without caps enforced ... infrastrucrure, infrastructure (even boards got throtteld for two days) :eek:;)

smellslikeshoes

Anyone with half a brain knew this was coming. I'm sure Digiweb want rid of the big bandwidth users early on that flocked to Smart. It's a little entertaining reading the threats of cancelling etc on that thread, I don't think many of them realise that Digiweb don't give a crap and would be happy for bigger bandwidth users to cancel since Smart have always been loosing money on them.

Cabaal

weisses wrote: »

CAPS are for third world country's .... dont give me the crap that providers have to pay for their bandwidth .... half of europe is working fine without caps enforced ... infrastrucrure, infrastructure (even boards got throtteld for two days) :eek:;)

Really?
Take a look at the UK most providers have packages with caps and all providers have fair usage policys.

Sadly lads bandwidth ain't free

dub45

Cabaal wrote: »

Really?
Take a look at the UK most providers have packages with caps and all providers have fair usage policys.

Sadly lads bandwidth ain't free

No but courtesy and consideration and complying with terms and conditions are basically free. If Smart were going to change their policies they should have communicated with their customers in advance.

Increaslingly isps appear to think that terms and conditions are for cusotmers but not for them.

They load obligations on customes and then dont comply with their own.

madmax92

But in the big troubles are gamers. That is the biggest problem for WoW players where sometimes patches are FEW GBs in size. I today played Battlefield 2 for about 3hrs already lost 200-300MBs. Also we have YouTube, Xbox Live, PlayStation Network, Valve's STEAM, EA's Download Managers, iTunes etc. You think is not possible to download 170GB over 31 days. But it gives you about 5,5GB per day. If you play a lot that's not enough.
Also Digiweb played balls with it's customers, no notification, no letters no e-mails (there were arguing with me that they never had my e-mail, while when I log in there is an e-mail....). I used to live in Poland. In my POOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOR country caps were removed in 2005/2006, also I was using 100mbit for 15€ soo Ireland is far far away behind even from Poland. When I told yesterday about my caps friends over Steam(Sweden, France, UK, Norway etc.) they laughed as hell

btw. I'm looking for new ISP in Co. Donegal area Any ideas?

Kensington

Yup, I'd say this is the first step in a number of changes Smart customers can expect from Digiweb.

First throttling.
Expect your download limits to drop next.
Wouldn't surprise me if they drop some of the top speeds either.

Welcome to the smart economy of Ireland 2010 lads!

madmax92

dub45 wrote: »

No but courtesy and consideration and complying with terms and conditions are basically free. If Smart were going to change their policies they should have communicated with their customers in advance.

Increaslingly isps appear to think that terms and conditions are for cusotmers but not for them.

They load obligations on customes and then dont comply with their own.

That's why other companies have chance to be smarter and take out caps + higher speeds + a bit cheaper than smart options. They will make good money.
Anyway 3 years ago it was like DigiWeb/Eircom then Irish Broadband and then Smart as the best ISP over Eire (talkin' about ISPs available in Donegal). The best option now is Irish Broadband of speed 3mbit with UNLIMITED caps

cgarvey

madmax92 wrote: »

I today played Battlefield 2 for about 3hrs already lost 200-300MBs. Also we have .... If you play a lot that's not enough.

so even playing for 10 hours a day would be fine, including 1 or 2 patches/maps/whatever a day. Streaming YouTube for hours every day would be fine too. If you're downloading 6GB a day, consistently, then you certainly fall in to a category outside of normal usage (and one which very few ISPs want). Expect to pay (or someone else to pay for you, if you're on a contended service that doesn't restrict you!).

madmax92 wrote: »

Also Digiweb played balls with it's customers, no notification, no letters no e-mails

That's a problem alright. Even if they think their T&C allow for changes like this, without notification, a court might not agree (if anyone was bothered to find out). However, the lack of courtesy is astonishing. Digiweb are not known for their courtesy. Nor, indeed, are/were Smart.

weisses wrote: »

dont give me the crap that providers have to pay for their bandwidth .... half of europe is working fine without caps enforced

You need to read up on the subject a bit more. I won't bother trying to convince you, given that your mind is made up, but please do read up on it!

d22ontour wrote: »

The only worry i have is how they feel they can make home users a profitable margin.

Eh? That is their exclusive reason for existing? What do you expect (or am I misinterpreting your comment?)!!?

paul150

Anyone know what the story is with the €8.50 reset fee of your cap, Paying 8.50 extra for another 170 gig of usage doesnt seem like the worst deal

weisses

cgarvey wrote: »

You need to read up on the subject a bit more. I won't bother trying to convince you, given that your mind is made up, but please do read up on it!

Explain to me why Irish providers are enforcing their dl cap when many European isp's don't even UPC Ireland is way more strict then UPC Holland for instance.

I don't make my mind up about anything or trying to be narrow minded I'm only talking to a lot of people mainly on the continent and they are laughing their ass off when I tell them how things are over here This country's approach to BB is bloody ridiculous its 2010 ffs ....

its the same when I try to expain to the folks back home that Ireland is running out of fresh water :cool:

Cabaal

weisses wrote: »

This country's approach to BB is bloody ridiculous its 2010 ffs ....:

Following up from my previous post you realize ISP's in the US are also introducing caps now too right?

Ireland is doing nothing that other countrys already have in some form or another, I don't personally agree with it but to suggest Ireland is alone here is very misleading on your part.

chalkitdown

Smart are now uncompetitive. I left Smart because of the way the new policies were introduced without notice. It was a perfect example of bad management and a good indicator to me which direction Smart are now heading.....down.

Not only was the introduction of a defined cap breaking the t&c's that I signed up to (before any of you trolling t&c defenders start, I have them in front of me) but the cap is described in measures that are contrary to the system used previously by Smart, you are getting less than 170GB.

The introduction of the rolling cap combined with the new €8.50 charge to 'reset' your cap and severe throttling (to the point of being unusable if you don't) is total nonsense and I expect a mass migration away from Smart as a consequence.

weisses

Cabaal wrote: »

Following up from my previous post you realize ISP's in the US are also introducing caps now too right?

Ireland is doing nothing that other countrys already have in some form or another, I don't personally agree with it but to suggest Ireland is alone here is very misleading on your part.

I believe American (local) government is looking to prevent/reverse this

RoyalMarine

chalkitdown wrote: »

Smart are now uncompetitive. I left Smart because of the way the new policies were introduced without notice. It was a perfect example of bad management and a good indicator to me which direction Smart are now heading.....down.

Not only was the introduction of a defined cap breaking the t&c's that I signed up to (before any of you trolling t&c defenders start, I have them in front of me) but the cap is described in measures that are contrary to the system used previously by Smart, you are getting less than 170GB.

The introduction of the rolling cap combined with the new €8.50 charge to 'reset' your cap and severe throttling (to the point of being unusable if you don't) is total nonsense and I expect a mass migration away from Smart as a consequence.

im currently looking for a way out of my contract.

when i signed up i was told there would be no download/upload limit. i got throttled to under 100kb/s last week and they took 2 days to remove the cap.

however, they never said anything about €8.50 to do it.

chalkitdown

Someone must have gone 'mad Ted' with the throttle knob. They seem to be doing the first reset for free.

Cabaal

chalkitdown wrote: »

The introduction of the rolling cap combined with the new €8.50 charge to 'reset' your cap and severe throttling (to the point of being unusable if you don't) is total nonsense and I expect a mass migration away from Smart as a consequence.

The problem is is that the "mass migration" you talk about would only consist of what ISP's refer to as heavy users, as such these heavy users will want to find a home.

No matter what ISP they will go to the ISP will eventually impose restrictions as they will get sick of a very small percentage of users utilizing too many network resources.

Like it or not but ISP's don;'t like heavy users as they are not profitable and like it or not an ISP is a company and wants to make a profit.

Oracle

RoyalMarineComm wrote: »

im currently looking for a way out of my contract ......

In their original terms and conditions, one of the clauses is if either party becomes insolvent, the contract can be immediately terminated, by either party. Although Smart have changed that in their current Ts&Cs, it says this in the original terms I signed up with. So if this old clause is in your terms and conditions, then I'd say you can terminate your contract, without penalty.

By having an examiner appointed, Smart have become "insolvent" as defined by their current terms and conditions:

“Insolvent”, in relation to either party, where such party becomes bankrupt or is unable to pay its debts (within the meaning of section 213 of the Companies Act 1963) or is subject to an order or a resolution for its liquidation, winding-up or dissolution (otherwise than for the purposes of a solvent amalgamation or reconstruction), or has a receiver, manager, trustee, liquidator or similar officer appointed over all or any substantial part of its assets or is subject to any analogous event or proceeding in any applicable jurisdiction;

chalkitdown

Cabaal

I appreciate what you're saying, they made no effort to find out why I was cancelling, which lends credence to your point about wanting to get rid of high bandwidth users.
But in my instance I was not an habitual high bandwidth user, I did raise my download rate when they brought out the restrictions to see what would happen. Duly got got the email and contacted Smart to ask why it applied to me. I had never had a reply.

The 160 odd GB cap might look ok to some as a headline figure, but it's not really when you factor in the 30 day rolling cap tossology combined with an extra charge. Smart are now using practises normally used to control excessive wireless traffic, on an ADSL network, which has much lesser need. It is not primarily being used to protect the network but to gouge money from existing customers who should not have to agree with these impositions.

I find their actions shameful and am sure many other Smart customers will also, not just high bandwidth users.

I suspect though that it may have more to do with the contract I was under, which was based on the T&C's from 8 September 2005 which make no mention of a FUP never mind cap, throttling or excess bandwidth charges.

I think the new measures could easily be challenged by anyone on a similar contract.

weisses

Does anyone actually knows how much isp's make on an average user and how much they lose on a "heavy" user, i cant find any (independent) data online regarding that.

All we can rely on is the CAP mantra throwing towards us from ISP's

Everyone agrees that it is only a small amount of users who exceed their cap, but i hear no one talk about all the users who don't even get close to their cap so theoretically that could balance out the total usage ....

imo its a big money generating scam because people here don't have much choice switching providers and get stuck by what their provider imposes on them

the_law

An ISP's ideal customer is one who thinks that a 30Mb line is better than a 5Mb line for some gaming on the 360 and a bit of browsing, youtube and itunes on the pc. There are more of them out there than we think.

It might seem strange to us that more people don't get more of their entertainment off the internet, but I thought about my friends recently and only two or three use the internet as I would. They're generally educated people who all own computers, so no reason not to... We're a growing minority, but still a minority.

You know, with the 250Gb cap on a 30Mbit line, you can use it for 19 hours at full speed in a month, that's approximately 2.5% of the capacity.

The 170Gb cap on Smart is basically equal to 0.5Mbps averaged over a month... Why Smart's policy is clearly just price gouging is that they own their own network and unless it's congested then there's no need for this. IP transit has been shown to abe in the $15 per megabit per month range, so Smart are saying they're willing to spend $7.50 per month on your actual internet connectivity.

What really stinks is that all the packages have the same cap... you don't buy a 24Mbit line to use the same amount of data as a 3Mbit line.

I have more sympathy for UPC having a cap... they have a local network segment that they need to keep the contention down on - it's a real issue as opposed to an invented one, Smart worked fine for years without caps.

chalkitdown

The products that Smart now offer are all metered products, if anyone signs up with an awareness of these new limits they are either someone with little choice of provider or else have failed to look at what's available from other providers for less cost per GB.

Of course many people were misled, as Smart didn't make the information of the changes available until after their imposition.

Smarts reputation is riding on the coattails of a different level of cost, service and supply which they don't deserve.

cgarvey

weisses wrote: »

Explain to me why Irish providers are enforcing their dl cap when many European isp's don't even UPC Ireland is way more strict then UPC Holland for instance.

1) To maintain quality of service to other users
.. and less so ..
2) To control bandwidth costs
3) Because they can (market conditions allow for it) / Greed / Profit

From a brief Googling about UPC Holland, they appear to have a better network covering more homes. They are in a much better position, it appears, to offset heavy downloaders across their network. Here, UPC are still struggling with a legacy network with node size being a big problem in some areas (rather than age/bandwidth of copper). Large node size, means it's much more important to control heavy downloaders.

Wolverine_1999

cgarvey wrote: »

1) To maintain quality of service to other users
.. and less so ..
2) To control bandwidth costs
3) Because they can (market conditions allow for it) / Greed / Profit

From a brief Googling about UPC Holland, they appear to have a better network covering more homes. They are in a much better position, it appears, to offset heavy downloaders across their network. Here, UPC are still struggling with a legacy network with node size being a big problem in some areas (rather than age/bandwidth of copper). Large node size, means it's much more important to control heavy downloaders.

Agreeable to an extent, however, companies such as Smart and Magnet offer their products based on zero contention. Therefore, you could max out the line 24/7 without affecting other users on the network. (locally in any case)

shamonemofo

Wolverine_1999 wrote: »

Agreeable to an extent, however, companies such as Smart and Magnet offer their products based on zero contention. Therefore, you could max out the line 24/7 without affecting other users on the network. (locally in any case)

to be fair i think Smart have been Extremely leniant with regard to their cap etc...
Just don't think people read Terms n conditions anymore..."I want an iphone" 18 month contract! what the f*ck!!! haha!

Oracle

There's a few people here who'd like to throttle Smart .......