Angelo_
The Network Guy
Premium
join:2002-06-18
 ·TekSavvy Solutions..
| reply to R0CKY
Re: tsi unlimited logins
said by R0CKY  :Action Now: We're not looking to do anything at a rapid pace for the simple reason that we first need to find a way to measure if we can salvage options to keep the unlimited around. We want to recognise the hardcore's who brought us more business as a result of the "if you're a heavy user, the come over, just don't forget to bring your non-heavy user friends" statement! No matter the outcome over the next few months, we'll be sharing stats as we move along so that if the ratios get worse we can all share in the solution! Rocky good thing im not a heavy user then  |
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Moonlight_x
@videotron.ca
| reply to Tack
said by Tack :If the unlimited accounts are an increasing threat to profitability (or worse, sustaining your own business), then I think everyone will understand if you make some changes to this plan. As you say, TSI is not a charity. I do like the idea of the tiered plans TSI currently offers. For the unlimited plan (which would ideally be renamed if it's no longer actually unlimited), some fairly high cap with reasonable overage charges seems fair to me. (Perhaps my voice doesn't count as much since I'm on premium.) TSI would not need to completely get rid of Unlimited: simply increase the price to $50-60/month and introduce a few tiers to fill the gap between this and $30/100GB/month basic Premium.
This way, people happy with the current $30/100GB/month + N x $10/100GB/month Premium option would be unaffected, people who need 200-400GB/month could stick to the new $30/200GB/month + N x $10/200GB/month Bulk option and the rest could pay $50/month for Unlimited.
Since TSI is fairly generous and willing to take some considerable losses on some accounts, these 200GB could be 300GB increments instead to further reduce the immediate impact on heavy users but still significantly cut back on per-account losses. With only 4% of users (less than 1000) doing over 200GB at the moment, more than 96% of users would be unaffected by those changes.
This sustainable solution could be rolled out incrementally: first introduce $30/300GB/month Bulk, bump Unlimited to $40/month (or even $35/month) and offer free switches from Unlimited to Bulk. As the number of heavy users on Unlimited increases and requires crowd-control to re-balance costs, bump it up in $5 increments until heavy users start switching to Bulk with $5/100GB or $10/300GB upgrades to shelter themselves from further hikes.
Hopefully, transit costs will drop under $10/300GB before the number of subscribers on the $10/300GB slices becomes an issue.
Implementing something like this later, after near-term profitability has become an issue, will be financially much tougher.
said by ROCKY :
We want to recognise the hardcore's who brought us more business as a result of the "if you're a heavy user, the come over, just don't forget to bring your non-heavy user friends" statement!
With 1-2 years internet contracts from quite a few ISPs, bringing friends along is not necessarily easy... even less so considering most of mine who ever tried ADSL or knew someone who did switched to cable because ADSL was either too slow or unreliable. It's been nearly five year since the last time someone I know had ADSL, things should have changed a fair bit since then and I plan to check them out later this month.
There is also the whole "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" and "Stick with the devil you know" crowds.
Me, I've been on cable Internet since before Bell started rolling ADSL out... but this may change early next year. |
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Angelo_
The Network Guy
Premium
join:2002-06-18
·TekSavvy Solutions..
| reply to Angelo_
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Black Moon
join:2005-02-01
Scarborough, ON
·TekSavvy Solutions..
| reply to R0CKY
But you said you pay $10/Mbps/month, so that seems to me like the price is per capacity and not per every byte sent over the network. So isn't the solution then to buy more capacity? You said you'll add another GigE line to make the total near 3 Gbps. Isn't it then easy to add another (even though they cost around $10k/mo each)?
In addition, even though faster speeds are coming, do we really NEED them? Why not create an option that gives people basic DSL (say, up to 1 Mbps) priced (say) $20/mo, then regular DSL of up to 5 Mbps at $40/mo and then ADSL2+ with speeds up to 16 Mbps priced at $70/mo?
That gives people a choice if they want more speed or not. Since DSL in ON and QC does not have that option (Bell sets the profile as the maximum the line can handle) consumers, of course, want to get the maximum speed out of what they pay. By having different speed profiles for different prices (as many foreign ISPs do), one can then have users that want more speed pay more accordingly and this whole situation where introducing caps are a possibility might be avoided. |
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Guspaz
Guspaz
Premium,MVM
join:2001-11-05
Montreal, QC
·Colbanet
1 edit | Black Moon: TekSavvy doesn't have control over the DSL lines. They can't do things like offer 1mbit service for $20.
On a $30 DSL line, Bell takes $20.50, and TekSavvy gets about $10 to pay for all their bandwidth, employees, overhead, etc.
You say "Isn't it easy to add another" GigE, but look at the cost. Let's assume that on Unlimited accounts, TSI can make a profit with $5/mth going to bandwidth. They then need 2000 users to pay for a GigE, which I'm pretty sure would cost more than $10k. For one thing, you can't saturate such a line, you need to have extra capacity to handle spikes. For one thing, $10k/mth is JUST the transit, not counting the cost of the line itself.
The simple fact is, if a user buys a 5mbit DSL connection and maxes out their downstream all month long, they cost TSI at least $50/mth, but are paying TSI only $10/mth for that connection. That's a net loss. It's not sustainable unless you have many customers using a lot less than that.
EDIT: To touch on something Rocky said, about throttling and caps, I don't think most people have a problem with throttling and caps. They have a problem with ISPs (Rogers, Bell, Comcast, etc) lying about it, or keeping it secret.
Observe Comcast. They prevent BitTorrent uploads by forging reset packets from their customers, making the remote end think that the user is disconnecting. They say they don't do this, but there's tons of evidence all over the place. They also terminate users for excessive usage without actually allowing users to monitor their bandwidth, or telling them what "excessive" is.
The problem people have with this is not so much that they're doing this, but that they LIE and HIDE that they're doing it. If Comcast had a clear bandwidth cap and made it very clear that they block BitTorrent uploads (and throttle), it wouldn't be nearly as big an issue as it is now.
So, for this reason, I think that whatever way TSI goes, people won't have much of a problem with it, because it'll all be out in the open. Of course, throttling in general is, IMO, the wrong approach to solving the problem... |
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Kaoz
join:2007-02-05
Montreal, QC | This is just a way for Bell to force their new Optimax customers to purchase the unlimited bandwidth addon for 30$ per month. |
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TOPDAWG
Premium
join:2005-04-27
Midland, ON | Not really cause bell is also booting people off for braking some soft cap on unlimited too. |
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Kaoz
join:2007-02-05
Montreal, QC
| said by TOPDAWG :Not really cause bell is also booting people off for braking some soft cap on unlimited too. I'd be very surprised that they'd be blacklisting people who pay the extra 30$ premium for unlimited versus legacy unlimited for 30$ per month for the full service. |
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may I
@videotron.ca
| reply to TOPDAWG
said by TOPDAWG :Not really cause bell is also booting people off for braking some soft cap on unlimited too. May I correct you?
It should state:
"Not really cause bell is also booting people off for braking some *invisible magic* soft cap *at an invisible magic time of day on a magic list of programs* on unlimited too.
But please.. no more monkeys flying out yer ass... k?
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Guspaz
Guspaz
Premium,MVM
join:2001-11-05
Montreal, QC | reply to Angelo_
My understanding was that the $30 cap only applied to the 7mbit service, and not the 16mbit service. |
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Kaoz
join:2007-02-05
Montreal, QC
| said by Guspaz :My understanding was that the $30 cap only applied to the 7mbit service, and not the 16mbit service. My overflow is capped at 30$ on my bell page and I'm on the 16mbps profile. |
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TOPDAWG
Premium
join:2005-04-27
Midland, ON | reply to may I
Well when I said the monkey thing I was talking about tek killing their unlimited survive not the unlimited logins. However if I could control them that would be some cool monkeys. I could go for my own monkey army. |
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fatness
subtle
Janitor
join:2000-11-17
fishing | reply to Angelo_
Frontpage news now: »Bell Sympatico's War On 'Network Abusers'
--
Sure, that'll work.. |
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Guspaz
Guspaz
Premium,MVM
join:2001-11-05
Montreal, QC | reply to Kaoz
In which case, the blacklisting makes perfect sense, because you're costing them a lot more than $30 in bandwidth if you go nuts on a 16mbit connection. |
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Black Moon
join:2005-02-01
Scarborough, ON
·TekSavvy Solutions..
| reply to Guspaz
said by Guspaz :Black Moon: TekSavvy doesn't have control over the DSL lines. They can't do things like offer 1mbit service for $20. I am aware of that, but maybe it is time Bell itself implemented such a feature.
One thing TSI COULD do is offer a 1Mbps package and request Bell specifically to keep the profile at 1Mbps down. A bit of a hassle, granted, but still possible.
quote:
You say "Isn't it easy to add another" GigE, but look at the cost. Let's assume that on Unlimited accounts, TSI can make a profit with $5/mth going to bandwidth. They then need 2000 users to pay for a GigE, which I'm pretty sure would cost more than $10k. For one thing, you can't saturate such a line, you need to have extra capacity to handle spikes. For one thing, $10k/mth is JUST the transit, not counting the cost of the line itself.
The simple fact is, if a user buys a 5mbit DSL connection and maxes out their downstream all month long, they cost TSI at least $50/mth, but are paying TSI only $10/mth for that connection. That's a net loss. It's not sustainable unless you have many customers using a lot less than that.
So then what is the solution? Either lower people's profiles so that they CANNOT go nuts or implement a cap. I'd rather it was the former. |
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Guspaz
Guspaz
Premium,MVM
join:2001-11-05
Montreal, QC
·Colbanet
| TSI could make that request. And Bell would say no. It's not going to happen, especially because Bell already offers a "lite" service... at just a few dollars less. Note that TekSavvy already offers a 288kbit service for $25/mth. Why would Bell allow them to offer 1mbit service far cheaper than they offer 288kbit service?
As for lowering profiles, are you kidding me? I'd rather have a cap (and DO have a cap) than be limited in my transfer speeds. I want to be able to download fast when I need to download, not be limited to some slow speed to prevent higher usage. Your proposal doesn't make sense; it solves the same problem as caps by taking away the choice that caps give; WHEN to use your bandwidth. |
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Moonlight_x
@videotron.ca
| reply to Black Moon
said by Black Moon :So then what is the solution? Either lower people's profiles so that they CANNOT go nuts or implement a cap. I'd rather it was the former. I prefer caps... I like being able to download a complete Linux distro in 2-3h at 6-7Mbps and would hate to have to wait for nearly a day at 1Mbps. There are also times where I simply do not have time to wait.
If heavy users are straining your network and are running your transit costs up too much, bill them for the privilege so you can afford upgrading everything to stay ahead of bandwidth demand and maintain excellent QoS for light-to-moderate users without throttling/shaping heavy users too much. If TSI runs into bandwidth issues, they can simply increase the price of Unlimited access and offer intermediate plans until economics balance out... or discontinue Unlimited altogether if things really get out of hands - perhaps only temporarily while they figure out what to do next. Since TSI does not do long-term contracts, they can change their offerings nearly overnight.
Between the 7Mbps/20GB cap I have now and 1Mbps/Unlimited, I would pick the 20GB cap. TSI's 4-6Mbps/100GB Premium for $10/month less is a more reasonable compromise between speed, caps and price but anything below 3Mbps would be unbearably slow IMO. Internet is already slow enough as it is, it does not need any artificial roadblocks. |
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Guspaz
Guspaz
Premium,MVM
join:2001-11-05
Montreal, QC
·Colbanet
| I agree, although I don't want throttling/QoS applied. Bandwidth caps should take care of that by limiting usage, helping keep bandwidth usage in check.
I don't ever want to have to wonder "Are my bad speeds because I'm being throttled, because something is wrong with my ISP, or because something is wrong with the transfer itself?" |
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jfmezei
Premium
join:2007-01-03
Beaconsfield, QC
·ELECTRONICBOX
| reply to Angelo_
Question to Mr Rocky:
Could you guys use QoS features to give premium users better access to bandwidth and the unlimited guys lower priority ?
Say you have a 100mbs link with Cogent, could you limit to say 70mbps the amount used at any point in time by the unlimited users ?
(or perhaps dynamically change this depending on time of day, giving the unlimited guys less access to bandwidth during peek hours, and more during off peak). |
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Ikarasu
join:2004-01-09
Port Coquitlam, BC
 ·ITalkBB
·TekSavvy Solutions..
| I don't agree with QOS. Some people buy Unlimited just so they don;t have to worry about going over. According to the stats Rocky posted (Posting from memory, so these are "Estimates") But the average user on both plans did 50 some GB. Some people choose unlimited, just for ease of mind.
Not to mention.. just cause some people are on Unlimited, doesn't mean they don't play games, stream videos, ect. QoS is also 1 step, which leads to more... could just as easily say why not Throttle BT, since it's probably what 90% of the bandwidth comes from.
I'd like to see other suggestions besides throttling/QOS. I myself am a fan of the GB blocks. And I doubt any heavy user would argue with the 100 GB for $10 price. |
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