Data Limits on your Internet Service??
18 Jul 2008 10:11:25 UTC
Topic 193770
(moderation:
If your internet service could be affected by exceeding your monthly data limits please be aware that we are entering a time of likely high data usage which would be compounded for those who have multiple computers. I'm speaking in particular about the upcoming transition from S5R3 to S5R4 (or whatever they decide to call it).
At the time of a previous transition (I think the one before last but my memory is hazy) there was a month where my data usage was so abnormally high that I got a bill for excess data of nearly $150 on top of my normal bill. I'm sufficiently concerned enough about this for the future that I've decided to start the hassle of changing ISP's. I'm not unhappy with my current service but I am unhappy with the fact that they want to lock me into a further 12 month contract if I shift to a higher usage plan. Also I can do much better elsewhere as well so it appears. I've been where I am for the last five years so am a bit miffed that "loyalty" seems to count for nothing. I've now got 30 days to get things in order for my current account to be closed. Hopefully I'll be on the new plan with the new ISP around the end of the month anyway, well before the old plan is closed. Effectively I'll have more than three times my current limit for less money and no risk of excess charges. If my usage goes crazy I'll just be shaped.
Cheers,
Gary.
Data Limits on your Internet Service??
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Interesting. Certainly here in Australia, I hear in the wind, there'll be more major telco changes afoot soon. There seems to be considerable anxiety by providers to thus lock you up in advance of that.
One tactic I've used for many years personally and on the business side is to 'bundle' - let a given provider know that I can be with them alone on some wide range of services, but that requires a deal ( time and/or money ) suitable to me. Not infallible, but it's surprising how many times that has worked well! All of a sudden some 'fixed' plan X becomes negotiable. This method is not available to us all but still reflects the basic techniques of comparison shopping and bargaining down. Optus is our current darling, but all such things are provisional.
Cheers, Mike.
I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter ...
... and my other CPU is a Ryzen 5950X :-) Blaise Pascal
RE: One tactic I've used
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Thanks for the comments. Now that I've submitted the formal notice of cancellation, I bet they'll discover that they don't really need to lock me into a contract after all :-). I'm aware of bundling so I'll be investigating that with others who might be after my business. Whilst I regard the imposition of a 12 month contract as an "insult" rather than anything more serious, the main reason for biting the bullet is that my current ISP has absolutely no migration path to ADSL2 either now or in the foreseeable future. I wasn't paying attention at the time but they appear to have made an initial foray into that a while ago and then backed out rather hastily for some reason. If they are not technically competent enough to make it work when others seem to be able to then that's a good reason not to be with them.
They are being very cagey about even discussing the matter and in their forums they just keep saying "no current plans in that direction at present". Given the cost (and other) advantages of ADSL2 for the future, I've decided to look at ISPs who offer it now even though I'll probably stay with ADSL1 until I've done more research. If you have any advice to offer about ADSL2, I'd be interested in hearing - perhaps not in this thread though :-).
Cheers,
Gary.
It all depends on the D-slam
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It all depends on the D-slam your line is connected. But to connect to it you need also an ADSL2 modem, which in Italy costs 3 euro/month. I have a ADSL1 connection with a 7 Mbit/s top speed and no volume cap.It costs me 19.9 euro/month plus the POTS rate at 14.27 euro/month. In my area (just outside Milano) the 20 Mbit/s ADSL2 is not available. It would cost the same, though.
Tullio
RE: It all depends on the
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Hi Tullio,
In my situation neither the D-SLAMS nor the modem is an issue. I actually have 2 current services connected to 2 separate exchanges both of which have the necessary equipment (D-SLAMS) for either ADSL1 or 2 and there are a number of ISPs who can give me whatever I decide I want. I'm planning to replace my current 5 year old budget modems with something a bit more modern that will also handle VoIP and anything else I fancy. So all I have to do is a bit of research in order to properly understand how to make a selection that will really suit me. That's probably the hard part :-).
Cheers,
Gary.
RE: Hi Tullio, In my
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I get daily an offer from other providers (Vodafone, Tiscali, Fastweb, etc.) which promise me to free from my Telecom Italy slavery. But the only cables which reach my telephone and my modem are Telecom Italy cables. So I don't see any advantage in switching to other providers. This is hard to explain to the marketing gals which call me. Once a Fastweb girl told me I am a believer in fables. But I connect to www.dslreports.com and check the speed of my connection. Also I download new releases of my SuSE Linux with speeds reaching 800 KByte/s. So I know the line is good.
I'll just revisit what I told
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I'll just revisit what I told Gary on PM about this. I know the following to be true for DownUnda, at least.
Floor space within your local exchange - the terminator of your local loop ( 'last mile' ) - is subject to purchase and lease. A suitably savvy and funded telco can do so and install their own equipment to handle your signal entering from your home side through to whatever multiplexed trunk line(s) exits the exchange. Up until relatively recently there was only one such ( monopoly ) hardware owner.
So what, and if, your ISP offers depends on where they lie operationally and contractually in such matters. Most will lease time/assets from some existing materiel provider rather than set up their own gear, as it requires big bickies to outlay upon this activity de novo. All of this is subject to local availability, contractual histories, etc .... so no firm non-local lessons really apply. Except perhaps generalities like that facilities with older existing hardware, and particularly those well away from larger population centres, will clearly be well behind the play here.
There'll likely be a lot of havering between large telcos on the one hand, who want their outlays earning, and on the other ISP's etc wanting to purchase at a price they can re-sell onto consumers profitably. Note that those hardware investing telcos are also selling direct to consumers too, so it's hard for an ISP to get a better margin here. They have to have some other values and attractions to boot.
Only relatively recently was our major telco required to provide their hardware at a non-ridiculously marked up rate ( when they were the sole within-exchange materiel owner ). They also had to be brought to heel on some other semi-obtuse mechanisms. Like erecting an interior wall, from floor to ceiling, just outside the border of a competitor's floor space - in order to hermetically seal said competitor's equipment and thus cause overheating! They rightly paid dearly for that one, on the front steps of the court! To say that they have embraced a competitive environment readily is a bit like saying the Pope is to due be married next week .... :-)
The upshot is that the DSL port, of whatever variety, lies within this domain of operations.
Cheers, Mike.
I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter ...
... and my other CPU is a Ryzen 5950X :-) Blaise Pascal
Ahh yes, I remember dealing
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Ahh yes, I remember dealing with the horrors of trying to get various telco services in the past... It all started with sharing one 33.6kbps modem off the server with a thin-net ethernet to clients. Over the years...
Provider: T1? Sure... how many poles do you need to cross to get to your ISP's building?
Me: How much? Uh, can I get a discount if I string the fiber/copper myself?
Provider: ISDN? Sure... now will that be one trunk line or two, sir?
Me: No, just a 2x64k BRI. Huh,I'm going to pay how *^%* much for 128 &*^%* kbps?
Provider: aDSL? Sorry sir, but 20 years ago to save money we pair-gained 50 (thousand, million, etc) lines onto one piece of fiber to your area. Could I interest you in a nice symmetrical DSL for only 90% of the cost of that T1 you had 8 years ago with us?
Me: *&%*&^(*& dial-up wasn't too bad, now that I think about it. Bye.
and at another location...
Provider: aDSL? Sorry sir, but the whole 1/3 of the city that lies north of the river is supplied by 50 (thousand, million, etc) copper pairs that are all pair-gained so the bridge that we're running them on doesn't collapse under the weight. Just as soon as we build a new central switch north of town, you can get aDSL!
Me: (sob)
Provider: We're going to be running coax cable into your area just as soon as enough businesses express an interest so we know it's worth the investment!
Me: Great! Any idea how soon that will be?
Provider: Uh... don't call us, we'll call you!
But after all of the trials and tribulations, I finally have all remote offices on aDSL with one ISP, my office is on cable with another and my home is on the same provider (residential plan of course). No data limits, speed fast enough that I rarely want for more and it all just plain works with little to no muss and fuss. Just don't ask what I pay for all of it and I'll keep smiling like the poor dain bramaged idiot that I've become. :)
I have at my office a
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I have at my office a satellite ISP Spectrumsat.net and it unfortunally doesn't have a convenient unlimited plan, so I always think of about conserving the traffic. Is there any ideas or convinient ways to do this with BOINC/Einstein under Windoze? Because my main computing farm is there and I don't want to switch it off while transition is coming.
RE: Ahh yes, I remember
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Thanks for this great little documentary on how the whole deal went over the years. I recognize and can remember traveling down many of those technological nightmare tracks myself. Fortunately I didn't have to suffer the pair-gain pandemic and managed to go straight from ISDN to reasonable ADSL without any hassles. Unfortunately still, in Australia, it is difficult to get a good not-overly-congested service, with high download limits, and at a reasonable cost. Some of the time it seems to be a case of "pick any two only" and for most of the remaining time it's "which one of these is the deal breaker, sir?" Nobody has all three :-).
Cheers,
Gary.
RE: Is there any ideas or
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At the current rate of progress, the first-time issue of S5R3 tasks will complete in about 8 days by the look of things. On past experience, tasks for the next run will kick in while first-time tasks for the previous run are still being issued. There isn't usually a "dead period" where the old run has finished and the new run is yet to start. If there were to be a problem with finalizing the new apps or new data files, I guess that a dead period could happen.
There are things you could do to protect yourself against the "data storm" that can happen with the cleanup of the dregs. Whether or not this is "convenient" is another matter :-). As I've mentioned previously, you could increase cache size (extra days is best) pretty soon now in an attempt to get a block of tasks all for the one data frequency band. You should be able to do that for the next couple of days hopefully.
As soon at the new app is released and new data is flowing, you could create a "new app only" app_info.xml file and deploy this, together with copies of the new app to all your hosts as they finish the cache of old work. You would need to set NNT (no new tasks) to prevent them getting old work and then do the deployment when their caches were empty. I've already talked about this sort of thing elsewhere and it would depend on your ability to construct an appropriate app_info.xml file to make it work.
Please note that I'm not really advocating any of the above unless you are quite competent with your understanding of the app_info mechanism. It would also be quite a lot of work if you had a significant number of machines to monitor.
Cheers,
Gary.