Consumers throttled by ISPs

Debate is raging in the Internet service provider (ISP) community over exactly what the terms “capped” and “shaped” mean, forcing the industry association to come up with a proper code for its members.

Skyrove CEO Henk Kleinhans says consumers are being short-changed by ISPs who advertise that their services are unlimited, while they are not.

He believes a time will come when regulatory bodies, such as the Independent Communications Authority of SA (ICASA) or the Department of Communications will be forced to step in - as British regulator OFCOM did in the UK - to sort out the issue.

Over the past five years, changes in the structure of the telecommunications sector have seen an increasing number of ISPs offer “unlimited” ADSL services. However, these come at a cost, not only in price, but also in that the “unlimited” amount only relates to local browsing, while most South African Internet users tend to access international sites.

Furthermore, the use of “shaping” is practiced by local ISPs on metered traffic to ensure that each packet of data complies with the traffic contract. This is also termed “throttling” as it imposes delays and so limits bandwidth use.

A third factor is contention ratio, which, according to Wikipedia, is the ratio of the potential maximum demand to the actual bandwidth. The higher the contention ratio, the greater the number of users that may be trying to use the actual bandwidth at any one time and, therefore, the lower the effective bandwidth offered, especially at peak times

“Unlike, say, service at a restaurant, it is much harder for a customer to differentiate between good and bad Internet connectivity or to even begin to see that an ISP is actively short-changing them,” Kleinhans says.

He says that psychologically, the idea is to intimidate the consumer into not using their uncapped package the way it's supposed to be used in the first place.

“You're (the consumer) being threatened with a very severe punishment of super-slow Internet connectivity, which you know will be detrimental to your Internet experience,” Kleinhans says.

He uses the analogy of a multi-lane freeway with thousands of lanes.

An ISP would buy a few hundred lanes (in this case Mbps) of this freeway for its exclusive use. It would then sell access to customers in a similar way a toll-road works - charging for every car that passes through the tollgate (in this case every Gigabyte of data).

“In the past, the more Gigabytes (or "cars") I pushed through, the more money the ISP would make. It was, therefore, in the ISPs' interest to make sure that they had enough bandwidth so as to ensure as many Gigabytes could be pushed through as possible,” Kleinhans says.

However, with the advent of uncapped ADSL products, the incentive has now changed.

“No longer is it in the ISPs' interest to ensure the maximum amount of Gigabytes are consumed by their customers. On the contrary, they want to get customers to use as little as is possible,” Kleinhans says.

In order to do this, they put up all sorts of speed limits, roundabouts and traffic lights.

“For example, they will put as many customers on one "lane" as possible, called the contention ratio. For example, if I have a 4 Mbps ADSL service, a 20:1 contention ratio would mean that for every 4 Mbps of bandwidth there are 20 users who share it with me,” he says.

In the UK, the standard contention ratio is between 20:1 and 50:1. However, in South Africa, ISPs do not disclose what the contention ratio is.

“Besides suspiciously high contention ratios, our ISPs are also using all sorts of other dirty and undisclosed tricks. One such example is where an ISP will tell you that they have a 'fair use policy', but instead of telling you what they consider as 'fair use', they will only warn you that you should use less bandwidth than the top 20% of users,” Kleinhans says.

Red Button director Barry Steyn agrees with Kleinhans, but says a major problem is the quality of bandwidth.

“Would you as a consumer be prepared to pay more for better quality bandwidth? I would. And if I was starting an Internet-based business, I would need high-quality bandwidth,” he says.

Steyn says the problem comes in with the ordinary consumers who may be adversely affected by those using massive amounts of bandwidth by downloading movies and other activities.

He says that, in Canada, everyone has fast uncapped Internet that is offered as a bundle with phones service for a flat fee.

“So why can't we in SA have this as well? The short answer: There are not enough people wealthy enough for someone to introduce a mass service like this. In summary, if a service is uncapped, and if by being uncapped one is offered a poorer service, this should be stated upfront,” Steyn says.

ISPA says it acknowledges there has been some confusion relating to different ISPs' implementation of "uncapped" Internet access, as well as the imposition of shaping and fair use policies.

Recognising that terms such as "uncapped" and "shaped" are sometimes used in different ways by different ISPs, ISPA is working on a set of generally accepted meanings for terms used to advertise broadband services.

“Our code of conduct working group recently finished a first draft of this document, and is now preparing an updated version to circulate to ISPA's membership base for comment in September,” an ISPA statement says.

ISPA says, given the current costs of providing broadband services, it is not yet economically viable for ISPs to provide an unlimited, uncapped and unshaped service at a fixed price, at least not at a price that most consumers would consider to be affordable.

It says many of the costs of provisioning broadband services are consumption-related, and it therefore, presents a challenge to implement a flat retail tariff based on a variable cost.

“Consequently, in order to meet consumer demand for low-cost, flat-rate broadband offerings, South African ISPs have developed a wide variety of services, and with differing usage policies and terms of use. ISPA cautions against trying to force a single, standardised 'fair use' policy, since this could stifle innovation and limit consumer choice and ISP competitiveness,” the association says.

ISPA says no matter what the nature of the service being offered, it requires its members to provide reasonable and accurate information to their customers about the service they are paying for. ISPA's Code of Conduct contains several clauses covering the information ISPs must provide to consumers, and the fair treatment of customers.

“If any customer of an ISPA member believes that that member has transgressed the provisions of the ISPA Code, they should lodge a complaint with ISPA, so that the matter can be investigated further,” ISPA says.