As Intense Broadband we have been looking at the market and how other ISP’s do throttling and how they market their uncapped products.
The only protocol that Intense Broadband shapes/throttles on the consumer products is torrents. Torrents takes a huge chunk out of the network and affects all other users negatively. We obviously want all users to experience a fair, well priced and well managed ADSL service and therefore have no choice but to shape consumer products.
On our business products we do not do any shaping and give priority to business protocols and therefore the pricing is higher than the normal consumer products.
Herewith some explaining on what the different terms mean:
Shaped or Unshaped?
Imagine an express check-in counter at the airport. Passengers who are travelling light and only have carry-on luggage can move quickly through these counters, but they’d be slowed down if passengers with check-in baggage were also allowed to use these queues.
ADSL “shaping” is similar – it makes sure that the “lighter, faster moving” Internet traffic, like email and browsing, gets to move more quickly across the network than the specialised stuff such as peer-to-peer. Because specialised internet activities tend to be bandwidth heavy, they slow the ordinary traffic down which is why they are held back until there is no risk of congestion.
Why is line speed important?
When you think about line speed, do you imagine a train speeding on a track?
Well, you’re not too far off!
Say you’re on holiday and need to reach the airport. You have three options: take the bus, order a shuttle, or catch the high-speed train. The bus is the cheapest but the slowest, the shuttle is more expensive but faster, and the train is the fastest but also the most pricey.
It’s the same with ADSL: the faster your line, the quicker emails and web pages will load. You’ll still reach the same “destination” with a slower line, you’ll just have to wait a bit longer to get there.
If you rely on ADSL for your business, you probably can’t afford to wait. And some services, like video chat and online gaming, need faster line speeds to work properly.
What is throttling?
Throttling reduces the speed at which your data moves across the network and is usually implemented once you reach a certain data threshold (usually a set number of gigabytes per month).
Capped vs. Uncapped?
Imagine you’re at a restaurant that offers individual meals or an all-you-can-eat buffet. If you’re not very hungry, it’s cheaper to order just a few dishes. But if you have a big appetite, the buffet is the way to go.
Uncapped ADSL is like the buffet – it lets you use as much data as you want for a fixed fee. Capped ADSL is like the individual meals – you pay for a fixed amount of data each month and if you run out, you need to pay for another helping. Uncapped ADSL is subject to AUP.
What is concurrency?
“Concurrent usage” is when you use a single ADSL account via two different Telkom lines at the same time. For example, your kids might be surfing the web at home, while you are banking online at your office down the road.
Local vs. International access?
When you’re browsing the web, you’re actually connecting to powerful computers known as “servers” which “serve” websites to you. These servers can be based in South Africa or in another country (often the USA or UK).
“Local-only access” means you can only visit websites hosted on servers based in South Africa. International access, on the other hand, allows you to visit all websites no matter where they’re being served from.
All of Intense Broadband’s ADSL products give you international access to the web.
