I hadn’t noticed the update on the Orange.mu FAQ page because of the exams. Here it is:
1.11 Why have we introduced the "fair usage policy"?
We have introduced the Fair Usage Policy in April 2008 to ensure that all our Orange ADSL customers get the best possible and most reliable surfing experience.
Picture a motorway where you should be going fast, say at 90 km/hour. Now picture a few heavy container trucks rolling along the same motorway all day every day. It's obvious you will not be able to drive at optimum speed as you would have to share the road with those trucks.
This is similar to what is happening on our networks: those container trucks are the heavy users on our internet networks. They download very large files 24 hours a day and 7 days a week, leaving less bandwidth for the rest of you. And we think it's unfair that you should not be getting good speeds when you surf the internet because of a small number of our users.
i. How do I know if I am a heavy user?
Are you a big fan of peer-to-peer and continuously download large files? Then there is a great chance that you are a heavy user. For example, if you are an ADSL Home 512K customer and you download over 5,000 music tracks per month or more than 30 movies per month and keep on doing this type of download every month, then you would qualify as a heavy user. This type of download is a large amount by any normal standard of usage.
ii. How will the "fair usage policy" be put into practice?
Your FUP threshold, i.e. the amount of data that you can download will depend on the offer to which you are subscribed to. Monitoring of your downloads will be done on a monthly basis and if you exceed your FUP threshold over a period of 2 consecutive months, you will be subjected to FUP on the third month.
So, for example:
- you exceed the FUP threshold for your package during month 1 and 2
- during month 3, you again exceed your threshold, say on the 21st of month 3
- after the 21st until the end of month 3, you will be subject to speed restrictions
- at the start of month 4, your speed will be back to normal as long as you do not again exceed the FUP threshold
- if you are being speed-restricted quite often, then we will contact you and may advise you to move to another package that is more suited to your download needs
iii. What happens after I have been speed-restricted?
You will be moved back to normal usage the following month but you will be speed-restricted again if you exceed the set threshold. If we find that you are being speed-restricted continuously, we will contact you to propose a package more suited to your needs. Speed restrictions will depend on the package you are subscribed to
iv. What if I need to download large files without being speed restricted?
Then you should move to another package with a higher bandwidth. The fair usage threshold for a My.T 512K is higher than that of My.T 256K, which means you are allowed heavier downloads with My.T 512K than My.T 256K. This is applicable across the board for all My.T and ADSL offers as well.
v. what if I am not a heavy user?
Then you have nothing to worry about. Even if you downloading heavily for one month but not the next, you will not qualify as a heavy user. More than 95% of our subscribers are NOT heavy users.
vi. can I track my internet usage?
Go to My Internet Account on http://www.orange.mu/my-account to check your internet usage online. You will need to enter your ADSL login and password.
Original Fair Usage Policy can be checked out here.
1. The road traffic analogy
Yeah, it’s true that 5% of the long vehicles can block up the whole traffic… except that in Mauritius, there’s no highway. Mauritian Internet (with only SAFE) can’t be considered a highway, nor a main road where you can overtake, but rather the bumpy road through the sugarcane fields! (or as Inf penned it - the small lane that my dog dug near the mango tree!)
There’s no fast lane for supercars & neither there is a crawler lane for long vehicles. There is only a single village road, where even the large numbers of small cars cause traffic jams & where your maximum speed, regardless of any limit, is 10km/h.
2. Implementing the FUP
I don’t know WHY DON’T THEY REVEAL THE CAP LIMITS?!?!?!? The 3 month scheme seems OK, but how can anyone limit their downloads unless they know what’s their limit! I’m strongly suspecting that Orange will implement a flexible limit depending on the traffic usage. They won’t reveal the exact limit so that they can catch you unaware & throttle your connection! Revealing the limits would mean that everyone can play safe by being on the borderline - but without publicly announcing any limits, Orange can freely adjust them to suit their needs without facing any public backlash! What a monopoly!
3. Speed-restriction
That’s indeed a big concern! How are we going to be restricted? A drop by half-speed or will they axe it directly to dial-up?? Another loophole…
4. Tracking your Internet Usage
The site is http://internetaccount.orange.mu/
If your login is like XXXXX@tplus, remove the @tplus & use XXXXX as the username & the password remains the same. Again, no mention about the limits on the site.
WARNING: I’ve compared my usage by NetMeter with the one on the site… & as expected, the usage recorded by Orange is greater (by 50MB average). So be aware - do not trust your meter!
5000 tracks at 5MB per mp3 track = 25GB
30 movies at 700MB per movie = 21GB
So there you go… the limit for 512k is 20GB - which is incredibly low!
& given what section iv. suggests… this means that 256k is 10GB & 128k is 5GB???
Update: Limits revealed!!!
ADSL Home 128k = 10Gb
My.T 256k = 3Gb
(No comments! Evil Orange strikes again!)
Read more on:
Avinash's blog: What is a heavy user?
& Geekscribes: Orange FAQ Updated: More details on FUP?
News on Sunday have an article on the FUP. More on Geekscribes.net
Pics of the article:
Download the PDF here. Direct link to article here.
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ayo..mo pe gagne crise r zorange..mwa mo faire 40 a 50 gb par month..pffff...pfffffff..pfffff..
aster pou bsn ale limit mo ban downloads..mari KAKES sa..pffff..
customer care zoranze meme pa koner how much sa FUP la pou eter..ban $#@$#@#@#@
@tushal
& I do around 15-20gig per month... :@
mo torrent aprox 5 gb par semaine...ki arriver si mo download tous le mois meme si mo gagne zot lette????zot pu cancel mo connection???
si faller mo pu download 24/7 every month @ 10-15kb zis pu plein zot F...
mo ena 1 cam pe faire 150 gb par mois..li ena 1mbps kot li lakaze! ! !! lol..
mo croire mo ale camper kot li aster..lol..
muahahaha..mwa osi mo pe download every day la..mo pou mari fatigue banla..
Update:
The limit for ADSL 128k is 10GB & the limit for My.T 256k is 3GB.
Check this post for more info:
http://www.noulakaz.net/weblog/2008/05/03/what-is-the-fair-use-policy/
That's been confirmed by Armand who wrote a letter to MT & they responded back. No details about other connections yet.
But for people looking for "unlimited" connections, they'll have to take ADSL Business... :(
But for people looking for "unlimited" connections, they'll have to take ADSL Business... :(
not really.....
T ketwaroo tone gagne bezer, moi mo ene consomateur internet mais mo bizin prend seki business la; mari l'ider sa. to reponse en le ki net.
Hmmmm... What concerns me is: Is what they are doing Legal? Is anyone considering Civil Lawsuits? I heard of a case where some company was throttling the users connection like this and they lost their lawsuit... Since then other companies have tried ways to avoid getting caught...
Does Orange think that it is somehow sheltered from this?
Does it have political 'connections'?
Or does Orange think that Mauritians are stupid people who won't dare to launch class action lawsuits???
http://www.coderetard.com/2008/07/10/comcast-tries-to-avoid-p2p-throttling-lawsuit/
I myself have been downloading lots of stuff... films music, anime... etc... but based on a deep religious faith I have abandoned everything that might be considered as stealing... BUT there are many LEGAL downloads... For example I can pay to download TV series from Amazon... So if I can afford to buy Rs60 rupees an episode of Stargate, lost heroes, Prison Break, smallville etc... It remains legal Downloads... It remains legal transactions... Besides Animes that are unlicensed and available on torrent networks are free and legal and are in enormous quantity... I think that Orange has a problem with its bandwidth and that it is not able to continue to provide bandwidth to its increasing the number of adherents... so it crams down the existing users... Is that fair???
They are planning to implement some kind of fair usage policy that is only going to profit to their business... an FUP that is not fair at all... so because I download a lot I'm a problem to them? It isn't said that there was a limit... actually they said there was no limit... c'est de la publicitée mensongère...
I think that instead of absorbing millions of Mauritian money into their own pockets they should invest into greater bandwidth... The only fair thing they can do is admit that they can no longer provide to new users for others are using the max of their available bandwidth that has been dedicated to home customers.
Now if Orange is reading this... Tell me: Where in my contract is it written that I have to share my connection with others????
Hmm? So If I don't have to share... or if it was not mentionned before why am I going to be limited when others experience down times...? In fact... if you had sufficient bandwidth those users would not have to suffer down times. So the problem is with you! Not with us!!!
I think I'm being pretty clear here!
So in fact you are selling more than you can provide! And you are introducing a fair usage policy...???????? How fair is that???
@Reuben
Everyone has the same complaints - Orange chose the easiest way to tackle its bandwidth problem & we users have to pay the consequences.
As for the FUP being illegal, that is a highly debatable point, with the "terms & conditions can be amended without prior notice" clause.
But who'll launch a class-action lawsuit against them?? :S
Well I spoke to a journalist once...
He told me that there were people who would happily fund any lawsuit against MT... At that time I was getting like a max of 7Kbps on MyT 256.
What i did was post a 4 page article on Avinash's blog... and there... connection restored...(27KBps) even got a call from MT the next day asking if it was finally ok... while before my post they kept telling me (for 5 weeks) that it was normal since I had exceeded my dwnld limit of 1GB (I was up to 30Gb ) and that they could not even log in my complaint.
So they had the capacity to give me my Bandwidth, they were just being hmmm... how to stay polite?... huh... well they were just being what they usually are...
@Reuben
Nice to see what wonders a little complaint can do... :P
Hi carrot. Any new updates about the FUP; I mean have you ever been warned or capped because of a high usage(+30 GB) recently(last 12 months) ?
Or have you any of your friends been FUPied? Sjdvda (on his twitter, 5 months ago) said that he was going to be capped because of a 50 GB bandwidth. And then one day you said (on twitter itself) that the FUP never existed because you have done +50 GB. And I'd like to mention that FUP faq clearly says that if you heavily use bandwidth for a month and the next one not, you won't be capped.
@Anonymous
No, I haven't heard of someone being FUPed. As for Saajid, I think they did send him a warning letter, but never actually capped him. :)
They may warn you if they get multiple complaints from other users affected by your downloading. But it's very rare & I know of only 2 such cases.
So to all purposes, the FUP is never applied. :P
Thanks a lot for the reply. So if I'm usually between 30-35GB every month may I have an FUP capping one day? (I'm usually into +30 GB almost every month, though not sequentially, for example If did 45 GB a certain month, the next month I reduced my usage to 25 GB - But never have I been capped. And If am actually investigating about this dormant FUP topic its because the last two months I've been doing about 30 GB and I want to make the same usage this month too)
@Anonymous
No, they won't bother you. I think most people do more than 30GB a month. :)
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