Kitz Forum
Broadband Related => ISPs => Topic started by: beniamino on February 17, 2021, 07:31:49 PM
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I have some annoying remote-work issues that would most easily be solved by downloading about 2TB of data from work to my home computer. I would download about 100GB a day for 20 days in a row, in addition to our normal monthly usage of 0.5 to 1 TB. We have Zen's Unlimited Fibre 2, but I am uncertain about the "unlimited" part. Is downloading 3TB in a month going to cause any problems, such as rate limiting, "fair usage" policy, caps, etc.? When the family's entire life is online, I can't afford to upset the ISP!
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I think you have no problem. All “unlimited “ is however normally subject to fair use terms, in your contract.
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Yes.
(https://csdprojects.co.uk/forums/BroadbandUsage.png)
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cool, thanks Alex
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I think you have no problem. All “unlimited “ is however normally subject to fair use terms, in your contract.
I actually went looking in their acceptable use policy and can't find anything about fair usage. It kinda makes sense as Zen aim for a zero contention network and if this is the usage I pull on 60Mbit VDSL, imagine what I could do on 900Mbit FTTP and its not proportionately more expensive to how much more bandwidth I could use (rightly so, as the ISP wont be paying for bandwidth use, just pipe size).
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I've never seen anything about a FUP. I don't often exceed 1 TB download anyway. :)
You'll be fine, as others have said.
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I got thrown off Pipex ADSLMax within 2 months because I "downloaded too much" when it was unlimited. I contested it and immediately cancelled the direct debit. They kept ringing my house, but I was at work during the day (2006) - my Dad told them to put it in writing and they never done. Fun times.
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I actually went looking in their acceptable use policy and can't find anything about fair usage. It kinda makes sense as Zen aim for a zero contention network and if this is the usage I pull on 60Mbit VDSL, imagine what I could do on 900Mbit FTTP and its not proportionately more expensive to how much more bandwidth I could use (rightly so, as the ISP wont be paying for bandwidth use, just pipe size).
Actually ISPs do pay per Mbit/s/month for traffic across BT Wholesale or other wholesale providers, and for some traffic leaving their network.
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Actually ISPs do pay per Mbit/s/month for traffic across BT Wholesale or other wholesale providers, and for some traffic leaving their network.
Has this always been the case or just on how it works now? I could have sworn they didn't used to on the old system.
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You're thinking of 20CN Capacity Based Charging.
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You're thinking of 20CN Capacity Based Charging.
Indeed.
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>> rightly so, as the ISP wont be paying for bandwidth use, just pipe size <<
That doesn't quite make sense to me. Regardless if its CBC, WBC or WMBC as the more bandwidth the EU uses, then the more capacity the SP has to purchase in order to prevent congestion. "Pipe size" requirements are based upon EU usage requirements.
With CBC the ISP had to ensure they bought sufficient centrals to cover peak demand. So if for example their customers were downloading 100GB of data at peak, then they need to ensure they purchased sufficient pipes to meet 100GB*. Although CBC didn't actually charge for metered bandwidth, the necessity was there to purchase more pipes to meet the heavier downloaders.
If an ISP had EU's that didnt download very much then they could allow more users to connect to that central without it being hot... and they could perhaps get away with just purchasing a few 622Mb pipes.
More than any other product, CBC was _the_ product that made ISPs care about how much bandwidth their customers used. It could make the difference between an ISP having to buy say 4x 622Mb pipe or 6x 622Mbp pipes per 100k* customers. So although BTw didn't charge per monitored bandwidth, the ISP was actively forced to purchase more centrals based on customers [peak] usage. When each 622 central pipe cost circa ~£1.75 million per month, then although BTw weren't monitoring bandwith**, the ISPs sure as hell had to.
With 21CN/WBC the ISP purchases a 'MSIL (https://kitz.co.uk/adsl/wbc_wbmc.htm#MSIL)' that gives the SP access to the 21CN backhaul. Cost to the SP depends upon how much bandwidth they rent. More info about the MSILs and APs on the page I just linked to.
The ISP still has to ensure that they have sufficient capacity, but what has made the big difference these days is the use of Wave Division Multiplexing (WDM) (https://kitz.co.uk/adsl/21cn_network.htm#WDM) technology used in the 21CN platform has substantially increased bandwidth availability & reduced the cost of bandwidth on the back-hauls.
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*made up figures.
** not strictly true as BTw policed the centrals to ensure pipes routinely weren't at near 100% capacity.
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Actually ISPs do pay per Mbit/s/month for traffic across BT Wholesale or other wholesale providers, and for some traffic leaving their network.
Well I was talking about Zen aiming for their own backhaul across the entire network which would mean the cost is down to having big enough pipes alone. Obviously not free, but more manageable.
Presumably transit links is where the big costs are when getting out of the Zen network?
I'd think that major bandwidth hogs like Netflix and Amazon get offset my having local caches at the ISP, and torrent traffic would largely be over peering agreements?
>> rightly so, as the ISP wont be paying for bandwidth use, just pipe size <<
That doesn't quite make sense to me. Regardless if its CBC, WBC or WMBC as the more bandwidth the EU uses, then the more capacity the SP has to purchase in order to prevent congestion. "Pipe size" requirements are based upon EU usage requirements.
With CBC the ISP had to ensure they bought sufficient centrals to cover peak demand.
On the surface it might seem a stupid comment, but I was referring to Zen aiming for a zero-contention network by having entirely their own backhaul.
Obviously there are still costs, but as long as the heavy users are spread across the network it shouldn't be too much of a big deal.
I will admit, I made a poor choice of wording though.
** not strictly true as BTw policed the centrals to ensure pipes routinely weren't at near 100% capacity.
My experience on Plusnet back in the day would suggest otherwise. ;) I remember it being a big deal that you had to drop PPP session periodically as the customer base would end up disproportionately assigned to the same pipe, leaving the other barely used. So everyone would be having unnecessary contention issues.