Comments on: Broadband Quality: Are you getting what is promised?

By: Chanuka Wattegama

Chanuka Wattegama — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 04:49:29 +0000

Thanks, Pingu. That is a great suggestion. We will work on it.

By: Pingu

Pingu — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 12:11:39 +0000

Since the pricing models of different packages of broadband services offered by operators are different, I would like to see a “Monetary Dimension” being included in LIRNEasia’s methodology of measuring BBand QOSE.
Simply to see how much worth are we getting out of a Rupee spent on BBand.
This will provide a fair basis to compare I hope.

By: Chanuka Wattegama

Chanuka Wattegama — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 06:00:13 +0000

Kalinga has a related thread in his site:
http://sinhala.kalingasblog.com/2008/05/21/mobitel-m3-broadband-speed

By: Divye Kapoor

Divye Kapoor — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 04:55:02 +0000

@The Future Today: You require a 40 byte empty TCP ACK packet to be sent for every TCP packet that you receive. That means that unless each packet that you download from the internet is very large, your download speed is effectively limited by your upload speed.

By: Chanuka

Chanuka — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 02:35:46 +0000

Sorry Thiwanka, they were scattered.

Now you have a one stop download centre at:

http://lirneasia.net/projects/2006-07/bbqos

By: samarajiva

samarajiva — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 11:24:10 +0000

The presentation slides have been posted. Please use “broadband QOS” as the search term and the relevant posts will come up.

By: Thiwanka

Thiwanka — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 07:09:41 +0000

I wanted to attend this public lecture, but had to change the plan at the last moment. Sorry.

Don’t know whether it has to do anything with the lecture but for the first time I see today an operator advertising the fact that the download can be ‘less than what they promise’ if several users try to access the server simultaneously. (See Dialog HSPA ad in Sunday Times)

At least it is a great achievement making them admit that. But they should tell how low that can go down. Otherwise if there are 100 users we will get only one hundredth of the promised speed.

Also for the first time Dialog presents another package with a 1 GB limit. But is there is big difference between 300 MB and 1 GB? For me it would be over by a week.

Please share with us any presentation material from the public lecture.

By: Web Alochana

Web Alochana — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 02:52:03 +0000

Read http://webalochana.blogspot.com/2008/03/enawa-yanawa-effect.html to see what Web Alochana has to say about this issue.

By: Tata

Tata — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 07:46:55 +0000

Is this the reason why these guys try their best to stop Airtel entering the market?

If Airtel is there Dialog cannot play games like this.

By: Lahiruwan

Lahiruwan — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 04:47:54 +0000

Dear The Future Today

What kind of movie can you download with the 300MB quota? Once you exceed the 300MB you’ll have to pay at a rate of 10/- per MB. At that rate a movie would cost about Rs. 11,000/-!!

By: The future today

The future today — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 03:01:14 +0000

Thiwanka,

That is only for movies. Requires only a wide downlink. Similar packages are offered by cable TV guys in other countries.

By: Thiwanka

Thiwanka — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 02:09:41 +0000

In yesterday’s Sunday Times Dialog had advertised a funny package.

Downlink 7.2 Mbps
Uplink 384 kbps
Free Download limit 300 MB

(a) For what application one needs such a ridiculous downlink to uplink ratio (20:1)? If the Downlink is large the uplink has to match it. May be not 1:1, but at least 1:4.

(b) At 7.2 Mbps rate, a user downloads roughly 1 MB per second. So he is free to use the package only for 300 seconds or five minutes!

Is this a kind of joke?

By: Lahiruwan

Lahiruwan — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 18:45:53 +0000

I have seen advertisements for Dialog WiMAX contain a reference to a Fair Use Policy. In that they state that the speeds of ‘high users’ will be restricted. The quotas they mention are ridiculously low. For example they define a high user as someone who downloads or uploads more a 4GB per 30 days. This is for the 1Mbps package. If this policy is implemented anyone using their connections for anything multimedia will exceed the limit and end up with a connection only slightly faster than dial-up but costing upwards of 3000/- a month.

I know its not ethical. Rather than investing in more hardware and bandwidth they choose to show us the sun and give us a lightbulb! They promise an unlimited package but in practice its useless for anything but reading CNN and getting cricket updates. One doesn’t have to use P2P to exceed this limit!!

Is this practice legal? Does anyone know if the TRC is aware of this?