Fair Use Policy (Fup) Article

[Call me bubba]

in todays manilatimes an article discussing the"Fair Use Policy (FUP)." is posted.

since some members in the past have questions/concerns or complaints about the FUP

this article can (just maybe   )help explain more of the Fair use policy

 

 

 

 

Globe Telecom said it wants to protect 97 percent of its subscriber base against the 3 percent who take up more than their fair share of its network bandwidth by enforcing its Fair Use Policy (FUP).

Smart Communications also has its own FUP in place.

 

On February 13,

The National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) received Globe’s written explanation regarding consumer complaints on Globe’s FUP on its “Unlimited Data Offerings,” saying that the company wants to protect 97 percent of its subscriber base against the 3 percent who take up more than their fair share of its network bandwidth.

 

In a letter, Globe said that, “We enforced the policy for postpaid data plans to protect the data experience of the majority of subscribers who regularly use the network or leisure. The fair use is being implemented by all telco players not only in the country but also in the most advance economies.

Amid burgeoning consumer use of smart phones and other mobile data devices, network data traffic reports showed a surge of over 300 percent during peak hours over the last two years. Data usage reached 47 gigabits per second (Gbps) in 2013 from only 12 Gbps in 2011.

 

Data user reports also indicate that heavy users only account for less than 3 percent of total data subscribers, yet consume a disproportionate amount of network capacity. These are the ones who use peer-to-peer applications to download large files, use their mobile phone as a personal hotspot, or stream videos heavy on a daily basis. These activities use up a majority of the network bandwidth, affecting other subscribers.

“The objective of a FUP is to encourage a proper attitude toward the use of unlimited services: ‘unlimited but not finite; unlimited but not absolute; unlimited but not unreasonable;

free [to use] but not irresponsible.’ This has been the guiding norm in several advanced countries where telcos have aggressively checked network abuse through a stringent enforcement of their FUPs,” the Ayala-led telecommunication firms said.

 

Based on complaints received by NTC on this matter, Globe subscribers alleged that they signed-up and are paying, or had paid, for “unlimited” data service but instead are getting “limited” data service.

Subscribers indicated that they were being placed on the network with slow data connection once their usage reached a certain volume of data, like one gigabyte (GB).

 

Telcos use of Fair Use Policy

This means customers on an Internet promo and plan who exceed 1 GB a day or 3 GB a month (whichever comes first) will experience browsing at slower speeds.

“This policy allows us to maintain the quality of our mobile Internet service and give all Globe customers a fair opportunity to enjoy our network,” Globe said.

On the other hand, Smart Communication said in its FUP that,

“This Fair Use Policy allocates 1.5 GB per month of mobile browsing usage for you to enjoy Smart’s superior 3G/HSPA [third generation/high speed packet access] network.

Subscribers who exceed the fair use allocation may experience reduction in speed for the duration of the billing cycle of their subscription.”

“Web browsing and access to certain applications such as messaging, social networks, games, utilities, and the like, on the mobile phone are generally accepted behaviors for mobile Internet and are covered by this Fair Use Policy,” Smart said.

 

For its part, the NTC said that, “The subscribers, however, should be informed clearly of said terms, whether prepaid or postpaid.”

The NTC mandated Globe to submit copies of all its agreements with its subscribers on “unlimited data” so that the agency could thoroughly review the terms stipulated on FUP and pretermination clauses to determine whether the subscribers were informed of the terms of their agreement.

 

http://manilatimes.net/telcos-check-user-excesses/76072/

Edited February 17, 2014 by Pittman apartments Sgn

[BrettGC]

Ah, was about to rant on about either remove the term "unlimited" or put in hard caps, then saw it was for their mobile network.  I think it still applies though.  "Unlimited" is a term used to lure in customers in, on long term contracts - it specifically mentions post-paid - only to find out that they are indeed effectively capped.  I see this as misleading.  Users are being sucked in and then put at a disadvantage for the Telco's lack of network infrastructure due to bad forward planning or wanting to squeeze as much profit out of the substandard networks as they can.  I'd like to see the profit figures for the Telco's involved vs expenditure on infrastructure upgrades.  Ironically a ground based mobile infrastructure costs significantly less to install, maintain and upgrade than land line or satellite services (limited space on the birds in the sky so the cost for that space borders on the point of prohibitive even using multiplexers etc to share). 

 

The entire statement still appears to be nothing but self-rationalising justification on the part of Globe to my mind.

Edited February 17, 2014 by BrettGC

[Tukaram (Tim)]

“This policy allows us to maintain the quality of our mobile Internet service and give all Globe customers a fair opportunity to enjoy our network,” Globe said.

This also allows us to blame the users for our poor service.

[MikeB]

I found this response which blasts a hole in the theory that a small # of users are causing this problem:

 

"According to Smart and Globe, a small subset of heavy users consume all the bandwidth before the average user can use some, resulting in congestion. Because of this, they implement a data cap.

There's a flaw in that theory. Networks don't work that way. The internet is based on the TCP/IP protocol, which has its own way of dealing with congestion that has nothing to do with how much data you download. It works like this: when an application sends a chunk of data, it hands it over to either a program or a piece of hardware in the device called a TCP module. The TCP module then breaks the data into the chunks called segments. The TCP segments are placed inside an IP packet, which has information about the data's information. The IP packet is then sent out. Once the packet is received by the destination, an acknowledgment is sent back to the sender. Packets can sometimes be lost because of network congestion. If the original sender doesn't receive the acknowledgement, the TCP module knows that either the IP packet didn't arrive at its destination or that the receiver didn't send back the response in time. Either way, the TCP module re-transmits the packet to make sure it gets there.

Interestingly, TCP modules treat dropped packets as a sign of congestion or some other network issues, and then scales back the rate at which it sends the data. So if there's congestion at a network connection, all the TCP modules using that connection scale back and slow down sending data until they all reach equilibrium. They share the pipe and every TCP stream gets a fair share. This means that no matter how big the file size being streamed or downloaded, you only take up as much bandwidth at that time as the network can support. Small files travel at the same rate as big ones. Therefore, what ends up causing congestions in most cases isn't the amount of data used, but the number of people, programs, and devices using the network connection at the same time. Data caps charge you for your total traffic, not your speed. Data caps don't tell the difference between streaming at 2GB HD movies during peak hours (when the network is highly congested) and a 2GB file being sent at 4am when the network isn't congested at all. If ISPs were really concerned about congestion, they would be selling less service to fewer people. Instead of offering people to upgrade to faster speeds, they'd urge people to get slower services. And yet, they do quite the opposite."

 

Better yet, they should work on upgrading their infrastructure so that one day, in the far future, they will be on par with the rest of the world. Instead they sell plans and services they can't adequately support, then blame their own customers. 

[earthdome]

The solution of course is to not have unlimited data plans or even better to have metered plans where you pay per MB or GB.

 

When I was heavily using a postpaid Smart smartphone unlimited data plan, using it as a wifi hotspot for my laptop, I was using over 10GB/month and never noticed any bandwidth limiting. That was a year ago and things may have changed since then.

[BrettGC]

I'm a bit of a telecommunications nerd from my Navy days, being one of those people that used to exploit poorly secured networks.  Not going to quote your entire posted article Mike, but I will put it all into the simplest terms possible for others:

 

Think of a garden hose and imagine that's the network.  At any given time water - or data -  flowing down that hose can only travel up to a finite rate at a set volume.  Once that rate/volume is exceeded pressure builds and bad things happen to that hose at the choke points/bottlenecks. Hoses, like networks are only have the capacity for a certain rate of flow, turn up the pressure as much as you want, the water isn't going to flow any faster beyond a set limit.  As the article states, it's not an issue of overall rate/volume over time but rather the rate/volume at any given time, so as Mike's article states, the Telco's are full of sh**.   When I was instructing in the Navy, I used to take my students out the back of the building and demonstrate the principle with a Lombardini diesel water pump and a sh&tty, old, unmaintained fire hose borrowed from the base firefighters. 

Edited February 17, 2014 by BrettGC

[Thomas]

This means customers on an Internet promo and plan who exceed 1 GB a day or 3 GB a month (whichever comes first) will experience browsing at slower speeds.

The fair use is being implemented by all telco players not only in the country but also in the most advance economies.

Well. I don't know if they count Sweden to that :mocking:  but perhaps A BIT slower at rusch hours rural too where available speeds are slower, but no etreem drops  either at cable or mobile.

/The cable is REALY unlimited

/while mobile they DON'T claim they are "unlimited", they TELL what the limit is (And if you reach that during the period, then additional GBs can be bought easy on distance. E g the "Small" mobile Internet at my supplier has 15 GB as max per month...)

 

But to be fair we can't compare a 3rd country with our homes countries concerning AVAILABLE SPEED

BUT it's realy crap if they can be allowed to do FALSE MARKETING saying "unlimited" when it's FAAAAAAR from that  :bash:

 

((I DON'T download huge files as movies, but I want to look at some video clips sometimes, and look at streeming TV sports. My need of the later will become much biger when I have moved to Phils, where many of me wanted sport broadcastings are not avalable by satelite TV. Not odd I will get SPEED problems rural, but it's realy bad if they don't sell enough amount of GB to look at such during LOW use hours even when they tell "unlimited"...  :bash:

[robert k]

I paid a couple hundred piso for I think 5 days phone service and unlimited internet on my phone. Never throttled because I guess it was a new plan every 5 days?

[Alby]

These telecom companies are just bullsh&tting!

The fact that people need what you have doesn't mean at all that you can hold them hostage when providing it.

Why on earth do they lie first in big words (unlimited) then somewhere in fine prints they say but it's limited?

A clear cheating and marketing gimmicks!

Ever wondered why they publish sooooo many plans and text this it that as 'promotions'? It's to make the client miss understand and hence squeeze more money out of him/her.

Mind you, it's not just telecom companies doing it. All other 'businesses' do it too.

How often does the mediocre item you just bought stopped working as soon as you took it home? Can you return it and ask, god forbid, for your money back? Is there such a concept of getting any money back any way? :)

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Dave Hounddriver]

All other 'businesses' do it too

Once you realize there is no 'truth in advertising' rules enforced in Philippines you get a clearer understanding of "don'tbelievenunofit"