SupremeSabre
Junior Member
- Joined
- Oct 23, 2010
- Messages
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Hi
Recently I noticed an increasing number of complaints about slowdown of M1's P2P speeds. A number of mixed responses within the discussions prompted me to contribute my 2 cents about the issue.
While many M1 subscribers complain about speeds, a handful of others are quick to retort that 'they got what they paid for', 'M1 didn't promise anything'. and 'it's already in the contract'.
First of all, let us avoid falling into a perpetually fruitless debate on whether M1 subscribers are being short-changed or not-- because of the absence of exact quantifiable metrics on speeds that would qualify ISPs' services to be satisfactory, with respect to their corresponding advertised broadband plan. This is where I agree with sijie123 that the IDA could step in and make transparent the benchmarks designed to keep ISP service standards in check.
Without such metrics in place, I believe I am entitled to my opinion that it is unreasonable that:
1) M1 falsely claims "subscribers on P2P activities will find that their data or file transfer might slow down by up to three times the normal average speed." when in actuality, it slows down by FIVE HUNDRED times, for LONGER than the stipulated duration of 2pm-2am.
2) M1's traffic shaping policies does not make proportionate the bandwidth usage amongst users. Starhub and Singnet's peak-period throttling still yields 1-2mbytes/s, while M1's draconian 'measure' cripples all p2p to a halt. Stalking someone on FB already requires over 20kbps of throughput. Does it make sense to slow a 100mbps subscriber's p2p speeds to 10kbps? Let's not even compare it to streaming youtube videos.
3) The fibre plans were chiefly represented as an upgrade over the cable plans, but any p2p user who jumped from Singnet/Starhub to M1 would realise that p2p downloading is severely downgraded. If the only activities considered as 'normal usage' are surfing and checking emails, is there even a speed upgrade? To me, this appears to be a case of 'misleading half-truths' on advertised speeds and 'incomplete information' on throttling that amount to misrepresentation. In addition, the Second Schedule of the Consumer Protection Act considers the use of small prints to conceal a material fact from the consumer or to mislead a consumer as to a material fact to be an Unfair Practice. I leave it to you guys to judge whether P2P capping is material or immaterial. Finally, I don't think a cheaper plan (over other ISPs) serves as a mitigating factor over any form of misrepresentation, Unfair Practices or Unfair Contract Terms.
That said, I do hope that M1 is not abusing Traffic Shaping as a means of coping with a surge of subscribers (as suggested by many), since many of us are gonna be stuck to them for some time.
Disclaimer:
If I wanted to do blind-bashing I'd be formulating conspiracy theories about ISP collusion with HTTP filehosts or VPN services My sole intention is to reason. Thanks for reading
Recently I noticed an increasing number of complaints about slowdown of M1's P2P speeds. A number of mixed responses within the discussions prompted me to contribute my 2 cents about the issue.
While many M1 subscribers complain about speeds, a handful of others are quick to retort that 'they got what they paid for', 'M1 didn't promise anything'. and 'it's already in the contract'.
First of all, let us avoid falling into a perpetually fruitless debate on whether M1 subscribers are being short-changed or not-- because of the absence of exact quantifiable metrics on speeds that would qualify ISPs' services to be satisfactory, with respect to their corresponding advertised broadband plan. This is where I agree with sijie123 that the IDA could step in and make transparent the benchmarks designed to keep ISP service standards in check.
Without such metrics in place, I believe I am entitled to my opinion that it is unreasonable that:
1) M1 falsely claims "subscribers on P2P activities will find that their data or file transfer might slow down by up to three times the normal average speed." when in actuality, it slows down by FIVE HUNDRED times, for LONGER than the stipulated duration of 2pm-2am.
2) M1's traffic shaping policies does not make proportionate the bandwidth usage amongst users. Starhub and Singnet's peak-period throttling still yields 1-2mbytes/s, while M1's draconian 'measure' cripples all p2p to a halt. Stalking someone on FB already requires over 20kbps of throughput. Does it make sense to slow a 100mbps subscriber's p2p speeds to 10kbps? Let's not even compare it to streaming youtube videos.
3) The fibre plans were chiefly represented as an upgrade over the cable plans, but any p2p user who jumped from Singnet/Starhub to M1 would realise that p2p downloading is severely downgraded. If the only activities considered as 'normal usage' are surfing and checking emails, is there even a speed upgrade? To me, this appears to be a case of 'misleading half-truths' on advertised speeds and 'incomplete information' on throttling that amount to misrepresentation. In addition, the Second Schedule of the Consumer Protection Act considers the use of small prints to conceal a material fact from the consumer or to mislead a consumer as to a material fact to be an Unfair Practice. I leave it to you guys to judge whether P2P capping is material or immaterial. Finally, I don't think a cheaper plan (over other ISPs) serves as a mitigating factor over any form of misrepresentation, Unfair Practices or Unfair Contract Terms.
That said, I do hope that M1 is not abusing Traffic Shaping as a means of coping with a surge of subscribers (as suggested by many), since many of us are gonna be stuck to them for some time.
Disclaimer:
If I wanted to do blind-bashing I'd be formulating conspiracy theories about ISP collusion with HTTP filehosts or VPN services My sole intention is to reason. Thanks for reading