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Thread ID: 74462 2006-11-23 11:01:00 My unhappy affair with ihug qazwsxokmijn (102) PC World Chat
Post ID Timestamp Content User
501583 2006-11-24 01:30:00 For reference Ihugs Policy (www.ihug.co.nz)
What is ihug's position on P2P traffic?

P2P (Peer to Peer) is a type of file sharing, primarily used by a small number of higher-end broadband users. We are not anti-P2P however if our network is congested then P2P-type traffic will be the first to feel the pinch. We will always prioritise the more mainstream traffic types (such as web and email) over P2P as this will have the greatest benefit for the greatest number of customers.

If you are a customer who uses P2P alot, then we ask that you try to keep your usage to our off -peak periods when there is the most capacity available. 		KiwiTT_NZ (233)
501584 2006-11-24 01:38:00 My opinion is clear and direct:

If you as a consumer sign up for an Internet Plan in good faith and with the expectation of reasonable* speed and competent customer service,then that's exactly what you are entitled too receive . ;)

So what if your "smoking" your connection downloading Games,Warez,Pr0n,mp3's and anime 24/7 . . . . that is what humans do! . The onus is on your ISP to purchase more bandwidth from Telecom . Sure! this is expensive . . . . . . but then your ISP also has the right to "reconfigure" its pricing plan and to charge you more . It is not there right to restrict certain P2P apps and to throttle connections that are being "hammered" 24/7 . It is your connection and you are entitled to use it in any way you so choose .

Of course there will be heavy users and light users all paying the same price for the same speed plan . That is life . If you as an ISP cannot provide enuff bandwidth without data shaping and other draconian measures . . . then don't run a commercial Internet service . Simple! . :groan:

Reasonable* = What is fair based on what you have received from other ISP's in the past and/or what your copper line is capable of giving you from your nearest Exchange .

It's a user pays world out there - "And that's the bottom line"!! . . . . . "cause Stone Cold said so!!

:o I've been reading here for a long time and never bothered to sign up, but I felt I had to say something afer I read your comment .

:thumbs: 		Deathwish (143)
501585 2006-11-24 02:25:00 my experience with ihug has been good, but i am trying to upgrade my plan and have forgotten my account password... i got them to email my password 5 times now and am yet to recieve a single one - their loss i suppose

anyway, i agree with Utopia: sure p2p is less common than email/surfing, but the customer paid for that data/bandwidth and he/she should be allowed to use it! it is the ISP's responsibility to provide its service by increasing supply, not lessening demand by cheating customers through 'traffic shaping' 		motorbyclist (188)
501586 2006-11-24 03:26:00 My opinion is clear and direct:

If you as a consumer sign up for an Internet Plan in good faith and with the expectation of reasonable* speed and competent customer service,then that's exactly what you are entitled too receive . ;)

So what if your "smoking" your connection downloading Games,Warez,Pr0n,mp3's and anime 24/7 . . . . that is what humans do! . The onus is on your ISP to purchase more bandwidth from Telecom . Sure! this is expensive . . . . . . but then your ISP also has the right to "reconfigure" its pricing plan and to charge you more . It is not there right to restrict certain P2P apps and to throttle connections that are being "hammered" 24/7 . It is your connection and you are entitled to use it in any way you so choose .

Of course there will be heavy users and light users all paying the same price for the same speed plan . That is life . If you as an ISP cannot provide enuff bandwidth without data shaping and other draconian measures . . . then don't run a commercial Internet service . Simple! . :groan:

Reasonable* = What is fair based on what you have received from other ISP's in the past and/or what your copper line is capable of giving you from your nearest Exchange .

It's a user pays world out there - "And that's the bottom line"!! . . . . . "cause Stone Cold said so!!
Exactly . I paid the full price to burn off 20GB in a matter of days, yet I can barely reach 18 in a month . 		qazwsxokmijn (102)
501587 2006-11-24 05:54:00 For reference Ihugs Policy ( . ihug . co . nz/help/broadband/faq/quotas . html" target="_blank">www . ihug . co . nz)
Mate, I know well of their 'P2P policy' - and yes, I think that policy is a pile of crap .

Back in the slow ihug days, my brother and I had to leave the PC on all the time, downloading basically 22/7 just to reach 23GB a month .

22/7!! Imagine what it would be like if it was 11 or less/7 .

Forcing any customers to leave their PCs on downloading overnight and through the days is unacceptable . I paid $49 . 95 for 'high speed' internet .

I mean, what the hell is the point of having a 20GB cap when P2P is limited 99% of the time? 		qazwsxokmijn (102)
501588 2006-11-24 06:01:00 So, after all the hell and frustration ihug have put me through, I guess it's time for me to finally let my fellow NZers know what ihug is truly capable of doing - piss us off. So, as a victim of ihug, please read what I've got to write. :)

It all started nearly 4 months ago. I was on ihug's old 2Mbit/20GB data plan. I had been with them for a total of around 1 year and 9 months. For the first 1 year and 6 months, I was extremely happy with my fast speed, I was downloading torrents and everything else using P2P at a satisfying speed.

However, for the last 3 months with ihug, it was a battle for me to see my P2P speeds crawl at 2kBps. RARELY will I ever get back to my normal speeds - up to 60kBps. At first, I had no idea what the hell was going on. I was frustrated for the first 2 weeks of my 3-month ordeal. So, I joined the LimeWire forum and asked the knowledgeable members about my dilemma. They suggested I try downloading a 'test-file' where I should be downloading the file in LimeWire itself and should get my usual fast P2P speed. Howeverm instead of the normal 40kBps I expected, I barely got 129BYTES/s. And so, I told them what the speeds were, and they told me that it may be my LimeWire settings.

By then, I was skeptical. It couldn't have been my LimeWire settings, or my Azureus settings (another P2P app I use). Why? Because the very last month before all this happened, the settings were UNTOUCHED and the speeds were usual. So I told the LimeWire members that, and they suggested that my ISP, ihug, may be traffic/port shaping. At first, I didn't know what that meant. So I looked around google, and found out what it was. Limiting the bandwidth allocated for P2P, or blocking ports used by P2P applications.

Not believing what ihug was doing to me, I called the helpline. The very first time I have ever called ihug helpline. I had to wait for 38 minutes to have a 'customer representative' to ATTEMPT to explain my problem. Annoyed, I told the guy my problem, and even told him LimeWire forum members have concluded to traffic shaping. Still, the geezer denied it. Wether the helpdesk people weren' told by their bastards-of-seniors, OR they were told to deny any claims of traffic/port shaping.

Either way, in total, I probably have called ihug literally about 15 times to get a worthy answer in the period of 2.5 months. Nearly EVERYTIME, about 13 out of the 15 calls, I had to wait for AGES to have someone pick up my call, with 1 hour and 22 minutes being the longest. Furthermore, all the ihug helpdesk people I talked to denied they were traffic shaping, etc. In fact, they blamed my torrent health, my public tracker, my P2P settings, my firewall settings, my phone, my modem, all which have been left UNTOUCHED before all this happen, and although my torrents were healthy, had good numbers of seeders, sources, and functional public trackers.

Fed up with their lies, denials, and much bullcrap, I finally to drop it. On October 27, 2006, I saw Xtra with their Go Large advertisment as I surfed the web to look for another ISP. Of course, I was attracted to Xtra. Hey, it was love at first sight. And so, I joined Xtra's Go Large. And guess what? On the first day I was connected to Xtra, I got a whopping 120kBps speed on a file downloading on Azureus, whereareas I only got a crawling 1.8kBps the day before while I was still with ihug. Now, tell me that's a solid evidence of ihug REALLY, traffic shaping my plan. I have evidence now. I took a screenshot of both speeds (although I foolishly deleted them later on). :(

Anyways, yes, my Xtra 'heaven' didn't last very long - as many of you may know about Go Large's notorious problem. In fact, my Xtra 'heaven' only lasted for 5 days, until I noticed a certain slow speed and fluctuating speeds.

HOWEVER. I called Xtra's helpline after going through this slow period with Xtra for 3 days. Hey, it only took them 3 seconds to pick up my call, as opposed to the 1 hour and 22 minutes with ihug. Instead of being like ihug and denying my claims of traffic shaping or problematic networks, Xtra spat out the TRUTH. They told me, Go Large plan IS HAVING PROBLEMS, and THEY ARE forced to traffic shape a lot.

Funnily, I wasn't pissed at all. Yes, I was annoyed, but I wasn't angry at Xtra AT ALL. They were honest. Mate, I was happy, in fact, knowing that such big business can be so honest.

And so, up until today, I am still with Xtra, happily downloading 2GB a day. (don't look at me - I'm only 16 and my free-loading 22-year old brother downloads all his anime, hentai, and bukkake porn to his heart's desire.)

However, my hell with ihug didn't end there. The moment I disconnected ihug on October 30 2006, I sent them my DSL-502T modem, to avoid the $99.99 fee of keeping it. I had the tracking number, and so did they. The parcel arrived safely and was signed by some guy named Kevin. THEY HAVE MY DSL-502T, MEANING THEY HAVE NO RIGHT TO CHARGE MY BANK ACCOUNT (well, my mother's) $100. However, yes, those bastards charged me $102.25. Yes, I owed them $2.25 for the phone bill. But they Charged me $102.25. Bastards!!!

So, I had to call them, in anger, frustration, and vengeance all boiling in my heart. HOWEVER, they still haven't fixed their 'helpline' problem - the problem being the lack of educated, multiple helpdesk people to answer customers' queries. I had to wait for 48 minutes until I finally gave up, and had to wait for the next day to try calling the bastards again.

The very next day (today) at 10:00am, I called them again, hoping this time there will be more 'customer representatives'. No, I was wrong. I had to wait for 27 minutes, through hell of annoying music. Once I got a hold of one of the miscreants, I screamed (not literally) out THEIR problem and inconsistency, having to charge me for the modem that I have returned.

However, halfway, I was 'accidentally' disconnected. Bastard! So, in fury, I waited for another 15 minutes to get back on the line. I had to re-explain to another miscreant the problem. Finally, after a further 6 minutes of waiting, the miscreant confirmed that YES, MY MODEM HAS ARRIVED 20 DAYS BEFORE TODAY!! More to the point, I remember VIVIDLY I wrote down my ACCOUNT NAME on the box of the modem, so they can tell whose modem it is.

They said I should see the money appear in my account within one week. Now, if they don't do this one right, I certainly am going to take legal action, and tell the whole NZ through NZHerald if need be. I am truly sick and tired of ihug's secrecy, denials, bull****s, inconsistency, and extreme lack of customer service.

Please, people, take my words into account and consider ihug once more. I truly hope for them to go bankrupt and burn to the ground! It happened to me too. But I didn't use LimeWire at all. Except streaming video and download some Linux from Azureus. 		PedalSlammer (8511)
501589 2006-11-25 23:42:00 It happened to me too. But I didn't use LimeWire at all. Except streaming video and download some Linux from Azureus.
Still, it's a pain, isn't it? I don't think I would have mind if they were as honest as Xtra. Provided I could reach them on the phone in within 5 minutes max. 		qazwsxokmijn (102)
501590 2006-11-25 23:51:00 Still, it's a pain, isn't it? I don't think I would have mind if they were as honest as Xtra. Provided I could reach them on the phone in within 5 minutes max.

Your solution might be to move to Xtra? PJ 		Poppa John (284)
501591 2006-11-25 23:54:00 Your solution might be to move to Xtra? PJ
I am with Xtra. I was saying, if ihug was as honest as Xtra is and told me they ARE traffic shaping, then maybe I wouldn't be as upset and angty. 		qazwsxokmijn (102)
501592 2006-11-26 01:41:00 I'd be happy if they would just reply to an e-mail JJJJJ (528)
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