John Linton
.........the more things stay the same.
I was considering the impacts that Exetel has had on various aspects of our customers by our plan of providing 'free' downloads of gradually increasing magnitude in the 'off peak' periods of each day and just how much more is either necessary or possible to provide. We started providing this particular benefit on March 1st 2004 with "unlimited" downloads during the period 12 midnight to 8 am each day. Terming the download period as 'unlimited' was a major error of judgment and we lived with it's negative consequences for around a year trying to discourage a very small percentage of our users from down loading as much as possible every second of the available time with the most notorious of those people managing to download over 300 gb in that 8 hour period each month.
This forced Exetel to cease offering 'unlimited' off peak downloads in early 2005/late 2004 (I really don't remember exactly when it was any more) and we made it 20 gb free in off peak before heavily constricting the 'bandwidth' in an attempt to prevent the manic few from continuing to swamp the bandwidth - something we never really succeeded in doing and eventually gave up trying to do. We finally admitted defeat and implemented charging for usage over the off peak bandwidth rather than constriction and that finally put an end to it - the few download addicts that remained at that time finally either changed their habits or moved elsewhere.
Over the past five or so years we have gradually increased the included free down load allowance (from 20 gb to up to 60 gb today) and over that period our total deployed band width had grown to well over 4 gbps and our number of users quadrupled. With the progressively increasing down load amounts and the increase from 8 hours to 12 hours a day over several years the amount of 'free' download amounts continued to increase each month and towards the end of 2008 we actually achieved part of our starting objective of moving the peak download period from around 10 pm to exactly midnight which was a really useful achievement.....in many ways.....and totally useless in one major way.
However the major negative, and it really is a major negative, is that too many customers start their downloads at exactly 12 midnight which creates a different problem that while there is no congestion in the 'traditional' peak hours of late afternoon to very late evening there is a new congestion period, albeit relatively brief, between 12 midnight and 12.20 am. We've made some efforts to eliminate this silly and pointless practice but have failed miserably to date. While we were very patient (5+ years is a lot of patience), taking a sensible long term view, and eventually achieving a very significant operational efficiency we can't be 'patient' any longer in terms of convincing our users that download managers mean that you don't have wait up to start downloads a midnight - use the lowest usage times of day from 2 am to 7 am - and make everyone happy including yourself and ensure that plan charges can continue to be offered at the lowest possible costs.
We have two choices we can now make - one technical and one edictal - or perhaps we can use both which would ensure we make the problem 'go away' once and for all. We will try the technical solution towards the end of this month which involves splitting low volume users onto 'clear' bandwidth and therefore allow us to more tightly control P2P traffic during times of peak P2P usage and this, in theory, will eliminate the problem cased by the people who, for whatever reason(s) insist on starting P2P downloads at exactly 12 midnight.
If that doesn't deliver the estimated benefits then the much easier option will be advised to customers which is to change the of peak period time from the current period of 12 midnight to 12 noon (which I personally really like for aesthetic reasons) to 1 am (or later) to 12 noon or later. I like that option because it will remove the problem 'forever' and not affect any Exetel customer in any real way or actually in any way. I suppose I would be sorry to lose the elegance of a 12hour/12 hour split in peak and off peak but it really makes zero difference to any actual user of off peak for their down loads. With the maximum 'free' off peak download allowance of 60 gb the period required is less than 5 hours per day on a 1500/256 ADSL1 service which would make a 6 hour (rather than a 12 hour) off peak period more than adequate to allow customers to down load the maximum of their free allowance each month.
Moving from 12 midnight to 12 noon to, say 3 am to 9 am is a bit drastic as far as perception goes and doubtless that would be something to consider. However if nothing is now done it would result in increased costs to Exetel of around $A100,000 per month at today's customer numbers and usage which is only going to increase over the coming months. I don't like making decisions like this, or even participating in making them, but there may be no options if the technical resolution doesn't produce the hoped for results.
I suppose the other even more radical option is to completely revamp the current plans that have these attributes and replace them with a complete set of plans where there are no peak or off peak periods and down loads are charged on a per gb basis. We have considered that in the past and will undoubtedly do it again. The issue would remain that it is highly desirable to use the 'dead time' of bandwidth usage which, irrespective of any tinkering with time zones across Australia, the low usage of band width between 2 am and 8 am 'wastes' a lot of money and adds an unnecessary cost to the business. It remains very sensible to attempt to recover this lost money as a serious cost saving for current and future customers.
I am really looking forward to taking a break but it still looks so far away.