[kictanet] Safaricom changes to home fibre ToS

[Barrack Otieno]

@Ali Hussein <ahussein at kictanet.or.ke> what if the Customer does not have
sufficient Capacity to understand FUP, si unampea tu  ajisomee na ajipange.
By the way even fish can't come to a fisherman who doesnt have bait yet
they are analogue ama namna gani?

On Thu, Feb 18, 2021 at 10:59 AM Ali Hussein via kictanet <
kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke> wrote:

> Andrew
>
> I do appreciate your very candid responses and of course, I wouldnt expect
> you to agree with my 'conspiracy theories' about data. The fact that you
> can't run away from is this:-
>
> Most ISPs run a *Bait and switch *sales operations machine.  This a
> morally suspect sales tactic that lures customers in with specific claims
> about the quality or low prices on items that turn out to be unavailable in
> order to upsell them on a similar, pricier item. It is considered a form of
> retail sales fraud, though it takes place in other contexts.
>
> So, when you are selling me bandwidth, don't hide the FUP in T&Cs. Tell me
> to my face. Then I decide whether I'm ok with it or not. This is the
> biggest issue here. Not whether FUPs are done or not.
>
> Regards
>
> *Ali Hussein*
>
> Digital Transformation
>
>
> Tel: +254 713 601113
>
> Twitter: @AliHKassim
>
> Skype: abu-jomo
>
> LinkedIn: http://ke.linkedin.com/in/alihkassim
> <http://ke.linkedin.com/in/alihkassim>
>
>
>
>
> Any information of a personal nature expressed in this email are purely
> mine and do not necessarily reflect the official positions of the
> organizations that I work with.
>
>
> On Thu, Feb 18, 2021 at 10:47 AM Andrew Alston <
> Andrew.Alston at liquidtelecom.com> wrote:
>
>> Safaricom did tell you about the FUP – unlike most ISP’s in the world
>> that never disclose what those FUP’s are.
>>
>>
>>
>> Also – I’d be very careful about alleging that ISP’s are all looking at
>> user data – particularly because it’s a patently false allegation that all
>> data is analyzed on all links.  Yes – some ISP’s probably do do that kinda
>> DPI on every circuit – but it certainly isn’t the case for a large portion
>> of them – because its not economically feasible to do it.
>>
>>
>>
>> Again, someone would have to pay for those analytics engines – and having
>> written a significant amount of code to detect ddos attacks using pure
>> packet headers (metadata) – I can tell you flatly that this belief that an
>> ISP is sniffing every packet and analyzing it – is a conspiracy theory with
>> very little basis in fact.
>>
>>
>>
>> To back this up – on a software based platform – the following is the
>> processing pipeline for packet analytics of packet metadata
>>
>>
>>
>>    1. Receive the packet
>>    2. Categorize the packet
>>       1. By the Ethernet Protocol ID (IPv4, IPv6, possibly .1q tags)
>>       2. By the Layer 4 Protocol byte (Specifically byte 9 of the IP
>>       header in V4 traffic)
>>       3. Store the 32bit Source and Destination – combined with the
>>       Source and Destination port of the Layer 4 header dependent on if its UDP
>>       or TCP
>>       4. Hash the whole lot and place it into a lookup table against the
>>       5 way tuple.
>>    3. Even if you vectorize that process – you are still looking at a
>>    coupla milliseconds per packet – times millions of packets a second.  A
>>    modern server can do that kinda accounting at ~20gigabit/second if they
>>    bypass kernel which bloats things – but – they haven’t touched the data
>>    segment of the packet.
>>    4. If you look at Cisco routers – if you do port mirroring – you are
>>    limited to mirroring the first 128 bytes of the packet – because the
>>    replication of anything beyond that kills performance, it can’t be done at
>>    line rate
>>    5. If you look at Juniper routers – you can port mirror for analytics
>>    on the full packet – but at the cost of performance.
>>    6. On hardware asic based routing – analytics such as you are
>>    referring to requires CPU punt – because the asics aren’t designed to do
>>    what you are proposing.
>>
>>
>>
>> A 10gig circuit can be running in excess of a million packets a second –
>> even if you are vectorizing the packet processing – just analyzing the
>> headers to categorize it – before you attempt to hash it and bucket it –
>> requires a minimum of 100 instructions post packet receipt – add the
>> hashing and bucketing – you’re looking at a few thousand instructions to
>> the CPU **per packet** - add the payload analytics – this goes up by
>> orders of magnitude – last I checked – ISP’s don’t have super computers
>> lying around.
>>
>>
>>
>> If you want full DPI to the level of analytics you are proposing – you
>> HAVE to analyze the full payload content of the packet – and while there
>> are boxes that can do this – they cost **millions** (of dollars not KSH)
>> – and ISP’s generally aren’t gonna spend that kinda money unless they have
>> to – because the cost has to be passed to the users.
>>
>>
>>
>> Andrew
>>
>>
>>
>> *From: *Ali Hussein <ali at hussein.me.ke>
>> *Date: *Thursday, 18 February 2021 at 10:32
>> *To: *Andrew Alston <Andrew.Alston at liquidtelecom.com>
>> *Cc: *KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke>
>> *Subject: *Re: [kictanet] Safaricom changes to home fibre ToS
>>
>> Andrew
>>
>>
>>
>> Wacha kizungu mingi (I think you are Kenyan enough to understand what
>> I've just said). 😁
>>
>>
>>
>> Let me put you on the spot. To come up with FUP's you already know whose
>> doing what so that 'innocence' of telling us about privacy now is moot.
>> You all use these tools to snoop on us. Period. Now do it for the benefit
>> of the customer. Not yours. This is really very simple. You all are crying
>> foul about costs blah blah...but when you were wooing us you didn't tell us
>> about FUP...
>>
>>
>>
>> Do the right thing mate...Be on the right side of history.
>>
>>
>>
>> Regards
>>
>>
>>
>> *Ali Hussein*
>>
>> Digital Transformation
>>
>>
>>
>> Tel: +254 713 601113
>>
>> Twitter: @AliHKassim
>>
>> Skype: abu-jomo
>>
>> LinkedIn: http://ke.linkedin.com/in/alihkassim
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Any information of a personal nature expressed in this email are purely
>> mine and do not necessarily reflect the official positions of the
>> organizations that I work with.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Feb 18, 2021 at 10:19 AM Andrew Alston <
>> Andrew.Alston at liquidtelecom.com> wrote:
>>
>> Ali,
>>
>>
>>
>> I respectfully disagree – FUP’s have been apart of the Internet since day
>> one since they protect the integrity of the networks as a whole.
>>
>>
>>
>> You have the option of buying an account without such an FUP – it just
>> costs more – because someone has to cover the costs.  Bandwidth doesn’t
>> come free.  This is the same reason why there are contention ratios (which
>> I notice Safaricom also publishes).
>>
>>
>>
>> You refer to big data analytics – yet if I were to propose that an ISP
>> actively sniff and analyze user traffic – you’d be screaming about
>> violations of privacy – because the type of analytics you are talking about
>> would require deep packet inspection at levels you don’t even want to
>> contemplate.
>>
>>
>>
>> Let me be clear – you get what you pay for – and if every user decided to
>> use their FUP allocated terabyte to its full capacity – for every 3240
>> users you would need a 10gigabit circuit – if every user ran at their
>> maximum speeds on the 100mbit accounts – for every 100 users you would need
>> a 10gigabit circuit.  Trust me when I say – there is no world in which an
>> ISP could afford to provide 10gigabit of bandwidth at a cost of effectively
>> under $11k a month and still remain viable – which is what would happen if
>> all those users maxed out.
>>
>>
>>
>> So – let me ask you – would you prefer that ALL the users be penalized
>> with significantly higher prices – or would you prefer that people abide by
>> what is fair (and what is in this case, a FUP that is 4 times the global
>> average usage for home user accounts – which is just north of 250gigabytes
>> of data a month on global average)
>>
>>
>>
>> Andrew
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> *From: *Ali Hussein <ali at hussein.me.ke>
>> *Date: *Thursday, 18 February 2021 at 10:11
>> *To: *KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke>
>> *Cc: *Andrew Alston <Andrew.Alston at liquidtelecom.com>
>> *Subject: *Re: [kictanet] Safaricom changes to home fibre ToS
>>
>> Andrew
>>
>>
>>
>> Let me call this BS as it should be called. BS. Surely, of all people,
>> you shouldn't be the one to justify FUP. I appreciate your honesty though.
>> 😀
>>
>>
>>
>> Here's a thought:-
>>
>>
>>
>> With all the tools available using Big Data and Analytics, aren't you all
>> able to isolate the abusers and punish them instead of painting all of us
>> with the same abuser tar brush?
>>
>>
>>
>> I think we are in the age of companies treating their customers with the
>> respect they deserve and actually do right by them. What you have described
>> is communal punishment. This is wrong and the regulator needs to take note.
>>
>>
>>
>> Regards
>>
>>
>>
>> *Ali Hussein*
>>
>> Digital Transformation
>>
>>
>>
>> Tel: +254 713 601113
>>
>> Twitter: @AliHKassim
>>
>> Skype: abu-jomo
>>
>> LinkedIn: http://ke.linkedin.com/in/alihkassim
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Any information of a personal nature expressed in this email are purely
>> mine and do not necessarily reflect the official positions of the
>> organizations that I work with.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Feb 18, 2021 at 8:13 AM Andrew Alston via kictanet <
>> kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke> wrote:
>>
>> I’ve hesitated to climb into this but – here goes anyway (everything
>> written in personal capacity)
>>
>>
>>
>> Firstly – almost ALL ISP’s have FUP’s in some form or another – generally
>> buried deep in the T&C’s – as someone stated to me – in the UK with certain
>> ISP’s suddenly your line just gets slow and then when you call support you
>> find yourself quietly diverted to the abuse department.
>>
>>
>>
>> The fact is that FUP’s are a necessary evil.
>>
>>
>>
>>    1. They prevent customers from reselling one account to multiple
>>    other parties while sharing it using NAT – which impacts the financial
>>    viability of the service and make its more expensive for everyone else in
>>    the end
>>    2. ISP’s operate on contention ratios – if you do not impose some
>>    form of FUP – you either have to put up the price or the contention ratios
>>    are going to get out of whack – and everyone else is going to suffer.
>>    3. Globally most home accounts use well shy of half a terabyte a
>>    month – a terabyte of data is a LOT of data for a single home
>>
>>
>>
>> So let’s just put some context in what a  terabyte of data actually means
>> – and I always use video as the prime gauge of this because it’s the
>> easiest example.
>>
>>
>>
>> Your average Netflix 4k film runs at ~25mbit at absolute maximum if you
>> are watching 4K on an HDR enabled TV.  That’s 22.5 Gigabytes of data every
>> 2 hours – if you watch one 4K 2 hour movie every single day for a month you
>> will eat 675gigs of data.  If we drop this to 1080p – which is far more
>> common – you are using ~7 megabit of bandwidth – or 6.3gigs every 2 hours –
>> if you watch 300 hours of 1080p content in a month – or 10 hours a day –
>> you still haven’t hit that cap.
>>
>>
>>
>> Effectively – you could watch one 4K movie every day for a month – and
>> still watch 150 40minute tv episodes in 1080p in a month – and have room to
>> move.
>>
>>
>>
>> To look at it from another perspective – installation of something like
>> Ubuntu Linux over the net – you could still over 400 machines on that kinda
>> data load in a month.
>>
>>
>>
>> With regards to gaming – you may burn 100gig pulling down a game and game
>> updates – but after that in game play you are using tiny amounts of
>> bandwidth and could keep yourself playing easily for a month with space to
>> spare.
>>
>>
>>
>> On Zoom calls – if you ran zoom 24 hours a day – for a month – you’d use
>> less than 70% of that cap.
>>
>>
>>
>> Also – I might point out that the FUP’s slow your link down once you hit
>> that cap – to a rate that is still useable if a little sluggish.
>>
>>
>>
>> Basically what I’m saying in all of this – Safaricom’s FUP and T&C’s to
>> me seem perfectly reasonable and designed to protect the network – with the
>> alternative being – the price goes up for everyone or everyone suffers
>> because of the few when the network congests.  Bandwidth aint free – and
>> you can’t have it both ways – the product still has to make financial sense
>> to both the consumer and the provider
>>
>>
>>
>> Andrew
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> *From: *kictanet <kictanet-bounces+andrew.alston=
>> liquidtelecom.com at lists.kictanet.or.ke> on behalf of Adam Lane via
>> kictanet <kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke>
>> *Date: *Thursday, 18 February 2021 at 07:36
>> *To: *Andrew Alston <Andrew.Alston at liquidtelecom.com>
>> *Cc: *Adam Lane <adam.lane at huawei.com>
>> *Subject: *Re: [kictanet] Safaricom changes to home fibre ToS
>>
>> There's a webinar on this topic today for those interested
>>
>> A Public Policy Discussion on #HomeFibre and #FairUsage Policies in
>> Kenya.
>>
>> 🗓️ Thursday, 18th February 2021
>>
>> 🕜 12:00PM - 1:30PM
>>
>> Sign up here:
>>
>> 🔗 https://t.co/LdD11UVy8q
>>
>> #LawyersHub #AfricaLawTech #ISP https://t.co/a5w9SUiAl6
>>
>>
>> Speakers from CA, Safaricom, Liquid, KICTAnet,
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:*Beryl Aidi via kictanet <kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke>
>>
>> *To:*Adam Lane <adam.lane at huawei.com>
>>
>> *Cc:*Beryl Aidi <bee.aidi at gmail.com>
>>
>> *Date:*2021-02-18 05:57:28
>>
>> *Subject:*Re: [kictanet] Safaricom changes to home fibre ToS
>>
>>
>>
>> Thank you Sidney for this.
>>
>> I don’t think Safaricom is being sincere in this fair usage limits. They
>> promised that with Home Fibre one can stream, download or upload stuff
>> without limits. All you do is pay your monthly subscription. Fair usage is
>> a type of rationing that limits how much you can do when you had been
>> promised that you can do whatever you want. To me this is going back on a
>> promise. It’s reminiscent of the days of unlimited 3GB bundles on the
>> dongle modem only for them to strike you with a fair usage notice. Are
>> other networks doing the same? As the industry leader in the country, this
>> is bound to influence other industry players to adopt the same standards
>> and limits which is not good. Maybe it might be time to seek other options.
>>
>>
>>
>> Regards
>>
>> Beryl
>>
>>
>>
>> Sent from my iPad
>>
>>
>> On 16 Feb 2021, at 9:47 PM, Mwendwa Kivuva via kictanet <
>> kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke> wrote:
>>
>> Thanks Sidney for initiating this debate.
>>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, 16 Feb 2021 at 19:44, Sidney Ochieng via kictanet <
>> kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke> wrote:
>>
>> Listers,
>>
>> Not sure if you've seen the stir online of changes to the ToS with
>> Safaricom's home offering.
>>
>> Safaricom is destroying Home Fibre with new ‘Fair Usage’ Limits:
>> https://tech-ish.com/2021/02/14/safaricom-is-destroying-home-fibre-with-new-fair-usage-limits/
>>
>>
>>
>> The response from the company has been disappointing in the extreme,
>> misleading with statistics and suggesting that it's best customers are
>> thieves <https://twitter.com/Safaricom_Care/status/1360876964651929600>,
>> never mind that working for home has lead to increased demand and use of
>> their services.
>>
>>
>>
>> That tweet certainly does not call resellers thieves. It calls them
>> resellers.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> All this is beside the point, at least for this forum, what I'm concerned
>> about this that if we didn't have an eagle-eyed blogger looking out for
>> this, it would have been completely missed until it was already in place.
>>
>>
>>
>> So I have a few of questions:
>>
>>    1. Does the CA have any policies around ToS changes around services
>>    under their purview and how they are communicated to users?
>>
>> CA has a consumer and public affairs department. Here is what they have
>> to say about ToC ( CA/CPA/CEP/B/05/2014 )
>> https://ca.go.ke/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Consumer-Rights-and-Responsibilities.pdf
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Perhaps CA should update that information. It is 6 years old. But good
>> information nevertheless.
>>
>>
>>    1. Should companies that run what could be considered critical
>>    infrastructure be allowed to arbitrarily change their ToS to apply
>>    retroactively especially if it's to the detriment of their customers?
>>
>> I hope lawyers here can help us with this.
>>
>>
>>    1.
>>    2. If customers choose not to accept a change in ToS what redress do
>>    they have given that perhaps the provider is the only one available in
>>    their area.
>>    3. Finally, given that we know this could all be avoided if there was
>>    more competition in the fibre market, what is the CA doing to make it so
>>    that we have more competition in that area? It's concerning that Safaricom
>>    seems to only option for home connections in several places
>>
>>  Determined by the market and economic forces. Just the other day,
>> Safaricom was not in the home fibre market. What they have provided are
>> more options for consumers. Numbers are stubborn facts. Fixed data
>> subscription is as follows: Data source CA, July -September 2020 period,
>> page 19
>> https://ca.go.ke/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Sector-Statistics-Report-Q1-2020-2021.pdf
>>
>>  Safaricom PLC 229,406 subscribers, 35.6% market share
>>
>> Wananchi Group (Kenya) Ltd* 202,237 subscribers , 31.4 35.6% market share
>>
>>  Jamii Telecommunications Ltd 127,914  subscribers , 19.8 Poa  % market
>> share
>>
>>  Internet Kenya Ltd 56,824  subscribers ,8.8% market share
>>
>>  Mawingu Networks Ltd 11,087 subscribers, 1.7 % market share
>>
>>  Internet Solutions Kenya Ltd 9,228  subscribers, 1.4 % market share
>>
>>
>>
>> Consumers are speaking with their wallets.
>>
>>
>>
>> As a policy discussion list, probably what we should be asking is what is
>> the fair cost for certain broadband packages, and whether there is anything
>> that can be really unlimited. Wearing my competent network engineer hat, I
>> can tell you even at Safaricom, they don't have unlimited bandwidth.
>> Bandwidth is a limited resource to the extent of the network devices,
>> network media, and cost of acquiring and delivering that bandwidth to your
>> edge device.
>>
>>
>>
>> Best Regards
>>
>> ______________________
>> Mwendwa Kivuva, Nairobi, Kenya
>>
>> https://www.linkedin.com/in/mwendwa-kivuva
>>
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>> The Kenya ICT Action Network (KICTANet) is a multi-stakeholder platform
>> for people and institutions interested and involved in ICT policy and
>> regulation. The network aims to act as a catalyst for reform in the ICT
>> sector in support of the national aim of ICT enabled growth and development.
>>
>> KICTANetiquette : Adhere to the same standards of acceptable behaviors
>> online that you follow in real life: respect people's times and bandwidth,
>> share knowledge, don't flame or abuse or personalize, respect privacy, do
>> not spam, do not market your wares or qualifications.
>>
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> The Kenya ICT Action Network (KICTANet) is a multi-stakeholder platform
> for people and institutions interested and involved in ICT policy and
> regulation. The network aims to act as a catalyst for reform in the ICT
> sector in support of the national aim of ICT enabled growth and development.
>
> KICTANetiquette : Adhere to the same standards of acceptable behaviors
> online that you follow in real life: respect people's times and bandwidth,
> share knowledge, don't flame or abuse or personalize, respect privacy, do
> not spam, do not market your wares or qualifications.
>


-- 

*Barrack Otieno*
*Trustee*
*Kenya ICT Action Network (KICTAnet)*
*Skype:barrack.otieno*
*+254721325277*

*https://www.linkedin.com/in/barrack-otieno-2101262b/
<https://www.linkedin.com/in/barrack-otieno-2101262b/>*
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