[kictanet] Safaricom changes to home fibre ToS

Thu Feb 18 11:22:50 EAT 2021

After 23k customers. Now if they had that policy in place and widely
circulated when they were launching home fiber then I wouldn't be talking.
Now, I agree, better late than never, but a customer whose been enjoying
'unlimited' for a year to now be told - "Boss...Vitu kwa ground ni
different.." is a bit unfair...

Wouldn't you agree?

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 11:18 AM Andrew Alston <
Andrew.Alston at liquidtelecom.com> wrote:

> Yes – I just don’t agree that that is what they have done – what they have
> implemented is an FUP that is industry standard – 4 times above the global
> average for a home user – does not kick you off the net when you cross it –
> merely slows you down – and imposes a very reasonable limit.  And they did
> it in a totally transparent manner – that may well have resulted from them
> not anticipating the mass usage by a small percentage of users who are
> doing things that they should not be doing.
>
>
>
> I would be curious to hear from the legitimate users of the service how
> many people have ever hit those FUP limits – and what they were doing to
> cross those limits
>
>
>
> Andrew
>
>
>
>
>
> *From: *Ali Hussein <ali at hussein.me.ke>
> *Date: *Thursday, 18 February 2021 at 11:15
> *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
>
>
>
> Do you agree with my contention that Bait & Switch is morally
> reprehensible?
>
>
>
> 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 11:13 AM Andrew Alston <
> Andrew.Alston at liquidtelecom.com> wrote:
>
> Well – the alternative is to do away with the FUP’s – quadruple the price
> to everyone – and I am sure you will agree that any company has the right
> to recover cost and make a reasonable profit?
>
>
>
> Andrew
>
>
>
>
>
> *From: *Ali Hussein <ali at hussein.me.ke>
> *Date: *Thursday, 18 February 2021 at 11:11
> *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
>
> 23K customers later...Who are now hooked to Home Fiber without FUP...Don't
> miss the point brother...
>
>
>
> 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 11:02 AM Andrew Alston <
> Andrew.Alston at liquidtelecom.com> wrote:
>
> Except – as I have said – Safaricom did something very unusual – they DID
> tell you about the FUP’s when they were implemented – and with doing that –
> you have the option of walking away if you don’t like them.
>
>
>
> I see what you are saying as a contradiction in terms – most ISP’s don’t
> disclose their FUP details – I happen to believe they should – but when
> Safaricom DID disclose their FUP details – in a very transparent manner as
> they implemented them – in full compliance with their contracts that let
> them implement them – we sit here and scream.
>
>
>
> We are crucifying them for transparency while complaining that ISP’s
> aren’t transparent…
>
>
>
> Andrew
>
>
>
>
>
> *From: *Ali Hussein <ali at hussein.me.ke>
> *Date: *Thursday, 18 February 2021 at 10:59
> *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
>
>
>
> 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
>
>
>
>
>
>
> 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.
>
>
>    1. 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.
>    2. 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
>    3. If you look at Juniper routers – you can port mirror for analytics
>    on the full packet – but at the cost of performance.
>    4. 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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