yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Networking] dellaclearing:
If it was just a trial why would they offer anyone a cancellation?

Do we have any kind of confirmation that it's no longer active?

For the last week my connection has been terrible, I just moved to London and assumed it was because I was on a busy mast, but then suddenly my speedtest results would jump from 0.5 to about 4 MB later at night. I only use my internet for streaming live football and downloading a few movies, I really don't think my usage is that high.

I can't stream live sports on these kind of speeds, I don't have a TV and don't want to sign a contract with a broadband provider just for the 6 months or so that I'll be here, and in fact, why should I when I've already signed with 3?

If things stay the same I can kiss goodbye to Euro 2012.
[Networking] newbintraining:
Well I spoke to a network rep today and complained again about TS and he never mentioned anything about it being a trial (though I didn't ask). He could tell how displeased I was, so I would have thought he would have told me if it was just a trial. Still hoping for a cancellation myself as my speeds and ping are really erratic.
[Networking] newbintraining:
Lol what. I've used about 4GB tonight (I can tell from what I have downloaded so far), yet my iPhone counter is back to 8GB used, what the heck o.0 If I get a contract cancellation I'm going for a Galaxy S3 >_>
[Networking] cirian75:
LOL :D

like you attitude ;)

tell us if you get throttled
[Networking] newbintraining:
Heh heh. I don't seem to be throttled, getting 3mbps maximum, but it's fluctuating pretty badly. Just to get that speed I have to have the phone right near the window upstairs, otherwise I just get nothing >_> I've more or less maxxed out my connection for the whole evening.
[Networking] casdavies:
or go to the pub? :rolleyes:
[Networking] dellaclearing:
For every game?!

Dammit 3! You've left me no option!
[Networking] newbintraining:
Send them the bill for your drinks as compensation :)
[Networking] dellaclearing:
I like your thinking!

Hopefully TS continues well into next season then!
[Networking] HarrowingLife:
Anyone still having TrafficSense related issues? Latency and throughput is now fine for me on all SIM's.
[Networking] cirian75:
Zero issues atm
[Networking] dgreen2298:
Still getting throttled here and i am not even a heavy user i have been being throttled since proberly 3 weeks ago 3 till 12 was just watching youtube then started to buffer looked at the time and low and behold 3.01pm did a speed test ping up to 2000 ms and speed down to 20kbps was getting 1.5 to 2 meg before its criminal how they can do this i am an electrician an i dont go round peoples houses and price for a job then get paid only for the customer to try and turn on the lights and they dont work. Three have really let everyone down i was beginning to think i had found a trully good company but they are just the same as every other money grabbing company around im complaining to ofcom and who ever else will listen i suggest you guys do the same
[Networking] newbintraining:
Yeah, when I bought a contract on Three under the premise of their true unlimited data I though "Hey, this is refreshing to see an honest mobile company for once". How wrong I was! I reckon I will get slapped with TS, I've used 20GB or so in a few days...
[Networking] linuxnubee:
any one remember this ad

i quote "All you can eat data, great for surfing web reading emails even gamers" the ad with playstation in

it breaking adv law there too, even though that tarriff has never included tethering in the first place

misrepresented and missold in my oppinion.
[Networking] newbintraining:
I don't appear to be capped, even though I've used just shy of 4GB today. Just can't work out what the cap limit is as I never got a straight answer out of them. I have several large downloads going at the moment, so it will be interesting to see if I get capped later on.
[Networking] cirian75:
After you've complained to three

Follow the steps in my sig below \/
[Networking] Fromnack:
Just signed a 2 year contract on the S3 on the One Plan, will watch thread and post with any updates. Speeds seem right for rural Suffolk, will do some testing and get back.
[Networking] newbintraining:
Get out while you can! :)

Just checked on my download and my iPhone data counter has reset itself again for some reason :confused: And has anyone had any experience using bittorrent over the three network? Trying to download something that also has a webseed and I can barely get 4KB/s out of it :/
[Networking] Fromnack:
Am I still eligible to get it cancelled? I love the S3, but wish that I read these things about 3 before I bought it :/
[Networking] newbintraining:
Well I think you get 7-14 days with any network to return your phone and cancel the contract penalty free. I would look into it if I were you, maybe go for the S3 on tmobile if you can get good coverage.
[Networking] flyingcat:
If this thing becomes widely known then it destroys the entire AYCE "brand" in a flash.

Because the "top 5% of users" thing is meaningless in practice, users will be always concerned about their data usage. Undermining the whole point of AYCE.

After all, who would risk being on 100kbit/s (if you're lucky) for 7 days afternoon/evening?

If anything, AYCE data is worse than any other network.
[Networking] blair287:
http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/tech/news/a385025/three-clamping-down-on-heavy-data-users.html
[Networking] newbintraining:
Yeah exactly. Every time I have complained about it to them they never give me a straight answer and they keep going "well it won't affect you", my argument back to them is "but it could any minute, there is no way to tell when I will be in the top x%", the whole thing is a shambles.
[Networking] cirian75:
now on the FB page, you doing the twitter honors blair287?
[Networking] newbintraining:
Three is definitely blocking torrents, was getting 2KB/s on 3G, but about 600KB/s on wifi with the same one.
[Networking] lohtse:
Speed tonight in sheffield on two sims 22kbs... hmmm and are usage a month never tops more than 15gig combined! Speed s before 1500 was upto 2meg
[Networking] cirian75:
Right

So looks like the three cs guys are telling porkies that it's just a trial and it's be pulled

Gits
[Networking] chazam:
I've queued up a few HD movies on Sky Anytime to download this evening so I'm bound to be hit again soon. Will update if and when I am.
[Networking] blair287:
dont have twitter lol XD
[Networking] AlecE:
Management of P2P is expected...

Their traffic management document[1] specifically states that Peer-to-Peer is traffic managed for all users (not just the top 5%) from 15:00 until 00:00 every day. I'm guessing one of their definitions of Peer-to-Peer is BitTorrent.

Alec

1. I'm too new to the forum to be allowed to post external links :( so... Go to Three's About TrafficSense page and click the TrafficSense facts document link or Google three Traffic Management KFI and it should be the top PDF hit.
[Networking] Hands0n:
Any new entrants into TrafficSense this weekend?
[Networking] blair287:
http://www.landofdroid.com/2012/three-mobile-throttling-all-you-can-eat-data/

LOL

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwiIB2wYJIo
[Networking] VirtualMark:
Hey, i've just registered as i've been following this thread. I've been having the exact same problems - 0.02mbps between 3-midnight, websites timing out, downloads cancelling(it took over an hour to get a 10mb file), no youtube, soundcloud, multi-tabbed browsing, iplayer etc. All impossible at this speed.

I have followed the guidelines on Three's site, and stopped all downloads between 3-midnight, i believe my throttling has been partially lifted. I now get 0.5mbps at ALL times. Its 5am, i'm getting half a meg. It hasn't gone over half a meg for a month, its a constant limit at all times. When i first got the one plan, about a year and a half ago i could easily get 6 megs. So i'm wondering if anyone else has noticed this?

It just never goes past half a meg, unless - i turn my phone off for a few minutes and log on again. Then i can get the old speeds back for a few minutes and suddenly i get throttled again. I believe that Three's system is throttling me once it detects continuous downloads.

Now, i have no problem scheduling downloads overnight, as i believe that at peak times everyone deserves a good speed. But i do have a problem with being throttled 24/7. If the mast isn't busy, i should get the maximum possible speed. And i also have a massive problem with the 0.02mbps 'punishment' i received for basically using my phone as advertised.

I've been onto the executive office, who have assured me that i'm not being throttled. What a bunch of liars. They have at least given me the option to end my contract early, at least i have the choice. But i can't find another provider that gives the same amount of minutes, texts and data. Only t-mobile offer an unlimited data plan, which is more expensive and doesn't have half as many minutes.

So basically i'm stuck with Three, and want to make sure everyone hears what they're doing. Its false advertising and bad practice. They are lying to customers and punishing them, they are also trying to get rid of customers that complain or use a lot of data, they're also ignoring this massive problem. I'm glad i found this thread as its been driving me mad lately.
[Networking] scoopex:
What options are those of you who are getting offers to cancel contracts ?

:confused:
[Networking] cirian75:
I replied

Bit stuck on thoughts just now, the reason they let people out scott free is that TrafficSense was not a trail.

But was so awful and hopeless they've had to pull it, and call it a trial (lied)
[Networking] scoopex:
How can Three claim TrafficSence was a trial when it is in the current 2012 terms and conditions ? :eek:
[Networking] cirian75:
TrafficSense is not in the T&Cs, there is however a Traffic management clause in the T&Cs

They just tried out their new shiny Traffic management software, they chose to call it TrafficSense.

And it was plain useless, so viscous and ham fisted it behaved like a fair use policy on steroids.

Must have been the large number complaints, and it was just starting to get in to the media (3 items, T3 and Digital Spy, would not have been long before Engadget had it)) that has got it temp pulled, it will be back, but probably much better developed and thought out.

There was also the ASA element as TrafficSense way of working was plainly a FUP, Three had to pull it.

As was it felt like it had been slapped together in a few weeks and unleashed.
[Networking] lohtse:
Didn't feel like it was pulled last night and over weeked to us...maxed out 25kbs... youtube,iplayer totally unusable....
[Networking] newbintraining:
I thought tmobile was £36/mo, £1 more than three. Sim only on tmobile is £26/mo, unlimited data, texts and 2000 mins of calls. That's what I'm going for if I get shot of these jokers.

How did you get hold of the executive office? I might ring them on wednesday, doubt they are open today.
[Networking] safc:
in three uk,s trafficsenseless page it goes on about peer to peer is this the same type of p2p that sopcast use to put there channells out onto the internet and wat 3 are slowing down

thanks if you know answer
[Networking] blair287:
http://www.lsdigitalmedia.co.uk/fed-up-with-3-mobile-call-their-executive-office/
[Networking] Hands0n:
It would be entirely reasonable to call it a trial in the sense of a "technical trial". Only so much can be trialled and tested in development and lab test environments. Eventually the system or service has to be moved into a production instance and there is only one of those!

With good due diligence the expectation would be that Three's engineers had done all of the good work to correctly analyse the Dev and Lab results before moving into Production. But as with anything else mistakes and the unexpected can happen. Real case Production data is going to look and behave significantly differently to what goes on in those other environments. Simulations cannot better the real world, only approximate it and with all that entails.

Now the real test of Three's capabilities will come from what Three deliver on the basis of the real world experience that they've just gained. They need to take a big learning from this situation as it has cost them some reputantional damage as well as giving their prime product a bit of a bad name. People are, rightly, calling AYCE into question. That never should have happened.

But I also think that we need to be much less emotional about this. Crap happens, and we have seen Three respond favourably in the face of the wall of opinion that generated from its customers.

What we now need to do is let the whole thing play itself out. See what Three's intentions are and what it is they deliver. Clearly, they have no intention of abandoning AYCE. That would give EE's The Full Monty a big win and be a marketing fail of epic proportion. So they will have to work on delivering a sensible and pragmatic traffic management into the proposition, possibly paving the way to making AYCE ubiquitous across all of their packages without breaking the network wholesale just for the sake of "5%" of users who hammer it mercilessly :)

For now, it is a waiting game.
[Networking] jonmorris:
While some people do like to get their teeth into something and not let go, if Three

has

backtracked and used a bit of spin to claim TrafficSense was just a trial, I'd consider going a little easier on them as you don't want to stop companies feeling that they can U-turn when they mess up.

Far better to now try and get Three to explain what they plan to do in the future than dwell on the past. I certainly saw that last week, speeds we back up to where they were (and in fact, in my case, higher than I'd ever had at home).

Clearly, like any mobile operator (and even fixed line operators) they need to address the heavy usage from some users. But they need to do it a different way.

Traditionally, you'd expect to simply see speeds fall at peak times in certain areas as would happen with mobile broadband or ADSL/cable.

I'm hopeful that with some tweaking, or perhaps introducing tiers - like up to 10GB full rate, 10GB - 20GB, 50% reduction, - 20GB+, 75% reduction (or whatever, I just made that up) that they could do things in a fairer way. And tell people that this is the case, and possibly introduce a newer tariff that has no such limits for a higher fee. Make it all open, transparent and give people a choice.

Perhaps even look at average usage over longer periods, to allow for the odd burst of data, compensated by longer periods that are under the limits.

Three needs to do something and everyone should accept that. You can't simply keep adding more and more capacity forever, any more than you build loads more roads or railway lines, to cope with peak flows and then sit empty for most of the time. To do so would cost so much that we'd all end up paying loads more.
[Networking] newbintraining:
I'm still pushing for a cancellation, sick of being messed about by them. Sent an email to the exec office, let's see if they reply. I'll give em a ring if they don't.

Just as I wrote that I got an automated response telling me to ring 333, helpful. Anyone know if they are open today?
[Networking] Hands0n:
I just saw this today from Three (not before my earlier post) and hope that it helps folk with their understanding of Three's intentions.

That all does sound like it was indeed a technical trial, at least of sorts. We could probably all wax on for years as to how we could have done it better :) But this is the clearest indication that Three have turned off the traffic management aspect of TrafficSense at this time.

We can be sure it is coming back. I would hope that will be with a greater up-front transparency, and certainly some guidance to people as to what they can do to avoid being caught in it.

I'd also like to see some moderation in the actual traffic management enforced - a sensible restriction of throughput rather than a full-on Emergency-Stop-as-if-a-child-had-run-into-the-road.

It really is watch and wait time now.

NB: If anyone is still experiencing TrafficSense-like issues they really should give the UK Twitter team a tweet on @ThreeUKSupport.
[Networking] cirian75:
Nah, not till wens
[Networking] newbintraining:
Thought as much. Hopefully I'll get a call back on wednesday anyway regarding my escalated complaint, but I bet it will be too late to get a cancellation now.
[Networking] blair287:
three just rang says its off trial but speeds are half off what they used to be and ping is around 800ms not the 65-70ms i used to get.
[Networking] drachers:
Additional to the 3pm cutoffs which are now lifted, I've noticed some unpleasant effects on download streams which can be mitigated with download managers. This may just be a side effect of Trafficsense surveilling the connection. How it works in my case is as follows:

- Start a youtube stream, any quality setting.

- Wait two minutes.

- Video cuts off as if it reached the end. Progress bar tells a different story.

- Click on the progress bar slightly further on than the point where the video was interrupted.

- Video continues.

So I have to use Free Download Manager to grab the stream of the vid I want to watch, as it at least has download resuming if it gets chopped. Also, for something like podcasts the download will stop after the first 7-ish meg and again will require a re-download with an application using resume support.

Needless to say this did not happen before. Behaviour replicated on multiple mobiles. I can't imagine this is good for online gaming at all, as it is the death of any persistent connection.

Being a rural person it's either this or the Full Monty on T-Mobile for me. T-Mobile don't allow non-contract Full Monty tethering so I had to upgrade an existing account to their rolls royce mega banana and you can't downgrade again till the end of the contract (21 months from now).

Being that there is no other decent internet available here, we in the drachers household have decided to run both T-Mobile and Three contracts and ping between them as to which is the less rubbish that week, hopefully mitigating any traffic management they may bring in. Expensive but (I hope) effective.
[Networking] VirtualMark:
If i download any large file for more than 10-20 minutes, i get restricted to 0.5mbps. Can anyone else confirm this?

I didn't use the internet for hours, speed tested at 3megs. I started a download, after a few minutes i stopped it as it had slowed down. Retested at 0.5megs.

This seems to happen all the time - use the connection and get punished.
[Networking] blair287:
three have had me on hold for 30mins now i bet the guy has buggered off

range their executive office the woman said ill transfer you to 333 i said no i want to speak o someone here she said no you dont and hung up LOL

EVERYONE RING 01628 765000
[Networking] scoopex:
The TrafficSence information is still on the Three website and clearly is not a trial as it was quoted to me on the phone as included in the terms and conditions. I would also be weary of this Hands0n chap as he seems to feeding bits of information to this thread defending Three and their throttling practise. Three know very well they are going to implement throttling on their service but tried a back handed way of doing it thinking no one would notice.
[Networking] Daveoc64:
I've never met such a paranoid bunch of people.

Three has clearly stated on Twitter that it was a "trial" and has ended:

https://twitter.com/ThreeUKSupport/status/209601434671525889

Not sure I believe that it was a trial, but it should be over.
[Networking] Hands0n:
The quote from Three is doing the rounds of the various forums. It is the official word on TrafficSense and it's history last week.

Reading your comments I can completely understand and feel for you.

The delivery reports did not affect me, I've never used them, it is not my preference or need. But I can fully understand and accept that for some people they are desired, or even vital in at least one case of someone I know via Twitter and the Talk3G forum. Dependencies build up on the back of facilities and it is always a shock and intrusion when they are either removed or become less affordable.

The inflationary rise seems oddly constructed, hitting some but not everyone. I cannot fathom the basis of that. It "feels" clumsy. Of course it affects me, but doesn't seem disproportionate against other such inflationary rises in prices that I experience. My fuel and food costs have gone stratospheric over the past 18 months, by comparison Three's seems entirely modest. But, again, I completely accept that is not a position that everyone either can or does share. Personal circumstances will temper how these increases are felt.

I do believe TrafficSense was poorly introduced and implemented, that can be no secret thought of mine by now. But remedial action has been taken by the suspension of the facility. I think we can take it from Three's comment today that it will be back though. The big question is in what form and how, the latter being more important than the fact itself.

I'm not convinced that, in the delivery reports and inflationary rises, Three have done anything particularly exceptional for their given industry. Unpopular as they are of course. As a watcher of the other MNOs Twitter channels I see feedback given to one operator that is also levelled at all of the others. All very de ja vous! It really does seem to be a case of 'you pays your money and takes your choice'.

It really should be a lot easier to run a mobile phone than the networks make it :D

---------- Post added at 03:41 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:38 PM ----------

Blimey! I'm seeing that same exact behaviour ... across my ADSL connection via Sky broadband. I've a reasonable speed of 8Mbps downlink with 680Kbps uplink, almost no jitter and superb ping times. I'm not contending for usage with anyone else. But it is only happening on YouTube.
[Networking] scoopex:
TrafficSence is coming to the Three network sooner rather than later.
[Networking] newbintraining:
Getting 1.5mbps now when I normally get 3mbps.
[Networking] drachers:
Crikey! Perhaps I've been affected by confirmation bias and a bit of packet loss on my antiquated tethering phone made me think Three were doing it. Perhaps Daveoc64's charge of paranoia is correct, but it's not like Three went out of their way to put the information front and centre from the outset.

No doubt I will continue to see the boogeyman for quite some time till network conditions settle.
[Networking] Hands0n:
There's nothing to fear about me mate. No secret, I'm well known enough on various forums and blogs, Twitter too. You'll find Hands0n all over the place :D ( http://technoratia.com/about/ )

I'm an old network geezer, been around for long enough to have seen this dozens of times before. Active network management is nothing new, and is already out on the terrestrial networks in various forms (see Virgin Media for example).

I've worked for big corporates too and know how they think and operate. So trying to offer some words to help where possible.

I'm also a Three customer (also Vodafone, T-Mobile and giffgaff) so this experience is of some considerable interest to me.

HTH.
[Networking] scoopex:
TrafficSense™ is there to help make sure all our customers get a fair share of our network. We continue to develop and refine it. The initial trial of one aspect of TrafficSense™ which focuses on how we implement our approach to the highest data users began on Friday 25th May. It comes to an end at midnight on the 2nd June. TrafficSense™, our intelligent approach to our network still exists, but one element of it which was being run as a trial has ended for the time being. We’re now evaluating the results to develop how we implement the highest data user element of TrafficSense™ in the future.

The above has only appeared on two mobile blogs posted by the same person who is posting in this thread defending Three and its TrafficSense throttling policy which is hardly any confirmation of being official statement from Three.