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Gossip & Rumors Internet Kuwait

Qualitynet to start capping bandwidth

Remember when back in February there were rumors floating around that internet providers would start implementing download limits? Back then I spoke to Qualitynet support and was assured that “I could relax and download the whole Internet if I wanted to and I would be fine”. Then, two weeks ago when they added the fine print on their DSL page saying “Terms and Condition & Fair Usage Policy Apply” I called them up again. Support told me this was just a temporary issue because of a cable cut.

But now it seems they’ve changed their stance on this sensitive subject. I just called them up and they told me that even though they still haven’t received an official letter from management with details on what the limits are going to be, we should expect that there will be a limit in place soon.

Unconfirmed user reports have placed the limits as the following:

– 2MB DSL users will have 2.8GB daily limit, 19GB weekly limit or 85GB monthly. Once you surpass your limit your connection speed will drop to 512KB.

– 4MB DSL subscribers, one subscriber says Qualitynet told him they will be limited to 139GB a month while another said Qualitynet told him it’s 85GB as well.

Not sure what to say about this, I find this a bit depressing. Please Qualitynet don’t cap our bandwidth!

Note: ALL ISP’s in Kuwait will be applying caps, it’s not just Qualitynet.

Update: According to a reader in the forum KEMS will start watching for bandwidth abusers starting tomorrow. They won’t be setting a cap but if they notice a user abusing their bandwidth then those users would have a cap applied. The reader couldn’t get an exact figure from the KEMS support guy on what counts as abuse.

Update2: I just got an email telling me about a NEW internet provider called Mada. They are offering WiMax, 10Mbps in Salmiya area (I guess might be higher or lower other areas), NO DOWNLOAD CAP and it’s KD60 for 3 months. They have a booth at Marina Mall. I was there last night actually and saw the booth but didn’t know what it was. This is their website [Link]

163 replies on “Qualitynet to start capping bandwidth”

WTH the only reason I use cable is because of unlimited internet download!!! that’s not fair!

is it only quality net or everyone?

So what can Steam users do now? most games are 10GB now so i have to wait 5 days to get my game downloaded… o.O i don’t mind monthly cap but wth is this DAILY and weekly cap?

VIVA too limits internet even though they will not admit it. They limit at 2gb per day. When I first signed up with them they assured me no limit 5 days later I noticed a very slow speed after 10 trouble calls The tech admitted they limit their service to 2 gig a day.

they already implemented it long time ago, im talking over a month ago, i have the 2MB connection and my internet totally stops when i download 2GB a day..

thats why i have decided not to renew my membership which expires in a months time.

my question is, what ISP should i connect with?

Rightly said. This isn’t about speed, it’s about greed. I am more than willing to purchase Blu-Ray movies, as can be evidenced by my collection I have… all bought from the US. I walked into Virgin this weekend and they had the Blu-Ray set of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, which I would love to have. Unfortunately, the employees weren’t sure if it was PAL or NTSC, and as I already have an an expensive PAL brick sitting on my shelf, I wasn’t willing to take the chance.
I could, however, gone home and downloaded one I would be sure would work on my PS3.
Many people are willing to purchase and pay for originals, but are forced down a path of downloading.
Why should I watch Hangover 2 extremely cut in theaters, not be able to buy it in a store here in Kuwait (other than copy stores, which by the way are getting them from bittorent also) and NOW not be able to download an HD copy?
Viva has already implemented this, and it took me over 6 phone calls of lies spread over 1.5 months to get them to admit they put a limit in place.
Now I’m downloading the lowest quality possible in order to stay clear of hitting my daily limit (2 GB) before even completing 2 HD (720P) television shows.
Why are we paying so much then? Next they’ll begin charging us for every MB we go over the limit.

I also download movies I payed for. some formats are just to restrictive to be practical (blue ray).

Like you said, greed’s their primary motive here, not fairness.

I’ve made up my mind not to deal with these disrespectful companies or, if no other practical alternatives are available, get the cheapest plan they got. after all, they’re going to cap it anyways.

I call for free internet from the government. even if it’s slow.

What about us Steam users?
We pay legally for 6GB+ Games and we want to download them.
Not all downloaders are pirating u know.

I know it applies to everyone. People who download illegal movies are more that legit customers in Kuwait. Therefore, they are eating up the bandwidth which slows everyone down. I have a 4Mbps connection and but most of the time it’s about 2Mbps. This is not due to line quality btw.

Even with the current bandwidth policies (i.e. priorities for big accounts like businesses and gov institutions) at the end, we all share the same bandwidth. I’m optimistic that I would see faster speeds when this cap fully kicks in. Maybe even it would improve the latency.

A more reasonable thing would be for them to spend all the money they steal from you toward building better internet with a higher level of bandwidth for everyone.

Their prices are atrocious as it is, and they have the audacity to increase them while setting download caps.

If you’re not downloading (legally or illegally), then there is nothing you can’t do with a 2MB connection that you can do with a 4MB connection.

This guy is clearly working with Qnet or some other ISP.

I really felt sick when they all raised their prices at the same time last infoconnect. this acts are illegal in the law “fixing prices” and now fixing bandwidth limits!!

they strangle the “free market”. and it’s not like they do it to survive or anything. they became greedy and uncontrollable.

Kuwait has no free market on telecommmunications, there’s actually a law that there can’t be too much competition. Why do you think all the phone companies have the same prices?

tell me about it; Fasttelco hooked me with their 6X the speed in the evening, and then the price increased by a third this year.

the world is drawing closer to a wired existence, where internet will be free, and these fat cats are lacing their pockets with our money still?

aaaakh you nailed it lol…

not to mention… most who complain are heavy downloaders themselves!

I say bring the CAP on .. and let us enjoy a clean normal connection than a volatile one in terms of quality due to these abusers!

That seriously is not fair, now we’re paying more for less ! IF their going to be doing this they should seriously think about slashing their prices to half what they are now.. total BS.

Yesterday i noticed a significant drop in my internet connection speed AND an increase in ping time (>100ms) which means i can’t play online either, i contacted qnet and they told me they wil send someone because the problem seems from my side, only to be contacted today by phone telling me that what happened yesterday was because i have reached my download limit, my argue with the employee was not about the cap, it was about the increase in ping time if i reached the cap limit, at least they should send an email or add a limit counter in there site so i can logon and know my limit, sucks big time.

i canceled my Qnet connection which i have for a long time, much more happier now. they could of AT LEAST informed their loyal customers that they will implement it (which is what they are doing since the begging of May) instead of lying and saying is that they have issues. I guess no more unlimited internet like we used to have in the good old days. BTW all ISPs will force it on subscribers in a few days. this is unfair.

This means there is no use paying for a 8MB connection since sooner or latter it will go down to 512kbps, better to get the lowest speed and stick with it. as consumers do we have any rights?!

why not, why did they increase their prices if they were going to cap downloads ! I paid 35 kd more this year for the same speed !!

Horray! Finally people will learn NOT to download movies and actually PAY in order to view them. Stealing other people’s work (music, movie, etc.) is bad you know? It’s not just unethical to do it, but it also effects the economy (sellers get effected when their work is getting viewed by the public for free)

Once again there are some of us who download movies and tv shows legally and this cap applies to us as well. Even my magazines are huge, an issue of WIRED is like 500MB!

Ahhh, I see. Thanks. That will have to wait until I get an iPad then. Blah. But reading comics and magazines on it is one of the things I look forward to most.

Might be harder to do with this new download cap… ._.

have you heard of itunes ? or online digital distribution games ? (average size about 10Gb a game, world of warcraft is 20gb)
some of these large downloads may get corrupted and you would need to download them again through their special download client like “steam” for example, happened a few times with me, so please not all of us are pirates like you think.

FT Consumer
i am willing to purchase legal movies… but i have the luxury of purchasing movies at 800THB for Lord of the Rings Triology on DVD rather than paying 70 KD or so when it first came out.
I for one am willing to pay an artist directly. not the marketing folks in the middle. do you have any idea or learned soul how much an artist makes for his work?

Metatozz

i don’t think it matters whether its for gaming,emails,work,surfing or downloads. when you reach 2.8 GB it will be capped.

i agree! We must take this to the parliament.
I also think the government should have a government owned ISP so we could have subsidized internet!

That way, the private sector can only rip off ghosts.

duuuude no i have the 2mb speed and it stopped wile down loading when passing 2 or little more than that !!!

Talk about bad luck i have just paid theme for 1 year

Can we all pay and invest in a new venture (i.e. another ISP) and actually kill these *&%^&$ ????
*Sorry i am business student, this ideas comes to me like craz!

They used to have those “lite” packages for exactly that purpose, while those of us paying full price expected unlimited download at the selected bandwidth.

I think this is why this whole thing is happening…They want to introduce this option, and forcing a cap will hand us over to them on a silver platter 🙁

I am not a heavy downloader myself (about 20-30 GB/month) but I certainly can’t agree on forcing a 2GB limit per day (for example) as this will interrupt so many things, as said above…demos, legal movies/tv shows, even youtube HD stuff would eat up your limit very quickly.

Let me pose this question…How much extra would you pay to get the “unlimited” option?

WHAT WHY? This Is Madness. And this is Kuwait.. ?
WTF
How am i gonna enjoy my entertainment system? Lets say i download two game demos for 2GB. Then i decide i want to watch a show on my apple TV?I cant ? Whats wrong with the world ?
This surely cant be fair? can it? When i subscribed i Payed FOR UNLIMITED INTERNET. and that was in the contract… Can they just decide to screw us up?

It’d be illegal in most parts of the civilized world. But this is Kuwait habeebi, so enjoy the a** rape, the market monopoly and all the illegal BS they force upon the poor consumer.

BTW, I just logged into my qualitynet account and found that they now show some interesting stats against the line – specifically the max attainable download/upload. For my line, I get

Max Attainable Line Speed
Down: 3.2 MBps
Up: 948 KBps

Which is interesting, because the last time I tried upgrading my line to 2MB, it was not working and the qualitynet support suggested that I downgrade the link to 1MB.

interesting, I am getting:

Max Attainable Line Speed
Down: 3 MBps
Up: 608 KBps

I wonder how accurate that is, would love to upgrade to 3MB from 2 but my expiry date is January 2012 so still got a long way to go.

oh I think i remember now, if you sign up for 3MB the up is 1MB which is why I can’t get it. You can’t have 3MB down with 512KB up.

Am sure He uses Fiber Optic or Something The maximum Uplink for the Normal ADSL line is the one you have mark, no matter youre near or far its just the limit of that type of communication that thing applies to the upload only.

I had the Chance to test the upload Speed on the Mobile World

Zain 42 Kb/sec It gave me once 80 Kb/sec just once
Wataniya Fixed At 79 Kb/sec maybe because of my Subscription type BlackBerry 13.5 KD
Viva 212 to 209 Kb/sec so its 2 MB the test was done via their Mobile Router

VIVA is the Best for Uploading Zain is the Worst And All of them Are better than My ADSL Except Zain to be exact.

BTW i use Zain and i have nothing Against any of them am just writing from my personal experince.

This is unacceptable and will cause rage across the country. All people of all ages 8-60 at least use the internet. My entire house (7 people) go through the same Internet I use, which means I will get capped earlier throughout the day.

What bothers me most is that they implemented this cap with no warning. This cap means no more gaming, no more watching movies online, youtube will take ages to load, some sites will take forever to load. Ive been hit by the cap already and its been hell ever since (been alternating between viva and Qnet and its still been hell)

Well, the only solution for this is to know what all the big names in the country use their internet for. If they use youtube heavily, watch movies (legally), download games and demos, etc. Technically they should rage about the limit.

That is of course, unless they have wastas to get “special” internet ._.

This is ridiculous!

Isn’t it enough that we deal with their ridiculous high prices for such slow speeds, and now they’re even putting a restraint on that?!

It seems that with each year in Kuwait we are taking a step back in the internet industry, instead of forward like the other countries in our region.

My DSL subscription ends next month, and for the first time since the 90’s, I’m looking to switch ISPs. Any recommendations?

That is terribly disheartening to hear.

I guess now is the best time for a new company to emerge that goes against the current of all existing ISPs. Like how Viva knocked sense into the heads of Zain and Wataniya when it first came out.

So what are the solutions now? Proxy servers will not decrease the cap or anything. Ughh in the states… The prices are low for high speeds and unlimited, Here its the complete opposite! should i call and complain ?

If you think it’s good in the US you should see Europe. The US is ancient compared to over there. So Kuwait doesn’t even exist in the same world.

It’s like these companies live in their own little bubble where they apply their own restrictions and unethical pratctices.

Last week I downloaded 6.2 GB overnight and at the same time around 11 PM I started another download of 4.2 GB . So did they just start doing that cap thingy ?

Thanks for posting about this Mark. Media attention is NEEDED on this subject, because there’s no one covering it.

These ISPs are implementing FUP policies WITHOUT telling the customers, then they’re NOT posting how the triggers work or what the trigger limits are. I’d say it would be pretty easy to sue these companies because of the way they’re handling things. This is a PR nightmare for the ISPs.

Like someone already said, we need to raise this issue in parliament. What I fear is the order for using FUPs could’ve been from the government all along.

America average speeds in homes is 11 mbp/s, South Korea 35 mbp/s, Kuwait is barely 1 mbp/s and now they’re capping our downloads.

If we can’t remove the limits, at least change how they work! Put a monthly limit of 70-100gb or something like that with a meter on the ISPs’ websites so you know where you stand. A daily limit is dumb and the trigger is too low.

You’re right. Media attention to this is what’s really needed to embarrass the ISPs. However, do you really think that will happen?

My friend said he’d write an article about it, but he only has a small section in the K-Times. Let’s hope it gets some real media attention…and doesn’t get spun in the ISPs favor.

I heard that this was due to a number of bad apples who abused the system and downloaded large amounts of data. But instead of punishing the “abusers” the ISPs are implementing a process of collective punishment.

As a comparison, in the US Comcast implemented a similar system to identify excessive usage based on monthly downloads (defined as downloading more than 250gigs per month) if you exceed that, they would just give you a call to identify why this is occurring. Then you get 6 months probation should you exceed it again, within that period, the account is terminated. However, they did not have daily limits or speed degradation policies!

Here is the Comcast faq for whomever is interested:

https://customer.comcast.com/Pages/FAQViewer.aspx?seoid=frequently-asked-questions-about-excessive-use

Comcast is considered a pretty bad ISP in the US. And even with that, the limit they gave was 250GB a month (which got a lot of bad media attention on the internet).

Hmm! Good to see so much hue and cry on this. I read few days back on q8geek that Viva phone package has done it. Then Gulfnet and now this. This is seriously screwed up.

I am an expat and as such will not say anything against it. I know my position as a guest in Kuwait and know my limit. But in my travels, i have seen Kuwaitis one of fairly active nation when it comes to internet, blogging, gaming everything. If anything can be done on this it is you (Kuwaitis nation). This is not a matter of just increasing cost. As mentioned in one of other comments they already did that and we bore it, not saying anything. This is something that we cannot just bear. All over the world new technological breakthroughs (sending data through different streams etc.) is increasing internet speeds on the available Fiber optic infrastructure and we are going backwards.

One thing is clear, we cannot stop using internet, but we (internet users, primarily Kuwaitis)definitely should have enough influence to over through this decision. Someone said parliament. If it can be yea……

I don’t know why the comment didnt appear maybe because i sweard, lol.

Anyways, we barely reach the speeds they promise and now they limit us? what about the people like me who don’t pirate and download the stuff they legally buy? why do we have to put up with this BS :S

This FUP thing will fall flat on its face very face, i just can’t wait for it. For mobile services i could understand a FUP but DSL and what not? that’s unacceptable and now even getting a higher speed is TOO useless because its limited by a day and not even a month? The hell, these days even youtube videos are more than 300+MB depending on the length and quality.

I am glad its getting more attention now and hopefully something will be done about it soon, because its BS. Its sad that most people abused the system i mean why not support what your downloading? i’ll never get it. However, that’s not the issue, the issue here is they promised Unlimited but they changed and the problem is they changed without anybody knowing. They have the right to change i think its written in the terms of use thingy when you sign but they should warn the customers by sending an email.

With all the revenue the companies get they could easily expand their servers so that this never happens but why waste money on this when the people already paid you, right? Who gives a ****

Simple solution, create a petition of people willing to switch to the ISP that does not cap downloads. If its a large enough market share, someone will begin offering uncapped downloads to cater to it.

Want a solution pull back all the bandwidth we are giving Southern Iraq and the US Army for “FREE”, most ISP’s going out of bandwidth because they are stupid and nothing is implemented right.

ISP’s going out of bandwidth because of 4Mb/s account is laughable at this time lol.

Never heard of of download cap, except in this country. I agree this is greed, if ISP are capping limits they should cap the price of their service. of course we can dream, just got internet to my house in Europe 20MB/S download yes not “up to” true 20 MB/S no cap 10KD a month!

1 MB is super fast to Lebanon, you and i both know that, i wish i could get Dial-up connection in lebanon, but even the wi-fi is slower than dial-up.

It’s pretty bad when you compare it to our previous cap of unlimited GB a day.

I’d be fine if it were 5GB a day.

I got this cap problem form Qnet myself, anyway
I suggest they make a heavy usage plan which gives more Gb per day or month Since 2gb is good for “normal users” but sucks for heavy ones.

I got the same response from FASTtelco, they will not put limits unless you are a “bandwidth abuser”

Today I’m going to see if Qualitynet will reduce my speed by downloading like a fucking maniac. I’ve got 17 720p movies lined up for download :>

So do the people that paid more for the Nitro Package get a refund seeing as how that’s the package paid for? I wonder how we go around getting that refund if this is implemented….

So its time for me to switch to another internet provider, be it viva or anything else. Im on kems right now, 1.5 mb speed. Subscription ends in 3 months. By that time, maybe there will be better options to choose from, who knows. I also heard that the prices are expensive and static of ISPs for some time is due to the price the ISPs pay to the ministry of communication for the internet. And also, there was a lot of talking on the newspapers about a tender on establishing a new internet company by the government. It was in the planning stage and as of today, there was no more talks about this. Kuwait is able to improve the internet services in the country with our surplus every fiscal year. I think that we will not see any improvements in this field for a couple of years from now. No other words, im helpless. When time comes to renew my internet subscription, be it with kems or any other ISP, I would not have any options but be forced to renew my internet subscription since I will have no other options, or else, lose access to the internet:((

What the tits? 139GB a month isn’t enough let alone 85 GB. Not in this modern day of HD streaming and Gaming.

VIVA doesn’t allow any downloads of any kind on their router including legal apps and Android plug ins. Its ridiculous!

They have just appointed new minister of communication few weeks ago, hopefully he will work to reduce international lines lease prices for ISPs, and open the market for new companies.

This is absolutely disgusting, only in Kuwait can this happen!
Imagine if there was no govt healthcare, private hospitals would put a cap on emergency IV fluid use!

Are Zain/Viva/Wataniya going to do this too? Also, they already give us speeds at least 8 times as bad as normal speeds in other countries for around double the price and now they throttle bandwidth to people who use 2.8GB per day? They should really do something about this.

All mobile companies are already limiting you, the difference is what they do after the limit.
Zain will lower u to 128kbps
Wata/Viva will charge as u DL

so wait let me get this straight….does this apply for a house who use 1 internet (through router) and shared between 2-3 persons ?

with this policy we say good bye to LAN parties?

what about Internet cafes? and gaming cafes? does this apply ?

This is just Effing GREAT!! I’ve placed couple of digital pre-orders games from STEAM and now I’m going to get capped for it!? Not to mention I can’t even switch to any other ISP because they’re all following the same strategy!!!? This is a freak’n business monopoly! I can’t do nothing! I’m totally helpless! At least let those basterdes ISP lower their PRICE!! I’m paying a lot and for nothing!!

THIS IS LUDICROUS !!!

We cannot stand for this, they charge premium prices and we allow them to rip us off because they’re too cheap to upgrade their systems! This is THEFT in my opinion!

RIDICULOUS!

Umm.. so what is the reason really? Anyone got any info on that?

Glad my subscription back in Kuwait ends next week lol

Someone should make a facebook page protesting this and link it over here so we can all show them that this is not fair at all!

I’m all in for a protest on this pathetic issue!! I dare them for any of these ISP to give me 1 good reason why they’re doing this! If they say they can’t afford because of server crashes I say BULLSHIT! YOU CAN AFFORD BETTER SERVERS! Why the hell we haven’t had this problem a long time ago!? WHY NOW!? Not all areas are covered with freak’n fiber optic cables and WE STILL HAVE CABLE CUTS! DAMMIT! I’m going to be paying a LOT for an 8MB connection and I know for a sure fact I’m STILL going to get effing CABLE CUTS!!

If this is true, Qnet should change how they sell DSL packages, and show the actual download limit and not just the speed as it is advertised now.

The Qnet invoice I got for my DSL clearly shows that what I paid for was 4Mb and no mention of download limit, or speed cap.

I really hope this is just a test balloon to see how customers would react, and how much bandwidth Qnet will save by implementing this on a wider scale.

Qnet please don’t punish your loyal customers. :/

don’t get ur hopes high . moc = ministry of corruption

u think they wouldn’t have kicked the telecom companies asses after all what they did and all the trouble and money they lose because of them

this should make things more clear

Ah well… One thing is clear… No point paying 350 KD to the ISP for 4Mbps when apparently 512Kbps for 75 KD will suffice… Great business idea alienating customers ISP’s!!!!!!!!!

It’s worse on Gulfnet, 800 mb on 512kp users, I cap that without downloading, just watching 5-10 youtube videos in 360p or 240p, and then browsing the internet for a few hours caps it for me.

What annoys me more is my reciept says Unlimited Bandwith Internet, got it a few yeas back, but considering I’m suppose to get “Unlimited” it’s false advertising.

I don’t mind a bandwith cap, as countries like Canada have also recently implemented in their system, however Kuwait does not give us a full speed through out the day, limits are way too low, even for light browsers who use youtube, email, and websites.

I’m actually going to go to Gulfnet headquarters and talk to them, guy probably won’t understand english for shit, but meh worth a try.

You guys in Kuwait are actually lucky when compared to us here in Canada where you have to pay at least 2$ for every extra gigabyte if you surpass the monthly bandwidth limit.

Putting up bandwidth limits is understandable for ISP’s since in modern times the infrastructure (even in developed countries) can’t handle unlimited bandwidth from the ever increasing number of internet users. Let’s hope the bandwidth limit policies coming to Kuwait would be much less like Canada’s and more like the US.

Depends on the ISP and the plan your subscribed to. Mines is 30 GB a month in a $74 Bundle that comes with basic cable and 5 mbps internet. The other lowest from another providers that I can think of is 25 GB. These are the cheapest ones out of all plans.

now people who are happy that “abusers” will be busted can login into mirc and msn messenger and chat in full speed.
Good for you !

LMAO. Exactly. I’m wondering what do these people think they will be able to accomplish with their 4 and 8MB connections now?

The caps actually don’t make a difference with day-to-day normal internet usage speed. Only downloading for the most part. I feel bad for all the games and people with subscriptions to things like Apple TV.

Even youtube will suck, especially all the HD videos on it.

They might have those 3 websites blocked, but at least they’re not edging towards the bronze age, like Kuwait is, with this bandwidth cap…!

This is not fair at all, the internet usage should be unlimited and i have the right to download as much as i want. This is Pathetic X(
are we in Stonehenge or what ? look at Europe and the US states they have got triple the speed we have got here. walla such a lame thing from the ISP’s in kuwait x(

Europe is not a country – u can’t generalise an entire continent.

And some European countries have a slower national average internet speed than kuwait.

but i agree with u, it should be unlimited in Kuwait, & it should be cheaper..!

To all the people that are blaming the pirates for taking all the bandwidth. Know that there are many legit customers that buy stuff from the internet.

I for one uses Steam on my PC, which is a gaming portal where i can buy my PC games and download them. Each game goes anywhere from 6-15 GB in size. How long will that take me if i have a 2GB limit per day? not to mention that a lot of us stream videos from Netflex, Itunes and youtube and stuff like that.

This is truly messed up. We are paying too much already, and now we will get crippled more? wtf…..

I just got an email telling me about a NEW internet provider called Mada. They are offering WiMax, 10Mbps in Salmiya area (I guess might be higher or lower other areas), NO DOWNLOAD CAP and it’s KD60 for 3 months. They have a booth at Marina Mall. I was there last night actually and saw the booth but didn’t know what it was.

I’m at the Marina right now. I just spoke with MADA rep. He told me it’s unlimited for the first 3 months affer that it’s a 20Gb cap caculated on a monthly basis. After reaching your cap you two options: either pay for extra bandwidth or your speed will be throttled to 256 kb/s. It’s 20 KD per month.
Bottom line: it’s the same as the regular ISP except it’s a monthly cap instead of a daily one.

Anybody from KEMS has already been hit by this new daily cap policy?

I say we gather as many of us disgruntled customers as possible, pool our resources togther, and collectively take all the ISPs to court.

Their lack of notification of these changes, lack of visibility on their fair access policies, and clear disregard for the contract that we signed for unlimited bandwidth that had no mention of download caps constitute a breach of contract (according to my limited understanding of legal matters).

And we shouldn’t tolerate this or accept it at all. Nor should we sit here and hope they change their minds, our silence and lack of action pretty much indicates our consent to these new policies.

I think that a peaceful demonstration at an approved area by the Ministry of Interior will be nice. Just to show everyone that we, internet users are suffering from the internet prices and caps. We can just bring posters showing the neighboring countries internet speeds and prices. At least the prices of middle east countries 🙂

But I’m talking about peaceful! Not swearing and throwing stuff at each other. Just a “Hello, we are here and are suffering from the prices message”

Noooooooo…….Just gr8. Thats all we need. I’m generally not one to subscribe to bandwidth limits, but daily or weekly caps….gimme a break. If ISP’s are adamant to apply caps, they should significantly reduce their prices and ought to be just thinking in terms of Monthly limits only.

Perhaps also doubling the monthly caps from the newly proposed limits might go a long way in not upsetting / annoying a good proportion of the existing customer base.

I need to call Qnet to find out why they havnt informed they’re customers who paid for unlimited download DSl connections….not that i expect much of response from the cold customer care rep. 🙂

I contacted Qnet again, the operator told me that I got 5.23 GB per day (157Gb a month)!!!!
I got a 4mb connection. And yesterday they told me my cap was 85gb a month that is about 2gb a day !!!
I think they got bombarded with phone calls yesterday and they still are so they are raising the cap hehehe
serves them right

FastTelCo told me they have not implemented any limit yet, and that the limit on bandwidth has not been decided yet, and they will notify customers prior to implementing a limit, and notify abusers prior to throttling their speeds. I still find that wholly unacceptable.
I buy a lot of games on Steam like many of the people on here, and 5 GB a day simply won’t cut it. Average game size these days is around 10GB or more. I also find it wholly unfair that I’m going to be punished for a perfectly legal use of my internet.
It’s enough our pings are crap compared to most countries in the region that it makes online gaming near impossible unless you’re playing a game hosted in Kuwait. And the prices are probably some of the most expensive in the world because of the oligopoly the ISPs have here. Now our bandwidth is gonna be crap too, with these limits.

Qualitynet have the worst customer service reps on the planet, they can only tell your to restart your PC and modem when a problem happens. I even went to their main branch which is in Al Khalejiya they were so rude. They were like yes of course we have to have a limit for users ”like you” i told them clearly that i mostly download HD content and made it clear to them i just want my 4mb connection nothing more nothing less.

I just want to tell everyone that you should SUE the ISPs. I am sure that all of you who are current subscribers never signed on a bandwidth limit. You could get your copy of your contracts or anything because that’s your proof. Even if such thing has a small chance of succeeding something needs to be done. Canceling and going to another ISP is not the answer.

i have just called qualitynet , i felt like she was trying to hide that information , anyways here what she to told me

as im a 4 mb user , i get 139 GB per month

but this 139 will be split as a daily cap = about 4.6 GB

my friend cancelled his subscription from them he has 1 mb , they told him his daily limit 1.6 GB

hi,
today Qualitynet started the 3 GB day limit
they reduced my speed from 2 MB to 512 k
i called there customer support and they said its a rule from MOI which is a BIG Lie

Hello,
This is just ridiculous, haven’t used the internet all day and turned on the PC .. just streamed a few youtube videos and downloading an Iphone update .. and suddenly from 2Mbps to a 512 Kbps ! i only used it for an hour this is utterly stupid, what is FAIR in this whole thing !

Isn’t it illegal for them to implement this to people who got a contract BEFORE this was added to the terms of service?

F****** backward country. You’d think they’d get better info-structure with all the money they rob from the people and the monopoly on the market. But instead they impose download limits and raise prices. What a bunch of thieves.

Okay I usually don’t reply or even participate in forums, but since this is getting out of control I felt like I have to contribute.
First of all, Eliasoz, Capping is a method used by every mobile phone operator in the world. If they don’t cap, they charge extra for every additional mb you download once your data balance is depleted. So don’t call this country backwards. operators here are not charging you for any additional MB’s you’re using they’re downgrading your speed so other people can enjoy fast speed internet while maintaining your usage within certain limitations without taking single dime from you like for instance, T-mobile, ATT and other well known operators in advanced “onwards” country like the US. In case you didn’t know mobile internet depends on how many users are sharing a single cell, which is the reason behind capping.
Now, that out of the way, let’s talk about ISP’s in Kuwait. I agree, capping for ISP’s is probably unheard of. However in Kuwait mobile internet i.e. GSM internet is becoming very popular. Together, Wataniya and Zain alone have more data users that the entire country combined. If you ask any internet consumer about which internet they have they’ll probably mention Qualitynet and either Wataniya or Zain as a second choice. Meaning Mobile internet is becoming the norm. For ISP’s to compete, they can’t keep spending more capital to enhance their bandwidth because their losing a huge share to the telcos. It’s not the consumer’s problem, but that’s the situation they find themselves in now. ISP’s and telecoms can’t keep up with the increased amount of data usage-and this is the case in the whole world if you’ve been following up with the latest trends on technology forums-which means they have to apply such caps to survive. I’m not taking sides here, am explaining a situation. So it’s up to you to judge.

Note: in any data user base only 10-15% of customers exceed their caps from excess torrent and movie downloads, mostly illegal.. so if you were to call the shots who do you cater your best service to? the abuser or the user?

@Koodz

You’re right, ISP’s worldwide have been known to cap bandwidth, however, my daily possible bandwidth is at roughly 14% of that prior to capping. Now I’m not saying that i download 24/7 nor do i participate in torrent downloads (ITunes). My question is, how did they arrive at these numbers and what are they doing to improve the current state of internet in Kuwait?. I for one wouldn’t make available a “hypothetically speaking” 24MB connection to the public unless i have sufficient bandwidth to cover consumer demands (live within your capabilities). All in all it just seems that this is a patchwork fix, one that avoids the bigger problem if you may, which unfortunately is the norm in this country.

Another question is: Couldn’t they have monitored & penalized torrent abusers with these caps since I’m assuming that they are to blame.

Note: i exceeded my daily bandwidth cap a few days back after downloading a windows, ITunes, and IPhone update. Considering that abuse is what i find most frustrating.

quality net are trying to woo away their customers my speed from 1.5 has droped to 512 kb just by downloading 1 gb of data

It is not surprising at all in the latest move by ISPs to extract more from its subscribers. They were doing it unnoticed by most of us for long time. There is no consumer protection body to approach in this country. Like the mobile companies, the more they make the more greedy these companies..

I think good news will soon come. Al sa3doon has today raised the issue to the minister of communication. He was pretty aggressive towards the issue that the isps are making these caps and too expensive too.

Whatever we as customers going to say or do will not make any effects. This is because when few months ago ISPs ganged up and made the prices artificially FIXED, nobody came to say anything, even though it is against consumer protection laws.

Don’t think a minute you can make the ISPs to change anything as I was in Qualitynet canceling my subscription the other day and saw many others doing the same and fighting with Qnet staff who did not care.

Only government officials can do and force ISPs to practice fair policies and I do not see anyone of them jumping for us “customers”.

Whatever happened with competing and so doing better i.e. service, prices, etc. because of it? Is Kuwait protecting consumers or big companies?

i had a normal speed till those A.H.s F.K.E.D every thing up by their FAP! i am trying to connect and subscribe to mada through super high range wifi hope it works

well , now in kuwait the internet problem is soo dam much
i live in a building with free internet ( high speed dsl )
now even if u play CS or any game ur ping will be 350-450
i still remeber the time ( 2 years ago )
when i got my ping like 190-250 in the same builing with same net
now we cant even enjoy playing a fking broswer game , that also takes like 5 mins to load
they should really loook into this matter

I renewed my service and had an offer to double my speed to 2MB. Since renewal my connection is slower cad cutting most of the time. I called the support team and every time they reset it , it becomes worth. I just discovered that after 40days of receiving the offer, my application was not even sent to support team. I’m a subscriber since 5years and their service is getting worse year after year!

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