Almost two years ago I heard that DirecPc had implimented a new policy to help share the bandwith. They described the "Hogs" that were running ISP's from their homes using the satellite connection, and people that were downloading 8 to 10 gigs of data monthly. At the time it sounded like something I could agree to, what I did not realise was, it would make my investment in them almost worthless. I am on the Moonie II plan, unlimited time from 6:00 pm until 6:00am. The first time I tried to down load a game demo (54 meg) things went fast until I hit 40 meg then it slowed to 2KB/s. From 6 minutes remaining to several hours to finish. I thought My equipment was broke or I had a poor server feeding me. After several attempts it got worse to the point of never finishing the download. Several months later, I realised that my 300-500 meg per month , had labeled me a bandwith hog. I would use DirecPc two to three times a month,. otherwise just use the 33.6 modem to brouse.
I read the brochures before buying DirecPc, all the catch phrases such as 14-times faster than a 28.8 modem, lightning fast downloads, faster internet. All the catch words attracted me to it.
A quote from one of the url's: http://www.direcpc.com/index2.html
| The lightning
speed of DirecPc is due to its advanced satellite technology. A constant stream of content. We all crave it. And now with DirecPc, the speed limit on the information highway just went up. Way up to 400 kbps. Thats more than three times faster than ISDN, fourteen times faster than 28.8 modem and light years faster than a 14.4 modem |
DirecPc is Notorious for their fine print
Have you read the new contract agreements *(1) 
| The DirecPC Fair Access Policy: What is the Fair Access Policy? Recent analysis of DirecPC system usage patterns indicates that the top five percent of the DirecPC subscriber base is responsible for approximately 53% of the total DirecPC service traffic. In fact, it is not uncommon for the top one percent of subscribers to download an average of over 10 gigabytes of data per month. (Four gigabytes is the size of the average high-end PC hard drive. These users are downloading enough data in one month to fill two and half hard drives!) Further, it has become clear through communication with these subscribers that some of them are reselling the DirecPC service, or using DirecPC’s single-user service plans to provide Internet access to an entire network. In short, these subscribers are doing much more than surfing the Web at high speed the purpose for which the DirecPC "Surfer" service plans were designed. In order to ensure that all DirecPC subscribers have fair and equal access to the benefits of Turbo Internet service, DirecPC has enacted a Fair Access Policy (FAP) to prevent excess consumption of bandwidth by a handful of users. The structure of the FAP is fairly straight forward: using historical, statistical analysis of its user base, DirecPC establishes a generous baseline for "normal" usage of its system resources. When a customer exhibits patterns of system usage which place him or her above that threshold for an extended period of time, the FAP may temporarily limit that subscriber’s throughput to ensure the integrity of the system for the vast majority of users (this "vast majority" usually being approximately 98% of the subscriber base at any one time). Once a subscriber’s usage pattern settles back into the normal range, the bandwidth restrictions are lifted. Subscribers are likely to avoid the limitations imposed by the FAP if their usage is primarily interactive i.e., requesting URLs or "Web surfing," with a reasonable amount of software downloading. In addition, subscribing to new, free-of-charge DirecPC services such as Turbo Newscast (described in detail below) may help prevent the imposition of the FAP, since they automatically deliver some of the most bandwidth-intensive Internet content directly to the user’s hard drive on a "push" model. If such services do not match subscriber throughput needs, DirecPC has other subscription plans available which should provide adequate delivery bandwidth to the subscriber. DirecPC on Networks and Internet Service Providers: DirecPC can be distributed on a Local Area Network (LAN) or to remote clients via proxy server software. The proxy server acts as an intermediary between a number of users or clients and DirecPC. As such, DirecPC recognizes proxies as single subscribers, despite the number of clients they serve. Subscribers who are using DirecPC with a proxy server to provide Internet access to multiple users across Local Area Networks or to remote clients (such as in the case of an ISP) need to be in the Network Edition service plan. The Office, Family and Executive Surfer™ plans are not intended for networks or ISPs – rather, they are intended for individuals. Using DirecPC in these applications on either the Office Surfer, Family Surfer or Executive Surfer service plans can activate the FAP. Note that except for individuals with less than 5 PCs on a LAN, utilizing surfer plans for these applications is a violation of the terms of DirecPC’s Service Agreement. DirecPC is still an excellent solution for these applications and customers are urged to contact DirecPC customer support (1-800-DIRECPC) to pick an appropriate service plan. DirecPC Personal Edition Customers : Many of DirecPC’s heaviest users download very large amounts of newsgroup data. DirecPC's new Turbo Newscast service (which is included free of charge in DirecPC 2.0 software to all Surfer plan users) will, in effect, allow subscribers to operate Personal News Servers. These Personal News Servers will receive DirecPC’s continuous feed of over 30,000 newsgroups. By simply subscribing to newgroups of interest in a local browser, subscribers can have all the newsgroups they desire delivered by satellite and cached locally in their PC. The service operates without using the telephone line for support, and is a true "push" service. Once the content is received, subscribers can review newsgroups from their own hard drive. Best of all, none of the delivered content no matter how many Newsgroups are subscribed to -- counts towards the FAP threshold. Heavy Web surfers will also be able to lower their on-line usage and increase their level of convenience with DirecPC’s new Turbo Webcast service. Turbo Webcast allows customers to subscribe to an increasing number of Web sites that DirecPC broadcasts over the satellite, thereby eliminating the need to connect to the Internet. Once the content is received, the user can interactively "surf" these Web pages from their own hard drive. In the case of both Turbo Newscast and Turbo Webcast, a subscriber can click through seamlessly to the Internet to follow a non-cached thread or URL. For more information on Newscast and Webcast software, see the DirecPC 2.0 software information section. DirecPC Software Update to Indicate FAP Status: While today’s DirecPC user interface does not indicate when the FAP is being applied, a future release of the software is expected to provide a FAP indicator. This indicator should help subscribers discern whether their access is being affected by FAP, or more likely when the cause of the slowdown is Internet network congestion. Again, as a rule of thumb, Web surfers and those performing occasional software downloads are not likely to be affected by FAP. Heavy users of News Groups and FTP downloading, on the other hand, may experience FAP. Understandably, DirecPC cannot release additional details about its FAP algorithm, since such details would only aid those intent on violating their subscriber agreements. |
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