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hm
@videotron.ca

hm to Nitra

Anon

to Nitra

Re: Am I Crazy and What Can I Do?

Don't they only update that page at one certain hour of the day? And depending on where you live, this dictates when your modem get poled and pushed online to the tracker.

At least, this is what I understood it to be a few years ago.

No clue if its changed, or if anything changed since then since I haven't looked at the B/W tracker in about 2 years now.

You should create a topic in the Videotron forum And ask when the usage page gets updated, and how etc.

sbrook
Mod
join:2001-12-14
Ottawa

sbrook to rednekcowboy

Mod

to rednekcowboy
No good counting Measurement Canada ... because they are counting discrete items, they won't consider it. Measurement Canada only gets involved when with weights and volumes basically.
MaynardKrebs
We did it. We heaved Steve. Yipee.
Premium Member
join:2009-06-17

MaynardKrebs

Premium Member

said by sbrook:

No good counting Measurement Canada ... because they are counting discrete items, they won't consider it. Measurement Canada only gets involved when with weights and volumes basically.

So I guess if your egg container consistently came with 11 eggs inside despite having "12 Eggs / 1 Dozen" printed on the outside, you'd be SOL with Measurement Canada -- and have to resort to Provincial consumer protection legislation.....which doesn't cover internet bits on a wire because its conditional non-essential and handled by the Feds.?

derekm
join:2008-02-26

derekm to rednekcowboy

Member

to rednekcowboy
Is your router counting incoming UDP that you didn't ask for?

Maybe it's just IP-only (i.e. - no ICMP, UDP, TCP) noise? Does your router count that?

EDIT: an interesting mention in the Cogeco section, having your modem's MAC cloned elsewhere in the network. Have you tried a different modem?

sbrook
Mod
join:2001-12-14
Ottawa

sbrook to MaynardKrebs

Mod

to MaynardKrebs
If you are short counted on a dozen eggs, you have a civil case against the supplier. You can count em, the store can count em, the court can count em.

The 454 gm of butter you can't count ... you can put it on a scale ... and the scale must be accurate. Measurement Canada's role is to ensure that the vendor's scale is accurate, not that they are shorting you 54 gm for every pound of butter ... that again is a civil issue ONCE MC have declared the vendor's scale inaccurate.

rednekcowboy
join:2012-03-21

rednekcowboy to derekm

Member

to derekm
said by derekm:

Is your router counting incoming UDP that you didn't ask for?

Maybe it's just IP-only (i.e. - no ICMP, UDP, TCP) noise? Does your router count that?

EDIT: an interesting mention in the Cogeco section, having your modem's MAC cloned elsewhere in the network. Have you tried a different modem?

This is what they are claiming, either "bad data" or some sort of attack (though they are just guessing at this and have provided no logs whatsoever to back this up which leads me to believe they are telling me this just to shut me up). Even if it was any of those activities, I cannot be held responsible for the criminal activities of another person. If their modem is vulnerable to such attacks, this is not within my power to control as I have no access to their modem to setup rules to block this type of traffic.

Bottom line--I can prove what I used and I will absolutely not pay for any overages occurred that I did not use. I'm not interested in figuring out how or why Videotron's counter acts the way it does or the behavior behind it.

If Electronicbox insists on building it's billing system around another company's equipment, they should have a method in place to double check that counter. At least then they could say our records show the exact same numbers for both Videotron's and our own counters, there must be a flaw in your system.

Right now I can prove that Videotron's counting is flawed, that there are other complaints in this regard, that Electronic Box has refunded others because of those complaints, what I used down to the kilobyte, if necessary and that every time I reported an issue, the issue was resolved almost immediately after. Logically, if my system was flawed in some way, we would end up with completely different numbers and while nothing is exact we are usually pretty close on a monthly basis, with the exception of every few months when Videotron's counter shits the bed.

Electronic Box nor Videotron can prove that my usage monitor is faulty in any way, shape or form. All they can stubbornly say is "our counter is the only one that matters." Which is completely false in real world expectations.

Electronic Box has been put on notice that I will continue keeping my logs and will continue to report each and every time there is a discrepancy and that those emails and logs will be used in a CCTS complaint, if necessary. They have also been notified that I absolutely will not pay for usage that I can prove I did not use. They are drawing a line in the sand with this Videotron counter business and while I do not like to threaten a complaint or flat out refuse to pay, should it come to that, they are not leaving me any choice in the matter.

Shrug
@videotron.ca

Shrug

Anon

And once you have everything and can conclude that it is a faulty B/W accounting, then also give the Montreal Gazettes tech guy and at least one French paper the same complaint you will file with the CCTS. Chances are they will run it.
resa1983
Premium Member
join:2008-03-10
North York, ON

resa1983

Premium Member

And Ellen Roseman.

»www.ellenroseman.com/

hm
@videotron.ca

hm

Anon

said by resa1983:

And Ellen Roseman.

»www.ellenroseman.com/

Can't say I ever saw her write about Quebec companies.
resa1983
Premium Member
join:2008-03-10
North York, ON

resa1983

Premium Member

said by hm :

said by resa1983:

And Ellen Roseman.

»www.ellenroseman.com/

Can't say I ever saw her write about Quebec companies.

She's very widely read, and has a lot of connections. If you managed to convince her to write about it, there'd be a large audience.

Davesnothere
Change is NOT Necessarily Progress
Premium Member
join:2009-06-15
Canada

4 edits

Davesnothere

Premium Member

said by resa1983:

said by hm :

said by resa1983:

And Ellen Roseman. - »www.ellenroseman.com/

Can't say I ever saw her write about Quebec companies.

She's very widely read, and has a lot of connections. If you managed to convince her to write about it, there'd be a large audience.

 
Tell her that Cogeco does exactly the same thing to/with THEIR retail customers.

That will broaden the readership/audience into Ontario, I promise !

Examples with common ground :

»[INTERNET] Absurd Cogeco internet charges

»[Niagara] 40gb of "usage" while the modem is unplugged

»[Burloak] Usage Based Billing Nightmare

»[INTERNET] 53gb upload in one day?!?

»[INTERNET] Overage usage skyrocketing

»Is this forum only for Cogeco haters?

»"Undesirable" customers: Cogeco, Audet

»Cogeco email can't autoforward to external address!?

»[NEWS] Modem Off? Get Charged For Usage By Cogeco Anyway

»[NEWS] Cogeco Still Can't Meter Their Users Correctly

THOSE (the last 2 are from DSLR Chief Correspondent Karl Bode) are from just the first 4 pages of the Cogeco forum here.
Davesnothere

Davesnothere

Premium Member

 
Here are a couple of my own threads about how it can happen (overbilling, that is) :

»Why Cogeco Subscribers are NOT Notified

»Cogeco's Broken Usage Meter
Davesnothere

Davesnothere to rednekcowboy

Premium Member

to rednekcowboy
 
BTW, excellent thread title !

Nitra
join:2011-09-15
Montreal

Nitra

Member

»gigaom.com/2013/02/07/mo ··· ccurate/
Nitra

Nitra

Member

In case people didn't see the link I posted above, NetForecast was hired by several American ISP's to audit their meters, it was found that, the vast majority of ISP's are not accurate at all.

You should have a read, it might give you something to go back to Videotron/Cogeco/Ebox, at least while you're fighting about right and wrong.

If the audit companies say something is wrong, you have ammo.

diskace
Retired
Premium Member
join:2002-02-21

diskace

Premium Member

Just an update on this thread.

We did setup a filter for redneckcowboy straight on the core router and captured logs showing that the cable company report is right.

It's not the kind of request we do process everyday as this involve getting permission from our client to deep packet each bytes of traffic and dumping that into a table + involve higher up staff such as CTO/CEO to connect into core router to capture all possible traffic on a given ip address.

Nitra
join:2011-09-15
Montreal

Nitra

Member

DPI makes me sad on many levels.

hm
@videotron.ca

hm to diskace

Anon

to diskace
Hey, neat that you did this Diskace. Didn't even know an ISP would do this, let alone a wholesaler.

So I guess videotrons tracker is right. At least, it was for the day(s) you captured.

So, umm, since you had permission to DPI this guy are you going to let us know what kind of kinky fetish porn he's in to?

diskace
Retired
Premium Member
join:2002-02-21

diskace

Premium Member

That is the whole point. I don't want people who think the counter is broken to start thinking we can setup this type of filter for every request. It's impossible business wise.

We wanted to see if there was something wrong and if that was the case like Mr. redneckcowboy suggested (30 GB discrepencies on Feb 1st) i would be the first in line to contact the engineers at the cable operator to point them at solid proof there is something broken.

There are some case like Nitra's one where the data consumed in the last 2 hours of the day in the month were reported into next month's cell causing someone to start with 50 GB on the first day of his month. The usage was not duplicated, only reported onto next month. I helped a couple of you guys with the billing side for identical scenarios but i think the tool is pretty reliable in reporting the data consumed.

hm
@videotron.ca

hm

Anon

Yeah I never had an issue with it.

I think over the course of a month a person can get about 500-meg of usage (under a gig) just by turning the modem on with no router or computer attached. That is the nature of a single wired cable.

When I went to Cuba everything was off except the modem itself (cuz the phone is on it) racked up something like under 100-meg a day.

Now if videotron ever charged me for going over by 1-gig, I would have something to say. But I never saw it spike like what this guy said. To my understanding the modem is polled once every 24-hrs. At least it used to be. No clue if that changed.

But it's good that you were able to do a check like this. +1

Nitra
join:2011-09-15
Montreal

Nitra

Member

Videotron really needs to fix that counter to poll every 15 minutes.
As well, stop banning people from refreshing the page.

rednekcowboy
join:2012-03-21

4 edits

rednekcowboy

Member

Just an update from my side here as well.

While I am working with Diskace, things are not quite as clear cut as he is portraying them to be here. 1st we have 4 seperate tracking methods (mine and then videotron's tool, a spreadsheet sent to me by Ebox and the nflow that Diskace is talking about).

I haven't had time to sift through them all as I have been working out of town but I will say, just on the face value alone that none of the 3 reports from the ISP side match. One shows 24GB, one shows 31GB and one shows 34GB. The data being given to me is also incomplete, missing time blocks and was sloppily thrown together mixing MB measurements into GB measurements and also, in some cases, double-counts and also even using different standards of measurement for what defines a GB (some methods are using 1024 MB=1 GB and some are using 1000 MB=1 GB). I will say, on their face, and with the discrepancies with the logs I am receiving from the ISP (in this case both Ebox and Videotron) that I cannot seem to rely on them at all. They can't even get their own reports to match, they send incomplete data and they can't even agree on a standard of measurement.

This also does not show if there was some sort of attack (which Ebox was claiming earlier) which I cannot be held liable for, as such attacks would be considered criminal and you cannot charge a victim of a crime for being a victim.

Once I get done working out of town, I will be setting up DUmeter in conjunction with my own router logs and make a comparison. I still do not feel that my logs have any errors whatsoever, however, if there is an issue I will most definitely post it in this thread, along with an apology to Diskace and his team. The problem with DUmeter is with my laptop. I do not solely use it on my own network as I use it for work as well. It also, though I'm not 100% on this, does not capture traffic from devices such as gaming systems or handheld devices (I have 3 gaming consoles and 3 handheld devices) as it has to be installed on the pc's specifically so it will not gather a complete picture (as with other such counters) which is why I went with the router log setup.

Also, on top of this, Diskace has stated that they are not disputing my logs prior to February, yet I have still not received a credit for the 30GB overage I was charged for November that I did not use, though to be 100% honest, I guess I have never come right out and asked for one but once he said they were not disputing those facts, I just assumed that one would be provided.

I was not going to post all of this here, however Diskace felt it necessary to post his side, so I'm updating from mine as well to keep all the facts straight.

I was also told Nitra that you did not have the same issue as me. I was told that you were billed for the wrong profile--not usage related at all, but yet here, he is admitting that it was usage related.

I'm not saying that Diskace is being deceptive, but he definitely did not put the whole story out there. The book is far from closed here.

I will also say that things are still following the same pattern as before. I reported a ~30GB discrepancy for Feb 1st, they did these traces, came back with "no issue" but the issue resolved itself and we've been within a few mb's since the day after I reported the issue.

If the problem truly was with my monitor, we should theoretically never be within a few mb's (especially not for weeks at a time), we should always report different values and the issues should not magically correct themselves. I know I haven't changed anything on my end and they claim they didn't change anything on theirs, however the issue is resolved so we need to find out what is causing the discrepancy and what is correcting that discrepancy. I did a small test yesterday and downloaded/uploaded 80 GB worth of data to see if I could replicate a discrepancy (to see if something was reporting error when confronted with large amounts of traffic in a short time) however the readings for both my counter and Videotron's were very close, so that is not the case.

Please, I'm not bashing on Ebox as they are doing much more than I thought they would and I appreciate that but I would rather reserve judgement until we have the whole, complete picture. If what they are saying is true (though the discrepancies within theirs and Vid's logs leave me pause) then we need to figure out why their modem is reporting traffic that my router is not receiving or seeing (ie that I'm not getting use of).
rednekcowboy

rednekcowboy

Member

So, just an update from my side.

I've added DUMeter to the mix and just as I had suspected, it backs up my router stats. It actually shows a wider discrepancy with the Videotron Usage Monitor than my router, but that is to be expected as it does not take into account handheld devices and videogame systems.

I really do like DUMeter. It is a great setup. I can login to my account from anywhere and see the usage per device per day per hour if I want. Very nice piece of software.
rednekcowboy

rednekcowboy

Member

Just a quick update here.

I'm not sure how much I am allowed to say, so I'll let diskace explain it if he chooses to do so.

All I have to say is that Ebox is absolutely freaking amazing. They have gained a customer for life and if anyone is in Ebox territory, I highly recommend that they don't look anywhere else!!
Expand your moderator at work

eboxnat1
join:2011-05-06
Montreal, QC

eboxnat1 to rednekcowboy

Member

to rednekcowboy

Re: Am I Crazy and What Can I Do?

Hello!

There was nothing "secret" about this issue :P no need to hide the facts.
Facts are that after a lot of back and forth we finally found proof of a problem with the calculation tool, but not network wide.
We did spot checks of a large assortment of clients to assure total chaos is not about to happen, we see that the usage tool issue is only present in one client account (rednekcowboy's).

As soon as there was a confirmation of this issue, we retroactively credited all overage fees on account and added some extra usage to tide him over until this is finally settled.

This was not a simple case, we have been working on it for a few months now, and I am happy to see almost resolved.

rednekcowboy
join:2012-03-21

rednekcowboy

Member

I'm sorry, wasn't trying to be secretive, but didn't want to cause a panic either so that's why I left it up to u guys to explain!!

As far as I am concerned, you guys have come through when it counts and I count myself lucky to be an Electronicbox client!!

Jeffer71
join:2008-09-13
Carrying Place, ON

Jeffer71

Member

Well done Ebox, while I'm not a client myself, I'm sure a lot of other people watch these threads to see how they pan out.

When looking to change providers, support that you have shown will be remembered...

Good Job & Yay for the customer!