Technology explained: Capped vs Uncapped

Our clients often ask us about the difference between Capped vs Uncapped and why we always recommend capped accounts for our business clients.  I found this nice explanation from Johan Botha.

When it comes to Capped vs Uncapped Internet, here’s a breakdown of the pros and cons, to help you decide which to choose:

Let’s start with Shaping. This is the technology used to determine what type of data is flowing through your modem, and this is used to shape your data stream to a slower or faster stream for special purposes. Remember “internet” is just a smart word for all the computers in the world connected to each other, with whatever means necessary, and all sharing the SAME pipeline, so shaping is needed for the ones misusing the lines for downloading huge files like movies.

Uncapped Internet

This type is the lowest priority on the network, meaning that if 10 guys are standing in a queue for bread, you will be the last one (no.10), and have to wait for everyone to finish before you can get your bread. This is exactly the same for using the internet. Your data (webpage/email/ftp) request will have to wait until everyone has finished with their requests at the same time you did yours.

– The upside of this is that you pay a very small monthly installment and can theoretically download at least 118GB per month on the slowest line (384kbps).

– This is NOT to be used for mission-critical business applications, and is better suited to home or leisure use.

– The average cost per Uncapped line is about R149.00* per month.

Capped Internet

This type is the second fastest priority on the network and share its priority with Cell phone internet users seeing as there are no uncapped options available for cell phone users. Again the above example applies, but this time, you will jump from number 10 to 6 in the queue, then to number 3 and so on, bettering your time every time.

– The downside of this is that you pay a much more expensive rate per GB, and have only 2 options to choose from: Prepaid, which carries the data over if not used in the same month, and is more expensive, and Capped, where you lose the data that you don’t use at the end of the month, which is a bit cheaper.

– This can be used for mission-critical business applications and home users, but NOT for heavy downloaders.

– The average cost per GB is about R59.00*

Leased Line / Diginet Internet

This type is the fastest on the internet, and if you request data, ALL other users are bypassed and you get moved to the front of the queue.

– The downside is that this is the most expensive internet in the world, but the upside of it is that you will be uncapped in total, with no limitations whatsoever.

– This is usually used only for mission-critical corporations, and NOT suitable for anyone else.

– You can theoretically download about 1.3TB per month on a 512kbps line.

I hope this information has proven useful and if you need any further advice you can speak to somebody in the Techtron Team.