Tuesday, May 26, 2009

FAP Unfairly Denies Access to Users

Fair Access Policy, which might be more accurately described as a bad policy gone amuck, many Internet users are not aware of the term FAP or Fair Access Policy which is an arbitrary use case scenario where a figure is picked that is then enforced as a punitive measure if you exceed the limit.

The limit is the bandwidth that you are allowed to use on any given 24 hour period.

As you might imagine, no policy can be perfect, because this is designed to limit your use of a service over a period of time, there are some that use more bandwidth, than other users, and still others that use much more than the average user, this policy is designed to level the playing field among all users, however the problem is that the policy does not actually work very well in doing that.

The limit is apparently calculated during a 24 hour period and if you exceed the speed limit of this bandwidth you are then penalized and punished as a speeder on the network. The problem comes in many different situations, for instance this user was just penalized, after a period of time where I was unable to use the service at all, in other words, the service was down. Now, I did not get a refund on that amount of bandwidth that I was unable to access, this is where this problem begins to get out of hand, and also this is where the policy becomes unfair.

The ISP, (Internet Service Provider)

Creates this speed limit, yet does not track the long term offenders of this speed limit, they just penalize everyone at the same rate of penalty, this creates further issues with regard to providing a smooth and happy customer service experience.

One wonders what is up with the people in charge of these companies. I for one and I suspect there are many others, would rather there be different levels of speeding, different speeding tickets in other words. If you constantly offend the speed limit, then the punishment should be different than say someone who offends just once a month, yet currently the punishment is the same for every offender. Here is an excellent example, on the 30th of last month, the Internet service was unavailable for use, (in other words the service was not working). On the next day the 31st I used up more bandwidth than normal because I had no access the day before there was additional need to catch up.

Yet I was punished at a rate far in excess of the violation.

So really I should get credit for the time in which I was unable to use the service. This is really like having your cake and eating it too for the ISP. They get to limit your use on a daily basis, yet if they cannot provide service for any given period they feel no responsibility to the user at all, its tough luck the way the policy works is entirely in the favor of the ISP and has no basis in good customer service.

It creates negative feelings among subscribers and leaves out many useful marketing stratagems, say for instance you get a speeding ticket one day out of the entire month. You are then penalized, at the same rate as say offenders that get speeding tickets every day, this is just not right nor is it fair in any meaningful way.

When you compare Satellite service with other comparable ISP services, bandwidth is hardly ever an issue, in fact speeds for cable provide performance speeds at many time that of satellite services, which begs the question, Are you really getting the most for your money using satellite services to access the Internet.

ReelStuff is a published author in both magazines and books both online and off line.
http://www.books4smarts.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Tim_K_Franklin

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