Silence from Lindens on Excessive Bandwidth ?

Echo Hermit · August 18, 2012

I was looking through some of the photos my Second Life friends upload to Flickr, and realise such a lot of them aren't clued up about mesh and pathfinding, but have been residents for five years or more. I also realised that while you, me, and several thousand other residents choose to be Beta testers, many more thousands choose to just enjoy Second Life in the same way that they have always done, often when they come home from their stressful day jobs; they don't want to have to be reading up on new rules regs, and be slapped with massive charges for excessive bandwith use that they were not warned about.

While it is certainly true, and in the Terms of Service, that LL reserve the right to change the way Second Life runs without reason or explanation or prior notice, it certainly does not seem right or fair, or a way to keep regular paying customers (see Perrie's post, he puts it so much better than me), and this issue of excessive bandwith really has to be sorted out as soon as possible.

If it can't be fixed, then ALL residents must receive notification and instructions on how to protect themselves from massive bills or a shutdown of their broadband service when their fair user limit has been reached, which looks like they would have to be advised to keep their access to SL down to a minimum. (Like when a shop floods, and has to be closed down until the water has been pumped out and the drainage fixed.)

Just like when a car manufacturer gives the manual with the car, and a 'nanny state' warning that although the car can reach speeds of 110mph, speed limits still must be adhered to.

Panther Miklos · August 18, 2012

Suddenly I'm glad this topic jumped out at me. I tend to be the low end spec user in my SL family, so constant redlining when in certain areas in-world is the norm for me. After reading through most of what I could find on this subject, I decided it might be a good idea to check my bandwidth numbers. Holy guacamole! What a surprise I found. Although I've not been in-world for a while now (certainly not during this pathfinding release - at least not to my knowledge... it's been about a month since I've been in for more than one minute), it seems I suffered this excessive bandwidth issue during the last week of May. As one can see.... 2k GB basically on one day is a wee bit... shall we say excessive? I do not use my system to stream or download movies, tv, etc. So, yeah.... this would be SL use. I'm gobsmacked and hoping like hell my provider didn't see that and decide to smack me upside the head with throttling and wicked over rate charges for this massive bandwidth use. Yikes!

Paul Hexem · August 18, 2012

In the end, this is actually a pretty big deal. That's a HUGE chunk of data, considering.

Comcast recently suspended enforcement, but I know their cap is 250 gb, for example. Others are even less.

Personally, if my bill was affected by this, I'd be forwarding it to LL.

Perrie Juran · August 18, 2012

Dartagan Shepherd wrote:

Cincia Singh wrote:

Do you also blame your car manufacturer because you got a speeding ticket; after all the speedometer goes up to 190 kph so it's the manufacturer's fault if you do that and get a ticket, right? If you over-draw your checking account do you blame the retailer for selling you something and you wrote a check you didn't have the money to cover? People with bandwidth caps know full well they have a limitation and it's their responsibility to monitor their use and stay within their limit, not someone elses fault if they exceed it; not anyone elses.

And thank you Ay for making it personal and insulting.

But right, consistently pushing responsibility back on the user ... not helping solve the real problems. User is here to have fun with something that works reliably for a reasonable price. Or free if the company works off freeplay models.

If the company wants to push it all back on the user, then let the company say it.

Really @ Cincia

Many of us have been having problems with clusters of failed teleports. It is not hyperbole or made up bull droppings. It's a real problem many of us keep encountering.

I have mentioned and specifically asked Oskar in this forum THREE times what information can I provide to help. I could start a JIRA, "Teleports Are Failing." Yeah, right. Lot of good a bland generic JIRA like that would do. So I asked SPECIFICALLY what information do you need Oskar so I can start a profitable JIRA.

THREE TIMES I ASKED.

Never an answer. Maybe they are already aware of the problem. Then say so! Maybe there is no information I can provide from my end. Then say so! What's so hard about that?

So who is responsible for the problem? Me or the Lab?

I wanted to help. I wanted to contribute. Instead I got ignored.

If you want to talk about insults, your post was an insult to us.

WolfBaginski Bearsfoot · August 18, 2012

The cream of SL society
Go for pixel pornography,
So to catch their eyes one must hint and tease
Fillin' Facebook and Twitter with Hefnerese.
But the ones who are running the net,
Who can spot the misguided delivery.
Will laugh at your secrets in text,
When they post to sys.admin.recovery

Brush up your Usenet,
Start reading it now.
Brush up your Usenet
And Tim Berners-Lee you will wow.
Just quote from a FAQ by Elf Sternberg
And hormones in Zindra will ever surge.
But if there's a Linden who won't talk
Let him post to alt.fan.ankh-morpork
And if still, to be sure, he defends all,
There are plenty of groups ending dot-fail.
Brush up your Usenet
And they'll all kowtow.

Talia Davidov · August 18, 2012

Ok your analogies fail completely as it is not the same thing at all. You want analogies here are your analogies more apt to the situation. You are driving along in a zone that has a speed limit of 70 MPH and after you pass the posted sign a county worker comes out and changes the sign to 55 MPH and a cop pulls you over and gives you a speeding ticket. Do you blame them for your speeding . .yep.

In your checking account analogy. You write all your normal monthly checks, but the bank suddenly adds a $100 processing fee to every check without notifying you. Therefore, you go overbalance. Do you blame the bank heck yeah.

(both analogies are strained but hey I had crud analogies to start with).

Here is the one other thing Cincia that DOES make LL responsible. They have a setting in the client software that sets the maximum bandwidth the client is supposed to use. This BUG ignores that setting. It is not unreasonable for an end user to expect the software and servers to adhere to its own settings on maximum bandwidth used.

Bottom line, I am not arguing the LAB should be paying peoples Internet bills. I am arguing that they have a moral obligation to fix this as quickly as possible. They have a moral obligation to TALK TO US. The silence is maddening. At the very least they should have posted a warning somewhere when they finally realized this was a legitimate issue. I am sure there are people that won't have a clue until they get a large bill about it.

Your assertion that it is the peoples using the service fault for not checking bandwidth every moment is what made this personal, not Ayesha. It implies a stupidity factor for all those affected.

Cully Andel · August 18, 2012

Excellent post - and for me they have an obligation of some sort to recognise that this is keeping fee paying customers out of SL, and some sort of financial compensation for those users might be in order (ie refund of tier or something along those lines)

Talia Davidov · August 18, 2012

The problem with any kind of compensation thing is that you would have people crawling out of the woodwork claiming to be affected and demanding money even when it didn't really affect them.

When there are issues with say cellular companies, and their costumers start getting charged huge amounts, they almost always make some kind of financial arrangement like writing off a huge portion of the bill. However, LL is not in this boat. They are not the billing entity and therefore do not know who is legitimately being affected. Take me for example, I won't get charged more (I believe) but I have found my Internet throttled. But if they start any sort of compensation program, I could run up and shout "me too, me too!!" It sucks that their are people that would take advantage of the situation, but there are, it is the world we live in.

The best compensation we should hope for is getting it fixed and (turns and shouts in LLs general direction) BETTER COMMUNICATION!!!!!

Edit to fix typo

Cully Andel · August 19, 2012

I had thought that but copies of bills can be provided, and let's face it, if LL were really serious about this, they wouldnt put themselves in the position that this would even be an issue. Most people, even when totally pee'd off, are a lot happier when they simply know what's happening - which is the whole point of this thread. No one knows because LL are not speaking.

I'm lucky in that I have unlimited, really unlimited, but I know people affected and I'm keen to find out what Lindens say about this.

/me listen to tumbleweeds...................

Ayesha Askham · August 19, 2012

Nice to hear folk discussing this in a sensible manner without phrases like "entitlement generation" and "nanny state" creeping in!

I guess we won't hear a word from Linden Lab now until their Monday morning planning meetings are over. (Assuming that they have such things).

In my experience LL are quite keen that unattributable comments and reports are made by certain SL residents, it is rare for a Linden to actually comment on blogs and almost unknown for them to comment on JIRAs save to castigate folk for not being objective enough.

I am not saying that individual Lindens do not care...many do actually, but the corporate line is enforced quite strongly. That is likely to change only if the attitude of senior management changes, and I won't live long enough to see that happen.

Cully Andel · August 19, 2012

I dont event know what 'entitlement generation' means but at 48 I'm pretty sure I'm not part of it

It's a shame the lindens aren't her for this one, it really is. One, simple comment, one, simple action, is all it needed. Instead we are now the first of possibly many who will be looking to leave. Rodvik promised us better customer service (wherever he is). good customer service starts from the top down unfortunately.

An yes, Ayesha, we'll all be long gone by the time they realise that one. Such a shame.

WolfBaginski Bearsfoot · August 19, 2012

One of the very general concepts in law and morality is that things which can work between roughly equal individuals tend to break when there is inequality. A big corporation has a large number of potential customers, and a product people want, and can make any contract they wish to supply the product. You either sign the contract, or do without.

So there a plausible argument that one purpose of the state is to curb the excesses of corporations, There are laws on contracts which make some terms potentially inlawful, and even impose penalties for trying to forve them on people. This sort of law goes back to the medieval markets, and the idea, still in Britieh law, that goods have to be of "merchantable quality". The law says, if effect, that all the lawyers in the world cannot save you if you lie about what you are selling.

This is why we need regulation.

And things like that little bit of history are why I distrust people who use terms such as "nanny state" when they argue against the current levels of regulation in the marketplace.

So where are Linden Labs, and the rest of the Internet business, on this?

I can't give links, you have to be an account holder to access the pages, but the ISP I use, here in the UK, have a usage cap. They will warn you, twice, if you exceed the 40 GB per month they set as a limit, and then put you on a monthly "boost". An extra GBP 5.00 for "unlimited" usage looks rather nice, actually. But they only allow you a total of 80 GB, which is a usage of "unlimited" which is sadly at variance with the OED.

And, even with the legal protections against false advertising, they get away with it.

It's the sort of thing which is prejudicial to good society. If lies are not punished, how can we interact with anyone? How do we know who to trust? As for silence, as for whether the Lindens are good men or not, it is commonly claimed that Edmund Burke said that "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."

Silence is the ultimate doing of nothing.

Perrie Juran · August 19, 2012

WolfBaginski Bearsfoot wrote:

One of the very general concepts in law and morality is that things which can work between roughly equal individuals tend to break when there is inequality. A big corporation has a large number of potential customers, and a product people want, and can make any contract they wish to supply the product. You either sign the contract, or do without.

So there a plausible argument that one purpose of the state is to curb the excesses of corporations, There are laws on contracts which make some terms potentially inlawful, and even impose penalties for trying to forve them on people. This sort of law goes back to the medieval markets, and the idea, still in Britieh law, that goods have to be of "merchantable quality". The law says, if effect, that all the lawyers in the world cannot save you if you lie about what you are selling.

This is why we need regulation.

And things like that little bit of history are why I distrust people who use terms such as "nanny state" when they argue against the current levels of regulation in the marketplace.

So where are Linden Labs, and the rest of the Internet business, on this?

I can't give links, you have to be an account holder to access the pages, but the ISP I use, here in the UK, have a usage cap. They will warn you, twice, if you exceed the 40 GB per month they set as a limit, and then put you on a monthly "boost". An extra GBP 5.00 for "unlimited" usage looks rather nice, actually. But they only allow you a total of 80 GB, which is a usage of "unlimited" which is sadly at variance with the OED.

And, even with the legal protections against false advertising, they get away with it.

It's the sort of thing which is prejudicial to good society. If lies are not punished, how can we interact with anyone? How do we know who to trust? As for silence, as for whether the Lindens are good men or not, it is commonly claimed that Edmund Burke said that "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."

Silence is the ultimate doing of nothing.

One of the things about advertising is that there are 'legal' definitions that are applied.

For instance, at least here in the States, there is an allowed plus or minus when stating measurements.

For instance, cur fabrics allow for plus or minus an inch if I recall correctly.

In other words, when I bought pre-made drapes for my windows, although the packages stated they were 64 inches, one was actually 63 1/2, the other was 64 1/4. Side by side they didn't look good. Most manufacturers do try to achieve more accurate cuts. But it is perfectly legal that they weren't the exact measurement as stated.

The store did allow me to open and measure when I went back to replace them so I had a matching set.

Ayesha Askham · August 19, 2012

Sadly, Perrie

That is one of the reasons why US manufactured goods have such a dreadful reputation for quality and consistency abroad. Such variances would never be tolerated in Britain or Europe.

The FDA is one thing that America did get right...very right, although it was also very necessary. I think if I was to get any more into this I would be way off topic. I will simply say that quality assurance has been a very large part of my professional life.

The difference in what constitutes "entitlement" and what is just plain common sense and moral seem to be very different on either side of the Atlantic. A substantial body of US opinion really does seem to favour the "devil take the hindmost" approach.

I simply do not understand it.

Singular Binder · August 19, 2012

O.K so it seems as usual so many residence are prepared to carry the weight of such bugs and 'blame' the user/resident for not all having unlimited bandwidth ISP accounts.. this frankly baffling attitude never ceases to amaze me.

Firstly its a bug !.. it should be addressed so lets not blame residence for this or their choice of service either due to financial constraints or simply because they don’t have an unlimited service available in their area, also to those of you that have (like me) an unlimited bandwidth service - that doesn’t decry from the fact that this is also a performance issue!! you may have an unlimited bandwidth allowance but do you also have an unlimited data rate ?.. and even if you do .. does linden labs ?.. NO they do not and nor does anyone else, in other words streaming this much data to as many residence as may be in a region will unduly load linden labs server data stream, the pay-off being lower performance from those servers and their respective connections - so I would imagine that linden labs are grateful for all the feedback that they are receiving on this issue which will help them to resolve the problem and reduce the load on their server connections. It is worth adding here also a re-focus on this problem - its not small potatoes, this is a massive increase when its in full affect, normally after your client has loaded all you see the bandwidth draw reduces from whatever you are able to take and linden has to offer by way of bandwidth to a very meagre 20 to 50 kbps with an occasional momentary spike to say 200 kbps or so as and when u re orientate your avatar, this issue changes that to a constant 2000+ kbps which translates to as little as 10 x increase to as much as 100 x increase in bandwidth requirement, this should not be so easily dismissed as something we can tolerate. I really wish people would be more considerate of their remarks on these forums 'against' other residence who are trying to positively help linden labs solve such issues rather than attacking each other negatively with senseless nonsense, if there is disagreement with a technical point - then by all means please address that technical point, but if its a matter of opinion then this becomes subjective and completely counter productive. Whereas I seldom approve of linden labs sloppy deployments and disregard for the well considered bug reporting prior to deployment, we should at the very least all support each other in supporting linden labs in solving these issues rather than constantly issuing get out of jail free cards for what are at the end of the day fundamental functionality issues and so - thank you Darleen and all other residence who have addressed this issue objectively.

Nalates Urriah · August 20, 2012

The Lindens are speaking. I've been in two meetings where they were talking about the issue and when they thought they would have it fixed.

Nalates Urriah · August 20, 2012

Everyone playing SL made an agreement with the Lab. If you want to change that agreement both sides have to be willing to make a change and negotiate a new agreement. That is the free market, which is already over regulated and not so free.

In a free market it is the job of government to prevent extortion, monopolies, false advertising, and other misrepresentations and things society considers criminal. In socialist governments and controlled markets the governments force people and business to do things. Neither side gets to negotiate. It becomes a matter of how many people can influence the politician... or even worse what the politician's person belief is that gets imposed on everyone. The result is less freedom, innovation, prosperity and more government control and poverty.

The Lab is not falsely advertising in this case because the high bandwidth is a mistake and in law this problem is treated mostly as an accident. The Liability of a car maker is not comparable because the laws governing the manufacture of cars and the maker's liability have been defined differently and can result in the loss of life. Whatever the case the losses in regard to this problem are so small no one can afford to pursue the matter. So the legal side essentially moot.

Those people that did not pay attention to their bandwidth use are going to be stuck paying for their negligence and having agreed to the SL ToS.

That people want some third party, like the government, to come in and regulate for their benefit so they can remain negligent after they made an agreement is partially what the nanny state is about. It seems some think the government or regulation could somehow prevent mistakes.

Several people here would prefer someone make the Lab do something. The Lab will live up to their agreement. At least they won't be in the forum crying about having to live up to their side of the areement.

Several seem to think this screw up is a deliberate act of the Lab to increase bandwidth use. But, as pointed out in one post, this mistake is costing the Lab too. So, the idea it is deliberate I’ll attribute to clueless people being frustrated.

I think the thread has made it very clear which people want to place all responsibility on the Lab and lack any empathy for mistakes. I find it interesting how many people see no responsibility to live up to the agreements they have made and want changes forced on others for their personal benefit.

Cully Andel · August 20, 2012

Lindens speaking behind closed doors to a handful of people does not mean they're talking. Lindens are not here, on the forum, where people are asking questions. If they want to keep their customers happy, they should be HERE telling them what's happening.

I dont recall anyone saying anywhere that this is a deliberate act by Linden labs, and to say anyone has is just adding fuel. The fact is that if a company makes a mistake it's all to easy to hide behind the TOS, much harder to stand up and admit it and try to make recompense - and here's the crux of the matter - to keep customers happy.. Unhappy customers do not stay. How many times have manufacturers recalled something because they made a mistake? Result - happy customers who trust that company. On the one hand, Lindens are admitting a mistake. That's fine. No problem. Then they're not telling people publicly what's going on. Distrust creeps in. And finally they refuse to offer their fee paying customers who cannot log in for 2-3 weeks any form of recompense whatsoever. (Though we may be pleasantly surprised) Instead it;s 'read the TOS or leave' from other people. Doesn't say much to how they value their customers, And this is just common sense.

I run my own business. If i make a mistake and don't work with my customers to reach a satisfactory conclusion, I lose that customer. That customer knows other potential customers, who know others, and so it goes on. Keeping just one customer happy can have an enormous benefit for a business. Not informing any of your customers can have an enormously detrimental effect. It's just simple customer service.

And please, I still don't understand because no one who mentions this has actually answered this question. Why would someone who uses the internet regularly for the same things on a daily basis, suddenly think they have to check their bandwidth daily? A couple of years ago I had no problems. Then i got an email from my isp (Yes SL did something then too) and i increased my allowance to accommodate the changes. This is a one off, but it is having RL implications for people and I'm sorry, but the TOS should never affect what people do on the internet outside of SL, and this bug is doing just that. The excess bandwidth was so fast and so high that it's really not fair to blame anyone for not having the chance to check, and for the most part it's been noticed because people actually have checked. Thing is, you wouldn't normally expect this amount of usage, so why suddenly decide to check? It's a bug. It's a one off after all.

Officially we still have no date. Officially we still have no announcement that a solution has been found. Officially we have a problem which no one knows is being handled. You can attack the users all you like, but the fact is LL made a mistake (Yes a mistake) but they do not seem to be considering the effect it's having on its customers, and its fee paying customers as well, and they are the ones likely to suffer, not the customers. As you say, everyone has the right to walk away. You think after this, they wo'nt? And you think it won't adversely affect what other customers think?

I play on a different game. It was in beta so there were lots of crashes and days where people couldn' log in. The developers could have said, 'Hey. It's beta you knew this. get over it.' But instead they offered in world compensation to everyone affected. It cost very little to them financially, but it got them a massive boost in customer satisfaction which led to fee paying customers down the road. Sticking to your TOS is wonderful, but it's a high price to pay sometimes for losing customers.

WolfBaginski Bearsfoot · August 20, 2012

So what did they say?

It's not like you to be this reticent. One might almost think that they has you sign an NDA before they would talk to you.

JoyofRLC Acker · August 20, 2012

Cully (and others) - Im now quite confused on the technical side.

I have been using Bitmeter OS today to check my BW usage, and its reporting rates that are very significantly lower than what is reported by SL stats bar. (Obviously I have to get another meter to x-check make sure that BitMeter is accurate). This raises the possibiity of thorttling by my ISP.

I had previously commenrted that my daily usage as reported by my ISP was up but by nothing like the extend impled by the SL bandwidth numbers, and not enough to encroach on my monthly limit. So this may be why the level f complaints about real world $ or caps coming into effect has been fairly low (it seems).

This sort of confirmed my gut feeling (not having done the maths I admit) that - assuming the stats bar BW numbers are correct - something else other than log file spam must be going on, text spam seeems unlikely to generate multiple MPBS of traffic (I hit 5+ MBPS in Blake the other day admottedyl with a highish DD of 800m). So the spam is a POSSIBLE symptom it seems ot me not the cause of the BS figures. IF they are accurate. Perhpas the stats bar is wrong...

So, yes, being throttled (unexpected;y) is not good (and may explain the increased rate of client crashes Im getting with non trivial draw distances). But perhpas not quite as exptreme as a 2 or 2 digit extra bill at thend of the month or suddenyl being capped.

I agree with the thrust of what you say about customer service etc and LL communication, but my final reaction will depend on what the problem (and fix) turn out to actually be.

Dartagan Shepherd · August 20, 2012

Nalates Urriah wrote: