Data Experience Update

mark_a_e

Hello all,

The data experience on the giffgaff network has always had a very high priority and we are always working to ensure that we deliver a fair data service to you. Last year, thanks to all of your feedback, we began tracking a decline in data speeds for members and since then we have been working hard to protect your data experience.

We recognise that there’s more to do, but we wanted to provide an update to share the progress that has been made and also share how we intend to make further improvements throughout 2015.

What’s all this about?

Your data experience is affected by a large number of variables, but managing network congestion is one of the most tangible ways of ensuring that you get the best possible download speeds. During our busiest hours, the giffgaff network can become congested and at these times it’s important that network resource is being used as fairly and efficiently as possible between members.

How are we doing right now?

Whilst we know that there’s more work to do, it’s also important to recognise the progress which has been made in the recent months.

We’re delivering more data By increasing our overall network capacity, members are currently using 30% more data now than at the same time last year. In fact, if you add it all up, we’re delivering 6 billion MB more in 2015 than we did in 2014.
The network is being used more fairly: In August 2014, a massive 30% of network resources were being used by only 1% of members. Now, the top 1% of data users consume only 18% of the network meaning that the majority benefit from an additional 12% of network resource.
Data satisfaction has improved: It’s encouraging that Data speed satisfaction has improved from 66% in August 2014 to an average of 71% in 2015.

This is all good news, but we have also been listening carefully to community feedback and we recognise that not everyone has noticed an improvement so far. We know that we have further to go and are committed to protecting the data experience for all members and ensuring that you receive a fair and consistent service.

We have been tracking the data experience carefully in recent months and whilst download speeds have improved on average, we have also seen significant differences in service levels from one week to the next. For this reason, we are putting a significant level of focus into delivering a more consistent data experience to you as well as continuing to reduce the overall level of network congestion.

OK, so what’s next?

As you can imagine, there is on-going work to increase the overall capacity of your mobile network and these increases are released on a monthly basis to you. In addition, we have now built a number of tools which we can use to manage network congestion, including Traffic Flow, preventing tethering on unlimited data goodybags and video optimisation. We will use all of these to help provide a more consistent experience to you:

Capacity management: Delivering a consistent experience is achieved by providing the correct amount of capacity to meet the changing demands of giffgaff members. We have made some changes to the way that we deliver our monthly capacity increases throughout 2015 to ensure that we’re providing additional capacity when it’s most needed.
Traffic Flow: We will continue to see improvements in the distribution of data usage over time, so we will keep you up to date on progress.
Tethering recognition: Tethering with an unlimited data goodybag is against our terms and conditions and we refer to this as ‘illegitimate usage’. It’s 18 months since we last made changes to our tethering recognition policy so we are kicking off a project to update our rules and ensure that we continue to identify tethering accurately as technology evolves.

All of these initiatives are currently being worked on and will protect your data experience over the coming months. In addition to all of the above, we continue to review new initiatives and opportunities and will share more information if any of them seem like plausible possibilities following investigation.

We’re looking forward to hearing your feedback.

Mark.

djbonner07

🙂

mark1101b

Thanks for the info Mark

bmw4175

You talk about this improvement we've seen in download speeds.

Where has this improvement happened because the majority of members that post on my threads are still getting an unusable service or 1mbps d/l and that's If there very lucky!!!

Sorry but this long awaited statement tells us nothing! ☹

Edited.

It's now April 11th 2015 early on a Saturday afternoon and here is a result using a 3g goodybag :

Check out my Ookla Speedtest result. What's your speed? http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/a/1237787266

Now this problem has been going on for over a year and a half so maybe you can see why a lot of members have totally lost faith in giffgaff!

Sad times indeed ☹

Edited again April 2016

You'd think a year after my last edit they'd have sorted this out but no it's worse than ever!

It's a joke! Shame on you giffgaff ☹

j_s

unfortunately it doesn't matter if its peak times or not. data is pathetic in my area.

@bmw4175 i wish i could reach half that speed. in down to 0.28 mbps and its getting worse

dalan

I see no improvement, just higher prices for less data.

bmw4175

@bmw4175 i wish i could reach half that speed. in down to 0.28 mbps and its getting worse

Sorry but I was trying to be as generous as possible when I said 1mbps.....

I just want to know after a year and a half how this acceptable? It hasn't got any better!!!

I think this is giffgaffs way of saying this is as good as it gets ☹

greenfrogman

Need to post this as a idea as well (even though no one will like it)

As little or no warning banning under unlimited is a thing on Giffgaff looking at changing that so it's more fair spread the data that Giffgaff has

So No more banning but in replacement of that is a high speed cap of 10gb that once you hit it your speeds between 8am-midnight is 128kbs (0.1mb) but outside of them times midnight-8am no traffic management (as its off peak then and speeds are norm not congested)

Standard policy between 3pm-midnight to 300kbs still applys if using high amount of data fast (doing over 200-500mb seems to trigger that, resets at midnight)

The above allows easier capacity management as you know that your unlimited goodybag customers are less unpredictable and stops people from using above 20-60gb and affecting other members (as the Unlimited goodybag ban only takes affect at the end of the goodybag so they are free to hammer away till the end of there goodybag, witch I find unfair banning does not work all it leads to is bad customers feedback and then all the bad reviews about banning under unlimited)

Giffgaff is the only mobile company that bans under unlimited (be it a delayed one it's still a ban)

xollobru

@mark_a_e

Whist it makes a refreshing change for someone from giffgaff's ivory tower to stick their head over the parapet and actually post an update there seems to be an overwhelming aroma of corporate cattle effluent about it.

You claim that download speeds have improved on average from what speed to what speed and at what times of day?

When will the next update be posted as it is now well over a year since the slowdown started?

cim

@mark_a_e

How does gg measure data satisfaction?

How bad did the 29% have to say that the data experience was to be to be counted as dissatisfied?

How much faster are average speeds than say 6 months ago - specifically in MB/s?

What happens to gg as a business if the ongoing lack of customer satisfaction in the data experience filters to external network reviews and gg's reputation is damaged?

pinkcalculator

I suspect this thread isn't quite what members where hoping for no magic bullet

greenfrogman

@pinkcalculator

You just got the 10th post off me lol 🙂 (edited me other one)

Need to post this as a idea as well (even though no one will like it)

As little or no warning banning under unlimited is a thing on Giffgaff looking at changing that so it's more fair spread the data that Giffgaff has

No more banning but in replacement of that is a high speed cap of 10gb that once you hit it your speeds between 8am-midnight is 128kbs (0.1mb) but outside of them times midnight-8am no traffic management (as its off peak and most are sleeping)

Standard policy between 3pm-midnight to 300kbs still applys if using high amount of data fast (doing over 200-500mb seems to trigger that)

rong42

Data satisfaction has improved: It’s encouraging that Data speed satisfaction has improved from 66% in August 2014 to an average of 71% in 2015.
It would be interesting to know what percentage of the user base this is based on? Is this some kind of regular survey? On the forum we are always going to see the people who are unhappy, that's the nature of having an open forum which is primarily there to provide support. So in terms of where these figures are coming from, it would be nice to have an idea of how representative this is

gordie10

Good to see you busting, once and for all, the urban myth around the community that data capacity is only increased annually, when it's actually increased monthly. 🙂

gordie10

@bmw4175 wrote:

You talk about this improvement we've seen in download speeds.

Where has this improvement happened because the majority of members that post on my threads are still getting an unusable service or 1mbps d/l and that's If there very lucky!!!

To be fair, most members that are quite happy with their download speeds are unlikely to be perusing the community forum to tell everyone about it. Only those with problems tend to speak out. Mark is able to see the full picture, which he has presented to us here (albeit in fairly vague terms).

greenfrogman

@gordie10

I see the picture quite fine here, not every one uses Giffgaff for data or are not bothered with sub 1mb speeds, some probably think it's normal that they can't stream video when on 3g, but paying 4g users do notice (0.5-2mb down - 10-20mb up) as they expect it to be fast and they are paying more for a service that some times is slower then 3g witch is only a Giffgaff issue (not mast or o2 network related)

People I talked to have never used the fourms on Giffgaff and do state it's slow or youtube is very low quality or pauses a lot (as youtube auto changes quality based on data speed)

I been hear for long time and past January 2014 it got progressively worse to the point now it seems to avg out at 0.4 at times (burst speeds for 1 second ish at the start of tests 1-2mb/s but once the shaper kicks in norm drop as low as 0.2mb/s as it trys to limited the amount of data)

And to add to that no warnings that there is unlimited banning under unlimited goodybag if you use data to fast (witch is a vague figure of above 12-20gb) witch my post about high speed capping to 10gb to 128kbs gives them the option to read the traffic flow page and next month change there habits (it's still unlimited as they can still use the Internet just at slow speeds between 8am-midnight (outside of them times it would be unrestricted)

in the T&C as a traffic management policy witch is allowed under ASA rules as now only top 1-2% are using over 10gb that is way below 5% witch traffic shaping is allowed to be manged (as they may be affecting the rest of us, should be able to get that currant capacity of 18% for top 1% down to below 10% or lower)

gindygoo

I've just topped up so I'll see if there's an improvement. I'm not holding my breath though. Really had hoped this upcoming announcement was going to bring far more exciting news ☹

The proof is in the data experience I guess.

blackfive460

An interesting figure would be the number of customers (like me) who no longer use giffgaff data. I wonder if that number has grown over the past year or so?

Clearly, I doubt we'll ever see those figures, but they should be telling giffgaff something about their customers perceptions of the giffgaff data experience.

Perhaps shouldn't really be commenting as I gave up on giffgaff for data quite a while ago so, to be fair, I may give it a try but I'm far from confident and, even if it were now acceptable (i.e. usable), it would need to have improved by leaps and bounds to cause me to ditch the network I currently use for my data needs.

The proof of the pudding, as they say...

rong42

@blackfive460 if data usage by that top 1% of heavy users has gone down across the whole network (" In August 2014, a massive 30% of network resources were being used by only 1% of members. Now, the top 1% of data users consume only 18% of the network meaning that the majority benefit from an additional 12% of network resource."

but overall data usage has gone up across the network ("By increasing our overall network capacity, members are currently using 30% more data now than at the same time last year")

then it would seem like more people are using giffgaff, or people (out of the top 1%) on giffgaff are using more data, or - more realistically - some mix of the two?

will giffgaff never be added to the forum's spellcheck!!! :smileyfrustrated:

gordie10

@blackfive460 wrote:

An interesting figure would be the number of customers (like me) who no longer use giffgaff data. I wonder if that number has grown over the past year or so?

Clearly, I doubt we'll ever see those figures, but they should be telling giffgaff something about their customers perceptions of the giffgaff data experience.

They'd also have to be careful not to read too much into those figures - I, for example, haven't used giffgaff for mobile data for over a year, not because I don't think it's any good, but because I don't need to. (I actually have no idea whether it would be any good for me or not.)