2010-3Q: SIMPLer: Customer Throttling Through SAND

1) Traffic Limit based SAND

SIMPLer Subscriber Auto Notification / Disconnection (SAND) system has been upgraded to allow Operators to throttle Customers to the appropriate level of downlink/uplink rate after they reach their monthly bandwidth allowance limit. Until now three functionalities were available:

• • Email Notification

  • Disconnection

  • Overage – automatic charge

An additional option has now been added giving Operators the ability to limit a customer’s bandwidth speeds (throttle) until more bandwidth has been added to their account.

In order to setup the SAND system Customer Traffic Limit based SAND (Fig. 1) must be set to something other than “Off” under the WISP setup (This is located under Settings->Modify WISP).

Three options are available under this drop-down list:

• • Off – Traffic based SAND is off.

  • Notification Emails – Customer will only receive notification emails about their usage, but no further action will occur.

  • Notification Emails + Overage Billing/Throttling/Auto Disconnection – Customer will receive notification emails and appropriate action will take place if the customer reaches their limit.

Note: A customer’s bandwidth limit is calculated based on their product subscriptions.

If a field threshold is left blank then the no action is taken for that process.

Note: SAND settings can be overridden on a per customer basis under their “Network details” tab (Fig. 2)

If the “Notification Emails + Overage Billing/Throttling/Auto Disconnection” option is selected then following actions takes place:

1.a) Overage/Throttling Priorities

i. Customer has an “Overage” product assigned to their subscriptions

The customer will be automatically charged if they reach their bandwidth limit.

A customer’s bandwidth limit is recalculated on the last day of each month. If a customer paid for 5 GB of overage but only used 4.5 GB then 0.5 GB will be carried forward to their allowance for the next month.

ii. Customer Does not have an “Overage” product assigned & Customer is assigned to a bucket with a throttling threshold set

The customer will be automatically moved to the “throttle” bucket that is associated with their regular bucket. Throttling can be set up on the “Traffic Shaping Bucket” page (Fig. 3). To get to this page click on the “Network” tab -> “Gateway Details” -> “Table View” (Fig. 4) .

When a customer has been moved to the throttle bucket it will be indicated in on the customer details page as in Fig. 5. A customer can be manually moved back to a regular bucket in the normal manner in which buckets are assigned (Fig. 6). However, unless additional bandwidth is added (or the SAND system is disabled for this customer) they will be moved back to the throttle bucket during the next SAND run. Customers will automatically be moved back to their regular bucket at the beginning of the next month.

Note: WIB files must be updated after making bucket changes.

Note: Customers can not be moved to the throttle bucket manually.

iii. Customer does not have an “Overage” product assigned & Customer is not assigned to a bucket with a throttling threshold set

No action will be taken.

1.b) Disconnect/Overage/Throttling Priority

i. Customer has “Overage” product assigned

Overage action occurs. See 1.a.i.

ii. Customer does not have an “Overage” product assigned & Customer is assigned to a bucket with a throttling threshold set

Throttling action occurs. Sea 1.a.ii.

iii. Customer does not have an “Overage” product assigned & Customer is not assigned to a bucket with a throttling threshold set

The customer will be disconnected if they reach their the percentage of their bandwidth limit (as calculated by their assigned subscriptions and the SAND disconnect percentage). The customer will be automatically reconnected at the end of the month.

iv. Customer does not have an “Overage” product assigned & Customer is not assigned to a bucket with a throttling threshold set & Customer did not reach disconnection threshold

No action will be taken.

1.c) Operator emails:

An additional email type has been added that can be customized by the Operator under global WISP settings (Fig. 7). This only needs to be set if the default e-mail notification text is not sufficient.

sand_traffic_throttling_treshold

The remainder of the customizable traffic based SAND email types are:

sand_traffic_overage_treshold

sand_traffic_disconnection_treshold

sand_traffic_email_treshold_1

sand_traffic_email_treshold_2

2) Invoice Due based SAND

Operators may also setup a throttling limit in order to cut off some part of a customer internet speed if they fail to pay their invoice.

In order to take advantage of the new throttling system Invoice Payment Due based SAND (Fig. 8) must be set to “Notification Emails + Throttling / Auto Disconnection”.

Three options are available under the drop-down list:

• 1. Off – Customer Invoice SAND is off.

  2. Notification Emails – Customer will only receive notification emails about their invoice date, but no further action will occur.

  3. Notification Emails + Throttling/Auto Disconnection – Customer will receive notification emails and appropriate action will take place if the Customer did not pay for an invoice.

In order for an action to take place the field must not be left blank.

Note: The fields can be overridden on a per customer basis under “Network details” tab (Fig. 9)

When the “Notification Emails + Throttling/Auto Disconnection” option is selected the following actions take place:

2.a) Throttling Priorities

i. Customer is assigned to a bucket with a throttling threshold set

The customer will be automatically moved to the “throttle” bucket that is associated with their regular bucket.

ii. Customer is not assigned to a bucket with a throttling threshold set

No action will be taken.

2.b) Disconnect / Throttling Priorities

i. Customer is assigned to a bucket with a throttling threshold set

Throttling action occurs. See 2.a.i.

ii. Customer is not assigned to a bucket with a throttling threshold set

The customer will be disconnected if they did not pay off their invoice after the period that is specified under “Disconnection date” field.

iii. Customer is not assigned to a bucket with a throttling threshold set & Customer did not reach disconnection threshold

No action is taken.

2.c) Operator emails:

An additional email type has been added that can be customized by the Operator under global WISP settings (Fig. 10). This only needs to be set if the default e-mail notification text is not sufficient.

sand_invoice_throttling_date

The remainder of the customizable invoice based SAND email types are:

• sand_invoice_email_date_1

• sand_invoice_email_date_2

• sand_invoice_disconnection_date

  • Throttled customers who pay off their invoice(s) through the End User Portal (Fig. 11) or send in a payment which is lodged as an EFT or Non-EFT payment (Fig. 12, 13) will be automatically moved back to their regular bucket. Notifications of this will be sent to the Operator (Fig 14).