LebGeeks

A community for technology geeks in Lebanon.

You are not logged in.

#1 August 6 2019

redd
Member

Are Alfa/Touch manipulating data use?

Bassam Abou Zeid has got a tweet thread up saying he's hearing a lot of complaints that people are running out of their GBs earlier than normal.

Implication being Alfa/Touch are pulling something funny to boost revenues.

Anyone have similar experiences? Or done tests?

<admin edit: added link />

Offline

#2 August 6 2019

LifeEngineer
Member

Re: Are Alfa/Touch manipulating data use?

That's honestly bullsh*t. There's no way they can do that. Phones nowadays monitor data usage.

Minutes ago I was on lunch with a friend, and he was arguing about this saying he has already finished 5GB out of his 10, as per the operator bill/sms.
I opened data usage on his android phone, and voila! FB at 1.5GB, Insta at 1.5GB etc... Sum was indeed around 5GB. He admitted he's been watching lots of videos on FB and Insta lately.

Funny that happened before seeing this thread so I can relate. It's simply not feasible.

PS: I've seen people complain while allowing their apps to auto-update and the phone software (which can be gigabytes) to download on data.
Using a smartphone requires some knowledge nowadays, unfortunately.

Last edited by LifeEngineer (August 7 2019)

Offline

#3 August 6 2019

redd
Member

Re: Are Alfa/Touch manipulating data use?

OK, just burned through some YouTube videos to test this on my Android/Touch device.

Android consumption measurement: 73.96 MB
Touch consumption measurement: 72 MB

I don't think this is a thing, at least not on MTC, unless something else is going on.

Offline

#4 August 6 2019

VincentKeyboard
Member

Re: Are Alfa/Touch manipulating data use?

People underestimate how much bandwidth they consume. I know someone who once used 5GB in one day watching movies on a dodgy "watch movies for free online" website. This was due to ignorance though as he was under the impression that streaming does not consume bandwidth because he is watching them "online". I had to explain that all sorts of data transfer consume bandwidth.

Offline

#5 August 6 2019

rolf
Member

Re: Are Alfa/Touch manipulating data use?

redd wrote:

Implication being Alfa/Touch are pulling something funny to boost revenues.

Yes they are. Mobile prices in Lebanon are some of the highest in the world. It is a monopoly and exploitation legitimized through the government.
Now regarding mobile usage, like someone mentioned, the phone will tell you how much you used, so if they want to do something like that, they can only cheat and get away with a small percentage, like 1 or 2%, if they do it at all.
But why should they? They can just increase the prices.

Offline

#6 August 9 2019

elserge82
Member

Re: Are Alfa/Touch manipulating data use?

I would have gone your way with the same logic.But  I have to tell you that the problem might be with Alfa and you might be wrong. I heard one of my friends from Alfa talking a year ago about this issue and how the data consumption deffer between Alfa and an other country operator where 500mb were more than enough for him during his travel. (PS we don't use social media nor any kind of streaming service).

The only explanation that might be valid from my point of view is that the re-transmission is counted several times with a high rate of packet loss.

Note that I might be completely wrong.I don't have direct access to their systems.I am just publishing my theory.

Offline

#7 August 9 2019

nuclearcat
Member

Re: Are Alfa/Touch manipulating data use?

elserge82 gave right hint, introducing retransmissions or sending duplicate packets will increase your counters on mobile as well, and traffic will look correct and match on phone.
For example, youtube video that you watched - in fact maybe was only 50Mbyte, and it will count as 100 on the phone and the operator billing. The second figure depends on the operator’s greed.
There is many other similar tricks possible.

But there is no evidence at all that alfa or touch uses such tricks. In my opinion everything looks legit.
At the same time, such tricks are very difficult to catch and prove.

Offline

#8 August 9 2019

rolf
Member

Re: Are Alfa/Touch manipulating data use?

nuclearcat wrote:

At the same time, such tricks are very difficult to catch and prove.

I can insert my SIM card in my laptop (it has a GSM modem), do some tests and measure packet loss and other statistics with a packet capture software (Wireshark).

If there is high packet loss I would guess it is most probably due to shitty infrastructure, not a conspiracy. I mean, packet loss, in Lebanon? How is it possible? It must be a criminal conspiracy to steal my megabits!

Duplicate packets would be more suspect I agree.

Last edited by rolf (August 9 2019)

Offline

#9 August 9 2019

NuclearVision
Member

Re: Are Alfa/Touch manipulating data use?

This is what happens when you combine smartphones and not very smart people.

Offline

#10 August 9 2019

NuclearVision
Member

Re: Are Alfa/Touch manipulating data use?

rolf wrote:
nuclearcat wrote:

At the same time, such tricks are very difficult to catch and prove.

I can insert my SIM card in my laptop (it has a GSM modem), do some tests and measure packet loss and other statistics with a packet capture software (Wireshark).

If there is high packet loss I would guess it is most probably due to shitty infrastructure, not a conspiracy. I mean, packet loss, in Lebanon? How is it possible? It must be a criminal conspiracy to steal my megabits!

Duplicate packets would be more suspect I agree.

I am playing an online game this summer, i use my mobile as hotspot.
The connection is flawless, 0% packet loss.
I am not saying that it's unfeasible, hell, i wouldn't even be surprised if it's true. But we really need to ditch the rant from our daily life and start thinking

Last edited by NuclearVision (August 9 2019)

Offline

#11 August 9 2019

nuclearcat
Member

Re: Are Alfa/Touch manipulating data use?

It is easy to detect hotspot and to not do suck tricks on shared connections.
Plus, it is possible that packets will be dropped on NAT (hotspot, phone side) as they wont match conntrack, if tcp window tracking enabled there.
And as they know IMEI, they can know what device you are using, to apply tricks only to specific devices (os specific, like changing ACK number to those, which will be dropped on NAT, or/and for example cheat only on expensive devices).

Offline

#12 August 9 2019

NuclearVision
Member

Re: Are Alfa/Touch manipulating data use?

yea but again i'm not having any excess consumption, not in hotspot nor without hotspot. Why? because i monitor my usage, and I don't use Instagram or facebook, not because they're datasuckers just not my thing.
Edit: i found the word, you're being too assumptive.

Last edited by NuclearVision (August 9 2019)

Offline

#13 August 10 2019

elserge82
Member

Re: Are Alfa/Touch manipulating data use?

NuclearVision wrote:
rolf wrote:
nuclearcat wrote:

At the same time, such tricks are very difficult to catch and prove.

I can insert my SIM card in my laptop (it has a GSM modem), do some tests and measure packet loss and other statistics with a packet capture software (Wireshark).

If there is high packet loss I would guess it is most probably due to shitty infrastructure, not a conspiracy. I mean, packet loss, in Lebanon? How is it possible? It must be a criminal conspiracy to steal my megabits!

Duplicate packets would be more suspect I agree.

I am playing an online game this summer, i use my mobile as hotspot.
The connection is flawless, 0% packet loss.
I am not saying that it's unfeasible, hell, i wouldn't even be surprised if it's true. But we really need to ditch the rant from our daily life and start thinking

There are several reasons for a re-transmission, it can be, other than packet loss, due to simultaneous connectivity to several cell towers.I am sure if that was an easy guess, Alfa would have found their problem(supposedly the problem exist) and fixed it.

Offline

#14 August 10 2019

NuclearVision
Member

Re: Are Alfa/Touch manipulating data use?

I am not saying it's not possible or existing, just saying everyone and their grandmother who are getting their 'mb' stolen should monitor their social media session, and relate if the consumption is rational or not.

Offline

#15 August 10 2019

TigerFox
Member

Re: Are Alfa/Touch manipulating data use?

As said. Almost all apps nowadays have background data usage , auto-update/download , high resolution media by default , ...

You don't notice unless you see that your instagram or facebook used 1GB in 2 days. Such apps auto download stories , images , and videos , not only in the current page but it also loads upcoming ones. Almost everything can be fixed from settings to decrease data usage. All those whatsapp stories people post , each picture is at least 3MB probably , even after compression. I never used snapchat , but imagine the data consumption there.

As for youtube , here are some data usage approximate statistics:

144p : less than 180 MB / hour

240p : ~ 220 MB / hour

360p : ~ 312 MB / hour

480p : ~ 560 MB / hour

720p30 : ~ 1.2 GB / hour

720p60 : ~ 1.9 GB / hour

Well , sometimes you go in for a "few videos" , but unaware of that.

Offline

#16 August 10 2019

NuclearVision
Member

Re: Are Alfa/Touch manipulating data use?

TigerFox wrote:

Well , sometimes you go in for a "few videos" , but unaware of that.

This. Specially that 4g is quite capable...

Offline

#17 August 10 2019

rolf
Member

Re: Are Alfa/Touch manipulating data use?

NuclearVision wrote:

This is what happens when you combine smartphones and not very smart people.

This is golden. Meme material.

Offline

#18 August 10 2019

xazbrat
Member

Re: Are Alfa/Touch manipulating data use?

NuclearVision wrote:
TigerFox wrote:

Well , sometimes you go in for a "few videos" , but unaware of that.

This. Specially that 4g is quite capable...

Yeah--I notice that my videos are at 1440p or higher on 4g and have to scale them down manually.  Att 1440p, you are using 90 meg per minute--so 15 minutes you are pretty close a gig and a half of usage.  At 4k, usage is even more ridiculous--233mb per minute or 14 gig an hour.  I am aware of these issues and so are the vast majority of the members here at lebgeeks, but you get your grandma a new phone with a big screen and 4g connection and she starts watching videos on youtube, she will blow through her quota in a few hours.    Just need to be aware of the app settings and make changes where needed.

Offline

#19 August 10 2019

NuclearVision
Member

Re: Are Alfa/Touch manipulating data use?

rolf wrote:
NuclearVision wrote:

This is what happens when you combine smartphones and not very smart people.

This is golden. Meme material.

reddit is toxic man

Offline

#20 August 11 2019

nuclearcat
Member

Re: Are Alfa/Touch manipulating data use?

NuclearVision wrote:

yea but again i'm not having any excess consumption, not in hotspot nor without hotspot. Why? because i monitor my usage, and I don't use Instagram or facebook, not because they're datasuckers just not my thing.
Edit: i found the word, you're being too assumptive.

I investigated a similar trick in one of the countries where the prices for mobile communications became low and the mobile operator wanted more money.
And this is not uncommon, where operators are too obsessed in past on price dumping, and then suffering to find funds to increase ARPU.

Offline

Board footer