We provide hourly usage reports to give you as much detail as possible about your service. Sometimes this causes a bit of confusion, so we are going to try and explain it here.
Please Note: We are dependent on Telkom for usage reporting.
- When an ADSL user authenticates (their router connects to the internet), Telkom sends through a “start” notification letting us know that the user has connected and has started using the internet.
- Thereafter, Telkom sends cumulative usage updates (called “Interim” notifications) for the user on (approximately) an hourly basis.
- The hourly usage is calculated as the current cumulative usage update received, minus the previous cumulative usage update received.
- This usage is then recorded by Webafrica as the usage for the hour in which we receive the information from Telkom. Which is why the usage per hour on our report may not correspond exactly to the actual time that the bandwidth was used online.
For Example:
The user authenticates at 08:02.
At 09:00 the cumulative usage is recorded as 2GBs. This is the first interim update.
At 10:10 the second interim update is received, which shows 3.5GBs cumulative usage.
The difference is 1.5 GBs. This is reported as the hourly usage for hour 10:00-11:00.
At 10:57 the third interim update is received which shows 6GBs cumulative usage.
The difference of 2.5GBs is now recorded as additional usage in the hour 10:00-11:00 as this update was received at 10:57. The total reported usage for 10:00-11:00 is now 4GBs.
The fourth interim update is received at 12:05 and says 7GBs cumulative usage. The difference of 1GB usage is recorded in hour 12:00 – 13:00 as the update was received at 12:05 even though the majority of the usage was probably between 11:00 and 12:00.
Please note that this is seldom the case, but it can occur, as the reporting is dependent on the timing of the cumulative interim updates received from Telkom.
We hope this clears up your queries regarding Hourly ADSL usage reporting.
Please note: All Webafrica deals and packages are subject to change without notification. These include our terms and conditions as it relates to costs and deal/package structures for all of our service providers.