So, umm, apologies for the strange title. With that said, this could well be considered a major update

For those of you who are using RPNet Premium right about NOW, you must have noticed the new look. For those who are not, well, you’ll see it when you next use it.
Please remember to clear your cache if the site appears messed up!

The design:
The new design, in my opinion, looks a lot better than the old one. First off, it’s light colored. And, I guess, it’s always better to have a light colored design as opposed to a dark one. Well, that’s good design ethics, anyway.

And, it’s an overall revamp, really. Took us a fair bit of time to get it up and running in perfect shape. But then, obviously, it still has hidden bugs. So if you come across a discrepancy or a bug, please report it to us (at the helpdesk) asap!

We’ve also used custom fonts on this design, a lot! Like literally, a LOT! Problem is, IE does not render them. So, IE users might not get to experience the ‘awesome’ font (well, I think it’s awesome!).

I can’t really say much. We’ve concentrated a lot on improving overall design and user experience, etc. I hope the new look satisfies our users

The new filehosts:
The update we’ve all been waiting for!

FileServe and SharingMatrix are now officially supported by RPNet. Rapidshare is still supported, has not been dropped, and will not be dropped.

FileServe is stable to quite an extent now. Although you might experience slowdowns in speed at times. But, that’s something we cannot control, as their servers do slowdown every once in a while. You might also end up with broken files. But that, again, is not an error on our end. Some of the files often have 404 errors on their site. So if you come across such a file, chances are the link may get generated (or not), but will download as a few bytes/kbytes. So, before you rush in to submit a support ticket, please manually check whether the file itself exists or has an error on FileServe’s site.

SharingMatrix, on the other end, is quite pathetic. Their so called ‘blazing fast premium speed’ is nowhere near that. Their ‘premium speeds’ are beyond pathetic. I could barely top half of my 1mbps connection! That, in itself, is pathetic. Although we saw speeds of up to 7mbps on specific files, too. SharingMatrix has been added as a result of popular demand. We, however, are quite against it. For the mere fact that their ‘premium service’ is way too slow. I would advise that you try to stick to alternative hosts as much as you possibly can. Where you have no other option, well, SharingMatrix it is, then.

What else?
This weekend, I’ll run a poll on the RPNet forums for 2 additional filehosts. Which filehosts those will be, is something that will be decided by a majority vote. I’ll send out a mass email to all the premium subscribers, so stay tuned for the poll. Keep your favorite host recommendations at hand

I guess that’s just about it. It’s been one hell of a long day. I’ll take a break now (from this blog post, only!). If you guys need individual support, use the helpdesk, as always

Cheers,
Hamza Y
RPNet Administrator

Hello there,

Well, it’s been a while since I last updated this blog. Nothing major has happened in a while, so I guess that could be one reason.

However, I do have something now that I feel I should blog about, here. You could consider it quite critical, because it involves Rapidshare – one of the (used to be) top filehosts out there.

First off, if you’re not aware of the recent change(s) at Rapidshare, head over to http://rapidshare.com/news.html and have a look.
Basically, Rapidshare has changed their ENTIRE pricing model. Accounts are no longer duration based (as they were during the good old times).

They now, instead, have a currency model. You buy their currency (Rapids, quite a weird name) and you can use that currency to, in turn, buy packages. Each of these package(s) offer a specific set of features. For RPNet, though, we only needed the bare minimum – Bandwidth/Download Traffic.

 
Basic explanation and how it affects RPNet?
Back when they had TrafficShare, we would just buy 2.5TB of TrafficShare every time we ran out of bandwidth and that worked wonders. Since our account was in continuous usage, things were smooth and we would consistently renew our account.

Now, however, things have changed. Their highest bandwidth package is 120GB per day, that’ll cost us about 449 rapids/day. Their highest rapids offering is for 199.99 euro (about $245) for 20,000 rapids. Doing the math, 20,000 rapids would enable us to purchase the 120gb/day bandwidth package for 44 days, roughly.

Problem is, our daily bandwidth usage on RPNet is a minimal 200GB, and generally goes over 250GB. And it’ll only grow as the number of users on RPNet grow (which is going at a decent rate).

We have two options now. Buying another account with 120gb/day package and using it when the first account runs out. That would, again, cost us the same as above, and still not be enough to meet the daily demand (250GB is what we generally use versus 240GB is what we’ll have). To fill in that space, we would need to buy a third account with, say their 20gb or 60gb/day package.

Not an issue, yes. Or maybe not? Apparently, if you go over by even 1kb on your current package, you’re automatically upgraded to the next package. So if we, on a specific day, cross the 20gb usage on our third account, we’re automatically upgraded to a 60gb/day package that costs us more. Not an issue.
The problem here, is the fact that we may not necessarily use all the 60gb that day, or the next day. And since the unused bandwidth is NOT carried over, we would effectively ‘lose it’. In short, we lose money.

We can, of course, downgrade our package. But when you’re operating an entity the size of RPNet (and growing), it gets increasingly difficult to manaully manage a set of accounts EVERYDAY.

So, this move (the new system) will effectively (whether we like it or not) lead to us losing a LOT MORE money than we previously did.

 
How does this affect the community overall (RPNet and others)?
Quite simple, really. Right when Rapidshare decided to discontinue the rewards program for uploaders, it was obvious a lot of uploaders would switch to a different filehost.

As if that was not bad enough, they decided to hide behind the ‘flexible system’ and ‘better management’ excuses to just steal more money from their current and new (if any) customers.

So effectively, the uploaders no longer get any reward points. Previously, they could use those points to extend their own premium accounts and enjoy downloading as well as uploading to their accounts.

Now, however, they will be forced to pay for it if they want to download from rapidshare. It isn’t exactly difficult to spot. The plethora of complaints from everywhere about the new system. Quite a few people have moved over to alternative filehosts, and a fair few are making the switch in the coming days.

Nothing happens immediately. It’s a gradual process. And we’re all aware of the fact that this new system, was a useless move. If anything, it’ll only contribute towards Rapidshare’s eventual downfall. With the alternative hosts out there aggressively competing in terms of offering better rewards and greater flexibility (as well as informed changes), there’s little doubt about Rapidshare losing popularity as the best filehost.

And it’s not just the uplaoders that’ll be affected by this. It’s the downloaders too. Their new system and policy gives them the ‘right’ to ’steal’ from you without you having an option. If you’re on a plan that allows you to download 5gb/day and you go over it by a couple MB, you’ll automatically be upgraded to a higher plan that costs more. And what’s more to that? Their successive plans have a significant difference in cost and allowed download bandwidth. So, you will not necessarily consume all the bandwidth in the new plan, however, you WILL be billed for all of it. And any unused bandwidth is simply wasted.

Not to mention that you’ll have to be extra careful about your bandwidth usage, now. And if you get upgraded to a higer plan, you’ll have to manually downgrade. So, in the event you forget to downgrade, you’ll simply continue to be charged a higher rate. Who else thinks this is not a rip off? Granted their new system may be innovative, technically. However, they were clearly not in the right state of their minds when they decided to implement it and replace something that was functioning perfectly.

Go look at the various discussion threads (over at WBB and/or Rapid.org, etc). People are obviously NOT happy about the change.

 
What does RPNet plan to do?
It all really depends on how things pan out in the coming days. Me and Dman have agreed to officially support Rapidshare downloads for at least another month. We’ll make a decision after that.

We could discontinue Rapidshare support entirely. We plan to add SharingMatrix and FileServe as two new supported hosts in the coming week or two. That should compensate for dropping Rapidshare support. We might add a third filehost. We’ll hold a poll to decide which one to add.

Additionally, we’ll also decrease the price to $6.99 or so. We can’t really decrease our price(s) a lot. As it is, we support a variety of hosts for a very low price. Yes, our main aim is to help you save costs. But we also have to have positive cash flow from this service to actually maintain and run it. Wouldn’t you rather pay a dollar extra and get a better quality service as opposed to saving that one dollar and ending up with a service that’s buggy?

I’m sure most of you would agree that we manage to do a decent job on client support. We’re only going to improve on that.

Considering the new changes at Rapidshare, it won’t be long before we all start seeing a majority of new stuff (and old stuff) with links to different/alternative filehosts. Like I said, change is gradual. Thus our decision to support Rapidshare for at least another month. After that, we’ll poll on whether to drop support or not. We sure hope no one ends up disappointed with our decision. Because, at the end of the day, we at RPNet have always wanted to be completely honest about everything we do. We don’t believe in, or condone misleading the client for ANY reason.

Wish us good luck with what’s to come in the days that follow. And this is not the end. We’ll only progress more with time