wingnut771
Honorary Master
the internet is a liethere seems to have been a steady downgrade from all our isp's.
Except Plugg
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the internet is a liethere seems to have been a steady downgrade from all our isp's.
We 100% believe and guarantee that we do not shape real time traffic in any way or form on Uncapped accounts.
I have confirmed with our network and dev team, this service is not considered real-time, and as such is subject to our management policy.
Hi AfriMan. I'm sorry too for the trouble but I can assure you something is definitely up with Afrihost and twitch.tv and although I regret that this issue had to go this far, I do not regret that some attention has been drawn to the issue from you guys.
AfriMan, if this is the case, does this mean the support person who said the following was incorrect, or when you say "we do not shape real time traffic" do you not include twitch.tv in that definition?
Because you requested follow up I will report the following. You guys very generously offered me a Business Uncapped account in an effort to sort the issue. I am currently trying to stream the WCS OSL on twitch.tv on this account and unfortunately 720p is unwatchable due to stuttering. I've just tested my line and the downspeed is 3.4 Mbps so I think we can rule that out.
I think it is worth your while, if you really want to get to the bottom of this, checking out the twitch support forums and maybe chatting to some of their personnel as there are numerous reports about problems with specific ISPs such as ComCast. I can't pretend to understand the dynamics in the traffic flow from their servers (which are obviously international) but what I do know is that you have given me two non-afrihost test accounts which work perfectly on my line on 720p, and that even the new business uncapped cannot maintain a 720p stream. Perhaps it is something with the MTN network and the connection to their severs, or something external to Afrihost, interfering.
I would also like to request that you guys do some testing on Afrihost accounts from your side as the onus shouldn't always be on the customer to prove there is a problem. I know there is a problem, and other users have corroborated this, but you will always have doubt about the integrity of my setup or whether I have p2p going in the background or what have you. Just connect on a pc with a 4Mbps Afrihost account and go find a 720p channel on twitch.tv, then try it on your other test accounts and perhaps in this manner you can verify if the problem extends beyond my situation. Wouldn't this be the simplest way forward, even if it means just testing on some random pc outside of your offices?
If you do follow up on this and have new findings I will be very eager to alter the original post with a more positive update as I do believe you guys are doing all the right things in turns of mission and ethos (as I mentioned numerous times, I've been very happy with everything else from Afrihost) and your MBB representation has been fantastic, so keep us updated.
Afriman, I've cancelled my account already, but if you do manage to sort this out, I will definitely consider reactivating. I really like that you're addressing the issue (I had given up after the most part of a week with nothing positive coming out).
I don't know if it's your shaping policy or your network, but I can stream from youtube at 720p almost all the time without trouble, but I cannot even load 480p streams from Twitch most of the time, let alone watch them without stutter. Turbocharge doesn't seem to do anything either, but in my limited experience it never seems to do anything (torrents and other downloads stay slow and videos continue to stutter along).
I like the apparent transparency in your AUP and showing what is being shaped when, and I really like your prices, but so far my experience with Afrihost has been pretty disappointing. One of the reasons I got a 4Mbps line was to stream at high quality, so I was quite excited to try it out, but I've never been able to with Afrihost. Add onto that the fact that my torrents never get above 50kbps and there's nothing left to keep me with Afrihost.
Hopefully you can sort out the Twitch streaming issue and perhaps I will be convinced to stay if you do. The effort alone is encouraging.
Afriman, I've cancelled my account already, but if you do manage to sort this out, I will definitely consider reactivating. I really like that you're addressing the issue (I had given up after the most part of a week with nothing positive coming out).
I don't know if it's your shaping policy or your network, but I can stream from youtube at 720p almost all the time without trouble, but I cannot even load 480p streams from Twitch most of the time, let alone watch them without stutter. Turbocharge doesn't seem to do anything either, but in my limited experience it never seems to do anything (torrents and other downloads stay slow and videos continue to stutter along).
I like the apparent transparency in your AUP and showing what is being shaped when, and I really like your prices, but so far my experience with Afrihost has been pretty disappointing. One of the reasons I got a 4Mbps line was to stream at high quality, so I was quite excited to try it out, but I've never been able to with Afrihost. Add onto that the fact that my torrents never get above 50kbps and there's nothing left to keep me with Afrihost.
Hopefully you can sort out the Twitch streaming issue and perhaps I will be convinced to stay if you do. The effort alone is encouraging.
I'm on the 6Mb business account bundled with my line and am also having trouble with twitch.
I cannot even load 480p streams from Twitch most of the time, let alone watch them without stutter.
Yeah I am on your 4 MB business account and cant properly stream 480p on twitch.tv
What I've found on my testing is that Twitch is very bandwidth hungry. Some of the videos I tested on were peaking at around 900kBps (I think this may have been on 1080p). I've also found that 360p & 480p were sometimes looking for peaks around 350kbps. I would guess that if you're not running a 10Mbps line, there can be intermittent issues, especially if there is intermittent or sporadic congestion on your local exchange. Even at 240p, bandwidth was peaking at about 150kbps, so 1Mbps is pretty much a no-go and even 2Mbps would have issues, if there are other services running the background.)
while capped will go up to 40Mbps (or whatever your line can handle)
Just tried testing a 1080p livestream on a afrihost capped account, speed tests to local and international servers are all max speed of my line (which is 6mbs). The stream wouldnt load at first but if i switched over to google dns it loaded right up and was fine for about 30 seconds after however it was constantly buffering and laggy. Switched to another isp's account, same 1080p stream and have been watching it for the last 30+ minutes with no lag whatsoever.
We need tests to be run over a period of hours or days to have realistic data to compare with.
What I've found on my testing is that Twitch is very bandwidth hungry.
What I've found on my testing is that Twitch is very bandwidth hungry. Some of the videos I tested on were peaking at around 900kBps (I think this may have been on 1080p). I've also found that 360p & 480p were sometimes looking for peaks around 350kbps. I would guess that if you're not running a 10Mbps line, there can be intermittent issues, especially if there is intermittent or sporadic congestion on your local exchange. Even at 240p, bandwidth was peaking at about 150kbps, so 1Mbps is pretty much a no-go and even 2Mbps would have issues, if there are other services running the background.