Afrihost and console gaming: what is brewing...?

username and 23 others

username and 23 others

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So a couple of months back I was experiencing a consistant deteriortion in gaming on the most wonderful and beautiful and sexy Switch console. It coincided with the recent cable break, and I thought I would wait for that to clear up before I report any issue. Browsing and speedtests on PC were all fine.

So last week I contacted Afrigurl, who gave me contact details of someone at Afrihost to contact. Contacted that person: no reply. So, I open a call via the support email. They do their thing which resulted in:
line provisioned
reallocated IP
switched layers
Wifi credentials were sent via SMS!
isp to confirm connection
Click to expand...
So , I got a new IP! But then everything went to hell. My gaming experience was even worse. My console speedtest show 27Mb/s on a 40/10 line. Today I was getting speeds of 250kb/s on console only. All other devices work fine.

Open up a Whatsapp support call. Told my console could be faulty, Tested with two other consoles. Same result. Bad, bad, bad, network connection. And only on the consoles. Tried different cables. Different ports on the routers. Nothing.

Then during the Whatsapp call this little gem was dropped:

2024-05-24-21:49:57_grim.png
I was aghast, dumbstruck and disgusted. I now need a 100Mb/s line just to play Fortnite/Minecraft/Roblox...!!?!?! WTH, Afrihost? During the Whatsapp chat, all attempts to chat to a supervisor was in vain.

What am I missing here? Is it possible that gaming traffic is being throttled, just to get subscribers to upgrade...? Please help me understand what is going on here. We tried 3 different consoles (two wired one WiFi) and all give the same dreadful results on my connection. Same consoles used at another location, different ISP: results as expected.
 
Afrihost don't throttle, it would cost them more money to Throttle than to buy more capacity, so makes no sense for them to do that.
Also you said gaming on console is bad, what does that entail? Constant disconnects? High latency?
 
The only reason that they can benefit from throttling (if they even do that) is to get me to upgrade to a 100Mb/s line, as the Afrihost rep suggested.

Consistent high latency and occasional disconnects. I was informed by the Switch that today's update for Fortnite will take 63 hours... while on PC everything is fine.

Edit:
I do not game on PC.

Edit 2: packet loss in the 30% to 45%
 
username and 23 others said:
The only reason that they can benefit from throttling (if they even do that) is to get me to upgrade to a 100Mb/s line, as the Afrihost rep suggested.

Consistent high latency and occasional disconnects. I was informed by the Switch that today's update for Fortnite will take 63 hours... while on PC everything is fine.

Edit:
I do not game on PC.
Click to expand...
ISPs margins are very small, they don't make as much as you think. If you can get the IP that the switch is downloading the update from, that would help immensely, can give a good indication of what could possibly be the issue
 
NB: I do not make the accusations against Afrihost with glee or no forethought. I've been with them for over 4 years. But the statement that a console needs a 100Mb/s connection to function threw me for a loop.

It's not just the downloading. It's when I'm gaming. Youtube and Cruchyroll apps are barely functioning on the Switch. And not just one Switch. Three.

I have no idea on how to get the download IP from, but these are the servers that FN use when I game (they're from the epic site):
ping-eu.ds.on.epicgames.com
ping-me.ds.on.epicgames.com
 
username and 23 others said:
NB: I do not make the accusations against Afrihost with glee or no forethought. I've been with them for over 4 years. But the statement that a console needs a 100Mb/s connection to function threw me for a loop.

It's not just the downloading. It's when I'm gaming. Youtube and Cruchyroll apps are barely functioning on the Switch. And not just one Switch. Three.

I have no idea on how to get the download IP from, but these are the servers that FN use when I game (they're from the epic site):
ping-eu.ds.on.epicgames.com
ping-me.ds.on.epicgames.com
Click to expand...
They could be going to a specific IP that could be routed badly, but I am also sure Afrihost caches most game downloads, when Afrigirl gets back she should be able to assist more
 
I feel like it is trying to maybe download from the ME one and with the cable break it will be causing increased latency and maybe the peering via the alternate route could be bad
 
MakoPC said:
I feel like it is trying to maybe download from the ME one and with the cable break it will be causing increased latency and maybe the peering via the alternate route could be bad
Click to expand...
Ok. That is still understandable.

But when I run speedtests on the Switch, play Youtube, etc. the network connection is bad.

Edit:
Are you also saying everything goes thru ME?
 
Nope. Not even going to contemplate that, with the other Switched exhibiting the same issues as mine. And it is only the Switches. When I watch YT on PC: fine. Crunchyroll: fine. Downloads: fine. Speedtests: fine.

Why is it only affecting the Switches?
 
What does your IP start with? A 100.x.x.x or a 102.x.x.x or 169.x.x.x
 
MakoPC said:
Check first comment on here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/NintendoSwitch/comments/m2fc2h/why_is_my_wifi_connection_so_slow_on_my_switch
I don't know if this is true, but everything runs through nintendo servers, maybe that could be the bottleneck and peering to Nintendo is bad cause of cable break
Click to expand...
When I connect at another location. Same Switch. Different ISP: everything works as it should.
MakoPC said:
So you were behind a CGNAT with the 169 and now you have a public IP with the 102.
Click to expand...
Please translate. Is this good or bad? I dunno what you're talking about here :)
 
username and 23 others said:
When I connect at another location. Same Switch. Different ISP: everything works as it should.

Please translate. Is this good or bad? I dunno what you're talking about here :)
Click to expand...
It shouldn't affect much, if it works fine with a different ISP
I wonder if it isn't the peering to Nintendo's servers due to the cable break, did the issues start mainly with cable break?
I saw an article where they said it was close to being fixed
 
I do not think its cable related. As mentioned, when I take the same Switch connected to a different ISP, it works like a dream. Not so on the Afrihost network.

Surely if it was Nintendo related, all networks will be affected?
 
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