Afrihost Business Uncapped Feedback - 2

[AfriMan]

I disagree - lag on Destiny and frequent disconnects have increased over the last two weeks. This happens irrespective of the account type but when I play with locals on Destiny, I will have higher latency and more lag despite being on 10Mbps uncapped compared to others being on 4Mbps Telkom.

Last night it was faster for me to look at a Youtube video on my iPad via a CellC 3G connection. When using Afrihost, Youtube suggest a 144P resolution and then still buffered, whereas the iPad played a smooth 720P - shows you that this is an AH issue and has nothing to do with: Eskom loadshedding, Xenophobic attacks, Donald Trump's hairstyle (or whatever other excuse your support team comes up with).

This month alone I have logged 3 tickets which resulted in:
(1) Port resets
(2) Bounce your router
(3) Make sure to use our DNS servers
(4) Wait... change to Google DNS

The above alone indicates that you guys have no idea or could not be bothered to actually look at the problem and rather go with a "Did you try and switch it off and on again" approach

I think you're making a general comment based on the poor support in that incidence, and I do acknowledge that. Ultimately I think the person in question may have had good intentions, but as I said before, the shotgun approach is not always helpful (while it might deliver a quick result) becuase it does not isolate the actual cause of the problem and there is every chance that the same client will be back again with the same problem.

I think in general our guys really do try their best, and we also have to get better at being upfront that we can't solve every problem. But that should go hand in hand with communicating and getting back to clients with any information that can put their mind at ease (assuming we can't solve the problem immediately).

Definitely take you point here

 

[AfriMan]

But that is not the case, I see everyone else rubberbanding and if someone else is driving the car teleports all over the place.

When switching to a different ISP/3G, I no longer have that issue. Surely if the fault was elsewhere I would have the issue on 3G as well?

On our tests the person who sees the rubber banding is not usually the one who is actually lagging. The person playing from the rate limited line actually didn't experience any visble lag. This was consistent from our account and from a competitor's account.

 

[Ho3n3r]

No problem. If he cancelled your line manually then it should be back with Telkom within 3-5 days of the manual cancellation. I'd have to see the account to confirm if that was what was actioned.

OK. Fair enough. What details should I give you to confirm? Email address?

 

[AfriMan]

It isn't leading anywhere.
I would like answers.

Tested same p2p download on:
AH - slow
AH using vpn - 350 kB/s
CW - 350 kB/s

I totally understand your position on this, and I wish I could say definitively it's this or that. But to my knowledge there is no rule or policy in place which is shaping P2P on Business. There could be intricacies with regard to how general network traffic is prioritised (more like basic QoS) which could influence the results, I really couldn't say. Since this only seems to happen during high demand/contention, I would think that once we resolve the demand issues, these symptoms will go away.

 

[AfriMan]

OK. Fair enough. What details should I give you to confirm? Email address?

Just the line number will work, but best to send over PM

 

[TheGrove]

On our tests the person who sees the rubber banding is not usually the one who is actually lagging. The person playing from the rate limited line actually didn't experience any visble lag. This was consistent from our account and from a competitor's account.

Yeah I got that from your first response, but again why is it only happening when I am on the Afrihost account?

 

[electrofreeze]

afripeeps why don't you people go into politics you most certainly have the mouths for it

 

[Dianysis]

I totally understand your position on this, and I wish I could say definitively it's this or that. But to my knowledge there is no rule or policy in place which is shaping P2P on Business. There could be intricacies with regard to how general network traffic is prioritised (more like basic QoS) which could influence the results, I really couldn't say. Since this only seems to happen during high demand/contention, I would think that once we resolve the demand issues, these symptoms will go away.

You yourself said there was a dip in demand last night due to load shedding.
So I don't believe that can be used as an excuse. Unless I am completely misunderstanding something.

And even if there was contention last night - that is quite scary since load shedding caused a dip in demand. Thank goodness demand wasn't in full swing - would a melt down have occurred?
Contention would cause slow speeds whether using a vpn or not - is this correct?

Oh, and one more thing, at 1:30 this morning, p2p still in the crapper. Contention? I think not.

 

[MagicDude4Eva]

I think you're making a general comment based on the poor support in that incidence, and I do acknowledge that. Ultimately I think the person in question may have had good intentions, but as I said before, the shotgun approach is not always helpful (while it might deliver a quick result) becuase it does not isolate the actual cause of the problem and there is every chance that the same client will be back again with the same problem.

I think in general our guys really do try their best, and we also have to get better at being upfront that we can't solve every problem. But that should go hand in hand with communicating and getting back to clients with any information that can put their mind at ease (assuming we can't solve the problem immediately).

Definitely take you point here

Well, that does not solve my tickets? Does it? Care to explain why your support procedures suggest changing to Google DNS (this pretty much conflicts with everything said here where support said that AH DNS is preferred and Google DNS could result in "unpredictable" routing).

 

[bullzeye.za]

You yourself said there was a dip in demand last night due to load shedding.
So I don't believe that can be used as an excuse. Unless I am completely misunderstanding something.

And even if there was contention last night - that is quite scary since load shedding caused a dip in demand. Thank goodness demand wasn't in full swing - would a melt down have occurred?
Contention would cause slow speeds whether using a vpn or not - is this correct?

Oh, and one more thing, at 1:30 this morning, p2p still in the crapper. Contention? I think not.

He mentions basic QoS a little higher up here - That would likely prioritise VPN traffic over other kinds.

My 2c

 

[AfriMan]

You yourself said there was a dip in demand last night due to load shedding.
So I don't believe that can be used as an excuse. Unless I am completely misunderstanding something.

And even if there was contention last night - that is quite scary since load shedding caused a dip in demand. Thank goodness demand wasn't in full swing - would a melt down have occurred?
Contention would cause slow speeds whether using a vpn or not - is this correct?

Oh, and one more thing, at 1:30 this morning, p2p still in the crapper. Contention? I think not.

I did also say that there were reports of poor P2P and we don't know if that was also related to the same loadshedding. We are still testing on our side, but we definitely haven't been shaping or limiting P2P traffic.

 

[AfriMan]

He mentions basic QoS a little higher up here - That would likely prioritise VPN traffic over other kinds.

My 2c

Remember that every network must have a basic QoS or it will just be a mess. So it's not shaping but just basic network management.

 

[Dianysis]

He mentions basic QoS a little higher up here - That would likely prioritise VPN traffic over other kinds.

My 2c

Fair enough. But on business accounts, aren't all protocals supposed to be treated equally?

 

[Orihalcon]

Fair enough. But on business accounts, aren't all protocals supposed to be treated equally?

You'd think that. However when things are pushed to breaking point then the internal basic QoS will still prioritise certain protocols above others.

This is why even on capped and business accounts the P2P and NNTP downloads take the hits first. Pure and basic insufficient capacity. Or those "rogue" uncapped downloaders that have been causing this for the last 3 months...lol.

 

[AfriMan]

Yeah I got that from your first response, but again why is it only happening when I am on the Afrihost account?

We can do some tests with you on this, but we're confident that GTA V is definitely working as expected from our tests, or we're not able to replicate the issues reported other than those that I have already mentioned

 

[whatwhat]

Remember that every network must have a basic QoS or it will just be a mess. So it's not shaping but just basic network management.

Need to quote this, this is golden.

Still no news on my refund for bad service, as expected. The 30th can't some soon enough.

 

[AfriMan]

You'd think that. However when things are pushed to breaking point then the internal basic QoS will still prioritise certain protocols above others.

This is why even on capped and business accounts the P2P and NNTP downloads take the hits first. Pure and basic insufficient capacity. Or those "rogue" uncapped downloaders that have been causing this for the last 3 months...lol.

It's true that we must have some sort of QoS on the network which an unshaped user would never really see or experience (at least that is the intention). But remember I am just speculating here, the guys on the technical team would know better. But if contention is high, that is one possible explanation why some services outperform other, it may also have to do with the nature of the traffic, the patterns or just simply be random as demand "breathes" (which is probably a big factor as well).

 

[TheGrove]

We can do some tests with you on this, but we're confident that GTA V is definitely working as expected from our tests, or we're not able to replicate the issues reported other than those that I have already mentioned

Thanks Afriman, kinda at a loss this side cause nothing I try seems to work.

Will see tonight if I can get the IP's

 

[AfriMan]

Thanks Afriman, kinda at a loss this side cause nothing I try seems to work.

Will see tonight if I can get the IP's

Please or otherwise just PM me and we can see if we can connect to you and test in game with you (if the guys are testing on GTA tonight)

 

[KoolDaffy]

Afriman, have to managed to look at the email I sent you couple days ago as you requested with my traceroutes and speed tests.