Afrihost Business Uncapped Feedback - 2

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I think the current post on the network status sums up the real problem.

"We are currently receiving reports of problems with international traffic on our DSL services. Affected clients may find international sites and services slow or non-responsive. Our engineers are currently investigating and hope to resolve the errors as quickly as possible. We sincerely apologise to affected clients for the inconvenience."

All very nice and correct and soothing. But, note the first part of the post. "We are currently receiving reports of problems" I would think that in a properly managed and monitored network the administrators would be the first to know about any problems on their network and would then alert their paying customers as to the problem and the steps being taken to resolve it. It is pathetic that they need to "receive reports" of problems which then need to be investigated over several days in order to understand how their network is performing.

The true report should read something like:-

"We currently have a major problem with international traffic on our DSL services. All clients will be affected and will find international sites and services at best slow or non-responsive. Our engineers currently have no clue as to what is happening and hope that the errors will resolve as quickly as possible. We sincerely apologise to affected clients for the inconvenience but in the meantime will enjoy receiving your payments while not delivering the service that you are paying for. Pure Internet joy."

Reading the posts on this forum also shows that these "experts" are incapable of performing any tests but rather shift that responsibility to their paying clients and then ignore the submitted results and then request more tests thereby creating some breathing space and ultimately "customer fatigue".

This forum is filled with phrases such as:-

we are being as open as possible - which means - we cannot tell you the truth
there is a spike in demand - which means - we have hopelessly inadequate capacity
the IOS updates are causing a problem - which means - we have hopelessly inadequate capacity
i'm personally not sure of the details - which means - I cannot tell you the truth
I'll post as soon as there is news - which means - I am stalling again
I'm just waiting for confirmation from our Team - which means - I am stalling again
We deliver the information we receive - which means - we pass on the lies as we get them
Any results that you can post here? - which means - stalling again
It does seem like OS updates and Windows service packs are not doing so great at the moment, with the high contention we're seeing. Until demand is brought back into line, it would be hard to say which services are going to perform poorly. - which means - we are definitely shaping some services although we will deny it emphatically.
And so on and so on ad nauseum......


Now the latest hosting debacle. Yet further proof of hopeless mismanagement. Down over the weekend due to "load shedding" and "spikes". Down again today due to an "ongoing DDOS" attack. Guess it was difficult to play the load shedding card when there was no load shedding so any random excuse will have to do.

I have been complaining about email authentication failures caused by packet loss on the last hop to our hosting server for over month but their "network experts" deny that packet loss is the cause. They are however unable to explain why the errors only occur when the packet is high and also why it occurs over both 3G and ADSL at the same time.

This is now getting to be a bit much.....
 
Axxess also totally dead. Posting from Chrystweb 1gig test account. LOL, The guy from Axxess reconned to me there is nothing wrong on their side and that it's a port error on my telkom line and that after he recreated it I should reboot my router. Well that obviously didn't work cause he was talking kuk! Don't understand why these okes have to lie!
 
I'm still waiting for some eta on when I'll be back online, if the exchange is "offline" I find it strange that my friend across the road has no issues restarting his connection, if nothing happens this morning I'll get hold of telkom myself to see what's going on, I really hope this isn't some BS story.
 
Hummercellc said:
Wow it seems Afrihost is deeply troubled this week, so many problems across multiple services....
Click to expand...

We've definitely had a bad run of late. Not all our fault, but I think there's a lot we can learn from the mistakes we've made around these problems :(
 
NarrowBand said:
I think the current post on the network status sums up the real problem.

"We are currently receiving reports of problems with international traffic on our DSL services. Affected clients may find international sites and services slow or non-responsive. Our engineers are currently investigating and hope to resolve the errors as quickly as possible. We sincerely apologise to affected clients for the inconvenience."

All very nice and correct and soothing. But, note the first part of the post. "We are currently receiving reports of problems" I would think that in a properly managed and monitored network the administrators would be the first to know about any problems on their network and would then alert their paying customers as to the problem and the steps being taken to resolve it. It is pathetic that they need to "receive reports" of problems which then need to be investigated over several days in order to understand how their network is performing.

The true report should read something like:-

"We currently have a major problem with international traffic on our DSL services. All clients will be affected and will find international sites and services at best slow or non-responsive. Our engineers currently have no clue as to what is happening and hope that the errors will resolve as quickly as possible. We sincerely apologise to affected clients for the inconvenience but in the meantime will enjoy receiving your payments while not delivering the service that you are paying for. Pure Internet joy."

Reading the posts on this forum also shows that these "experts" are incapable of performing any tests but rather shift that responsibility to their paying clients and then ignore the submitted results and then request more tests thereby creating some breathing space and ultimately "customer fatigue".

This forum is filled with phrases such as:-

we are being as open as possible - which means - we cannot tell you the truth
there is a spike in demand - which means - we have hopelessly inadequate capacity
the IOS updates are causing a problem - which means - we have hopelessly inadequate capacity
i'm personally not sure of the details - which means - I cannot tell you the truth
I'll post as soon as there is news - which means - I am stalling again
I'm just waiting for confirmation from our Team - which means - I am stalling again
We deliver the information we receive - which means - we pass on the lies as we get them
Any results that you can post here? - which means - stalling again
It does seem like OS updates and Windows service packs are not doing so great at the moment, with the high contention we're seeing. Until demand is brought back into line, it would be hard to say which services are going to perform poorly. - which means - we are definitely shaping some services although we will deny it emphatically.
And so on and so on ad nauseum......


Now the latest hosting debacle. Yet further proof of hopeless mismanagement. Down over the weekend due to "load shedding" and "spikes". Down again today due to an "ongoing DDOS" attack. Guess it was difficult to play the load shedding card when there was no load shedding so any random excuse will have to do.

I have been complaining about email authentication failures caused by packet loss on the last hop to our hosting server for over month but their "network experts" deny that packet loss is the cause. They are however unable to explain why the errors only occur when the packet is high and also why it occurs over both 3G and ADSL at the same time.

This is now getting to be a bit much.....
Click to expand...

I think it's easy to criticise from the outside, not knowing the challenges. I have a little more insight from within the company, though I confess that the complexities of the issues sometimes do elude me. I really believe that our team are doing the best they can with the resources we have, and considering those are MTN's resources, they are considerable. The problems, especially with hosting, are the reality of the internet today, i.e. DDOS attacks. We're using the latest best practice and technology available to us, and working as quickly and effectively as we can.

I really believe that we'll overcome these issues, as we have overcome other challenges we've faced in the past, to be stronger and better for our clients. I can understand the need to take our words apart and look for duplicity or insincerity where there is none to assign blame. Ultimately, our focus is on getting things right for our clients and doing whatever is possible to eliminate or mitigate any future problems.
 
Hummercellc said:
Internet totally dead here. Posting via 3G. Come on Afrihost!!!
Click to expand...

If you're testing with international sites, you'll probably find connectivity issues. Local DSL should be fine (mine was working through the night) but international traffic is pretty much horrible right now. Until we find the cause, we're doing our best to deliver the best experience.
 
dj2381 said:
I'm still waiting for some eta on when I'll be back online, if the exchange is "offline" I find it strange that my friend across the road has no issues restarting his connection, if nothing happens this morning I'll get hold of telkom myself to see what's going on, I really hope this isn't some BS story.
Click to expand...

Just remember that how Telkom maps out exchanges is not in a grid like a street. For example, my neighbour is on a different exchange from me, and his DSL went down on Sunday while mine was up, even though we are probably on the same POTS exchange (not the same DSLAM). It's very possible.
 
Ex_Landy_Oke said:
Axxess also totally dead. Posting from Chrystweb 1gig test account. LOL, The guy from Axxess reconned to me there is nothing wrong on their side and that it's a port error on my telkom line and that after he recreated it I should reboot my router. Well that obviously didn't work cause he was talking kuk! Don't understand why these okes have to lie!
Click to expand...

I can't speak for Axxess except to say that whatever DSL issues we experience could likely affect them, especially an international access issue where we definitely use the same resources. Dunno why the agent gave you such poor advice, unless he saw something else going on with the line (which is also possible). Maybe chat with the Axxess Rep here on MyBB, I'm sure she can help get you some assistance :(
 
AfriMan said:
I think it's easy to criticise from the outside, not knowing the challenges. I have a little more insight from within the company, though I confess that the complexities of the issues sometimes do elude me. I really believe that our team are doing the best they can with the resources we have, and considering those are MTN's resources, they are considerable. The problems, especially with hosting, are the reality of the internet today, i.e. DDOS attacks. We're using the latest best practice and technology available to us, and working as quickly and effectively as we can.

I really believe that we'll overcome these issues, as we have overcome other challenges we've faced in the past, to be stronger and better for our clients. I can understand the need to take our words apart and look for duplicity or insincerity where there is none to assign blame. Ultimately, our focus is on getting things right for our clients and doing whatever is possible to eliminate or mitigate any future problems.
Click to expand...

6th October 2014
[QUOTEOur policies haven't changed, the changes we're making is to ensure that where we are shaping (on Uncapped, not on Business) and that we take measures to ensure that even high demand on shaped services are managed more efficiently so that overall we see the best possible experience.

There may still be further changes coming, and I think we'll start to see better and better performance in the coming period.][/QUOTE]
At least you are consistent. Not much work just cut and paste .
 
AfriMan said:
Just remember that how Telkom maps out exchanges is not in a grid like a street. For example, my neighbour is on a different exchange from me, and his DSL went down on Sunday while mine was up, even though we are probably on the same POTS exchange (not the same DSLAM). It's very possible.
Click to expand...

Well it seems the only way I am going to find out what is happening is by phoning myself, I still haven't received anything from the official support, still sitting with a automated response that I got 24hours ago, this is also not the first time I got no response, last time I was without Internet for a week! I received very little support, days went past with no communication, I have to come shout and scream on this forum before I get anywhere with afrihost, I'm not sure why I have to run around after afrihost to get sort of response, that's completely unprofessional. I now have to go do your support work by finding out directly from the source what is being done with my line, or what is the Eta on the exchange getting online again, I bet afrihost I can drive to my nearest telkom store stand in the que for an hour and still get more information then I will receive from afrihost in the next 24hours.
 
DaBump said:
Hi Afriman. What is the latest status?
Click to expand...

Right now we are still getting poor international and our team are still investigating the possible cause. We seem to see MTN clients also experiencing similar on Mobile, so it's very difficult to say where the issue could be. If anyone here notices anything, please post and let me know so I can add to the knowledge around this. Some clients say switching to Google DNS helps, I'd love to get feedback on whether this is the case, it may help us locate the issue :(
 
dj2381 said:
Well it seems the only way I am going to find out what is happening is by phoning myself, I still haven't received anything from the official support, still sitting with a automated response that I got 24hours ago, this is also not the first time I got no response, last time I was without Internet for a week! I received very little support, days went past with no communication, I have to come shout and scream on this forum before I get anywhere with afrihost, I'm not sure why I have to run around after afrihost to get sort of response, that's completely unprofessional. I now have to go do your support work by finding out directly from the source what is being done with my line, or what is the Eta on the exchange getting online again, I bet afrihost I can drive to my nearest telkom store stand in the que for an hour and still get more information then I will receive from afrihost in the next 24hours.
Click to expand...

You definitely should not have to run after us to get service. Please PM me, let me follow up on what has been done and what the current status is :(
 
We should be seeing international traffic coming back to normal now. If anyone is able to test and report back on their side, will be great :)
 
I switched DNS to google (8.8.8.8, 8.8.4.4), and I'm having no issues at the moment.

AfriMan said:
Right now we are still getting poor international and our team are still investigating the possible cause. We seem to see MTN clients also experiencing similar on Mobile, so it's very difficult to say where the issue could be. If anyone here notices anything, please post and let me know so I can add to the knowledge around this. Some clients say switching to Google DNS helps, I'd love to get feedback on whether this is the case, it may help us locate the issue :(
Click to expand...
 
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