Afrihost Business Uncapped Feedback - 2

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Remydp said:
Unless I've missed Afrihost admitting to shaping on business and capped accounts prior to this post surely this is a very important statement in the face of what has been said previously.
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I think Afriguy is speaking from a general network perspective, not specifically about Business. Business is not shaped, but when demand is high we've seen P2P performance be quite poor for some clients due to contention on the network (depending on the region)
 
AfriGuy said:
It would be awesome to provide a complete failover solution for our Business clients but the simple truth is, it't just not a viable option without raising the costs considerably.
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I think this is exactly what Afrihost must start working towards and planning for. Change the branding of the current business uncapped product. Call it business-lite or uncapped-extreme, leave it unshaped and uncapped. Then develop a true business product, with failover, uncapped and unshaped, or possibly shape P2P during peak business hours. Call it business-premium. Could cost R 1500 - R 2000/month. It'll still be cheaper than the current options in the market. The 'big' downloaders will be happy, and the true business user will get a proper business product!
 
As my email to AH support said:


"So until the time this whole issue is resolved, I must continue paying full price for a service that does not deliver what is guaranteed?

And I quote:

"Business DSL offers Premium, unmetered, unshaped and prioritised bandwidth 24 hours a day"

and:

" Business DSL accounts are Guaranteed to be completely unshaped at all times"

and:

"These packages have prioritised bandwidth. That means NO Shaping, NO Throttling, just pure speed when you need it most"


So, in essence, I have been paying full price for the last two months for a severely degraded service, and will have to pay full price at the end of this month as well.
That is not acceptable."

And then the reply I got back from that one:

"We sincerely apologise for the inconvenience caused,
and we understand where you are coming from.
Once the matter has been resolved you can get in contact with our accounts department
and query the billing issue, only they can assist you with that."


In short, pay full price for a degraded service until this issue is sorted out, then contact the accounts department and good luck getting a single cent out of AH......

Any good lawyers here?
 
BGE said:
I think this is exactly what Afrihost must start working towards and planning for. Change the branding of the current business uncapped product. Call it business-lite or uncapped-extreme, leave it unshaped and uncapped. Then develop a true business product, with failover, uncapped and unshaped, or possibly shape P2P during peak business hours. Call it business-premium. Could cost R 1500 - R 2000/month. It'll still be cheaper than the current options in the market. The 'big' downloaders will be happy, and the true business user will get a proper business product!
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Our Business product is unshaped and I think that's enough for us. The Business product you're suggesting with failover, exactly what do yo mean here? If you're suggesting an alternative network or having a distinct realm or data stream, I don't think we can viably offer that even for a the prices you've mentioned. The upstream costs would be astronomical, especially considering that it would be largely redundant. Each individual business can opt to have that kind of redundancy, but to offer it as a off the shelf product would be incredibly expensive and ultimately very difficult to make the kind of guarantees one would expect with that kind of costing.
 
Bursty-dude said:
As my email to AH support said:


"So until the time this whole issue is resolved, I must continue paying full price for a service that does not deliver what is guaranteed?

And I quote:

"Business DSL offers Premium, unmetered, unshaped and prioritised bandwidth 24 hours a day"

and:

" Business DSL accounts are Guaranteed to be completely unshaped at all times"

and:

"These packages have prioritised bandwidth. That means NO Shaping, NO Throttling, just pure speed when you need it most"


So, in essence, I have been paying full price for the last two months for a severely degraded service, and will have to pay full price at the end of this month as well.
That is not acceptable."

And then the reply I got back from that one:

"We sincerely apologise for the inconvenience caused,
and we understand where you are coming from.
Once the matter has been resolved you can get in contact with our accounts department
and query the billing issue, only they can assist you with that."


In short, pay full price for a degraded service until this issue is sorted out, then contact the accounts department and good luck getting a single cent out of AH......

Any good lawyers here?
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We're still providing service to you, even if the speeds and experience are not as good as they may have been previously. The problems we've had with demand haven't been in place for two months, so I've always suspected that this is a separate issue, based on the history of your line having problems and having issues and also problems with YouTube that are not occurring in general.

Billing for October has already been issued, so we won't bill you at the end of this month (rather beginning of next month) unless you elect to continue the service in November.
 
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BGE said:
...and the true business user will get a proper business product!
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This is my issue, I don't care about downloads during the day, I need to RUN A BUSINESS, and I thought that paying for a business package would mean that I could. I even tried a normal capped account at my other office, with no joy. I am jumping ship next week if this is not resolved.
 
AfriMan said:
I understand what you're saying about a gesture. I think the focus is on improving your experience and value, and the costs involved. I think the biggest gesture is that we're willing to invest a massive amount of money to improve the network without seeing a similar increase in revenues from existing or new clients.
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After taking our money without delivering? Really? Nice way to do business.... and is still not the reason I made my comment in the first place. All I was pointing out is that giving away mystery prizes and bonuses has not benefited ANY of the business clients in the past. How is AH going to repay US for our patience, understanding, loyalty, etc. in YOUR time of need?

Afrihost could drag this out till next year, but in the mean time, you will still take our money without delivering on the agreement YOU have signed with US:

We pay you a premium price, and you (AH) delivers to us a "guaranteed unshaped, uncapped product with full line speed at ALL TIMES".

Clearly this has not, and is still not, and will not be the case for another month (or 2 or 3).
 
Remydp said:
Unless I've missed Afrihost admitting to shaping on business and capped accounts prior to this post surely this is a very important statement in the face of what has been said previously.

Edit: Nevermind, I see there was a debate around semantics in the capped thread.
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But that still proves my point, even in the response that was querying MY initial post - talking in circles much? :p

EDIT: Not you, Remydp... AH reps ;)
 
heartbroken said:
This is my issue, I don't care about downloads during the day, I need to RUN A BUSINESS, and I thought that paying for a business package would mean that I could. I even tried a normal capped account at my other office, with no joy. I am jumping ship next week if this is not resolved.
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Our business product has the ability to shape P2P voluntarily in CLientZone, and we have many small offices using this. As I posted in a previous post, there is definitely nothing stopping a company with IT resources building their own redundancies but to offer a business product that is guaranteed uncontended, fully redundant and offers the features mentioned would ultimately be unfeasible for us at this stage.
 
AfriMan said:
Our Business product is unshaped and I think that's enough for us. The Business product you're suggesting with failover, exactly what do yo mean here? If you're suggesting an alternative network or having a distinct realm or data stream, I don't think we can viably offer that even for a the prices you've mentioned. The upstream costs would be astronomical, especially considering that it would be largely redundant. Each individual business can opt to have that kind of redundancy, but to offer it as a off the shelf product would be incredibly expensive and ultimately very difficult to make the kind of guarantees one would expect with that kind of costing.
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Understood, but you must confess that this product is not suitable in it's current form for a true business user. Not so? I'd still prefer a product from Afrihost that separates the quintessetial business user from the typical P2P big downloaders. I'm pretty sure it's not the actual business users that have caused this issue, but rather the masses of p2p users seeing this 'business' product as an affordable option for unshaped downloads all day long! Rather remove the 'business' branding to clear up the confusion!
 
cortexenslaver said:
After taking our money without delivering? Really? Nice way to do business.... and is still not the reason I made my comment in the first place. All I was pointing out is that giving away mystery prizes and bonuses has not benefited ANY of the business clients in the past. How is AH going to repay US for our patience, understanding, loyalty, etc. in YOUR time of need?

Afrihost could drag this out till next year, but in the mean time, you will still take our money without delivering on the agreement YOU have signed with US:

We pay you a premium price, and you (AH) delivers to us a "guaranteed unshaped, uncapped product with full line speed at ALL TIMES".

Clearly this has not, and is still not, and will not be the case for another month (or 2 or 3).
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Not that I am saying there definitely will be a Mystery Bonus, but I'm pretty stumped when you say it does not benefit you in any way?

I think you are also basing your comments on the assumption that firstly this will take months to resolve - the time line you're referencing would go well into 2015 - and also that this is an intentional delay on our side to take money from you in bad faith. I think both assumptions are entirely incorrect and unfounded.
 
AfriMan said:
Our business product has the ability to shape P2P voluntarily in CLientZone, and we have many small offices using this. As I posted in a previous post, there is definitely nothing stopping a company with IT resources building their own redundancies but to offer a business product that is guaranteed uncontended, fully redundant and offers the features mentioned would ultimately be unfeasible for us at this stage.
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Yes there are many business accounts with the P2P blocker active, mine included. But that's not the point... there are many many more non-business users cashing in on the products unshaped promise, so degrading the service for real business users!
 
BGE said:
Yes there are many business accounts with the P2P blocker active, mine included. But that's not the point... there are many many more non-business users cashing in on the products unshaped promise, so degrading the service for real business users!
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Wait a minute...so you think "real business users" should somehow be less affected? Just curious. Not picking a fight.
 
Let's try lift the mood a little...

A big mining company recently hired several cannibals. "You are all part of our team now", said the HR manager during the welcoming briefing. "You get all the usual benefits and you can go to the cafeteria for something to eat, but please don't eat any of the other employees"...
The cannibals promised they would not.
Four weeks later their boss remarked, "You're all working very hard,and I'm satisfied with you. However, one of our Admin girls has disappeared. Do any of you know what happened to her?"
The cannibals all shook their heads indicating "no".
After the boss had left, the leader of the cannibals said to the
others, "Which one of you idiots ate the Admin chick?"
A hand rose hesitantly, to which the leader of the cannibals
continued, "You fool!!!!! For four weeks we've been eating Managers and Supervisors and no one noticed anything, but noooooo, you had to go and eat someone who actually works!!!!"
 
BGE said:
Understood, but you must confess that this product is not suitable in it's current form for a true business user. Not so? I'd still prefer a product from Afrihost that separates the quintessetial business user from the typical P2P big downloaders. I'm pretty sure it's not the actual business users that have caused this issue, but rather the masses of p2p users seeing this 'business' product as an affordable option for unshaped downloads all day long! Rather remove the 'business' branding to clear up the confusion!
Click to expand...

Our Business product is primarily aimed at Businesses, and still believe the large majority of Business clients are small enterprises and startups. However, we didn't want to make the distinction because some Businesses are a one man operation, or run from home, or informal Businesses.

Again, it's entirely possible to have a product that has it's own dedicated data stream from the IPC, has a fully redundant failover to another backbone, but the cost of that would be out of reach for any company, unless there was significant demand to make this something viable at scale.
 
Well I'm able to stream 480p, 720p has to buffer often. That's acceptable for 4meg for me
 
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