Afrihost Business Uncapped Feedback - 2

[cortexenslaver]

You are correct, but it's also a word meaning nothing more than oversubscription.

EXACTLY.... using the word "contention" means capacity shortage. It means that more people are fighting (contending) for the same piece/share of pie/bandwidth.

The correct way to solve this, is to order more capacity as soon as it is identified that "contention" is the sole reason for ALL the issues since end of August. Unfortunately, all the back and forth, denial and excuses, means that more time passes before new capacity is ordered. Then, we have to wait a few MORE months hearing the excuse of "..it's out of our hands... we are waiting for Telkom to provide..." - THAT is just not good enough, very unprofessional, not to mention poor network management on AH/MTN's part.

Furthermeore, as a 1st Tier provider, the relationship MTN has with Telkom should have a very low ETA and strict SLA in place. I find it really hard to believe that in today's corporate environment, MTN has to wait months for Telkom to provide extra capacity. With all the upgrades Telkom has done to their network infrastructure, it really is as easy as "flipping a switch" and allocating more bandwidth to their various clients, namely MTN and AH. Any other waffle and stories to the contrary are false and deceitful.

Point is, you cannot use the word "contention" as the reason for the slow throughput, and then in the same breath say that capacity is NOT an issue.

 

[AfriMan]

Torrents are virtually dead on my 4mb business package

And yes, Business optimization is disabled. I have noticed that the torrent speeds have been really slow the last few weeks. Also, the ping to LoL EUW server are still really high. I can understand this during peak hours (even though this is suppose to be unshaped but I understand the issues associated with ADSL in SA) but even in off peak hours the downloads speeds and pings are bad. Popped in my WA account details and the torrents are now flying?

Someone from MWEB phoned me the other day selling ADSL. They mentioned something that MWEB has 3 nodes or something (Yes, im a noob) which are just for gaming and hence better pings and a overall gaming experience... Anyone know what this is and if Afrihost has this? I don't want to move away from AH, I just want to get my old speeds back.

Gaming will never be affected by Business Optimisation, which focuses on P2P traffic. Unless the game uses P2P elements.

It really depends on what they mean by "nodes". That's pretty broad so I'd need something a little more specific to enquire

 

[AfriMan]

snip

We treat the issue as medium as we do believe that there were several measures which could be taken to improve overall performance, which we are seeing. We are leaving the notices up in the interests of transparency as we're still monitoring network performance and continuously making improvements.

There are also short and long term considerations when a network experiences a sudden increase in demand, so we'll report on the additional adjustments made where we can.

 

[AfriMan]

snip

I think it should be clear that I am not personally ordering capacity or making any decisions. These are made by a team of network engineers and experts as well as senior directors and managers looking at the financial impact and commitment and how this will impact the company overall. We're simply reporting confirmed information, it doesn't mean that there are not several options on the table.

I also think it's very important to remember that a degree of contention is a normal feature of running a broadband network. Our team use complex calculations and algorithms to predict behaviour as closely as possible and look at best and worst case scenarios to do ongoing capacity planning based on growth. But there is an acceptable level of contention. Some ISPs publish contention ratios, which are really not useful because contention is changing from second to second and ultimately can never be guaranteed.

 

[AfriMan]

Hey there Afriguy... no errors are generated. The response in the in-game menu is atrocious...

I have checked and found the ip address of the server I connect to and the latency is not that great for online gaming... friends that play the game with me get in the region of 210ms but I sit on average on 315ms. with nice spikes thrown in the mix of 480+...

This image is not rally displaying, but I think a trace to the IP would be a great place to start

 

[Former member 61586]

EXACTLY.... using the word "contention" means capacity shortage. It means that more people are fighting (contending) for the same piece/share of pie/bandwidth.

If this is the case, and it takes months to order and get, should the ISP not STOP signing up new clients? because what is happening, is, they keep signing up new clients which makes the problem so much worse, and when the new capacity arrives, it basically solves nothing due to the increase in customer base. Unless the new capacity is so large that it can cater to existing customers + those signed up during the ordering process + perhaps future clients who will sign up in the next 3-6 months.

 

[AfriMan]

As requested:

Tracing route to www.supersport.com [197.80.203.136]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.0.1
2 7 ms 7 ms 22 ms 105-236-9-65-esr-lo.mtnbusiness.co.za [105.236.9
.65]
3 10 ms 12 ms 10 ms 41.181.201.94
4 10 ms 15 ms 12 ms tb-dca-2.za--qux-c.za.mtnbusiness.net [41.181.19
8.188]
5 11 ms 10 ms 11 ms unc-cpt-1.mtnns.net [196.44.18.8]
6 38 ms 11 ms 13 ms 196.44.31.106
7 26 ms 13 ms 16 ms nl-ha-2.za--rb-cr-1.za-a.mtnns.net [196.44.0.121
]
8 11 ms 11 ms 11 ms 196-28-178-141.adsl.mweb.co.za [196.28.178.141]

9 43 ms 36 ms 37 ms tengig-0-0-0-1-cpt-p-1.mweb.co.za [197.84.7.1]
10 34 ms 33 ms 31 ms tengig-0-0-0-0-vic-p-2.mweb.co.za [197.84.4.35]

11 33 ms 32 ms 32 ms tengig-0-0-0-0-102-vic-pe-1.mweb.co.za [197.80.7
.41]
12 32 ms 33 ms 32 ms tengig0-0-0-0.mca-pe-1.mweb.co.za [197.80.4.37]

13 32 ms 30 ms 31 ms 197-80-96-30.jhb.mweb.co.za [197.80.96.30]
14 37 ms 33 ms 34 ms 197-80-206-100.jhb.mweb.co.za [197.80.206.100]
15 33 ms 39 ms 33 ms 197-80-203-5.jhb.mweb.co.za [197.80.203.5]
16 * * * Request timed out.
17 * * * Request timed out.
18 * * * Request timed out.
19 * * * Request timed out.
20 * * * Request timed out.
21 * * * Request timed out.
22 * * * Request timed out.
23 * * * Request timed out.
24 * * * Request timed out.
25 * * * Request timed out.
26 * * * Request timed out.
27 * * * Request timed out.
28 * * * Request timed out.
29

Hard to tell if ICMP packets are blocked but looks to me like the issue is somewhere within Mweb. I don't know if services have already moved to IS (as per an article I read recently), but I would raise a ticket with them If you don't come right, then we can try from our side via MTN. As far as I am aware, peering with Mweb is working as normal

 

[PurSpyk!!]

Hard to tell if ICMP packets are blocked but looks to me like the issue is somewhere within Mweb. I don't know if services have already moved to IS (as per an article I read recently), but I would raise a ticket with them If you don't come right, then we can try from our side via MTN. As far as I am aware, peering with Mweb is working as normal

Could you please try from your side. Trying to get anything resolved with mweb is not too easy, I know I used to be a client of theirs.

 

[AfriMan]

You are correct, but it's also a word meaning nothing more than oversubscription.

As I mentioned, contention is a regular feature of a running a broadband network and something that is constantly monitored. We're definitely not oversubscribing our network, as this would indicate that capacity growth is far behind growth in sales, whereas it's really been the other way around where demand increases steadily ( probably due to increasing internet reliance, multiple devices per household and line upgrades) while actual new account signups is not on par with the increase.

 

[AfriMan]

What is the difference between some one who is selling you an old car like a new car and Afrihost ? Nothing , they are both crooks .

We're definitely NOT selling our clients a lemon. Our history with our clients proves that we have always come through difficult times in favour of our clients. I think we probably still have a lot more to learn, but I believe we'll get there and get better and better at this as we go along.

 

[i.got~issues]

We're definitely selling our clients a lemon. Our history with our clients proves that we have always come through difficult times in favour of our clients. I think we probably still have a lot more to learn, but I believe we'll get there and get better and better at this as we go along.

^^ QFT - Freud grins.

 

[cortexenslaver]

I think it should be clear that I am not personally ordering capacity or making any decisions. These are made by a team of network engineers and experts as well as senior directors and managers looking at the financial impact and commitment and how this will impact the company overall. We're simply reporting confirmed information, it doesn't mean that there are not several options on the table.

I also think it's very important to remember that a degree of contention is a normal feature of running a broadband network. Our team use complex calculations and algorithms to predict behaviour as closely as possible and look at best and worst case scenarios to do ongoing capacity planning based on growth. But there is an acceptable level of contention. Some ISPs publish contention ratios, which are really not useful because contention is changing from second to second and ultimately can never be guaranteed.

I wasn't questioning ANY of the above... I have given an overview of what best practice is, and what is meant by "contention". What you have failed to address in my post, is that while contention may exist, you cannot use it as the excuse and NOT order more capacity to compensate for the miscalculation of your specialists, or algorithm (as you mentioned that it is not precise). You also cannot use the word "contention" as the cause, and then deny that "capacity" is NOT an issue. If capacity is not an issue, then I think it's time to review your network management policy, or the algorithm is way out, etc.

My comments are not directed at you, but at AH management and AH as a company.... see my post, and read it carefully... you have the unfortunate distinction of being on the forum and in the firing line. It would be insane for me, or anyone on here to blame you (and the other reps) directly.

I tried to make my comment as generic and non-specific as possible, so that I would not single anyone out - apparently, I failed to do so, and also didn't make my point clearly enough

 

[cortexenslaver]

We're definitely selling our clients a lemon. Our history with our clients proves that we have always come through difficult times in favour of our clients. I think we probably still have a lot more to learn, but I believe we'll get there and get better and better at this as we go along.

ooooops

 

[arni1954]

We're definitely selling our clients a lemon. Our history with our clients proves that we have always come through difficult times in favour of our clients. I think we probably still have a lot more to learn, but I believe we'll get there and get better and better at this as we go along.

Telling the truth by mistake ? Gian would not be happy , you must lie cheate and decive .

 

[Former member 61586]

How hard is it really to calculate capacity needs and forecast it going forward? Rocket science?

 

[cortexenslaver]

How hard is it really to calculate capacity needs and forecast it going forward? Rocket science?

This happens because of cross-subsidisation. If they bought bandwidth based on actual line speed and usage, they would go out of business... or they would have to charge more

 

[AfriMan]

^^ QFT - Freud grins.

Damn, a typo that will haunt me forever

 

[cortexenslaver]

...and all of a sudden, latency really high on AH.... speeds in the toilet, after 2 days of good performance. Back to the sh*te of a month ago.

WTF is going on in Cape Town? Speed and latency to CT server really bad... JHB better, and International in the toilet - all in the last 10 minutes

 

[AfriMan]

How hard is it really to calculate capacity needs and forecast it going forward? Rocket science?

I think if it was as easy as going down to the local Incredible Connection store, that would be a simple issue. It's a very involved process and you have to order and secure infrastructure well in advance. There is also Telkom's network freeze and the timing of the year to consider. For example, buying capacity in the middle of December (while probably not possible because Telkom usually close their network around the 15th) is probably not a good idea because usage will drop off and millions of rands would be wasted in unused capacity.

This is definitely specialist capacity planning and requires teams of people, not just a quick email to MTN or Telkom to sort out

 

[AfriMan]

Telling the truth by mistake ? Gian would not be happy , you must lie cheate and decive .

Possible worst ever timing for a faux pas