Afrihost Business Uncapped Feedback - 2

[BGE]

Business and Capped accounts are constructed from the same "data pool" so performance should be very similar. I don't think that changing would have any effect, unless you were looking at an account without a product rate limit or more concurrent connections.

I think we need to look at exactly which services are not performing and try to improve them wherever we can, or look at improving your overall throughput or latency, whichever is affecting your performance.

What about home use uncapped then? Same data pool?

I'm not concerned about latency, our overall experience on the WA test account is great. I'm getting consistently great results...

Last Result:
Download Speed: 9231 kbps (1153.9 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 806 kbps (100.8 KB/sec transfer rate)
Latency: 34 ms
2014/10/09, 9:55:22 AM

I'll test Afrihost business shortly again and post the comparative results.

 

[4saken]

I wasn't implying that your line is at fault. I was wanting to know if you were getting general poor throughput on your account. Everything being shaped is throttling, and we don't do either, so we need to see if your account is just generally performing badly.

Well in that case I am being throttled on a Business 10mbps line. I have tried doing multiple things and its always slow. Even downloading drivers is slow. 2 weeks ago it went at 1000KB/s no matter time of day/type of download

 

[AfriMan]

Afriman, any comment on those Diablo 3 pathpings?

Sorry, I did see those and somehow missed the post when I was replying. We're working on reports of some games not working the way they should. I saw someone post that Destiny is working better now, but we're still testing. We can also test on Diablo. We have a few players here in the office, so we'll keep testing as well.

 

[Samildanach]

Online games was again shot to absolute doo-doo last night on my 2mb business line... I dont mind slow(er) downloads and I feel like I am cheating on you guys using my free WA adsl account just to play Smite or any online game at the moment. Afrihost please get your gaming priorities right and I'll stick with you... I am a big Afrihost supporter and love Afrihost but you are starting to force my hand....

Please please please fix!!!

 

[AfriMan]

Well in that case I am being throttled on a Business 10mbps line. I have tried doing multiple things and its always slow. Even downloading drivers is slow. 2 weeks ago it went at 1000KB/s no matter time of day/type of download

We'll have to see what could be happening. Your account could be under performing or there could be high demand and contention at the times when you've tested. We don't have throttling rules so I don't think that's the right place to look.

 

[AfriMan]

What about home use uncapped then? Same data pool?

I'm not concerned about latency, our overall experience on the WA test account is great. I'm getting consistently great results...

Last Result:
Download Speed: 9231 kbps (1153.9 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 806 kbps (100.8 KB/sec transfer rate)
Latency: 34 ms
2014/10/09, 9:55:22 AM

I'll test Afrihost business shortly again and post the comparative results.

Basically Uncapped (Shaped) and Business/Capped (Unshaped) are the two main distinctions.

 

[Crusader]

Sorry, I did see those and somehow missed the post when I was replying. We're working on reports of some games not working the way they should. I saw someone post that Destiny is working better now, but we're still testing. We can also test on Diablo. We have a few players here in the office, so we'll keep testing as well.

Please do. I'm getting lots of lag and in group play it happens that I lag out for 50 or 60 seconds. Just standing there when the rest of the group plays fine. I suspect the huge packet loss might be the cause. Something looks suspect at hop 5, and that's on both AH and Axxess.

Destiny is definitely working better, so someone fixed that. Couldn't even connect to the game yesterday.

 

[AfriMan]

Online games was again shot to absolute doo-doo last night on my 2mb business line... I dont mind slow(er) downloads and I feel like I am cheating on you guys using my free WA adsl account just to play Smite or any online game at the moment. Afrihost please get your gaming priorities right and I'll stick with you... I am a big Afrihost supporter and love Afrihost but you are starting to force my hand....

Please please please fix!!!

We're definitely aware that some games are not performing as they should and we're testing on our side to see what can be improved on our side. The information you can send us on which games are not performing and the server IP addresses so we can test, the better we can try to get this working better

 

[AfriMan]

Please do. I'm getting lots of lag and in group play it happens that I lag out for 50 or 60 seconds. Just standing there when the rest of the group plays fine. I suspect the huge packet loss might be the cause. Something looks suspect at hop 5, and that's on both AH and Axxess.

Destiny is definitely working better, so someone fixed that. Couldn't even connect to the game yesterday.

Please send me all the info you have on [email protected] and I'll do what I can to get this looked at ASAP

 

[JesseG]

Please send me all the info you have on [email protected] and I'll do what I can to get this looked at ASAP

Possibly check Call of Duty : Ghosts as well if you can, I was unable to sign into COD servers, I had to buy capped data from Axxess to sign in...thanks

 

[craig1606]

Service has been worse than pathetic today. Cannot even download at 20% of my line speed, and the children cannot play online games. so what is the point of the Business Uncapped Account?
I have cancelled the account, applied for the double my money back guarantee and wonder if Afrihost will deliver on this commitment. Damn now I need to go crawling back to Telkom. :-(

 

[AfriMan]

Possibly check Call of Duty : Ghosts as well if you can, I was unable to sign into COD servers, I had to buy capped data from Axxess to sign in...thanks

Was that on PC or console?

 

[Crusader]

Please send me all the info you have on [email protected] and I'll do what I can to get this looked at ASAP

Have done so. Ping is terrible at around 800 with loads of 2000ms spikes. Hope it can get sorted. Let me know if you need anything else.

 

[AfriMan]

Service has been worse than pathetic today. Cannot even download at 20% of my line speed, and the children cannot play online games. so what is the point of the Business Uncapped Account?
I have cancelled the account, applied for the double my money back guarantee and wonder if Afrihost will deliver on this commitment. Damn now I need to go crawling back to Telkom. :-(

If you are within the eligible period for the guarantee we will absolutely stand by that.

Sorry that you have had this poor experience. If you've made up your mind to move away, I sincerely wish you the best going forward.

 

[MrGray]

Service has been worse than pathetic today. Cannot even download at 20% of my line speed, and the children cannot play online games. so what is the point of the Business Uncapped Account?

Um, surely the point should be, as the name suggests, Business?

I think this is part of the problem. When business uncapped was launched and normal uncapped started being shaped so badly a lot of home users switched to business uncapped. So thanks to the usage levels business uncapped can no longer truly be "optimized for business" as it is overloaded with streaming, p2p etc etc. And since capped goes through the same channels as business uncapped, it has similarly been impacted, which is unfair since you are paying for what you use.

To fix this mess, can I suggest a new structure:

Capped/prepaid - totally unshaped, and on a separate path ("data pool") to any other uncapped product. If you want to blow $$$ on downloading terabytes at max speed then knock your socks off, the per unit cost should be set to cover this. Contention on uncapped lines must be completely isolated and not affect this.

Home Uncapped Basic - heavily shaped but cheap.

Home Uncapped Premium - partially shaped with a clear policy and priced somewhere between uncapped and business uncapped.

Business Uncapped - Priced higher than currently but with truly unshaped bandwidth for people who actually really need to use it for business purposes.

 

[cortexenslaver]

Whenever we escalate a query here from MyBB we try to include the history of the conversations we've had.

In terms of support, all ticket history is saved and each consultant should have full view of the history, as well as notes made on the individual account/profile. We definitely have the systems in place, but perhaps our people are (in some cases) not using the tools at their disposal.

If you come across this, please PM me so our QA team can identify these guys and we can give them more support and training

I don't think so... all I have to do is look at the email I receive from your system to know that the respondent has no clue what the history is of the ticket. I only get their response, and NOT even answering the question posed.

Now... whether the system is flawed, or the respondent/rep/tech/agent is too lazy to scroll and READ. This happens with ALL your staff. It might be a better idea to also make sure that the SAME person deals with the ticket at ALL times. If a new agent needs to be assigned, then they should start the correspondence off with, "Hi XXXX, my name is XXXXX and I will be taking over from XXXXX (previous agent)"... This would at least indicate to me that you are aware of my ticket history, and we can move forward from there - this is NOT happening, and is evident by being asked for the same tests/traces/proof that have already been submitted on many prior occasions.

 

[AfriMan]

Um, surely the point should be, as the name suggests, Business?

I think this is part of the problem. When business uncapped was launched and normal uncapped started being shaped so badly a lot of home users switched to business uncapped. So thanks to the usage levels business uncapped can no longer truly be "optimized for business" as it is overloaded with streaming, p2p etc etc. And since capped goes through the same channels as business uncapped, it has similarly been impacted, which is unfair since you are paying for what you use.

To fix this mess, can I suggest a new structure:

Capped/prepaid - totally unshaped, and on a separate path ("data pool") to any other uncapped product. If you want to blow $$$ on downloading terabytes at max speed then knock your socks off, the per unit cost should be set to cover this. Contention on uncapped lines must be completely isolated and not affect this.

Home Uncapped Basic - heavily shaped but cheap.

Home Uncapped Premium - partially shaped with a clear policy and priced somewhere between uncapped and business uncapped.

Business Uncapped - Priced higher than currently but with truly unshaped bandwidth for people who actually really need to use it for business purposes.

I get what you're saying here. The thing to remember is that Capped and Business and totally unshaped. So the only real difference is around basic business rules which do not affect performance or contention. There is no real performance value to splitting them into different categories, as ultimately the performance will be the same due to the unshaped rules.

 

[BGE]

Um, surely the point should be, as the name suggests, Business?

I think this is part of the problem. When business uncapped was launched and normal uncapped started being shaped so badly a lot of home users switched to business uncapped. So thanks to the usage levels business uncapped can no longer truly be "optimized for business" as it is overloaded with streaming, p2p etc etc. And since capped goes through the same channels as business uncapped, it has similarly been impacted, which is unfair since you are paying for what you use.

To fix this mess, can I suggest a new structure:

Capped/prepaid - totally unshaped, and on a separate path ("data pool") to any other uncapped product. If you want to blow $$$ on downloading terabytes at max speed then knock your socks off, the per unit cost should be set to cover this. Contention on uncapped lines must be completely isolated and not affect this.

Home Uncapped Basic - heavily shaped but cheap.

Home Uncapped Premium - partially shaped with a clear policy and priced somewhere between uncapped and business uncapped.

Business Uncapped - Priced higher than currently but with truly unshaped bandwidth for people who actually really need to use it for business purposes.

I know my suggestion is going to get me flamed, but why can't AH request people to supply a valid company reg no. and/or vat number on sign-up. That will reduce the uptake from non-business users and allow the product to perform properly for those it was intended for! This is exactly what Telkom and WebAfrica do for their business accounts.

 

[craig1606]

Um, surely the point should be, as the name suggests, Business?

I think this is part of the problem. When business uncapped was launched and normal uncapped started being shaped so badly a lot of home users switched to business uncapped. So thanks to the usage levels business uncapped can no longer truly be "optimized for business" as it is overloaded with streaming, p2p etc etc. And since capped goes through the same channels as business uncapped, it has similarly been impacted, which is unfair since you are paying for what you use.

To fix this mess, can I suggest a new structure:

Capped/prepaid - totally unshaped, and on a separate path ("data pool") to any other uncapped product. If you want to blow $$$ on downloading terabytes at max speed then knock your socks off, the per unit cost should be set to cover this. Contention on uncapped lines must be completely isolated and not affect this.

Home Uncapped Basic - heavily shaped but cheap.

Home Uncapped Premium - partially shaped with a clear policy and priced somewhere between uncapped and business uncapped.

Business Uncapped - Priced higher than currently but with truly unshaped bandwidth for people who actually really need to use it for business purposes.

garp did you read Afrihosts description of their Business Uncapped Account? Here it is.
"Our Business DSL is the Business! Whether you’re looking for affordable and simple internet for your home business or small office, or if you’d just prefer to have unshaped internet all the time without worrying how you’re downloading, Business DSL offers Premium, unmetered, unshaped and prioritised bandwidth 24 hours a day! It’s the performance of a capped account combined with the simplicity of an uncapped account - it’s the best of both worlds! We also offer a unique Protocol Prioritisation feature to prevent abuse of your network and safeguard your priority online services."
The whole point of choosing the Business Uncapped is that I want that premium service as described by Afrihost. I dont mind paying a premium to get the service I require.

I dont care what Afrihost or any other ISP call it either. The service description is very clear. To me it's very simple, deliver what you advertise.

 

[i.got~issues]

I get what you're saying here. The thing to remember is that Capped and Business and totally unshaped. So the only real difference is around basic business rules which do not affect performance or contention. There is no real performance value to splitting them into different categories, as ultimately the performance will be the same due to the unshaped rules.

I think he is suggesting is you need to re-price the Business Uncapped to keep it attractively priced for genuine business use but at a price point that discourages it as a general home uncapped alternative.

Make a Home Uncapped Premium suggested offering aimed just for those home users currently on Business Uncapped but using it for their p2p / streaming / 24/7 downloads that the current Home Uncapped is useless for.

Price Business for business, shift the home to two tiers by introducing a Premium Home Uncupped with less severe shaping than the current Uncapped, migrate the non-business users to this new offering by pricing the Business Uncapped for Business Uncapped.

I am not suggesting I agree with this... but there might be a point to genuine business use being negatively affected by heavy, non business use on these offerings.

Contention, contention, contention.

Or upgrade the IPC and let the data flow.