Afrihost Business Uncapped Feedback - 2

[AfriMan]

So you don't limit by throttle, but allocate different percentage of your available capacity based upon protocol?

No definitely not, we don't really have any protocol based rulesets. Uncapped shaping (not throttling) is based on packet signature and not by protocol or port numbers. There is no signature based shaping or port/protocol based rate limit on Business or Capped.

 

[requiem]

No definitely not, we don't really have any protocol based rulesets. Uncapped shaping (not throttling) is based on packet signature and not by protocol or port numbers. There is no signature based shaping or port/protocol based rate limit on Business or Capped.

Then why do I consistently, as well as everyone else here, keep on getting NNTP / P2P / Gaming at **** speeds, yet browsing flies?

 

[AfriMan]

Then why do I consistently, as well as everyone else here, keep on getting NNTP / P2P / Gaming at **** speeds, yet browsing flies?

If there is contention on the network, it's impossible to predict what services will perform better than others. For some speedtests are poor, but I've been seeing that people find torrents seem to perform poorly during high demand period. My guess would be that realtime services can burst where torrents want constant data and also require multiple connections on the network for seeding and leeching. We'll probably see that once our upgrades go in, performance overall will perform better.

 

[requiem]

If there is contention on the network, it's impossible to predict what services will performance better than others. For some speedtests are poor, but I've been seeing the people seem to find torrents seem to perform poorly during high demand period. My guess would be that realtime services can burst where torrents want constant data and also require multiple connections on the network for seeding and leeching. We'll probably see that once our upgrades go in, performance overall will perform better.

It would be the exact opposite.

If it was only contention, any service with only 1 connection would suffer, while those having multiple would perform better.

 

[AfriMan]

It would be the exact opposite.

If it was only contention, any service with only 1 connection would suffer, while those having multiple would perform better.

As I said, under high demand it's impossible to predict, but experiences will vary. The only way to really prove that is when we get additional capacity and we see those issues go away, which I expect they will.

 

[MagicDude4Eva]

Interactions here on the forum are made in an official capacity, so we have given the information that can be confirmed officially from the company. I think the fact that our services are month to month always puts the clients in charge, and if anything our systems are designed to give clients full and final control.

I think it's also important to note that it is increased demand from existing clients (not massive influx of new clients) is creating contention and we are prepared to commit considerable financial resources to improving the network without asking for additional investment or fees. I think that shows our commitment to giving our client's a better experience and trying to do whatever is in our power to give our clients the long end of the stick.

I have to disagree with the above two statements. It is great that you guys are accessible on a public forum like MyBB and I think everyone appreciates your effort here, but my point with regards to lack of formal communication is that not everyone of your business customers is a MyBB member and follows this thread and reads for feedback between posts (when I posted my previous question, it is now 50 posts later within 3 hours). My point is that Afrihost, despite being aware of IPC issues since September has at no point sent out formal communication to any of their customers about contention.

People like I chose your business product because of the higher SLA's over your consumer products. So either Afrihost needs to come clean and "pull an MWeb" and state that business products can not be used for VOD, streaming, gaming, torrenting, but receive prioritisation for email, HTTP/S, VOIP, VPN, SSH and other business specific protocols - which I think is already happening behind the scenes to a certain degree (with the difference that business typical protocols such as HTTP/S, VOIP, VPN still degrade due to load).

The other option you have is to bump up your monthly subscription, but then provide the service as advertised. It is very short-sighted to state that anyone can leave whenever they feel like and this is currently happening anyway. Your problem will not disappear as new users will possibly show the same behaviour, your revenue will diminish further and as we all know, just selling bandwidth is an unsustainable business and the likes of BitCo, CyrstalWeb, Neotel and Telkom have already started to reposition themselves.

To be honest, with most of the peering agreements in place and local CDNs such as Akamai and Cloudflare appearing, an appropriate caching infrastructure will shift certain traffic patterns to your caching providers provided that you have peering agreements in place. I for one found it a laughable statement that your network was strained due to the iOS update - even my poorly configured Squid proxy server caches all iOS, OS X and Windows Updates so I am surprised that neither MTN/Afrihost can manage this on their sophisticated network.

 

[i.got~issues]

Mybroadband is not listed on the Afrihost site as being an official communication / social channel;



Just sayin'...

I have to disagree with the above two statements. It is great that you guys are accessible on a public forum like MyBB and I think everyone appreciates your effort here, but my point with regards to lack of formal communication is that not everyone of your business customers is a MyBB member and follows this thread and reads for feedback between posts (when I posted my previous question, it is now 50 posts later within 3 hours). My point is that Afrihost, despite being aware of IPC issues since September has at no point sent out formal communication to any of their customers about contention.<snip>

 

[AfriMan]

I have to disagree with the above two statements. It is great that you guys are accessible on a public forum like MyBB and I think everyone appreciates your effort here, but my point with regards to lack of formal communication is that not everyone of your business customers is a MyBB member and follows this thread and reads for feedback between posts (when I posted my previous question, it is now 50 posts later within 3 hours). My point is that Afrihost, despite being aware of IPC issues since September has at no point sent out formal communication to any of their customers about contention.

People like I chose your business product because of the higher SLA's over your consumer products. So either Afrihost needs to come clean and "pull an MWeb" and state that business products can not be used for VOD, streaming, gaming, torrenting, but receive prioritisation for email, HTTP/S, VOIP, VPN, SSH and other business specific protocols - which I think is already happening behind the scenes to a certain degree (with the difference that business typical protocols such as HTTP/S, VOIP, VPN still degrade due to load).

The other option you have is to bump up your monthly subscription, but then provide the service as advertised. It is very short-sighted to state that anyone can leave whenever they feel like and this is currently happening anyway. Your problem will not disappear as new users will possibly show the same behaviour, your revenue will diminish further and as we all know, just selling bandwidth is an unsustainable business and the likes of BitCo, CyrstalWeb, Neotel and Telkom have already started to reposition themselves.

To be honest, with most of the peering agreements in place and local CDNs such as Akamai and Cloudflare appearing, an appropriate caching infrastructure will shift certain traffic patterns to your caching providers provided that you have peering agreements in place. I for one found it a laughable statement that your network was strained due to the iOS update - even my poorly configured Squid proxy server caches all iOS, OS X and Windows Updates so I am surprised that neither MTN/Afrihost can manage this on their sophisticated network.

Our Business product has the same service level agreement, which is essentially our terms of service for DSL, and we're not going to change the rules so that we can sell a different product under the circumstances. I know you keep referring to Mweb here, but they do business differently to us, and that has been never been our preferred way of doing business. We've been open that performance hasn't been optimal while demand increased, but we won't change the rules to hide these issues as you're suggesting. We've designed the Business product to serve a certain need and we'll work towards making the product is consistent with what we expect.

With regard to bumping up subscription, that is also something we won't simply do, unless we offer a different product with a different ruleset, but an Uncapped Unshaped product really can't get more value-add, unless we start offering other guarantees which are not really feasible based on related costs (which was discussed earlier in the this thread). I'm not sure if you are basing your assessment of diminishing revenue and the number of clients leaving from reading this thread, but the reality is cancellations are not abnormal, we do see a certain amount every month - people move house, change to mobile or look at alternatives, it's part of doing business. The large majority of our existing clients are receiving a satisfactory service and many who aren't have established a trust relationship with us that they know we will honour by making sure that we do everything to improve their experience and increase their value for money at every opportunity. From within the broadband space, which is our market that we understand well, we're definitely are aware of how other companies are positioning themselves, but our business model is based on our relationship with our clients, not simply trying to have better pricing than our competitors. Their ability to have control of their products and not be tied into long agreements is a big factor in why clients prefer to do business with us, even when we experience difficulties.

With regard to caching, I think it's easy to look at a small scale network and think this applies directly to a massive national network like MTN. You also need to factor in that on this scale, things like caching content are subject to national and international agreements. While you might be able to cache content on a server that you setup for yourself, whether or not a major network can do the same is completely different if Apple or Microsoft do not allow this, and this is negotiated directly with the content providers and CDN's we peer with locally and internationally.

 

[Greg27]

AH Communication

MagicDude4Eva, exactly.

 

[Greg27]

Afriman,

Why not actively communicate with your clients regarding this known capacity issue?

Personally I was sent from pillar to post via support tickets and calls.

Why not at least update your status indicator on the website?

Or within clientzone?

If I was just told straight up that there is an issue I would still be an AH fan rather than being truly saddened by the whole futile exercise.

 

[AfriMan]

Mybroadband is not listed on the Afrihost site as being an official communication / social channel;

View attachment 158796

Just sayin'...

We don't have a single dedicated thread to link to, but we are official representatives on the forum.

 

[AfriMan]

Afriman,

Why not actively communicate with your clients regarding this known capacity issue?

Personally I was sent from pillar to post via support tickets and calls.

Why not at least update your status indicator on the website?

Or within clientzone?

If I was just told straight up that there is an issue I would still be an AH fan rather than being truly saddened by the whole futile exercise.

Whether to communicate any issue to clients via email, SMS or ClientZone is a management call, and they have their own criteria regarding whether this should be done. I have faith in our management team, and I know everything that is done (or not done) has thought and reasoning behind it - but I'll definitely ask the question.

I also see that you've been posting in the Capped thread. It's getting very difficult for us to manage queries posted over multiple threads, so please try to post in the specific thread related to the product you are using, or otherwise just drop me or one of the other Afripeeps a PM so it's easier to keep the thread of the convo

 

[i.got~issues]

We don't have a single dedicated thread to link to, but we are official representatives on the forum.

How about a button on your website linking to mybroadband forums then (or your profile that can have a little blurp about the official threads here)?
This is the only official notification platform of these IPC constraints and rubbish internet experience that your clients would have to actively seek out themselves.

Clients needing to seek out info about Afrihost IPC conditions directly affecting them just is not a cool way of doing things... especially if the platform for this is not listed on the site and the official AH website is all bombing copacetic still.

No mention either on the support subsite... nothing in fact. AH support themselves seem oblivious to it.

I have not seen any official Twitter Immanent IPC Notices yet...
Anything announced on Facebook yet? Google+?

Anything... ??

 

[Greg27]

Whether to communicate any issue to clients via email, SMS or ClientZone is a management call, and they have their own criteria regarding whether this should be done. I have faith in our management team, and I know everything that is done (or not done) has thought and reasoning behind it - but I'll definitely ask the question.

I also see that you've been posting in the Capped thread. It's getting very difficult for us to manage queries posted over multiple threads, so please try to post in the specific thread related to the product you are using, or otherwise just drop me or one of the other Afripeeps a PM so it's easier to keep the thread of the convo

Thanks, please ask the question. I noticed a line of reasoning on this thread pertaining to my frustration regarding a clear answer to the lack of IPC and complete lack of proper formal communication pertaining to it. Today I was doing your communication for you guys when some of my clients(2) were generally complaining about connectivity issues, how it was affecting their businesses and the confusing feedback they were getting from phone support. And I dont, as a rule, sell anything that plugs into a wall.

I think its time to send out a bit of a mail or sms or just a clear message on your status indicator.

Please. Think of the technically challenged...

 

[AfriMan]

How about a button on your website linking to mybroadband forums then (or your profile that can have a little blurp about the official threads here)?
This is the only official notification platform of these IPC constraints and rubbish internet experience that your clients would have to actively seek out themselves.

Clients needing to seek out info about Afrihost IPC conditions directly affecting them just is not a cool way of doing things... especially if the platform for this is not listed on the site and the official AH website is all bombing copacetic still.

No mention either on the support subsite... nothing in fact. AH support themselves seem oblivious to it.

I have not seen any official Twitter Immanent IPC Notices yet...
Anything announced on Facebook yet? Google+?

Anything... ??

We've communicated it several times in direct conversation and responses via all of those channels and it is also being communicated via support (or should be). We've sent several mails and also mentioned this on our internal social network.

I think the one concern is that we don't want people chalking every experience down to network congestion. Sometimes Telkom lines are down, sometimes routers are faulty, sometimes people are just putting the wrong passwords into their routers (had someone like this today, in fact). We don't ever want to not be able to help people who can still be assisted with day to day queries. And where we still can't assist, the more information we can collect will also help us improve what we can until the IPC is upgraded. I'm not saying it's the only reason, but it's something that is factored in.

 

[AfriMan]

Thanks, please ask the question. I noticed a line of reasoning on this thread pertaining to my frustration regarding a clear answer to the lack of IPC and complete lack of proper formal communication pertaining to it. Today I was doing your communication for you guys when some of my clients(2) were generally complaining about connectivity issues, how it was affecting their businesses and the confusing feedback they were getting from phone support. And I dont, as a rule, sell anything that plugs into a wall.

I think its time to send out a bit of a mail or sms or just a clear message on your status indicator.

Please. Think of the technically challenged...

We're definitely aware that many of our clients are ordinary moms and pops and we always factor them into our thinking. We also try not to alarm them or confuse them, so we try to keep things a simple as possible, which is why we communicate some more technical info here on MyBB that we don't necessarily go into the same level of detail on FB or Twitter.

 

[Greg27]

Thanks, that makes a world of sense. Maybe try communicate to the support gents and ladies that it would be much better to mention the IPC issue and then try everything else to help.

I wasted buckets of time thinking my issue was isolated but now I can set my clock to the rhythm of the contention. Yet the call centre still insists that the network is copacetic.

 

[i.got~issues]

We've communicated it several times in direct conversation and responses via all of those channels and it is also being communicated via support (or should be). We've sent several mails and also mentioned this on our internal social network.

I think the one concern is that we don't want people chalking every experience down to network congestion. Sometimes Telkom lines are down, sometimes routers are faulty, sometimes people are just putting the wrong passwords into their routers (had someone like this today, in fact). We don't ever want to not be able to help people who can still be assisted with day to day queries. And where we still can't assist, the more information we can collect will also help us improve what we can until the IPC is upgraded. I'm not saying it's the only reason, but it's something that is factored in.

I cannot find a single official announcement by Afrihost of IPC issues and immanent resolution... not one on Facebook, Twitter nor on Google+.

I see a rehash of mybroadband replies to individual comments on Facebook... but nothing official directly addressing IPC upgrades...

Lets go old school this afternoon, arcade lovers will like this quiz. We got 8/10

DNS and connectivity seems to be normalising, we'll continue to monitor. -J

We're investigating reports of intermittent DNS and connectivity issues, more info to follow.

Technical team report that most Hosting services at Gallo Manor have been restored. They will continuing to monitor services at the facility

We're aware of a Hosting outage at our Gallo Manor DC. Engineers are investigating. We apologise to affected clients for the inconvenience

We are experiencing increased DSL demand in North & affected clients may experience slow speeds. We apologise for the poor experience.

We apologise for the inconvenience. Our telephone lines are current down. Our team is working on fixing the issue as fast as possible.
UPDATE: Phone lines are working again. Thank you for your patience.

Before the fun starts, make sure to check that your APN settings are correct - before the iOS8 update and after the update!

ADSL Clients in the North (Gauteng) & East (KZN) regions may be experiencing slow speeds & latency. Our team are urgently addressing this.

ADSL Clients in the North (Gauteng) & East (KZN) regions may be experiencing slow speeds & latency. Our team are urgently addressing this.

Yes, you have answered individual questions with the same song and dance seen here... but one has to scroll down and reveal these "convos"... there is nothing officially blillboarded anywhere.

I cannot factor in a reason to not make an official announcement other than self-protection of your Afrihost brand / image and the convenience of ignorance.

It is more of an Afrihost priority to officially announce to their clients a new iPad has been released rather than perhaps inform them that AH is optimising their network and poor speeds and related issues will continue for a while until the immanent IPC upgrades in affected areas of oversubscribed and unforeseen increase in bandwidth demand.

Actually it is just a covering your arse tactic. What the clients do not know does not harm you.
Delaying tactic.

But, it is pointless actually pursuing anything other than the official line of silence on this rubbish internet experience.

Ye gots ta drink the kool-aid and sing the hymns I guess.

/bah

 

[MagicDude4Eva]

So who here has received an Afrihost mail, informing about the current issues? A dozen people I talk to daily are with Afrihost have issues and everyone has not received one of those magic mails. Just a saying...

 

[HelterSkelter]

Doing gooood here. Top speed for the last few days.