Afrihost Business Uncapped Feedback

[AfriMan]

Seems to be a line fault according to AH support.
My Client Zone line tools cannot run and even their Test My Line tool in CZ is unable to give me a stat readout.
Now syncing at between 3Mbs and 4Mbs... line was syncing fine at 7138Mbs previously.

I will be on their up to 10Mbs 200GB capped account from the 1st of next month, but with the above issues, what is the point really.
I hope this can be resolved by the 24th, not willing to limp through a month while paying for speed that is unattainable.

/meh

EDIT:

HoHum... hooptime(tm) it seems, up to 10Mbs line syncing at under 4, now AH support wants me to run Telkom guest account speed tests... the problem is the line sync speed and not a speedtest issue... what good is a speedtest on a line syncing at under 4Mbs when it used to syn at over 7Mbs??

/jump
/jump
/jump

That's not good at all. I know we had some problems over the weekend when the Telkom access portal we use to set line sync was down. It should be up and normal again, so I can see why your line is syncing at the lower rate now

Drop me a PM.

 

[i.got~issues]

That's not good at all. I know we had some problems over the weekend when the Telkom access portal we use to set line sync was down. It should be up and normal again, so I can see why your line is syncing at the lower rate now

Drop me a PM.

Hi AfriMan

Thanks again for the offer of assistance... but Telkom has finally acknowledged that it is the Wynberg exchange that is now congested, and there is nothing that can be done until they can upgrade... and they have no ETA on this. There are also no available slots on this exchange and the current equipment is being "managed" to provide a stable connection for all connected, and this has resulted in port sync speeds being dropped on some of these ports. Mine being one of them apparently.

It seems as if the Constantia exchange upgrade has been completed and is live and now offers 20Mbs with the Wynberg exchange being next on the list. The current bottleneck with this exchange upgrade process is council permission / red tape for the local boxes and fibre installations. The techie from Telkom says that once this red tape has been sorted, the upgrades should occur quite quickly and that there will be a free 20Mbs trial for those currently connected to the Wynberg exchange, but would not comment on any idea of a time-frame... it will happen when it happens and Telkom will inform me once it has happened.

The Telkom techie has also advised that with the current Wynberg issues, I will be lucky to get above 2Mbs and probably not exceed 4Mbs.

/meh

 

[Bursty-dude]

Its weird that the video is buffering or freezing when you've buffered ahead, unless I misunderstand this screenshot.

The length of the video is 2:41, and on those two screenshots it shows how long it took to buffer on 720p on a 6MB line.
First pic shows where it buffered to after 3 minutes, second pic was after another 3 minutes.
So, 6 minutes in total to buffer not even a third of the way for a 2:41 long vid.

Totally unacceptable for this to happen as my neighbor across the road has a 2MB Telkom ADSL line and can watch 720p Youtube vids with no buffering issues.

 

[AfriMan]

Hi AfriMan

Thanks again for the offer of assistance... but Telkom has finally acknowledged that it is the Wynberg exchange that is now congested, and there is nothing that can be done until they can upgrade... and they have no ETA on this. There are also no available slots on this exchange and the current equipment is being "managed" to provide a stable connection for all connected, and this has resulted in port sync speeds being dropped on some of these ports. Mine being one of them apparently.

It seems as if the Constantia exchange upgrade has been completed and is live and now offers 20Mbs with the Wynberg exchange being next on the list. The current bottleneck with this exchange upgrade process is council permission / red tape for the local boxes and fibre installations. The techie from Telkom says that once this red tape has been sorted, the upgrades should occur quite quickly and that there will be a free 20Mbs trial for those currently connected to the Wynberg exchange, but would not comment on any idea of a time-frame... it will happen when it happens and Telkom will inform me once it has happened.

The Telkom techie has also advised that with the current Wynberg issues, I will be lucky to get above 2Mbs and probably not exceed 4Mbs.

/meh

That really sucks. I guess it's better to know, but still sucks big time

 

[AfriMan]

The length of the video is 2:41, and on those two screenshots it shows how long it took to buffer on 720p on a 6MB line.
First pic shows where it buffered to after 3 minutes, second pic was after another 3 minutes.
So, 6 minutes in total to buffer not even a third of the way for a 2:41 long vid.

Totally unacceptable for this to happen as my neighbor across the road has a 2MB Telkom ADSL line and can watch 720p Youtube vids with no buffering issues.

From my testing 720p is usually a bit tough on 2Mbps, but if you're letting it buffer ahead, it could make sense.

 

[Bursty-dude]

No, what DOES NOT make sense is letting a 2 minute 41 second long video buffer for 6 minutes on a 6MB connection and it is not even buffered a third of the way.

There is a streaming problem on AH's side. Case closed.

 

[PurSpyk!!]

No, what DOES NOT make sense is letting a 2 minute 41 second long video buffer for 6 minutes on a 6MB connection and it is not even buffered a third of the way.

There is a streaming problem on AH's side. Case closed.

Agree, I wish Afrihost would admit to issues. I have streaming issues, do lots of tests, speak to critical care, who most of the time never call back, and still have the same issues.

 

[kohlhtor]

Speed is again tonight 450 Kb/s normal 635 Kb/s this is with download manager

 

[Fr0sT]

I think it's always best to test for yourself. We are investigating throughput to US based services, but our international throughput to EU/UK has been pretty good when I've tested. US throughput is generally good, but we see some problems with routing internally within the US for some services.

If you testa Free GB account, this should give you an indication of how a Business account will perform (if you are matching Uncapped speed to your line's capability)

https://www.afrihost.com/microsites...r&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=FREEGB_1303

I have backup capped account from Afrihost that i use for browsing, tested now on 1080 youtube with no problems. Does the uncapped business perform the same as capped?

 

[AfriMan]

No, what DOES NOT make sense is letting a 2 minute 41 second long video buffer for 6 minutes on a 6MB connection and it is not even buffered a third of the way.

There is a streaming problem on AH's side. Case closed.

The problem is that we're now not looking at other possibilities, we're going to focus on a network problem that may not be there. I have run extensive tests on YouTube, from a complaint from other clients, and I am confident that YouTube works well on our network. For their to be a problem on our network, every single Afrihost client, on every shaped or unshaped product, would be complaining about YouTube and seeing the same results.

I would be happy to test your video links on a regular Business account, and if I can recreate your results I would be happy to concede that it's our bandwidth, or network.

 

[AfriMan]

Agree, I wish Afrihost would admit to issues. I have streaming issues, do lots of tests, speak to critical care, who most of the time never call back, and still have the same issues.

I am always happy to admit if we have problems, and have done so in the past. But I think I have consistently asked that we prove and establish the actual causes for these issues before we define an issue. Otherwise we end up looking in the wrong place. We must recreate or replicate issues reported and what a client is experiencing to be able to report precisely what needs to be addressed.

 

[AfriMan]

I have backup capped account from Afrihost that i use for browsing, tested now on 1080 youtube with no problems. Does the uncapped business perform the same as capped?

Capped and Business are essentially drawn from the same data pool, so they should perform very similarly, especially if you are matching the Uncapped account to your line maximum.

 

[CyberSA]

Capped and Business are essentially drawn from the same data pool, so they should perform very similarly, especially if you are matching the Uncapped account to your line maximum.

Nice to hear that I am paying more for Business Uncapped but getting the same service as a home user . I am having major issues on the Business Uncapped 1mb line. Tried the online support on your website and all I get is I must contact Telkom. Strange thing is if I load the Telkom account I got with my line rental, I have no issues.

So how about some ping tests:
On AH Business Uncapped 1mb

Pinging 8.8.8.8 with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=1707ms TTL=42
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=1757ms TTL=42
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=1417ms TTL=42
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=1260ms TTL=42

On AH Try me out 1G (2mb line)

Pinging 8.8.8.8 with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=201ms TTL=42
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=199ms TTL=42
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=200ms TTL=42
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=199ms TTL=42

So explain Afriman, how is it that according to your Support team, the issue is on Telkom side and not yours when the above two tests are to your own servers. And did I say I am paying extra for a Business Uncapped line? Oh yes I did ..

 

[AfriMan]

Nice to hear that I am paying more for Business Uncapped but getting the same service as a home user . I am having major issues on the Business Uncapped 1mb line. Tried the online support on your website and all I get is I must contact Telkom. Strange thing is if I load the Telkom account I got with my line rental, I have no issues.

So how about some ping tests:
On AH Business Uncapped 1mb

Pinging 8.8.8.8 with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=1707ms TTL=42
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=1757ms TTL=42
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=1417ms TTL=42
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=1260ms TTL=42

On AH Try me out 1G (2mb line)

Pinging 8.8.8.8 with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=201ms TTL=42
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=199ms TTL=42
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=200ms TTL=42
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=199ms TTL=42

So explain Afriman, how is it that according to your Support team, the issue is on Telkom side and not yours when the above two tests are to your own servers. And did I say I am paying extra for a Business Uncapped line? Oh yes I did ..

Looks like we need to test further here. As you mentioned, you're essentially testing the same network and same data pool, so the results should be the same. We need to look at what is then intermittent when results are returned. One can also factor in that when changing accounts, you reset your sync, so line issues may appear to perform better for a short period, depending on the nature of where the problem lies.

Can you post the full traces (if you ran them) or otherwise drop me a PM so we can run more specific testing on this?

 

[VScheepers]

I am very happy to report that my issues seemed to have been sorted out..

Thanks to Afriman and Oscar!

Streaming has been absolutely awesome the last 4 days and downloads are running at full speed...

 

[PurSpyk!!]

I am always happy to admit if we have problems, and have done so in the past. But I think I have consistently asked that we prove and establish the actual causes for these issues before we define an issue. Otherwise we end up looking in the wrong place. We must recreate or replicate issues reported and what a client is experiencing to be able to report precisely what needs to be addressed.

Ok, so what do I need to do, the streaming on Supersport is totally unacceptable. Critical care could not solve this last time, I even landed up buying 2 new adsl routers (one from Afrihost), and it did not help.

 

[PurSpyk!!]

I am very happy to report that my issues seemed to have been sorted out..

Thanks to Afriman and Oscar!

Streaming has been absolutely awesome the last 4 days and downloads are running at full speed...

View attachment 134355

Do you have DSTV, could you watch some Live videos and let me know if it plays correctly or streams continuously?

 

[VScheepers]

I canned DSTV almost 2 years ago and opted to up my DSL line.

I have noticed that Supersport buffers frequently on my Droid box... All other streams (Netflix, BBC etc) play flawlessly..

Do you have DSTV, could you watch some Live videos and let me know if it plays correctly or streams continuously?

 

[AfriMan]

I am very happy to report that my issues seemed to have been sorted out..

Thanks to Afriman and Oscar!

Streaming has been absolutely awesome the last 4 days and downloads are running at full speed...

View attachment 134355

Oscar did all the work, but I am happy to take all the credit

 

[AfriMan]

Ok, so what do I need to do, the streaming on Supersport is totally unacceptable. Critical care could not solve this last time, I even landed up buying 2 new adsl routers (one from Afrihost), and it did not help.

We need to be able to replicate the issue. If other clients are able to use the same services in similar conditions, then we do have to start looking at individual factors specific to each client or common between clients having the same experience.