Afrihost Business Uncapped Feedback

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Spyk3r said:
If you are taking a bundled account, you are getting an additional discount on the line! I'm sure you were laughing at all the guys who had their lines with Telkom. Now that you don't get the same benefit as capped customers you throw your toys out the cot like spoiled little brats, even when Afrihost give you a mystery bonus (which they have done numerous times)
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Show me when and where Business Uncapped Clients have received mystery bonuses?
 
Spyk3r said:
I don't think that is completely fair...

Afrihost has some of the cheapest "Business accounts" available in South Africa.

Anyone who disagrees with this statement should immediately STOP READING and cancel their Afrihost account and move to that company...

If you are taking a bundled account, you are getting an additional discount on the line! I'm sure you were laughing at all the guys who had their lines with Telkom. Now that you don't get the same benefit as capped customers you throw your toys out the cot like spoiled little brats, even when Afrihost give you a mystery bonus (which they have done numerous times)

And for the guys who say they run their small business on the business account... Any TRUE business man knows you need redundancy. You need to be able to setup things to work with SLA's etc to ensure you aren't down for long. So stop being a cheapskate buying the Afrihost Business account for between R500 and R5500 less than a Diginet/Fibre connection which comes with an SLA.

You cant run an Online business unaffected on a best effort service. It just isn't going to work. Otherwise, you have to accept that there will be issues and you need to live with them.

Now for Afrihost.

You know Telkom is useless when it comes to making promises. Perhaps you guys can find someone already in Telkom that is responsible for IPC upgrades etc and get him onto your payroll? Give him the motivation to get MTN's IPC up and running quicker!

I believe that you told us that you ordered the capacity last year December? If so, then this is truly horrible service from Telkom. However, there are other options you could have done, such as putting up a letter on the site saying that the new accounts will be limited until the new capacity has landed, but if the customer leaves their details, they will get the first month on Afrihost (a free trial if you will), that way, you will still gain the customer, but not put your already strained network under additional pressure.

Taking on new signups could still happen, but then you would have to tell them somewhere when signing up that you are currently experiencing high volumes of internet traffic and the network currently cant handle it, but you are at least informing would-be customers of the impending upgrades.

Anyway, this is your business, I just put forward the ideas... Use them, dont use them...

Good luck with the impeding upgrade.

//Disclaimer: I am an Afrihost client, and remain one. I have additional accounts should the need arise, or if I cant use Afrihosts services for any reason, which to date hasnt happened.
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There is a lot of wisdom in what you say in hindsight. I think if we knew then what we know now, we could possibly have considered some of the options mentioned. We had no reason to expect that Telkom would not deliver on time, and when we received partial delivery late last year, we felt confident this would carry us through until the balance was delivered after the December network freeze. I think at the time we had every confidence that we would be able to provide a good level of service to existing and new clients with the imminent upgrade.

We're also taking notes for the future and hopefully some new implementations on our side and Telkom should help us have more options should a situation like this ever arise.
 
Gatecrasher said:
Show me when and where Business Uncapped Clients have received mystery bonuses?
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Why would you need a mystery bonus?? You are on uncapped. (AT the lowest business uncapped rate in South Africa, so if you don't like it, move to a more expensive one)
 
AfriMan said:
There is a lot of wisdom in what you say in hindsight. I think if we knew then what we know now, we could possibly have considered some of the options mentioned. We had no reason to expect that Telkom would not deliver on time, and when we received partial delivery late last year, we felt confident this would carry us through until the balance was delivered after the December network freeze. I think at the time we had every confidence that we would be able to provide a good level of service to existing and new clients with the imminent upgrade.

We're also taking notes for the future and hopefully some new implementations on our side and Telkom should help us have more options should a situation like this ever arise.
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All I can say is Good luck. I certainly wont be bothering you complaining about the service :)

I am happy with the price I am paying!
 
Spyk3r said:
Why would you need a mystery bonus?? You are on uncapped. (AT the lowest business uncapped rate in South Africa, so if you don't like it, move to a more expensive one)
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So why bring that up if it does not apply here? Like we should be thankful our business uncapped accounts are degraded and over-contended.

And yes, one of our complaints is that Afrihost have gone on these double-your-bandwidth and mystery bonus sprees in the full knowledge that they did not have the capacity to cope with it.

It has been a double whammy for us. No benefits or bonuses from the IPC price cuts, and a badly degraded service just for good measure.
 
AfriMan said:
I've got some really bad news, guys.

We've been informed by Telkom that they can't install the IPC upgrade in the South today. They have now promised that they will do so by the 18th of April (about a week or so from now). We're really disappointed with this, and we'll continue to follow this up to see if anything can be done to speed this up with Telkom or if we can at least confirm this new date from them.

This will affect IPC delivery in the East as well, as both orders are concurrent, and should be delivered roundabout the same time.

I'm truly sorry about this, and I can understand that some clients are going to feel very upset about this. I promise that we've done our best to get commitments for today, and as far as we knew (up till just now) everything was confirmed for delivery today.

I'm definitely available by PM if anyone wants to discuss how they feel about this delay, and obviously we'll discuss this here in our threads.

Really, truly sorry about this additional unforeseen delay :(
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Seriously? Wow. Not even I have that much faith in Telkom, to be honest and I used to recommend them to everyone prior to the network breakdown in January.

Well, I guess my dad will have to continue along with the occasional freeze in GTA Online. Most other things are still working perfectly for me but I realise that's also because I'm in the EC in Jeffreys Bay, which is relatively unaffected so far by the IPC issues. I hope UnoDNS doesn't have any further issues either.

Unlike others, I have no intention of moving away from Afrihost. The unshaped connection works for me and I don't feel like moving e-mail inbox accounts and configuring the other mail clients for my family and letting everyone else know the previous address is invalid.
 
Fudzy said:
Where?
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Numerious times in this thread. Not only that, but it was also admitted that we are being shapped. They have fundamentally changed the service.

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.
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We are no longer receiving premium bandwidth, we are no longer receiving unshapped bandwidth, and we most certainly are no longer receiving prioritized bandwidth due to the shaping.

Whether I'm a micro business, a small business, or a enterprise is irrelavent. The product description, says this product is correct for me.

Afrihost itself also said that they DO NOT use the term "best effort" - I don't see where this whole best effort escape comes from. Most certainly it's not Afrihost hiding behind it. They just refuse to admit that the service levels have degraded to such an extent that the service is virtually unusable.
 
Gatecrasher said:
So why bring that up if it does not apply here? Like we should be thankful our business uncapped accounts are degraded and over-contended.

And yes, one of our complaints is that Afrihost have gone on these double-your-bandwidth and mystery bonus sprees in the full knowledge that they did not have the capacity to cope with it.

It has been a double whammy for us. No benefits or bonuses from the IPC price cuts, and a badly degraded service just for good measure.
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I referred to capped clients who don't have their line with Afrihost bundled.

Your benefit is you don't have a limit. You have priority over everyone else (except the capped users, as a uncapped business user)

Why not change to a capped account until the capacity has landed? I was a business 4mbps user, and changed to a 100gb account. So im not too fussed. Get the 10mbps speed and use the same amount of bandwidth.

You keep saying business... Afrihost calls it Business, but it isn't Business, it is premium... Imagine how the okes on the 4mbps home account feel. Goes back to the price you pay. Afrihost is still the cheapest overall! I love them because of that. But I just watch youtube videos and browse the web. I am not running a company that requires internet to operate. It comes down to each individuals needs. If your needs are not being met by your current service provider, move on to the next one, or engage them and ask for a better package or something else that may work, if they cant, move on. Simple
 
savage said:
Numerious times in this thread. Not only that, but it was also admitted that we are being shapped. They have fundamentally changed the service.

We are no longer receiving premium bandwidth, we are no longer receiving unshapped bandwidth, and we most certainly are no longer receiving prioritized bandwidth due to the shaping.

Whether I'm a micro business, a small business, or a enterprise is irrelavent. The product description, says this product is correct for me.

Afrihost itself also said that they DO NOT use the term "best effort" - I don't see where this whole best effort escape comes from. Most certainly it's not Afrihost hiding behind it. They just refuse to admit that the service levels have degraded to such an extent that the service is virtually unusable.
Click to expand...

You have gone off on a diatribe and forgotten answer my question. I searched for "shap" (seeing as it can apply to both shaping, shaped and shape) using afriman, afriguy and afrigirl. None of them say that they are now shaping business uncapped, there is a reference to shaping made today but it was referring to the regular uncapped product.
 
NAG - Wesley said:
Seriously? Wow. Not even I have that much faith in Telkom, to be honest and I used to recommend them to everyone prior to the network breakdown in January.

Well, I guess my dad will have to continue along with the occasional freeze in GTA Online. Most other things are still working perfectly for me but I realise that's also because I'm in the EC in Jeffreys Bay, which is relatively unaffected so far by the IPC issues. I hope UnoDNS doesn't have any further issues either.

Unlike others, I have no intention of moving away from Afrihost. The unshaped connection works for me and I don't feel like moving e-mail inbox accounts and configuring the other mail clients for my family and letting everyone else know the previous address is invalid.
Click to expand...

Sorry that your Dad will have to suffer with lag (but so awesome that your Dad plays GTA though!)

We have resolved the UnoTelly issues though - should be routing normally again :)
 
AfriMan said:
There is a lot of wisdom in what you say in hindsight. I think if we knew then what we know now, we could possibly have considered some of the options mentioned. We had no reason to expect that Telkom would not deliver on time, and when we received partial delivery late last year, we felt confident this would carry us through until the balance was delivered after the December network freeze. I think at the time we had every confidence that we would be able to provide a good level of service to existing and new clients with the imminent upgrade.

We're also taking notes for the future and hopefully some new implementations on our side and Telkom should help us have more options should a situation like this ever arise.
Click to expand...

If find it quite infuriating that you expect us to believe that there wasn't even a hint YESTERDAY, that Telkom would not be able to deliver today.... You really expect PAYING clients to believe that BOTH provider AND supplier are that disorganised? Really?

Funny how recently, the best service and response times I am getting from ANY support section IS from Telkom? Sure, you may have to wait for 40 minutes to get hold of them, but they have made a serious effort lately to tend to clients. Have their planned upgrades gone according to plan? NO, but you CAN contact them, push them as an END USER and get some form of compensation for poor (not NO) service/product delivery. Afrihost really should be quite embarrassed, when people start believing that their service is worse than Telkom's?

Again, the reason things get heated in these threads is because every time a question is asked, no answer, or commitment is forthcoming... even when a PROMISE is made, it always is broken, and then it gets dumped in Telkom's lap. It is not enough to blame others for the "break-down in trust and communication", sit on your hands and claim "foul! Telkom!".... I put it to you that AFRIHOST is at fault here, not only for the poor network management and planning, but for this "break-down" it uses as the defense for the appalling way in which it has conducted itself from the beginning. It seems that "service" and "customer satisfaction" are completely foreign to your company. Saying, "sorry to hear that..." and "I understand.... if that's what you have to do..." are not good enough ANYMORE.

I am quite sure that the date of the 18th will come and go, and we will all STILL be here, discussing and complaining about the same thing.

To all those who are trying to be calm, claiming that they aren't experiencing any issues.... WAIT! By the 18th, there will be a serious "knock-on" effect, as there was with Business Uncapped.... things will get much worse.... not to mention that by that time, there will be so many more NEW users/clients, that the additional IPC will not even make a dent.

But hey... let me NOT voice my opinion, for fear of being TOLD that my accounts have been cancelled :(
 
Fudzy said:
You have gone off on a diatribe and forgotten answer my question. I searched for "shap" (seeing as it can apply to both shaping, shaped and shape) using afriman, afriguy and afrigirl. None of them say that they are now shaping business uncapped, there is a reference to shaping made today but it was referring to the regular uncapped product.
Click to expand...

I don't think Afrihost are shaping these premium/business accounts, and they have assured us that they are not. When they mentioned increasing the shaping it was a reference to the regular uncapped accounts. However, contention restraints due to insufficient IPC will have a very similar effect. Even though we supposedly have priority on the network.
 
Gatecrasher said:
I don't think Afrihost are shaping these premium/business accounts, and they have assured us that they are not. When they mentioned increasing the shaping it was a reference to the regular uncapped accounts. However, contention restraints due to insufficient IPC will have a very similar effect. Even though we supposedly have priority on the network.
Click to expand...

HAHAHAHA.... that's very funny... and a novel concept... business gets priority???? Reeeeeaaalllyyy now :p

...and yes, you are correct... it has exactly the same effect as shaping, or limiting ;)
The pipes are only SO big :)
 
Spyk3r said:
I don't think that is completely fair...

Afrihost has some of the cheapest "Business accounts" available in South Africa.

Anyone who disagrees with this statement should immediately STOP READING and cancel their Afrihost account and move to that company...

If you are taking a bundled account, you are getting an additional discount on the line! I'm sure you were laughing at all the guys who had their lines with Telkom. Now that you don't get the same benefit as capped customers you throw your toys out the cot like spoiled little brats, even when Afrihost give you a mystery bonus (which they have done numerous times)

And for the guys who say they run their small business on the business account... Any TRUE business man knows you need redundancy. You need to be able to setup things to work with SLA's etc to ensure you aren't down for long. So stop being a cheapskate buying the Afrihost Business account for between R500 and R5500 less than a Diginet/Fibre connection which comes with an SLA.

You cant run an Online business unaffected on a best effort service. It just isn't going to work. Otherwise, you have to accept that there will be issues and you need to live with them.

Now for Afrihost.

You know Telkom is useless when it comes to making promises. Perhaps you guys can find someone already in Telkom that is responsible for IPC upgrades etc and get him onto your payroll? Give him the motivation to get MTN's IPC up and running quicker!

I believe that you told us that you ordered the capacity last year December? If so, then this is truly horrible service from Telkom. However, there are other options you could have done, such as putting up a letter on the site saying that the new accounts will be limited until the new capacity has landed, but if the customer leaves their details, they will get the first month on Afrihost (a free trial if you will), that way, you will still gain the customer, but not put your already strained network under additional pressure.

Taking on new signups could still happen, but then you would have to tell them somewhere when signing up that you are currently experiencing high volumes of internet traffic and the network currently cant handle it, but you are at least informing would-be customers of the impending upgrades.

Anyway, this is your business, I just put forward the ideas... Use them, dont use them...

Good luck with the impeding upgrade.

//Disclaimer: I am an Afrihost client, and remain one. I have additional accounts should the need arise, or if I cant use Afrihosts services for any reason, which to date hasnt happened.
Click to expand...

I think this is great. Some really good points have been raised!
 
Gatecrasher said:
I don't think Afrihost are shaping these premium/business accounts, and they have assured us that they are not. When they mentioned increasing the shaping it was a reference to the regular uncapped accounts. However, contention restraints due to insufficient IPC will have a very similar effect. Even though we supposedly have priority on the network.
Click to expand...
If it acts and feels shaped, then why not call it that?
 
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