Afrihost Capped ADSL Feedback (MTN) - New beginning

[Venom Rush]

Yeah tried to play some counterstrike last night. pinged 170. nice one. my 56k setup back in 1999 pinged 150. This is just retarded. Diablo 3 pings 450. Also unplayable. Ive been plagued by high latency the last couple of months every evening when the congestion on afrihost network increases. I'm too lazy to change ISP so I just laughed it off but it's great that you guys finally admit your network is F**KED. Now I can drop afrihost and move on to another ISP. Cheers.

Only 450ms in D3? You're lucky. I've had to deal with my latency shooting up between 2k-3k ms.

 

[LBXAC20]

To be fair, it has been a while that we've posted here that we're not happy with the way things are running.

sorry i dont frequent this forum often. i would expect such a severe issue to be reported on your main website. but i guess that would scare off customers...:twisted:

 

[steel_dog]

To be fair, it has been a while that we've posted here that we're not happy with the way things are running.

There is no intention come across as be grumpy, aggrieved or otherwise. I am not. I simply feel compelled to respond when I feel strongly about a position taken.

I think if we're being open and honest about the situation, the issues were only acknowledged when the proverbial hit the fan. Until then there was zero acknowledgement of the widespread nature and severity of the problem. What AH knew in the boardroom, potentially for weeks, was not publicly acknowledged despite it being directly relevant to your clients' experience. This is not cool.

Having said that I am grateful that the acknowledgement came when it did because I for one was at the end of my tether. Loyalty works both ways. No client wants to up and leave. So I stay... and make sure accountability rests where it needs to. You guys need to be open about the issues and timelines for resolution. These unfortunately appear to be state secrets and I am still struggling to understand why.

Anyway - my 2c for now.
You guys have my number so call me if you'd like to discuss.

 

[LBXAC20]

Only 450ms in D3? You're lucky. I've had to deal with my latency shooting up between 2k-3k ms.

sure it spikes to that, hehe. but the minimum latency is around 400-450. whereas in the early early hours of the morning, when congestion frees up, the ping drops down to 200! Like it should be. I guess the solution is gaming between 1-4 in the morning :wtf:

 

[AfriGuy]

There is no intention come across as be grumpy, aggrieved or otherwise. I am not. I simply feel compelled to respond when I feel strongly about a position taken.

I think if we're being open and honest about the situation, the issues were only acknowledged when the proverbial hit the fan. Until then there was zero acknowledgement of the widespread nature and severity of the problem. What AH knew in the boardroom, potentially for weeks, was not publicly acknowledged despite it being directly relevant to your clients' experience. This is not cool.

Having said that I am grateful that the acknowledgement came when it did because I for one was at the end of my tether. Loyalty works both ways. No client wants to up and leave. So I stay... and make sure accountability rests where it needs to. You guys need to be open about the issues and timelines for resolution. These unfortunately appear to be state secrets and I am still struggling to understand why.

Anyway - my 2c for now.
You guys have my number so call me if you'd like to discuss.

I do agree, I think going forward we're going to have to be a lot more proactive around situations like this. It is something that has been discussed internally.

 

[Wolfling]

You should most certainly have received some form of feedback on this.

I've asked our Critical Care Team to also look into this. Streaming has been okay for the most part at the moment, so there could definitely be an issue with routing in play here as well.

How long does it take for them to respond? Or is that also one of the 'how long is a piece of string' aka 'Soon' answers?

I have been waiting 48 hours now. I need to decide if I am going to stay or not, and once the process of moving has started, I am not going to stop. You can tell Telkom that they will also be losing a customer as I will be going the WISP road and I will certainly cancel my line as well as I do not need a Telkom voice line at my home. Maybe that will get them to also move their feet a bit quicker.

 

[Unhappy1]

Really sorry about that
We are seeing higher than normal latency on the network. Just a reminder that improvements are on the way!

Its too late, you guys should have been doing these improvements ages ago. I've been really patient these last few months but i did finally cancel. I do appreciate the feedback you reps provide to this forum, i will keep an eye on this thread and i might return in the future.

 

[Ivork]

That actually sounds more like a DNS issue... Youtube should be streaming for a local cache. Would you mind checking which DNS Servers your modem is using?

Umm, Pardon me, but DNS has what to do with speed exactly ????
Oh wait you mean his UNO DNS or whatever DNS provider he is using is not sending him to a local cache.

So tough luck bummer to the rest of us streaming from providers we paid subs for that don't happen to have local mirrors or caches so stuttering 240p should be acceptable - is that what you are saying ?

 

[biometrics]

I think the important thing to note is that a network is not static, it has to evolve with demand, changes in behaviour, traffic, services and technology. Any network team must plan and evaluate constantly to compensate for all of this. We try to be open about what we're doing. Some prefer to do things behind closed doors so as not to create panic, we feel that the open approach is what our clients expect from us.

Reactive vs proactive. Got it.

 

[AfriGenie]

How long does it take for them to respond? Or is that also one of the 'how long is a piece of string' aka 'Soon' answers?

I have been waiting 48 hours now. I need to decide if I am going to stay or not, and once the process of moving has started, I am not going to stop. You can tell Telkom that they will also be losing a customer as I will be going the WISP road and I will certainly cancel my line as well as I do not need a Telkom voice line at my home. Maybe that will get them to also move their feet a bit quicker.

I can only imagine how frustrating this must be, we try to get Telkom to resolve issues with them as quickly as possible, but if there is a high workload in your area, this can delay any fault resolution. I'll continue to push from my side to see if we can get any sort of resolution.

 

[AfriGenie]

Its too late, you guys should have been doing these improvements ages ago. I've been really patient these last few months but i did finally cancel. I do appreciate the feedback you reps provide to this forum, i will keep an eye on this thread and i might return in the future.

There were a number of factors in play that resulted in the day, I'm by no means saying that these delays are acceptable, but in the coming days we'll be able to go into more detail once we put out the latest update.

 

[AfriGenie]

Umm, Pardon me, but DNS has what to do with speed exactly ????
Oh wait you mean his UNO DNS or whatever DNS provider he is using is not sending him to a local cache.

So tough luck bummer to the rest of us streaming from providers we paid subs for that don't happen to have local mirrors or caches so stuttering 240p should be acceptable - is that what you are saying ?

Distance plays has as much of an impact on streaming performance as does local network capacity. I'm all for our Clients using Netflix and Hulu, but these services are based in the US, and aren't intended to be streaming outside of the US.

We try to make sure that all streaming performance is prioritized so that you have the best experience possible, but any hiccup over the course of thousands of kilometers can affect streaming performance.

 

[Kosmik]

50kbps on steam? Seriously?

 

[i.got~issues]

Afrihost now dead... nothing works.. meh.

 

[AfriMan]

50kbps on steam? Seriously?

Afrihost now dead... nothing works.. meh.

Last night latency in the South was actually unusually quiet. I see an almost minimal rise, which either way should have been gone by 10pm. Was there any loadshedding near you? Not sure if Eskom is loadshedding right now

Most nights we do see a bit of a sheer drop, but sometimes a small spike in latency as bandwidth frees up and Uncapped users are unshaped, but definitely nothing like that last night on my reports

 

[Aquiva]

Last night latency in the South was actually unusually quiet. I see an almost minimal rise, which either way should have been gone by 10pm. Was there any loadshedding near you? Not sure if Eskom is loadshedding right now

Most nights we do see a bit of a sheer drop, but sometimes a small spike in latency as bandwidth frees up and Uncapped users are unshaped, but definitely nothing like that last night on my reports

Why should it have been gone by 10:00? I thought no throttling or shaping is applied to capped users? If Afrihost has contention paterns that can be predicted/expected by the hour, then you still have major IPC issues. If you say again you don't have IPC issues, then why the need for the strict network management rules?

 

[Aquiva]

Distance plays has as much of an impact on streaming performance as does local network capacity. I'm all for our Clients using Netflix and Hulu, but these services are based in the US, and aren't intended to be streaming outside of the US.

We try to make sure that all streaming performance is prioritized so that you have the best experience possible, but any hiccup over the course of thousands of kilometers can affect streaming performance.

The only reason why they aren't intended to be streamed outside the US is because of legislation. Otherwise Twitch and Ustream and all other US services will also be negatively affected by Afrihost! The internet has no boundaries!

Why do we get lower latency to the US/Europe on other ISP's if Afrihost is supposed to be on a superior network??

 

[Orihalcon]

Hmmm.

It seems Afrihost's free account does not authenticate on Telkom fibre. Interesting.

Any reason for this maybe? Just curious.

 

[AfriMan]

Hmmm.

It seems Afrihost's free account does not authenticate on Telkom fibre. Interesting.

Any reason for this maybe? Just curious.

The free GB accounts are limited to specific telephone number, so they may not be allowed to authenticate due to that restriction. If you signed up with that landline number, then it may work. Depends on how the system identifies the calling station. For a regular capped account, that would not matter - we've tested with those and they do work

 

[Orihalcon]

The free GB accounts are limited to specific telephone number, so they may not be allowed to authenticate due to that restriction. If you signed up with that landline number, then it may work. Depends on how the system identifies the calling station. For a regular capped account, that would not matter - we've tested with those and they do work

A pity actually. Would have liked to see how the account performs on it.

Thank you for the reply