Afrihost Capped ADSL Feedback (MTN) - New beginning

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I just wish afrihost could go back to the way they were. It takes a long time to build back a good reputation. Think most clients don't mind if there are problems but when those problems start to run for a few months I think people start running out of patience. I know they are in a difficult situation and it's not easy for the reps. I know most people don't mind paying more for a service as long as it's quality. All people want is what they pay for nothing more or less.
 
SurrealZA said:
Hi,

I am a Afrihost South user (CTN) and I can no longer keep quiet...

I have been an Afrihost customer for nearly 5 years, I was a client when they were still using IS as their upstream provider. The service was superb.

Afrihost then moved to MTN, they went from hero to zero. I actually voiced my dissatisfaction knowing it was a bad move, but I decided to give them the benefit of the doubt....

But then - Network outages, packet loss, slow speeds. The proverbial devils trifecta for the average DSL user.

I cringe at the thought of logging a ticket with your support, I know the pains that come with it.

I am a senior network specialist and consultant so I know a thing or two about networking, so I try to explain the issue as best I can when logging a call and I make a point of proving that the issue is not with Telkom or my home setup before I log a call. I do this in order to not waste your support teams time with erroneous support tickets.

When I do log a call the reply I get, is either the ubiquitous corporate call centre copy and paste answer which addresses your issue in no shape or form, or they completely misunderstand your problem because they;

A. Haven't been adequately trained to handle tier 1 support queries.
B. Fail to read and understand the problem.
C. Assume that every customer has just learned for the first time on how to switch a PC on and their problem is most likely they haven't flicked the switch on the router to the "ON" position.

It's annoying.

So eventually I grew tired of this and moved to a capped product and was promised "Pure Internet Joy". Couldn't be further from the truth. It was the same if not worse than the uncapped product.

I frequently have high latency, 100ms + to local servers. Speeds are poor. Packet loss is rife. I have colleagues/friends/family with Afrihost and Axxess accounts (all CTN based), so when I experience said issues, I normally reach out to them and the conversation goes something like this;

Me: "Hey, Are you having issues with your internet???"

Person: "Yeah man, it's damn terrible, you too?"

Me: "Yep, its MTN again

So I notify the Afrihost support desk and explain to them that if I use another ISP's account, I have no issues. I have also contacted your other customers and they are having the same issues in the south region.Hint Hint.

The reply is, no no - it must be a Telkom issue on your line.

I am in the middle of a large FTP upload and without informing me, the Afrihost agent decides to reset my line because it must be a Telkom issue.

Deep breaths.

I was then asked to rate the level of service via SMS, I gave it a 3/10. I received a SMS reply apologising for the poor service and someone will be in contact with me shortly to discuss. That was over a week ago and no one has called. I actually don't want to talk to anyone at Afrihost about it - I have read enough of Gian's grovelling sorrowful emails and how you the customer are the embodiment of Afrihosts fundamental drive. (Ok, I made the last bit up, but this is the essence of the Afrihost marketing gumf that we are subjected to.)

The Gallo Manor outage is the cherry on the cake, I have servers, lots, not hosted with MTN (I have some foresight) and if my provider was down for 12 hours +. It's au revoir.

MTN are crying its load shedding's fault, yet load shedding has been around since 2008 now its a problem all of a sudden? Why have none of the other 100's of Datacentre operators had an issue?

Anyway, I have drifted off topic, but i am just trying to paint the backdrop.

TL;DR
Afrihost used to be good.
Afrihost are not good anymore.
I am not the only one saying this.
You have lost ISP of the year in 2015, I would be shocked if you managed to get it in 2016.
Your vendor lost an entire Data Centre and blame everything else besides inadequate redundant infrastructure.
You defend them like its a mantra, because they own you and you actually have no choice or recourse to now move your services elsewhere.
Click to expand...

I think I can agree with you, that there have been times with our ADSL and Hosting products have not been at there best - and our Hosting has definitely seen better days with Sundays power outage and multiple DDoS attacks since then - but a lot of the cool stuff that Afrihost has done since we moved over to MTN in 2013 would not have been possible had we remained with IS. Double Data and the launch of Afrihost Mobile Data are all innovations that using the MTN Network has allowed us.

We're taking a long hard look at the past weeks and what has happened, and we're definitely working hard to make sure the same issues do not recur.

I'm definitely disappointed that we've been unable to give all of our Clients the consistency and reliability that we aim for, and it is our Top Priority to claw our way back to an ISP that can win the ISP of the Year again.

Our Support is one aspect that we're paying particular attention to, and we're expanding the Support Team aggressively so that each query is handled with the utmost care and respect, and that you will not need to sit through the Copy and Paste answers, and that each Support Tech is fully immersed in our Company Culture and is able to resolve your query knowledgeably and ably.

Afrihost used to be good, and the latest round of Voting for ISP of the Year was a disappointment, but one which we will work our hardest to reverse and improve upon.
 
Speedtest.net is not responding on my side either, I already have one of our Team investigating what the issue is.
 
I can only browse South African sites, anything outside of SA takes forever and majority end up timing out. Speed test not working and latency as posted above.

Same thing on both mine and test account that Afrigenie supplied. Test with Web Africa account and all is running smoothly at full line speed. Wtf is this sht afrihost?? Your network getting so bad now that I can't even browse on a 10Mbps account?
 
Davedes said:
I can only browse South African sites, anything outside of SA takes forever and majority end up timing out. Speed test not working and latency as posted above.

Same thing on both mine and test account that Afrigenie supplied. Test with Web Africa account and all is running smoothly at full line speed. Wtf is this sht afrihost?? Your network getting so bad now that I can't even browse on a 10Mbps account?
Click to expand...

With the Afrihost account, can you quickly try switching the DNS on your ADSL modem to manual, then entering 196.7.7.7 as the primary DNS with 8.8.8.8 as the secondary DNS to see if that makes any difference at all.
 
Pings are bad again and packet loss welcome to 5 PM afrihost : /
 
The slower than normal international throughput is not related at all to the DDoS at Gallo Manor. MTN has confirmed that there is reduced throughput on the International links at the moment, they were already investigating, and are confident they should have things back to normal on that front momentarily.
 
AfriGenie said:
With the Afrihost account, can you quickly try switching the DNS on your ADSL modem to manual, then entering 196.7.7.7 as the primary DNS with 8.8.8.8 as the secondary DNS to see if that makes any difference at all.
Click to expand...

tested with the above DNS setting and no difference. Pings to JHB over 540ms on my broadband speed test unfortunately can't upload the result as the results page with the share link won't even load!

All this while my web africa test account runs smoothly.
 
Last edited:
a really unhappy network...

Ping Test:

ping 197.242.144.102

Request timeout for icmp_seq 1
Request timeout for icmp_seq 2
Request timeout for icmp_seq 3
Request timeout for icmp_seq 4
Request timeout for icmp_seq 5


ping 8.8.8.8

64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_req=1 ttl=53 time=70 ms
64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_req=2 ttl=53 time=45 ms
Request timeout for icmp_seq 3
64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_req=4 ttl=53 time=30 ms
64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_req=5 ttl=53 time=46 ms


Trace Test:

traceroute -n 197.242.144.102

1 10.0.0.2 1.618 ms * *
2 Request timed out * * *
3 41.181.178.6 343.561 ms 22.43 ms 50.644 ms
4 41.181.178.5 23.443 ms 18 ms 17.56 ms
5 41.181.165.115 39.039 ms 20.272 ms 19.94 ms
6 196.31.180.4 17.697 ms
41.181.165.114 17.787 ms 17.321 ms
7 Request timed out * *
196.44.0.224 44.145 ms
8 196.44.31.99 44.625 ms 44.438 ms 49.446 ms
9 196.30.1.53 41.751 ms
196.31.220.6 46.649 ms
Request timed out *
10 Request timed out *
196.31.220.23 44.165 ms
196.31.220.25 42.687 ms
11 196.31.63.194 30.978 ms
196.31.63.198 44.539 ms 40.298 ms
12 Request timed out * * *
13 Request timed out * *
197.242.144.102 45.751 ms
14 Request timed out *
197.242.144.102 31.93 ms
15 Request timed out *
16 Request timed out *
17 Request timed out *
18 Request timed out *
19 Request timed out *
20 Request timed out *
21 Request timed out *
22 Request timed out *
23 Request timed out *
24 Request timed out *
25 Request timed out *
26 Request timed out *
27 Request timed out *
28 Request timed out *
29 Request timed out *
30 Request timed out *
31 Request timed out *
32 Request timed out *
33 Request timed out *
34 Request timed out *
35 Request timed out *
36 Request timed out *
37 197.242.144.102 46.953 ms


traceroute -n 8.8.8.8

1 10.0.0.2 * 1.34 ms 2.279 ms
2 Request timed out * * *
3 41.181.221.249 182.364 ms 30.514 ms 32.856 ms
4 41.181.221.250 114.508 ms 18.865 ms 17.848 ms
5 41.181.165.115 48.535 ms 19.711 ms 21.895 ms
6 41.181.165.114 17.121 ms 20.297 ms 17.211 ms
7 41.181.180.10 29.604 ms
196.44.0.224 39.388 ms 31.465 ms
8 196.44.0.43 33.887 ms 20.664 ms
196.44.31.170 21.165 ms
9 41.181.139.99 49.162 ms 28.307 ms
41.181.139.109 28.988 ms
10 72.14.194.74 28.782 ms 69.919 ms 37.677 ms
11 72.14.239.53 43.076 ms 23.803 ms
72.14.239.35 81.557 ms
12 8.8.8.8 44.445 ms 60.978 ms 38.48 ms


DNS Test:

nslookup www.afrihost.com

Name: www.afrihost.com
Address: 197.242.144.102


nslookup www.google.com

Name: www.google.com
Address: 216.58.223.36


nslookup thishouldfail.afrihost.com

** server can't find thisshouldfail.com: NXDOMAIN
 
Something very screwed up. Also appears to me that international traffic is a problem.

***edit***

Tested with my FNB account and had the same issue. Switched to Webafrica and all is working fine.
 
Last edited:
Hunted said:
Something very screwed up. Also appears to me that international traffic is a problem.

***edit***

Tested with my FNB account and had the same issue. Switched to Webafrica and all is working fine.
Click to expand...

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1430844092.142496.jpg

But according the the network status page we are running like a bomb. only hosting services having issues.

Afrihost sorry to say but you guys are far from your former selves, your network has become a joke and for over a month clients reporting issues here are given nothing but run arounds and told things are improving.
 
Hunted said:
Something very screwed up. Also appears to me that international traffic is a problem.

***edit***

Tested with my FNB account and had the same issue. Switched to Webafrica and all is working fine.
Click to expand...

There is an international problem, we've seen international drop off pretty much all over. We're still investigating on our side why this is.

Tests will definitely show poor throughput overseas and possibly latency, we're still looking into this and testing :(
 
Davedes said:
a really unhappy network...

Ping Test:

ping 197.242.144.102

Request timeout for icmp_seq 1
Request timeout for icmp_seq 2
Request timeout for icmp_seq 3
Request timeout for icmp_seq 4
Request timeout for icmp_seq 5


ping 8.8.8.8

64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_req=1 ttl=53 time=70 ms
64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_req=2 ttl=53 time=45 ms
Request timeout for icmp_seq 3
64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_req=4 ttl=53 time=30 ms
64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_req=5 ttl=53 time=46 ms


Trace Test:

traceroute -n 197.242.144.102

1 10.0.0.2 1.618 ms * *
2 Request timed out * * *
3 41.181.178.6 343.561 ms 22.43 ms 50.644 ms
4 41.181.178.5 23.443 ms 18 ms 17.56 ms
5 41.181.165.115 39.039 ms 20.272 ms 19.94 ms
6 196.31.180.4 17.697 ms
41.181.165.114 17.787 ms 17.321 ms
7 Request timed out * *
196.44.0.224 44.145 ms
8 196.44.31.99 44.625 ms 44.438 ms 49.446 ms
9 196.30.1.53 41.751 ms
196.31.220.6 46.649 ms
Request timed out *
10 Request timed out *
196.31.220.23 44.165 ms
196.31.220.25 42.687 ms
11 196.31.63.194 30.978 ms
196.31.63.198 44.539 ms 40.298 ms
12 Request timed out * * *
13 Request timed out * *
197.242.144.102 45.751 ms
14 Request timed out *
197.242.144.102 31.93 ms
15 Request timed out *
16 Request timed out *
17 Request timed out *
18 Request timed out *
19 Request timed out *
20 Request timed out *
21 Request timed out *
22 Request timed out *
23 Request timed out *
24 Request timed out *
25 Request timed out *
26 Request timed out *
27 Request timed out *
28 Request timed out *
29 Request timed out *
30 Request timed out *
31 Request timed out *
32 Request timed out *
33 Request timed out *
34 Request timed out *
35 Request timed out *
36 Request timed out *
37 197.242.144.102 46.953 ms


traceroute -n 8.8.8.8

1 10.0.0.2 * 1.34 ms 2.279 ms
2 Request timed out * * *
3 41.181.221.249 182.364 ms 30.514 ms 32.856 ms
4 41.181.221.250 114.508 ms 18.865 ms 17.848 ms
5 41.181.165.115 48.535 ms 19.711 ms 21.895 ms
6 41.181.165.114 17.121 ms 20.297 ms 17.211 ms
7 41.181.180.10 29.604 ms
196.44.0.224 39.388 ms 31.465 ms
8 196.44.0.43 33.887 ms 20.664 ms
196.44.31.170 21.165 ms
9 41.181.139.99 49.162 ms 28.307 ms
41.181.139.109 28.988 ms
10 72.14.194.74 28.782 ms 69.919 ms 37.677 ms
11 72.14.239.53 43.076 ms 23.803 ms
72.14.239.35 81.557 ms
12 8.8.8.8 44.445 ms 60.978 ms 38.48 ms


DNS Test:

nslookup www.afrihost.com

Name: www.afrihost.com
Address: 197.242.144.102


nslookup www.google.com

Name: www.google.com
Address: 216.58.223.36


nslookup thishouldfail.afrihost.com

** server can't find thisshouldfail.com: NXDOMAIN
Click to expand...

Network is definitely not performing at peak right now, we know there is definitely an international problem though we are not sure what that is right now. The technical guys are investigating and troubleshooting with our overseas connectivity partners :(
 
Connection is seriously poked now! 1000ms ping playing Diablo 3. :mad:
 
QUOTE=AfriMan;15140692]Network is definitely not performing at peak right now, we know there is definitely an international problem though we are not sure what that is right now. The technical guys are investigating and troubleshooting with our overseas connectivity partners :([/QUOTE]

Yeah, trying LoL for the first time since I posted on Friday (had work to do), still terrible lag in LoL.
This time the ping was between 220ms and 2.1k though. Webafrica was 170ms without lag.
Trying to complete some PinpPlotters, there seems to be an issue with the 9th hop.


EDIT:
Can't upload due to packet loss.
Having serious packet loss from the bounce on your network onwards.

EDIT2:
Seems to have magically righted itself.
www.vienna.at - afrihost.jpg
That was the earlier one, was pretty constant throughout for me (unless the ping spiked).
Note the jitter. On WebAfrica I have 20ms jitter on the first hope and none after.

EDIT3:
After the extreme packet loss, it has settled down now. Hovering between 12 and 15.
www.vienna.at - afrihost 2.jpg
www.vienna.at. -3.jpg
 
Last edited:
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