Afrihost Capped ADSL Feedback (MTN) - New beginning

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i.got~issues said:
Again, please, WHAT is the cause of this and HOW are you specifically improving performance?

This is a recurring issue down here and again and again we have been assured that it is being monitored, optimised, tweaked and improved... but other than "increased contention" with "more than enough IPC bandwidth" being repeated... there is never any mention of actual cause or reason for this down here.

I cannot understand this increased contention with more than enough available bandwidth on your IPC.

Something just does not compute.

Months and months of degraded service and only reassurances of improvement are forthcoming...
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I think it's important to state clearly that nothing was degraded (as in removed or downgraded). Demand increased steadily as more clients use more internet based services (YouTube usage especially has risen dramatically) and we have always been aware and monitoring this in terms of capacity, etc. However, we noticed that more and P2P traffic is slipping through the network (on Uncapped products that should be shaped) and we have been working hard to clamp down on traffic that should not be there to bring down overall contention. Obviously, at the same time, P2P users are finding different ways to disguise their traffic as realtime, using VPN, sandboxes, etc, making this an ongoing endeavour. We've been working to increase the efficiency of our deep packet inspection (DPI) which is how our shaping system determines traffic signatures as shaping by ports is way too simple to bypass, and we've made some good progress there.

I understand your frustrations around the reassurances, and I wish there were more I could say to reassure you. At the moment, I can only say that this is a priority and we are working on this from multiple angles to ensure that we get the best, short and long term solutions in place.
 
Ovenmit said:
lol..really? I've had poor performance both on and off peak.. I run my business from home so I really notice. Its a problem as I am regularly remotely helping clients when Im in.

from your site:
Unshaped Connection
Everything you do on the internet will work at maximum speed. Browsing, Email, Downloading, Gaming, Youtube etc. will all be much faster.

Reliable Fibre Backbone
The Afrihost DSL network runs on a fibre backbone provided by MTN, with international bandwidth supported by a cable agnostic network with multiple redundancies.

Industry Leading Service
Our friendly, competent support staff is available 24/7. You never have to worry about someone being available to assist you should you need it.
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^This
 
AfriMan said:
I think it's important to state clearly that nothing was degraded (as in removed or downgraded). Demand increased steadily as more clients use more internet based services (YouTube usage especially has risen dramatically) and we have always been aware and monitoring this in terms of capacity, etc. However, we noticed that more and P2P traffic is slipping through the network (on Uncapped products that should be shaped) and we have been working hard to clamp down on traffic that should not be there to bring down overall contention. Obviously, at the same time, P2P users are finding different ways to disguise their traffic as realtime, using VPN, sandboxes, etc, making this an ongoing endeavour. We've been working to increase the efficiency of our deep packet inspection (DPI) which is how our shaping system determines traffic signatures as shaping by ports is way too simple to bypass, and we've made some good progress there.

I understand your frustrations around the reassurances, and I wish there were more I could say to reassure you. At the moment, I can only say that this is a priority and we are working on this from multiple angles to ensure that we get the best, short and long term solutions in place.
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This is not cool. First of all, since a VPN is encrypted, you have NO WAY of actually being sure it is carrying P2P traffic. You could very quickly find yourself in legal hot water there mate. Lots of people use VPN for legitimate purposes, especially for streaming.

This is what really irritates me about this country, always has to be some sort of catch because the ISPs like every other business, are greedy.

I openly admit I use P2P on my capped package, and this is why I chose the capped package, because on the uncapped packages, regardless of ISP, it is always a red herring, uncapped yes, for sending emails to granny and for surfing crappy websites, but throttled for REAL WORK, such as downloading software, and for using YouTube. Any ISP that has issues with YouTube in my book, pisses me off. What the f**k, are we going back to apartheid?
 
Koosi said:
This is not cool. First of all, since a VPN is encrypted, you have NO WAY of actually being sure it is carrying P2P traffic. You could very quickly find yourself in legal hot water there mate. Lots of people use VPN for legitimate purposes, especially for streaming.

This is what really irritates me about this country, always has to be some sort of catch because the ISPs like every other business, are greedy.

I openly admit I use P2P on my capped package, and this is why I chose the capped package, because on the uncapped packages, regardless of ISP, it is always a red herring, uncapped yes, for sending emails to granny and for surfing crappy websites, but throttled for REAL WORK, such as downloading software, and for using YouTube. Any ISP that has issues with YouTube in my book, pisses me off. What the f**k, are we going back to apartheid?
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We definitely do not shape VPN off-hand, with our Deep-packet-inspection we are able to determine if the traffic on a VPN on an Uncapped account is being used for P2P traffic and apply the necessary shaping. This will in no way affect our Capped users.

AfriMan was simply pointing out that the average User's usage patterns have changed and evolved, and we, as an ISP need to adapt to this. Part of this is identifying P2P traffic that should be shaped on Uncapped accounts, that isn't being shaped. This has in the past caused significant issues as we work hard to maximize our throughput, and for a significant percentage of P2P traffic to be unshaped when shaping should be in place was problematic.

It is still our intention that our Capped users have a completely unshaped experience, and that is why we're working very hard to get latencies and throughput back where they belong.
 
electrofreeze said:
sounds more like you are trying to save where you can to survive which is clearly not working
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For the moment I think it is a case of getting the most out of the current network configuration until we can get a more permanent and viable solution in place. We're definitely looking at quite a few options at the moment.
 
AfriMan said:
I don't think any of us intend to whitewash or make excuses, we know that in the South at the moment client's are having a generally poor experience between 9pm and 10pm when latency is extremely high. For the most part, outside of that window performance is better, but we have seen occasional spikes at other times as well based on demand. It's still generally that peak window when performance is problematic. We totally acknowledge this and we're working specifically to improve performance during that high demand period :(
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That sounds like contention, which Afrigenie claimed was NOT happening.
 
A question.... Whether your DPI is anonymous or not, and whether you do or don't have the ability access to personal/sensitive corporate information. IS DPI legal in VPN communications? Remember that VPN targets can also be in other countries which have stricter Antitrust laws!

Out of interest, it is such a "grey area" there are organisations against Deep Packet Inspection practices...

https://nodpi.org/faq/
 
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with our Deep-packet-inspection we are able to determine if the traffic on a VPN on an Uncapped account is being used for P2P traffic and apply the necessary shaping
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There you have it folks, they are able to break the encryption to see what is inside the packets.
NSA spying equipment on hand no doubt
 
So people using software, to hide their download speeds from your network on uncapped accounts to let them download on full speed? Damn so unfair.
 
Koosi said:
There you have it folks, they are able to break the encryption to see what is inside the packets.
NSA spying equipment on hand no doubt
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We're not actually able to read the content of the packets and determine what they contain. DPI simply looks at the protocols used, and then applies the correct shaping policy to it, only on Uncapped accounts of course.
 
Aquiva said:
A question.... Whether your DPI is anonymous or not, and whether you do or don't have the ability access to personal/sensitive corporate information. IS DPI legal in VPN communications? Remember that VPN targets can also be in other countries which have stricter Antitrust laws!
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The DPI is just there to identify P2P protocols and then shape the content as needed - if the user is on an Uncapped account -we're definitely unable to view the content or what the packets contain. I need to emphasize this is just for ensuring the shaping on Uncapped accounts is implemented as thoroughly as possible.
 
Henri18 said:
So people using software, to hide their download speeds from your network on uncapped accounts to let them download on full speed? Damn so unfair.
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And not to mention a massive headache...
 
AfriGenie said:
We're not actually able to read the content of the packets and determine what they contain. DPI simply looks at the protocols used, and then applies the correct shaping policy to it, only on Uncapped accounts of course.
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To know what protocol is being used, requires the ability to inspect packets. This is why VPNs are effective against Chinese and other governments that censor their citizen's internet.

I recommend you watch the movie Citizen Four, and you also read up about Edward Snowden. Personally I think you are out of your depth here. Not even iBurst could determine what I was sending when I had a VPN 10 years ago.

All you are going to see is a bunch of TCP packets between your client and a host elsewhere in the world. How does that constitute P2P traffic without knowing what is inside the packets?

I have used Tails and Tor on your network, and I am willing to bet you were none the wiser.
 
Koosi said:
To know what protocol is being used, requires the ability to inspect packets. This is why VPNs are effective against Chinese and other governments that censor their citizen's internet.

I recommend you watch the movie Citizen Four, and you also read up about Edward Snowden. Personally I think you are out of your depth here. Not even iBurst could determine what I was sending when I had a VPN 10 years ago.

All you are going to see is a bunch of TCP packets between your client and a host elsewhere in the world. How does that constitute P2P traffic without knowing what is inside the packets?

I have used Tails and Tor on your network, and I am willing to bet you were none the wiser.
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If you are on a Capped account it really is of no concern to us if you are using Tails and Tor on the network, those are intended to ensure your privacy on the Deep Web, and as long as you are doing nothing illegal it is definitely not an issue.

As I said, all we are concerned with is P2P traffic being moved on Uncapped accounts and making sure the correct shaping is being applied.
 
AfriGenie said:
If you are on a Capped account it really is of no concern to us if you are using Tails and Tor on the network, those are intended to ensure your privacy on the Deep Web, and as long as you are doing nothing illegal it is definitely not an issue.

As I said, all we are concerned with is P2P traffic being moved on Uncapped accounts and making sure the correct shaping is being applied.
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Right now I don't care about capped or uncapped. I am concerned more about the fact that you claim to be able to glean some (note the emphasis on the word "some") information from encrypted VPN traffic. As far as I know, if the VPN is properly configured with end-to-end encryption, it is almost impossible to know what is going on there because even the packet headers are encrypted. This was definitely the case with all the VPNs I have played with, even the DNS queries went via the VPN. The last time I used a VPN against an internet service provider, they were unable to stop me even with DPI as you claim. Therefore, if you claim to be able to do it, it means you have either got a NSA backdoor into the crypto, or you are talking through your backside!
 
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