Afrihost Capped ADSL Feedback (MTN) - New beginning

[AfriMan]

Well I tried the following, as you like to call them "real time services", and NONE of them worked, actually just timed out:

- Video Streaming (I tried a total of 25 hosts, including YouTube)
- E-mail - this included POP, IMAP, Gmail Webmail, Outlook Web Application for Exchange and Exchange.
- Web browsing via HTTP and HTTPS (including the Afrihost website and ClientZone) and HTTP download
- All Google Services, including Image Search

These are the only services I use and what I pay monthly for (I do not torrent or use P2P services anymore).
NONE of them worked for me. And this was not because of Telkom, this was because of Afrihost. I sincerely hope this is looking better when I get home, otherwise unfortunately my relationship with you guys will have to come to an end.

This seems a little more extreme that the other reports I've seen here and on other social channels, support etc.
If there was a unusual problem, which seems to be the case with YouTube from the reports coming in, then hopefully we will have identified it and got something going.

Could you problem have been related to generally bad throughput and high latency. Any results you run that I could check out?

 

[Sonic2k]

So Afrihost doesn't work weekends?

Neither does Telkom... that was so 1990's

 

[AfriMan]

Bump -
Helloooooo Afrihost - since you are answering everyone else, could you comment please?

Thanks!

That I couldn't say. I don;t know if there is a policy which will do this. You can happily PM me and I'll se if anything can be done.

 

[AfriMan]

So Afrihost doesn't work weekends?

Only the social media team (including MyBB) take the weekends and public holidays off). Support is available 24/7 on email, live chat and SMS and telephone lines are open till late in the week and 3pm on public holidays and weekends.

 

[Sonic2k]

Try do Google Image Search for "silicon zoo" and see how long that takes to load...

 

[AfriMan]

Let's see:

Torrent test (took any random one that has 4929 seeders)...... 10.8Kbyte peak, average 4KByte
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCowgMHFQZQ&list=PL4h2XGENb6qgTHFWIVvbm1wBsUe7AIvJ7&index=1
This video is a good test, it used to play flawlessly at 1080p 2 weeks ago... today it is endlessly buffering..

Still battling to even watch this video at 480p https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWtl4zQ944Q.. buffering at 144p!!!
so pixelated its not worth watching, even at that kark resolution.....

So tell me, do you now agree my internet is crap?

I've never been a fan of using torrents of performance indicators, but there was definitely something up with YouTube, I think we have all agreed on that.

 

[Vegeta]

To give you guys at Afrihost an idea of how bad things are. My mom called me over the weekend, let me add my mom is old and know very very little about the internet and how it works. She asked me what is wrong with her internet, i explained to her that the people who provide the product can't provide the product. Her response, please call other people to give me better internet for tomorrow. I said sure mom and asked my friend to go set up a WA account for her.

Now guys i'm sure you get lots of flack here from the tech savy userbase but when users like old ladies are starting to see that your "internet is broken" I'm sure you're facing a turning point where your business is now in jeopardy.

 

[A Non Blonde]

That I couldn't say. I don;t know if there is a policy which will do this. You can happily PM me and I'll se if anything can be done.

Thank you for the offer however, it's not about me - it's for all affected users.

 

[AfriMan]

This is not corect Youtube was not working loading web pages was slow i moved to my backup no problem
3 month of story telling i dont trust Afrihost annymoore 3 month of telling upgrade is on the way and you still get new customers on

We definitely saw a problem on YouTube, I can attest to that. For some other functions seemed OK, my browsing was fine. Others seemed to have a worse experience so we'll need to let the team do their investigation to see what ties everyone's accounts together.

 

[A Non Blonde]

I've never been a fan of using torrents of performance indicators, but there was definitely something up with YouTube, I think we have all agreed on that.

It wasn't only you tube, facebook. local news sites and general browsing was affected. At one stage on Saturday evening all attempts to browse yielded constant dns errors.

 

[Unhappy1]

It wasn't only you tube, facebook. local news sites and general browsing was affected. At one stage on Saturday evening all attempts to browse yielded constant dns errors.

Yup, everything was broken.

 

[swazi85]

Afrihost what exactly is the purpose of the secrecy around your upgrade plans, besides keeping your customers in the dark, thus further frustrating them?

A better approach would be to lay your cards on the table. Explain what your plans are, the progress you've made, and so forth. This would go a long way in helping the customers who would prefer sticking around (surprising, I know) to stick around for a little while longer.

I've even found a nice guide for you: http://www.superoffice.com/blog/keep-your-customers-in-the-loop-and-keep-them-happy/

Here's a choice quote: On the contrary, if you keep your customer well informed of all the trouble you’re going through to try and fix the problem, then you build loyalty, and create customer relationships that stick.

I completely agree.

Constantly being told we will let you know "soon" isn't acceptable.

 

[AfriMan]

Such as load shedding.
YouTube is still performing poorly. Buffering 480p on 10Mbit and then fine again and then back to buffering. https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=12&v=9hEDTRU_F2s was fine to begin with, then started buffering towards the end. Also Gmail is slow to load.

Everything else is working quite well, full speed on my new linux distro (busy trying out different ones, got Ubuntu and Mint, any others worth getting to try out?)

Awesome - thanks for the feedback

 

[kohlhtor]

Thear want to gain Time
It take another 3 month

I completely agree.

Constantly being told we will let you know "soon" isn't acceptable.

 

[biometrics]

Only the social media team (including MyBB) take the weekends and public holidays off). Support is available 24/7 on email, live chat and SMS and telephone lines are open till late in the week and 3pm on public holidays and weekends.

Then AH knew there was a problem but didn't fix it.

 

[AfriMan]

I completely agree.

Constantly being told we will let you know "soon" isn't acceptable.

It's not the intention to cloud things in secrecy. However, there are certain details that can't come to light until the right background work is in place and all parties involved agree to make public. As a company we always inform our clients at the very first opportunity - or least we try to. I think we can get better there, and we've certainly made that known to our management to give us the authority inform clients wherever we can (and it does not compromise any other ongoing negotiations or projects)

 

[caroper]

Would be nice... I still have like 35GB left over.

I currently have 75Gig left over plus the 200Gig that I couldn't use in the past 2 months and I have been having to buy Telkom top-ups, in addition, just to keep my connection running.

Afrihost may not be able to afford extra bandwidth (IPC) but they expect us too..

 

[Sonic2k]

I've never been a fan of using torrents of performance indicators, but there was definitely something up with YouTube, I think we have all agreed on that.

Well for me they are the GOLD STANDARD in determining how badly an ISP performs. How do you think I ended up getting internet from you in the first place? I tested it and it worked... now it doesn't so now what... its not my ADSL line, so what can you say now.... Ohhh what's that... nothing, silence, except excuses.

Instead of jabbering on with excuses here, why not get up from your chair and tell your boss to stop playing golf, cancel his lunch appointment and do some work for a change, i.e. phone up MTN and tell them they better fix their crapbone...

Busy organizing another ISP as soon as I am off the phone, haven't got time for crap anymore.

 

[AfriMan]

Then AH knew there was a problem but didn't fix it.

I certainly noticed a problem and I did report to the network team. I don't think they didn't bother, but we're probably doing end to end testing to figure out what could have happened, which areas are affected and which services particularly. From that we should be closer to sorting the problem out.

 

[A Non Blonde]

I certainly noticed a problem and I did report to the network team. I don't think they didn't bother, but we're probably doing end to end testing to figure out what could have happened, which areas are affected and which services particularly. From that we should be closer to sorting the problem out.

But Afrihost has been doing this for months now, especially on a Monday and then you land with the repetitive damage control speeches.
So what is it actually that consistently "breaks" over weekends?