Afrihost Capped ADSL Feedback (MTN) - New beginning

[kohlhtor]

I think Afrihos Service give it up I received This answer know this means no quick fix no answer
I'm runing on my backup webafrica account sins the weekent no problem

I pay for a service wat i can not use fully for 3 Month no timeframe to fix i think is time to move
copy of Afrihost today reply to my Ticket



From: Pranav - Afrihost.com
Sent: Tue, 30 Jun 2015 at 10:10
Subject: ClientZone - Support Request : Capped ADSL
Ticket: TJH-113-32785

Hi Thorsten

Pranav here from Afrihost Critical Care again.

I have received feedback on our network.

Our network team and management are aware that some of our clients have been experiencing poor internet performance over our ADSL services.
Due to high demand for bandwidth on our network, affected clients may be experiencing slow speeds and high latency, particularly during periods when demand is very high.
I sincerely apologise for the poor experience, and we’d like to assure you that your feedback and concerns are very important to us.

Every possible resource at our disposal is being employed to improve overall network performance.

We are currently in the process of designing and deploying comprehensive network upgrades nationally.

Unfortunately we’re unable give a timeframe for these upgrades to be completed, but I commit to providing you with as much information as possible as it becomes available.
For now this ticket will be placed on a closed status and I will reopen it as soon as I have more feedback for you.

Once again we would like to sincerely apologize for the poor experience that you're having, and assure them that we will continue to dedicate ourselves to providing the best possible internet experience.




Have a great day and please let me know if I can help with anything else!

Warm regards

Pranav

 

[w1z4rd]

"Due to high demand for bandwidth on our network", Thats their way of saying "because of irresponsible over selling of our network"

 

[Satguy]

Been with Afrihost (capped) for many years - as of 3 months ago my 20mbps VDSL performace became almost unusable, erratic speed below 5mbps, latencies of aver 200ms local). Some time back I received a 1Tb capped VOX Telcom gratis account with my TV that has been lying dormant - switched over to VOX now I stream 1080 movies using Kodi without even a glitch. Good bye Afrihost (and Multichoce!).

 

[AfriMan]

Guys, with the fear of sounding like a fanboy, maybe give AH a break. They are obviously working on something big which they cannot divulge at the moment.

One question I do have for Gian or Afriman, whichever, is: Once you have done the POC, how long before you go to Prod with it?

Okay, maybe two questions: How long are you running your POC for?

I couldn't answer that right now. I think once we start doing end to end testing, we'll know more about how to proceed, whether we cut over in one go or used a phased approach. A phased cutover is obviously much more smooth and will give us more time to iron out problems before too many clients go onto the network. I really don't have any timeframes right now.

Don't worry about all the flak on the forums - we can take it

 

[AfriMan]

Ive started moving clients back to IS. Cant work like this in a professional environment. These are not home connections for gaming, they are business connections to run a business. This has just happened one too many times.

I can totally understand that. many of our clients are businesses or work from home, which is similar I guess, so we totally understand the urgency in needing to have this resolved quickly.

 

[AfriMan]

I think Afrihos Service give it up I received This answer know this means no quick fix no answer
I'm runing on my backup webafrica account sins the weekent no problem

I pay for a service wat i can not use fully for 3 Month no timeframe to fix i think is time to move
copy of Afrihost today reply to my Ticket



From: Pranav - Afrihost.com
Sent: Tue, 30 Jun 2015 at 10:10
Subject: ClientZone - Support Request : Capped ADSL
Ticket: TJH-113-32785

Hi Thorsten

Pranav here from Afrihost Critical Care again.

I have received feedback on our network.

Our network team and management are aware that some of our clients have been experiencing poor internet performance over our ADSL services.
Due to high demand for bandwidth on our network, affected clients may be experiencing slow speeds and high latency, particularly during periods when demand is very high.
I sincerely apologise for the poor experience, and we’d like to assure you that your feedback and concerns are very important to us.

Every possible resource at our disposal is being employed to improve overall network performance.

We are currently in the process of designing and deploying comprehensive network upgrades nationally.

Unfortunately we’re unable give a timeframe for these upgrades to be completed, but I commit to providing you with as much information as possible as it becomes available.
For now this ticket will be placed on a closed status and I will reopen it as soon as I have more feedback for you.

Once again we would like to sincerely apologize for the poor experience that you're having, and assure them that we will continue to dedicate ourselves to providing the best possible internet experience.




Have a great day and please let me know if I can help with anything else!

Warm regards

Pranav

I think we've been through what's happening many times and this is the same feedback from all the reps here and Gian himself. We know that there is a problem, and I think the direction we're taking as a company is the right one to resolve this quickly and to more lasting effect.

 

[AfriMan]

"Due to high demand for bandwidth on our network", Thats their way of saying "because of irresponsible over selling of our network"

Not at all. I've mentioned many times that the rate that demand has increased is definitely higher than the rate of new signups. Studies have shown that demand for bandwidth doubles almost annually per user, which we've seen in growing demand for certain services. Where bit torrent used to be the highest consumer of bandwidth, we're seeing YouTUbe HD using the most of any service, as well as streaming from Apple Services, etc. So I think it's also a question of existing clients developing requirements for more and more bandwidth and upgrading their lines to have additional capacity to do so.

 

[AfriMan]

Been with Afrihost (capped) for many years - as of 3 months ago my 20mbps VDSL performace became almost unusable, erratic speed below 5mbps, latencies of aver 200ms local). Some time back I received a 1Tb capped VOX Telcom gratis account with my TV that has been lying dormant - switched over to VOX now I stream 1080 movies using Kodi without even a glitch. Good bye Afrihost (and Multichoce!).

Sorry to hear that you're leaving us, totally understandable. I do believe we'll be seeing great speeds again very soon when things get sorted out - though hard to beat a free account

 

[Aquiva]

Not at all. I've mentioned many times that the rate that demand has increased is definitely higher than the rate of new signups. Studies have shown that demand for bandwidth doubles almost annually per user, which we've seen in growing demand for certain services. Where bit torrent used to be the highest consumer of bandwidth, we're seeing YouTUbe HD using the most of any service, as well as streaming from Apple Services, etc. So I think it's also a question of existing clients developing requirements for more and more bandwidth and upgrading their lines to have additional capacity to do so.

So you are learning from this experience and won't be falling into the same hole again next year???

 

[w1z4rd]

Not at all. I've mentioned many times that the rate that demand has increased is definitely higher than the rate of new signups. Studies have shown that demand for bandwidth doubles almost annually per user, which we've seen in growing demand for certain services. Where bit torrent used to be the highest consumer of bandwidth, we're seeing YouTUbe HD using the most of any service, as well as streaming from Apple Services, etc. So I think it's also a question of existing clients developing requirements for more and more bandwidth and upgrading their lines to have additional capacity to do so.

Well at least its good to know you are finally aware of the demands of your clients and the increases so hopefully you can prevent this happening yet again. Thank goodness I can still put my clients onto other providers who are not struggling like you guys are. When you network becomes reliable for business again I will consider putting clients on it, but for now, its impacting business too much to keep them on there.

 

[AfriMan]

So you are learning from this experience and won't be falling into the same hole again next year???

I think the circumstances will be totally different from the client's perspective and behind the scenes. We'll have more insight into the inner workings of the network. Maybe we'll make a few mistakes, I'm sure things will happen, but in the long term it's where we need to be to manage the volumes of traffic and demand that we have on our network.

 

[AfriMan]

Well at least its good to know you are finally aware of the demands of your clients and the increases so hopefully you can prevent this happening yet again. Thank goodness I can still put my clients onto other providers who are not struggling like you guys are. When you network becomes reliable for business again I will consider putting clients on it, but for now, its impacting business too much to keep them on there.

Totally understand. I think the challenges next year will be different, it will never be as simple as being a reseller (which I suppose also comes with challenges) but the benefits will also increase with the risk (in terms of services and added value we can offer clients going forward)

 

[Gavin107]

Not at all. I've mentioned many times that the rate that demand has increased is definitely higher than the rate of new signups. Studies have shown that demand for bandwidth doubles almost annually per user, which we've seen in growing demand for certain services. Where bit torrent used to be the highest consumer of bandwidth, we're seeing YouTUbe HD using the most of any service, as well as streaming from Apple Services, etc. So I think it's also a question of existing clients developing requirements for more and more bandwidth and upgrading their lines to have additional capacity to do so.

I guess that all ISP's are faced with a similar challenge. How they respond is going to determine who will survive in this market going forward. A single HD movie is typically more bandwidth than a weeks worth of business connectivity. How to segment your market and provide guaranteed service levels is going to be important; so far this has not worked very well across the board.

 

[AfriGuy]

I guess that all ISP's are faced with a similar challenge. How they respond is going to determine who will survive in this market going forward. A single HD movie is typically more bandwidth than a weeks worth of business connectivity. How to segment your market and provide guaranteed service levels is going to be important; so far this has not worked very well across the board.

Absolutely, and we're definitely willing to adapt to our clients needs.

 

[ConfusedR]

Gian said that in the next 2 weeks they will have 2 POC networks.....mmmmm....in that time a lot of Afrihost customers would have left already. Maybe that is what Afrihost is waiting for. For people to leave the network so that they can say, in 2 weeks time, they have a stable/fast network.

 

[AfriGuy]

Gian said that in the next 2 weeks they will have 2 POC networks.....mmmmm....in that time a lot of Afrihost customers would have left already. Maybe that is what Afrihost is waiting for. For people to leave the network so that they can say, in 2 weeks time, they have a stable/fast network.

I don't think that's the intention at all

 

[Aquiva]

I think the circumstances will be totally different from the client's perspective and behind the scenes. We'll have more insight into the inner workings of the network. Maybe we'll make a few mistakes, I'm sure things will happen, but in the long term it's where we need to be to manage the volumes of traffic and demand that we have on our network.

That is understandable, but after months of complaining by your users, Afrihost has not given any incentives for them not to leave. False statements of "there is nothing wrong" and no real feedback that could re-instill confidence in your clients is not happening. Now in the ISP industry (luckily for us) we can move on with a months notice, how can Afrihost do any forecasting and budgeting if they don't do much to to keep their clients.

You have confirmed there are major problems, but still have not shown any "in good faith" incentive to apologise and thank us for staying with Afrihost.

 

[AfriGuy]

That is understandable, but after months of complaining by your users, Afrihost has not given any incentives for them not to leave. False statements of "there is nothing wrong" and no real feedback that could re-instill confidence in your clients is not happening. Now in the ISP industry (luckily for us) we can move on with a months notice, how can Afrihost do any forecasting and budgeting if they don't do much to to keep their clients.

You have confirmed there are major problems, but still have not shown any "in good faith" incentive to apologise and thank us for staying with Afrihost.

Restoring faith in our clients is something we're working on, I think that's quite evident with Gian's thread - and that's just a start.

 

[Henri18]

Well I definitely want to try out that new network and test it out and give feedback!

At the moment can't log Smite or TeamSpeak just to much packet loss, wish that 2 weeks won't be 2 weeks!

 

[AfriGenie]

Well I definitely want to try out that new network and test it out and give feedback!

At the moment can't log Smite or TeamSpeak just to much packet loss, wish that 2 weeks won't be 2 weeks!

Our Team is doing their best to make sure everything is ready as quickly as possible, but I think we can all agree it is better to make sure we do things right from the start and have the new POCs properly ready for testing.