Afrihost CAPPED ADSL Feedback (MTN)

[AfriMan]

Whats happening Afrihost? Had to connect with my WebAfrica account last night to be able to log into Diablo, its not my line if a different account works. Been a week now that the internet is upto **** at work also. The issue is both with capped & uncapped @ work accounts. I use business uncapped at work & capped @ home. This is the same problem I had before leaving Openweb.
Is capacity an issue?

At the moment we are seeing more demand than we'd like on the network, and we're putting new rules in places to aggressively manage P2P on Uncapped accounts to reduce overall demand on the network during peak periods. We believe we do have enough capacity at the moment, but we do have ongoing plans to continually upgrade our capacity based on demand and growth.

 

[AfriMan]

+1. Why do torrents and NNTP suffer but everything else is fine?

The only logical explanation is shaping of these services.

It's definitely not the only explanation and as we've seen in the past, implementing better shaping and traffic management has relieved these symptoms and we've never had a rule or policy in place to shape unshaped products.

I think jumping to conclusions is not going to be helpful, because if there is a genuine problem on the network that we have not diagnosed, we're going to spend all our time looking for rules that aren't there, when there may be another issue. As far as I can tell, the only possible cause would be contention.

 

[kohlhtor]

This i Hear for 4 Weeks
same Story

At the moment we are seeing more demand than we'd like on the network, and we're putting new rules in places to aggressively manage P2P on Uncapped accounts to reduce overall demand on the network during peak periods. We believe we do have enough capacity at the moment, but we do have ongoing plans to continually upgrade our capacity based on demand and growth.

 

[ghostR]

/snip

As far as I can tell, the only possible cause would be contention.

What is the contention being caused by?

 

[AfriMan]

Another client that's noticing slow speeds in the last month - Surely this isn't his line and is a problem with your network if he's never noticed the issue.

Why do we not see an update on your network status page??

I think we've explained this several times but because our explanation doesn't fit your theory of IPC problems, you're still pursuing that single line of thought. At the end of the day we have the data and the network in front of us so I would definitely trust the analysis of our technical team who are elbows deep in improving the network experience.

 

[AfriMan]

What is the contention being caused by?

As I've mentioned several times on this and other threads, we are seeing an increase in P2P traffic which is not being caught by our shaping policies on Uncapped accounts. We are working on new updates to try to address this and better manage demand, which is resulting in higher contention.

So this does not mean we're out of capacity. It means we're not using our available capacity effectively and that is our focus for the moment.

 

[ghostR]

As I've mentioned several times on this and other threads, we are seeing an increase in P2P traffic which is not being caught by our shaping policies on Uncapped accounts. We are working on new updates to try to address this and better manage demand, which is resulting in higher contention.

So this does not mean we're out of capacity. It means we're not using our available capacity effectively and that is our focus for the moment.

Okay, I understand that now.

But from majority of reports on here, People are saying that their NNTP and P2P is being shaped heavily?

So surely it is being shaped correctly?

What ETR is there for the issue to be resolved?

 

[AfriMan]

Just want to let you know that for the past 2-4 weeks my Afrihost account has been really bad. Reminds me of the time when I was with OpenWeb. Last night, download speeds were between 1-10kB/s on a 2 MB Line. Reading this thread, it seems like there's an underlying issue that needs to be sorted out. I've been an Afrihost client for a long time and my line speed was always consistent until the past month.

There is an issue which we are working on which is making sure that our network effectively manages the bandwidth capacity we have and what should be shaped (on Uncapped accounts) is as aggressively shaped as it should be to ensure that all clients have a good experience on the network. We are still in the process of rolling our updates and policies to address the additional demand by unshaped P2P traffic that should be shaped (on Uncapped shaped accounts).

 

[Davedes]

I'm not saying that you're ignorant. But I can't agree that we have rules in place that don't exist, so the explanation must lie elsewhere.

Elsewhere as in?? You are support, give me the answer and tell me what's happening with my account.

 

[AfriMan]

Okay, I understand that now.

But from majority of reports on here, People are saying that their NNTP and P2P is being shaped heavily?

So surely it is being shaped correctly?

What ETR is there for the issue to be resolved?

Again, the experience may feel like shaping, like loadshedding may feel like G_d hates you, but there is simply no policy in place which is doing this. So we need to continue to troubleshoot those clients who have problematic lines, have contended networks or who are simply using flawed benchmarks like P2P as an indication of network performance. And then troubleshoot with the clients who remain to see what commonalities are there.

I don't have an ETR for when the technical team will complete their work, but that only influences users during the highest peak periods, that level of demand is not consistent throughout the day.

 

[AfriMan]

Elsewhere as in?? You are support, give me the answer and tell me what's happening with my account.

As I've said, we believe that demand on the network, especially at peak times, is affecting some services more than others. When we are able to manage demand more effectively, we expect to see those services perform better overall.

 

[caroper]

... And then troubleshoot with the clients who remain to see what commonalities are there.

You mean the ones that are left after the rest jump ship to an ISP that can actually supply sufficient capacity in the South?

Just priced 10Mbs Fiber with a 10:1 contention ratio to replace Business Uncapped and it is actually cheaper.
Just waiting for the MD to OK it and Afrihost is getting notice of cancellation.

 

[AfriMan]

You mean the ones that are left after the rest jump ship to an ISP that can actually supply sufficient capacity in the South?

Just priced 10Mbs Fiber with a 10:1 contention ratio to replace Business Uncapped and it is actually cheaper.
Just waiting for the MD to OK it and Afrihost is getting notice of cancellation.

It's obviously not our intention to get our clients to jump ship, that wouldn't make any sense. We do believe that our loyal clients (many of whom are represented here on MyBB) will give us the opportunity to deliver a better experience as we always have in the past.

 

[Henri18]

Morning people,

At the moment experience lot of packet-loss on TeamSpeak, Cape Town, my ping and download speed perfect with my 2mb line.

Regards!

 

[Davedes]

Again, the experience may feel like shaping, like loadshedding may feel like G_d hates you, but there is simply no policy in place which is doing this. So we need to continue to troubleshoot those clients who have problematic lines, have contended networks or who are simply using flawed benchmarks like P2P as an indication of network performance. And then troubleshoot with the clients who remain to see what commonalities are there.

I don't have an ETR for when the technical team will complete their work, but that only influences users during the highest peak periods, that level of demand is not consistent throughout the day.

But I've been asking on here, Twitter and email for someone to troubleshoot my account because there is a clear problem and the response I keep getting is no one can see any issues.

So you tell me who I have to speak to so that this gets sorted out without me being told to run another trace route or try another router or log a call with telkom.

Frankly it just seems like Afrihost don't give a sht about their "loyal" customers.

 

[BrendanMc]

Sorry to say, but I have also just cancelled. No point in paying for a product that doesn't perform as advertised. Thanks to the various Afrihost social media support guys that have tried to help. Good luck going forward.

 

[caroper]

It's obviously not our intention to get our clients to jump ship, that wouldn't make any sense. We do believe that our loyal clients (many of whom are represented here on MyBB) will give us the opportunity to deliver a better experience as we always have in the past.

And I am one of those Loyal Clients and have been with you for many years, However, it is my clients that are out of patience.
I recommended Afrihost Business Uncapped and for more than 2 years they have had issues, even had MTN involved at one point and It has reached the point that they are sick of me saying give them a chance.

It has reached the stage where I either replace their ISP or they replace me as a consultant.
I value my customers, so Afrihost has burnt its bridges.

I stopped recommending Afrihost in the South a year ago.
Now it appears I had better start migrating all my clients whilst I still have them.

 

[AfriMan]

Morning people,

At the moment experience lot of packet-loss on TeamSpeak, Cape Town, my ping and download speed perfect with my 2mb line.

Regards!

We've tested Teamspeak extensively and we believe that it should be operating normally. However we have noticed a difference in performance with public and private servers, especially if the server is not using the standard port (which I think is 9987).

 

[AfriMan]

But I've been asking on here, Twitter and email for someone to troubleshoot my line because there is a clear problem and the response I keep getting is no one can see any issues.

So you tell me who I have to speak to so that this gets sorted out without me being told to run another trace route or try another modem or log a call with telkom.

Frankly it just seems like Afrihost don't give a sht about their "loyal" customers.

I think we know that there is work to be done, so until then, trying to resolve issues on a one on one basis is not going to be as fruitful as testing once the work is complete.

 

[AfriMan]

Sorry to say, but I have also just cancelled. No point in paying for a product that doesn't perform as advertised. Thanks to the various Afrihost social media support guys that have tried to help. Good luck going forward.

I'm sorry to hear that. We'll always do what we can to help and hopefully we can welcome you back when your experience is better. Drop me a PM if you do change your mind, or hang onto a Free GB account so you can check out the network performance.