AfriHost CEO explains why the network has been underperforming..

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element1

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Via email :

I am sorry.

And I need your help again with a simple Yes-No answer:

https://www.afrihost.com/surveys/2014_afrihost_plus_launch/

Here's why I'm asking you this:

Two days ago I asked for your help with our proposed launch of Afrihost Plus+

And the response I got was mixed:

Some absolutely loved the idea.

And some passionately hated it.

Over 30,000 clients completed our survey and many expressed their excitement about Afrihost Plus+

However, the anger my email caused in other clients took me by surprise.

Although in hindsight it shouldn't have shocked me.

I had overlooked the fact that there were clients who were experiencing problems on our ADSL network.

And I am sincerely sorry if my email upset you in any way.

(If you are an ADSL client, and you have been experiencing problems, I've tried to explain exactly what what's going on and what we are doing about it at the bottom of this email)

Some clients replied and said something like:

"How dare you launch a new product, and try suck money out of us now - First fix your network before you do something new. Since you partnered with MTN you have changed and now all you care about is the money and sucking your clients dry. You have sold your soul Gian. Afrihost has changed. I used to love you but now I hate you"

I am paraphrasing but you get the idea.

And this response absolutely gutted me.

To hear this from clients, people I truly, deeply care about, people who we're completely committed to and who we work to the bone to protect and help, however we can, was extremely painful.

I know that we haven't sold out.

I know we are as committed to delivering pure internet joy and working as hard as we have ever been. In fact I think we're working even harder.

I know this is the truth because I see it and live it every day.

However, when any client is upset and says something that I know is their reality, I take it extremely seriously.

And I'm sincerely sorry if I've made you feel upset or frustrated in any way. I'm sorry if I've let you down. Please forgive me and know it was never my intention and that I'm fully committed to earning your trust again.

Having said all this, I do passionately believe that Afrihost Plus+ will be a wonderful thing for our clients. It will enable us to keep offering services we simply couldn't otherwise, and offer new services (now and in the future) that we have never offered.

And there were many clients who absolutely loved the idea of Afrihost Plus+ and who I know would be very disappointed if we did not launch.

A true Catch-22 situation.

I am torn:

To launch or not to launch.

So that's what I'm asking you.

We've built Afrihost over the past 14 years by looking after clients and listening to you, so I thought I'd ask you whether we should launch Afrihost Plus+ or not

I need your help again.

This time it's a simple Yes-No answer:

https://www.afrihost.com/surveys/2014_afrihost_plus_launch/

It'll take you 10 seconds and will help us decide whether we should launch Afrihost Plus+ or not.

Thanks again for your time.

I sincerely appreciate it.

Thanks

Gian
CEO, Afrihost





As promised here's an outline of the ADSL problems we've been experiencing and what we are doing about it:

I've tried to answer as best I can but I am somewhat technically challenged so forgive me if something is not completely clear.

The traffic and bandwidth on our ADSL network is managed by devices made by a leading overseas tech company.

These devices manage all the different type of traffic protocols (such as video streaming, online games and peer-to-peer torrents and downloads) at different times depending on how much capacity is available on our network.

Unfortunately they have been behaving inconsistently over the last few months for some reason. It has been a tricky problem to deal with because there were times everything seemed fine and we weren't sure exactly where the problem was.

We have been working closely with MTN and the device hardware company over this time to try to get to the bottom of it, but the problem has proved way more challenging to solve than any of us expected.

The devices' software was upgraded early last week to better improve our traffic management and better improve our ADSL clients' experience. This was done after months of R&D by the overseas company and after weeks of testing locally.

Unfortunately since the updates, for reasons we are not completely sure of at this time, these appliances have not been working as expected. They are not classifying all types of traffic correctly.

This means that we cannot properly shape some key traffic, such as certain types of peer-to-peer torrent downloads, because the devices are not always picking these protocols up accurately.

This in turn means we cannot manage the network usage as effectively as we need to, which leads to the network performing sub-optimally when it is filled to capacity.

When our network is stretched to capacity our ADSL clients contend and fight with each other for bandwidth and thus sometimes get poor and inconsistent speeds. It also means that there are times that their latency and pings are high.

So what are we doing about it?

All of our top guys, the top network guys from MTN and the engineers from the device manufacturer are all working around the clock on sorting this out as soon as possible. We have a whole team that is working from Afrihost. An engineer from the overseas company flew in and is working with the top engineers from Afrihost and MTN. We are also in constant and direct contact with all the engineers based overseas and everybody is working around the clock to solve this as soon as possible.

When will this be sorted out?

The honest truth is I am not sure. I am hopeful that we will all have sorted out the problem very, very soon. As mentioned we have top tech guys of Afrihost, MTN and the device manufacturer working on it but the problem is proving to be challenging to fix. I honestly cannot give you an exact time to resolution with certainty.

What else have we done to try and alleviate the problem?

We have upgraded our overall ADSL IPC capacity by 3 Gbps over the past few weeks.

To put this in perspective, when we moved our entire ADSL client base over to MTN two years ago, we initially had 4.5 Gbps In TOTAL for all our clients.

Because of not being able to control the traffic properly we (together with MTN) are literally spending millions extra at the moment to try and give a decent service while we're simultaneously trying to solve the problem with the traffic controllers.

MTN have been putting in great effort to help. They often get the short end of the stick and I'd like to use this opportunity to publicly thank them.

One of our core values is honesty and transparency. It is important that you, as our client, trust us and can be confident that when we know what is wrong we share the details openly.

If we have not proactively done that to date I do sincerely apologise.

It is something that I will work on in the future.

You are under our protection and need to know that you can trust us to tell you the truth in every situation - both good and bad.

I hope this helps you understand the ADSL problem a bit more, and gives you some assurance that we are doing everything in our power to solve it.

One last thing:

You are invited to come and visit us at our offices to see for yourself just how hard we are working to try and get this fixed.

We deeply care about this.

Our big boardroom has been used non-stop for at least 20 hours a day for the last few weeks.

You will see a very haggard-looking, stressed-out team, surrounded by Red Bulls, empty Pizza boxes and other assorted snacks.

I promise you we are working ourselves to the bone to get this problem fixed.

We know this is causing pain and frustration so, if it is any consolation at all, please know that it is also causing all of us at Afrihost intense pain too.

As I'm writing this email (at 03h17 in the morning) the team is at Afrihost updating the devices with new fixes that we hope will help the situation.

I am sincerely sorry if you have suffered in any way.

If you have any questions please feel free to ask us (although please note that I have been completely swamped with emails and may not be able to reply any time soon unfortunately)

Our clients, as always, remain our top priority.

Thanks for your patience and your continued loyalty.
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Let's give Gian and his team a chance, maybe they will sort out their issues and go back to being awesome once again.
 
Aqua_lung said:
I read the email, did not fill me with much confidence.
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Yeah, it wouldn't - there isn't a guaranteed resolution time.

He did do a much better job explaining the issue than what was being communicated in the AfriHost feedback threads over the last few months..
 
marine1 said:
What I find disgusting is you have to pay your subs no matter what. The network is a problem but you still have to pay full price? How is that fair
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+1

You want my support and sympathy ... then pay back people for non-performance of your infrastructure. Don't tell people you will review each request on a case by case basis. Show you are serious about your customers as you say you are!
 
So it's under performing cause they don't have enough IPC capacity to supply to their clients. Well then, just buy the amount needed for all clients to be able to max out their lines :)
 
Probably just me but after Gian's story above... maybe Afrihost should look at purchasing a new "device"?
 
Without wanting to sound overly dramatic, to experience Afrihost's decline first-hand is one of the most disappointing experiences I've had as a consumer. This goes back to them cutting over to MTN's network, and precedes the public announcement of the MTN acquisition by what must be nearly a year.

I miss the Afrihost of 2 years ago.
 
Aqua_lung said:
I read the email, did not fill me with much confidence.
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He appears sincere, but without at least some type of time-frame (other than "soon" ) as to when the problems will be fixed, does not instill much confidence.
 
sSslik said:
+1

You want my support and sympathy ... then pay back people for non-performance of your infrastructure. Don't tell people you will review each request on a case by case basis. Show you are serious about your customers as you say you are!
Click to expand...

Could be a double edged sword though. Pay people back, lose money, go into debt, offer more expensive packages to recover debt, lose everyone... Or don't pay them back and bite the bullet hoping loyalty rides it out. Not sure if this is the case but just saying :)
 
I do think there should be some kind of credit for the guys that are still with them, i left unfortunately. Look at what just happened with WoW. 5 days of server issues, 5 days of free game time given to players. Really helps put some faith back in the company
 
The specific updates that Gian references in his mail have been uploaded to the various Region's Network Devices over the last few hours. When these updates are loaded, the actual device needs to have restarted, which will result in a temporary disruptions in the specific region.

These updates have so far looked very promising, and we are starting to see reports of improved performance in all regions, so I am certainly hopeful that we are coming towards an end of the network management issues. It will take a few hours for the changes to take full affect, but if you are continuing to see poor performance, please let me know.
 
Bobbin said:
Could be a double edged sword though. Pay people back, lose money, go into debt, offer more expensive packages to recover debt, lose everyone... Or don't pay them back and bite the bullet hoping loyalty rides it out. Not sure if this is the case but just saying :)
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Its amazing how far you can stretch loyalty with a real apology. AH doesn't need to give people full refunds, even the smallest things like a month of unshaped access for a few hours a night would do wonders. Simply being truthful upfront and truly transparent when confronted with difficult questions would build trust even when the answers make you look bad.

But instead we get assurances that they "care" and more of the blame game. The only thing transparent is that Gian is more worried about avoiding losing customers than keeping them (there is a difference, ie damage control vs good quality).
 
an admission from the CEO that there is something seriously wrong, but yet still expects everyone to keep on paying for the sub par service?

I'm not sure what to make of this.
 
Bobbin said:
Could be a double edged sword though. Pay people back, lose money, go into debt, offer more expensive packages to recover debt, lose everyone... Or don't pay them back and bite the bullet hoping loyalty rides it out. Not sure if this is the case but just saying :)
Click to expand...

Fair enough .. I guess I just don't believe the Afrihost platitudes about truly caring for their customers.

I would guess with MTN as partner and the money they made from the partnership, they can afford to go or two months without income. Thing is ... it's a pet peeve of mine when people tell me the customer comes first but they do nothing to show it.
 
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