Afrihost Fibre Feedback

[AfriFella]

I am not an IT boffin, I plug in, read the manual, enter the required details and play some games.

Never had any issues with DSL, but recently moved into a new house with fibre and naturally was ecstatic only to be dissapointed with constant disconnections and a support team that keeps on telling me there is nothing wrong with my line. So this leads me to believe the issue is with Afrihost.

I have done various speedtests and traceroutes (on request from support) to be told there is nothing wrong, but if I question why I am getting 100% packet loss on freeola line test, you do not use external tools for troubleshooting. Please help.

EDIT: support ticket nr: PUV-765-56526

That doesn't sound normal at all. I've asked our Team to follow up on your ticket and help get this resolved.

PS. I accidentally clicked "edit" on your post. Please don't be alarmed. I didn't edit anything.

 

[Snoob]

There have been some recent stock shortages in terms of Fibre router as well, but I believe our Warehouse did receive more stock today. Genie just went on leave, so if you'd like me to pick this up for you, please drop me a PM.

I have PM'D you

 

[paoloc]

Are you bots?

It's definitely not close to the type of experience that you should have had. Our Fibre Team has escalated this to the Octotel Service Manager and they are manually completing the package change now.

So, two months later now, and still no upgrade. What happened to "they are manually completing the package change now" 3 weeks ago? Do you guys just come up with statements that stall for time, or is there actually someone doing something over there? I'm sure a human could get my line upgraded in two months. So ... are AfriFella and AfriGenie bots?

 

[AfriFella]

So, two months later now, and still no upgrade. What happened to "they are manually completing the package change now" 3 weeks ago? Do you guys just come up with statements that stall for time, or is there actually someone doing something over there? I'm sure a human could get my line upgraded in two months. So ... are AfriFella and AfriGenie bots?

We're definitely all human here. Although, I suspect Genie to be part cyborg... All jokes aside, I'm surprised to hear that you're still battling. Please feel free to drop me a PM and I'll take a look at what's causing the holdup here.

 

[paoloc]

We're definitely all human here. Although, I suspect Genie to be part cyborg... All jokes aside, I'm surprised to hear that you're still battling. Please feel free to drop me a PM and I'll take a look at what's causing the holdup here.

I've been the PM route and not heard anything back, multiple times, from you both, so I'll rather keep the discussion here. My account is [email protected].

 

[AfriFella]

I've been the PM route and not heard anything back, multiple times, from you both, so I'll rather keep the discussion here. My account is [email protected].

I can see that the upgrade request was cancelled and your billing was switched back to 10Mbps. I don't see what the reason for this happening was. I'm going to chat to the Team in charge of Octotel orders and revert back to you via PM.

 

[Snoob]

Router delivered and running. Thank you

 

[paoloc]

I can see that the upgrade request was cancelled and your billing was switched back to 10Mbps. I don't see what the reason for this happening was. I'm going to chat to the Team in charge of Octotel orders and revert back to you via PM.

Hi AfriFella. I suspect you're a guy that doesn't use a calendar or an inbox effectively, and the customer is your reminder system. So here's your reminder: please do what you said you would do above.

I'm going to now start adding this every time I post here, so that every single page in this thread has some context, to draw attention to how horrendously ineffective your company is:

Afrihost fibre upgrade from 10mbps to 20mbps initiated on 14 Oct 2017. Despite following up weekly with Afrihost, it's still not done. Buyer beware: Afrihost is not the company it once was.

 

[AfriNatic]

Hi AfriFella. I suspect you're a guy that doesn't use a calendar or an inbox effectively, and the customer is your reminder system. So here's your reminder: please do what you said you would do above.

I'm going to now start adding this every time I post here, so that every single page in this thread has some context, to draw attention to how horrendously ineffective your company is:

Afrihost fibre upgrade from 10mbps to 20mbps initiated on 14 Oct 2017. Despite following up weekly with Afrihost, it's still not done. Buyer beware: Afrihost is not the company it once was.

I have spoken to the Fibre Team about your upgrade and they have found and amended the delay. You should have you upgraded speed within 48 hours.

 

[the_merchant]

So I've been quite happy with my Afrihost fibre so far. Only problem is the router that Afrihost sent. The first one was replaced on 07/12/2017 due to it being faulty, but now the replacement is giving the exact same problem. USB LED is on despite no USB being plugged in, and there's no internet connection. It isn't the modem since I've been able to connect directly to my PC and set up a PPPoE connection. Performance started dropping and had to reboot the router about 3 times within 24 hours before it finally just died. I've logged a support request, but I'm concerned that I'll just have the same problem again. What are the chances that I had two defective routers? Has anyone else had issues with their router?

 

[Kloofvreter]

I have never been able to access the Internet with a laptop or access point directly plugged into the CPE, it seems it has to go through the router. Is this normal?

 

[AfriMan]

So I've been quite happy with my Afrihost fibre so far. Only problem is the router that Afrihost sent. The first one was replaced on 07/12/2017 due to it being faulty, but now the replacement is giving the exact same problem. USB LED is on despite no USB being plugged in, and there's no internet connection. It isn't the modem since I've been able to connect directly to my PC and set up a PPPoE connection. Performance started dropping and had to reboot the router about 3 times within 24 hours before it finally just died. I've logged a support request, but I'm concerned that I'll just have the same problem again. What are the chances that I had two defective routers? Has anyone else had issues with their router?

That's terrible. It's probably unlikely you got two defective routers (but not impossible by any means) unless there is a defective batch. I haven't heard of this fault previously, so not likely to be a bad batch. Is it possible that certain conditions might be affecting the router? Like unprotected power surges, etc? Anything that comes to mind?

 

[AfriMan]

I have never been able to access the Internet with a laptop or access point directly plugged into the CPE, it seems it has to go through the router. Is this normal?

With most fibre providers you should be able to do this. However, many of them also lock the connection to the MAC address of the connecting device, so we would need to reset the MAC address for you everytime you change devices, which is why we recommend adding a permanent router so you can switch out whenever you like.

 

[the_merchant]

That's terrible. It's probably unlikely you got two defective routers (but not impossible by any means) unless there is a defective batch. I haven't heard of this fault previously, so not likely to be a bad batch. Is it possible that certain conditions might be affecting the router? Like unprotected power surges, etc? Anything that comes to mind?

Haven't had any power outages for months; the router is plugged in at the same power point as the modem, which is still working fine. I'll get a surge protector plug just in case (been meaning to get anyway), but nothing else I can think of. Sigh, I'm just hoping they're able to replace the router soon and that this doesn't happen again.

 

[AfriMan]

Haven't had any power outages for months; the router is plugged in at the same power point as the modem, which is still working fine. I'll get a surge protector plug just in case (been meaning to get anyway), but nothing else I can think of. Sigh, I'm just hoping they're able to replace the router soon and that this doesn't happen again.

We'll definitely replace the router if it is defective and our warehouse team will investigate if this is a latent defect in the product. A surge protector is definitely a good idea. Sadly SA power (especially in Gauteng) has been known to fluctuate outside of the prescribed levels and routers are generally pretty sensitive. A friend of mine had a surge of over 300V which blew her TV, sound system, decoder and pretty much everything in her house

 

[Kloofvreter]

With most fibre providers you should be able to do this. However, many of them also lock the connection to the MAC address of the connecting device, so we would need to reset the MAC address for you everytime you change devices, which is why we recommend adding a permanent router so you can switch out whenever you like.

Ok, thanks! I wanted to test something.

As a matter of interest, why do they do this?

 

[AfriMan]

Ok, thanks! I wanted to test something.

As a matter of interest, why do they do this?

Hmmm, I've never actually asked!

I'm guessing it's to prevent abuse on their network, but I would imagine how you use the bandwidth delivered to your ONT device is up to you. Perhaps having multiple devices might introduce a backdoor to abuse the network. Not all of them do it, so there could be different technologies at play as well.

I'll ask though, now I am interested to know why they do it

 

[Kloofvreter]

Hmmm, I've never actually asked!

I'm guessing it's to prevent abuse on their network, but I would imagine how you use the bandwidth delivered to your ONT device is up to you. Perhaps having multiple devices might introduce a backdoor to abuse the network. Not all of them do it, so there could be different technologies at play as well.

I'll ask though, now I am interested to know why they do it

Thanks, it would be interesting to know the reason!

I'm on 20/20, not sure how it can be abused by not using a dedicated router, so feedback would be interesting!

 

[paoloc]

I have spoken to the Fibre Team about your upgrade and they have found and amended the delay. You should have you upgraded speed within 48 hours.

48 hours? I was skeptical, after two months of fighting Afrihost's incompetence. Yet again, it's still not upgraded, eight days later. Yet again, how hard can it be to upgrade one line?

Afrihost fibre upgrade from 10mbps to 20mbps initiated on 14 Oct 2017. Despite following up weekly with Afrihost, it's still not done. Buyer beware: Afrihost is not the company it once was.

 

[AfriMan]

48 hours? I was skeptical, after two months of fighting Afrihost's incompetence. Yet again, it's still not upgraded, eight days later. Yet again, how hard can it be to upgrade one line?

Afrihost fibre upgrade from 10mbps to 20mbps initiated on 14 Oct 2017. Despite following up weekly with Afrihost, it's still not done. Buyer beware: Afrihost is not the company it once was.

Sorry about this. We definitely need to address this with the fibre provider, as waiting this long is unacceptable. I will ask AfriNatic to get our Fibre Ops Manager involved ASAP