Afrihost Mobile Feedback Thread

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I've been looking at getting an afrihost sim as a second (backup) sim card for data for those times that I am away from my ADSL but I see that in order for me to get it delivered, I have to pay a R145 courier fee, or there about.
I don't know if I'm alone in this, but that seems exorbitantly expensive. It would make more sense to use that money to buy data somewhere else. Especially since other providers charge 99c for prepaid sim cards.
Can I not buy this at a shop instead somewhere, or have it posted in a 50c envelope? I will still have to RICA and activate it, so it's not like anyone would have any use for it if they happened to intercept it.
Right now it seems like they are creating a huge barrier to entry for us prepaid customers.
 
Avenue said:
I've been looking at getting an afrihost sim as a second (backup) sim card for data for those times that I am away from my ADSL but I see that in order for me to get it delivered, I have to pay a R145 courier fee, or there about.
I don't know if I'm alone in this, but that seems exorbitantly expensive. It would make more sense to use that money to buy data somewhere else. Especially since other providers charge 99c for prepaid sim cards.
Can I not buy this at a shop instead somewhere, or have it posted in a 50c envelope? I will still have to RICA and activate it, so it's not like anyone would have any use for it if they happened to intercept it.
Right now it seems like they are creating a huge barrier to entry for us prepaid customers.
Click to expand...

The delivery charge is a combined delivery and RICA fee for sim cards that we issue.

You are more than welcome to buy your own sim card and have us provision the data on that. :) You will however need to purchase airtime once every 60 days to ensure that the sim card remains active on the MTN network.

If you get the sim card from us we'll take care of that for you.
 
Quick question, why doesnt AH advertise on radio or on TV?


Been bugging me for a while.
 
Rickster said:
Quick question, why doesnt AH advertise on radio or on TV?


Been bugging me for a while.
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Hey Rickster. :) When we entered the DSL market in 2009 our directors made a decision to be very aggressive with pricing. Offering DSL at R29 per GB was something unheard of at the time, and the only way we could do that was to cut our marketing budget severely. This, in fact, actually spawned a term that Gian likes to use, called "braai marketing". Pretty self-explanatory, braai marketing is basically word of mouth advertising and can go pretty viral if the company in question can back up client testimonials with actions. Since then, we have definitely boosted our marketing budget and focus a lot of resources into above the line things like billboards, as well as social media and digital channels, but I think our directors will always focus mainly on our products before advertising. We still mainly rely on you guys for that. ;)
 
AfriFella said:
Hey Rickster. :) When we entered the DSL market in 2009 our directors made a decision to be very aggressive with pricing. Offering DSL at R29 per GB was something unheard of at the time, and the only way we could do that was to cut our marketing budget severely. This, in fact, actually spawned a term that Gian likes to use, called "braai marketing". Pretty self-explanatory, braai marketing is basically word of mouth advertising and can go pretty viral if the company in question can back up client testimonials with actions. Since then, we have definitely boosted our marketing budget and focus a lot of resources into above the line things like billboards, as well as social media and digital channels, but I think our directors will always focus mainly on our products before advertising. We still mainly rely on you guys for that. ;)
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Makes sense actually, less customers = more IPC to go around.
 
Rickster said:
Makes sense actually, less customers = more IPC to go around.
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Not really what I meant. :) We're still one of the biggest ISPs in the country with a pretty significant client base. :) What I meant was that we focus primarily on word of mouth advertising in order to channel even more value into our products.
 
AfriFella said:
Not really what I meant. :) We're still one of the biggest ISPs in the country with a pretty significant client base. :) What I meant was that we focus primarily on word of mouth advertising in order to channel even more value into our products.
Click to expand...

Put up one TV ad, you will see a jump in customers.
 
Avenue said:
Right now it seems like they are creating a huge barrier to entry for us prepaid customers.
Click to expand...

While I'm pretty quick to jump in and criticise service, I think you might be over-reacting a little. It's at worst a small barrier to entry. If you can't afford R145 once off, then you're probably not buying much data either, and at the end of the day, a business has to cover costs and make a profit if it's going to stay in business. There are costs associated with keeping your SIM activated and monitoring your usage and balances, and I certainly don't think that I should be subsidising your SIM delivery costs.
 
AfriGenie said:
The delivery charge is a combined delivery and RICA fee for sim cards that we issue.

You are more than welcome to buy your own sim card and have us provision the data on that. :) You will however need to purchase airtime once every 60 days to ensure that the sim card remains active on the MTN network.

If you get the sim card from us we'll take care of that for you.
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Hi Afrigenie,

I bought my simcard from Afrihost, and it has MTN logo on it. In october I cancelled, and the sim was removed from the client zone. I contacted your support through the client zone and asked if it is possible to uncancel the sim. I was advised to apply for a package and use the sim card phone number. Which I did in December, and the sim now appears in the client zone.

I got an email saying: "Your MTN SIM Card has been successfully provisioned for the Afrihost Network."

My question is the following: is this simcard now a prepaid MTN simcard or is it still an Afrihost sim card? IE would I need to keep it active, or will Afrihost?
 
murray654 said:
Hi Afrigenie,

I bought my simcard from Afrihost, and it has MTN logo on it. In october I cancelled, and the sim was removed from the client zone. I contacted your support through the client zone and asked if it is possible to uncancel the sim. I was advised to apply for a package and use the sim card phone number. Which I did in December, and the sim now appears in the client zone.

I got an email saying: "Your MTN SIM Card has been successfully provisioned for the Afrihost Network."

My question is the following: is this simcard now a prepaid MTN simcard or is it still an Afrihost sim card? IE would I need to keep it active, or will Afrihost?
Click to expand...

Hmmmm... I'm not sure to be honest... Could you PM me the number and I'll check.
 
Yesterday I got a Afrihost branded page saying I had rung out of data, whilst clientzone showed I still had 100mb left.
Support blamed my phone magically changing the APN even though it showed an afrihost branded page...
Also could connect suddenly after contacting support

Today no data on LTE, clientzone shows 700KB data left, and I have auto topup enabled. No error page saying
I have run out of data just no connection.

What really pissed me off yesterday was the attitude from support that it was my phone.

Afrihost is great till you need to speak to support.
 
Leno said:
Yesterday I got a Afrihost branded page saying I had rung out of data, whilst clientzone showed I still had 100mb left.
Support blamed my phone magically changing the APN even though it showed an afrihost branded page...
Also could connect suddenly after contacting support

Today no data on LTE, clientzone shows 700KB data left, and I have auto topup enabled. No error page saying
I have run out of data just no connection.

What really pissed me off yesterday was the attitude from support that it was my phone.

Afrihost is great till you need to speak to support.
Click to expand...

Sorry to hear about your poor experience, Leno. :( This false "Capped" message can sometimes occur on our system, but can easily be fixed by a reset through our radius server. I'm sure that the Support technician was just trying to troubleshoot the issue with you a little as APNs can often default or reset themselves which is certainly more common than the error I described here.
 
AfriFella said:
Sorry to hear about your poor experience, Leno. :( This false "Capped" message can sometimes occur on our system, but can easily be fixed by a reset through our radius server. I'm sure that the Support technician was just trying to troubleshoot the issue with you a little as APNs can often default or reset themselves which is certainly more common than the error I described here.
Click to expand...

I understand if they want to troubleshoot, but they were telling me, not asking me that the APN changed

I have had a look at your account and noted that the number is now connected. The reason why you get the out of data message is because your APN reverted back to default (MTN APN). Please delete all MTN APN's and only leave Afrihost as your default APN.
Click to expand...

Eventually they acknowledged that it could have been a technical error, but why not tell me that in the first place and not tell me that my phone magically changed the APN to MTN and back again

I am still not connected at the moment, no reply from your support
 
Last month I got the capped message and had data left on clientzone, I imagined that the clientzone was just old info so topped up.

Now I see its a clever way to get customers to buy topups when they dont need to!
 
Leno said:
Last month I got the capped message and had data left on clientzone, I imagined that the clientzone was just old info so topped up.

Now I see its a clever way to get customers to buy topups when they dont need to!
Click to expand...

Please feel free to PM me your username and I'll assist you personally. :)
 
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