Afrihost music streaming issues - Looking for new ISP

[stroebs]

Greetings forumites,

Preface: I'm using an Afrihost 200GB+200GB "Unshaped" Capped account on a 100Mbps Telkom fibre line.
Account cost: R498 (200GB Unshaped + Afrihost Plus+)

Ever since Afrihost decided to use their expensive Sandvine shaping equipment to destroy the awesome internet experience I had pre-18-hours-uncapped days, I am unable to do any music streaming from my favourite site (di.fm). The stream is less than 1Mbps on a 100Mbps fibre line and it constantly stops and buffers, which completely baffles me. I've been forced to route di.fm through Webafrica instead and it works magically now, no buffering whatsoever.

Has anyone had a similar experience? Can anyone recommend a replacement for Afrihost at a similar price point?

 

[Rickster]

Greetings forumites,

Preface: I'm using an Afrihost 200GB+200GB "Unshaped" Capped account on a 100Mbps Telkom fibre line.
Account cost: R498 (200GB Unshaped + Afrihost Plus+)

Ever since Afrihost decided to use their expensive Sandvine shaping equipment to destroy the awesome internet experience I had pre-18-hours-uncapped days, I am unable to do any music streaming from my favourite site (di.fm). The stream is less than 1Mbps on a 100Mbps fibre line and it constantly stops and buffers, which completely baffles me. I've been forced to route di.fm through Webafrica instead and it works magically now, no buffering whatsoever.

Has anyone had a similar experience? Can anyone recommend a replacement for Afrihost at a similar price point?

Let me give it a bash on my 4meg business line, please link me to a station you experience buffering and ill try play the same one.

 

[MickZA]

Seems you've answered your own question if it streams OK on Webafrica. I use one of their home capped accounts to stream in the evenings often running Netflix, Showmax & Youtube to different devices at the same time on a 10Mbps line without problems.

 

[AfriMan]

Greetings forumites,

Preface: I'm using an Afrihost 200GB+200GB "Unshaped" Capped account on a 100Mbps Telkom fibre line.
Account cost: R498 (200GB Unshaped + Afrihost Plus+)

Ever since Afrihost decided to use their expensive Sandvine shaping equipment to destroy the awesome internet experience I had pre-18-hours-uncapped days, I am unable to do any music streaming from my favourite site (di.fm). The stream is less than 1Mbps on a 100Mbps fibre line and it constantly stops and buffers, which completely baffles me. I've been forced to route di.fm through Webafrica instead and it works magically now, no buffering whatsoever.

Has anyone had a similar experience? Can anyone recommend a replacement for Afrihost at a similar price point?

We definitely want to do everything to improve our client's experience with the services that are important to them.

I tried this site out (never used it before) but it seemed to work pretty well in the free guest mode. Tracks loaded in a few seconds and there was no buffering on any of the tracks I tried. This was on a 20Mbps DSL using a shaped capped account.

Can we do some more troubleshooting to see why your experience could be different?

 

[Bryn]

We definitely want to do everything to improve our client's experience with the services that are important to them.

I tried this site out (never used it before) but it seemed to work pretty well in the free guest mode. Tracks loaded in a few seconds and there was no buffering on any of the tracks I tried. This was on a 20Mbps DSL using a shaped capped account.

Can we do some more troubleshooting to see why your experience could be different?

DI.fm and the sister sites (you also get Rock Radio, Jazz Radio, RadioTunes and Classical Radio with a sub to any of the 5 sites) only unlock 320Kbps quality with a Premium subscription. Free quality is 64Kbps.

 

[mister]

Ever since Afrihost decided to use their expensive Sandvine shaping equipment to destroy the awesome internet experience I had pre-18-hours-uncapped days, I am unable to do any music streaming from my favourite site (di.fm). The stream is less than 1Mbps on a 100Mbps fibre line and it constantly stops and buffers, which completely baffles me. I've been forced to route di.fm through Webafrica instead and it works magically now, no buffering whatsoever.

Funny you should mention that... I'm on 100Mbps openserve with afrihost capped and I'm having the odd issue with di.fm - Nothing extreme but it does stop playing now and then again and it's annoying.

Here is a trace i've been running today which shows some local and international loss.



I emailed afrihost yesterday about the packetloss and just got a rubbish answer about changing my adsl filter when you can clearly see I'm on fiber and there is nothing wrong with the connection or exchange.

I can't be bothered dealing with them anymore and will probably move back to Crystalweb.

 

[stroebs]

Funny you should mention that... I'm on 100Mbps openserve with afrihost capped and I'm having the odd issue with di.fm - Nothing extreme but it does stop playing now and then again and it's annoying.

Here is a trace i've been running today which shows some local and international loss.

View attachment 431758

I emailed afrihost yesterday about the packetloss and just got a rubbish answer about changing my adsl filter when you can clearly see I'm on fiber and there is nothing wrong with the connection or exchange.

I can't be bothered dealing with them anymore and will probably move back to Crystalweb.

I've found it's the worst between 6pm and 10pm. It stops and buffers every few seconds sometimes, which is massively frustrating. I even upgraded my little home router from a hAP Lite to a CCR1009 in case that was the issue.

Am using a paid subscription with 320Kbps streaming. Also experiencing ridiculously slow Plex streaming at peak times. Sometimes bouncing the PPPoE session resolves both issues but other times it's easier to cry in a corner.

@AfriMan I'll be sure to PM you with some diagnostics when I have some free time.

As for using WA - I despise the Internet Solutions network and the weird wonderful HTTP(S) transparent proxying and caching they do. Randomly reload a page and get greeted with an IS Squid page instead of the website.... Uh nah thanks. Will never use an IS-based ISP for my web traffic.

 

[treebsd]

As for using WA - I despise the Internet Solutions network and the weird wonderful HTTP(S) transparent proxying and caching they do. Randomly reload a page and get greeted with an IS Squid page instead of the website.... Uh nah thanks. Will never use an IS-based ISP for my web traffic.

IS got rid of their proxies years ago.

 

[Rickster]

Streams perfectly on my line.