Although AH CC team is still working with me on my issues, I felt it worthwhile to share my observations on the forum ......... maybe someone can share some advice/comment, or maybe someone else is experiencing a similar phenomena.
Having had months of lag spikes issues on my AH account and having worked through all the changes on the AH network, I would be a liar if I said my connection has not improved with the "new" AH setup. It certainly did!
Truth be told, it changed a lot - having had severe latency issues every time I tried to sit back and enjoy some "me time" with my favourite gaming sites, the latency spikes are now much more under control (as they would only pop up once in a while during my evening's game play session. In essence, my internet experience is not perfect at the moment when connected via AH, it is merely OK'ish.
Having run all kinds of tests for myself and AH, one could not pin point the exact cause at this stage (because of the sporadic nature of this beast).
Yesterday, I finally decided to subscribe to a different ISP - not because I am giving up on AH, but more to retain my own sanity (e.g. verify if the issue is with my equipment/setup/Telkom or if it is with the ISP). Obviously one day does not prove much, but ............
Running a different ISP account since yesterday afternoon, last nights gaming sessions was pure internet joy! Torrent downloads throughout the night ran like a Swiss clock. Time will tell if last night's experience was merely a flash in the pan, coincidence or possibly the norm.
Herewith a few results of the tests I ran (for the record, prior to switching from my AH account, I did reset my router to ensure the fault was not "fixed" by rebooting the router during the ISP change cycle).
Afrigreen Account:
Ping statistics for 95.172.91.23:
Packets: Sent = 1643, Received = 1634, Lost = 9 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 184ms, Maximum = 2910ms, Average = 205ms
Control-C
^C
C:\Users\Igor III>
Ping statistics for 155.239.255.250:
Packets: Sent = 1692, Received = 1682, Lost = 10 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 9ms, Maximum = 2476ms, Average = 29ms
Control-C
^C
C:\Users\Igor III>
Test account:
Microsoft Windows [Version 6.1.7600]
Copyright (c) 2009 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
C:\Users\Igor III>tracert bras.afrihost.com
Tracing route to bras.afrihost.com [155.239.255.250]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.1.1
2 10 ms 11 ms 11 ms 155.239.255.250
Trace complete.
C:\Users\Igor III>
Ping statistics for 155.239.255.250:
Packets: Sent = 317, Received = 317, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 10ms, Maximum = 182ms, Average = 13ms
Control-C
^C
C:\Users\Igor III>
Ping statistics for 95.172.91.23:
Packets: Sent = 349, Received = 349, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 193ms, Maximum = 1031ms, Average = 286ms
Control-C
^C
C:\Users\Igor III>
Afrihost:
Microsoft Windows [Version 6.1.7600]
Copyright (c) 2009 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
C:\Users\Igor III>ping bras.afrihost.com -t
Pinging bras.afrihost.com [155.239.255.250] with 32 bytes of data:
Ping statistics for 155.239.255.250:
Packets: Sent = 187, Received = 187, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 9ms, Maximum = 285ms, Average = 13ms
Control-C
^C
C:\Users\Igor III>
Microsoft Windows [Version 6.1.7600]
Copyright (c) 2009 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
C:\Users\Igor III>ping 95.172.91.23 -t
Pinging 95.172.91.23 with 32 bytes of data:
Ping statistics for 95.172.91.23:
Packets: Sent = 178, Received = 178, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 188ms, Maximum = 665ms, Average = 195ms
Control-C
^C
C:\Users\Igor III>
New/Different ISP Account:
Ping statistics for 155.239.255.250:
Packets: Sent = 346, Received = 346, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 9ms, Maximum = 16ms, Average = 10ms
Control-C
^C
C:\Users\Igor III>
Microsoft Windows [Version 6.1.7600]
Copyright (c) 2009 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
C:\Users\Igor III>ping 95.172.91.23 -t
Pinging 95.172.91.23 with 32 bytes of data:
Ping statistics for 95.172.91.23:
Packets: Sent = 247, Received = 247, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 184ms, Maximum = 195ms, Average = 186ms
Control-C
^C
C:\Users\Igor III>
Ping Plotter on AH account:
Ping Plotter on New ISP account:
Why does AH require more hops to the same IP - any idea?