Afrihost overseas high pings?

[giggity]

Did some tests over the weekend. Friday my ping was decent @ 182ms in-game. Still ±10ms higher than I used to get. Saturday and today I'm still getting 200ms+.

I'm also getting occasional games with packet loss and latency spikes.

Each entry below includes the approximate date and time, the IP address I recorded from Wireshark and the latency I was getting in-game.

2023/03/10 17:38​

162.249.77.164

182ms​

2023/03/10 17:43​

162.249.78.165

183ms​

2023/03/11 17:20​

162.249.77.121

204ms​

2023/03/12 22:20​

162.249.77.197

201ms​

 

[AfriNatic]

Did some tests over the weekend. Friday my ping was decent @ 182ms in-game. Still ±10ms higher than I used to get. Saturday and today I'm still getting 200ms+.

I'm also getting occasional games with packet loss and latency spikes.

Each entry below includes the approximate date and time, the IP address I recorded from Wireshark and the latency I was getting in-game.

2023/03/10 17:38​

162.249.77.164

182ms​

View attachment 1491229

2023/03/10 17:43​

162.249.78.165

183ms​

View attachment 1491231

2023/03/11 17:20​

162.249.77.121

204ms​

View attachment 1491233

2023/03/12 22:20​

162.249.77.197

201ms​

View attachment 1491237

Hi

We are aware. There are multiple breaks between JHB and CPT that are affecting international latency from JHB. Most traffic from JHB is routed via Eastern routes. Some issues have been resolved but we are still observing flaps on one of our main carriers from JHB and have logged a ticket accordingly.

 

[giggity]

Hi

We are aware. There are multiple breaks between JHB and CPT that are affecting international latency from JHB. Most traffic from JHB is routed via Eastern routes. Some issues have been resolved but we are still observing flaps on one of our main carriers from JHB and have logged a ticket accordingly.

Is there something about this on the Afrihost status page? Where can I find out more?

 

[AfriNatic]

Is there something about this on the Afrihost status page? Where can I find out more?

Hi

It looks like the Noc on shift didn't add a notice but the niggles are resolved and latency should be as they were before the outages.

 

[2525252525]

Hi

It looks like the Noc on shift didn't add a notice but the niggles are resolved and latency should be as they were before the outages.

Afrihost/Openserve international latency is really freaking awful, it's compounded by Openserve's bad local latency. Companies reaching 110ms to Europe from here and you guys think 200+ is acceptable, ridiculous.

 

[giggity]

Hi

It looks like the Noc on shift didn't add a notice but the niggles are resolved and latency should be as they were before the outages.

I played a few games last night. Getting 182ms some games against instead of constant 200ms+ every game - but still getting 200ms+ every 2nd game.

Minimum is still ±10ms higher than it was a month ago.

 

[2525252525]

I played a few games last night. Getting 182ms some games against instead of constant 200ms+ every game - but still getting 200ms+ every 2nd game.

Minimum is still ±10ms higher than it was a month ago.

Yeah I gave up with them, they've deemed 200ms as acceptable, maybe the majority of the userbase doesn't care about ping so they're aiming at the absolute minimum thresholds before people just drop the service.

It makes sense for them, marketing and selling high speed garbo internet is likely more profitable than lower speed but higher quality.

Afrihost is still a fantastic ISP, but these days it's for your grandma and grandpa who occasionally watches Youtube and checks email, it's not even remotely close to being high performance pivoted like Cool Ideas.

 

[VicB]

https://mybroadband.co.za/news/fibr...dwidth-on-googles-massive-undersea-cable.html

So uhm...about the above...should we be expecting a drop in latency to europe sometime soon based on this? (The article states that Openserve also bought some capacity) or how does this work?

I'm getting consistently 170-77 ping to game servers in europe (Frankfurt, Paris, Brussels) on Openserve. Will this comedown somewhat? Hoping for 150ms or below ping.

Is this possible @Afrigirl @AfriNatic

 

[2525252525]

https://mybroadband.co.za/news/fibr...dwidth-on-googles-massive-undersea-cable.html

So uhm...about the above...should we be expecting a drop in latency to europe sometime soon based on this? (The article states that Openserve also bought some capacity) or how does this work?

I'm getting consistently 170-77 ping to game servers in europe (Frankfurt, Paris, Brussels) on Openserve. Will this comedown somewhat? Hoping for 150ms or below ping.

Is this possible @Afrigirl @AfriNatic

I highly doubt that, they've probably bought the absolutely cheapest most congested bulk package from Liquid. High ping isn't an issue to these guys, it's about customer count and increasing throughput regardless of actual international latency.

 

[giggity]

Yeah I gave up with them, they've deemed 200ms as acceptable, maybe the majority of the userbase doesn't care about ping so they're aiming at the absolute minimum thresholds before people just drop the service.

It makes sense for them, marketing and selling high speed garbo internet is likely more profitable than lower speed but higher quality.

Afrihost is still a fantastic ISP, but these days it's for your grandma and grandpa who occasionally watches Youtube and checks email, it's not even remotely close to being high performance pivoted like Cool Ideas.

Where are you located and what ping do you get with Cool Ideas?

 

[2525252525]

Where are you located and what ping do you get with Cool Ideas?

I'm not with Cool Ideas but judging by feedback data they've got a completely different performance levels and philosophy to Afrihost, like it's night and day. Afrihost admitted they've gone with certain service levels from Liquid (Better profit margin most likely) and that pings to EU of >200ms is acceptable, that should tell you they've majorly cheaped out in order to sell bulk speed instead of quality connectivity, especially evident as ISPs like CI just crush them outright in ping tests.

 

[AfriNatic]

I'm not with Cool Ideas but judging by feedback data they've got a completely different performance levels and philosophy to Afrihost, like it's night and day. Afrihost admitted they've gone with certain service levels from Liquid (Better profit margin most likely) and that pings to EU of >200ms is acceptable, that should tell you they've majorly cheaped out in order to sell bulk speed instead of quality connectivity, especially evident as ISPs like CI just crush them outright in ping tests.

It's not about profit. It is about the capacity we can get at a rate that we don't require an R250p/m increase per client.

The nice thing about being a small ISP is that you have a relatively small network and can get capacity without many issues. We are already using half of Openserve's international transit and had to get more capacity for other providers because traffic levels required it.

 

[2525252525]

It's not about profit. It is about the capacity we can get at a rate that we don't require an R250p/m increase per client.

The nice thing about being a small ISP is that you have a relatively small network and can get capacity without many issues. We are already using half of Openserve's international transit and had to get more capacity for other providers because traffic levels required it.

Maybe stop doubling everyone's speeds every 6 months then you won't be facing international latency issues.

 

[ajax]

Not all of us are gamers, and I really don't feel or care about a 20ms longer ping to EU.
I would not have gotten fibre if it weren't for Afrihost making it affordable and with good client service to back that up.

 

[2525252525]

Not all of us are gamers, and I really don't feel or care about a 20ms longer ping to EU.
I would not have gotten fibre if it weren't for Afrihost making it affordable and with good client service to back that up.

Happy for you, you're definitely the primary target market. It's not a bad service at all but the latency is still wonky dogwater.

Kind of over giving them >R1000 pm for these insane pings.

 

[MakoPC]

Maybe stop doubling everyone's speeds every 6 months then you won't be facing international latency issues.

FNO's are doubling people's speeds not the ISP's

 

[MakoPC]

You complaining about Afrihost/Openserve having bad international latency, I was getting better latency on Openserve, than Metro, Vuma and Frogfoot

 

[AfriNatic]

Maybe stop doubling everyone's speeds every 6 months then you won't be facing international latency issues.

You have a valid complaint. Our latency isn't the best it can be and it does hurt when I see people say that because although I'm not a big gamer it's disheartening to see 200ms to EU.

We have challenges that we are facing and there aren't easy fixes. We have discussed a way we can have gamers get better latency. We are moving to PPPoE and once we have that sorted we can optimize things a bit by announcing specific ip subnets over specific transit providers to provide lower latency.

Currently, we can't do that until we move from DHCP to PPPoE and from Openserve to Openserve L2TP and these are really big projects that will take some time.

 

[2525252525]

You have a valid complaint. Our latency isn't the best it can be and it does hurt when I see people say that because although I'm not a big gamer it's disheartening to see 200ms to EU.

We have challenges that we are facing and there aren't easy fixes. We have discussed a way we can have gamers get better latency. We are moving to PPPoE and once we have that sorted we can optimize things a bit by announcing specific ip subnets over specific transit providers to provide lower latency.

Currently, we can't do that until we move from DHCP to PPPoE and from Openserve to Openserve L2TP and these are really big projects that will take some time.

This is great news for your current and future users, hope you guys get it done as soon as possible. I'm not going to personally ever spend money on an Afrihost product again after this but it's good that you're at least aware of these serious service gaps. Hope you guys return to the good old days where Afrihost had excellent pings and great uptime.

Ciao.

 

[giggity]

We have challenges that we are facing and there aren't easy fixes. We have discussed a way we can have gamers get better latency. We are moving to PPPoE and once we have that sorted we can optimize things a bit by announcing specific ip subnets over specific transit providers to provide lower latency.

Currently, we can't do that until we move from DHCP to PPPoE and from Openserve to Openserve L2TP and these are really big projects that will take some time.

Is there a timeline for these changes?