@AfriGenie
So its been one month and a week of horror with Afrihost.
After ranting out my frustrations to the social media handler who did not want to take accountability, was extremely rude and ignored my answers completely and gave me copy and paste responses I finally received my "Afrigreen" account ...only after proving how inconsiderate he was towards me ...
All round, the speeds for downloads and browsing are snappy but still having major issues with constant ISP Drops, piss poor online gaming performance and streaming bufferings ....
It has been a full month and a half now ... my patience is gone and on the verge of regrettably moving over to another ISP...
Are we able to get an ETA when we will see speedy networking speeds again?
I do not want the hassle of switching to another ISP which is Admin I simply do not have time for and I have been a happy, loyal and satisfied customer for about three years now.
Worst thing is .. I am paying R1300 per month for ADSL Data, Afrihost Mobile Data, Telkom DSL + Line rental and just ****ing time towards Afrihost but still have to fork out extra dosh with my Alt ISP so I get decent internet performance !!!
whippey I feel your pain. I've been trying very hard to restrain myself on this. My business is being hampered so here is my little rant. I didn't want to waste an hour writing this tonight. I was meant to be working but my internet is down.
From what I understand, in a nutshell, Afrihost oversubscribed their network (with related MTN merger). They had the opportunity to look to the West at internet usage growth trends before signing thousands of users onto cheap uncapped, just as Eskom had the opportunity to plan for the future. They didn't need to continue offering specials on business packages and pretend everything was going to be ok, but they did. And then it broke. Maybe I am missing the details but no one can argue that they messed up. This blunder is akin to Eskom's **** up -- lack of foresight; collapse; consumer pays for it in full.
So it is broken. How do they respond?
With my 'business' account periodically useless, I need to buy capped gigs from webafrica for my life to continue to function. Couple hundred a month. This is not compensated for by a reduction or refund for partial service from AH.
Aside from a vague network notification and social media engagement upon complaint, there is no email, announcement or stipulation that service is running sub par, no formal apology. The customer must just struggle until they are gatvol and then call (the poor) support staff whom, if we are honest, can't do anything but stall and mislead and who don't deserve the abuse they must be getting.
And then we sign up to be beta (alpha?) testers of a 'POC' network which shows promise but is inadequate. We sign up for this service not because it is some fun experiment but because we are so desperate, so SICK of problems from SA telecoms and ISPs and all service providers who just f u c k us all day, every day in this country. We will try anything to just not have to fight and complain for a single month, like it used be with Afrihost.
So why do we willingly test Afrihost's network as guinea pigs for free, without demanding a refund or discount, without going to the NCC, or putting up billboards? Is it because they have a clued up public relations team? A white man in a super hero costume who engages us like one of us even though he is just a specialised mouthpiece for a big corporate greed machine?
With Eskom we know there is nothing we can do but go off the grid or buy a generator or stock up on tuna and bottled water, because the problem won't be fixed and the fat cats will continue to get fatter. Why though do we take so much ka k from Afrihost? We know they are TRYING and we know they CARE so much about us and that they have provided good service in the past. But we are just being exploited now and we take it because they have shiny PR. South Africa syndrome. We think we have no power as consumers because we are used to being bullied.
Imagine this: Running our businesses while TESTING an unstable, unproven network for an ISP for free that no longer provides the service we are still paying for in FULL. SIS!!!!!
Disgusting. Give them a deadline and then go somewhere else. We need to enforce evolution here.
I've been running a few tests on my end and it seems pretty solid.