Afrihost POC Network - Afrigreen Feedback

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10Mbps Home capped. Eastern Cape.

No network problems on AfriGreen.
YouTube and P2P working very well. :)

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Vorastra said:
Just some questions. So the old network ran on top of the MTN network. What does that mean? You used MTN as breakouts onto the undersea cables and used their data centres to manage the network?

Secondly, the new network does not run on MTN at all right? What does that mean? You guys own all points of your network under the Afrihost name?

I don't really know how ISP networks work :D
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We basically used the MTN core infrastructure for all aspects of the network, from the breakout from Telkom, including local and international links.

For the new network, we are using multiple partners for backhaul and international peering, Where MTN had their own infrastructure, this is more of an aggregated network, so we use multiple partners for the best performance.

Does that make sense?
 
OCP said:
Promise I didn't make it up: http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php?t=775062

Just got off the phone with Axxess support: engineers are investigating but no know cause/eta yet.....
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I don't think they are related (in terms of the link). Axxess use the same backbone as us, so they would be affected in the same way.

Our problem is related to authentication, where that link seems to be about an international traffic outage.
 
Flikka said:
My Afrihost capped account I use for my business is completely down since about 16:00. I switched to my WebAfrica test account and all was well again. Any reason for this?

I thought it was a problem on the line but no problems there.

EDIT: Exactly my problem as OCP mentioned but I'm at home now on my other Afrihost account and its working.
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Which Afrihost account is working? Do you mean an Afrigreen account.

As far as I understand, there is no authentication happening, so there would be no connection at all if you're routing via the South :( Won't affect any other ISPs - which is why other accounts would work.
 
After 6 AGAIN, and another evening of nothing.

Origin and Steam does not connect. Blizzard games do not connect. Surfing is slower than dialup.
This is on both AfriRed and AfriGreen.
Connect with a guest account to another ISP and everything is flying like normal.
 
HP_Exarkun said:
After 6 AGAIN, and another evening of nothing.

Origin and Steam does not connect. Blizzard games do not connect. Surfing is slower than dialup.
This is on both AfriRed and AfriGreen.
Connect with a guest account to another ISP and everything is flying like normal.
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We might be seeing more traffic that usual becuase of the DSL outage in the South. When we have that region back online as normal, we should see better results.

Also, please remember that we're cutting over from POC to production in the next day or so max - so we'll have the full production network ready for AfriGreen users (at least until the rest of the afrihost.co.za users are ready to come over before the end of the month).
 
AfriMan said:
We basically used the MTN core infrastructure for all aspects of the network, from the breakout from Telkom, including local and international links.

For the new network, we are using multiple partners for backhaul and international peering, Where MTN had their own infrastructure, this is more of an aggregated network, so we use multiple partners for the best performance.

Does that make sense?
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Answer if you have time. Don't want to distract!

So with this setup there can't be a central fault that would affect the entire system like you guys had with MTN?

I have another question. Hopefully you can answer this. What routes does the new network use? Undersea cables is what I mean. Is it just EASSy and WACS again? Does your engineering team decide these routes or your partners?

I ask since I'm having a bit of fun with this: http://www.submarinecablemap.com/

For example, traffic to the US, do you guys know/plan exactly what route it takes to minimise ping and so on? Or is it a matter of "Get it to a sea cable and let it sort itself". Like now, I notice in trace routes we always seem to ping London which is probably the WACS line, right?

Apparently there is this line (http://www.submarinecablemap.com/#/submarine-cable/south-atlantic-express-saex) that is meant to be finished in 2017. If this were to cut pings to the US, would you guys choose to use this or would it be a partners decision? If this is Afrihost's decision to make and this cable were to reduce pings to the US, would you even consider it or just stick with the routes you have now?

Just to add in another question quickly. I see there is an ACE cable. What would determine your use of WACS over ACE for example? http://www.submarinecablemap.com/#/submarine-cable/africa-coast-to-europe-ace
 
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Vorastra said:
Answer if you have time. Don't want to distract!

So with this setup there can't be a central fault that would affect the entire system like you guys had with MTN?

I have another question. Hopefully you can answer this. What routes does the new network use? Undersea cables is what I mean. Is it just EASSy and WACS again? Does your engineering team decide these routes or your partners?

I ask since I'm having a bit of fun with this: http://www.submarinecablemap.com/

For example, traffic to the US, do you guys know/plan exactly what route it takes to minimise ping and so on? Or is it a matter of "Get it to a sea cable and let it sort itself". Like now, I notice in trace routes we always seem to ping London which is probably the WACS line, right?

Apparently there is this line (http://www.submarinecablemap.com/#/submarine-cable/south-atlantic-express-saex) that is meant to be finished in 2017. If this were to cut pings to the US, would you guys choose to use this or would it be a partners decision? If this is Afrihost's decision to make and this cable were to reduce pings to the US, would you even consider it or just stick with the routes you have now?

Just to add in another question quickly. I see there is an ACE cable. What would determine your use of WACS over ACE for example? http://www.submarinecablemap.com/#/submarine-cable/africa-coast-to-europe-ace
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We are going to be less centralised than we were, we will have more kit in local regions to have greater redundancy.

In terms of routing, I don't have all that info, but as I said it will be spread across a number of providers for the best performance. For the moment, all traffic going overseas from the South goes over WACS. With the new network, we could determine the best route based on the destination - though there are not that many cables to choose from. Ideally we would be able to choose from cables terminating in the US, UK or Asia. Currently all our international traffic terminates in Europe. This is just hypothetical though, I think all the current undersea cables in SA terminate in Europe for the moment. Some others are planned, not sure how far away we are. A US terminating cable would be absolutely amazing for gaming and video streaming latency.
 
AfriMan said:
We are going to be less centralised than we were, we will have more kit in local regions to have greater redundancy.

In terms of routing, I don't have all that info, but as I said it will be spread across a number of providers for the best performance. For the moment, all traffic going overseas from the South goes over WACS. With the new network, we could determine the best route based on the destination - though there are not that many cables to choose from. Ideally we would be able to choose from cables terminating in the US, UK or Asia. Currently all our international traffic terminates in Europe. This is just hypothetical though, I think all the current undersea cables in SA terminate in Europe for the moment. Some others are planned, not sure how far away we are. A US terminating cable would be absolutely amazing for gaming and video streaming latency.
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The US one would at best be through Brazil, which should bring it to about 220ms latency. (120ms to Brazil, 40ms to USA from there and ~60ms if connecting from durban on ADSL).

Back to topic of undersea cables: Will the breakout be in Cape Town for western side of South Africa and another cable for eastern side of South Africa? Will reduce latency for those in the east.
 
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Johnatan56 said:
The US one would at best be through Brazil, which should bring it to about 220ms latency.

Back to topic of undersea cables: Will the breakout be in Cape Town for western side of South Africa and another cable for eastern side of South Africa? Will reduce latency for those in the east.
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That would be the plan. We want to use whichever cable gives the best performance.
 
AfriMan said:
A US terminating cable would be absolutely amazing for gaming and video streaming latency.
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Yeah that's why I was looking at that SAEx line. Even though it stops off at Brazil, it seems to be the shortest route to the US. Interesting to see if you guys consider it when it has completed construction.

Cool, thanks for all the info :)
 
Vorastra said:
Yeah that's why I was looking at that SAEx line. Even though it stops off at Brazil, it seems to be the shortest route to the US. Interesting to see if you guys consider it when it has completed construction.

Cool, thanks for all the info :)
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The beauty of the new system is that we can look at any potential partners if it will improve the network, as well as trusted and established players. We'll really get the best of everything for our clients
 
I so glad I’m on AfriGreen. It seems as if a lot of people are having connectivity issues.

I tested my normal Afrihost account and it doesn’t connect anywhere. :eek:
 
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