Afrihost Service shedding

[chrisGolf]

This is like blaming a delivery company for not delivering a package because your municipality has not been maintaining your roads and it's impossible to get to your house. Sure, you can rant and rave at the delivery company and tell them you pay them and it's not your problem they can't drive to your house, and what are they going to do about it. But at the end of the day there's nothing they can do if they can't get to your house.

Now, having said that, I do agree that there is a lot wrong with the FNO/ISP model we currently have in South Africa and it definitely needs a lot of improvement. However let's just remember it wasn't that long ago that everybody used to say that we would never get fibre in South Africa. It's a small miracle that we do have fibre considering how small the market is in South Africa, and it's an even bigger miracle that most of that network (mostly) manages to stay up during loadshedding.

Using your deliver company analogy, the delivery company would not be able to invoice the customer as the goods were not received. In the ISP's case, they still charge regardless, and blame the FNO. Agreed, the FNO is usually to blame, but I agree with OP, we don't actually care, I'm paying the ISP, they must deliver. failure to deliver, then reimburse. else it's easy to keep blaming the FNO, load shedding etc.

 

[Speedster]

Who we blame and who we pay are two different things. If I was paying Openserve then I would expect them to sort out the ISP is that was within their supply chain. My OP was directed to afrihost and concerned about what they did to ensure that their partners deliver. Trying to get the answer from them directly is not possible because those who know are protected by the frontline support agents. Personally, I don't care if there are 1000 role players in the chain, I expect the party I'm paying to manage downstream issues. Afrihost is just 'oh it's not us, it's them but hey, don't forget to pay'. I've been having this issue for months now and they have escalated to openserve a few times and openserve just say all is good on their side.

Have you considered moving to a different ISP?

 

[Dan C]

Using your deliver company analogy, the delivery company would not be able to invoice the customer as the goods were not received. In the ISP's case, they still charge regardless, and blame the FNO. Agreed, the FNO is usually to blame, but I agree with OP, we don't actually care, I'm paying the ISP, they must deliver. failure to deliver, then reimburse. else it's easy to keep blaming the FNO, load shedding etc.

You sign up with an ISP and agree with their terms and conditions.

 

[chrisGolf]

You sign up with an ISP and agree with their terms and conditions.

Fair point, but I just find the ISP business to be underhanded. Most other businesses, non delivery usually equates to non-payment from the customer. (private businesses, not government) - this is all I am pointing out.
It's just frustrating, and I'm venting, sorry about that.
Also even if by some miracle, you do get reimbursed - it's still not enough, because there are all the 3rd party services that you possible could be paying for, netflix, showmax, etc. the extra 5G to 10G vodacom data you needed to buy because you had no idea when connectivity would be restored, and you're working from home etc.

 

[Dan C]

Fair point, but I just find the ISP business to be underhanded. Most other businesses, non delivery usually equates to non-payment from the customer. (private businesses, not government) - this is all I am pointing out.
It's just frustrating, and I'm venting, sorry about that.
Also even if by some miracle, you do get reimbursed - it's still not enough, because there are all the 3rd party services that you possible could be paying for, netflix, showmax, etc. the extra 5G to 10G vodacom data you needed to buy because you had no idea when connectivity would be restored, and you're working from home etc.

We are all gatvol believe me. But unfortunately some people will take advantage of the situation. i.e. fake outages etc. just to get money back. I don't for a second say you are wrong in being angry. So far I've been lucky with my 'up time'.