Afrihost Uncapped ADSL Feedback (Pt2)

[Crowley]

We have a celebrity among us Thanks for posting here, I think everyone appreciates it! How's your streaming/ browsing performing for you at the moment?

Just to confirm, we no longer have any rolling periods That all went away when we moved over to our new network

Didn't stream anything but VPN and browsing was perfect.

I'm glad you find it funny when Hulu is buffering every 30 seconds. Hulu must not be a real time service that is never shaped nor throttled or affected by guys abusing their lines... Crowley with his sob story gets 1TB and I can't stream a tv episode on Hulu on my 10mb line. Yep, sounds about right...thanks again AH

Download it and watch it. Problem solved.

 

[KinsZA]

Everything worked awesome last night - Durban

 

[manfromthesouth22]

I'm not sure of the context, but if I remember correctly that post from AfriGuy was in response to someone who claimed that we sent out mailers saying we have no capacity on the network and that our network is saturated. This was also a general comment, not specific to a region, like North or South or East. I can understand why he would respond in that way, becuase in general we do have capacity on our network, the issue you are now referring to is specific to the north. Again, referring to capacity also doesn't incorporate the fact that usage trends changed, so that our capacity planning was basically thrown out the window.

Okay, and so I try again.

@ 08-10-2013 08:43

I can assure you this is not related to our capacity. As per our PM, please confirm your ADSL details so I can checkup on your account.

Next post

While I understand a lot of peeps on MyBB are in IT - running an IPC network of this size is something of a different story. And I say that without wanting to insult anyones intelligence. But really, the amount of time, knowledge and understanding that goes into running a network of this size (noted we have IPC nodes in JHB, CPT and DBN) takes something really special.

IPC usage patterns and capacity can't be compared to pie, or a normal ADSL line - or a national networking link either. So much more goes into it. There are so many different protocols that are discussed and implemented. What I've described here is a small percentage, not even the whole picture.

Guys, I'd really love to paste up some insiders info on our network. I can't, this is for internal use only, I'm sure you can understand.

I've sent you a PM from yesterday, I'd really like to take this further and improve your experience with us.

This was in reply to this post

Seriously......now we're hiding behind the AUP again. I'm honestly shocked. THE NETWORK HAS BEEN UNDER PRESSURE ALMOST 24/7 for 3 WEEKS!!!!! How is that not a capacity problem?!?!?! Let me offer this as an explanation, sudden is not 3 weeks. Thats a trend.....

Afrigirl had a go as well, 07-10-2013, 09:15 PM

We try be as honest as possible with you guys without revealing too much behind the scenes or internal stuff. This is not a capacity issue. I get what you're saying about HTTP downloads but imagine the hundreds of other clients who have the same idea as you. You won't be the only one doing the 2GB download.

The whole capacity thing discussion got out of hand. Really, you say you've been clear all along, and the only clear indication I got was that you have enough capacity. And, as I've been basing decisions on this - i.e. not moving because this must be some simple problem which normal plebs can't understand and will be resolved soon - I find the claims that you are transparent wholly untrue. I'm seriously disgusted with this.

I don't care whether capacity planning has gone out of the window. I would have liked a reply saying capacity planning has gone out the window, and you are having capacity problems, weeks ago, when the opportunity presented itself.

 

[AfriMan]

Okay, and so I try again.

@ 08-10-2013 08:43


Next post


This was in reply to this post


Afrigirl had a go as well, 07-10-2013, 09:15 PM


The whole capacity thing discussion got out of hand. Really, you say you've been clear all along, and the only clear indication I got was that you have enough capacity. And, as I've been basing decisions on this - i.e. not moving because this must be some simple problem which normal plebs can't understand and will be resolved soon - I find the claims that you are transparent wholly untrue. I'm seriously disgusted with this.

I don't care whether capacity planning has gone out of the window. I would have liked a reply saying capacity planning has gone out the window, and you are having capacity problems, weeks ago, when the opportunity presented itself.

Again, I feel in the context of these discussions, it's easy to read statements in a different way. We've said from the beginning that we did't oversubscribe our capacity, but demand spiked unexpectedly and we've been trying to manage this new usage trend while trying to determine whether this was an anomaly or a permanent change to the usage culture of our clients. I think our guys were trying to convey this message - but in isolation it could be misinterpreted.

If you read these to mean that there was another issue at play and it was not related to demand versus available capacity, then let me apologise to you for not being absolutely clear about this. We are not able to manage the current demand level without shaping as we have been. When usage has settled over the last week, we've been able to unshape many clients and offer a great overall experience - so we still have a great network. But when demand peaks, we have to continue shaping until we have more resources at our disposal.

 

[AfriMan]

Everything worked awesome last night - Durban

Awesome

 

[AfriMan]

AfriMan / AfriGuy,

I was so impressed last night, as my browsing speeds etc returned to near-normal levels for almost the first time in 4 weeks. However, this morning at 00:42AM:

Tracing route to www.afrihost.com [197.242.144.102]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 10.0.0.1
2 11 ms 10 ms 10 ms 105-236-5-1-esr-lo.mtnbusiness.co.za [105.236.5.1]
3 67 ms 66 ms 68 ms ipc-recieve-jh-1a.za.mtnbusiness.net [41.181.178.5]
4 66 ms * 66 ms qux-jh-dca-2.za-b.za.mtnbusiness.net [41.181.165.115]
5 65 ms * 64 ms jh-dca-2.za--qux-b.za.mtnbusiness.net [41.181.165.114]
6 54 ms 54 ms 72 ms tengigabitethernet5-1.hr15.jnb6.za.mtnbusiness.net [196.31.63.198]
7 54 ms 53 ms 54 ms tengigabitethernet5-1.hr15.jnb6.za.mtnbusiness.net [196.31.63.198]
8 66 ms 92 ms 65 ms cms-gm.afrihost.com [197.242.144.102]

Trace complete.

Note especially the timeouts on hops 4 and 5. And the rather above average latency on hops 3, 6, 7 and 8. Same bottlenecks on international traceroutes.

At the time of doing this traceroute, local browsing was very slow and international browsing almost non-existent. As in, bloody horrible pre-dialup telegraph speeds.

EDIT: This is on a Home Uncapped 4mbps service. No shaping active at the time, according to the Client Zone (not that shaping would affect browsing anyway though).

What irks me the most is that I got disconnected from my remote desktop to my workstation at the office, and I can't reconnect (and when I do, it's too slow to get any work done). Problem isn't on the office end, as they run on MWeb Business and a colleague confirmed that the connection is up and stable that side.

Are you in Cape Town? We had some maintenance on the IPC around midnight, so there was a little wobble on the network while changes were made. Should have been only a few brief issues during the hour or so that the maintenance took place.

 

[manfromthesouth22]

Again, I feel in the context of these discussions, it's easy to read statements in a different way. We've said from the beginning that we did't oversubscribe our capacity, but demand spiked unexpectedly and we've been trying to manage this new usage trend while trying to determine whether this was an anomaly or a permanent change to the usage culture of our clients. I think our guys were trying to convey this message - but in isolation it could be misinterpreted.

If you read these to mean that there was another issue at play and it was not related to demand versus available capacity, then let me apologise to you for not being absolutely clear about this. We are not able to manage the current demand level without shaping as we have been. When usage has settled over the last week, we've been able to unshape many clients and offer a great overall experience - so we still have a great network. But when demand peaks, we have to continue shaping until we have more resources at our disposal.

I think then, for future reference, when people start asking the same question, and respond with the same disbelief when answers are given, maybe consider that a section is misunderstood. According to you, it's quite obvious that this is the case. I'm still miffed by the whole episode. This has, unfortunately, at least for me, removed the Afrihost ISP halo. Sorry.

 

[AfriMan]

I'm glad you find it funny when Hulu is buffering every 30 seconds. Hulu must not be a real time service that is never shaped nor throttled or affected by guys abusing their lines... Crowley with his sob story gets 1TB and I can't stream a tv episode on Hulu on my 10mb line. Yep, sounds about right...thanks again AH

We definitely don't think there's anything funny about not getting the services that are important to you. Hulu is definitely unshaped, it's a realtime service and our tests show that we're definitely not shaping the traffic. Are you running other services at the same time, like torrents or downloads? PM me lets look into this.

Just a note, whatever you think of Crowley, I think it takes a lot of courage to come out in the forums and man up in front of some clearly frustrated people calling you out. I think he deserves a little credit for doing so. My opinion - use/don't use

 

[AfriMan]

I think then, for future reference, when people start asking the same question, and respond with the same disbelief when answers are given, maybe consider that a section is misunderstood. According to you, it's quite obvious that this is the case. I'm still miffed by the whole episode. This has, unfortunately, at least for me, removed the Afrihost ISP halo. Sorry.

It's very difficult to have a standard response when an issue is evolving. We didn't believe that the usage would be sustained when iOS 7 was released, and I'm honestly still baffled at how things changed the way that they did. I know some have offered theories about other ISP clients moving over to us, and them being the heaviest downloaders, but I really see no evidence of this. We carefully track and trend usage according to signups, cancellations, shaped and unshaped products to ensure that our capacity planning is on track. And this totally blind sided us.

At the end of the day, our role here on MyBB is not to broadcast information, but to have conversations with our clients and potential clients, and we do try to be as honest and transparent as we can, but information changes from day to day. I can promise that each of our guys try to be as open as possible, with the best of intentions.

 

[AfriMan]

haha, what a joke of a service, 30 minutes to wait to download vlc player, on a 10mbps account, tsk tsk, shame on you afrihost, with a download manager running on 10 threads

Sorry you feel that way. We still feel that, if shaping has to happen, we'd rather provide a slow download and give you a good real-time experience as useable internet rather than throttle you. We believe that is the best experience for all clients in general.

You can also turbocharge at any time if you need that download to run at full speed

 

[PearlJam]

My business uncapped is basically dead. Can't even run speedtest

 

[manfromthesouth22]

It's very difficult to have a standard response when an issue is evolving. We didn't believe that the usage would be sustained when iOS 7 was released, and I'm honestly still baffled at how things changed the way that they did. I know some have offered theories about other ISP clients moving over to us, and them being the heaviest downloaders, but I really see no evidence of this. We carefully track and trend usage according to signups, cancellations, shaped and unshaped products to ensure that our capacity planning is on track. And this totally blind sided us.

At the end of the day, our role here on MyBB is not to broadcast information, but to have conversations with our clients and potential clients, and we do try to be as honest and transparent as we can, but information changes from day to day. I can promise that each of our guys try to be as open as possible, with the best of intentions.

Okay then, this is where I'll leave it. Got the wrong impression with regards to your role here. I know this is a remark that's been made many times, but I'll make it one last time from my side - If you were blindsided by all of this, imagine how the clients felt. I understand now that your role isn't to broadcast info, but I do think you need a broadcaster of some sorts. Not on the forums, but a more general broadcaster. As a customer, I would have appreciated some correspondence from Afrihost stating that, even though current shaping and whatnot is covered by AUP, you are aware of above average shaping and are looking into the situation. Yes, it's covered by your AUP. Yes, it's within parameters. But some kind of email saying we are aware, and looking at it, would have made me more comfortable.

Really, in my eyes, you were always in front when it came to customer relations. You are still kind etc, but not sharing that you are looking at the situation on a larger scale removed some of the aura. Sorry.

Now, I'm done. I look forward to some kind of correspondence in my mailbox, proudly stating that you are expanding your network further to cater for bla bla bla. (I really think you should send out some kind of mailer.)

 

[PearlJam]

OK, I see my capped account is also dead. And the AH live support is down. Had to get another account elsewhere to be able to work

 

[Talentloos]

OK, I see my capped account is also dead. And the AH live support is down. Had to get another account elsewhere to be able to work

Had to do upload a backup of a clients site last night. Started the upload of a 500mb zip file last night at 9. Woke up this morning and it was still going. It wasnt even at 50% yet. So now I cant stop it, so im at work without my laptop. The client is pissed off cause his site is not up. And my 10mb line is just ****ing crawling along at 1kB/s upload. ****ing a

 

[vaalpens]

Sorry you feel that way. We still feel that, if shaping has to happen, we'd rather provide a slow download and give you a good real-time experience as useable internet rather than throttle you. We believe that is the best experience for all clients in general.

You can also turbocharge at any time if you need that download to run at full speed

Just admit your network is stuffed if even capped and business accounts are failing...

 

[froot]

Just admit your network is stuffed if even capped and business accounts are failing...

Both my capped and business accounts are cruising along just fine...

 

[AfriMan]

Okay then, this is where I'll leave it. Got the wrong impression with regards to your role here. I know this is a remark that's been made many times, but I'll make it one last time from my side - If you were blindsided by all of this, imagine how the clients felt. I understand now that your role isn't to broadcast info, but I do think you need a broadcaster of some sorts. Not on the forums, but a more general broadcaster. As a customer, I would have appreciated some correspondence from Afrihost stating that, even though current shaping and whatnot is covered by AUP, you are aware of above average shaping and are looking into the situation. Yes, it's covered by your AUP. Yes, it's within parameters. But some kind of email saying we are aware, and looking at it, would have made me more comfortable.

Really, in my eyes, you were always in front when it came to customer relations. You are still kind etc, but not sharing that you are looking at the situation on a larger scale removed some of the aura. Sorry.

Now, I'm done. I look forward to some kind of correspondence in my mailbox, proudly stating that you are expanding your network further to cater for bla bla bla. (I really think you should send out some kind of mailer.)

When there is information to share, I will definitely share those details. And anyone is always welcome to PM.

With regards to mailers being sent out, that is not my call. I think if we have information worthy of announcing, that will either be put on our website or sent out over social media.

But if there is a concrete info, I will be more than happy to share that with the forum

 

[AfriMan]

Just admit your network is stuffed if even capped and business accounts are failing...

I see isolated cases of this happening, but in general we're still seeing great results on capped and business. I've tested both, I'm very happy with the results on all services.

The network is not stuffed, it's actually doing a great job of managing the demand given the resources we have to work with. It might not be easy to see this from a end-user perspective - but I assure you it could be worse if we didn't have the systems in place (which are world-class as used by US and European ISPs) and we didn't have a dedicated team of people putting in crazy hours to ensure that we deliver the very best the network can offer (and even try to push it a little harder to squeeze out that small extra) at every opportunity.

 

[AfriMan]

Had to do upload a backup of a clients site last night. Started the upload of a 500mb zip file last night at 9. Woke up this morning and it was still going. It wasnt even at 50% yet. So now I cant stop it, so im at work without my laptop. The client is pissed off cause his site is not up. And my 10mb line is just ****ing crawling along at 1kB/s upload. ****ing a

Our shaping doesn't touch upload. Have we checked your line?

 

[AfriMan]

OK, I see my capped account is also dead. And the AH live support is down. Had to get another account elsewhere to be able to work

We're not having general issues, so your account should be as normal. Drop me a PM so I can check this out for you ASAP