Afrihost Uncapped ADSL Feedback (Pt2)

[Orihalcon]

****, don't think I've downloaded 10 things via torrent in the last year...

My grip(e) has been fairly clearly expressed, I think. I get antsy when an Nvidia driver takes ****ing hours to download, when it would never have at any point in this account's past existence.

I am also shaped currently Shaping Policy: 18.8% Download/ 6.25% P2P, but normal HTTP speed is over 4mbps. Remember last week over a 100 newshost people made the move from Mweb to Afrihost according to their forums. Look at it how you want, its a crapload of 4mbps clients extra.

Okay you see here are two stories not lining up.

I am fully behind you Haptic when a driver download takes that long...should not be shaped in my opinion.

However then you have saa044 saying his HTTP is downloading at max speed when shaping protocol is applied? saa044 what are you downloading and from where? Or are you referring to browsing etc in general?

@AFriteam - perhaps you could set up a list of exempted sites which could bypass the shaping which could include as a perfect example Nvidia and AMD driver links?

 

[HapticSimian]

Sorry if my responses are frustrating you, I'm doing my best to get the info out there. They definitely ain't canned though
The reason we're seeing more shaping is because, as we've mentioned, the demand on our network has become higher. While the demand is indeed higher, our IPC limits are not being reached but shaping is needed to ensure realtime services are not affected. If we didn't shape we'd probably run into congestion and the overall experience would become really poor, across the board.

I don't find your responses nearly as frustrating as having sucky intertubes.

Do you get why I'm annoyed? Because your historically almost-always-24/7-near-perfect product has become a daytime farce for anything except watching copious amounts of [-]porn[/-] Youtube?

 

[Orihalcon]

While I can get it's frustrating, we have to shape HTTP and Game downloads The actual in-game traffic shouldn't be affected though

Just on a side note too, it's best to schedule all/ the bigger downloads for after hours to get the best possible peak hour experience. I personally do this, have torrents, NNTP and my HTTP downloads scheduled from 11pm to 8pm. On a 6Mbps line they run along quite nicely and 99% of the time the stuff I've scheduled is all done by the time I haul myself outta bed in the mornings

I absolutely agree that any and all entertainment downloads should really be left for the twilight hours to downloads and I myself have no problems on that score. However drivers etc are things which are not exclusive to gaming etc and many times these software packages are needed during the day. While I understand that you have business accounts for that...couldn't there be a way to work in site exceptions? I mean honestly how often does AMD and Nvidia release drivers?

 

[AfriGuy]

I don't find your responses nearly as frustrating as having sucky intertubes.

Do you get why I'm annoyed? Because your historically almost-always-24/7-near-perfect product has become a daytime farce for anything except watching copious amounts of [-]porn[/-] Youtube?

I fully understand why you're frustrated, and I think it's why most of the guys are frustrated on this thread. The expectations of being mostly unshaped hasn't happened lately
As much as we'd like to keep everyone with zero shaping it's not possible.

 

[saa044]

Okay you see here are two stories not lining up.

I am fully behind you Haptic when a driver download takes that long...should not be shaped in my opinion.

However then you have saa044 saying his HTTP is downloading at max speed when shaping protocol is applied? saa044 what are you downloading and from where? Or are you referring to browsing etc in general?

@AFriteam - perhaps you could set up a list of exempted sites which could bypass the shaping which could include as a perfect example Nvidia and AMD driver links?

Well not downloading. i quickly went into my server at home and ran a speedtest.net and started a quick Netflix stream, was all good.

 

[hayted]

Hi Afriman - Wow, Telkom are upgrading line speeds again for free. Hectic! Do you know when this will start and what does that mean in regard to Afrihost accounts? e.g. How will the lines be managed and priced? Probably too early to tell as I think this has surprised most.

 

[AfriGuy]

Hi Afriman - Wow, Telkom are upgrading line speeds again for free. Hectic! Do you know when this will start and what does that mean in regard to Afrihost accounts? e.g. How will the lines be managed and priced? Probably too early to tell as I think this has surprised most.

They are indeed upgrading their speeds soon
We're still waiting for final feedback from Telkom on how exactly this will be done, we need a bit more background info on processes etc before we can make a decision.

Once we do though we'll be letting everyone know.

 

[HapticSimian]

I fully understand why you're frustrated, and I think it's why most of the guys are frustrated on this thread. The expectations of being mostly unshaped hasn't happened lately
As much as we'd like to keep everyone with zero shaping it's not possible.

There is a huge, gaping maw of a gorge between 'keep(ing) everyone with zero shaping' and 18.8% Download/ 6.25% P2P (as per ClientZone, currently).

My expectation further is also not 'being mostly unshaped'; it is for you - as a providing a paid-for service - to maintain your product at or near the levels you have historically set.

 

[AfriGuy]

Okay you see here are two stories not lining up.

I am fully behind you Haptic when a driver download takes that long...should not be shaped in my opinion.

However then you have saa044 saying his HTTP is downloading at max speed when shaping protocol is applied? saa044 what are you downloading and from where? Or are you referring to browsing etc in general?

@AFriteam - perhaps you could set up a list of exempted sites which could bypass the shaping which could include as a perfect example Nvidia and AMD driver links?

We'll need to consider this, however the way things are currently working to include site that won't be shaped will almost definitely need an entire rewrite of how the shaping policies and processes work. It'll be counted as an HTTP download, which when shaping is applied will see slower download speeds

 

[AfriGuy]

There is a huge, gaping maw of a gorge between 'keep(ing) everyone with zero shaping' and 18.8% Download/ 6.25% P2P (as per ClientZone, currently).

My expectation further is also not 'being mostly unshaped'; it is for you - as a providing a paid-for service - to maintain your product at or near the levels you have historically set.

Shaping has happened a lot over the months though. It also depends on what region you're in and what the load looks like.
I can promise you that if we have to lift shaping even by a little bit the network contention would go through the roof and latency would almost instantly spike.

 

[saa044]

I personally never went overseas. Might this shaping be a huge pain for people that experienced 40mbps unshaped internet for R300 a month in London? because for some odd reason I just accept it and go to bed and hope my 7GB file is halfway done in the morning LOL.

 

[hayted]

They are indeed upgrading their speeds soon
We're still waiting for final feedback from Telkom on how exactly this will be done, we need a bit more background info on processes etc before we can make a decision.

Once we do though we'll be letting everyone know.

I fully understand - this really must have caught everyone by surprise.

 

[b1scu1t]

Not sure what is happening here but seems more directly related to the line than anything else. What I do see is that sometimes addresses congestion on an exchange by dropping everyone's sync rate. Might be the case.

Drop me a PM so I can check your line for you

I just wanted to post here and ask for help cause phoning 10210 didn't result in any improvement whatsoever.

The line disconnected suddenly a short while after posting, and struggled for more than an hour to reconnect.
After getting telkom to reset the port and all that, it synced at 6mbps with 12db SNR but the problems remained. Every minute after it reconnects, I kept an eye on the SNR and it suddenly drops to -51db and it disconnects again and it suddenly has 5.5db SNR again. Went on like that the whole day. Here and there I got a stable-ish connection for about 45 minutes and then back to square one.

Apart from all that, I'm in the same boat as many of the others.
The shaping is fine, I accept the shaping on home uncapped, but my issue is why it's affecting everything else so badly

Over the last week or so, often when it says there's some kind of shaping such as 18.8% shaping (6mbps line), something like Battlefield 3 lags and the ping is higher than usual but as I understand gaming is a priority on the network?
Other times when there is shaping it seems about fine, but the last week or so, not so much.

 

[HapticSimian]

Shaping has happened a lot over the months though. It also depends on what region you're in and what the load looks like.
I can promise you that if we have to lift shaping even by a little bit the network contention would go through the roof and latency would almost instantly spike.

Shaping anything resembling a daytime download to last-century levels, for days on end? Not that I can recall...

I don't doubt what you say regarding the network's stability, but I still don't see any explanation for things changing so much so quickly other than a) something breaking, or b) something being poorly planned for.

 

[AfriGuy]

I just wanted to post here and ask for help cause phoning 10210 didn't result in any improvement whatsoever.

The line disconnected suddenly a short while after posting, and struggled for more than an hour to reconnect.
After getting telkom to reset the port and all that, it synced at 6mbps with 12db SNR but the problems remained. Every minute after it reconnects, I kept an eye on the SNR and it suddenly drops to -51db and it disconnects again and it suddenly has 5.5db SNR again. Went on like that the whole day. Here and there I got a stable-ish connection for about 45 minutes and then back to square one.

Apart from all that, I'm in the same boat as many of the others.
The shaping is fine, I accept the shaping on home uncapped, but my issue is why it's affecting everything else so badly

Over the last week or so, often when it says there's some kind of shaping such as 18.8% shaping (6mbps line), something like Battlefield 3 lags and the ping is higher than usual but as I understand gaming is a priority on the network?
Other times when there is shaping it seems about fine, but the last week or so, not so much.

Sounds like there may be some line issues here
Could you PM me your ADSL line number and I'll check things out for you.

 

[AfriGuy]

Shaping anything resembling a daytime download to last-century levels, for days on end? Not that I can recall...

I don't doubt what you say regarding the network's stability, but I still don't see any explanation for things changing so much so quickly other than a) something breaking, or b) something being poorly planned for.

We initially spotted the higher demand on the iOS7 release day. While the demand hasn't been that high the overall demand on the network is still quite up there, hence the shaping.
I promise you, if something was broken or not working as it should we'd be the first to admit it.

 

[HapticSimian]

We initially spotted the higher demand on the iOS7 release day. While the demand hasn't been that high the overall demand on the network is still quite up there, hence the shaping.
I promise you, if something was broken or not working as it should we'd be the first to admit it.

Who'd need to up capacity of what for this shaping to be less aggressive without causing the Afri-verse to implode?

Let me distil my frustration: if I decided I need to grab an ISO of Windows 8, at any time of day, I'd have been able to do so in the past. Even via torrent, even if it would've taken a bit longer. Can I reasonably expect a return to such a state?

 

[AfriGuy]

Who'd need to up capacity of what for this shaping to be less aggressive without causing the Afri-verse to implode?

Let me distil my frustration: if I decided I need to grab an ISO of Windows 8, at any time of day, I'd have been able to do so in the past. Even via torrent, even if it would've taken a bit longer. Can I reasonably expect a return to such a state?

I really can't say, it's all up to how the demand goes.
Home Uncapped accounts are subjected to shaping so I can't say if tomorrow/ tonight/ next month will see any less shaping.

I just want to make it clear that our network is not running out of capacity or hitting any limits - the shaping is there to manage the load. Our IPC is doing exactly what it's supposed to.
If you need an account that's guaranteed to be unshaped 24/7 maybe have a look into a Capped or Business Uncapped account?

 

[saa044]

Who'd need to up capacity of what for this shaping to be less aggressive without causing the Afri-verse to implode?

Let me distil my frustration: if I decided I need to grab an ISO of Windows 8, at any time of day, I'd have been able to do so in the past. Even via torrent, even if it would've taken a bit longer. Can I reasonably expect a return to such a state?

Afriman gave you the best answer he could in my opinion for 2 pages on this forum now. Not that I want to start a fight here with you so please don't take it that way, just saying.

 

[HapticSimian]

I really can't say, it's all up to how the demand goes.
Home Uncapped accounts are subjected to shaping so I can't say if tomorrow/ tonight/ next month will see any less shaping.

Things don't tend to change this dramatically overnight. That's what I still find odd...

I just want to make it clear that our network is not running out of capacity or hitting any limits - the shaping is there to manage the load. Our IPC is doing exactly what it's supposed to.
If you need an account that's guaranteed to be unshaped 24/7 maybe have a look into a Capped or Business Uncapped account?

If you need to limit something to 6.25% then something is running out of capacity. All I'm asking is what that'd be...