Afrihost Uncapped ADSL Feedback (Pt2)

[bloublou100]

Yeah...Thats the same we heard yesterday.. And when did it "normalise"? Only after 8 Pm..

Lekker wag Leatherman!

I fully understand that you're frustrated, I would be too if I was in your situation. Our network is normalising so we should start slowly seeing improvements as the day goes on.

 

[Leatherman]

I know it may seem from the forums that there was a mass exodus, but we didn't see a significant spike on signup growth to anticipate that increase in demand that we've seen.

It is entirely plausible that those who moved across were the very heaviest bandwidth users. I have no facts or stats to back that up though. What I can say that the bulk of the increase in demand is from torrents on Uncapped accounts. So again, a desperate plea for everyone to schedule as much P2P overnight as possible. There is tons of unused bandwidth overnight that we're more than happy for everyone to make use of, and will help us make the case for upgrades a lot stronger.

Well DUH who do you think will have cancelled?

 

[vangar316]

Shaping Policy: 18.8% Download/ 6.25% P2P

at 21:37pm????

what gives?

And that's where the problem lies. I can handle torrents being shaped. Easy to get around and fair. But if I need new NVidia drivers 7pm at night I don't expect to have to wait hours for them, or downloading a 2Mb file takes 10 minutes. 60Mb steam update then = no gaming for me tonight.

Yesterday seemed so promising, but shaping is back in full force this morning. If we are only going to be unshaped between 12pm and 6am then there are a lot of other cheaper products. With all respect to AfriGuy/Man/Girl. This problem I believe is now becoming the norm. As such I think its time for answers, and if these answers are above your pay grade we need someone else to answer it. My questions and a lot of other people I think:

1.) What is going on....this is not a spike, this is not short, this is constant. What....is.....wrong. Because something is.
2.) Can we expect this to improve and when, we have been patient for over 3 weeks. We need timelines already, patience is wearing very thin.
3.) Can we at least unlink HTTP shaping after 18:00. Shape torrents all you want, but HTTP is bread and butter for any internet service and IMHO should preferrably never be shaped, but I can still live with this from 07:00 to 17:00.(Forget about turbocharges used them all already for driver updates and to get BF4 up to date. Seriously not gonna buy more everytime I need a file)

Getting concrete answers on these questions could keep you a lot of clients. Because a lot of us are waiting, but we can't wait forever. (I'm posting a reply instead of a PM because I believe an open conversation is in order.) Cmon best ISP in the country......be that again .

 

[Leatherman]

Yeah...Thats the same we heard yesterday.. And when did it "normalise"? Only after 8 Pm..

Lekker wag Leatherman!

SOOOO Frustrating.

 

[HapticSimian]

I know it may seem from the forums that there was a mass exodus, but we didn't see a significant spike on signup growth to anticipate that increase in demand that we've seen.

It is entirely plausible that those who moved across were the very heaviest bandwidth users. I have no facts or stats to back that up though. What I can say that the bulk of the increase in demand is from torrents on Uncapped accounts. So again, a desperate plea for everyone to schedule as much P2P overnight as possible. There is tons of unused bandwidth overnight that we're more than happy for everyone to make use of, and will help us make the case for upgrades a lot stronger.

We've all known this, and suggested it as a cause, for weeks. Goddammit man, kill torrents during daytime across the board if you have to, but it cannot go on like this! The heaviest of the heavy downloaders would have moved to business accounts, which you insist on keeping unshaped across the board 24/7, thus ruining the connections of those who haven't.

 

[vangar316]

I know it may seem from the forums that there was a mass exodus, but we didn't see a significant spike on signup growth to anticipate that increase in demand that we've seen.

It is entirely plausible that those who moved across were the very heaviest bandwidth users. I have no facts or stats to back that up though. What I can say that the bulk of the increase in demand is from torrents on Uncapped accounts. So again, a desperate plea for everyone to schedule as much P2P overnight as possible. There is tons of unused bandwidth overnight that we're more than happy for everyone to make use of, and will help us make the case for upgrades a lot stronger.

Let me play Devils advocate here. There is full well going to be an increase in torrent traffic. Because of the heavy shaping download queues for a lot of people are backed up. At some stage this data is going to come down, but the heavier the shaping the longer this will take. So Cause and Effect are being blurred here. Otherwise the only solution is going to be throttling/shaping BY PROTOCOL after a certain amount of bandwith has been used. Call it a semi Uncapped/Uncapped Lite whatever. That way at least we know what we are in for and can make an informed decision, because as it stands, the product is not the same, and will probably not be without some drastic changes.

 

[rambo919]

I know it may seem from the forums that there was a mass exodus, but we didn't see a significant spike on signup growth to anticipate that increase in demand that we've seen.

It is entirely plausible that those who moved across were the very heaviest bandwidth users. I have no facts or stats to back that up though. What I can say that the bulk of the increase in demand is from torrents on Uncapped accounts. So again, a desperate plea for everyone to schedule as much P2P overnight as possible. There is tons of unused bandwidth overnight that we're more than happy for everyone to make use of, and will help us make the case for upgrades a lot stronger.

It's obvious that most of the heaviest users would have left, most probably with a "just in case" motivation.

The one problem with scheduling all downloads overnight is that some of them actually need attendance... The other problem is that only really works for 4/10MB users, 2MB maybe too. Personally I cannot do that because my PC needs to be shut down when I go to sleep (partially for obscure health reasons and partially because of the noisy fans...). On the bright side it's actually physically impossible for me to download 24/7 as it only happens when I am awake :/

 

[Hush9300]

I know it may seem from the forums that there was a mass exodus, but we didn't see a significant spike on signup growth to anticipate that increase in demand that we've seen.

It is entirely plausible that those who moved across were the very heaviest bandwidth users. I have no facts or stats to back that up though. What I can say that the bulk of the increase in demand is from torrents on Uncapped accounts. So again, a desperate plea for everyone to schedule as much P2P overnight as possible. There is tons of unused bandwidth overnight that we're more than happy for everyone to make use of, and will help us make the case for upgrades a lot stronger.

I'm on a Business Uncapped account and I am seriously thinking of going the capped route but your problems seem to be affecting the capped accounts too.

 

[nerf]

With the upcoming small reduction in IPC cost, Afrihost rather take that advantage and buy more bandwidth , the uncapped prices are fine as they are and I'm sure many can live without a decrease in cost if that means better service.

 

[AfriMan]

Everything Aktor said. Especially this part



Please we need answers, not some vague 'We dont really know what is going on but we will look into it' sh*t.

I moved from Openweb to Afrihost because the option of having integrated customer service looked promising to me. However the last weeks performance do not look good to me. I need to make a business decision and I need facts to base it on. Currently I dont have the facts, because you cannot provide it, so I have to go on what I have. That would mean I will have to go back to Openweb.

I understand your frustration and anger. But I honestly think we have been completely transparent about what is happening and what the actions being taken are. I'm not sure what information you feel we are leaving out.

Everything that we know has been related to you guys. The demand increase was unprecedented, and we're working as quickly as we can to continually optimise performance to offer the best experience with the resources that we have. The bulk of the usage is going towards torrents on Uncapped. That is to say that even with shaping, a huge chunk of our capacity is being eaten by torrents and P2P file sharing.

 

[Leatherman]

I understand your frustration and anger. But I honestly think we have been completely transparent about what is happening and what the actions being taken are. I'm not sure what information you feel we are leaving out.

Everything that we know has been related to you guys. The demand increase was unprecedented, and we're working as quickly as we can to continually optimise performance to offer the best experience with the resources that we have. The bulk of the usage is going towards torrents on Uncapped. That is to say that even with shaping, a huge chunk of our capacity is being eaten by torrents and P2P file sharing.

Just a question. IF all of these users decide to go for a capped acc. What will happen to your network?

 

[AfriGuy]

[/U]

Just a question. IF all of these users decide to go for a capped acc. What will happen to your network?

We're always monitoring the network, and have provisions for this

 

[bloublou100]

2 Hours to download 180 Mb driver.. This is not a torrent? Stop the bloody torrents for all I care. unshaped Youtube is useless to me

 

[Leatherman]

We're always monitoring the network, and have provisions for this

So why is this taking more than 3 week now?

 

[AfriGuy]

So why is this taking more than 3 week now?

This is unrelated to what I've answered though.

 

[vangar316]

I understand your frustration and anger. But I honestly think we have been completely transparent about what is happening and what the actions being taken are. I'm not sure what information you feel we are leaving out.

Everything that we know has been related to you guys. The demand increase was unprecedented, and we're working as quickly as we can to continually optimise performance to offer the best experience with the resources that we have. The bulk of the usage is going towards torrents on Uncapped. That is to say that even with shaping, a huge chunk of our capacity is being eaten by torrents and P2P file sharing.

My 2c about this. You have stated more than once that there is no capacity issues. Judging from the above post there is. Not a general one but definitely at specific times of the day. The only actions we have been informed of is that you are investigating and doing something. Which so far has been more and more shaping. Making HTTP downloads a nightmare. (Forget P2P for now). If the bulk of the usage is going towards torrents...what changed. If this is due to a few new users get rid of them, surely the AUP allows you to do this. Work with us here. We genuinely want to help you guys get this right.

 

[Leatherman]

This is unrelated to what I've answered though.

How is that? I assume you had provisions in place when the S**t hit the fan at mweb and a lot of ex mwebbers came your way? I think ISP's want to rid themselves of torrent users but don't know how to go about it?

 

[AfriGuy]

How is that? I assume you had provisions in place when the S**t hit the fan at mweb and a lot of ex mwebbers came your way? I think ISP's want to rid themselves of torrent users but don't know how to go about it?

We've mentioned this before though, AfriMan covered the "mass exodus" a few posts back.

I know it may seem from the forums that there was a mass exodus, but we didn't see a significant spike on signup growth to anticipate that increase in demand that we've seen.

It is entirely plausible that those who moved across were the very heaviest bandwidth users. I have no facts or stats to back that up though. What I can say that the bulk of the increase in demand is from torrents on Uncapped accounts. So again, a desperate plea for everyone to schedule as much P2P overnight as possible. There is tons of unused bandwidth overnight that we're more than happy for everyone to make use of, and will help us make the case for upgrades a lot stronger.

 

[aktor]

I understand your frustration and anger. But I honestly think we have been completely transparent about what is happening and what the actions being taken are. I'm not sure what information you feel we are leaving out.

You have been somewhat transparent, and like I said - we do appreciate this. But you are leaving out some fundamental information that we need in order to make decisions from a consumer point of view. Like this:

We need answers. We need to know WHY the network is under such strain all of a sudden lately, we need to know what you're doing to resolve it. We need to know what the forecast is. We need to know what the network capacity is, how close we are to it (and from the last couple of weeks I assume we're OVER capacity or at least very close to it). We need to know what's going to happen in terms of the network capacity. We... need... answers.

But "realtime services" are slow as hell most of the time for most of us, and THAT is what irks me endlessly. YouTube, Netflix, gaming, even browsing - these aren't supposed to be affected by shaping, and yet they're suffering bigtime too. I know there's shaping going on, but don't blame the problems on "shaping because the network is under heavy strain". Because firstly, it brings me back to my first series of questions - why? why now? And secondly, shaping isn't what's causing lag with realtime services.

 

[AfriGuy]

You have been somewhat transparent, and like I said - we do appreciate this. But you are leaving out some fundamental information that we need in order to make decisions from a consumer point of view. Like this:

We need answers. We need to know WHY the network is under such strain all of a sudden lately, we need to know what you're doing to resolve it. We need to know what the forecast is. We need to know what the network capacity is, how close we are to it (and from the last couple of weeks I assume we're OVER capacity or at least very close to it). We need to know what's going to happen in terms of the network capacity. We... need... answers.

But "realtime services" are slow as hell most of the time for most of us, and THAT is what irks me endlessly. YouTube, Netflix, gaming, even browsing - these aren't supposed to be affected by shaping, and yet they're suffering bigtime too. I know there's shaping going on, but don't blame the problems on "shaping because the network is under heavy strain". Because firstly, it brings me back to my first series of questions - why? why now? And secondly, shaping isn't what's causing lag with realtime services.

We saw the increase in demand over the iOS update period - but again, this is normalising and we're seeing better usage trends. Latency issues barred of course.
Onto the latency issues, these too are normalising now with measures being looked into to ensure we don't run into similar issues again.

As for the capacity and our network info - what's available to the public can be found here http://www.afrihost.com/microsites/adsl_network/ From that, I cannot tell you guys how close we are to capacity (I can say that we aren't close to capacity limits)

The shaping isn't affecting realtime services - the latency spikes will though. If there are still issues over the weekend and you're seeing realtime services being affected there is a problem on your account and something we'd need to look into.