Afrihost Uncapped ADSL Feedback (Pt2)

[vangar316]

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

Now this response irritates the hell out of me. I don't surf a lot. I do a bit of gaming. So realtime service mean very little to me. HTTP download does mean a lot. Phone updates, PC updates, game downloads, addon and mod downloads. So I have to pay again to use my line and account for what I use it for. That's not right. Then honestly the home uncapped should be branded as a realtime service with downloads restricted. Which it is at the moment.

Now I've got an honest question. If I move to business uncapped and end up paying R100 more a month, leaving a very sour taste in my mouth purely for HTTP downloads. What guarantee do I have this won't continue and I'm not wasting my money?

 

[PearlJam]

My account is back up again and working!

 

[AfriMan]

Now this response irritates the hell out of me. I don't surf a lot. I do a bit of gaming. So realtime service mean very little to me. HTTP download does mean a lot. Phone updates, PC updates, game downloads, addon and mod downloads. So I have to pay again to use my line and account for what I use it for. That's not right. Then honestly the home uncapped should be branded as a realtime service with downloads restricted. Which it is at the moment.

Now I've got an honest question. If I move to business uncapped and end up paying R100 more a month, leaving a very sour taste in my mouth purely for HTTP downloads. What guarantee do I have this won't continue and I'm not wasting my money?

At the end of the day we put products together which we feel will suit different groups of clients, with some overlap between to cover all our bases, or the occasional emergency.

If you never want to be shaped, or feel that the way shaping is conducted is not suitable to your needs, then we offer Business DSL and Capped. If you don't mind the shaping, then Uncapped is for you. We've been lucky that prior to the upsurge in demand, Uncapped accounts were performing like Business Accounts becuase we did so little shaping. But when demand was high there was always the potential to be shaped. We also felt that this was a benefit to our system, that we could give such an awesome experience to clients when we had spare bandwidth, rather than enforcing a rigid shaping regime based on fixed rules. We still feel that on the whole our clients got the best benefit and more bandwidth overall than they would with time based shaping or throttling.

 

[Hush9300]

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

I uploaded a 450Mb file yesterday and it took about 3 hours.

 

[vaalpens]

At the end of the day we put products together which we feel will suit different groups of clients, with some overlap between to cover all our bases, or the occasional emergency.

If you never want to be shaped, or feel that the way shaping is conducted is not suitable to your needs, then we offer Business DSL and Capped. If you don't mind the shaping, then Uncapped is for you. We've been lucky that prior to the upsurge in demand, Uncapped accounts were performing like Business Accounts becuase we did so little shaping. But when demand was high there was always the potential to be shaped. We also felt that this was a benefit to our system, that we could give such an awesome experience to clients when we had spare bandwidth, rather than enforcing a rigid shaping regime based on fixed rules. We still feel that on the whole our clients got the best benefit and more bandwidth overall than they would with time based shaping or throttling.

I currently have a bundled home uncapped, if i switch to bundled business uncapped, what is the procedure, and do I still qualify for the 60day money back if my realtime and gaming services don't perform?

 

[AfriMan]

I currently have a bundled home uncapped, if i switch to bundled business uncapped, what is the procedure, and do I still qualify for the 60day money back if my realtime and gaming services don't perform?

If you're signup is more than 60 days ago, then I don't think so. But drop me a PM, and let's chat about how you can try this out

 

[Talentloos]

I uploaded a 450Mb file yesterday and it took about 3 hours.

Lucky... between 6pm and 7pm my speed was awesome. Then everything went dead again. No youtube could be streamed, couldnt load my mail server, couldnt load websites.

I think I am at that point now where the smallest thing irritates the living **** out of me. And it just so happend that last night I had a very bad experience that continued on to today.

 

[Hush9300]

Lucky... between 6pm and 7pm my speed was awesome. Then everything went dead again. No youtube could be streamed, couldnt load my mail server, couldnt load websites.

I think I am at that point now where the smallest thing irritates the living **** out of me. And it just so happend that last night I had a very bad experience that continued on to today.

I can feel your pain. I was without internet for a whole weekend due to a line fault.

I'm very lucky that I'm not experiencing the issues some are having here apart from the recent latency spikes.

 

[vangar316]

At the end of the day we put products together which we feel will suit different groups of clients, with some overlap between to cover all our bases, or the occasional emergency.

If you never want to be shaped, or feel that the way shaping is conducted is not suitable to your needs, then we offer Business DSL and Capped. If you don't mind the shaping, then Uncapped is for you. We've been lucky that prior to the upsurge in demand, Uncapped accounts were performing like Business Accounts becuase we did so little shaping. But when demand was high there was always the potential to be shaped. We also felt that this was a benefit to our system, that we could give such an awesome experience to clients when we had spare bandwidth, rather than enforcing a rigid shaping regime based on fixed rules. We still feel that on the whole our clients got the best benefit and more bandwidth overall than they would with time based shaping or throttling.

The last I'll say about this. Quoting from the AUP below, I must be a very high bandwidth user. Since I'm sitting at Shaping Policy: 25% Download/ 6.5% P2P most of the day every day. If this is from the old network update it and fix it. I'll give the business account a bash till the end of the month, against my better judgement.

To make this possible, we will shape non-Realtime services during our busiest times. Non-real time services will be shaped on a sliding scale, with our higher bandwidth users getting shaped more than lower bandwidth users, only on these services (NEVER on real time services). This will ensure that our network is not congested and that all of our clients' experience is not negatively affected.

If left completely unchecked Torrents and non-Realtime downloads would use most of the network capacity, which makes the use of all other types of traffic very slow, unstable and unpleasant for all clients. We need to manage the non-realtime downloads of our higher bandwidth users so that everyone (including them) can have a great Realtime Internet experience.

What does this practically mean?

This means that on an Uncapped account - no matter how much overall data you download - you will get the fastest Realtime Internet experience that your line can handle for 24 hours a day. For our high bandwidth users users, non-Realtime Internet traffic (such as torrents) will be dynamically shaped during peak network usage so that congestion can be prevented and a good overall quality of service can be guaranteed. During non-peak usage, everyone (even the highest bandwidth users) will get as close to full speeds on ALL types of traffic (Realtime and non-Realtime) as the network will allow.

If you are one of our higher bandwidth users, when are the peak times that your torrents and non-Realtime traffic will be shaped?

In general, peak times on our network are between 08h00 and 0h00 every day. This means that non-Realtime services will be shaped on a sliding scale, with higher bandwidth users getting shaped more than lower bandwidth users, and the higher bandwidth users will not get full speeds during these times for non-Realtime services (Realtime services will continue at full speeds).

Generally, after midnight and before 08h00 each day, non-Realtime traffic will be less shaped (or not at all) and you will get the fastest speed your Telkom line (and the network) allows

 

[AfriMan]

Lucky... between 6pm and 7pm my speed was awesome. Then everything went dead again. No youtube could be streamed, couldnt load my mail server, couldnt load websites.

I think I am at that point now where the smallest thing irritates the living **** out of me. And it just so happend that last night I had a very bad experience that continued on to today.

I totally understand that. When you're anxious about something, every little hiccup feels like a major screw up. I can only promise that we are doing our best to sort things out on our end. But still think there might be another issue here, so please drop me a PM

 

[Hush9300]

If non-realtime is what you're after, wouldn't it be better to move to another ISP which doesn't overly prioritise realtime traffic as Afrihost does?

I know the reason I chose Afrihost was because I wanted the best streaming experience and truth be told they haven't disappointed... I do download stuff and even though I have a business account which is unshaped I tend to schedule my downloads for after 1 am so I don't unnecessarily strain the network.

This is not to say that I don't download during the day, because I do, but it is once in a blue moon and the files are no larger than a gig.

 

[thomascmyk]

HERE ARE TWO OF MY TRACE ROUTES FROM LAST NIGHT:

C:\Users\Thomas>tracert www.google.co.za

Tracing route to www.google.co.za [173.194.65.94]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms 13 ms 12 ms 192.168.0.1
2 6 ms 20 ms 48 ms 105-236-5-129-esr-lo.mtnbusiness.co.za [105.236.
5.129]
3 77 ms 168 ms 33 ms 41.181.221.254
4 132 ms 60 ms 40 ms tb-dca-2.za--qux-c.za.mtnbusiness.net [41.181.19
8.188]
5 140 ms 64 ms 59 ms compj-cpt-1.mtnns.net [196.44.18.2]
6 204 ms 251 ms 228 ms ls-cr-2--tb-cr-1.uk-b.mtnns.net [196.44.31.113]

7 262 ms 226 ms 236 ms am-cr-1.nl--ls-cr-2.uk-a.mtnns.net [196.44.31.18
3]
8 223 ms 357 ms 503 ms am-tpr-1.nl--am-cr-1.nl-a.mtn.net [209.212.111.1
41]
9 * 227 ms * core2.ams.net.google.com [195.69.145.100]
10 384 ms 338 ms 294 ms 209.85.254.95
11 329 ms 372 ms 333 ms 209.85.253.247
12 794 ms 723 ms 573 ms 209.85.254.227
13 543 ms 535 ms 377 ms 209.85.255.51
14 * * * Request timed out.
15 210 ms 172 ms 167 ms ee-in-f94.1e100.net [173.194.65.94]

Trace complete.

C:\Users\Thomas>
C:\Users\Thomas>tracert www.google.com

Tracing route to www.google.com [74.125.233.48]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 9 ms <1 ms 4 ms 192.168.0.1
2 32 ms 14 ms 14 ms 105-236-5-129-esr-lo.mtnbusiness.co.za [105.236.
5.129]
3 9 ms 13 ms 9 ms 41.181.221.254
4 46 ms 105 ms 74 ms tb-dca-2.za--qux-c.za.mtnbusiness.net [41.181.19
8.188]
5 137 ms 128 ms 83 ms compj-cpt-1.mtnns.net [196.44.18.2]
6 257 ms 192 ms * ct-cr-2.za--tb-cr-1.za.mtnns.net [196.44.31.134]

7 120 ms 120 ms 72 ms ct-cr-2.za--rb-cr-1.za.mtnns.net [196.44.31.69]

8 99 ms 96 ms 90 ms 41.181.139.109
9 117 ms 191 ms 132 ms 72.14.194.74
10 168 ms 34 ms 119 ms 64.233.174.21
11 348 ms 503 ms 381 ms jnb01s01-in-f16.1e100.net [74.125.233.48]

Trace complete.

What gives people... what gives... everytime some afrihost person tests my stuff it is apparently perfect... according to the trace routes it does NOT look perfect to me.

 

[xera]

I'm also getting this nonsense...

Shaping Policy: 25% Download/ 6.5% P2P

 

[Hush9300]

HERE ARE TWO OF MY TRACE ROUTES FROM LAST NIGHT:

C:\Users\Thomas>tracert www.google.co.za

Tracing route to www.google.co.za [173.194.65.94]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms 13 ms 12 ms 192.168.0.1
2 6 ms 20 ms 48 ms 105-236-5-129-esr-lo.mtnbusiness.co.za [105.236.
5.129]
3 77 ms 168 ms 33 ms 41.181.221.254
4 132 ms 60 ms 40 ms tb-dca-2.za--qux-c.za.mtnbusiness.net [41.181.19
8.188]
5 140 ms 64 ms 59 ms compj-cpt-1.mtnns.net [196.44.18.2]
6 204 ms 251 ms 228 ms ls-cr-2--tb-cr-1.uk-b.mtnns.net [196.44.31.113]

7 262 ms 226 ms 236 ms am-cr-1.nl--ls-cr-2.uk-a.mtnns.net [196.44.31.18
3]
8 223 ms 357 ms 503 ms am-tpr-1.nl--am-cr-1.nl-a.mtn.net [209.212.111.1
41]
9 * 227 ms * core2.ams.net.google.com [195.69.145.100]
10 384 ms 338 ms 294 ms 209.85.254.95
11 329 ms 372 ms 333 ms 209.85.253.247
12 794 ms 723 ms 573 ms 209.85.254.227
13 543 ms 535 ms 377 ms 209.85.255.51
14 * * * Request timed out.
15 210 ms 172 ms 167 ms ee-in-f94.1e100.net [173.194.65.94]

Trace complete.

C:\Users\Thomas>
C:\Users\Thomas>tracert www.google.com

Tracing route to www.google.com [74.125.233.48]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 9 ms <1 ms 4 ms 192.168.0.1
2 32 ms 14 ms 14 ms 105-236-5-129-esr-lo.mtnbusiness.co.za [105.236.
5.129]
3 9 ms 13 ms 9 ms 41.181.221.254
4 46 ms 105 ms 74 ms tb-dca-2.za--qux-c.za.mtnbusiness.net [41.181.19
8.188]
5 137 ms 128 ms 83 ms compj-cpt-1.mtnns.net [196.44.18.2]
6 257 ms 192 ms * ct-cr-2.za--tb-cr-1.za.mtnns.net [196.44.31.134]

7 120 ms 120 ms 72 ms ct-cr-2.za--rb-cr-1.za.mtnns.net [196.44.31.69]

8 99 ms 96 ms 90 ms 41.181.139.109
9 117 ms 191 ms 132 ms 72.14.194.74
10 168 ms 34 ms 119 ms 64.233.174.21
11 348 ms 503 ms 381 ms jnb01s01-in-f16.1e100.net [74.125.233.48]

Trace complete.

What gives people... what gives... everytime some afrihost person tests my stuff it is apparently perfect... according to the trace routes it does NOT look perfect to me.

Your first hop, which is to your router, is inconsistent already... Mine is always 1ms in all 3 columns.

The second hop, which is the gateway between Telkom and your ISP, is inconsistent too.

Also, why so many hops to google.co.za?

 

[AfriGuy]

HERE ARE TWO OF MY TRACE ROUTES FROM LAST NIGHT:

C:\Users\Thomas>tracert www.google.co.za

Tracing route to www.google.co.za [173.194.65.94]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms 13 ms 12 ms 192.168.0.1
2 6 ms 20 ms 48 ms 105-236-5-129-esr-lo.mtnbusiness.co.za [105.236.
5.129]
3 77 ms 168 ms 33 ms 41.181.221.254
4 132 ms 60 ms 40 ms tb-dca-2.za--qux-c.za.mtnbusiness.net [41.181.19
8.188]
5 140 ms 64 ms 59 ms compj-cpt-1.mtnns.net [196.44.18.2]
6 204 ms 251 ms 228 ms ls-cr-2--tb-cr-1.uk-b.mtnns.net [196.44.31.113]

7 262 ms 226 ms 236 ms am-cr-1.nl--ls-cr-2.uk-a.mtnns.net [196.44.31.18
3]
8 223 ms 357 ms 503 ms am-tpr-1.nl--am-cr-1.nl-a.mtn.net [209.212.111.1
41]
9 * 227 ms * core2.ams.net.google.com [195.69.145.100]
10 384 ms 338 ms 294 ms 209.85.254.95
11 329 ms 372 ms 333 ms 209.85.253.247
12 794 ms 723 ms 573 ms 209.85.254.227
13 543 ms 535 ms 377 ms 209.85.255.51
14 * * * Request timed out.
15 210 ms 172 ms 167 ms ee-in-f94.1e100.net [173.194.65.94]

Trace complete.

C:\Users\Thomas>
C:\Users\Thomas>tracert www.google.com

Tracing route to www.google.com [74.125.233.48]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 9 ms <1 ms 4 ms 192.168.0.1
2 32 ms 14 ms 14 ms 105-236-5-129-esr-lo.mtnbusiness.co.za [105.236.
5.129]
3 9 ms 13 ms 9 ms 41.181.221.254
4 46 ms 105 ms 74 ms tb-dca-2.za--qux-c.za.mtnbusiness.net [41.181.19
8.188]
5 137 ms 128 ms 83 ms compj-cpt-1.mtnns.net [196.44.18.2]
6 257 ms 192 ms * ct-cr-2.za--tb-cr-1.za.mtnns.net [196.44.31.134]

7 120 ms 120 ms 72 ms ct-cr-2.za--rb-cr-1.za.mtnns.net [196.44.31.69]

8 99 ms 96 ms 90 ms 41.181.139.109
9 117 ms 191 ms 132 ms 72.14.194.74
10 168 ms 34 ms 119 ms 64.233.174.21
11 348 ms 503 ms 381 ms jnb01s01-in-f16.1e100.net [74.125.233.48]

Trace complete.

What gives people... what gives... everytime some afrihost person tests my stuff it is apparently perfect... according to the trace routes it does NOT look perfect to me.

Are you running any network activity while running these traceroutes? I believe our team has logged a fault for you already on this.
Also, what DNS do you have assigned? Strange seeing Google traffic route internationally.

 

[Paul Hjul]

I'm also getting this nonsense...

Shaping Policy: 25% Download/ 6.5% P2P

So you are getting a consumer DSL product performing during peak demand load in a manner that is affording you the ability to browse without concern, to use VoIP and to perform non realtime services at above 1/50th of the maximum access cost.
Sounds about right.

 

[thomascmyk]

Are you running any network activity while running these traceroutes? I believe our team has logged a fault for you already on this.
Also, what DNS do you have assigned? Strange seeing Google traffic route internationally.

No I did nothing while running these tests... What DNS? I have no idea... I bought the router from you already set up and these tests were run from my pc which is connected by cable.

Your team apparently did logg a fault, as i said in a pm i emailed Kyle as per his request when we spoke on the phone but I have not received any feedback.

Also, I used google as that was recommended to me by someone from your team, just can't remember who or when.

 

[thomascmyk]

Your first hop, which is to your router, is inconsistent already... Mine is always 1ms in all 3 columns.

The second hop, which is the gateway between Telkom and your ISP, is inconsistent too.

Also, why so many hops to google.co.za?

I ran the trace routes to .com and .co.za as per a convo with someone from afrihost.

They have assured me that my line is fine. I don't think it is.

So if those hops are inconsistent what then could be the reason for this and ultimately the fix?

 

[Syco]

At the end of the day we put products together which we feel will suit different groups of clients, with some overlap between to cover all our bases, or the occasional emergency.

If you never want to be shaped, or feel that the way shaping is conducted is not suitable to your needs, then we offer Business DSL and Capped. If you don't mind the shaping, then Uncapped is for you. We've been lucky that prior to the upsurge in demand, Uncapped accounts were performing like Business Accounts becuase we did so little shaping. But when demand was high there was always the potential to be shaped. We also felt that this was a benefit to our system, that we could give such an awesome experience to clients when we had spare bandwidth, rather than enforcing a rigid shaping regime based on fixed rules. We still feel that on the whole our clients got the best benefit and more bandwidth overall than they would with time based shaping or throttling.

As one of the, mostly, silent majority I have been regularly following this forum to help me decide whether I should go back to my uncapped home account but will obviously hold off for now. You say that capped accounts are never throt...shaped but my account won't even stream SD TV episodes and I am lucky to get an unbuffered YouTube video at 360p. No possibility of 720p and 1080 is a dream. I find that the buffering increases at certain times which indicates to me that capacity is being shifted around to try and keep everyone happy. I generally don't have much of a problem in the mornings but in the afternoons and evenings it is hopeless trying to stream anything. I am in the CapeTown area and have a 6mBps line which , on Speedtest, varies at between 5.22 to 0.6mBps. Right now on both international and local it is at about 3mBps and I am only getting light buffering but know at lunchtime I will have to give up. I have a 50Gb cap and so far I only manage about 1.5Gb a day. I hope that AH compensate us all for the service we are paying for and not getting and hopefully not with extra Gb's that we can't use anyway.
The point of this post is that you should qualify your continued statement that capped accounts are not affected!

 

[Abzolute]

As one of the, mostly, silent majority I have been regularly following this forum to help me decide whether I should go back to my uncapped home account but will obviously hold off for now. You say that capped accounts are never throt...shaped but my account won't even stream SD TV episodes and I am lucky to get an unbuffered YouTube video at 360p. No possibility of 720p and 1080 is a dream. I find that the buffering increases at certain times which indicates to me that capacity is being shifted around to try and keep everyone happy. I generally don't have much of a problem in the mornings but in the afternoons and evenings it is hopeless trying to stream anything. I am in the CapeTown area and have a 6mBps line which , on Speedtest, varies at between 5.22 to 0.6mBps. Right now on both international and local it is at about 3mBps and I am only getting light buffering but know at lunchtime I will have to give up. I have a 50Gb cap and so far I only manage about 1.5Gb a day. I hope that AH compensate us all for the service we are paying for and not getting and hopefully not with extra Gb's that we can't use anyway.
The point of this post is that you should qualify your continued statement that capped accounts are not affected!

And now this indication that even Capped accounts are affected ito streaming (along with normal home uncapped AND Business Uncapped).

It would be really great if we could trust that Capped and Business Uncapped were definitely unaffected and that streaming actually did work 100%... which it "should" be even on the home uncapped, but yeah, the evidence suggests otherwise...