Afrihost Uncapped ADSL Feedback (Pt2)

[aktor]

I've tentatively moved from Afrihost to Telkom Internet as well. This after doing as much research as possible and grilling current clients of all the ISP's out there to find the best solution currently. I have to say though, the move away from Afrihost is a very reluctant one, as I really am a fan of this ISP and its staff.

I will definitely be back when they have resolved the network issues. (I don't mind the shaping so much, as much as I HATE the network latency that's there even when I have zero shaping active). Ran side-by-side pingtests, traceroutes, and speedtests between Afrihost, TI, and MWeb - and Afrihost came 3rd on every test, every time. As soon as *whatever* is causing this is resolved, I'll be back.

Unless TI completely knocks my socks off with performance, but I doubt it'll be THAT amazing

 

[AfriMan]

So seeing all the negative feedback in this thread i thought i would give credit where credit is due.

A few weeks back i had pretty bad issues all round on afrihost...couldn't stream, couldn't game, downloads where terrible.

in a few days that was all sorted and despite being "shaped" in the afrihost client center i was (and still am) able to stream Netflix/Twitch without problems. My gaming pings also came down and stayed down to the levels i would expect. Youtube was is not buffering at all and my Steam downloads have been going strong (downloaded 100+gigs through steam this month).

i am not a bitorrent downloader so i cant comment on that.

all in all, over the past few weeks (bar that first week of october when it was horrendous) the service has been working as i would have expected for a "non-premium" uncapped product.

Thanks for the feedback. We're glad that our system is working for you, we really feel it's the best way to run an Uncapped service

 

[AfriMan]

Sunday afternoon and I'm able to stream Netflix and Hulu Plus set to HD on my 4mb line. Sunday evening and both services start to buffer. Drop quality to auto settings and they still buffer. Check line and it's syncing at 10mb and no shaping is applied. Activate turbocharge and they both still buffer. Did a speedtest and I'm doing 3.8mb down and 1.2mb up but the pings to MTN CPT is around 30ms which is high. While I know the stance is that real time services don't get shaped/throttled surely this can't be a coincidence? Things are going from bad to worse... I don't like my options right now which is ditch AH or go back to DSTV.

30ms ping is higher than usual, but should still be within acceptable range to receive decent services. We'd need to test further to see what the issues might be here

Drop me a PM when you can please

 

[AfriMan]

I've had the exactly same problem tonight. Speed tests jumping around from <1mb/s to 3.5mb/s getting periods of good streaming I between buffering.. Is it the wind?

If you're throughput is inconsistent (maybe due to congestion or line issue) then you'll have lags when your bandwidth needs to spike, as streaming tends to do.

Have you checked your throughput on something like BitMeter?

 

[Krazye]

Honest opinion, if gaming is Nr1 for you and you are happy with your ping rather go for something like put.io (Bittorrent Download service) where you can download via HTTP when the torrent is done or stream it directly. I use AH for the Realtime Service (Streaming Netflix) mostly, so in my case shaping is not soooo a big a deal for me. Steam on AH is a nightmare, becaus everyone gets shaped regardless of usage if the Network requires people to be shaped because it is under strain.

Thanks SAA044, I've lost so much hope in uncapped after reading so many comments. Looks like TI is doing quite well, I was also looking into Plugg but it seems their star rating system is not working well. Dont know if I should try Afrihost uncapped and if it doesnt work out go AH capped or business uncapped more budgeting to do...if all else fails TI...anyone else with an opinion?

 

[AfriMan]

Same here, netflix does not go above 288SD on my 4mb line syncing at 8mb. Hulu plus was totally not watchable today. shaped to the ground so can't download anything either.

Shaping does not touch any streaming services, we'd need to do some further testing and troubleshooting to figure this out.

Can you please drop me a PM?

 

[AfriMan]

Woke up this morning and my 10 meg account is basically running as a 4 meg account, even on real time services. Wonder what is going on. Definitely not a line or modem issue. tracert shows all hops below 10 ms until it breaks out of mtn network, and modem is syncing at 8 meg. Mybroadband and normal speedtests shows speeds of 3.69 download.
When running on the 1 gig free account from afrihost, everything is going at full line speed.

We'll need to run some tests there, seems like you're having intermittent throughput issues. It may be due to a line or exchange issue (we're seeing a lot of problems with the heavy weather in Gauteng).

Drop me a PM so we can do some basic troubleshooting

 

[frobbertze2]

We'll need to run some tests there, seems like you're having intermittent throughput issues. It may be due to a line or exchange issue (we're seeing a lot of problems with the heavy weather in Gauteng).

Drop me a PM so we can do some basic troubleshooting

Did send a PM to you, Afriguy and Afrigirl. Got a response from afrigirl that was different from the call centre and online chat a while ago.

Sorry, I am cancelling and moving on.

 

[AfriMan]

Can you guys give me advice on Afrihost's 4meg uncapped accounts. I just got adsl and I'm currently using fnb uncapped. The fnb account is not bad except for p2p, p2p is completely unusable. When I started my adsl application I always thought Afrihost would be my best bet if FNB didnt work out but I've been reading some seriously negative comments about line speeds, shaping and service. I just had a look at hellopeter this morning and its really terrible, worst of all Afrihost is not responding.

So basically is the 4 meg uncapped any good? I mainly browse, stream and game during the day and I set my torrent downloads for late evenings unless its something urgent. Will I get decent performance? I'm currently pinging 60 - 110ms on COD, could I get better with Afrihost?

The other question is I want to start buying my games from steam, how much downloading from steam can I go through before being shapped to a halt?

Sorry that you are seeing so much negativity around our brand, we definitely do respond to Hello Peter but we generally contact the clients first to resolve the problem before posting on the report. This can sometimes hold up proceedings if we are waiting for feedback from clients.

We believe that our Uncapped is still a great product, even though the challenge at present is to manage the excessive demand that we're seeing at the moment with our available capacity. We think we are getting better and better at this, and we're hoping to have some long term solutions in place soon as well.

We've had a really great experience on Uncapped for most of the year, and we believe we'll be there again. For now we do believe we'e delivering the very best Uncapped experience possible in this situation.

 

[Hush9300]

Thanks SAA044, I've lost so much hope in uncapped after reading so many comments. Looks like TI is doing quite well, I was also looking into Plugg but it seems their star rating system is not working well. Dont know if I should try Afrihost uncapped and if it doesnt work out go AH capped or business uncapped more budgeting to do...if all else fails TI...anyone else with an opinion?

At the moment I have both a Telkom uncapped and a Afrihost Business uncapped account. Afrihost wins every time for me...

I'm also considering going the capped route though as uncapped is starting look like more trouble than it is worth as I've seen a small decline in the performance of the business account recently. I will rather pay a premium for my bandwidth. In that case, if anything goes wrong for any length of time I can put up a performance second to none.

 

[AfriMan]

Did send a PM to you, Afriguy and Afrigirl. Got a response from afrigirl that was different from the call centre and online chat a while ago.

Sorry, I am cancelling and moving on.

Sorry to hear that. We'd love to continue to work with you to get you the best performance, but we totally respect your choice.

I've responded to your PM's, but otherwise I sincerely wish you all the best

 

[HapticSimian]

We think we are getting better and better at this...

What could, possibly, be leading you to think this? I week back I posted that I'd seen 24/7 shaping over the weekend for the first time, although it was only 75/75 and given the situation... bearable. This past weekend was an apparent return to 24/7 shaping, but 50/25 for the most part with a dip into the normal weekday 18.8/6.25 status on a freaking Saturday!

How, in anyone's mind, is that meant to sketch a picture of anything improving at all?!

 

[Hush9300]

What could, possibly, be leading you to think this? I week back I posted that I'd seen 24/7 shaping over the weekend for the first time, although it was only 75/75 and given the situation... bearable. This past weekend was an apparent return to 24/7 shaping, but 50/25 for the most part with a dip into the normal weekday 18.8/6.25 status on a freaking Saturday!

How, in anyone's mind, is that meant to sketch a picture of anything improving at all?!

I think you're being rather harsh here. I have found that Afrihost's priority services (real time) tend to perform as expected for the largest part.

I think a lot of people are wanting to hit blood out of a stone here... If the network is taking strain, doesn't matter if it is weekend, then there will be shaping. If you don't want to be shaped then you should consider a business or capped account.

 

[LCBXX]

Saw no shaping from about 23:30 to exactly 07:59 every day this weekend. Come 08:00, shaping values of 25% Download / 12.5% P2P kicked in. Same thing this morning.

 

[thomascmyk]

I hope I do not jinx myself right now but I have been getting acceptable speeds and very consistently so... my problems seem to have disappeared for the time being (touch wood).

Krazye, there is NO better isp at the moment. My main reason for choosing afrihost is the client service! They are quick to respond 99% of the time and will work with you to find a solution if you have any problems.

Besides my negative comments on this thread (which seems to be from a problem on the exchange and NOT with afrihost) I am extremely happy with my choice... the Afriteam here on Mybb as well as twitter are amazing! They rock on social media! This is something most isp's overlook but it is invaluable! you can have a one on one interaction with someone that WILL help you at any time of the day.

my p2p is quite good on my 10meg line, I have nothing to compare it to though as i have never had a slower connection, i just jumped straight into the deep end so to say.

Afrihost for the win! purely based on phenomenal customer service! Uncapped thru them are good as well... yes there are problems from time to time BUT all isp's will have problems every now and again... what sets afrihost apart is the fact that they WILL work to sort it out for you asap as well as be open about the reason for it and hey. And like previously mentioned the fact that you can chat with someone on any chosen social media channel is great! i dont get why more companies dont invest more effort into this... its almost free advertising when they publicly resolve a clients problem quickly.

Sorry that you are seeing so much negativity around our brand, we definitely do respond to Hello Peter but we generally contact the clients first to resolve the problem before posting on the report. This can sometimes hold up proceedings if we are waiting for feedback from clients.

We believe that our Uncapped is still a great product, even though the challenge at present is to manage the excessive demand that we're seeing at the moment with our available capacity. We think we are getting better and better at this, and we're hoping to have some long term solutions in place soon as well.

We've had a really great experience on Uncapped for most of the year, and we believe we'll be there again. For now we do believe we'e delivering the very best Uncapped experience possible in this situation.

 

[thomascmyk]

While i understand your frustration I also think you are way too harsh here... if you are unhappy then rant yes but maybe try solve the problem thru a nice pm chat with one of the afripeople...

if you are so unhappy though why not go and make use of mweb? haha...

What could, possibly, be leading you to think this? I week back I posted that I'd seen 24/7 shaping over the weekend for the first time, although it was only 75/75 and given the situation... bearable. This past weekend was an apparent return to 24/7 shaping, but 50/25 for the most part with a dip into the normal weekday 18.8/6.25 status on a freaking Saturday!

How, in anyone's mind, is that meant to sketch a picture of anything improving at all?!

 

[HapticSimian]

I think you're being rather harsh here. I have found that Afrihost's priority services (real time) tend to perform as expected for the largest part.

I think a lot of people are wanting to hit blood out of a stone here... If the network is taking strain, doesn't matter if it is weekend, then there will be shaping. If you don't want to be shaped then you should consider a business or capped account.

Harsh? That? Oh, my precious flower... It's not harsh in the slightest, just a simple observation that there is no actual indication of any improvement over the last weeks at all.

Can I bill you for the price difference between what I have and a business account, seeing that I can't rationalise paying more for a product to simply do the job this one had been for a year?

 

[frobbertze2]

Sorry to hear that. We'd love to continue to work with you to get you the best performance, but we totally respect your choice.

I've responded to your PM's, but otherwise I sincerely wish you all the best

Did send you another PM, but being at work at the moment makes things a bit difficult, only have access to my home PC vie teamviewer, so I cannot do all tests required. I am happy at the moment with the account itself, but trying to get info out of the normal support team seems to get ridiculous at the moment. I feel coming to these forums should be a last resort, not the first thing you do when trying to resolve a problem.

 

[Leatherman]

Sorry that you are seeing so much negativity around our brand, we definitely do respond to Hello Peter but we generally contact the clients first to resolve the problem before posting on the report. This can sometimes hold up proceedings if we are waiting for feedback from clients.

We believe that our Uncapped is still a great product, even though the challenge at present is to manage the excessive demand that we're seeing at the moment with our available capacity. We think we are getting better and better at this, and we're hoping to have some long term solutions in place soon as well.

We've had a really great experience on Uncapped for most of the year, and we believe we'll be there again. For now we do believe we'e delivering the very best Uncapped experience possible in this situation.

This just amaze me. Who the hell cares how good it were if it is not getting any better now? I am seeing exactly the same response as 4 weeks ago. A Shame really.

 

[AfriMan]

At the moment I have both a Telkom uncapped and a Afrihost Business uncapped account. Afrihost wins every time for me...

I'm also considering going the capped route though as uncapped is starting look like more trouble than it is worth as I've seen a small decline in the performance of the business account recently. I will rather pay a premium for my bandwidth. In that case, if anything goes wrong for any length of time I can put up a performance second to none.

Glad our Uncapped is working for you. There shouldn't be any declines in performance though, we'll need to look into this.

Chat to me on PM if you'd like, before you upgrade