Afrihost Uncapped ADSL Feedback (Pt2)

[AfriMan]

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 are posting from a personal perspective, and I am speaking from an overall network perspective. We're unshaping more clients as we manage the demand better, and we're seeing better overall performance because we're being more reactive to spikes in demand, to prevent high latency and preserving realtime performance.

 

[Krazye]

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.

Thanks Afriman for your response. How do I get my hands on a test account so I can see the type of performance to expect.

 

[AfriMan]

Thanks Afriman for your response. How do I get my hands on a test account so I can see the type of performance to expect.

We don't do test accounts, but drop me PM and we can chat about what I can do for you

 

[HapticSimian]

I think you are posting from a personal perspective, and I am speaking from an overall network perspective. We're unshaping more clients as we manage the demand better, and we're seeing better overall performance because we're being more reactive to spikes in demand, to prevent high latency and preserving realtime performance.

Of course I'm posting from a personal perspective, and my personal perspective indicates that there's no great improvement to be seen, if any at all.

On a 4mb line I'm sitting on 70-odd gigabytes used, of which likely upwards of 85% has been after-hours streaming. Yet I'm seeing 18.8/6.25 shaping on a Saturday. So if with such angelically considerate usage, I'm not seeing any improvement, there's no reason for me to believe that the situation as a whole is improving at all.

 

[Krazye]

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.

Thanks, you've got a point about customer service, something we see rarely here in the eastern cape. I've asked Afriman for a test account, holding fingers and it should help me decide about AH. I'm getting around 3.8 dl from FNB all the time so far so we'll see how well AH compares, considering I'll actually be able to download torrents on AH unlike FNB. I'm hoping the ping times will be better especially for gaming.

 

[AfriMan]

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.

I think it is fair to say that the product was performing well for a very long to put this issue in perspective. Once we noted that demand spiked and we have been putting in short term and long term solutions in place to manage and resolve this. Unfortunately there is no quick fix, as I've been saying. Even adding capacity is a long term exercise. I do believe that we have delivered (even over-delivered) on our performance leading up to this issue and that should count for something - even if it's just an indication that we will resolve this in our clients favour and we do know how to structure and deliver a good uncapped product with the right resources at our disposal.

 

[Krazye]

Of course I'm posting from a personal perspective, and my personal perspective indicates that there's no great improvement to be seen, if any at all.

On a 4mb line I'm sitting on 70-odd gigabytes used, of which likely upwards of 85% has been after-hours streaming. Yet I'm seeing 18.8/6.25 shaping on a Saturday. So if with such angelically considerate usage, I'm not seeing any improvement, there's no reason for me to believe that the situation as a whole is improving at all.

This might be a noob question but does that shaping affect online gaming at all? Does it increase latency?

 

[HapticSimian]

This might be a noob question but does that shaping affect online gaming at all? Does it increase latency?

It shouldn't, no.

 

[AfriMan]

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.

I agree, the forums should not really be a support channel. However, our aim is to be here to assist in any way we can, whether it be in terms of support, information or just understanding and listening to our clients.

I am always available to help, so please don't ever feel bad about posting a comment or dropping me a PM

 

[Hush9300]

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?

And herein lies the problem... The product, under current conditions, cannot perform as it has all year.

It seems like Afrihost has spoilt their regular uncapped customers by making all the bandwidth available for a really long time and now that the product is performing more like the industry standard (heavy shaping) we have customers complaining.

And no, you cannot bill me for the difference. If I'm not satisfied with a product I generally move on or move to a package which would better suit my needs.

 

[AfriMan]

Of course I'm posting from a personal perspective, and my personal perspective indicates that there's no great improvement to be seen, if any at all.

On a 4mb line I'm sitting on 70-odd gigabytes used, of which likely upwards of 85% has been after-hours streaming. Yet I'm seeing 18.8/6.25 shaping on a Saturday. So if with such angelically considerate usage, I'm not seeing any improvement, there's no reason for me to believe that the situation as a whole is improving at all.

I can't comment on your individual situation without further investigation, but I do know that we have been gradually shaping less, except for another spike in usage around Windows 8.1 release. In general, the situation is improving from a general network perspective. We're also seeing consistent unshaping overnight, which is still the best time for downloads and torrents to be scheduled for the best results.

Again, these are just the short term solutions we can put in place while we negotiate more permanent ones. As soon as these are confirmed I will give you guys on MyBB a heads up with all the info I have.

 

[AfriMan]

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.

Thanks for posting this. You may come under fire from some other members on the forum, but I really appreciate that you are prepared to post your experience. We totally appreciate it! We do believe that for many of our clients, our Uncapped is still delivering a great experience - but that does not mean that we are not committed to making it the absolute best that it can be

Thanks again

 

[HapticSimian]

And herein lies the problem... The product, under current conditions, cannot perform as it has all year.

Thank you, Captain Obvious.

It seems like Afrihost has spoilt their regular uncapped customers by making all the bandwidth available for a really long time and now that the product is performing more like the industry standard (heavy shaping) we have customers complaining.

So... a product changes materially from its established nature, without any warning, and well... tough titty because reasons?

And no, you cannot bill me for the difference. If I'm not satisfied with a product I generally move on or move to a package which would better suit my needs.

I'll more than happily change product or provider if a change in my usage patterns demands it.

 

[AfriMan]

And herein lies the problem... The product, under current conditions, cannot perform as it has all year.

It seems like Afrihost has spoilt their regular uncapped customers by making all the bandwidth available for a really long time and now that the product is performing more like the industry standard (heavy shaping) we have customers complaining.

And no, you cannot bill me for the difference. If I'm not satisfied with a product I generally move on or move to a better package which would better suit my needs.

I don't like to think we spoiled our clients, but I do believe that we delivered a great experience that would exceeded any kind of time based throttling or shaping, many of our clients experienced an unshaped Uncapped account for long periods of time (at a great price). We did our best to over-deliver and it was never out intention to drop that standard of experience, but unfortunately the circumstances were beyond our control. We do hope that, once our solutions are fully implemented, we will get back to a similarly awesome experience.

Thanks for your support

 

[AfriMan]

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.

Usage generally peaks at 8am, so we'll usually see shaping kick in aggressively as usage will spike very suddenly as people arrive at work.

 

[Hush9300]

So... a product changes materially from its established nature, without any warning, and well... tough titty because reasons?

The performance of the product might have changed but as far as I can tell it is still within their terms and conditions. If they've promised you an unshaped product then by all means take them up on it. So yes, it's tough titty as things stand...

 

[HapticSimian]

The performance of the product might have changed but as far as I can tell it is still within their terms and conditions. If they've promised you an unshaped product then by all means take them up on it. So yes, it's tough titty as things stand...

Do you own an iPhone... you sound like someone who owns an iPhone.

Sure, Ts & Cs could be brought up in defence of the current state of affairs, but that'd be decidedly unethical. Further kindly don't misrepresent my position as asking for an unshaped product at shaped pricing. A bit of reasonable shaping here and there is perfectly fine, but If you think having your connection limited to less than a fifth of its rate for the vast majority of every 24 hour period is acceptable - especially if that product is touted as being for 'Gaming, Media, Downloading' - I've a whole range of things I'd love to sell to you.

It's been a month, give or take; long enough for anyone who wants to go to a different ISP to do so. Those of us still sticking around likely do so in a large part because we respect Afrihost's business ethic, and because we believe they'll make good on their undertaking to return things to a better state. That being said that does not mean I won't voice my annoyance when I get told that things are improving contrary to every detail I, as a consumer, can check.

 

[Hush9300]

Do you own an iPhone... you sound like someone who owns an iPhone.

Sure, Ts & Cs could be brought up in defence of the current state of affairs, but that'd be decidedly unethical. Further kindly don't misrepresent my position as asking for an unshaped product at shaped pricing. A bit of reasonable shaping here and there is perfectly fine, but If you think having your connection limited to less than a fifth of its rate for the vast majority of every 24 hour period is acceptable - especially if that product is touted as being for 'Gaming, Media, Downloading' - I've a whole range of things I'd love to sell to you.

It's been a month, give or take; long enough for anyone who wants to go to a different ISP to do so. Those of us still sticking around likely do so in a large part because we respect Afrihost's business ethic, and because we believe they'll make good on their undertaking to return things to a better state. That being said that does not mean I won't voice my annoyance when I get told that things are improving contrary to every detail I, as a consumer, can check.

Fair enough but you'd have to define reasonable shaping. I also don't think that reverting to T&C's is unethical... This is far from the Mweb saga.

Anyway, in order for real time services to perform as intended it doesn't look like Afrihost have any other alternative but to severely shape home uncapped users right now and hence my initial remark about hitting blood out of a stone.

 

[Convex]

Been all happy and merry for the past 2 weeks I have been with afrihost.

Woke up this morning to check this in my client zone.

Shaping Policy: 50% Download/ 50% P2P

Any idea when this will be lifted ? From Pe ....

 

[shreez]

Afriman/Afriguy

Man it's tough dealing with your support desk.
I logged a ticket (WSC #DQI-416-10595) because my Netflix and Hulu streams were dog slow last night, and when I tested my line I had a lower than average signal to noise ratio.

Your helpdesk agent responds by happily telling me that he's dropped my synch to 8Mb/s, and then boldly enquires what error messages Netflix and Hulu are giving me!!!
Just so I'm clear - please PLEASE tell this to your support staff - dropping the speed of one's line is NOT a permanent solution.
Afriguy - you yourself have failed in provided me with feedback I asked for weeks ago. I understand you guys are constantly busy, however it doesn't help to make promises you can't keep.

Not cool.