Afrihost Uncapped ADSL Feedback (Pt2)

[AfriMan]

Why should the whole network suffer for the abuse of a few?

I don't think that we should focus on 'abusers'. From what I can see, even the heaviest bandwidth users (some of whom were awesome enough to post on this thread a while back), they have their reasons for using the bandwidth they do. I really believe that all of us have role to play in making an awesome network, from the lightest to heaviest users.

As I explained a few posts ago, the heavy users give us the ability to break through quotas and motivate for more capacity and better pricing, which benefits everybody. So we all need each other really.

Obviously anyone who is abusing the network through VPN/Sandboxes is not cool and they are in violation of our AUP. If we can can identify them (which is pretty difficult) then we do politely ask them to stop or leave

 

[Fudzy]

Obviously anyone who is abusing the network through VPN/Sandboxes is not cool and they are in violation of our AUP. If we can can identify them (which is pretty difficult) then we do politely ask them to stop or leave

You don't think some of those by-passers are in the top 10?

 

[AfriMan]

I am sorry, but if you cannot offer your clients more than 18% of what that are paying you for then you are either useless or just plain ripping them off and horribly over subscribed. When I signed up with them there was something I read about shaping being based on usage over some previous period. And why I should I be shaped by the same margins as someone who downloads 1000gb a month?

That's like getting the same fine for doing 140km/h as someone doing 220km/h. It's supposed to be a FAIR USAGE policy. Nothing fair about that.

You would never only have 18% of your line due to shaping. Remember that only affects P2P. You have 100% throughput on realtime services, or you should if there are no other issues on your line or exchange. To limit your line entirely would be throttling, and we don't do that at all. It's essentially a Quality of Service to ensure that you get the best overall experience with the resources and capacity we have at any given point in time.

Remember that we also give you 5 Free Turbocharge sessions to bypass shaping at any time, and we also give you Free GB accounts to compliment your Uncapped experience. We do feel that this is a fair offering, and we will also continue to streamline performance until a long term solution can be implemented.

 

[AfriMan]

Well I guess it's the cost of all-you-can-eat Internet. The kitchen can't keep up and the restaurant is hardly breaking even.

Again, this is not an issue of not having enough money to buy capacity or skimping to make extra money with a downgraded product. At the end of the day we're not here to make a quick buck, our aim is to establish long (hopefully life long) relationships with our clients - and that is based on trust.

We've trusted our clients to back us when we take bold steps like cutting prices or introducing Mobile, and they have always come through for us. And where we've asked our clients to trust us in situations like this, we believe we have always come through and rewarded our clients in some way over and above what we promise.

 

[AfriMan]

Been awake through the night and Shaping Policy: 12.5% Download/ 6.25% P2P stayed along with me.

It looks like we had a problem with our shaping system last night and we didn't unshape as we should have. Truly sorry about this, our Dev Team are working on this to ensure it doesn't happen again (to my knowledge it has also never happened before).

 

[AfriMan]

i am almost never shaped on my uncapped account. but youtube is always painfully slow. as in <300kbps slow.

There is definitely something not right there, as even shaped accounts should stream perfectly. I'm pretty confident cos I ran some tests to prove to myself that this works as "advertised".

What do you traceroutes show and what sort of throughput are you getting on your line?

 

[thomascmyk]

I don't think that we should focus on 'abusers'. From what I can see, even the heaviest bandwidth users (some of whom were awesome enough to post on this thread a while back), they have their reasons for using the bandwidth they do. I really believe that all of us have role to play in making an awesome network, from the lightest to heaviest users.

As I explained a few posts ago, the heavy users give us the ability to break through quotas and motivate for more capacity and better pricing, which benefits everybody. So we all need each other really.

Obviously anyone who is abusing the network through VPN/Sandboxes is not cool and they are in violation of our AUP. If we can can identify them (which is pretty difficult) then we do politely ask them to stop or leave

I agree with you, there shouldn't be any focus on any specific person or as some might see others "abusers".

The fact is, we all signed up for an UNCAPPED product so it is within our rights to use it... if you only use 100gigs then thats your own choice, if you use 500 then that is your choice as well... Shaping policies are CLEARLY COMMUNICATED! So we all knew well in advance how things were going to play out should the network get busy! It has gotten busy and Afrihost has dealt with it and all our moaning VERY WELL!

Now they have said time and time again that they ARE working on a permanent solution so just give them the chance! People moan that 3 weeks is a long time and yes it is for some of us who might be badly effected but in reality it is a very short amount of time if you factor in that they still have to do everything else that they are supposed to on any given day.

I am a new subscriber but took months doing my research before I chose a isp. I am staying with Afrihost as I believe that they are the best. I came to that conclusion thru research AND because of their impeccable customer service during the times when I might have a problem.

 

[HapticSimian]

We feel our system is the most fair and offers the best overall experience in the circumstances, but we are always open to suggestions from our clients if they have ideas of how we can do things better

Respectfully, you don't come across as such. You've proclaimed repeatedly, in the face of evidence to the contrary, that you 'believe' your system to be the 'most fair' with the type of fervour normally reserved for religious fanaticism.

Look at this post lamenting the fact that downloading Google Earth was estimated at 6 days... it is absurd to the point of banality that one can consume exponentially more data watching video clips of something in the time it'd take to actually download that same little application.

Again, your system breaks when under severe strain. Indefensibly so.

 

[shreez]

If you're not being shaped, then there should definitely not be an issue. But shaping in anyway should not affect streaming. Maybe an issue on either Hulu, or with the DNS provider

I seriously doubt Hulu has an issue.
I've been able to stream fine on Hulu (which generally has a much better quality than Netflix) however I've been stuck with a 240/288 pixel stream on Netflix.
Definitely network related...

 

[AfriMan]

Saw 50/25 at some point after 10pm last night, before I clocked out for the day. This morning saw a pre-6am return to the now normal 18.8/6.25. Yeah... 'improving'...

We seem to have had an issue with our shaper not running as it should have an unshaping as usage decreased. Our Dev Team are investigating, and they've assured me that this has been sorted out now.

Sorry for the inconvenience

 

[Fudzy]

Again, this is not an issue of not having enough money to buy capacity or skimping to make extra money with a downgraded product. At the end of the day we're not here to make a quick buck, our aim is to establish long (hopefully life long) relationships with our clients - and that is based on trust.

We've trusted our clients to back us when we take bold steps like cutting prices or introducing Mobile, and they have always come through for us. And where we've asked our clients to trust us in situations like this, we believe we have always come through and rewarded our clients in some way over and above what we promise.

The problem though seems you're not upgrading fast enough to handle the current situation. Also, I find it strange that you support the idea of the whole network being affected by a few who are abusing the system. If you were a traffic cop you would be stopping cars doing the the speed limit in the fast lane and letting other cars zoom past at 200km/h.

 

[HapticSimian]

We seem to have had an issue with our shaper not running as it should have an unshaping as usage decreased. Our Dev Team are investigating, and they've assured me that this has been sorted out now.

Sorry for the inconvenience

Sure. If you mean, by current indications, another day spent at 18.8/6.25 what choice do we have but to consider it as 'sorted out'.

Look, I know you're tasked with keeping a lid on things, but this is reaching the stage where normal language fails to convey the absurdity of affairs. Time frames, AfriFolk... we need them.

 

[AfriMan]

Has Afrihost been struggling this past night or is Apple just crumbling to server the world Mavericks? 800 megs during the night I see other users in South Africa managed to download it last night.

But wait, I can post annoying **** on Facebook flawlessly. Is there anywhere I can sign up for an account that prioritizes my priorities, not services based on what the masses use? I guess this is how unshapped accounts get business. /rant

Edit: Shaping Policy: 25% Download/ 12.5% P2P. Ouch!

We definitely are not trying to push clients to shaped, we sincerely believe that Uncapped is a sustainable and necessary product in the broadband sphere.

 

[AfriMan]

Sure. If you mean, by current indications, another day spent at 18.8/6.25 what choice do we have but to consider it as 'sorted out'.

Look, I know you're tasked with keeping a lid on things, but this is reaching the stage where normal language fails to convey the absurdity of affairs. Time frames, AfriFolk... we need them.

I can only give you time frames when we get them from our management. I'd rather not give you any false promises or unrealistic timelines until I have some confirmation from management and our network team.

 

[Peder]

I hate to be a moaning murtle but EVERYTHING is crawling today...

 

[HoOdeh]

I have been struggling with my Afrihost uncapped for the past 3 weeks. Getting speeds of 655b/s down of a 10MB line that was running at a minimum of 800kb/s down. Tried everything and all I got from Afrihost is "it could be our shaping policy" even when I try to explain that there is no shaping applied or when shaping is applied and I run my turboboost minutes. Then the idiot walk through begins of a traceroute, being told to reset my router etc etc, and when I ask if then can just recreate the port to see, I got told they can't do that anymore, and then you get the old "send me your number and username" so I can stare at it blankly for 20mins and tell you it's probably your exchange charade. Even though when I use Telkom or Mweb I get the full line speeds and a ping under 500ms locally. Frustrates the hell out of me.

 

[AfriMan]

I hate to be a moaning murtle but EVERYTHING is crawling today...

We are seeing pretty much max usage on our Northern network at the moment, even with shaping. However, latency should be solid, so real time services should still be running pretty well.

What do your traceroutes show?

 

[Peder]

We are seeing pretty much max usage on our Northern network at the moment, even with shaping. However, latency should be solid, so real time services should still be running pretty well.

What do your traceroutes show?

Youtube is unusable even just with sound and a static background.

Traceroute has started…

traceroute to 8.8.8.8 (8.8.8.8), 64 hops max, 72 byte packets
 1  10.0.0.2 (10.0.0.2)  2.072 ms  2.165 ms  1.222 ms
 2  105-236-4-129-esr-lo.mtnbusiness.co.za (105.236.4.129)  45.512 ms  19.815 ms  13.573 ms
 3  ipc-recieve-rb-4a.za.mtnbusiness.net (41.181.178.89)  16.429 ms  15.059 ms  15.795 ms
 4  rb-dca-2.za--rb-cr-1.za-a.mtnns.net (196.44.31.120)  26.396 ms * *
 5  jh-cr-1.za--rb-cr-2.za.mtnns.net (196.44.0.42)  14.502 ms  12.774 ms  13.319 ms
 6  qux-jh-dca-2.za-b.za.mtnbusiness.net (41.181.165.115)  28.937 ms  37.902 ms  36.833 ms
 7  72.14.194.74 (72.14.194.74)  14.550 ms  20.475 ms  16.799 ms
 8  66.249.95.8 (66.249.95.8)  198.314 ms  195.206 ms  194.477 ms
 9  209.85.244.240 (209.85.244.240)  355.940 ms  422.563 ms  340.921 ms
10  66.249.95.173 (66.249.95.173)  325.766 ms
    72.14.232.134 (72.14.232.134)  333.554 ms  331.543 ms
11  216.239.49.45 (216.239.49.45)  191.944 ms  186.149 ms
    72.14.238.43 (72.14.238.43)  219.335 ms
12  * * *
13  google-public-dns-a.google.com (8.8.8.8)  213.910 ms  206.687 ms  201.672 ms

 

[The Thug]

Afriman, sent you a PM.

 

[kripstoe]

Youtube is unusable even just with sound and a static background.

Traceroute has started…

traceroute to 8.8.8.8 (8.8.8.8), 64 hops max, 72 byte packets
 1  10.0.0.2 (10.0.0.2)  2.072 ms  2.165 ms  1.222 ms
 2  105-236-4-129-esr-lo.mtnbusiness.co.za (105.236.4.129)  45.512 ms  19.815 ms  13.573 ms
 3  ipc-recieve-rb-4a.za.mtnbusiness.net (41.181.178.89)  16.429 ms  15.059 ms  15.795 ms
 4  rb-dca-2.za--rb-cr-1.za-a.mtnns.net (196.44.31.120)  26.396 ms * *
 5  jh-cr-1.za--rb-cr-2.za.mtnns.net (196.44.0.42)  14.502 ms  12.774 ms  13.319 ms
 6  qux-jh-dca-2.za-b.za.mtnbusiness.net (41.181.165.115)  28.937 ms  37.902 ms  36.833 ms
 7  72.14.194.74 (72.14.194.74)  14.550 ms  20.475 ms  16.799 ms
 8  66.249.95.8 (66.249.95.8)  198.314 ms  195.206 ms  194.477 ms
 9  209.85.244.240 (209.85.244.240)  355.940 ms  422.563 ms  340.921 ms
10  66.249.95.173 (66.249.95.173)  325.766 ms
    72.14.232.134 (72.14.232.134)  333.554 ms  331.543 ms
11  216.239.49.45 (216.239.49.45)  191.944 ms  186.149 ms
    72.14.238.43 (72.14.238.43)  219.335 ms
12  * * *
13  google-public-dns-a.google.com (8.8.8.8)  213.910 ms  206.687 ms  201.672 ms

I had similar results to that last night - and I'm in Cpt. The entire evening. 4/5th hop timeouts. Realtime services are definitely not working as they should be.

@AfriManGuyGirl: Seeing that there seems to be an issue (since AH management is looking at this, but cannot yet provide timelines, etc) does it even make sense to give feedback? It feels like this is just how it will be for some time to come. I'm not shaped at present, althought I'm not convinced since downloads were crawling at 30Kbps last night, and I've given feedback re realtime services which doesn't seem to have much realtime to them, but it doesn't seem like much is changing. Downloads (scheduled) after 0h00 seems to work ok at the moment.

Saying that, I appreciate the feedback AfriManGuyGirl is providing and sometimes I really feel sorry for them. Same issues, day in and day out, for a month now? That can't be fun.