Afrihost Uncapped ADSL Feedback (Pt3)

[saa044]

Actually, if you go back and read my posts, my problem is with streaming... I dont care much for downloading actually, but it's all about principals, something you're clearly not getting! When I first joined Afrihost, the view on shaping for home uncapped was "We will try our best to NEVER shape you", then it went to "We will only shape you when the network is busy" to "We'll shape you heavily for 2 thirds of the day".... After having been a customer for a while, this really irks me! What p*sses me off though, is this hasn't been clearly communicated AT ALL and the majority of people are left fckn clueless as to why the connection they pay very good money for is all of a sudden not doing what they originally signed up for a few months/years ago.... so honestly dude, take a step back, stop being a fan boy, and let people air their opinions freely in an open forum without ridicule and aggressive defence tactics.

Lol no I was not trying to be aggressive in any way, maybe it looks like that, but not intended to be. If you can remember the day Mweb decided to throttle their users, the amount of people that flocked over to AfriHost was quite a bit. People in the 10's that I counted, might be in the 100's also moved from other ISP's like openweb to Afrihost. And no I am also not being a Fanboy, I am currently using CrysTalweb this month to test the ISP out. Yes I still have my AH account as backup just in case. And also my responses to you earlier, I just mentioned that I thought you were being unfair, as your previous comments pointed to downloading and not streaming like you stated now. My thought on that was if you want to download don't blame the product that was not intended for it, rather pay R200 more and be unshaped 24/7. If you are constantly having issues when shaped, but no issues when unshaped / turbocharged then a PM to Afriman might sort this out? I have access to 2 Afrihost 4mbps home uncapped accounts, 1 was in the 10% shaping area the whole month and managed to give the entire household bufferless access to Netflix and youtube.

 

[spiderkzn]

Hi,

been using Afrihost 2mb uncapped like more than month. Want to know why the download is slow as it like 5-10kb as it was used to nearly 200kb. But browsing internet, youtube, playing Diablo3 is fine. What cause it?

 

[AfriMan]

I think what is getting a lot people riled up, is the fact that when you look at Afrihost's home uncapped internet page, that they mention that "you can download as much data as you like". Yet Afrihost is severely restricting that part of the uncapped experience for 16 - 18 hours a day. And not to mention that Afrihost's home uncapped package is one of the most expensive in the market, people are going to feel like they've been swindled.

I think if they are planning to keep this intense shaping in place, they should rebrand this package. As some sort of "browse 'n stream' account. Because streaming and browsing parts are working really well.

I think it's fair to say that we're not imposing a limit on your bandwidth consumption. When I was testing 1080p and 720p YouTube streaming, I was pulling down up to 8Mbps on some streams. So there is certainly a fair amount of bandwidth consumption available, and the amount you can download is not set, nor are there punitive measures in place like throttling if you reach a certain level. We'll still give what the network can provide when we're in "natural" shaping. Remember that the current system is "hard" shaping between 7:30am and 10pm - which is 15 hours and leaves 9 hours of natural shaping, which is usually around 6-7 hours of being completely unshaped (if the network allows based on demand).

 

[AfriMan]

Hi,

been using Afrihost 2mb uncapped like more than month. Want to know why the download is slow as it like 5-10kb as it was used to nearly 200kb. But browsing internet, youtube, playing Diablo3 is fine. What cause it?

Sounds like you were experiencing shaping on your account, which would be now standard between 7:30am and 10pm. After 10pm, we use dynamic shaping to allow clients to utilise as much of the network capacity as possible during the off-peak period.

 

[Vorastra]

Just another friendly reminder AfriMan. Testing why Turbocharge and free 1gb fixes my YouTube problem.

 

[AfriMan]

Just another friendly reminder AfriMan. Testing why Turbocharge and free 1gb fixes my YouTube problem.

So far my testing is showing the same as I reported yesterday. I'm gonna put together a vid so you can see what I see. Obviously that will be hard this weekend with all the World Cup madness.

I'll know more once I've gotten over the France v Germany hump this evening

 

[stephan123789]

Hello,

I'm shopping around for a new ISP. I had a mweb 4mb premium account, but it is time for something else...

Just a few questions:

* How bad is the shaping during office ours on a uncapped home package? I work from home and I need good speeds during the day to actually work...
* General shaping: would I be able to stream youtube any time of the day on 420p or 720p ? I am currently able to do this any time of the day.
* Download speeds, on average, what is the download speed on a 4mbps line during peak times? At full speed, I can get 3.5 mbps. I sometimes work during peak times also and I need the fast connection for work purposes...

I can afford the business package, but its still a bit to much for me... so I have to try and make a home package work for me...

 

[Vorastra]

So far my testing is showing the same as I reported yesterday. I'm gonna put together a vid so you can see what I see. Obviously that will be hard this weekend with all the World Cup madness.

I'll know more once I've gotten over the France v Germany hump this evening

But now we still have a problem then if it's all fine for you. As I said, turbo and free 1gb work fine but the main account still maxes at 2mbit :erm:


Hold on. Didn't you say yesterday that you still has to test turbo and a free 1gb...

 

[AfriMan]

But now we still have a problem then if it's all fine for you. As I said, turbo and free 1gb work fine but the main account still maxes at 2mbit :erm:


Hold on. Didn't you say yesterday that you still has to test turbo and a free 1gb...

I tested with a Capped account (not Free GB, but a regular capped account) and also between a shaped and unshaped account. For the most part, streaming was perfect on all of them, and didn't buffer on 720p, except that the vids in your PM weren't happy on the shaped profile. They worked great on capped and unshaped, but did at some points burst to higher than an average 4Mbps line capability. But I was streaming 720p movie trailers on the shaped profile with no buffering, so it's a little weird.

I don't think the issue is that we are shaping YouTube. I also saw that the video I tested the most was dropping frames where other videos I tested didn't.

Like I said, I'll keep testing and document what I find so you can review as well.

 

[AfriMan]

Hello,

I'm shopping around for a new ISP. I had a mweb 4mb premium account, but it is time for something else...

Just a few questions:

* How bad is the shaping during office ours on a uncapped home package? I work from home and I need good speeds during the day to actually work...
* General shaping: would I be able to stream youtube any time of the day on 420p or 720p ? I am currently able to do this any time of the day.
* Download speeds, on average, what is the download speed on a 4mbps line during peak times? At full speed, I can get 3.5 mbps. I sometimes work during peak times also and I need the fast connection for work purposes...

I can afford the business package, but its still a bit to much for me... so I have to try and make a home package work for me...

Thanks for considering us.

Shaping, for the moment, is set between 7:30am and 10pm. This only shaped non-realtime services like P2P (torrents and news, etc). All other services like gaming, streaming, browsing and VoIP are never shaped at any time of the day. After 10pm we let the network dynamically manage bandwidth shaping to give clients access to as much bandwidth as possible.

On a 4Mbps line you should be able to stream most 720p content, though 6Mbps is probably a bit safer. 420p should be no problem - and remember that we'll never shape YouTube as a realtime service.

I can't say what your line will top out at. But sign up for a Free GB, and you can check what speeds you could expect on our network.

https://www.afrihost.com/microsites...r&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=FREEGB_1303

 

[SIlvRav]

Sorry to hear that
The shaping is constantly changing, but definitely not only unshaped for 2 hours a day though.

Drop me a PM with your DSL username and I'll review the shaping changes on your account.

PM sent...

 

[ainsin]

Hello,

I'm shopping around for a new ISP. I had a mweb 4mb premium account, but it is time for something else...

Just a few questions:

* How bad is the shaping during office ours on a uncapped home package? I work from home and I need good speeds during the day to actually work...
* General shaping: would I be able to stream youtube any time of the day on 420p or 720p ? I am currently able to do this any time of the day.
* Download speeds, on average, what is the download speed on a 4mbps line during peak times? At full speed, I can get 3.5 mbps. I sometimes work during peak times also and I need the fast connection for work purposes...

I can afford the business package, but its still a bit to much for me... so I have to try and make a home package work for me...

The shaping is intense during the day of the uncapped. You will get a maximum of 18.8% Download/ 6.25% P2P of your line speed from 7:30 until 10pm. They do shape http downloads, and they also shape ftp & http secure downloads during the day. If you are using NNTP, you will be shaped as well (even with SSL and different ports)

They do mention that the shaping should be gone by 10pm, but I haven't seen the shaping let up until 1 or 2am this whole week.

I will say this, their streaming is really good on youtube and netflix. World of Warcraft runs pretty well as well, but there are issues with other online games like Wildstar and Diablo III.

If you don't plan on downloading much and just want to stream, then home uncapped is great.

 

[AfriMan]

The shaping is intense during the day of the uncapped. You will get a maximum of 18.8% Download/ 6.25% P2P of your line speed from 7:30 until 10pm. They do shape http downloads, and they also shape ftp & http secure downloads during the day. If you are using NNTP, you will be shaped as well (even with SSL and different ports)

They do mention that the shaping should be gone by 10pm, but I haven't seen the shaping let up until 1 or 2am this whole week.

I will say this, their streaming is really good on youtube and netflix. World of Warcraft runs pretty well as well, but there are issues with other online games like Wildstar and Diablo III.

If you don't plan on downloading much and just want to stream, then home uncapped is great.

Remember that shaping after 10pm is dynamic, so it depends on the overall usage. If we are able to unshape faster , we will. Client will also experience lesser shaping as demand decreases up to the point where they are unshaped completely.

 

[UnholyMunk]

Afriman, Afriguy,

Can you guys please also check shaping policies against ALL streaming services and not just YouTube?! There are plenty of people who use more than just YouTube for streaming. I have had some really bad streaming using Netflix, Hulu, BBC iPlayer and LiveLeak to name a few, this is using both UntoTelly for locally blocked media, and your DNS for LiveLeak and Twitch... All round it's been jittery

Also, if you you don't have or can't check Netflix, I think it's about time that you get the capacity to do so... It's an important for quiet a few of your customers.

 

[Vorastra]

Sigh, so I was messing around with Clientzone. Clicked the Magic fix, just to see if its the line. It wasn't. Now the new problem. My router is showing that Clientzone deemed it right to sync my line to 3072kbps. How do I reset that back to 4096kbps now...

Last time I touch that bloody magic button.

 

[AfriMan]

Sigh, so I was messing around with Clientzone. Clicked the Magic fix, just to see if its the line. It wasn't. Now the new problem. My router is showing that Clientzone deemed it right to sync my line to 3072kbps. How do I reset that back to 4096kbps now...

Last time I touch that bloody magic button.

You just have to run it again and it sets you back onto the highest possible sync rate. Otherwise PM me and I'll fix it for you.

 

[AfriMan]

Afriman, Afriguy,

Can you guys please also check shaping policies against ALL streaming services and not just YouTube?! There are plenty of people who use more than just YouTube for streaming. I have had some really bad streaming using Netflix, Hulu, BBC iPlayer and LiveLeak to name a few, this is using both UntoTelly for locally blocked media, and your DNS for LiveLeak and Twitch... All round it's been jittery

Also, if you you don't have or can't check Netflix, I think it's about time that you get the capacity to do so... It's an important for quiet a few of your customers.

We have quite a few staff that do use Netflix, but we've mentioned several times that it's region locked so our DNS can't support it. So there are many other options in order get around this, but that introduces an element outside of our control. Unless we officially support a DNS provider, which I don't think we can, that will always be the difficulty there.

We use a system that is used internationally (and by the ISPs that have their own IPC) to do packet analysis and traffic shaping. They update their policies regularly with new services. But remember that we also analyse the traffic packet signature, so we don't identify by the service as much as the nature of the traffic itself. If we are misdiagnosing the traffic to a specific service, then we'll need to verify that in real time so that we can request that the policies be updated.

 

[Chevron]

Afriman, Afriguy,

Can you guys please also check shaping policies against ALL streaming services and not just YouTube?! There are plenty of people who use more than just YouTube for streaming. I have had some really bad streaming using Netflix, Hulu, BBC iPlayer and LiveLeak to name a few, this is using both UntoTelly for locally blocked media, and your DNS for LiveLeak and Twitch... All round it's been jittery

Also, if you you don't have or can't check Netflix, I think it's about time that you get the capacity to do so... It's an important for quiet a few of your customers.

Youtube is local. That's why it works. There something not right with MTN's international connectivity.

We have quite a few staff that do use Netflix, but we've mentioned several times that it's region locked so our DNS can't support it. So there are many other options in order get around this, but that introduces an element outside of our control. Unless we officially support a DNS provider, which I don't think we can, that will always be the difficulty there.

We use a system that is used internationally (and by the ISPs that have their own IPC) to do packet analysis and traffic shaping. They update their policies regularly with new services. But remember that we also analyse the traffic packet signature, so we don't identify by the service as much as the nature of the traffic itself. If we are misdiagnosing the traffic to a specific service, then we'll need to verify that in real time so that we can request that the policies be updated.

Funny how only MTN based ISPs have these issues and no other ISP have these problems with Unotelly.

 

[Vorastra]

Youtube is local. That's why it works. There something not right with MTN's international connectivity.

Trying to watch Twitch (Since Youtube doesn't use my full line anymore...). Even that's impossible. It's a known issue with Afrihost that always gets the same response. "Must be Twitch."

I remember one of your topics, you were on a WebAfrica Business. How's Twitch for you ?

 

[UnholyMunk]

We have quite a few staff that do use Netflix, but we've mentioned several times that it's region locked so our DNS can't support it. So there are many other options in order get around this, but that introduces an element outside of our control. Unless we officially support a DNS provider, which I don't think we can, that will always be the difficulty there.

We use a system that is used internationally (and by the ISPs that have their own IPC) to do packet analysis and traffic shaping. They update their policies regularly with new services. But remember that we also analyse the traffic packet signature, so we don't identify by the service as much as the nature of the traffic itself. If we are misdiagnosing the traffic to a specific service, then we'll need to verify that in real time so that we can request that the policies be updated.

Ok, so based on your feedback, what you are saying is that you have the means to test it yourself internally with your own staff who will be able to verify any performance loss with Netflix in-house, but you want to co-ordinate it with me, a paying customer who has to use his own personal time to sort out problems you should be investigating yourself?

You know you have a problem... enough people have complained about it and you didn't deny it in your post, and you have the means to test it in-house.... Yet it doesn't seem to be a top priority for you guys after literally dozens of complaints just on this thread alone. I'm actually going to film my experiences for you and post it to your facebook wall, that way these issues will be highlighted to a larger userbase, hopefully then it'll be heard by someone...