Afrihost Uncapped ADSL Feedback (Pt3)

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AfriGuy said:
No.
Again, we're unshaping after hours - you can download as much as you like here. If your requirements dictate downloads to be run at 4pm (for eg) then the account cannot be expected to perform as such.
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So why is the shaping so much more severe now, at say 8pm, than it was before?
Something's changed.
 
Sinbad said:
So why is the shaping so much more severe now, at say 8pm, than it was before?
Something's changed.
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AfriMan has already covered this earlier today

AfriMan said:
We are shaping Uncapped accounts to the maximum extent for the moment. I initially thought this was going to be for a few days, but our management have decided to extend this testing to see how we can improve the experience of our clients, ensuring excellent realtime service and maintaing throughput and latency for those services to perform at peak. So far, our testing shows that realtime is performing well, and this also means that clients using turbocharge can get an excellent unshaped experience when they need it.

I'm not sure how long we'll continue testing, I think we're still collecting data and feedback to assess whether we should make changes to our AUP and to what extent we will decide to change our current policy. For now, we'll continue to shape at max between 7:30am and 10pm and then shape dynamically between 10pm and 7:30am, to allow clients to get back the maximum available data after peak and overnight.
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AfriGuy said:
AfriMan has already covered this earlier today
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sorry, no sale.

Customers are not test subjects :(

3 months ago, I also got excellent performance - and when I was shaped and needed to download something in a hurry, turbocharge gave me an excellent unshaped experience. So, again, what has changed in the last 3 months that these extreme measures have become necessary?
 
Sinbad said:
sorry, no sale.

Customers are not test subjects :(

3 months ago, I also got excellent performance - and when I was shaped and needed to download something in a hurry, turbocharge gave me an excellent unshaped experience. So, again, what has changed in the last 3 months that these extreme measures have become necessary?
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I don't think we see our clients as "test subjects" no need to jump to conclusions there.
What you're posting here has already been covered though.

Why are we doing this?
Again, I refer to AfriMans post I quoted:

"Improve the experience of our clients, ensuring excellent realtime service and maintaing throughput and latency for those services to perform at peak."
 
AfriGuy said:
I don't think we see our clients as "test subjects" no need to jump to conclusions there.
What you're posting here has already been covered though.

Why are we doing this?
Again, I refer to AfriMans post I quoted:

"Improve the experience of our clients, ensuring excellent realtime service and maintaing throughput and latency for those services to perform at peak."
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My experience was awesome 2 months ago though. It was exactly what I expected. So I don't understand what you're aiming to achieve?
 
AfriGuy said:
To improve the network, as I've mentioned above.
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It was awesome before. Do you have some concrete aims? Because I'm sorry, it sounds very.... fuzzy... right now? Any KPIs that you're aiming for? I guess this is the root of my frustration. My excellent experience has been severely degraded in order to implement some unspecified improvements - if I understood the expected benefits I may have been more tolerant.
 
Sinbad said:
It was awesome before. Do you have some concrete aims? Because I'm sorry, it sounds very.... fuzzy... right now? Any KPIs that you're aiming for? I guess this is the root of my frustration. My excellent experience has been severely degraded in order to implement some unspecified improvements - if I understood the expected benefits I may have been more tolerant.
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We're always looking at ways to improve the network, this is one of them so we're running through it.
 
AfriGuy said:
We're always looking at ways to improve the network, this is one of them so we're running through it.
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Again, what is this particular test expected to achieve? What could I as a user have expected to experience once you're done? Something tangible, because your testing certainly had a very tangible effect on my experience.
 
Sinbad said:
Again, what is this particular test expected to achieve? What could I as a user have expected to experience once you're done? Something tangible, because your testing certainly had a very tangible effect on my experience.
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Mostly realtime services.
Again dude, please read through the quoted text - all the info is there.
 
What is the most efficient way of cancelling my bundle?

Should I request an unbundling of the service first, or just cancel the package?
 
I'm still waiting for an official press release stating that shaping is being forcefully enforced for 15 hours a day.

Unless I am missing something this has not been done. This is not a sign of transparency. If it was for a few days...okay. I could accept that. However it's been more than a week with no indications of comms of it being stopped anytime soon.
 
AfriGuy said:
Mostly realtime services.
Again dude, please read through the quoted text - all the info is there.
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None of the info is there, actually...
My realtime services were perfect before.
So, what are you expecting to improve?
For example: Will you be adding extra services to realtime? New traffic classes for some stuff that used to fall under downloading or p2p?

Or had realtime services actually degraded without me noticing?
 
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Orihalcon said:
I'm still waiting for an official press release stating that shaping is being forcefully enforced for 15 hours a day.

Unless I am missing something this has not been done. This is not a sign of transparency. If it was for a few days...okay. I could accept that. However it's been more than a week with no indications of comms of it being stopped anytime soon.
Click to expand...

There's no official release because nothing is official yet, we're simply going through some options.
 
Sinbad said:
None of the info is there, actually...
My realtime services were perfect before.
So, what are you expecting to improve?
For example: Will you be adding extra services to realtime? New traffic classes for some stuff that used to fall under downloading or p2p?

Or had realtime services actually degraded without me noticing?
Click to expand...

I honestly don't know how to explain this, everything has been mentioned.
We're doing testing around the shaping to mark improvements wherever we can. Nothing is confirmed around new traffic classes.
 
AfriGuy said:
There's no official release because nothing is official yet, we're simply going through some options.
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That I take issue with. One of the selling points of your home uncapped product is the fact that shaping is determined dynamically - which is not currently happening for 15 hours out of the day. Your product advertising is therefor false on your website.

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This is tantamount to fraud. I would expect either an info mail to be sent to uncapped clients to inform them of the tests OR that your product information is updated on your main site.

Just doing it and not communicating why is not a sign of a transparent ISP.
 
AfriGuy said:
I honestly don't know how to explain this, everything has been mentioned.
We're doing testing around the shaping to mark improvements wherever we can. Nothing is confirmed around new traffic classes.
Click to expand...

Dude, nothing has been mentioned apart from some vague, nebulous "improvements".
When I want to improve my car's performance, I have certain ideas and benchmarks in mind. Certain things that I can measure and improve.
When I want to improve my PC's graphics performance, again I have benchmarks that I can run, and if I reach a certain value then I am satisfied with the improvements.
I don't just go and fiddle with bios settings without an aim in mind.

Sorry if you think I'm being difficult here - but this is how I feel. Tell us what you're aiming towards. Because based on where I was 3 months ago (happy), there wasn't much room for improvement.
If you don't tell me, then I am going to extrapolate what is going on from past experience with ISPs in SA, because I'm human. And most ISPs' past performance isn't what you want me to extrapolate from.

Afrihost has been super transparent in the past, but my feeling is that is no more. Coincidental with the MTN buyout? Who knows. But these are the kinds of thoughts that go through my head.
 
Orihalcon said:
That I take issue with. One of the selling points of your home uncapped product is the fact that shaping is determined dynamically - which is not currently happening for 15 hours out of the day. Your product advertising is therefor false on your website.

View attachment 130439


This is tantamount to fraud. I would expect either an info mail to be sent to uncapped clients to inform them of the tests OR that your product information is updated on your main site.

Just doing it and not communicating why is not a sign of a transparent ISP.
Click to expand...

I think by us posting this info here just goes to show how transparent we actually are.
Guys, we're testing something on the network - while it may be hard now, it'll have a positive effect on how the network is run.

If, and it's a BIG if at this stage, we want to make this permanent the AUP will be amended. For now though, let's not get too excited and concentrate on how the testing is going :)
 
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