Afrihost Uncapped ADSL Feedback (Pt3)

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Yeah. Seems like us guys in Pretoria are getting the short end of the stick at the moment.

Pretoria is part of the North network - so unfortunately it is part of the same regional network management as other areas which form part of the North (like Joburg, etc)
 
A "significant" upgrade on the northern IPC is "imminent!

Whatever that means ;)

I'm sorry if I sound a bit harsh but I just don't have any "trust" in MTN's network!

Trust is earned, but I do appreciate the effort you guys are putting in, it's just that MTN are making it 10 times harder than it should be, you guys should have stayed with IS who know how to run a network!

Correct me if I'm wrong but with MTN, they can't get past 30 days without something happening like "a portion of the IPC going down leading to increased latency for at least 48 hours!", or the radius (or whatever you call it) server going down causing authentication problems, or bad planning on IPC supply causing people to suffer with high contention, and the sad thing is that these aren't just one time deals, they keep happening (at least the first 2, and even the 3rd!) over and over, and yet, none of the other ISP's IPC's suffer from this! So, there, that's my opinion! You talk about "trust", well trust is earned.

For example, my ISP (gonna just say it coz MTN don't reserve subtlety: Plugg!) gave me 18 months of error free connection, I only left because of price (first world problems ;))!

Oh, by-the-way, when I was home (after 5pm - yes, it's a time based shaping policy!), Twitch, Hulu, NF worked like a bomb!

I think it's fair to say that we've had a good few issues since changing, but I put them down to learning. Not just on MTN's side, but on our side as well, because we also have a lot more control over the network than we ever had previously. We never controlled shaping or profiles before, and now we can really tailor performance according to what we envision for the network (like doing away with throttling).

However performance has been the best we've ever seen, when things are at their best. From our client surveys and MyB surveys, I see that clients are actually getting a better overall experience and our ability to be more reactive (and more importantly, more transparent) has generally built more trust with our clients. So while there have been issues, and we'll continually work towards improving on this and putting ongoing issues behind us, we also believe that as long as we continually build trust with our clients, we think we'll continue to grow and achieve better performance and results for our clients in the future.
 
Just wish they would be more specific about their upgrade times, and what significant means to them. Last time they did a "significant" capacity upgrade, it only lasted about 6 weeks, before we were shaped into the ground again.

I wish we could give a specific time. Problem is the last time we were given deadlines they ended up being delayed a couple of times - which sucked. At the moment, we have no ETA, I promise if I had any kind of provisional commitment I would share it with the forums :(
 
Well uncapped is definitely being arbitrarily shaped due to lack of capacity.

Uncapped 4mb home. Try to stream youtube in 720p...forget it. Speed at 220KB.

Switched to capped 1gb...boom. Back up to 400KB average.

On the southern IPC.

Can someone from Afrihost please explain this?

Why are home packages being negatively impacted on realtime services?

Not cool!

It's not arbitrary at all, we haven't made any changes to the way shaping is implemented.

As far as I know shaping is not affecting real time services, certainly not by policy, and not in practice as far as I know. I would need to see some more specific tests to take this further though :(
 
Downloading at thirty KB per sec :-(
Turbo charge gets me up to a megabyte per sec. So even the 6.5% shaping number is wrong

Remember that percentage is a guideline, because actual speeds on various servers and with differing overheads will vary in practice. Turbocharge should set profile to unshaped, in which case there is no policy at all acting on your traffic.
 
Remember that percentage is a guideline, because actual speeds on various servers and with differing overheads will vary in practice. Turbocharge should set profile to unshaped, in which case there is no policy at all acting on your traffic.

Nope, my line was hard capped at 30KB/sec. While the NNTP client was pulling that, I could get NOTHING else down.
 
Well Afrihost's capacity is at max at the moment. I just tried a turbocharge, and it hasn't made a difference to my download speed. I even waited a few minutes and rebooted my router :sick:
 
I never thought I would say this, as i was a big supporter of Afrihost....but the shaping is frustrating the crap out of me now.

I thought I'd give them the benefit of the doubt and let them fix the lack of bandwidth issue. I would even handle being shaped during the week..as long as weekends were not touched. How things have changed....

Afrihost, you guys desperately need further bandwidth updates on your IPC, it's killing the south.

/rage.

I know that while we wait for new capacity, this period of harsh shaping is really sucky. We've been through it a few times now, and it's definitely one of the worst things to try and explain. What I can say is that we always come out of it positively and find ways to reward our clients to sticking it out, and we also find a way to deliver a great experience that balances out the bad experience. I honestly believe that in the balance of things our clients have a better experience with us, taking the good with the bad.
 
Nope, my line was hard capped at 30KB/sec. While the NNTP client was pulling that, I could get NOTHING else down.

I'd have to look into that a little closer, cos we could only do that with a rate limit, and we don't have a 30kbps rate limit profile in the system.

Will you drop me a PM, please?
 
I'd have to look into that a little closer, cos we could only do that with a rate limit, and we don't have a 30kbps rate limit profile in the system.

Will you drop me a PM, please?
I did already while it was happening ;)
 
Well Afrihost's capacity is at max at the moment. I just tried a turbocharge, and it hasn't made a difference to my download speed. I even waited a few minutes and rebooted my router :sick:

If you're looking at the North, then we are pretty close to Max. Turbocharge should still work, but it sometimes takes time to settle :(
 
Torrents can never be expected to be line speed, although at time they are capable. IT depends on a variety of factors that get mentioned here often. I would never use them as an accurate test for line speed :(
What test you use?

Speedtest.net would only indicate browsing, and nobody buys uncapped for that.

The best test is to do what you normally do and observe the results.
 
If you're looking at the North, then we are pretty close to Max. Turbocharge should still work, but it sometimes takes time to settle :(

So why are you still selling accounts if there is no bandwidth available to accommodate new customers?
 
Well I am very damn happy to report that my half line speed issue has been resolved. Woke up this morning and all was right as rain again. Don't know what changed...but I hope it stays that way :D

Awesome - let's hope it was a weekend gremlin that's been banished for good :)
 
So why are you still selling accounts if there is no bandwidth available to accommodate new customers?

That's a management business decision, but I think we're confident that the volume of new sales (also in relation to cancellations, paused accounts and downgrades) is not a major impact onto available capacity. Remember that we're also committing to a major financial outlay for new capacity, while our revenue from clients (particularly with Uncapped) is mostly the same. It's a tough period, but it's important that we all realise that the end goal is to have a better network that can deliver even more value, and we have to do what we need to do in order to get us there. I don't believe that closing all sales would do that, in fact it would hurt our chances of making this happen a lot more.
 
What test you use?

Speedtest.net would only indicate browsing, and nobody buys uncapped for that.

The best test is to do what you normally do and observe the results.

At the end of the day you experience is always the best indicator to yourself, but it's difficult to communicate this at times. Ultimately you want to run a series of tests over time, our Network Test App is a great tool, as well as comparative test with the Telkom Guest Account to give a broader indication. As the root cause get's narrowed down, then we could run more specific tests.
 
Shaping in Cape Town's been particularly bad over the past few days. Last night was by far the worst.

I can't have been unshaped for more than 2 hours, with that period beginning at around 5am, and downloaded less than 1 GB all night.

A few minutes ago, at just past 7.30, full shaping commenced once again, torrents down to 3kB/s. Sigh.

Sorry to hear that. I know that we'd love to shape less where we can, but demand continue to increase and we're still waiting for the full South upgrade we've been promised. As some have noted, the East hasn't seen problems for a long while since it was fully upgraded, and we hope to achieve the same for the North and South once we receive the capacity we've ordered.
 
@Afriman re German streaming: Stop talking bollocks. Your shaping cannot just be per protocol and there must be other factors at play. It's straight video streaming from ARD,ZDF and related. Avg. throughput is < 1mbps for three months now meaning I download free to air material by other sources. SSL for work still is also throttled into oblivion, it's apparent that you are under-resourced and desperately throttling uncapped accounts making them unusable.

Please set up accounts for me to test your network:

2 meg business uncapped
4 meg capped

The sources are ARD, ZDF and related mediathek over web sites or direct streams via XBMC.
 
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