Afrihost Uncapped ADSL Feedback (Pt3)

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If they use destination routing of some kind it could also explain things. Ensuring that the 9 concurrent stream downloader doesn't get 90% of the queue compared to the single stream downloader.
 
DarkSpectre said:
OW and MWEB always shape P2P/NNTP/Filesharing sites between 7am and 7pm. I never had any issues when using realtime services during business hours. So they must have already figured out how to deal with this Torrent HTTP(S) Downloading trick.
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I doubt it, maybe they don't mind contention increasing or however they prioritise their network. I really can't say how that works or if it's in combination with throttling line speed on the whole.

The system we use is similar to what is used on overseas ISPs in the US and the EU.
 
DarkSpectre said:
This is insane!!!! :eek::sick::sick::cry: Please explain why I'm downloading a 10mb freeware program from majorgeek.com at 6kB/s :mad: I thought that only P2P and NNTP are shaped during business hours :( It seems that EVERYTHING ELSE EXCEPT WEB BROWSING AND STREAMING IS BEING SHAPED TO DEATH RIGHT NOW.

Totally unreasonable, imho. I'm fine with P2P/NNTP being shaped during business hours. That's totally reasonable... but HTTP downloads (Excluding filesharing sites) and Windows Updates??? :(

That's it. I can't take it anymore :( I'm going to cancel my AH account now. Hope the debit order gets sorted out asap so I can fully settle my AH account before moving out.
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I agree with you 100% - try to download VLC from Videolan site at an amazing 6kb, 1 h 30 m for 22mb
Did we know this was going to happen when we signed up - no, this industry just change the rules as they go along

I have canceled this morning but must sit it out till month end. If I am forced to go capped to get the proper speed, I will do it with another ISP.
 
Dion Disco said:
I agree with you 100% - try to download VLC from Videolan site at an amazing 6kb, 1 h 30 m for 22mb
Did we know this was going to happen when we signed up - no, this industry just change the rules as they go along

I have canceled this morning but must sit it out till month end. If I am forced to go capped to get the proper speed, I will do it with another ISP.
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I'm sorry to hear this. We always have used shaping on Uncapped accounts, we're just doing slightly differently to provide a better overall experience. If you need a Capped product for a fast download of 20MB, maybe just sign up a Free GB for Life, or you can turbocharge your account with your free turbocharge minutes.

https://www.afrihost.com/microsites...r&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=FREEGB_1303
 
AfriMan said:
Browsing should definitely not be affected at the moment. That's very strange indeed. Definitely feeling the sadness if that is the case.

What sort of results are you seeing when you troubleshoot with pings and traceroutes?
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Also getting the same results as DarkSpectre, I believe that downloading large images from websites is being counted as direct downloads. Been testing this last night, when downloading jpg's larger than 1.5MB it gets shaped to hell, anything under downloaded fine. Then enabled turbocharge, & downloaded jpg's 5-7MB at normal speeds, once TC ran out tried to download jpg's again & got shaped into oblivion, even trying to download 200KB jpg's... forget about it, sometimes took up to 10min per jpg!! So yeah, the web browsing being unshaped, total BS in my opinion. Also not happy & shopping around for something better. I'm on 2mb home uncapped.
 
marduke said:
Also getting the same results as DarkSpectre, I believe that downloading large images from websites is being counted as direct downloads. Been testing this last night, when downloading jpg's larger than 1.5MB it gets shaped to hell, anything under downloaded fine. Then enabled turbocharge, & downloaded jpg's 5-7MB at normal speeds, once TC ran out tried to download jpg's again & got shaped into oblivion, even trying to download 200KB jpg's... forget about it, sometimes took up to 10min per jpg!! So yeah, the web browsing being unshaped, total BS in my opinion. Also not happy & shopping around for something better. I'm on 2mb home uncapped.
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It's pretty strange for a site to have jpegs or graphics of that size, so it would probably be affected if they've designed their site that way. Once your browser caches the images, those pages will load a lot faster.
 
AfriMan said:
It's pretty strange for a site to have jpegs or graphics of that size, so it would probably be affected if they've designed their site that way. Once your browser caches the images, those pages will load a lot faster.
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It's very common these days :( With this account, it takes about 30 seconds on average for an international gaming site such as IGN or Kotaku to be fully loaded... on my 2Mbps line during daytime :( I'm sorry to say this but right now AH Home Uncapped 2mbps is absolutely not worth R300 p/m.
 
AfriMan said:
It's pretty strange for a site to have jpegs or graphics of that size, so it would probably be affected if they've designed their site that way. Once your browser caches the images, those pages will load a lot faster.
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not really hey, since bandwidth isn't "supposed" to be an issue these days it's not uncommon for sites to have large hi-res jpg's. Granted they are loaded as thumbnails 1st which loads quite quick, but trying to actually view the full image while being shaped, nu-uh, no dice. I consider myself to be a patient man, but sitting there for 5-10min staring at the screen waiting for an image to load, that's pushing it. Kinda reminds me of the 56k modem days though...

Can't you guys do like a packet inspection kinda thing & determine that what is being downloaded is not in fact a torrent trying to masquerade as a direct download & then not shaping it? I mean come one, I'm just trying to view some images, not trying to download the whole freakin internet :/
 
Trying to download Android Developer tutorial vids. Then I realised, I'm on Home Uncapped. ;)

You know what, has Afrihost thought of creating local content servers? Like a Sourceforge sort of system.
 
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Vorastra said:
Trying to download Android Developer tutorial vids. Then I realised, I'm on Home Uncapped. ;)

You know what, has Afrihost thought of creating local content servers? Like a Sourceforge sort of system.
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Home Uncapped!!!! USEFUL FOR WEB BROWSING AND YOUTUBE. THAT'S IT :twisted:
 
Wtf, the shaping is still active! It's 12am right now!!! Please, remember that it's now our turn to 'abuse' the network.
 
DarkSpectre said:
It's very common these days :( With this account, it takes about 30 seconds on average for an international gaming site such as IGN or Kotaku to be fully loaded... on my 2Mbps line during daytime :( I'm sorry to say this but right now AH Home Uncapped 2mbps is absolutely not worth R300 p/m.
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That's seems a little long. If you Turbocharge and bypass shaping, does your experience change?
 
marduke said:
not really hey, since bandwidth isn't "supposed" to be an issue these days it's not uncommon for sites to have large hi-res jpg's. Granted they are loaded as thumbnails 1st which loads quite quick, but trying to actually view the full image while being shaped, nu-uh, no dice. I consider myself to be a patient man, but sitting there for 5-10min staring at the screen waiting for an image to load, that's pushing it. Kinda reminds me of the 56k modem days though...

Can't you guys do like a packet inspection kinda thing & determine that what is being downloaded is not in fact a torrent trying to masquerade as a direct download & then not shaping it? I mean come one, I'm just trying to view some images, not trying to download the whole freakin internet :/
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We do use packet signature to identify traffic, but there is only so much we can do efficiently on a massive scale. Having the shaper fully analyse each and every packet to that level will literally cripple the entire network.

We're definitely open to looking at other solutions or methodologies, if they are practical and sustainable.
 
Vorastra said:
Trying to download Android Developer tutorial vids. Then I realised, I'm on Home Uncapped. ;)

You know what, has Afrihost thought of creating local content servers? Like a Sourceforge sort of system.
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We do have our own CDN (or at least MTN does) on the network. However that is managed by MTN, so I don't know the ruleset. But we definitely do some content caching to improve efficiency.
 
Blacklists.
Each month, pull a report of sites generating the most HTTP traffic, check them out, and if they're filesharing type things, then add them to the shaping.
Yes, it's more work, but you'll avoid a lot of the anger out there caused by draconian http shaping.
 
DarkSpectre said:
Wtf, the shaping is still active! It's 12am right now!!! Please, remember that it's now our turn to 'abuse' the network.
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Remember that after 10pm we do dynamic unshaping (or shaping) based on demand. We are looking into what can be done to achieve maximum bandwidth usage after 10pm. Ideally, we want to max the network out 24 hours a day, so it's definitely also in our interest to allow everyone to get as much data as possible off-peak.
 
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