Afrihost Uncapped ADSL Feedback (Pt3)

[ArnoVermeulen]

I'm sorry, Afriman, but I just don't agree. I can count the amount of times that being civil, patient and polite has gotten me anywhere on a single hand. It is well known that in South Africa throwing your toys out of the cot is usually the fastest and/or only way to get results, otherwise people simply seem to twiddle their thumbs and play with their dingalings.

I've had to resort to this with OpenWeb, WebAfrica, Telkom, Mweb, Vodacom and numerous other companies. Most companies will only get a move on once they notice that you've finally become fed-up with their BS and completely lost it. Very recently my SO was with Axxess and after two months of paying for barely usable internet while Axxess tech support just said "we're looking into it". He finally blew his top and he got his account cancelled and his line moved back to Telkom immediately, Axxess refunded him for several months and guess what happened when he called Telkom himself and yelled at them the very next day? His line fault was repaired in a few hours. One has to wonder whether he would have had working internet by now had he simply remained calm, civil and polite with Axxess.

Sorry Afriman, I know you might genuinely try hard on these forums, but whatever complaints anyone in the service sector have about how they're treated by customers, they bring over themselves. Most of us would prefer not to shout and get angry in order to get results. I don't like doing it at all and I would prefer if I could get my issues sorted out without my blood pressure first shooting through the roof. It's not fun to scream and shout at people to get things done and I bet most people here would agree, because most of us are likely not sociopaths. You guys just very often leave us no choice but to take that route and that's why your posts demanding civility and politeness stick sideways in my craw.

Do you currently have a problem with Afrihost? If not shut up and get the hell out of here.. I think everyone should fight for himself or is this your little sister? Cheers

 

[AfriMan]

I'm sorry, Afriman, but I just don't agree. I can count the amount of times that being civil, patient and polite has gotten me anywhere on a single hand. It is well known that in South Africa throwing your toys out of the cot is usually the fastest and/or only way to get results, otherwise people simply seem to twiddle their thumbs and play with their dingalings.

I've had to resort to this with OpenWeb, WebAfrica, Telkom, Mweb, Vodacom and numerous other companies. Most companies will only get a move on once they notice that you've finally become fed-up with their BS and completely lost it. Very recently my SO was with Axxess and after two months of paying for barely usable internet while Axxess tech support just said "we're looking into it". He finally blew his top and he got his account cancelled and his line moved back to Telkom immediately, Axxess refunded him for several months and guess what happened when he called Telkom himself and yelled at them the very next day? His line fault was repaired in a few hours. One has to wonder whether he would have had working internet by now had he simply remained calm, civil and polite with Axxess.

Sorry Afriman, I know you might genuinely try hard on these forums, but whatever complaints anyone in the service sector have about how they're treated by customers, they bring over themselves. Most of us would prefer not to shout and get angry in order to get results. I don't like doing it at all and I would prefer if I could get my issues sorted out without my blood pressure first shooting through the roof. It's not fun to scream and shout at people to get things done and I bet most people here would agree, because most of us are likely not sociopaths. You guys just very often leave us no choice but to take that route and that's why your posts demanding civility and politeness stick sideways in my craw.

I'm sorry that has been your experience, and I can imagine that others may feel that way. We'll never get to a point where we can have a better solution for all involved if people don't agree on a code that doesn't allow them cross a certain point at will. I used to generally think that this was due to the famous Americanism "The customer is always right", but when I was in the States recently people were extremely polite on both sides, and very courteous to each other and other clients. I think even there they've realised the real win is when everybody wins, not that one person gets what they want by crushing somebody else in the process. Since being in client service for many years now, I've done my best to practice this, and it's always worked for me. I get prompt courteous service, and generally found that people are willing to go further for me because I don't scream and shout (where others might).

It's my 2c - Use / Don't Use.

 

[AfriMan]

I don't quite agree with this. You are basically saying the general public need to sign up on this forum and PM u to get service, when your call centre/support staff just pass the hot potato.

And to say the guys are working on it and have been in contact with him, is false, because the reason he lost all his marbles and went primitive is because the above didn't happen up until now.

I commend you for your values and the way you prefer to handle things. I would prefer this route aswell.

I just think you haven't put yourself in his shoes AT ALL. You have spent all your energy defending your statements, your brand, instead of just conceding and being the one to apologize. After all, he is paying you for a service which wasn't rendered as per initial agreement. E.g. It's like when your wife is in the red zone and she is fighting with you because she didn't like how you walked into the room. You DON'T fight with her and tell her she is irrational and illogical. You be the bigger man, apologize because you know you love her and you want her to be happy. The same could of counted in this situation.

If you think I am being illogical, or unfair in my opinion feel free to critique.

There are always multiple sides to a story. I often find that dealing with complaints, there are extremes. Sometimes someone has been treated poorly and I am always ready to acknowledge this in the interests of transparency. On the other extreme, sometime people can be unreasonable. I recently had a client complain because his debit order bounced and he wanted Afrihost to remove the mention of this from his bank statement. This lead to a HelloPeter complaint (it may have been removed now) and several very nasty exchanges with our team. But generally it's somewhere in between, but you can't always get the full story from one post or thread. I'm more interested in getting the full story and details and finding solutions.

I agree that no-one should have to join MyBB to get the right service. We should be doing that right off the bat. But things don't always go according to plan, that's why my role exists, and other platforms like HelloPeter and being able to email Gian directly, so we have as many "safety nets" for a client to be caught before things become irrecoverable. However I still don't see any need to use those platforms to be negative or overly unpleasant towards the people manning those platforms, because essentially we are all here to help and act on your behalf. I'm not saying I don't understand the frustration that leads you there, or the need to vent those emotions. I'm simply saying it's not a requirement to get service. Anyone who PM's me, or sends an email to Gian will get assistance, that's what our teams are here for.

 

[Wackyza]

I think at the end of the day, the evidence is there, that currently the support team isn't often enough adequately dealing with technical support unless its 'simple quick out the door' requests. This was my experience , and that is the reason I found this discussion interesting. I have also experienced the, 'we will phone you back', after which 2 different people don't get back to you and it takes you speaking to 3 different support staff members to get to someone that actually resolves it.

My point is, instead of making this out to be the highest and most unlikeliest exception, realize that there is a pattern.

Maybe you guys should do some digging and monitor the staff more closely. Perhaps gather stats on the time it takes them to resolve queries, what short cuts are they taking when dealing with tickets? Relying too much using the generic 'saved in my my documents folder' response? What are they doing to get themselves out of a ticket that then later has to be allocated to someone else to solve? Do you have the software to do this type of research?

Some food for thought

There are always multiple sides to a story. I often find that dealing with complaints, there are extremes. Sometimes someone has been treated poorly and I am always ready to acknowledge this in the interests of transparency. On the other extreme, sometime people can be unreasonable. I recently had a client complain because his debit order bounced and he wanted Afrihost to remove the mention of this from his bank statement. This lead to a HelloPeter complaint (it may have been removed now) and several very nasty exchanges with our team. But generally it's somewhere in between, but you can't always get the full story from one post or thread. I'm more interested in getting the full story and details and finding solutions.

I agree that no-one should have to join MyBB to get the right service. We should be doing that right off the bat. But things don't always go according to plan, that's why my role exists, and other platforms like HelloPeter and being able to email Gian directly, so we have as many "safety nets" for a client to be caught before things become irrecoverable. However I still don't see any need to use those platforms to be negative or overly unpleasant towards the people manning those platforms, because essentially we are all here to help and act on your behalf. I'm not saying I don't understand the frustration that leads you there, or the need to vent those emotions. I'm simply saying it's not a requirement to get service. Anyone who PM's me, or sends an email to Gian will get assistance, that's what our teams are here to for.

 

[Zewp]

Do you currently have a problem with Afrihost? If not shut up and get the hell out of here.. I think everyone should fight for himself or is this your little sister? Cheers

This is a free forum and I'm free to post in whichever thread I want. If you don't like me talking to Afriman, tough luck.

Discussions on a discussion board?! Well I NEVER!

 

[Zewp]

AfriMan, see this part;

My point is, instead of making this out to be the highest and most unlikeliest exception, realize that there is a pattern.

This is the crux of the matter. In general, people don't get up in the morning and think "today I'm going to yell at someone to get something done." In the majority of cases when the crap hits the fan it is a direct result of the approach that you advocate not yielding results.

People in South Africa take this route because that's what we've been conditioned to do. Do you think Chillwabbit would have resorted to this if his initial approach yielded results? Step up your game and then tell people how they must react. Don't tell someone he needs to be civil if he's been struggling with you for over a month.

I think everyone in the service industry in SA can really take a course from TakeAlot. They're staffed by people who care about service delivery and it shows because they're an absolute pleasure to deal with. If more people handled their customer care like they do, we would not even be having this discussion.

 

[AfriMan]

I think at the end of the day, the evidence is there, that currently the support team isn't often enough adequately dealing with technical support unless its 'simple quick out the door' requests. This was my experience , and that is the reason I found this discussion interesting. I have also experienced the, 'we will phone you back', after which 2 different people don't get back to you and it takes you speaking to 3 different support staff members to get to someone that actually resolves it.

My point is, instead of making this out to be the highest and most unlikeliest exception, realize that there is a pattern.

Maybe you guys should do some digging and monitor the staff more closely. Perhaps gather stats on the time it takes them to resolve queries, what short cuts are they taking when dealing with tickets? Relying too much using the generic 'saved in my my documents folder' response? What are they doing to get themselves out of a ticket that then later has to be allocated to someone else to solve? Do you have the software to do this type of research?

Some food for thought

Every incident that comes through the forums or other platforms is looked into and where we can make improvements we do, as well as re-train or counsel staff who have not lived up to our service commitment. But I also think it's very important to give context to what we see in the forums. Obviously clients who are called back or given excellent service don't always post in the forums. We do see some of those comments when we do surveys and follow ups with clients (through our QA processes) and also from the ratings we receive from clients. I think one might get the impression from reading only complaints that things are in a particular state, but seeing more of the picture and dealing with clients who have a good experience paints a different picture. Remember that thousands of clients go through our support centre daily through email, phone and live chat queries, and I really do believe that the vast majority of our clients receive the great service we aim for.

 

[AfriMan]

AfriMan, see this part;



This is the crux of the matter. In general, people don't get up in the morning and think "today I'm going to yell at someone to get something done." In the majority of cases when the crap hits the fan it is a direct result of the approach that you advocate not yielding results.

People in South Africa take this route because that's what we've been conditioned to do. Do you think Chillwabbit would have resorted to this if his initial approach yielded results? Step up your game and then tell people how they must react. Don't tell someone he needs to be civil if he's been struggling with you for over a month.

I think everyone in the service industry in SA can really take a course from TakeAlot. They're staffed by people who care about service delivery and it shows because they're an absolute pleasure to deal with. If more people handled their customer care like they do, we would not even be having this discussion.

I think it would obviously be great if everything always went well and never broke or arrived late or was exactly the way one imagined it. The real challenge of a business relationship is when things go wrong and a relationship of trust pulls the parties through to find a solution. Studies show that this builds stronger relationships and loyalty - from both sides. We sincerely believe that this is the most important part of the relationship we have with our clients.

 

[Wackyza]

I am glad you have those specific mechanisms in place to gauge the quality of the support you provide. However, do you mind replying to the rest of my post. What mechanism do you have in place to gauge the quality of the work or your actually support staff using technical data gathering methods?

Every incident that comes through the forums or other platforms is looked into and where we can make improvements we do, as well as re-train or counsel staff who have not lived up to our service commitment. But I also think it's very important to give context to what we see in the forums. Obviously clients who are called back or given excellent service don't always post in the forums. We do see some of those comments when we do surveys and follow ups with clients (through our QA processes) and also from the ratings we receive from clients. I think one might get the impression from reading only complaints that things are in a particular state, but seeing more of the picture and dealing with clients who have a good experience paints a different picture. Remember that thousands of clients go through our support centre daily through email, phone and live chat queries, and I really do believe that the vast majority of our clients receive the great service we aim for.

 

[AfriMan]

I am glad you have those specific mechanisms in place to gauge the quality of the support you provide. However, do you mind replying to the rest of my post. What mechanism do you have in place to gauge the quality of the work or your actually support staff using technical data gathering methods?

We have direct supervisors and managers working with the teams working with the teams and also randomly pulling calls and emails to check for quality of communication and whether solutions are correct and adequately communicated to clients. We then further have a Quality Assurance team who do this over the entire company, as well as responding to incidents where low ratings are received to ensure that we address serious lapses in service or communication with clients and individual team members.

We are focussing more and more on ongoing learning initiatives within the company, to encourage knowledge sharing and commitment to personal development on a group and individual basis.

Everyone within the team is given frequent updates on ratings and reviews on a group and individual basis, and consistently low performing individuals or groups are addressed with training and counselling from management. Our focus is mainly on quality rather than quantity, but a call centre environment does demand a little bit of both.

 

[Wackyza]

Thanks. That answers my question. The quality of your support staff will then directly be dependent on the frequency at which your supervisors and managers pick from the hat. I think in such an environment, this process can be automated, or at least 3/4 of it. I develop solutions for a company, that do data gathering, analysis and optimization of specific things. What we do is unrelated to this problem but its just the concept. No to go too far off topic but I think investing in this could help your company a lot.

We have direct supervisors and managers working with the teams working with the teams and also randomly pulling calls and emails to check for quality of communication and whether solutions are correct and adequately communicated to clients. We then further have a Quality Assurance team who do this over the entire company, as well as responding to incidents where low ratings are received to ensure that we address serious lapses in service or communication with clients and individual team members.

We are focussing more and more on ongoing learning initiatives within the company, to encourage knowledge sharing and commitment to personal development on a group and individual basis.

Everyone within the team is given frequent updates on ratings and reviews on a group and individual basis, and consistently low performing individuals or groups are addressed with training and counselling from management. Our focus is mainly on quality rather than quantity, but a call centre environment does demand a little bit of both.

 

[AfriMan]

Thanks. That answers my question. The quality of your support staff will then directly be dependent on the frequency at which your supervisors and managers pick from the hat. I think in such an environment, this process can be automated, or at least 3/4 of it. I develop solutions for a company, that do data gathering, analysis and optimization of specific things. What we do is unrelated to this problem but its just the concept. No to go too far off topic but I think investing in this could help your company a lot.

I can definitely suggest that we look at this. I'm not directly involved with those processes so I don't know the extent to which they are already automated, but I do know our manager's and QA people do manage to pull a lot of data and give very specific feedback. Drop me a PM and maybe they can chat to you about what you can offer

 

[Wackyza]

I think at the end of the day you want your support mechanisms to run as optimally as possible. This counts for any type of business Thanks, I will do just that.

I do apologize for going off-topic . I hope Chillwabbitt and the Afrihost support staff has had some success today.

I can definitely suggest that we look at this. I'm not directly involved with those processes so I don't know the extent to which they are already automated, but I do know our manager's and QA people do manage to pull a lot of data and give very specific feedback. Drop me a PM and maybe they can chat to you about what you can offer

 

[Syco]

Afriman I hope that this post does not upset your sensibilities but I have previously posted about issues that I was having but gave up when requests to send tracerts etc. never led to any resolution of the problems. PM's and direct emails were ignored. Getting service from 'support' was a joke. I started with AH, back in the day, with a capped account which I switched to uncapped. I was delighted with the service I was getting and then the dreaded news came that you were switching to the MTN backbone. This didn't make sense as everything had been running so smoothly and my first thought was - I bet the Directors/owners are cozying up to a partner with very deep pockets in the hope that there would be a lucrative buy-out in the future. Things almost immediately started going wrong and I switched back to a capped account as I was promised that this would again give me awesome service. Unfortunately - not so. I mainly use the internet for streaming video as due to health issues I spend a lot of time in front of my TV. But this was hopeless with constant buffering and the attendant frustration that goes with that. (Doctor has told me to avoid stress!). AH kept 'guaranteeing' that streaming was never throttled ( I don't use the more PC term 'shaping' that you are so hell bent on ramming down our throats). You eventually admitted that you had capacity issues (we all knew that) and promised that when the updates came online all our problems would be over. What a joke! I needed a resolution so I paid someone, who knows a lot more than me about how things should work, to investigate the problems I was experiencing as I knew that you would blame Telkom and anybody else but yourselves and I wanted to be sure. I have always had decent service from Telkom and they have on occasion sent people to my house and every time they have satisfied me that there is no problem at their exchange with the finger pointing at my ISP! This is easily proved by simply trying another ISP (mainly WA which streamed perfectly). I decided to wait it out as the hassle of moving all my accounts was just too much and I always had the hope that AH would, one day, regain their glory. A while back I received an email from Mr Visser saying that another 54 people had been employed and trained to work manning the support phones. My immediate thought was great, but if you need to have a massive call centre to deal with queries/problems and mainly complaints then I wouldn't be boasting about it. Just taking the money that you are paying for their salaries for a year (several million) and using this to buy more capacity would probably negate having to employ them in the first place as your clients would experience much less in the way of 'issues' and have less reason to call in.
On a more positive note - I have seen a marked improvement in streaming over the past three weeks to the point where it is almost 'awesome'. (I am assuming that this may be due to the massive exodus of unhappy clients freeing up more bandwidth for others). There are certain times when there are hiccups (I am still unable to consistently stream in HD) but on the whole I am becoming more positive and hopefully this will continue so that I can once again go back to uncapped. I have certainly waited long enough
I am currently on a 10Mbs ADSL line in Cape Town and a 50GB AH capped account.

 

[Sinbad]

jesus. Paragraphs please?

 

[AfriMan]

Afriman I hope that this post does not upset your sensibilities but I have previously posted about issues that I was having but gave up when requests to send tracerts etc. never led to any resolution of the problems. PM's and direct emails were ignored. Getting service from 'support' was a joke. I started with AH, back in the day, with a capped account which I switched to uncapped. I was delighted with the service I was getting and then the dreaded news came that you were switching to the MTN backbone. This didn't make sense as everything had been running so smoothly and my first thought was - I bet the Directors/owners are cozying up to a partner with very deep pockets in the hope that there would be a lucrative buy-out in the future. Things almost immediately started going wrong and I switched back to a capped account as I was promised that this would again give me awesome service. Unfortunately - not so. I mainly use the internet for streaming video as due to health issues I spend a lot of time in front of my TV. But this was hopeless with constant buffering and the attendant frustration that goes with that. (Doctor has told me to avoid stress!). AH kept 'guaranteeing' that streaming was never throttled ( I don't use the more PC term 'shaping' that you are so hell bent on ramming down our throats). You eventually admitted that you had capacity issues (we all knew that) and promised that when the updates came online all our problems would be over. What a joke! I needed a resolution so I paid someone, who knows a lot more than me about how things should work, to investigate the problems I was experiencing as I knew that you would blame Telkom and anybody else but yourselves and I wanted to be sure. I have always had decent service from Telkom and they have on occasion sent people to my house and every time they have satisfied me that there is no problem at their exchange with the finger pointing at my ISP! This is easily proved by simply trying another ISP (mainly WA which streamed perfectly). I decided to wait it out as the hassle of moving all my accounts was just too much and I always had the hope that AH would, one day, regain their glory. A while back I received an email from Mr Visser saying that another 54 people had been employed and trained to work manning the support phones. My immediate thought was great, but if you need to have a massive call centre to deal with queries/problems and mainly complaints then I wouldn't be boasting about it. Just taking the money that you are paying for their salaries for a year (several million) and using this to buy more capacity would probably negate having to employ them in the first place as your clients would experience much less in the way of 'issues' and have less reason to call in.
On a more positive note - I have seen a marked improvement in streaming over the past three weeks to the point where it is almost 'awesome'. (I am assuming that this may be due to the massive exodus of unhappy clients freeing up more bandwidth for others). There are certain times when there are hiccups (I am still unable to consistently stream in HD) but on the whole I am becoming more positive and hopefully this will continue so that I can once again go back to uncapped. I have certainly waited long enough
I am currently on a 10Mbs ADSL line in Cape Town and a 50GB AH capped account.

Hi there

I appreciate the full account of your experience, definitely gives me a lot of food for thought. I just wanted to assure you that we do have a huge support team behind our offerings, and that is ever increasing as we offer more products and take on more clients.

I'm glad that service is improving. While MyBB may paint a certain picture, I can promise there is no mass exodus of clients, but we do have a dedicated network team continually testing and working to improve the network and all our client's experience.

Let's hope everything stays awesome

 

[Jar-man]

AfriMan, sorry I know this is the wrong thread. But can I use the bronze, R9 Web hosting package for hosting Word Press?

 

[AfriMan]

AfriMan, sorry I know this is the wrong thread. But can I use the bronze, R9 Web hosting package for hosting Word Press?

Yes you should be able to. WordPress is standard on Softaculous

 

[Orihalcon]

Update time.

Account has been with Critical Care for almost a month with no resolution in site. Asking direct questions are met with indirect answers and "I don't know" statements making me think the guys over there either don't know what's wrong, aren't allowed to tell me the truth or just hope the problem (me) will go away on its own. Neither option inspires confidence.

Tracert looks absolutely perfect.

C:\Users\Soul\Desktop>ping 105.236.5.1

Pinging 105.236.5.1 with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 105.236.5.1: bytes=32 time=10ms TTL=254
Reply from 105.236.5.1: bytes=32 time=10ms TTL=254
Reply from 105.236.5.1: bytes=32 time=10ms TTL=254
Reply from 105.236.5.1: bytes=32 time=10ms TTL=254

Ping statistics for 105.236.5.1:
    Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 10ms, Maximum = 10ms, Average = 10ms

C:\Users\Soul\Desktop>PAUSE
Press any key to continue . . .

C:\Users\Soul\Desktop>tracert google.com

Tracing route to google.com [74.125.230.227]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

  1     3 ms     2 ms     1 ms  192.168.0.1
  2     *        *        *     Request timed out.
  3    10 ms     8 ms     8 ms  105-236-5-1-esr-lo.mtnbusiness.co.za [105.236.5.1]
  4    10 ms     9 ms    10 ms  41.181.221.254
  5    10 ms    10 ms     9 ms  tb-dca-2.za--qux-a.za.mtnbusiness.net [41.181.184.28]
  6    11 ms    10 ms    10 ms  compj-cpt-1.mtnns.net [196.44.18.2]
  7   155 ms   155 ms   154 ms  ls-cr-2.uk--tb-cr-1.za.mtnns.net [196.44.31.113]
  8   177 ms   153 ms   153 ms  ls-pr-2.uk--ls-cr-2.uk-a.mtn.net [209.212.111.187]
  9   153 ms   154 ms   153 ms  rb-ad-1--glgix-bloemf-1-a.mtnns.net [209.212.99.13]
 10   153 ms   154 ms     *     209.85.255.78
 11   154 ms   154 ms   154 ms  209.85.250.169
 12   153 ms   163 ms   158 ms  lhr08s06-in-f3.1e100.net [74.125.230.227]

Trace complete.

C:\Users\Soul\Desktop>PAUSE
Press any key to continue . . .

Uncapped 4mb Home Account YouTube performance.

You can clearly see an arbitrary SET 250kB/s limit here on the bandwidth.




Capped Account YouTube performance.

Now here we see how the account is supposed to run. Full speed 450kB/s with more than enough to fully buffer 720p video.




@Afriman or @Afriguy

I am not paying for a 4mb account to have to watch non buffering video in 360p/480p. I'm doing it to watch in 720p. Your entire selling point for these Home accounts is that they are unshapped on realtime services. I've proven time and time again that this is in fact NOT the case and that the problem is with the account. If your support team is incapable of resolving the issue just tell me so I can go elsewhere to another ISP that does work (WA, MWEB or TI all work perfectly).

I hope to get a better and more precise response from you this time. I'm all for being polite and assisting in running tests. However continuously paying for a service that is not delivering with no resolution in sight is, well, pathetic quite frankly. You cannot expect customers to put up with this and nor should we. And yes, my patience is wearing thin and with it my polite demeanour.

Hope to hear from you soon.

 

[AfriMan]

Update time.

Account has been with Critical Care for almost a month with no resolution in site. Asking direct questions are met with indirect answers and "I don't know" statements making me think the guys over there either don't know what's wrong, aren't allowed to tell me the truth or just hope the problem (me) will go away on its own. Neither option inspires confidence.

Tracert looks absolutely perfect.

C:\Users\Soul\Desktop>ping 105.236.5.1

Pinging 105.236.5.1 with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 105.236.5.1: bytes=32 time=10ms TTL=254
Reply from 105.236.5.1: bytes=32 time=10ms TTL=254
Reply from 105.236.5.1: bytes=32 time=10ms TTL=254
Reply from 105.236.5.1: bytes=32 time=10ms TTL=254

Ping statistics for 105.236.5.1:
    Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 10ms, Maximum = 10ms, Average = 10ms

C:\Users\Soul\Desktop>PAUSE
Press any key to continue . . .

C:\Users\Soul\Desktop>tracert google.com

Tracing route to google.com [74.125.230.227]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

  1     3 ms     2 ms     1 ms  192.168.0.1
  2     *        *        *     Request timed out.
  3    10 ms     8 ms     8 ms  105-236-5-1-esr-lo.mtnbusiness.co.za [105.236.5.1]
  4    10 ms     9 ms    10 ms  41.181.221.254
  5    10 ms    10 ms     9 ms  tb-dca-2.za--qux-a.za.mtnbusiness.net [41.181.184.28]
  6    11 ms    10 ms    10 ms  compj-cpt-1.mtnns.net [196.44.18.2]
  7   155 ms   155 ms   154 ms  ls-cr-2.uk--tb-cr-1.za.mtnns.net [196.44.31.113]
  8   177 ms   153 ms   153 ms  ls-pr-2.uk--ls-cr-2.uk-a.mtn.net [209.212.111.187]
  9   153 ms   154 ms   153 ms  rb-ad-1--glgix-bloemf-1-a.mtnns.net [209.212.99.13]
 10   153 ms   154 ms     *     209.85.255.78
 11   154 ms   154 ms   154 ms  209.85.250.169
 12   153 ms   163 ms   158 ms  lhr08s06-in-f3.1e100.net [74.125.230.227]

Trace complete.

C:\Users\Soul\Desktop>PAUSE
Press any key to continue . . .

Uncapped 4mb Home Account YouTube performance.

You can clearly see an arbitrary SET 250kB/s limit here on the bandwidth.




Capped Account YouTube performance.

Now here we see how the account is supposed to run. Full speed 450kB/s with more than enough to fully buffer 720p video.




@Afriman or @Afriguy

I am not paying for a 4mb account to have to watch non buffering video in 360p/480p. I'm doing it to watch in 720p. Your entire selling point for these Home accounts is that they are unshapped on realtime services. I've proven time and time again that this is in fact NOT the case and that the problem is with the account. If your support team is incapable of resolving the issue just tell me so I can go elsewhere to another ISP that does work (WA, MWEB or TI all work perfectly).

I hope to get a better and more precise response from you this time. I'm all for being polite and assisting in running tests. However continuously paying for a service that is not delivering with no resolution in sight is, well, pathetic quite frankly. You cannot expect customers to put up with this and nor should we. And yes, my patience is wearing thin and with it my polite demeanour.

Hope to hear from you soon.

I'll check in with the guys as to where all the testing is going. If we've followed every step and we cannot get this to work, then we should definitely be straight and transparent about it. I do know from my own testing that 720p is possible on a shaped 4Mbps account. But I will speak to the guys to ensure that we give you straight, no-nonsense feedback.