Afrihost Uncapped ADSL Feedback (Pt3)

Status
Not open for further replies.
AfriMan said:
This is in our AUP, but basically this is part of Uncapped being a shaped service (or semi-shaped since it is not permanently shaped)
Click to expand...
Sure - hidden away in the small print! Is this ever likely to change? As I have said before, I would love to be able to switch back to uncapped.
BTW as usual, at the end of the month, streaming on my capped account has ground virtually to a halt, since yesterday. Still have about 20Gigs on my account. End of month trying to save unused bandwidth and increase profitability? Strange thing - when I switch to test account on another ISP - WA everything runs smoothly. I rely on streaming for entertainment as I am currently housebound due to health reasons. I haven't yet kicked my beloved dog or shouted at my dear wife from shear frustration, but am fast getting close to that point. Hope that things will improve tomorrow when the new cycle starts.
 
Raysmith said:
Sure - hidden away in the small print! Is this ever likely to change? As I have said before, I would love to be able to switch back to uncapped.
BTW as usual, at the end of the month, streaming on my capped account has ground virtually to a halt, since yesterday. Still have about 20Gigs on my account. End of month trying to save unused bandwidth and increase profitability? Strange thing - when I switch to test account on another ISP - WA everything runs smoothly. I rely on streaming for entertainment as I am currently housebound due to health reasons. I haven't yet kicked my beloved dog or shouted at my dear wife from shear frustration, but am fast getting close to that point. Hope that things will improve tomorrow when the new cycle starts.
Click to expand...

We're very open about how we shape and what gets shaped.
 
Same problems at Axxess - been a problem for over a week now, they keep saying it is due to iOS-8 updates, I say nonsense as then other SP would also be suffering, switched to Vox and am enjoying uninterrupted speeds and pleasurable internet again. Something is very wrong with Axxess & Afrihost - not clever enough in these matters but I suspect both use MTN and that's where it issue is. Luckily we are no longer tied into yearly contracts so my suggesting is to cancel and move until they fix whatever is wrong and then decide if you want to move back. The only way we as consumers can do anything is by voting with our wallets, this will force businesses into open and honest business practices.
 
Afrihost keeps blaming Telkom exchanges for congestion, but I'm
gonna stand up for Telkom and say there is no congestion.. the
problem without a doubt lies with their MTN network. Any
traceroute will show you that.

Why do you need to shape or throttle at all? Even if everyone ran P2P torrents all day, you should be able to handle it. Clearly this is an indication that your capacity is lacking? Us users should take you guys to court. We will win.
 
Dear Afrihost, WTF is going on with your networks. I am on uncapped business yet my speeds suck, you say you don't throttle, but I am convinced you don't! Now that you guys are big you don't give a crap about us as the customer. You are just like all the other service providers. My little bit of money means nothing to you!!!

So unfair!

Why cant service providers give us what we came for? You don't give a crap, cause so many people have the same problem! Crap speeds and lies from you!!! Now that you are big, you don't care if people leave, cause it does not effect you enough!
 
FRacTuR3 said:
Same problems at Axxess - been a problem for over a week now, they keep saying it is due to iOS-8 updates, I say nonsense as then other SP would also be suffering, switched to Vox and am enjoying uninterrupted speeds and pleasurable internet again. Something is very wrong with Axxess & Afrihost - not clever enough in these matters but I suspect both use MTN and that's where it issue is. Luckily we are no longer tied into yearly contracts so my suggesting is to cancel and move until they fix whatever is wrong and then decide if you want to move back. The only way we as consumers can do anything is by voting with our wallets, this will force businesses into open and honest business practices.
Click to expand...

There definitely was an unusually big spike in demand when iOS8 was released. Definitely not a coincidence. Also, demand subsided substantially over the follow week or so, but spiked again when iOS8.02 was released, so there definitely does seem to be a correlation. We'll keep investigating options and looking at how we can manage the network better to ensure the best performance in these instances. It's also the nature of Apple updates that don't allow caching and also resuming failed downloads that seem to affect our network more than other OS updates :(
 
gorgamin said:
Afrihost keeps blaming Telkom exchanges for congestion, but I'm
gonna stand up for Telkom and say there is no congestion.. the
problem without a doubt lies with their MTN network. Any
traceroute will show you that.

Why do you need to shape or throttle at all? Even if everyone ran P2P torrents all day, you should be able to handle it. Clearly this is an indication that your capacity is lacking? Us users should take you guys to court. We will win.
Click to expand...

I know that our network is probably not showing its best right now, but it also doesn't mean that all other day to day issues are not present like congestion, faulty lines or router problems. It's really important that we always troubleshoot every issue so that we do resolve issues that could be fixed now, rather than wait for the network to improve only to find that your DSL is still not what it should be :(
 
AfriMan said:
I know that our network is probably not showing its best right now, but it also doesn't mean that all other day to day issues are not present like congestion, faulty lines or router problems. It's really important that we always troubleshoot every issue so that we do resolve issues that could be fixed now, rather than wait for the network to improve only to find that your DSL is still not what it should be :(
Click to expand...

Dude, please stop the bs. Go read all threads about AH..
 
jeinnor30 said:
Dear Afrihost, WTF is going on with your networks. I am on uncapped business yet my speeds suck, you say you don't throttle, but I am convinced you don't! Now that you guys are big you don't give a crap about us as the customer. You are just like all the other service providers. My little bit of money means nothing to you!!!

So unfair!

Why cant service providers give us what we came for? You don't give a crap, cause so many people have the same problem! Crap speeds and lies from you!!! Now that you are big, you don't care if people leave, cause it does not effect you enough!
Click to expand...

We definitely care about our clients. Nothing that we do would be possible without the support of our clients and ultimately the only route to success is keeping our clients happy and giving our clients good value and a great internet and service experience. I can promise that this is always our highest priority.

Our technical director and his team are dedicating themselves to working on this as highest priority and doing whatever they can in the short term to improve the current performance issues.
 
Type RSA said:
Dude, please stop the bs. Go read all threads about AH..
Click to expand...

I actually do read all the threads, deal directly with many clients who ultimately do have other issues. I probably deal with 30-50 clients a day, if not more. Not to mention the reports I receive from other social media channels, our support centre and technical teams.

So that's my experience anyway.
 
AfriMan said:
I actually do read all the threads, deal directly with many clients who ultimately do have other issues. I probably deal with 30-50 clients a day, if not more. Not to mention the reports I receive from other social media channels, our support centre and technical teams.

So that's my experience anyway.
Click to expand...

It is just very strange mate. At 12am this morning everything went back to normal. So are you telling me that everyone in SA stopped doing whatever the hell they were doing at 12am and then all was fine and dandy? We aint stupid bud...
 
Type RSA said:
It is just very strange mate. At 12am this morning everything went back to normal. So are you telling me that everyone in SA stopped doing whatever the hell they were doing at 12am and then all was fine and dandy? We aint stupid bud...
Click to expand...

I can only report on the facts that I have. If you disagree with my interpretation of that data, I'm definitely open to other theories. I'm not saying that there are no network issues that need to be addressed, and I promise we are doing that. I'm simply saying that it doesn't mean that routers stop failing and exchanges stop being congested. It may not be the bulk of the issues, but it's important to troubleshoot so that clients affected by those issues are not given a generic answer and we try to give assistance in those instances where we can.
 
AfriMan said:
I can only report on the facts that I have. If you disagree with my interpretation of that data, I'm definitely open to other theories. I'm not saying that there are no network issues that need to be addressed, and I promise we are doing that. I'm simply saying that it doesn't mean that routers stop failing and exchanges stop being congested. It may not be the bulk of the issues, but it's important to troubleshoot so that clients affected by those issues are not given a generic answer and we try to give assistance in those instances where we can.
Click to expand...

I agree 100%, but when you look at the forum and see that people across home uncapped, capped and business uncapped are complaining about the same thing then I think routers etc can be excluded from the investigation. But anywho, not arguing just frustrating to pay for something that gives so much crap lately. Not the AH I know..
 
Type RSA said:
It is just very strange mate. At 12am this morning everything went back to normal. So are you telling me that everyone in SA stopped doing whatever the hell they were doing at 12am and then all was fine and dandy? We aint stupid bud...
Click to expand...

You don't have to be a genius to figure it out. Its simple. Think like a company. AH bought xGB for September, and they were over what they were supposed to use so were being charged at a higher rate. This is bad for business so throttling gets implemented to ensure the bandwith usage isn't too much over (or something to this effect).

At 12AM they roll over to a new month, everything is clear again as per the contracts they have and it all starts up again until we near the end of the month again. Im sure they have contracts on how much capacity they can use just like their customers do.

It might not be exactly like that, but probably something similar to that.
 
Doesn't work like that. ISP's don't buy traffic, they buy capacity.
 
Type RSA said:
I agree 100%, but when you look at the forum and see that people across home uncapped, capped and business uncapped are complaining about the same thing then I think routers etc can be excluded from the investigation. But anywho, not arguing just frustrating to pay for something that gives so much crap lately. Not the AH I know..
Click to expand...

Again, not saying that everyone's routers are broken. But if we tell every client that the network is broken, please call us later, the one or more clients who actually have a router problem or a line issue will actually not benefit from help they could get immediately. I know it may seem painful, but the best service we can give every client is to always troubleshoot so that we can assist wherever possible or at least confirm that they are affected by a general issue.
 
Pete_A said:
You don't have to be a genius to figure it out. Its simple. Think like a company. AH bought xGB for September, and they were over what they were supposed to use so were being charged at a higher rate. This is bad for business so throttling gets implemented to ensure the bandwith usage isn't too much over (or something to this effect).

At 12AM they roll over to a new month, everything is clear again as per the contracts they have and it all starts up again until we near the end of the month again. Im sure they have contracts on how much capacity they can use just like their customers do.

It might not be exactly like that, but probably something similar to that.
Click to expand...

It doesn't quite work like that (as Sinbad mentioned) we purchase capacity to enable traffic to break out of Telkom's network, which is IPC, and then we pay per GB used. There is never a limit imposed on how much traffic we can use in total, just on how much traffic can be routed out of Telkom's network at any given point in time. If you think of it like a road or a highway, to increase the capacity of a highway is not an overnight or easy solution, and you also can't easily widen and then narrow a road when you don't need the capacity anymore. Similarly with IPC, ISPs have to very careful to ensure that when IPC is increased that they do the required business case research and planning that the upgrade is definitely required and is financially and practically viable.
 
I'd still honestly love to know what's driving this capacity shortage. It seems to have been a DRAMATIC, sustained demand increase. I feel like I must be missing out on something!
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X