Afrihost Uncapped ADSL Feedback

[Raindupon]

Hi Guys

Seems like we didn't get to open up shaping as much as we wanted to last night. Speeds would have improved this morning, but we are trying to give as much as we can. Sorry about that, we have found the issue and fixed it. I'm also monitoring from my own account and I'm getting a better idea of what the experience is like. We also need to troubleshoot extensively because results seem to be mixed now. Everyone should be getting a good browsing & streaming experience, even if you're downloads are shaped.

I just want to follow up a few comments, and the experience of a particularly disgruntled ex-client who has been asked to leave this thread by MyBB. At the end of the day, I'm here to help, not to tell you that what you're experiencing doesn't exist or that we don't care. It's the opposite, I'm always available to help, and I read through the feedback I get and compare to my own experience to see if there are general issues, or if we need to see what's happening on your side.

Don't post awful and offensive stuff, especially at each other, or spam our social media - it makes it harder to engage with you and just makes it that much longer and more difficult to find a way to help you and give you what you need. I can 100% promise you that as soon as you raise an issue with me, it's going to be dealt with, and I'll follow up your support queries and complaints if you're not getting an answer. Ever notice what happens when you're in a shop and someone is shouting at a shop assistant? Two things - the shop assistant goes dumb and stops trying to help, and the other customers start looking at their shoes and waiting for the person to finish their rant and leave so they can carry on with their purchases. Please, please don't be THAT person. Be the person who's pleasant and cordial, but authoritative, and I'll bet you'll end up walking out with what you want plus a whole lot of stuff you didn't even ask for. Anyone can PM me at any time, and I'm always open to listening to what you suggest to get your issues sorted quickly.

That's just my 2c - Use / Don't Use

By the way, in case you haven't heard - we're launching something pretty awesome today, so keep your eyes open. We'll announce everything on Facebook and Twitter, and I'll post everything here as well later in the day.

Nicely said Afriman,

While I have had my ups and downs in terms of line speed, I understand that things are a little chaotic at the moment! I don't understand how constantly spouting negativity in the forums is going to help anything, Rome wasn't built in a day comes to mind. Afrihost gave us brilliant service on the IS network and I'm sure that if we give them some time they will do the same on the MTN network.

While this is only my opinion, I'm sure these guys are giving it everything they got to get everything working 100%, we are only a hand full of Afrihost's clients in MyBB, can you only imagine how many other hundreds and thousands of people are calling the call centre and leaving messages on FB and Twitter.

So in closing i just want to say thanks Afriman for the constant updates, and i know for a fact that that even some managers and directors where getting there hands dirty to try and resolve the issues on the network, thanks for everything and keep up the good work.

 

[jannier]

Not good today, speed is all over the place.

International


Local

 

[The_Unbeliever]

Should be interesting to see what Afrihost will pull off today

 

[ainsin]

I've done 10.3GB over the last 10 days, and I am still being throttled to a quarter of my line/account speed, so I really don't think data usage has anything to do with it - everyone just gets a quarter of their advertised speed.

I've done about the same amount in 10 days, And I can't get a download speed above 55kbps. I tested with an Openweb trial account, and I get full line speed (420kbps), so its not my line. But apparently I've been abusing my account, so I'll have to deal with the consequences.

 

[Necuno]

Sounds good. It must be quite a challenge to do it again from the ground up. I guess that the only thing that people wanted to avoid is being used unwillingly as testers. I don't mind to help out, but I can understand the frustration.

Hi Guys

Seems like we didn't get to open up shaping as much as we wanted to last night. Speeds would have improved this morning, but we are trying to give as much as we can. Sorry about that, we have found the issue and fixed it. I'm also monitoring from my own account and I'm getting a better idea of what the experience is like. We also need to troubleshoot extensively because results seem to be mixed now. Everyone should be getting a good browsing & streaming experience, even if you're downloads are shaped.

I just want to follow up a few comments, and the experience of a particularly disgruntled ex-client who has been asked to leave this thread by MyBB. At the end of the day, I'm here to help, not to tell you that what you're experiencing doesn't exist or that we don't care. It's the opposite, I'm always available to help, and I read through the feedback I get and compare to my own experience to see if there are general issues, or if we need to see what's happening on your side.

Don't post awful and offensive stuff, especially at each other, or spam our social media - it makes it harder to engage with you and just makes it that much longer and more difficult to find a way to help you and give you what you need. I can 100% promise you that as soon as you raise an issue with me, it's going to be dealt with, and I'll follow up your support queries and complaints if you're not getting an answer. Ever notice what happens when you're in a shop and someone is shouting at a shop assistant? Two things - the shop assistant goes dumb and stops trying to help, and the other customers start looking at their shoes and waiting for the person to finish their rant and leave so they can carry on with their purchases. Please, please don't be THAT person. Be the person who's pleasant and cordial, but authoritative, and I'll bet you'll end up walking out with what you want plus a whole lot of stuff you didn't even ask for. Anyone can PM me at any time, and I'm always open to listening to what you suggest to get your issues sorted quickly.

That's just my 2c - Use / Don't Use

By the way, in case you haven't heard - we're launching something pretty awesome today, so keep your eyes open. We'll announce everything on Facebook and Twitter, and I'll post everything here as well later in the day.

 

[Zewp]

Eh, I don't know. If it was me I'd just have left Afrihost and went over to someone who can actually provide proper uncapped. Afrihost is making a valiant effort, but to have these issues for so long would simply frustrate the hell out of me. A quarter line speed for weeks on end is nothing to laugh at.

Understand it from a consumer's perspective. Your client's are not your buddies. They pay you for a service, and if that service is absolutely rubbish they're going to complain and move on. Most of them are not going to stick around because they understand the trouble you're having, or because they feel sorry for you.

At least the other ISPs are benefiting from this. People seem to be leaving Afrihost in droves to move to other, working uncapped solutions.

 

[TelkomUseless]

I've done 10.3GB over the last 10 days, and I am still being throttled to a quarter of my line/account speed, so I really don't think data usage has anything to do with it - everyone just gets a quarter of their advertised speed.

I'm seeing the same.

 

[Loopin]

80GB done this month and 50KBps on a 4mb line.

 

[AfriMan]

DO you think Clientzone would be able to have some kind of realtime indication of capacity, so we can easily see whether the network is under load which would explain possible performance issues?

I don't know whether our management would be keen on that, it just opens up the system to abusers, and things may just get out of control.

It would be great to have some level of reporting, but it would also require accountability from users who are not behaving responsibly.

 

[Sinbad]

I don't know whether our management would be keen on that, it just opens up the system to abusers, and things may just get out of control.

It would be great to have some level of reporting, but it would also require accountability from users who are not behaving responsibly.

It doesn't need to be specific... Could just be like those Eskom ads... "Our bandwidth usage is critical, so we are managing throughput and you will probably experience reduced speeds", or "Everything is green, quick grab that freeBSD distro because according to our records you already have every linux distro ever conceived"

 

[AfriMan]

Eh, I don't know. If it was me I'd just have left Afrihost and went over to someone who can actually provide proper uncapped. Afrihost is making a valiant effort, but to have these issues for so long would simply frustrate the hell out of me. A quarter line speed for weeks on end is nothing to laugh at.

Understand it from a consumer's perspective. Your client's are not your buddies. They pay you for a service, and if that service is absolutely rubbish they're going to complain and move on. Most of them are not going to stick around because they understand the trouble you're having, or because they feel sorry for you.

At least the other ISPs are benefiting from this. People seem to be leaving Afrihost in droves to move to other, working uncapped solutions.

I disagree. We've had less cancellations now than we had with our last month on IS, when IPC ran out and speeds were just awful.

We know there's a problem (and we've been very forthcoming about it), and of course we'd like everyone to stay with us, but in general our ADSL client base is still growing. I understand that some people want to believe that Afrihost is headed fro disaster for whatever reasons, but it just isn't the case.

The majority of our users are not heavy downloaders, they just need to get their email when they need it, browse websites without making a cup of coffee in between pages loading, maybe they make the occasional skype call or have kids who do some gaming. And in general these clients are happy, they get what they want when they need it.

I'm not denying anyone's experience, but if we're speaking generally here ...

 

[eddief1]

It doesn't need to be specific... Could just be like those Eskom ads... "Our bandwidth usage is critical, so we are managing throughput and you will probably experience reduced speeds", or "Everything is green, quick grab that freeBSD distro because according to our records you already have every linux distro ever conceived"

but you missing the point Sinbad, that notice will be up nearly all day long because they don't have enough capacity that's why they aggressive on the QOS in the first place.

 

[AfriMan]

Guys

We need to move our thinking away from rolling windows and thresholds. It's never going to work like that, or at least not for now.

We assess the capacity, we look at usage trends, averages, projections and all sorts of things, and we try to be fair in how we shape various clients.

Lots of clients being more heavily shaped should now get some relief, and very heavy downloaders should be feeling the pinch more as we move things around for the best overall (and most fair) shaped experience. Rolling window thresholds are not going to apply, but no matter how your downloads are shaped, everything else should be working at basically full speed (if there are no other infrastructure or strange issues). We believe this is a better way, and when we can fine tune it to the point we envision, we think it will be the best ADSL service we've been talking about.

 

[new_in_za2]

The majority of our users are not heavy downloaders, they just need to get their email when they need it, browse websites without making a cup of coffee in between pages loading, maybe they make the occasional skype call or have kids who do some gaming. And in general these clients are happy, they get what they want when they need it.

I don't consider myself a heavy downloader. However, I have a 2Mbps line because _when_ I need something online, I don't want to have to wait 15 minutes to download that technical PDF I need to continue with my work. I don't want to have to wait 30 minutes when I need to download that program I need to continue my work. I don't want to have to wait 2 hours when I need to download a dataset created by someone else which I need for my work.

The current setup you have punishes everyone for what a few people do. The only way it seems I can actually use my 2Mbps ADSL line is to order a 8Mbps ADSL account from Afrihost. 25% of 8Mbps will match my line speed, and I will be able to download the things I need at line speed the times when I do need it, without having to wait 4 times as long because you think some people download too much.

The fact that these accounts are sold as X Mbps but only actually give X/4 Mbps is exactly the problem. I understand that ADSL in South Africa is ****ed thanks to Telkom, but if you know your customers are only going to get 1/4th of the bandwidth due to Telkom/bandwidth limits, then I really think you should rename your products. It really isn't fair to sell it as a 2Mbps account when in reality it is only 512kbps. That is the problem.

 

[Sinbad]

but you missing the point Sinbad, that notice will be up nearly all day long because they don't have enough capacity that's why they aggressive on the QOS in the first place.

My flat out line speed downloads last night say that perhaps your information may be incorrect.

 

[wingnut771]

My flat out line speed downloads last night say that perhaps your information may be incorrect.

Ja, only after 2am

 

[HapticSimian]

Guys

We need to move our thinking away from rolling windows and thresholds. It's never going to work like that, or at least not for now.

We assess the capacity, we look at usage trends, averages, projections and all sorts of things, and we try to be fair in how we shape various clients.

Lots of clients being more heavily shaped should now get some relief, and very heavy downloaders should be feeling the pinch more as we move things around for the best overall (and most fair) shaped experience. Rolling window thresholds are not going to apply, but no matter how your downloads are shaped, everything else should be working at basically full speed (if there are no other infrastructure or strange issues). We believe this is a better way, and when we can fine tune it to the point we envision, we think it will be the best ADSL service we've been talking about.

I think the bottom line is this: We, the minority who do actually download some stuff every now and again, would rather see our lines function like they did in the past. Whether you manage that with thresholds or with dynamic shaping is, to the end-user, irrelevant.

Your attempts to conserve throughput during the last days and weeks have been a lot of things, but 'fair' hasn't been one of them. As long as that changes for the better, reliably, we'll be happy.

*edit*

Not to say that the situation hasn't improved steadily. I just hope the trend continues.

 

[kripstoe]

We assess the capacity, we look at usage trends, averages, projections and all sorts of things, and we try to be fair in how we shape various clients.

Lots of clients being more heavily shaped should now get some relief, and very heavy downloaders should be feeling the pinch more as we move things around for the best overall (and most fair) shaped experience. Rolling window thresholds are not going to apply, but no matter how your downloads are shaped, everything else should be working at basically full speed (if there are no other infrastructure or strange issues). We believe this is a better way, and when we can fine tune it to the point we envision, we think it will be the best ADSL service we've been talking about.

So in addition to what Sinbad asked about being able to see network under stress or something similar in ClientZone... from the above ("how we shape various clients" and "heavy downloaders") it seems that there is something that can be looked at (would be nice to have in ClientZone) to see how one is shaped at any point in time? Or am I reading too much into this as it happens dynamically? Even an indication of what services are shaped at any point would be nice.

As an example, when I fire up Youtube it would start playing, buffer quite nicely for a while and then data seems to drop off until playback reaches the buffered end and then stops. Buffer nicely again, and go dead again. Rinse, repeat. My gut tells me it's a very reactive type of shaping policy that allows bursts of data. Works for browsing sites. Not so well for streaming.

 

[kripstoe]

Sounds good. It must be quite a challenge to do it again from the ground up. I guess that the only thing that people wanted to avoid is being used unwillingly as testers. I don't mind to help out, but I can understand the frustration.

Yes, that. I don't mind testing if I know it will make a difference for the better. But I cannot just test, as sometimes I have to do actual work using my connection also. Then I do not want a test line.

 

[AfriMan]

I don't consider myself a heavy downloader. However, I have a 2Mbps line because _when_ I need something online, I don't want to have to wait 15 minutes to download that technical PDF I need to continue with my work. I don't want to have to wait 30 minutes when I need to download that program I need to continue my work. I don't want to have to wait 2 hours when I need to download a dataset created by someone else which I need for my work.

The current setup you have punishes everyone for what a few people do. The only way it seems I can actually use my 2Mbps ADSL line is to order a 8Mbps ADSL account from Afrihost. 25% of 8Mbps will match my line speed, and I will be able to download the things I need at line speed the times when I do need it, without having to wait 4 times as long because you think some people download too much.

The fact that these accounts are sold as X Mbps but only actually give X/4 Mbps is exactly the problem. I understand that ADSL in South Africa is ****ed thanks to Telkom, but if you know your customers are only going to get 1/4th of the bandwidth due to Telkom/bandwidth limits, then I really think you should rename your products. It really isn't fair to sell it as a 2Mbps account when in reality it is only 512kbps. That is the problem.

We did punish everyone initially, that's true. It was not ideal and it maybe comes down to us not having the right experience or sufficient data to have planned this properly. But from today, and moving forward, based on the feedback from international experts who have implemented shaping for other local and overseas ISP's, we are moving towards a better policy implementation.

Also remember that we're talking about a shaped product. Bandwidth on demand is capped, not uncapped, and we're trying to give uncapped users as close to the unshaped experience as we can without breaking the network. If browsing is at full line speed, and so is streaming or gaming, I think it's getting towards a good uncapped experience.