Afrihost Uncapped ADSL Feedback

[ClintonExsteen]

for a change i seem to be fine, just throughput is on the low side

Test conducted on 13 March 2013 18:00
Download Speed: 1655 kbps (206.9 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 401 kbps (50.1 KB/sec transfer rate)
Latency: 173 ms

 

[kissingmybbgoodbye]

for a change i seem to be fine, just throughput is on the low side

Test conducted on 13 March 2013 18:00
Download Speed: 1655 kbps (206.9 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 401 kbps (50.1 KB/sec transfer rate)
Latency: 173 ms

Same here it is authenticating again, but speed is about a 3rd lower as what it used to be. On my FNB Connect it is flying, but Afrihost is about a 3rd slower

 

[PsyWulf]

I wish my afrihost account was a third slower

Throughput is roughly 8KB/s

Everybody catching up with their daily pr0ns making it nearly unusable

But tis all good,my Webafrica and FNB are fine

 

[OMB]

@Gary Waterworth don't worry, his really high up ;-) in the company so if anyone can get you sorted, it is AfriMan .

unfortunately if they were more organised we shouldn't have to bypass their call centre to have to deal with someone high up

currently I'm starting to view AH as an ISP in tail spin since the MTN move with no sign of them pulling out of the nose dive

after the disastrous way today has been handled and what it cost me I'm seriously considering moving to another ISP

 

[AfriMan]

I am interested to know why you are the only ISP having a backlog of authentication requests when you have an IPC outage. I do not recall ever seeing it happening with MWEB, SAIX or even IS. Just do not blame this on SAIX because they are a mere proxy for the authentication requests. SAIX uses the same proxies for all DSL clients out there and they are coping just fine.

Did you guys not do DR testing with your radius environment before cutting over in 2012 to MTN. It is not that difficult to simulate thousands of access-requests per second in order to determine if your back-end can cope with the demand. To me it sounds like your back-end database (hopefully databases) are struggling to cope with the amount of authorization requests required.

Do you guys not know how many requests per second your database should be able to handle and then expand accordingly? This is not the first time that you had this particular problem. Do you not learn from your previous mistakes?

Just pondering.

Michael

This is possibly a question best directed at more senior people within MTN and our Dev department, but I can tell you that it's a very complex setup and the guys who run it are some of the smartest people around. As far as we know they use international standards and best practices, and the equipment used is the very top of the range. I think there are very few technical people who can really deal with the level of complexity of these issues, and the guys from MTN are some of the very best. I do understand that it may seem overly simple to some, but I am confident that this is not due to oversight or negligence on their part, and when we look at their level of passion and commitment when jumping into solve these issues, we know we've chosen a good partner.

My take on it, anyway

 

[AfriMan]

Sent him a pm a bit earlier ...

Opened a web ticket asking why the prev ticket ( included number ) was shown as resolved and that ticket is also now showing as resolved...

Seriously , I just shake my head at them..

I saw your PM in my inbox. Will get to it ASAP, promise

 

[AfriMan]

Had to disconnect earlier due to lightning and now can't get back online (FNB to rescue) .. Afrihost this is becoming PATHETIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Every month there are are at least 4-6 days where Afrihost is down or provides incredible slow connectivity... Most of the time I can't even be bothered to call the call center anymore.. Just tried it this afternoon though.. You're caller number 22 waiting in the line... DISGUSTED!!!!

Sorry that you're having such a poor experience. We know there have been issues, and that can skew your perception of us. We want to assure you that our directors and management are well aware of the impact this has on clients. We are confident that we can bed down these issues, and that Afrihost clients will benefit from our long terms plans.

 

[AfriMan]

OK, I've got the auth error as well, I've been trying to figure it out and I think I can see what has happened

With the new MTN ips have been starting with 105.* (I need to give myself network access every now and then). My ip is now resolving to 41.*

Looks like it's trying to put us on the old IS network or something (not a network expert here, but it's my guess)

I live in capetown, perhaps this is because of the hardware failure this weekend and the new stuff isnt configured correctly?

(3 major blackouts form afrihost in a week... maybe it is time to move to a more stable network)

We definitely not routing you back to IS. We have several ranges with MTN, and we do have a 41* range

 

[eltherza]

Something is not right, download is slower than upload

Afrihost uncapped:
Test conducted on 13 March 2013 07:07:12 PM
Download Speed: 195 kbps (24.4 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 348 kbps (43.5 KB/sec transfer rate)
Latency: 152 ms

Web africa 1 GB
Download Speed: 4187 kbps (523.4 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 416 kbps (52 KB/sec transfer rate)
Latency: 58 ms

 

[HapticSimian]

This is possibly a question best directed at more senior people within MTN and our Dev department, but I can tell you that it's a very complex setup and the guys who run it are some of the smartest people around. As far as we know they use international standards and best practices, and the equipment used is the very top of the range. I think there are very few technical people who can really deal with the level of complexity of these issues, and the guys from MTN are some of the very best. I do understand that it may seem overly simple to some, but I am confident that this is not due to oversight or negligence on their part, and when we look at their level of passion and commitment when jumping into solve these issues, we know we've chosen a good partner.

My take on it, anyway

I don't think that answer suffices, AfriDude. You have paying customers suffering to some degree ever since you started your migration to MTN.

You had a CATASTROPHIC failure today that, frankly, just shouldn't happen. Why did it happen? Why is it still, after almost 12 hours, not completely resolved (32kB/s on my 4 meg line at present)? What steps will be taken to ensure the situation doesn't repeat?

I fully respect that this question is "best directed at more senior people within MTN and [your] Dev department" but I want to stress that, as a paying customer who is not technologically illiterate, I expect that to not just be lip service. I would love for you to pose that question to the relevant people, and for Afrihost to send a communiqué to their subscribers explaining the matter.

You cannot expect your good name to carry you much further - we all have our breaking points.

 

[diepeterpan]

I am having some name resolution problems - says *.asuscomm.com does not exist, yet google's public domain servers resolve them. Then I can't access Gmail on IMAP. Aaaaaarrrgggh.

Update: OMG, I am downloading at 15% of my connection speed. So what is the thruth? Obviously this is not just authentication problems.

 

[Zyzzyva]

I don't think that answer suffices, AfriDude. You have paying customers suffering to some degree ever since you started your migration to MTN.

You had a CATASTROPHIC failure today that, frankly, just shouldn't happen. Why did it happen? Why is it still, after almost 12 hours, not completely resolved (32kB/s on my 4 meg line at present)? What steps will be taken to ensure the situation doesn't repeat?

I fully respect that this question is "best directed at more senior people within MTN and [your] Dev department" but I want to stress that, as a paying customer who is not technologically illiterate, I expect that to not just be lip service. I would love for you to pose that question to the relevant people, and for Afrihost to send a communiqué to their subscribers explaining the matter.

You cannot expect your good name to carry you much further - we all have our breaking points.

well said

 

[AfriMan]

It sounds like our guys are very close to a solution. We've implemented some changes on one of the network nodes and this has been successful. We're replicating the change across the network, and we expect good results - so far the results are very promising.

Will keep everyone updated.

 

[MrGray]

Still haven't made 24hrs of unborked proper Interwebs this week... and maybe the best stretch since the IPC was 72hrs of proper service.

It's a complete joke.

The best I can say is that between 6am and 5pm I can sometimes get > 3mbps (if you can authenticate, the IPC hasn't fallen over, the international links are operational and Telkom's ADSL infrastructure isn't in partial collapse), but the one constant is that, come what may, every night max speed is 0.8mbps.

 

[diepeterpan]

Thx for the update AfriMan. Keep the updates coming

 

[Hummercellc]

If you look around all Backbones are having major issues.

IS, MTN, SAIX, Mweb to name a few, every single one has problems, the common denominator = TELKOM.......

 

[diepeterpan]

Thx for the update AfriMan. Keep the updates coming

WTF, now the AfriHost site says the problem is gone and fixed. Huh, why am I still getting only 15% of my connection speed and can't connect to Gmail's IMAP? Anybody else having similar problem, speed and name resolution connecting to Gmail's IMAP?

 

[AfriMan]

Looks like all is resolved. Seeing normal authentication and traffic is picking up to normal levels again.

Thanks everyone for your patience and understanding! Has been truly awesome! We know that this kind of thing really puts a dent in productivity and just about everything, and we really appreciate you being patient while we sorted it all out.

If anyone is still not connected or getting slow speeds, it should be OK to reboot your router and refresh your session.

 

[grim]

WTF, now the AfriHost site says the problem is gone and fixed. Huh, why am I still getting only 15% of my connection speed and can't connect to Gmail's IMAP? Anybody else having similar problem, speed and name resolution connecting to Gmail's IMAP?

Nope, my line is flying, haven't seen speeds like this since before the MTN move. Currently getting a stable 1.05-1.07MB/s on my 10Mb line

 

[diepeterpan]

Looks like all is resolved. Seeing normal authentication and traffic is picking up to normal levels again.

Thanks everyone for your patience and understanding! Has been truly awesome! We know that this kind of thing really puts a dent in productivity and just about everything, and we really appreciate you being patient while we sorted it all out.

If anyone is still not connected or getting slow speeds, it should be OK to reboot your router and refresh your session.

Rebooted my router and all problems are gone, speed is back and my Gmail IMAP!!!!! Hallelujah!