Afrihost Uncapped ADSL Feedback

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AfriMan said:
Just to add to AfriGuy's reply, Ordering VDSL is a little dicey at the moment from Telkom. Firstly, there are limited exchange ports right now, so not everyone in a VDSL area can actually get VDSL. Secondly, there are errors in Telkom's reporting which shows some areas as VDSL ready, but when we apply they are still rejecting the lines. We're not sure, but they have acknowledged this on their side. So don't rush out and buy a router until it's 100% confirmed that you can have VDSL :)
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Thanks for the quick responses guys. So, I should order my Analogue line from Telkom, let them install it, and then order the DSL part of the line from you?

I do understand that the VDSL is still very new and is being sorted out, I cant hold back my excitement though! However, maybe I should just order 10mb and stick with that until the bugs are ironed out.

One last question, I want this line in as close to the end of the month as possible, as I dont see the need to pay for it before the 1st of July, when would you suggest I get started on the process? (ie when should I order the analogue line from Telkom, with enough time to get the DSL and data running over it on the 1st?)

Thanks again
 
Okay Quick Question

Shaping Policy: - 12.5% Download/ 6.25% P2P

Does that mean I have 12.5% of my line speed or 87.5% of my line speed?

EDIT: Removed complain moment :P
 
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Zertop said:
Okay Quick Question

Shaping Policy: - 12.5% Download/ 6.25% P2P

Does that mean I have 12.5% of my line speed or 87.5% of my line speed?

Also, Something is very wrong because I have hardly downloaded anything this month and I'm sitting on 40GB's? No unauthorized MAC addresses on my routers so no-one is leeching my internet. I just cant imagine what used all of my data?
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Hi Zertop

Your account will perform at 87.5% percent, 12.5% would probably provide dialup speeds :(
While P2P is shaped your realtime services like browsing, streaming etc should still be performing as per normal.

Shaping is done on a variety of levels and mostly determined by network capacity at the time. Keep on eye on it, your P2P may perform better a little better a bit later.
 
This is pathetic. 31 gigs downloaded on 2mb uncapped. Heavy shaping. When does it go away? After midnight? That doesn't seem to happen to me.
 
m.zakariyya.g said:
This is pathetic. 31 gigs downloaded on 2mb uncapped. Heavy shaping. When does it go away? After midnight? That doesn't seem to happen to me.
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Your realtime services (browsing, streaming etc) should definitely not be affected by the shaping.
Is your overall experience slow? If so, please drop me a PM with your details and I'll double check on my end with our team.
 
Streaming is terrible atm on my 4Mbps business account. Youtube is rubbish even at 480p. BBC iPlayer is so slow I can't watch anything. This is with unoDNS, unoVPN and with both disabled (can't test iPlayer without unoDNS, but Youtube is still slow). I seem to be syncing just fine, and I can download over 400KB/s with a download manager or P2P application. I've reset the router and my PC with each attempt.
 
AfriGuy said:
Hi Zertop

Your account will perform at 87.5% percent, 12.5% would probably provide dialup speeds :(
While P2P is shaped your realtime services like browsing, streaming etc should still be performing as per normal.

Shaping is done on a variety of levels and mostly determined by network capacity at the time. Keep on eye on it, your P2P may perform better a little better a bit later.
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Im sure i was told that the 12.5 and 6.5% shaping was literally 12.5 and 6.5 line speed (i.e downloads shaped to 512k and p2p to 256k on 4mb), not 87.5 and 93.5.

Which is correct?
 
Scooby_Doo said:
Thanks AfriMan,

Going to try an Afrihost uncapped business account, that should let us know if its shaping or not.
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Just to post my experience thus far for the record,

Last month I had the 4meg uncapped bundle with Afrihost and everything was working correctly, streaming, p2p, gaming the works. I then decided to move down to 2meg uncapped bundle.

Now the performace on streaming, web and p2p is the same except Neverwinter is lagging to death at the same time that torrents and p2p are being shaped. I did not experience this when I was on the 4meg bundle or on Afrihost capped or business uncapped products so it is definitely a shaping issue. I am not sure what changed when moving down from 4meg to 2meg.

After a number of back and forth emails and conversations with Afrihost including speed tests and tracerts, I was asked (offered?) to upgrade to business uncapped to correct the issue. I get the feeling that Afrihost are not sure what the problem is and are looking for a way out of this issue. I know it is very minor issue and I understand from a business perspective why they do not want to spend time on this.

With that said I have decided no thanks, I am not going to spend significantly more on a business package for something that should be working and which I use maybe 3 hours a week and most likely accounts for less than 1% of my total usage. I will use a capped product for this if anything.

I am also concerned that Afrihost describes realtime products as not being shaped when evidently they are.

Overall I am satisfied with what i am getting with my money, besides this issue, however I do not recommend Afrihost if you are a heavy gamer. I would also take their statement that realtime applications are unshaped with a pinch of salt.
 
Scooby_Doo said:
Just to post my experience thus far for the record,

Last month I had the 4meg uncapped bundle with Afrihost and everything was working correctly, streaming, p2p, gaming the works. I then decided to move down to 2meg uncapped bundle.

Now the performace on streaming, web and p2p is the same except Neverwinter is lagging to death at the same time that torrents and p2p are being shaped. I did not experience this when I was on the 4meg bundle or on Afrihost capped or business uncapped products so it is definitely a shaping issue. I am not sure what changed when moving down from 4meg to 2meg.

After a number of back and forth emails and conversations with Afrihost including speed tests and tracerts, I was asked (offered?) to upgrade to business uncapped to correct the issue. I get the feeling that Afrihost are not sure what the problem is and are looking for a way out of this issue. I know it is very minor issue and I understand from a business perspective why they do not want to spend time on this.

With that said I have decided no thanks, I am not going to spend significantly more on a business package for something that should be working and which I use maybe 3 hours a week and most likely accounts for less than 1% of my total usage. I will use a capped product for this if anything.

I am also concerned that Afrihost describes realtime products as not being shaped when evidently they are.

Overall I am satisfied with what i am getting with my money, besides this issue, however I do not recommend Afrihost if you are a heavy gamer. I would also take their statement that realtime applications are unshaped with a pinch of salt.
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Thanks for this balanced account, and we do appreciate that you are ultimately happy with your product. I do think also that to be fair one should also mention that many clients on Capped and Uncapped have a different gaming experience, whether it's console, PC or mobile based. We absolutely stand by our shaping policies giving 100% speeds possible on real time services. If there is any real time service which is not, we can review this and find out if certain data signatures are not being identified correctly, as out intention is to never shape gaming traffic.
 
when you troubleshoot slow streaming video make sure you use the afrihost DNS on your pc and run in CMD "ipconfig /flushdns" then try stream video again
 
AfriMan said:
Thanks for this balanced account, and we do appreciate that you are ultimately happy with your product. I do think also that to be fair one should also mention that many clients on Capped and Uncapped have a different gaming experience, whether it's console, PC or mobile based. We absolutely stand by our shaping policies giving 100% speeds possible on real time services. If there is any real time service which is not, we can review this and find out if certain data signatures are not being identified correctly, as out intention is to never shape gaming traffic.
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I suggest you have a look at Neverwinter if indeed that is your policy. Although the fact that this worked on my 4meg bundle and not on my 2meg might make this situation unique.
 
Scooby_Doo said:
I suggest you have a look at Neverwinter if indeed that is your policy. Although the fact that this worked on my 4meg bundle and not on my 2meg might make this situation unique.
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There are literally thousands of games, using different ports for gaming. That's why we don't block or shape ports, we use the data signature within the packet to determine it's nature. Also, using ports can be ineffective if clever users use unusual ports for the traffic we're trying to shape.

We're checking on our side if any aspect that is unique to Neverwinter that our shaping could be mis-interpreting. However it working on 4Mbps shows that we're most likely reading the data correctly :(
 
Afrigirl said:
I take offense!
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AhA! There is life! I thought you are helping out here?! you both dissapear at the same time and you stay away longer than Afriman I don't recall you saying that you will be here on a part time basis .......... That was a corruption of the saying "If you can't take the heat stay out of the kitchen!"
 
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AfriMan said:
We'll keep checking on our side. To my knowledge no ports are blocked on any of our DSL products, but it might be that the data/packet signature is not showing up as real time. We'll get more info on this ASAP.
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Have you noticed that when you reply to a message, in this case "11301" you get thrown to the end of all the message even if it is 4 pages later ............ then YOU have to go and try find where you were. Pity, that after replying the system doesn't return one to where one was.
 
blunt said:
bump..
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Afriguy screwed up! Downloads get to run at 12,5 % p2p at 6.5% of speed. See, you not allowed to download during the day when the network is under pressure. If you do, the download speed will be slow as hell. Please use after midnight and before the office staff wake up at 10 Am.
 
pgs said:
Afriguy screwed up! Downloads get to run at 12,5 % p2p at 6.5% of speed. See, you not allowed to download during the day when the network is under pressure. If you do, the download speed will be slow as hell. Please use after midnight and before the office staff wake up at 10 Am.
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Thought so, tsk tsk AfriGuy
 
pgs said:
Afriguy screwed up! Downloads get to run at 12,5 % p2p at 6.5% of speed. See, you not allowed to download during the day when the network is under pressure. If you do, the download speed will be slow as hell. Please use after midnight and before the office staff wake up at 10 Am.
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o.0
I'm confirming with AfriMan quickly...
Must have been a lack of coffee last night. Sorry chaps, I'll post an update as soon as AfriMan gets back to me.
 
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