Afrihost Uncapped ADSL Feedback

[TheBossMan]

HaHa the saddest part is that I'm not even that heavy user and have been getting speeds or 1mbps - 2.2mbps since early last week, only did about 10gb so far, normally did about 40GB - 60GB a month. Once or twice maybe about 100GB but that was last year last.

I find this very interesting... I am a "heavy" user on a 10mbps line. My 30-day rolling window usage is about 270GB, well below the "theoretical" 450GB that I was told I could pull before I would be throttled.

Using my Afrihost capped account, I get a solid 8.7mbps. However, as the graph below shows for the past 24 hours on uncapped, I have CLEARLY been throttled to 6mbps. I have asked AfriMan for clarification of this via PM, so hopefully he can explain. But any ideas that shaping is being dynamically adjusted throughout the day is obviously not true, as proven below.

Obviously, I understand that 6mbps is a lot more than many others are getting, so I suppose I should consider myself lucky. But this isn't the service I pay for, nor is it what I was promised. If I have broken some rules, TELL me so that I can make an informed decision as to whether this product is still for me.

@sand_man I have signed up with Plugg last night, they are IS consumer devision so should be same service as what Afrihost was before the move, for me at least it felt the same like before the move of Afrihost. They like R429 so only a few rand more a month, which is not too bad.

 

[pjjdp]

I really feel for you guys. I cancelled my AH uncapped on the 24th of October. I switched to my AH capped account on the 31st. Browsing has been pathetic at best. I will cancel that today.
I changed to my Webafrica backup 2gb capped account, on the 2nd, and wow what a difference. Much much better.

I'm signing up for the Mweb special today. First 2 months free. It will give me 6 months to decide what to do while watching this thread every now and again.

 

[BANG_Mutha]

Glad I kept my WA Red Africa account

 

[FM2012]

Got a response regarding the 60 day guarantee:

Thanks for the mail; and we regret to see that you're leaving us.

As guaranteed; we'll pay you double your money back.
In order for us to process the 60 day money back guarantee, follow these easy steps - no strings and no questions!

Our online claim form is being upgraded to facilitate the process for you; so all you have to do for now is:

- Send us a "new" mail to [email protected]
- The subject must be " Double Money Back Claim " - nothing else please;
- On the message body kindly specify the Account/Product (e.g. [email protected] or www.site.co.za);
- As well as briefly describe the "Reason for claim / what you are dissatisfied about.
* This is for us to improve our services.

Very Important: This email must come from the primary contact for the domain; else we will not be able to assist.

 

[MrGray]

Irony: everyone bitched about how crap Afrihost's uncapped was because it was on IS and now that they've dumped IS everyone is bailing out of Afrihost to get back onto IS.

I'm still prepared to give them a *little* time. If nothing else, their billing system, online ordering and account management and bundled line offerings are IMHO the best in the industry, and who knows, if I wait a while, enough people will have jumped ship that their network becomes reasonable (although that thinking is what tends to drag these things on).

 

[kissingmybbgoodbye]

I will still give them some change they must just jack up their support and don't just have cut & paste robots which only one know answer "All issues have been resolved"

 

[Fudzy]

Got a response regarding the 60 day guarantee:

Thanks for the mail; and we regret to see that you're leaving us.

As guaranteed; we'll pay you double your money back.
In order for us to process the 60 day money back guarantee, follow these easy steps - no strings and no questions!

Our online claim form is being upgraded to facilitate the process for you; so all you have to do for now is:

- Send us a "new" mail to [email protected]
- The subject must be " Double Money Back Claim " - nothing else please;
- On the message body kindly specify the Account/Product (e.g. [email protected] or www.site.co.za);
- As well as briefly describe the "Reason for claim / what you are dissatisfied about.
* This is for us to improve our services.

Very Important: This email must come from the primary contact for the domain; else we will not be able to assist.

Thanks for posting!

 

[Tinuva]

On the axxess 10mbit uncapped account, I checked last night, my HD tv eps downloaded faster than one can watch them. 24minutes for a 1.3gb HD episode. Thats not bad at all. I don't game on the account, but for download HD TV content with Sickbeard its awesome. I'll consider gaming on it once they have IPC in Cape Town.

 

[Fudzy]

On the axxess 10mbit uncapped account, I checked last night, my HD tv eps downloaded faster than one can watch them. 24minutes for a 1.3gb HD episode. Thats not bad at all. I don't game on the account, but for download HD TV content with Sickbeard its awesome. I'll consider gaming on it once they have IPC in Cape Town.

Awesome... but this is the Afrihost thread?

 

[TheBossMan]

On the axxess 10mbit uncapped account, I checked last night, my HD tv eps downloaded faster than one can watch them. 24minutes for a 1.3gb HD episode. Thats not bad at all. I don't game on the account, but for download HD TV content with Sickbeard its awesome. I'll consider gaming on it once they have IPC in Cape Town.

Seems like 10MB people has it better of then the 4MB people.
Well no worries, not using afrihost account anymore and cancellation allready submitted

 

[sand_man]

@sand_man I have signed up with Plugg last night, they are IS consumer devision so should be same service as what Afrihost was before the move, for me at least it felt the same like before the move of Afrihost. They like R429 so only a few rand more a month, which is not too bad.

Forgot about them.

I'm on 10mb line though. There 10mb uncapped is going for R1299. That's heavy.

Currently pay R496 for an axxess express uncapped account which until the MTN move was performing admirably.

Perhaps that's a truer reflection of what we should be paying for uncapped package with lower contention ratios.

I guess it's a case of you get what you pay for.

 

[gregmcc]

I see from my usage graph last night, I peaked at 3Mbps. Its back to 2Mbps when I tested last. I presume it will soon be back to 1Mbps.

I wish they would tell their helpdesk that they throttle during the day and not get to run pointless tests like resetting ports/routers etc.

 

[Tinuva]

Awesome... but this is the Afrihost thread?

True, but Axxess is the sister company of Afrihost, and both on the MTN network...

 

[eitai2001]

My usage last night:



From 1am to 2am it was 1Mbit.
From 2am to 3am it slowly creeped up to 4Mbit
From 3am to 4:30am it remained at roughly 4Mbit
From 4:30am to 6:30am it jumped to and remained at 10Mbit (maintaining above 1000kb/s which is more than I'm used to).
Currently it's at 4Mbit again.

This shaping or throttling nonsense is the most irritating inconsistent mess ever.

So inconsistent!!!

 

[robdutchmonkey]

Currently speed on news server using Afrihost uncapped is fluctuating between 250 and 430KB/s

Performance is better but not perfect. What I don't understand is why not shape ports for torrents and news servers between 8 and 5pm and keep HTTP and browsing unshaped 24/7 and open the floodgates for news groups and torrents etc after 5pm

That worked perfectly when I used axxess express uncapped and my usage after one or two months dropped exponentially as my need for downloads decreased after I got what I wanted and just downloaded what I needed thereafter

 

[TelkomUseless]

Currently speed on news server using Afrihost uncapped is fluctuating between 250 and 430KB/s

Performance is better but not perfect. What I don't understand is why not shape ports for torrents and news servers between 8 and 5pm and keep HTTP and browsing unshaped 24/7 and open the floodgates for news groups and torrents etc after 5pm

That worked perfectly when I used axxess express uncapped and my usage after one or two months dropped exponentially as my need for downloads decreased after I got what I wanted and just downloaded what I needed thereafter

No thanks. With you doing 430kb/s it's easy to catch a few episodes after 5pm. With 1 meg line it takes longer. WA is doing this currently (they don't admit it, but my netlimiter logs for the last 3 weeks don't lie) and it pisses me off so much that I cancelled it.

Rather say you got x gig/month after that throttle or something.

 

[robdutchmonkey]

No thanks. With you doing 430kb/s it's easy to catch a few episodes after 5pm. With 1 meg line it takes longer. WA is doing this currently (they don't admit it, but my netlimiter logs for the last 3 weeks don't lie) and it pisses me off so much that I cancelled it.

Rather say you got x gig/month after that throttle or something.

Yes I know WA do that, they even shape their capped accounts for news servers during the day which is just poor on their part. However, full speed between 5pm and 8am and full speed 24 hours a day on weekends is perfectly reasonable IMO, worked wonderfully on axxess express and got 400gb without trying in a month

I'd choose that and have full speed for browsing, http and gaming 24/7 with no fluctuations/throttling any day

 

[hilrap]

I've email AfriMan last night and here the generalized response:

We are busy changing the QoS and shaping policies, but these do not include throttle outside of AUP.

There is extremely high contention on Uncapped accounts at the moment, mostly due to torrents and P2P services using the bulk of throughput. The shaping we are implementing for now will de-prioritise these services so that browsing, FTP and VoIP will get best throughput over downloads.

We'e working on getting the best experience, and we're sorry if these adjustments are painful to go through. This is a high priority for us, as we'd like to stabilise the service in the next day or so.

Not cool to change such policies at the beginning of the month after we all paid, without prior notification to your customers! :-(
On my part I have used less than 5GB so far this month, yet I'm being throttled/shaped (whatever) to 1Mbps at night - and during the day speed and ping fluctuates as if I was on an MTN 3G network during bad weather..?! Sorry AfriHost that can't be it...! If you have problems with high P2P throughput by certain users, please find an agreement with those and do not "punish" us all....!

I will give it a couple of days before considering alternatives....

 

[StNick]

My usage last night

Any idea what your 30-day rolling window usage is?

 

[TheBossMan]

HaHa they see most of us decided to quit / leave so now they don't even reply on this thread anymore