Avoid semi-shaped IS-based ADSL accounts and avoid being ripped off

[virgo_ct]

Since Seacom was launched and it went down, and since IS have start a multi-week "network upgrade", latency has skyrocketed and international download speeds have plummeted. All at the cost of the paying consumer.

Both Axxess and Afrihost admit that the IS upgrades underway are severely affecting their products provisioned with IS bandwidth. IS have had numerous problems with their network in the past, with some ISPs having to take desperate measures to try to get them to address problems on their network (like flying their directors to meet with IS). IS is so bad that Axxess have stopped advertising their uncapped product, and rightly so. I cancelled my account within a month due to the utterly pathetic quality of the download speed and latency.

What particularly frustrates is that IS and the ISPs are absolutely uncommunicative about these problems with their clients. Not to mention their brain-dead support.

I currently experience downloads of at most 30 KB/s to international sites. On a 4 megabit line. It should be 440 KB/s. World of Warcraft latency has jumped from 330 ms on semi shaped IS accounts to over 700ms, making it unplayable. And no, resetting the ports and resynching the line did nothing to help.

Therefore, I'm PAYING for a semi-shaped account that performs so badly that it is effectively shaped. Not to mention I'm PAYING for a 4 megabit line and I'm getting pathetic download speeds. Thanks IS. You truly suck.

So, stick to your Unshaped SAIX accounts for gaming and shaped SAIX accounts for downloads. Avoid IS-based accounts like the plague they currently are. After this experience, I will happily pay WebAfrica R90 a gig for unshaped bandwidth.

 

[Enzo Matrix]

Some1 needs anger management classes!!!!!

 

[Optimal01]

I agree with you 100%
I got an Openweb 4mbit account and i do understand that shaping on these accounts is apart of the deal but at the moment i cant even get over
10kB/s over http and latency is extremely high. Besides MrBeep being hands on with issues which is the only reason im still with Openweb at the moment
i would of canceled the account in a heart beat and demanded a refund.

Like you said it all boils down to IS, they are clearly not provisioning for demand and in turn and making all ISP's using their network look like
morons. Come next month il be going over to Mweb as their uncapped products are vastly superior and intend on boycotting anything IS based

 

[Rapts]

The man speaks the ABSOLUT truth

 

[BlackJack1301]

Have you tried resetting the ports and resynching the line

 

[virgo_ct]

Some1 needs anger management classes!!!!!

No, just a decent broadband service.

 

[Vonnii]

In my opinion, the only "affordable" (R500 +/-) and decent uncapped service is with Mweb. I still believe that only Mweb really planned ahead for this, the rest just wanted to jump in... without properly preparing for the demand that would flood their networks. I think that IS will eventually catch up but it will take a lot of time and plenty of frustration for their users.

 

[w1z4rd]

Ill reinforce this OP. THOSE $%$ing admins at IS are screwing over the industry with their Verizon style uncapped accounts. Most of the time its worse than dial-up. Dont waste your time with one of these uncapped services, rather go to Mweb. I have about 70 clients on these uncapped lines and am in the process of moving them. IS is costing me money.

I had two of their reps come and give me their excuses in my office today and basically their excuses are:
1) IS started the service too early
2) IS are in the process of buying more bandwidth for these accounts (though they wont give a timetable as to when this will happen)
3) They did not expect the usage volume they currently are getting
4) They are giving priority to their capped accounts (as they feel this is where the market is) and shafting their uncapped users.

This has being the single biggest con I have seen from an ISP ever. Its blatant false advertising. Their uncapped accounts are not 384, 512 or whatever uncapped accounts like they claim. The line speeds are completely false. Expect even local ssh and rdp sessions to be screwed up. You cant even get those line speeds on local services!

I wish someone would sue IS for this carp.

 

[Rashid]

In Mweb really planned ahead for this, the rest just wanted to jump in... without properly preparing for the demand that would flood their networks.

+1, They really turned the tables for everybody

 

[Curtix2]

Im suffering as well. See logs below from tonight and it seems to be happening more and more often.
Performance with IS is shocking.

Target Name: 12-29-162-37-static.bnsi.net
         IP: 12.29.162.37
  Date/Time: 2010/05/18 19:15:28 to 2010/05/18 19:19:18

Hop Sent Err   PL% Min Max Avg  Host Name / [IP]
 1    24   0   0.0   0   1   0  [10.0.0.1]
 2    24  24 100.0   0   0   0   [-]
 3    24   0   0.0  25  26  25  cdsl1-rba-vl2360.ip.isnet.net [196.38.73.133]
 4    24   0   0.0  25  28  25  cdsl1-rba-vl150.ip.isnet.net [196.38.73.17]
 5    24   8  33.3  26 284  47  core1b-rba-te2-0-0.ip.isnet.net [196.26.0.181]
 6    24   0   0.0 298 300 299  mi-za-rba-p5-gi2-0-0-309.ip.isnet.net [168.209.164.23]
 7    24   0   0.0 298 300 298  [168.209.163.5]
 8    24   0   0.0 297 299 298  core1a-ny-gi1-0-0-309.ip.isnet.net [168.209.164.60]
 9    24   0   0.0 297 299 297  [168.209.245.1]
10    23   1   4.3 420 446 427  te4-2.ccr01.jfk06.atlas.cogentco.com [38.104.246.57]
11    24   1   4.2 535 754 570  te2-1.ccr02.jfk01.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.24.221]
12    24   0   0.0 423 432 427  te0-4-0-6.ccr22.jfk02.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.40.38]
13    24   3  12.5 542 552 546  te0-0-0-2.ccr22.dca01.atlas.cogentco.com [66.28.4.82]
14    24   1   4.2 547 556 549  te0-2-0-1.ccr22.iad02.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.7.158]
15    24   4  16.7 428 621 477  te8-1.ccr02.iad01.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.31.234]
16    24   2   8.3 545 558 549  [38.104.56.162]
17    24  24 100.0   0   0   0   [-]
18    24  24 100.0   0   0   0   [-]
19    24   8  33.3 437 687 459  chvl-brdr-c-rtr.bnsi.net [12.5.51.249]
20    24   3  12.5 552 671 566  12-29-162-37-static.bnsi.net [12.29.162.37]

 

[Grifthin]

This ticket is in response to [Internet speeds unstable. ], created on Monday, 17th May 2010 20:20
Hi ****
Please remember that your accounts is a IS backbone account which runs on the SEACOM cable,
So the maintainance done this weekend on the SAT3 cable would not have affected you,
The maintainance done today on the SEACOM cable would have affected you hence the bad pings and download speeds,
IS are trying to resolve the issue, And are importing more hardware for there infrastructure and more throughput on the SEACOM cable as to stabalise the infrastructure and the problems they have been having, This may still take a couple weeks to be implemented,
Thank you

Regards,
****

Axxess bull**** response to why my internet works friggin perfectly when they do "maintenence" but not the rest of the time. Downloads cap at 40kbs (I don't care about that), internation latencies are 700+, average jitter in upper 500's. SKYPE VOICE CALLS DONT EVEN WORK. WTF. 4MB Dsl slower than my 512kb...

 

[will1023631]

Hmmm interesting development from IS but then again it was predicted that there would be problems. Though they are cheaper in many respect to some IS services, SAIX still has unparalleled reliability versus IS

 

[FaSMaN]

+1, They really turned the tables for everybody

+2 I'm loving my mweb 4mbit, while its not the fastest thing during the day it does get faster at night ,when I need it to, and http seems to be full speed most of the time 420KB/s down except sites like rapidshare (for logical reasons)

What people tend to forget is that 3 months ago we never had any of this, shaped or not you do manage to download a whole lot more than what you would get out of a 15-30gig account that would have costed the same. This is a first step seacom is still pretty much WIP due to its age and to face facts they never expected this exponential growth,and with the extra income can NOW afford the equipment upgrades needed to run it properly, something that would have probably taken a lot longer had the userbase stayed the same.

While I do somewhat feel sorry for non-uncapped users feeling this as well, but the seacom upgrade is in both partys favour, even though its a inconvenience right now, 1-3 months from now you would have forgotten about the few weeks of hassles and enjoying a very well running net, due to these alteration,allso just bare in mind that the uncapped users are heavily shaped at peak hours,preventing us from congesting the network too much, normal users arent,and that may cause some of the problems your experiencing.

But then again I dont have a IS based account so really dont know how bad it is, but they will probably get it sorted eventually ,they have to.

 

[virgo_ct]

Does anyone know how MWeb provisions their uncapped service? I would guess SAIX-only?

 

[DarkStreet]

Also getting slower than usual speeds on my Afrihost account. Sometime I have to unplug the router and plug it back in to get decent speeds (not sure how that works but anyway).

 

[will1023631]

Does anyone know how MWeb provisions their uncapped service? I would guess SAIX-only?

It is SAIX only it seems they get their lines from Hellkom so it is all SAIX based. Don't know if they have any other providers

 

[PearlJam]

I also agree with OP. Unfortunately Openweb only offers IS. On top of that the service that used to be great has been slipping. If I got good service I would be able to stick with the company and help them see through the difficult patch. I actually think the current need for service is higher than what one person, MrBeep, can offer. This results in his poor response to problems. Before you start flaimng, I am talking about service over email. We all know he gives better service if you post all your problems on MyBB. I actually see that as a last resort. If I can't get the service without MyBB then I don't want it.

 

[marine1]

So is MWEB uncapped running of SAIX?

 

[DuckieZA]

So is MWEB uncapped running of SAIX?

Apparently not. It appears that most traffic on MWeb is now over the Seacom cable, although I am sure they have some backup capacity through SAIX/Telkom.

According to some posts on myBB at the time the uncapped went "public", they are now a Tier 1 network, whereas before the Seacom connection they were a Tier 2 (purchased their bandwidth from IS / Telkom).

I'm not an expert so this might not be correct, perhaps someone can confirm or correct.

 

[ignition]

I'm on an IS 4mb Uncapped account, been dealing with the same problems as everyone else.

- Pathetic HTTP speeds (Don't try open a few sites at once, you'll die at the keyboard waiting), not much better at night, feels slower than 512k.
- 80-200 ping in the day to local gaming servers
- non-existent torrent speeds in the day (max 200kb/s on torrents at night if I'm lucky)

At the moment: A well seeded torrent runs at 20kb/s, getting a PDF locally at 8kb/s, and the images on intl sites sloooooooooowly load like the old ISDN days. Sometimes its faster but its the intermittent speeds that drive you mad.

I expect 4mb speeds, at least from HTTP in the day, I have **** to do. These accounts aren't good for anything. It was great initially (the first week) then it all went haywire.

Switching to Mweb next month, or should I?.....................