Disclaimer: If this all makes me sound mean, I'm sorry. I can handle a lot of things, but slow internet is not one of them. I'm actually a very nice person 
Thought you guys might be interested in my convo is a guy from Axxess.
I spent a few weeks dealing with them trying to figure out why my internet was so bad, and then FINALLY one of their support guys explained that my speeds were normal for a "managed" account.
Axxess and Afrihost use the same network but have completely seperate shaping policies and methods.
How Axxess' shaping works is that customers are unshaped until the system determines that they are abusing it, then they are moved into a "managed" profile.
There is no set value at which this happens, and is based on a rolling average based on the other users on the network and the current network strain. Once "managed" everything except actual browsing will be shaped ALOT. This includes HTTP downloads.
It will depend on the current network status but when you are managed you will be shaped to around ~ 5% to 20% of your line speed.
Every 7 days every profile is reevaluated and their managed status changed accordingly.
Even though the network is very new, their current system is moving people into managed status with usage as low as 20GB.
What this means is that if you are planning to use more than 2.8GB (maybe even less) per day, YOU WILL BE MANAGED, and then you won't be able to download anything for the next week.
Although he said a rough guess would be 5 to 20%, I was getting around 2% of my line speed. And he said that is normal. I couldn't load Google at some times. By the end of it I was restarting my account like 10 times a day because that helped for a few minutes.
The only way I got Axxess to care was to contact Afrihost on twitter (convoluted I know). But besides getting them to contact me, he's not much help.
Here are is a gem of a conversation with Afrihost via direct messages on Twitter:
AH: Have they been in touch with you at since I sent your details on to them?
Me: Yeah, but it helped absolutely nothing. They are useless. As is my "10MB" internet.
AH: Have you considered using capped for the meantime? Or just a backup account?
Me: I am paying for uncapped - not sure why I should be paying over and above that. So no.
AH: Traffic should also die down over December, and then we'll hopefully have upgrades in place early 2013 (will affect Axxess)
Me: Wait, so I should just live with this until then? You know I'm getting like 2% of the speed I am paying for right?
AH: If their system is like ours, capped will give better speeds on downloads. Maybe they will let you regrade to a capped account?
I moved to Axxess about 2 months ago from MWEB, and was not totally convinced it was the right thing to do. So just incase, I kept my MWEB account and downgraded it to a 1MB. Here is a comparison of my speed test with a 10MB Axxess account and a 1MB MWEB account:
Axxess: http://www.speedtest.net/result/2350239717.png
MWEB: http://www.speedtest.net/result/2350262631.png
Yes, while being managed, MWEB 1MB is 5 times faster than Axxess' 10MB. And people I've sent this to say their experience is identical to mine.
After bitching I eventually got them to allow me to cancel after the 25'th, and just bill me pro-rata. I could not live with how terrible it was. And regardless if this gets fixed in the future, this has left such a bad taste, that I won't be coming back - and will probably recommend friends to not use them either.
I am now happily using MWEB 1MB and the internet is FLYING comparatively.
It worries me that there are so many users on here and other sites that are having problems, and that Axxess/Afrihost haven't made an official announcement and just direct everyone to their support like the problem is specific to that user.
So I will end by quoting something I sent to the support guy I was dealing with:
So in the nicest possible way, I hope you guys lose customers by the hundreds until you realize that your current system for “managing” users is terrible and make another plan.
Thought you guys might be interested in my convo is a guy from Axxess.
I spent a few weeks dealing with them trying to figure out why my internet was so bad, and then FINALLY one of their support guys explained that my speeds were normal for a "managed" account.
Axxess and Afrihost use the same network but have completely seperate shaping policies and methods.
How Axxess' shaping works is that customers are unshaped until the system determines that they are abusing it, then they are moved into a "managed" profile.
There is no set value at which this happens, and is based on a rolling average based on the other users on the network and the current network strain. Once "managed" everything except actual browsing will be shaped ALOT. This includes HTTP downloads.
It will depend on the current network status but when you are managed you will be shaped to around ~ 5% to 20% of your line speed.
Every 7 days every profile is reevaluated and their managed status changed accordingly.
Even though the network is very new, their current system is moving people into managed status with usage as low as 20GB.
What this means is that if you are planning to use more than 2.8GB (maybe even less) per day, YOU WILL BE MANAGED, and then you won't be able to download anything for the next week.
Although he said a rough guess would be 5 to 20%, I was getting around 2% of my line speed. And he said that is normal. I couldn't load Google at some times. By the end of it I was restarting my account like 10 times a day because that helped for a few minutes.
The only way I got Axxess to care was to contact Afrihost on twitter (convoluted I know). But besides getting them to contact me, he's not much help.
Here are is a gem of a conversation with Afrihost via direct messages on Twitter:
AH: Have they been in touch with you at since I sent your details on to them?
Me: Yeah, but it helped absolutely nothing. They are useless. As is my "10MB" internet.
AH: Have you considered using capped for the meantime? Or just a backup account?
Me: I am paying for uncapped - not sure why I should be paying over and above that. So no.
AH: Traffic should also die down over December, and then we'll hopefully have upgrades in place early 2013 (will affect Axxess)
Me: Wait, so I should just live with this until then? You know I'm getting like 2% of the speed I am paying for right?
AH: If their system is like ours, capped will give better speeds on downloads. Maybe they will let you regrade to a capped account?
I moved to Axxess about 2 months ago from MWEB, and was not totally convinced it was the right thing to do. So just incase, I kept my MWEB account and downgraded it to a 1MB. Here is a comparison of my speed test with a 10MB Axxess account and a 1MB MWEB account:
Axxess: http://www.speedtest.net/result/2350239717.png
MWEB: http://www.speedtest.net/result/2350262631.png
Yes, while being managed, MWEB 1MB is 5 times faster than Axxess' 10MB. And people I've sent this to say their experience is identical to mine.
After bitching I eventually got them to allow me to cancel after the 25'th, and just bill me pro-rata. I could not live with how terrible it was. And regardless if this gets fixed in the future, this has left such a bad taste, that I won't be coming back - and will probably recommend friends to not use them either.
I am now happily using MWEB 1MB and the internet is FLYING comparatively.
It worries me that there are so many users on here and other sites that are having problems, and that Axxess/Afrihost haven't made an official announcement and just direct everyone to their support like the problem is specific to that user.
So I will end by quoting something I sent to the support guy I was dealing with:
So in the nicest possible way, I hope you guys lose customers by the hundreds until you realize that your current system for “managing” users is terrible and make another plan.
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). When I cancelled their, they were on 10Gig.. and throttled. Got 7-10kb/s on 1 Meg line... (explain that).
I did 120GB on my 10Mb account last month before being "managed" down to 50kB/s 24/7, I'm still "managed" after only doing about 30GB so far this month.