Cool Ideas Fibre ISP – Feedback Thread 2

[ToxicBunny]

@ToxicBunny @DJZassie

After 4 DDOS attacks, and a TOS from CISP that literally says they will never give money back for downtime. I don't care about getting money back. All I stated was there are other services who can't make money from you for nothing.

Now if you go a bit further back, you will see people asking for rebates/cashback/discounts (something they requested as a gesture of gratitude to the people still staying with CISP). Honestly, 4 attacks, no refunds. Fine.

I just cannot fathom anyone willing to put up with this though. Once sure, twice maybe, but ongoing? Boy you guys must download all your stuff on week nights, and then play VLC catchup on weekends.

But everyone here today (apparently shills/fanboys for CISP) is just shooting down anyone who shows some agitation towards this issue. What is your plak? There is NO WAY you are ok with this.

Twitter and SMS this weekend: 2 notifications
CISP site: no updates for international outages since 8pm last night (it still wasnt working before midnight)
Facebook: not even one notice on their page this weekend. People had to go make comments on existing notices to get a response.

Should I only post happy monday pics on this thread? I just don't get it.

There are also other services (and lots of them) that will charge you a monthly fee for them, and that fee won't change if there is an outage, or anything of the sort.

What you are looking for is a pay as you use type of service.

 

[Splinter]

@ToxicBunny @DJZassie

I just cannot fathom anyone willing to put up with this though. Once sure, twice maybe, but ongoing? Boy you guys must download all your stuff on week nights, and then play VLC catchup on weekends.

But everyone here today (apparently shills/fanboys for CISP) is just shooting down anyone who shows some agitation towards this issue. What is your plak? There is NO WAY you are ok with this.

How many times must someone explain it to you?

Just because you want to let the bad guys win, doesn't mean the rest of us are fanbois/shills. And you say we are shouting you down?

Anyay, I'm guessing you pirate most of your entertainment - or am I incorrect on this?

 

[smokemaryjane]

There are also other services (and lots of them) that will charge you a monthly fee for them, and that fee won't change if there is an outage, or anything of the sort.

What you are looking for is a pay as you use type of service.

To an extent yes.

My suggestion was to let us dial up to another ISP on our fibre lines.
I get it. There are some major workarounds needed for this to ever work. But boy, I would stay with CISP in a heartbeat, if I could just dial up to someone else, when they are down.

 

[eddief1]

We need a CISP technical thread that is moderated to filter out the noise

 

[smokemaryjane]

Anyay, I'm guessing you pirate most of your entertainment - or am I incorrect on this?

I pay for netflix, prime and showmax. I would pay for hulu and disney+ if i could get it in SA.

I also pay for games. And then try and play them on my weekends.

 

[Splinter]

I pay for netflix, prime and showmax. I would pay for hulu and disney+ if i could get it in SA.

I also pay for games. And then try and play them on my weekends.

Ah well, good for you then. Now, could you kindly go change ISP's quietly and leave us CISP customers to discuss criminal attacks on our ISP.

 

[AfricanTech]

My suggestion was to let us dial up to another ISP on our fibre lines.
I get it. There are some major workarounds needed for this to ever work. But boy, I would stay with CISP in a heartbeat, if I could just dial up to someone else, when they are down.

I know that you've already been told this, but you can, if you're on the Openserve backbone and are prepared to pay a little bit more for this kind of 'insurance'.

I'm currently on Frogfoot 100/100 for R1099 and considering switching to Openserve 100/50 for R1199 - so R100 a month for a bit of insurance in case of a DDOS (plus switching costs if applicable).

The other alternative, which is what I eventually did yesterday, is to sign up for a VPN (R176.00 for a 1 month sub to NordVPN) which also allows me to provide some mitigation. This alternative does have it's own issues though (eg Netflix and DSTV Now bombing out - I'm sure there are workarounds but I haven't had a chance to dig into it yet).

 

[WickedP3NGU1N]

so I've just read the article posted on MYBB on ISP's being under attack. It started with RSAWEB who mitigated the attack in about 10 hours, then Axxess/WebAfrica and others that use Liquid Telecom, who mitigated the attack "in minutes". Yet I lost an entire weekend here on CISP. Is it working yet?

In some cases when an attack is mitigated the bad actors have no stomach to bother changing vectors of attack and just move onto the next target. So "yay" go all the people.... \o/ \o/ \o/ \o/ \o/ \o/ .... its mitigated.

OR you get a persistent attacker with an ulterior motive to either bring things down to gain access for nefarious purposes, or a ransom etc. and so when each DDoS is mitigated, they literally change it to a different type of attach and the game begins again, and rinse-repeat until one side gives.

So the scenario is pretty simple here. Most of the DDoS's that happen are short (I use that term very loosely) and are single attempt affairs, and a small portion are much bigger, lasting for much longer, requiring multiple mitigation strategies. And to address the Vox question that keeps coming up, I don't think they are actively being attacked at the moment or in the last while, and I am pretty sure any ISP would suffer under these kinds of loads.

And the end of the day we cannot really paint all DDoS attacks with the same brush. We have no idea what was going on in the background until Paul and Andre and Co give us their report, but it was clearly a multi-faceted and multi-pronged approach with the intent of causing harm. However if we all sit here fighting among ourselves about leaving or staying or whatever it is we are fighting about, then the script kiddies win...

 

[Mike Hoxbig]

To an extent yes.

My suggestion was to let us dial up to another ISP on our fibre lines.
I get it. There are some major workarounds needed for this to ever work. But boy, I would stay with CISP in a heartbeat, if I could just dial up to someone else, when they are down.

It's frustrating, but the only provider that will allow that is Openserve. It's not a Cool Ideas thing, it's a provider thing.

Vumatel, SADV etc. won't allow you to enter another account details on your line. The line locked down by them, not CISP. CISP just authenticates you onto their network. So even if you change ISPs, it wouldn't make a difference unless your provider is Openserve...

 

[CrypticZA]

I know that you've already been told this, but you can, if you're on the Openserve backbone and are prepared to pay a little bit more for this kind of 'insurance'.

I'm currently on Frogfoot 100/100 for R1099 and considering switching to Openserve 100/50 for R1199 - so R100 a month for a bit of insurance in case of a DDOS (plus switching costs if applicable).

The other alternative, which is what I eventually did yesterday, is to sign up for a VPN (R176.00 for a 1 month sub to NordVPN) which also allows me to provide some mitigation. This alternative does have it's own issues though (eg Netflix and DSTV Now bombing out - I'm sure there are workarounds but I haven't had a chance to dig into it yet).

Could have just signed up for a free ProtonVPN account, they give you 7 days premium for free worked like a charm had internet whole weekend R0 spent - only negative was on Saturday local died a few times and my online gaming pings were slightly higher since i connected to a JHB server.

 

[smokemaryjane]

I know that you've already been told this, but you can, if you're on the Openserve backbone and are prepared to pay a little bit more for this kind of 'insurance'.

The other alternative, which is what I eventually did yesterday, is to sign up for a VPN (R176.00 for a 1 month sub to NordVPN) which also allows me to provide some mitigation. This alternative does have it's own issues though (eg Netflix and DSTV Now bombing out - I'm sure there are workarounds but I haven't had a chance to dig into it yet).

I'm with frogfoot. I believe my neighbourhood is only frogfoot installed, so no swopping to another FNO (but I stand to be corrected)

As for VPN. Lets say I get Nordvpn or some such, based in USA/EU, doesnt matter, its international. My ISP is borked and I cannot even load google. How is that VPN supposed to connect? First you need a connection that can actually communicate with that destination address. And stay connected.

 

[eddief1]

I'm with frogfoot. I believe my neighbourhood is only frogfoot installed, so no swopping to another FNO (but I stand to be corrected)

As for VPN. Lets say I get Nordvpn or some such, based in USA/EU, doesnt matter, its international. My ISP is borked and I cannot even load google. How is that VPN supposed to connect? First you need a connection that can actually communicate with that destination address. And stay connected.

There are local servers

 

[CrypticZA]

I'm with frogfoot. I believe my neighbourhood is only frogfoot installed, so no swopping to another FNO (but I stand to be corrected)

As for VPN. Lets say I get Nordvpn or some such, based in USA/EU, doesnt matter, its international. My ISP is borked and I cannot even load google. How is that VPN supposed to connect? First you need a connection that can actually communicate with that destination address. And stay connected.

You connect to a local server. Local was fine 90% of the weekend, i connected to a JHB server from Cape Town and internet was fine. ExpressVPN & NordVPN any decent one has servers in SA. You can get an unlimited VPN on Windscribe for $2 per month. $1 for unlimited access and $1 for access to the SA servers.

 

[AfricanTech]

Could have just signed up for a free ProtonVPN account, they give you 7 days premium for free worked like a charm had internet whole weekend R0 spent - only negative was on Saturday local died a few times and my online gaming pings were slightly higher since i connected to a JHB server.

I wasn't sure whether I would be able to enable ProtonVPN at the router level (Mikrotik RB2011) - Mikrotik has an official page on how to setup and configure the router to use NordVPN which is why i chose that.

The sad thing is that although it worked perfectly, I had to undo the router level VPN due to Netflix and DSTV Now not working. I ended up using the NordVPN on my PC only which allowed me to game a bit. By that time Netflix at least was working without a VPN so most of the household was mollified

 

[CrypticZA]

I wasn't sure whether I would be able to enable ProtonVPN at the router level (Mikrotik RB2011) - Mikrotik has an official page on how to setup and configure the router to use NordVPN which is why i chose that.

The sad thing is that although it worked perfectly, I had to undo the router level VPN due to Netflix and DSTV Now not working. I ended up using the NordVPN on my PC only which allowed me to game a bit. By that time Netflix at least was working without a VPN so most of the household was mollified

ah i see NordVPN is solid gives you a lot of added extra features, been wanting to get a key off ebay for a while now but don't really trust the sellers xD and i don't use a VPN enough to pay full price

 

[km2]

How many times must someone explain it to you?

Just because you want to let the bad guys win, doesn't mean the rest of us are fanbois/shills. And you say we are shouting you down?

Well what I expect to be paying for is Internet that works reliably, and I have zero interest in being forcibly conscripted into some Good vs Evil conflict between CISP and some Random DDoSing Turds.

There are a lot of fanboys on here that are trying to drown out what are serious problems with CISP. I sympathise with their situation, but I've had more problems with the Dumb and Dumber team of Frogfoot and Cool Ideas than I had in two years of VDSL before that.

This glowing praise of Cool Ideas on this very forum persuaded me into signing up with Cool Ideas even after having had excellent service with Vox Fatpipe, and it comes from this baised presentation of the benefits and drawbacks that the circlejerk of CISP fanboys reinforce.

So let the people who are having their problems rage away, because that's how in an ostensibly pro-consumer forum like MyBB, other potential customers looking in are able to get a more realistic picture that it's not all happy days with Cool Ideas.

 

[Splinter]

Well what I expect to be paying for is Internet that works reliably, and I have zero interest in being forcibly conscripted into some Good vs Evil conflict between CISP and some Random DDoSing Turds.

There are a lot of fanboys on here that are trying to drown out what are serious problems with CISP. I sympathise with their situation, but I've had more problems with the Dumb and Dumber team of Frogfoot and Cool Ideas than I had in two years of VDSL before that.

This glowing praise of Cool Ideas on this very forum persuaded me into signing up with Cool Ideas even after having had excellent service with Vox Fatpipe, and it comes from this baised presentation of the benefits and drawbacks that the circlejerk of CISP fanboys reinforce.

So let the people who are having their problems rage away, because that's how in an ostensibly pro-consumer forum like MyBB, other potential customers looking in are able to get a more realistic picture that it's not all happy days with Cool Ideas.

What's with the drama? Just where are you being forcibly conscripted?

I've had nothing but great service with my CISP/Vumatel combo. Sorry to hear about your issues. You had ample opportunity to complain before this DDOS attck.

Now, go sign up elsewhere. Let us know when you get there.

 

[pstation]

Apparently not. There has been numerous attacks on SA ISP's in the last two months. They weren't hit.

I doubt the other ISPs were hit with 300gbps+. With enough bandwidth Google could even be theoretically taken down. As big as they are they wouldn't have enough capacity if every computer started throwing packets at them.

 

[wingnut771]

@ToxicBunny @DJZassie

After 4 DDOS attacks, and a TOS from CISP that literally says they will never give money back for downtime. I don't care about getting money back. All I stated was there are other services who can't make money from you for nothing.

Now if you go a bit further back, you will see people asking for rebates/cashback/discounts (something they requested as a gesture of gratitude to the people still staying with CISP). Honestly, 4 attacks, no refunds. Fine.

I just cannot fathom anyone willing to put up with this though. Once sure, twice maybe, but ongoing? Boy you guys must download all your stuff on week nights, and then play VLC catchup on weekends.

But everyone here today (apparently shills/fanboys for CISP) is just shooting down anyone who shows some agitation towards this issue. What is your plak? There is NO WAY you are ok with this.

Twitter and SMS this weekend: 2 notifications
CISP site: no updates for international outages since 8pm last night (it still wasnt working before midnight)
Facebook: not even one notice on their page this weekend. People had to go make comments on existing notices to get a response.

Should I only post happy monday pics on this thread? I just don't get it.

just use a vpn.

 

[smc]

It's not a Cool Ideas thing, it's a provider thing.

It's actually an ICASA thing - what is in effect a 30-60 day lockup should not be allowed under the regulations. Effectively instant switchover is entirely possible technically.