Cool Ideas Fibre ISP - Feedback

[Tinuva]

But surely not such a difference? I go down to under 2Mbs on international - yet local remains 100%.

Cloud services such as the Efergy power monitoring are now pointless with the amount of connection drops in the early hours of the morning - I lost about 20kw yesterday.

What makes this worse is CISPs lack of any customer service - they show very little interest in their customers besides collecting monthly fees.

I would say that just shows how grave the congestion is on Octotel in your area.

We both in Cape Town, but I am on Vumatel in Stellenridge area. I have 0 speed issues at the times you have severe speed issues. So that is enough proof that Cape Town international on CISP is working as it should. Actually I have exactly no issues, apart from the backhaul capacity from CPT to JHB that have this varying latency issue, which PBCool said will change.

 

[ArtyLoop]

There is 2.5Gbps per GPON port and usually 8 or 16 GPON ports per OLT. That bandwidth, combined with the fact people buying services faster than 100Mbps is only about 2% of the market, means there is almost no significant chance of multiple 1Gbps customers per GPON port. The 2% split assumption depends on area etc, but I doubt anybody is using even half a gpon port, ever.

We see customers on Frogfoot with the synchronous lines. e.g. 1000/1000 use more bandwidth than the equivalent asynchronous Octotel line e.g. 1000/25, but it's for short bursts - downloads don't last long on those lines.

At Atomic we have a rule to always ensure we have more bandwidth capacity that is being used. Once usage gets to 80% of capacity, we buy more. It's the same story as to why we started our ISP - we didn't want to put up with congestion, not getting what we were paying for, crummy support etc. So far so good.

Inbox me if you're on Octotel and open to the idea of a trial.

Can't do that 'cause you've disabled your PMs

 

[xrapidx]

I would say that just shows how grave the congestion is on Octotel in your area.

We both in Cape Town, but I am on Vumatel in Stellenridge area. I have 0 speed issues at the times you have severe speed issues. So that is enough proof that Cape Town international on CISP is working as it should. Actually I have exactly no issues, apart from the backhaul capacity from CPT to JHB that have this varying latency issue, which PBCool said will change.

That might be enough proof for you - it certainly isn't for me. Just because it's working properly in one area - doesn't mean it's working properly everywhere.

I also still do not believe the problem to be congestion - at some point all these networks come together, and share infrastructure on an overseas link. The fact that I have perfect speeds to any location in South Africa, but not internationally just doesn't make sense. Where exactly is the congestion, considering I have near perfect speed tests to Jhb servers as well.

 

[ArtyLoop]

That might be enough proof for you - it certainly isn't for me. Just because it's working properly in one area - doesn't mean it's working properly everywhere.

I also still do not believe the problem to be congestion - at some point all these networks come together, and share infrastructure on an overseas link. The fact that I have perfect speeds to any location in South Africa, but not internationally just doesn't make sense.

I am in the same boat... perfect speed to local sites 24/7/365 but poor international performance during Netflix hours.

I had this issue before on ADSL, and in that case it was proven to be the ISP throttling or running out of overseas bandwidth (and of course lying through their teeth about it- Shaun Kaplan and Paul Hjul were the smoothest liars ever) along with other ISP owners whose names I cannot remember now.

Now this is not ADSL and I just wish someone would be honest, just for once. Because as @xrapidx says, this doesn't make sense really. But we've been with this issue for a while now and I don't see any effort at all by the ISP or the FISP to resolve it.

 

[xrapidx]

Now this is not ADSL and I just wish someone would be honest, just for once. Because as @xrapidx says, this doesn't make sense really. But we've been with this issue for a while now and I don't see any effort at all by the ISP or the FISP to resolve it.

That's my biggest issue - they show very little interest - another "we're only here for sales" company.

I just received a response this morning that they've forwarded my test results to their engineers. Still treating this like an isolated incident. The only way I got a response out of them was by commenting on their Facebook marketting campaigns.

 

[dotdan]

I am on Openserve and also gettting that 7-11 extremely slow to no internet other people experience on Vuma, Frogfoot or Octotell. Really annoying.

Also latency to game server in the EU is still high. @PBCool What changed last week that made the latency go up to over 200+, i did at one point see it settle down to 170ms but it did not last. I use to get constant max of 150ms before last week Monday.

Same here, everyday I hope it goes back to what it was before last week.

I remember two weeks ago PBcool still said that if things do get better with the SACS change over? they will revert back, can this be done though?

 

[ArtyLoop]

Same here, everyday I hope it goes back to what it was before last week.

I remember two weeks ago PBcool still said that if things do get better with the SACS change over? they will revert back, can this be done though?

Yes it can be done, but I suspect the will to do so is weak. Gotta keep the investors and shareholders happy

 

[Tinuva]

That might be enough proof for you - it certainly isn't for me. Just because it's working properly in one area - doesn't mean it's working properly everywhere.

I also still do not believe the problem to be congestion - at some point all these networks come together, and share infrastructure on an overseas link. The fact that I have perfect speeds to any location in South Africa, but not internationally just doesn't make sense. Where exactly is the congestion, considering I have near perfect speed tests to Jhb servers as well.

Suit yourself, you certainly welcome to make it as difficult as possible for yourself.

I did explain that the lower latency will push packets close by through faster than high latency packets when dealing with congestion on the level of fibre networks. You can not compare ADSL network congestion to that of fibre networks. This is from personal experience having worked at an ISP in the past (I dont anymore).

As for CISP only interested in sales/money without action. That simply just aint true. I have seen countless times on this very MyBB thread, how people's issues get sorted out. Some take longer than others, but eventually they all get sorted. You welcome to move to another ISP and see if it is really any better, but in my books that will be a bad move.

 

[ArtyLoop]

Suit yourself, you certainly welcome to make it as difficult as possible for yourself.

I did explain that the lower latency will push packets close by through faster than high latency packets when dealing with congestion on the level of fibre networks. You can not compare ADSL network congestion to that of fibre networks. This is from personal experience having worked at an ISP in the past (I dont anymore).

As for CISP only interested in sales/money without action. That simply just aint true. I have seen countless times on this very MyBB thread, how people's issues get sorted out. Some take longer than others, but eventually they all get sorted. You welcome to move to another ISP and see if it is really any better, but in my books that will be a bad move.

Thanks for the insight. Then explain to us what we should do to prove this once and for all. I've never worked for an ISP and I don't know all the state secrets in there.
I am very concerned about moving to another ISP because I am not sure that is the solution. I have at lest 5 people telling me I should move to another ISP, and then another 10 telling me Octotel is the problem.
I also can appreciate the fact that low local latency, for lack of a better term, "masks" the problem.

 

[xrapidx]

Suit yourself, you certainly welcome to make it as difficult as possible for yourself.

I did explain that the lower latency will push packets close by through faster than high latency packets when dealing with congestion on the level of fibre networks. You can not compare ADSL network congestion to that of fibre networks. This is from personal experience having worked at an ISP in the past (I dont anymore).

As for CISP only interested in sales/money without action. That simply just aint true. I have seen countless times on this very MyBB thread, how people's issues get sorted out. Some take longer than others, but eventually they all get sorted. You welcome to move to another ISP and see if it is really any better, but in my books that will be a bad move.

I'm not making anything difficult for myself - currently I have no proof what the problem is - and no real help from the ISP, besides zero connection at all - things cannot get much worse than they are.

Their response in this thread over time - and their attention to tickets (and complaints on facebook about this) say otherwise.

It's all good and well blaming Octotel - but my ISP, that's the company taking my money to provide a service, is doing nothing to assist or alleviate the problem.

 

[Tinuva]

Thanks for the insight. Then explain to us what we should do to prove this once and for all. I've never worked for an ISP and I don't know all the state secrets in there.
I am very concerned about moving to another ISP because I am not sure that is the solution. I have at lest 5 people telling me I should move to another ISP, and then another 10 telling me Octotel is the problem.
I also can appreciate the fact that low local latency, for lack of a better term, "masks" the problem.

You don't have to. PBCool will sort it out. He is sick right now, and probably don't have another person with the same pull at the FTTH providers at Cisp.

Also congestion issuesike these unfortunately don't get fixed overnight.

What would be great that I agree with you guys, is more feedback from Octotel , even through cisp, on what the progress is.

 

[ArtyLoop]

You don't have to. PBCool will sort it out. He is sick right now, and probably don't have another person with the same pull at the FTTH providers at Cisp.

Also congestion issuesike these unfortunately don't get fixed overnight.

What would be great that I agree with you guys, is more feedback from Octotel , even through cisp, on what the progress is.

I am aware, hence I haven't raised a ticket and took a wait-and-see approach.
Re the congestion issue- it was known since November 2018...

 

[xrapidx]

Just received a response now on my ticket from CISP that I'll have feedback by 14h00 today - amazing what social media can do, although not giving much home into the actual feedback.

 

[image132]

Ok so I'm still man down, will hopefully be back at it tomorrow. We are changing the Frogfoot NNI today. Re Octotel can you call please pm me your ticket numbers so I can pickup your accounts, with the subject Octotel.

Get better soon @PBCool, you're our only hope.

I am aware, hence I haven't raised a ticket and took a wait-and-see approach.
Re the congestion issue- it was known since November 2018...

I'd suggest you open a ticket about the congestion. From what I remember CISP need logged tickets to show Octotel and the more people that do it more "proof" CISP have and shove in Octotel's face.

But I agree, this congestion issue is the first time I've opened a ticket with CISP and their support has been....lackluster.

 

[ArtyLoop]

Get better soon @PBCool, you're our only hope.



I'd suggest you open a ticket about the congestion. From what I remember CISP need logged tickets to show Octotel and the more people that do it more "proof" CISP have and shove in Octotel's face.

But I agree, this congestion issue is the first time I've opened a ticket with CISP and their support has been....lackluster.

OK valid point, let's wait for tonight then I will sit and do speedtests etc..

 

[wingnut771]

But surely not such a difference? I go down to under 2Mbs on international - yet local remains 100%.

Cloud services such as the Efergy power monitoring are now pointless with the amount of connection drops in the early hours of the morning - I lost about 20kw yesterday.

What makes this worse is CISPs lack of any customer service - they show very little interest in their customers besides collecting monthly fees.

This is the impression I get.

 

[wingnut771]

I would say that just shows how grave the congestion is on Octotel in your area.

We both in Cape Town, but I am on Vumatel in Stellenridge area. I have 0 speed issues at the times you have severe speed issues. So that is enough proof that Cape Town international on CISP is working as it should. Actually I have exactly no issues, apart from the backhaul capacity from CPT to JHB that have this varying latency issue, which PBCool said will change.

How can it be congestion when said fibre hardware has 2.5gbps x infinite?

 

[Tinuva]

How can it be congestion when said fibre hardware has 2.5gbps x infinite?

Because thats not the only limitation on an access network! From that specific device, the data still need to get to the various ISPs. Backhaul from your local area to the ISP handover can also get congested. I have no insight into Octotel's network, but I imagine there are more points where congestion can happen.

 

[image132]

I just thought I'd bring this to light.

My support ticket with CISP has been answered and I've been told by the support agent that "Our director is building a case with Octotel" I'm assuming that mean that Paul is now on the case.

I implore anyone in this thread thats having issues with Octotel open a CISP support ticket about it and then do as PBcool has asked. PM him the support ticket number with the subject line "Octotel." So we can hopefully get some resolution.

I'm going to tag the people I remember complaining about Octotel to make sure they see this:

@ArtyLoop @joeline @DrJohnZoidberg @xrapidx

 

[ArtyLoop]

I just thought I'd bring this to light.

My support ticket with CISP has been answered and I've been told by the support agent that "Our director is building a case with Octotel" I'm assuming that mean that Paul is now on the case.

I implore anyone in this thread thats having issues with Octotel open a CISP support ticket about it and then do as PBcool has asked. PM him the support ticket number with the subject line "Octotel." So we can hopefully get some resolution.

I'm going to tag the people I remember complaining about Octotel to make sure they see this:

@ArtyLoop @joeline @DrJohnZoidberg @xrapidx

Noted. I will sit with this tonight. I am working on some important stuff for the office at the moment so I cannot disrupt the internet here to do direct-into-ONT testing, but yeah I can do that tonight.