Crystal Web ADSL performance feedback thread Part 3...

[Paul Hjul]

Just a note on cancellations - our cancellation policy is quite simple and ties into a bunch of business processes and so on:
Unless otherwise stated or agreed the term of an account is from the 1st to the last day of the month and automatically renews on the 19th of the month. So you need to send a cancellation notice before the 19th. If there is an outstanding balance on the account or a dispute resolution is unresolved then a cancellation cannot be processed.
At the moment the main exception is that home capped accounts are on an additional month notice
O and @Bighit this is on CW home premium?

 

[Bighit]

Hi Paul, It's the Crystal Clear Home Capped.

 

[Zenbaas]

NZB's flying at 1/10th line speed (premium uncapped)

 

[ChadB]

So on home capped i've been repeatedly told that shaping should be largely relaxed in the download window, which it is, and thats great. But i bought one of the larger packages so that should i need to i can make use of the connection anytime of the day. Now NNTP and P2P i fully get will be shaped outside of the midnight to 6am window. But i have yet to actually any of the other protocols actually run at full line speed. How is it that an http download or even legitimate ftp/sftp traffic is shaped so severely. We're talking below 150KB/s on a 10mbit line. I'm spoken to support twice in the last week and they asked for a whole bunch of info and data so that the upstream provider can investigate and comment, but now even over the weekend you're telling me that at 8pm at night I can't just make use of my data cap the way I want to because my speed is so severely degraded. Even vimeo streaming kept stopping and buffering. What is going on?

From reading the posts here i'm assuming i'm not the only one who finds this frustrating when whats said about these accounts is so severely different to the reality?

EDIT: the most shocking thing is that even my backup afrihost account (with all their current network issues and troubles) is happy to give me full line speed on http. Most troubling.

 

[pXius]

Can barely manage 480p streaming on YT. Twitch is unusable.
10mb line

 

[Crystal Web Support]

NZB's flying at 1/10th line speed (premium uncapped)

P2P and NNTP can be shaped on Premium Uncapped during high load periods, We do recommend that you schedule downloads between the midnight - 8am period however

So on home capped i've been repeatedly told that shaping should be largely relaxed in the download window, which it is, and thats great. But i bought one of the larger packages so that should i need to i can make use of the connection anytime of the day. Now NNTP and P2P i fully get will be shaped outside of the midnight to 6am window. But i have yet to actually any of the other protocols actually run at full line speed. How is it that an http download or even legitimate ftp/sftp traffic is shaped so severely. We're talking below 150KB/s on a 10mbit line. I'm spoken to support twice in the last week and they asked for a whole bunch of info and data so that the upstream provider can investigate and comment, but now even over the weekend you're telling me that at 8pm at night I can't just make use of my data cap the way I want to because my speed is so severely degraded. Even vimeo streaming kept stopping and buffering. What is going on?

From reading the posts here i'm assuming i'm not the only one who finds this frustrating when whats said about these accounts is so severely different to the reality?

EDIT: the most shocking thing is that even my backup afrihost account (with all their current network issues and troubles) is happy to give me full line speed on http. Most troubling.

It is a tough balance to get right, Offering data at what works out to around 60c per GB means some compromise has to be had. That being p2p and nntp is contended higher on these products. There will be an announcement shortly about these home capped products however

Can barely manage 480p streaming on YT. Twitch is unusable.
10mb line

Could you advise which region you are in and what product you are on? It is not normal for streaming services to be shaped on our network so I'd like to look into this further.

 

[ChadB]

It is a tough balance to get right, Offering data at what works out to around 60c per GB means some compromise has to be had. That being p2p and nntp is contended higher on these products. There will be an announcement shortly about these home capped products however

I completely understand that p2p and nntp are contended, i'm not talking about severe speed reduction on P2P or NNTP. I'm talking about http traffic and ftp transfers, both of which i was assured are generally not shaped, and should run at close to line speed as much as possible.

 

[Crystal Web Support]

I completely understand that p2p and nntp are contended, i'm not talking about severe speed reduction on P2P or NNTP. I'm talking about http traffic and ftp transfers, both of which i was assured are generally not shaped, and should run at close to line speed as much as possible.

We have picked up here and there that our Upstream Provider of Home Capped accounts tends to be shaping other protocols besides P2P and NNTP, Although we haven't seen this occurrence this month so far and it was part of the fix done to Cape Town. But as I said, There will be an announcement regarding home capped shortly

 

[Orihalcon]

We have picked up here and there that our Upstream Provider of Home Capped accounts tends to be shaping other protocols besides P2P and NNTP, Although we haven't seen this occurrence this month so far and it was part of the fix done to Cape Town. But as I said, There will be an announcement regarding home capped shortly

This is good to hear. I very much dislike YouTube being shaped...or hell...my entire account being rate limited.

Looking forward to the announcement.

 

[ChadB]

We have picked up here and there that our Upstream Provider of Home Capped accounts tends to be shaping other protocols besides P2P and NNTP, Although we haven't seen this occurrence this month so far and it was part of the fix done to Cape Town. But as I said, There will be an announcement regarding home capped shortly

Its tricky to say you haven't seen this occurence this month. I spent a hour on support with Steph on Monday/Tuesday this past week giving him data about severe shaping on http/ftp/etc. so support should very much be aware that the upstream provider is currently shaping other protocols despite the fixes having been done.

I will, however, look forward to the announcements about these capped accounts, as this current shaping on other protocols is just horrible. I moved to this from uncapped premium so as to have less shaping than on that package (Shauns recommendation). Thus far i'm seeing a LOT more shaping than on that package.

 

[pXius]

Could you advise which region you are in and what product you are on? It is not normal for streaming services to be shaped on our network so I'd like to look into this further.

JHB, Northcliff Ex. 19
Premium Uncapped

Plugg acc works fine.

 

[Crystal Web Support]

JHB, Northcliff Ex. 19
Premium Uncapped

Plugg acc works fine.

Could you PM me your Username so I could take a look.

 

[wingnut771]

This is good to hear. I very much dislike YouTube being shaped...or hell...my entire account being rate limited.

Looking forward to the announcement.

Sucker

I've been holding back in more ways than one regarding CW.

Like:

1. Bummer, they using CS backbone

Crash and burn (kinda like what I expected, from personal past experience)

2. Move over to IS (I hate to say "told-you-so" but this is where you should have started), but IS seem to be unprepared (or at least CW's slice of the pipe is unprepared down in the South).

3. DJ disappears (the worst point in this list, and the main reason why I'm not going to jump ship, mainly coz there are better ISP options out there for people like me (away during the day, only need speed after 5pm), but also because I had such high hopes for Paul and Shaun's start-up, respecting (but silently disagreeing) with their strategy of starting with the myBB crowd, when one should start on the other side the spectrum, coz it looks like from your silence that myBB has chewed you up and spat you out...

 

[Crystal Web Support]

Sucker

I've been holding back in more ways than one regarding CW.

Like:

1. Bummer, they using CS backbone

Crash and burn (kinda like what I expected, from personal past experience)

2. Move over to IS (I hate to say "told-you-so" but this is where you should have started), but IS seem to be unprepared (or at least CW's slice of the pipe is unprepared down in the South).

3. DJ disappears (the worst point in this list, and the main reason why I'm not going to jump ship, mainly coz there are better ISP options out there for people like me (away during the day, only need speed after 5pm), but also because I had such high hopes for Paul and Shaun's start-up, respecting (but silently disagreeing) with their strategy of starting with the myBB crowd, when one should start on the other side the spectrum, coz it looks like from your silence that myBB has chewed you up and spat you out...

I completely understand where you are coming from, However Shaun is still chained to his desk working on a whole bunch of new systems which need implementing, he simply hasn't had the time to get on here; He will return shortly however.

I do however notice that you are in Durban, from our reports we've seen stellar performance in Durban.

I won't say much more about our pipes however...

 

[wingnut771]

I completely understand where you are coming from, However Shaun is still chained to his desk working on a whole bunch of new systems which need implementing, he simply hasn't had the time to get on here; He will return shortly however.

I do however notice that you are in Durban, from our reports we've seen stellar performance in Durban.

I won't say much more about our pipes however...

Don't get me wrong: I'm not complaining about the IS network, it's stellar where I am.

On the subject of Shaun's absence: take 5 mins out of your day and interact with your "loyal" mybb clients.

You wanted to start here, not me, now follow through!

 

[Zenbaas]

P2P and NNTP can be shaped on Premium Uncapped during high load periods, We do recommend that you schedule downloads between the midnight - 8am period however



It is a tough balance to get right, Offering data at what works out to around 60c per GB means some compromise has to be had. That being p2p and nntp is contended higher on these products. There will be an announcement shortly about these home capped products however



Could you advise which region you are in and what product you are on? It is not normal for streaming services to be shaped on our network so I'd like to look into this further.

1PM on a saturday being peak...? In any case I know there is shaping and that is to be expected but crushing it down to a 1/10th of line speed is a bit much. And I'm not taking about 24/7 downloading here, simply wanted to grab a movie (<900mb) for watching later that night.

Don't get me wrong: I'm not complaining about the IS network, it's stellar where I am.

On the subject of Shaun's absence: take 5 mins out of your day and interact with your "loyal" mybb clients.

You wanted to start here, not me, now follow through!

Can't help but say I feel the same.

 

[StevenC]

1. Bummer, they using CS backbone
Crash and burn (kinda like what I expected, from personal past experience)

Yep, felt the same way. Anything to do with CS generally turns to shyte. Still, went with it because I firmly believed in the startup.

2. Move over to IS (I hate to say "told-you-so" but this is where you should have started), but IS seem to be unprepared (or at least CW's slice of the pipe is unprepared down in the South).

IS move was a good one and they have done fairly ok with it. I am in the South and I have experienced very few of the issues some of the people are having, but I am on something akin to the business premium uncapped, so I guess you get what you pay for.

3. DJ disappears / coz it looks like from your silence that myBB has chewed you up and spat you out...

I actually warned DJ of this right at the beginning. I know just how vicious the MyBB community can be when it comes to ISP service and I was told they had thick skin. Guess not =/ I don't believe their excuses of "chained to desk", it's more a pull away from the annoying customers (and non customers) who badger on about stupid stuff and get quite nasty. They did choose to use the MyBB community as their mouthpiece though, so just running away when stuff gets tough is comparable to another ISP's owner, sorry to say.
We all know who that is, because we were all ex customers who left that ISP for that and other reasons. I hate to compare the 2, but the similarities are striking. CW at least did a better job being open and transparent as much as possible, which we all appreciate.

 

[stefan9]

Send a pm straight away...Got no response. Awesome customer service...

Never got a reply to this pm, stress test long gone for skyforge. Awesome customer service was provided.

 

[snail112]

NZB's flying at 1/10th line speed (premium uncapped)

I had worse. On friday my nntp downloads was spiking between 0 and 9.5KB/s resulting in only 760MB download between 12 and 6 am. I still have a NNTP query open for more than 6 months and nobody seems to care to come back to me. Somewhere CW is shaping NNTP and the CW News server provider (NextGenNews) is also shaping. I was able to get 95.8KB/s down between 12 and 6 am (Sunday)

P2P and NNTP can be shaped on Premium Uncapped during high load periods, We do recommend that you schedule downloads between the midnight - 8am period however

I run my big NNTP (and all my normal NNTP) downloads between 12am and 6am because that is the time I SHOULD be able to get full line speed on my 4Mbps Premium Uncapped account.

It is a tough balance to get right, Offering data at what works out to around 60c per GB means some compromise has to be had. That being p2p and nntp is contended higher on these products. There will be an announcement shortly about these home capped products however

Guess there is something about it being school holidays and everyone tries to download the net to get up to date with the latest series and game distros.

 

[Type RSA]

Sorry I am done with Crystal Web. Had enough of their streaming issues! How do I cancel?