Crystal Web ADSL performance feedback thread Part 3...

[Mr.M6]

Openweb as we all know was top notch and then it all went horribly wrong. I hope you guys at CW don't ever go sour DJ and wish you all the Best!

 

[Julian2]

When you launch your 8Mb, I'll be first in the queue...

Don't count on it. There are others here that might give you a good race to get to the first place in that queue for 8Mb signup .

- Julian

 

[Gboss]

Is it me or is there no longer a live chat option on the CW website? I completed the form expecting to be connected with live chat instead I logged a new ticket, am I doing it wrong LOL

 

[OMB]

Is it me or is there no longer a live chat option on the CW website? I completed the form expecting to be connected with live chat instead I logged a new ticket, am I doing it wrong LOL

I think they're sleeping at 2:30 in the morning

 

[Necuno]

At this stage I prefer TechCentral, MG and then htxt. We all very well know the state of MyBB and the death of MyAdsl.

It seems a bit redundant to be honest and since withdrawing from MyBB participation, Facebook more than feeds my social engagement on tech subjects quota. Articles appearing on MyBB and Tech Central and ITWeb all link well into MyBB so unless you can create a genuine community of interest I anticipate that Facebook will simply fall into the place as time progresses.

The sort of forum that a person would want has a proper press release structure (which is better suited by existing entrants in the market) that relays original well conceived articles - and some stories that have broken on MyBB have been truly superb - and more than anything has proper critical engagement by informed opinion and individuals with an investigative mind. You also want a discursive space which while commercially viable does not blatantly appear to be at the commercial behest of some section of an industry. You don't want "partner content" to appear to be nothing more than an advertising ruse or for the press to become implicated in peddling inferior products. A single firm initiating a discursive space always creates that risk and if you consider the bulk of forums established as a mechanism of customer relations by firms in South Africa the dangers are quite evident.

Unless we feel like picking up some of the tech journalists floating around the exercise wouldn't bring innovation or improvement to the market. It is a non-core function. As a non-core function it is more in line for us to respond to comment when sought (and I might add that MyBB is the only SA tech publication that is not seeking comment) and engage with the tech press where circumstances are meet. Although then again I am sure DJ would love a radio station and it would be revenge of the universe if I were to venture into the realm of journalism.

 

[Looney]

Guys, I'm starting my own forums. It's gonna be called... Wait for it...

YourBroadband.co.za

 

[HecticZA]

Lol

 

[Zenbaas]

Guys, I'm starting my own forums. It's gonna be called... Wait for it...

YourBroadband.co.za

Funny enough I wonder if that would be allowed..?

 

[Looney]

Funny enough I wonder if that would be allowed..?

I'd probably get sued left, right and center

 

[Ho3n3r]

Is it me or is there no longer a live chat option on the CW website? I completed the form expecting to be connected with live chat instead I logged a new ticket, am I doing it wrong LOL

I think they're sleeping at 2:30 in the morning

Ya. Really. Lol

 

[HecticZA]

Ya. Really. Lol

Has 24 hour support been dropped?

 

[Masik3R]

Any news on the portals?

 

[XperiAnce]

My first month with CW, and I'm a bit worried that CW aren't tracking Midnight Data correctly.

I have a Raspberry Pi set up to download between 12am and 6am which has been working fine for about 2 years. I had the same package with WebAfrica (90GB+360GB) and on average I used around 25GB of daytime usage and 200GB of nighttime usage a month.

However, on day 4 of being with CW, my stats are looking like this in the Usage Email:
Comment: Peak: 9524/102400MB Late: 3332/358400MB

Very skewed. I need to see when the data is being used as I can't believe I've already used 9GB of daytime usage (considering the 1st was a Tuesday, and I'm at work every single day.)

Have CW taken this into consideration? https://support.webafrica.co.za/ind...africas-adsl-hourly-usage-reporting-explained

 

[Ho3n3r]

Has 24 hour support been dropped?

They've never been around after 21:00 since I've joined, and I've not been unreasonable enough to expect it.

 

[DJ...]

My first month with CW, and I'm a bit worried that CW aren't tracking Midnight Data correctly.

I have a Raspberry Pi set up to download between 12am and 6am which has been working fine for about 2 years. I had the same package with WebAfrica (90GB+360GB) and on average I used around 25GB of daytime usage and 200GB of nighttime usage a month.

However, on day 4 of being with CW, my stats are looking like this in the Usage Email:
Comment: Peak: 9524/102400MB Late: 3332/358400MB

Very skewed. I need to see when the data is being used as I can't believe I've already used 9GB of daytime usage (considering the 1st was a Tuesday, and I'm at work every single day.)

Have CW taken this into consideration? https://support.webafrica.co.za/ind...africas-adsl-hourly-usage-reporting-explained

We have absolutely taken all of that into account, and therefore have adopted the exact same principle as Web Africa do with their usage monitoring, as we are both hamstrung by Telkom radius accounting updates to ISPs in exactly the same manner. i.e. we look at usage in peak and off peak based on session start time data sent from Telkom to us. If there's an overlap in the timing of the session data there's no way for any ISP to know which time-frame it took place. This is simply a limitation of Telkom's systems to wholesale customers as their usage data reports in approximately hourly intervals and not on the hour. So when a session overlaps and the start time is, say, 23:30, that usage is considered to be in peak. If the session start time is 12:01 that data counts towards off peak. The only way to absolutely guarantee that your session is in the off-peak (and this is not unique to us) is to terminate the PPPOE session and initiate it again after midnight before any data pushes through. We do however add an additional session on to the accounting records to account for this, and overall this balances things out quite nicely for everyone. I can assure you that the accounting side is correct, and is really a sum value of data provided to us, and a check of start time session, so not really difficult to mess up in any way.

If you'd like a breakdown of your usage, our support staff can provide you with this per day and hour...

 

[DJ...]

They've never been around after 21:00 since I've joined, and I've not been unreasonable enough to expect it.

No, if this is ever the case, you send me a PM immediately, on the spot. We have logs of our agents and what they do, and I have never seen any agent clock off before midnight, which is weekday support end time.

If for whatever reason you ever have a hassle with someone not being available, or you have evidence that someone wasn't available, just let me know. I have a strict policy on this sort of thing, and if accurate, it will cost an agent his/her job, which is why all agents know full-well what is expected of them. Although our guys are spectacular and trustworthy, and I have to date not had any issues with any agents relating to availability at all...

EDIT: I should add that any offline messages created within business hours route to me on the spot, and to our support manager and HR manager. We've so far not had to deal with any issues in this respect so far...

 

[DJ...]

Any news on the portals?

Deployed to more users. Still batch-rolling it out. See, this ties in with the release of some new goodies, and those goodies are in fact holding us up a bit. But in terms of usage, everyone should be able to monitor it by the end of today...

 

[Ho3n3r]

No, if this is ever the case, you send me a PM immediately, on the spot. We have logs of our agents and what they do, and I have never seen any agent clock off before midnight, which is weekday support end time.

If for whatever reason you ever have a hassle with someone not being available, or you have evidence that someone wasn't available, just let me know. I have a strict policy on this sort of thing, and if accurate, it will cost an agent his/her job, which is why all agents know full-well what is expected of them. Although our guys are spectacular and trustworthy, and I have to date not had any issues with any agents relating to availability at all...

OK. Well to be fair I've never had the need to try between 21:00 and midnight, I've had a failure after midnight though, but I didn't think there was a chance in hell that I'd get live support that time of the morning anyway, so I slept it off and it was working again the next morning.

 

[DJ...]

OK. Well to be fair I've never had the need to try between 21:00 and midnight, I've had a failure at 01:30 though, but I didn't think there was a chance in hell that I'd get live support that time of the morning anyway, so I slept it off and it was working again the next morning.

Live chat support ends at midnight in weekdays. We used to do 24 hour support, but we were quite literally handling a handful of queries each week. I have (since changing to midnight support) opened live support and monitored traffic as well during midnight to 7am, and it just doesn't make any sense to offer it at this stage. Not sure there will come a stage in fact where it's beneficial, considering it is for all intents and purposes, dead, and we are able to offer a better quality of support to customers in our business hours as well...

 

[Hecate]

Had a nice CW support person help me yesterday to confirm my exchange was congested, just wish the people I spoke to at Telkom support knew what congestion was.