Crystal Web (NEW ISP) ADSL Feedback

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bot said:
Could you send us a traceroute of eu.battle.net
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Tested now - previous pic was from 3pm a few days ago...

eu_battle_net_test.png
 
I tried the account. Downloading wasn't great initially but an upstream problem was very quickly picked up and resolved resulting in near line speed nntp.
I think the same or similar problem also impacted my d3 experience. Trial was for a very short period (they offered to extend but I was snowed under with work and exams so declined) so cannot comment further.
Support wise : 10/10.
 
Your website is hosted on Hetzner shared hosting. Are you sure you are not a reseller? It does not look like you own any infrastructure.

Cybersmart need a good reseller, so best of luck.
 
liber8 said:
Your website is hosted on Hetzner shared hosting. Are you sure you are not a reseller? It does not look like you own any infrastructure.

Cybersmart need a good reseller, so best of luck.
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We certainly are a reseller, but of bandwidth. Not Cybersmart accounts.

Our site (which we just updated quickly) won't remain there - we have not launched yet, guys.

This thread was very premature, but we're not ones to shy away from it now that it's in the public domain. Give us a chance to wow you once our site and systems are fully operational...
 
Crystal Web said:
Hi Chevron,

I'm quite certain you won't be disappointed with the experience on Crystal Web, and utilising the Cybersmart backbone for our current offerings doesn't mean we're limited to only offering this sort of package in future. ;)

If there is a demand and business case for rollover data we will consider it. For now we are exploring other ways to please customers in the capped data space...
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So.. just out of interest: I'm with Cybersmart currently, i'm happy with the price but the international speeds are not great.

What reason would you give me to move ?
Better contention ratio?
Better redundancy ?
 
I've been using CW since Sunday and very happy so far. Excellent support. Looking forward to the official launch. And waiting to see how things run from June 1st when a few more users join the network. Very happy so far
 
Nerfherder said:
So.. just out of interest: I'm with Cybersmart currently, i'm happy with the price but the international speeds are not great.

What reason would you give me to move ?
Better contention ratio?
Better redundancy ?
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Hi nerfherder,

We unfortunately cannot comment on Cybersmart's nor any other ISP's offerings, and we only market ourselves within the confines of advertising standards and ethics in SA, so we will not offer comparative marketing to the extent required to fully answer your question...
 
bot said:
Do you have experience running an ISP?

How can you afford staff when you do not have a company website?
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When you start a company you usually have this thing called "start up funding". It's there to keep you going while you get up and running. It's great for things like this where the companies official launch is still weeks away.

Crystal Web said:
Hi Chevron,

I'm quite certain you won't be disappointed with the experience on Crystal Web, and utilising the Cybersmart backbone for our current offerings doesn't mean we're limited to only offering this sort of package in future. ;)

If there is a demand and business case for rollover data we will consider it. For now we are exploring other ways to please customers in the capped data space...
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Great.

Crystal Web said:
Agreed, and no. We won't be punishing and hoodwinking our customers just to try to give them more. And if the product will perform differently, we'll be upfront about it...
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Great again.

copacetic said:
I'm not clear on the technical ramifications of all this, but one issue I had when I was with Cybersmart was international game latency was not working very well for me (although in the interests of transparency, they were very helpful and motivated to help me solve the issue, I just ran out of energy at some point during the fairly exhaustive diagnostic process).

Long rambling short - Any idea how you guys do regarding latency to the EU region? As a point of comparison, my Afrihost account is consistently sub 200 ms (often in the 170 region), and this is just fantastic.
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And the above is actually what I'm talking about. The whole reason I have the Twitch thread in my sig is because plenty ISPs have crap international performance. And international is what's most important to me. Twitch needs to not buffer and Netflix needs to be in HD. IS and VOX gives me this. I will give you guys a chance though. But not cancelling my WA account. I'll have two ISPs simultaneously.

efitol said:
Any plans for offering a business uncapped account?
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Good Question.
 
Cybersmart never had the worst network, it was super decent before they started with uncapped. Like with all other ISPs thats where things went bad, however most of them learn and get it right after a while. Recent testing on the 10 leaked Cybersmart test accounts have shown me their network has stabilized quite a bit, and I also figured out their network expanded from Cape Town only into JHB and further, which is great as well.

Where Cybersmart was/is terrible, was/is their support and T&Cs that was/is a disaster. However with Crystal Web reselling their bandwidth, it may actually be a good thing, hopefully great support and none of the draconian T&Cs that Cybersmart has.

As for borwood showing up in those traces, you will see that is the upstream provider for international bandwidth/backhaul that Cybersmart uses, when you look at the BGP routing table via many of the available ones on the internet. Just do a lookup on Cybersmart's ASN.

Thus the only way how this will turn out, is to see what happens when Crystal Web signs up more users.
For one, they will need a good control panel for the DSL, like Afrihost/Axxess and Web Africa has at least, hopefully that will come with the website ect.

Best of luck to you guys DJ. Being and ADSL reseller, whether it is bandwidth or accounts, is never an easy feat.
 
efitol said:
Any plans for offering a business uncapped account?
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If what I'm reading is true (and those traceroutes are looking mighty fine) then there will be no need for business accounts ever again...

Man, I haven't been this excited about internet in a long time :D Can't wait for my account!
 
Swingblade said:
Running on cybersmart backbone won't this be very limited on what you can do for pricing? Sounds to me that this will be a lot like the old wazzup isp.
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Yes, I remember Wazzup. They were squeezed like lemons, there was no margin for proper support. Their unshaped was in fact shaped as well.

In the end they stopped providing uncapped because Cybersmart was not cooperating with them.

Who knows, perhaps things have changed.
 
Tinuva said:
Cybersmart never had the worst network, it was super decent before they started with uncapped. Like with all other ISPs thats where things went bad, however most of them learn and get it right after a while. Recent testing on the 10 leaked Cybersmart test accounts have shown me their network has stabilized quite a bit, and I also figured out their network expanded from Cape Town only into JHB and further, which is great as well.

Where Cybersmart was/is terrible, was/is their support and T&Cs that was/is a disaster. However with Crystal Web reselling their bandwidth, it may actually be a good thing, hopefully great support and none of the draconian T&Cs that Cybersmart has.

As for borwood showing up in those traces, you will see that is the upstream provider for international bandwidth/backhaul that Cybersmart uses, when you look at the BGP routing table via many of the available ones on the internet. Just do a lookup on Cybersmart's ASN.

Thus the only way how this will turn out, is to see what happens when Crystal Web signs up more users.
For one, they will need a good control panel for the DSL, like Afrihost/Axxess and Web Africa has at least, hopefully that will come with the website ect.

Best of luck to you guys DJ. Being and ADSL reseller, whether it is bandwidth or accounts, is never an easy feat.
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Thanks Tinuva,

Cybersmart certainly do have a fantastic network that has grown, stabilised, and matured over the years substantially. We offer 24 hour support, and we truly believe that our longevity in this market will be directly tied to the quality of support we provide, amongst other things. As for draconian Ts and Cs - nothing like that exists with us. We built this business with mybroadband users in mind - quite possibly the most discerning broadband user profile one can ask for. As an example, you may cancel with us by the 19th of each month. We'd extend this further, but our billing cycle runs from the 20th - this too was a careful choice, sufficient notice to allow for clearance for customers who choose to EFT.

Our Crystal Customer Portal is being designed from the ground up with the sole purpose of being simple, transparent, and functional. We have fantastic developers working on it at the moment (fellow mybroadband members) and the goal is to match or surpass the incredibly high standard set by the likes of Afrihost's customer portal, which is a wonderful place to be for a customer anda great benchmark to have set...
 
Tinuva said:
Cybersmart never had the worst network, it was super decent before they started with uncapped. Like with all other ISPs thats where things went bad, however most of them learn and get it right after a while. Recent testing on the 10 leaked Cybersmart test accounts have shown me their network has stabilized quite a bit, and I also figured out their network expanded from Cape Town only into JHB and further, which is great as well.

Where Cybersmart was/is terrible, was/is their support and T&Cs that was/is a disaster. However with Crystal Web reselling their bandwidth, it may actually be a good thing, hopefully great support and none of the draconian T&Cs that Cybersmart has.

As for borwood showing up in those traces, you will see that is the upstream provider for international bandwidth/backhaul that Cybersmart uses, when you look at the BGP routing table via many of the available ones on the internet. Just do a lookup on Cybersmart's ASN.

Thus the only way how this will turn out, is to see what happens when Crystal Web signs up more users.
For one, they will need a good control panel for the DSL, like Afrihost/Axxess and Web Africa has at least, hopefully that will come with the website ect.

Best of luck to you guys DJ. Being and ADSL reseller, whether it is bandwidth or accounts, is never an easy feat.
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Indeed I did actually get a chance to use those leaked test accounts and performance was great.... International gaming and download was good even p2p. I was very impressed but the problem is going directly to cybersmart was not a option.

This will actually be really cool. Hope you guys can launch like a capped daytime usage but uncapped afterhours account. Would be cool.

Just wondering about local gaming although I don't play local games is IPC. Cybersmart only has IPC in Cape Town I'm not too sure its been a long while since I used them so not sure if that changed. Local latency will be good but not the best if you are not in Capte Town.
 
cavedog said:
Just wondering about local gaming although I don't play local games is IPC. Cybersmart only has IPC in Cape Town I'm not too sure its been a long while since I used them so not sure if that changed. Local latency will be good but not the best if you are not in Capte Town.
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Cybersmart certainly have expanded their IPC network. I'm not based in CPT, and posted tracerts earlier in the thread. If there's anything specific you'd like, just ask. [email protected] is the best place to do so for more detailed info if you like?
 
cavedog said:
Just wondering about local gaming although I don't play local games is IPC. Cybersmart only has IPC in Cape Town I'm not too sure its been a long while since I used them so not sure if that changed. Local latency will be good but not the best if you are not in Capte Town.
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Cybersmart has an IPC in JHB and Durban as well.

@DJ every success. You will be very happy with borwood and NTT as the international transit. My network has been using them now for almost two years rock solid.
 
June nnnnneeeeeeeeeeeeeddddsssss to fly. That 24/7 support alone will make me move.
 
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