Crystal Web (NEW ISP) ADSL Feedback

[MrR]

I've used my 100GB unshaped for the month. Currently trying to download an NZB and getting 15KBps. Chatted to support and this is expected behaviour. Was told to change my change my download times to between 12pm-6am.

Been getting those speeds since Saturday and I haven't reached the limit as yet. Feedback received from support refers to CW's channel partner having service issues.

Really not cool downloading 2GB @ 10KB/s. Reminds me of the dramas & frustrations I went through with OpenWeb.

Edit: other protocols run perfectly, so definitely not throttling.

 

[patrick123]

Trying to drive customers to live support over email which is so 1990s.

Well there are the old fogies that chug along that only use 3GB a month and have never heard of live chat. They are the ones that will support everyone else... Need to cater for them boet!! Oh and by the way, when they click on the email link, it should auto fill-in the reference number of [616a696e7a]

 

[Electric]

As I stated previously, this is on the top of my priority list(s). If it's not going to be resolved by month-end 100%, I'm switching EC customers over to a new backbone temporarily, with your permission, of course.

I understand this but in the meantime I am paying for 2 accounts.

 

[Electric]

Trying to drive customers to live support over email which is so 1990s.

Wait just a second.
How is live chat supposed to help in some situations?
I want to log an official ticket so I e-mail.
Then I have a proper backup of what has gone down.
Live support have thus far not been able to do much for me.

 

[Crystal Web]

Thanks ! 2 questions.
1. Between 100Gig and 200Gig is a pretty wide range. Will I be informed before you put the brakes on ?
2. Excuse my ignorance with this one. What is the difference between Individual account shaping and throttling ?

Work with around 100 gigs. If we're feeling generous we'll unshape you for the month.

The difference between shaping and throttling is a topic we can delve quite heavily into, but for now let me just give you the headlines (it's billing season, and I'm hunting wabbits at the moment)

Shaping applies on a protocol basis - some protocols that involve massive downloads are shaped (once in the shaping pool) and released from midnight to 7am.

Throttling involves taking an account and applying a general deprioritisation to all ports and/or limiting throughput entirely to a lower speed. In other words you pay for a 10Mbps account and once you've used a certain amount, you're downgraded to a 1Mbps account for the rest of the month or another 30 days from that point, depending on how the ISP implements it.

We despise the second option of throttling. We shape these uncapped accounts.

 

[Crystal Web]

Wait just a second.
How is live chat supposed to help in some situations?
I want to log an official ticket so I e-mail.
Then I have a proper backup of what has gone down.
Live support have thus far not been able to do much for me.

Live support can't fix core routing problems, that's for sure. Their superhuman powers only extend so far.

All live support requests are treated identically in our system as tickets from emails. In other words you can now login and view them from your customer portal, and you won't see any difference between a chat or an email.

 

[Crystal Web]

Been getting those speeds since Saturday and I haven't reached the limit as yet. Feedback received from support refers to CW's channel partner having service issues.

Really not cool downloading 2GB @ 10KB/s. Reminds me of the dramas & frustrations I went through with OpenWeb.

Edit: other protocols run perfectly, so definitely not throttling.

No that's not right whatsoever. Have the agents not escalated the issue to management? If not, please let me know and I'll go kick some bum.

If you're in the Eastern Cape, I'm probably already addressing your issue behind the scenes whether you have done this or not though.

But results from pathpings and tracerts to our site and to any site or service you're struggling with will help.

 

[Crystal Web]

The site looks quite nice.

Thanks. Still very much a WIP but decided it was time to shift gears a bit so you guys can see that we're not "sipping beers" and relaxing.

 

[saa044]

Wait just a second.
How is live chat supposed to help in some situations?
I want to log an official ticket so I e-mail.
Then I have a proper backup of what has gone down.
Live support have thus far not been able to do much for me.

You can mail the transcript after live support?

 

[saa044]

And oh yeah CW, site looks awesome. Love it.

 

[Crystal Web]

You can mail the transcript after live support?

Yup. Would you guys prefer that we automate the sending of the transcript to you after every live chat?

I don't want to spam anyone here, and they're available from the customer portal, so we'd prefer not to.

It's a global change, so not something individuals can switch on or off. We have included the option to send it to yourself after every chat though manually. Just click the + button in the chat window for numerous options. You can send files, send a transcript, and a few other cool things. As well as rate the agent.

 

[eyc]

Work with around 100 gigs. If we're feeling generous we'll unshape you for the month.

The difference between shaping and throttling is a topic we can delve quite heavily into, but for now let me just give you the headlines (it's billing season, and I'm hunting wabbits at the moment)

Shaping applies on a protocol basis - some protocols that involve massive downloads are shaped (once in the shaping pool) and released from midnight to 7am.

Throttling involves taking an account and applying a general deprioritisation to all ports and/or limiting throughput entirely to a lower speed. In other words you pay for a 10Mbps account and once you've used a certain amount, you're downgraded to a 1Mbps account for the rest of the month or another 30 days from that point, depending on how the ISP implements it.

We despise the second option of throttling. We shape these uncapped accounts.

does streaming fall within the list of shaped protocols ?

 

[Crystal Web]

does streaming fall within the list of shaped protocols ?

Never.

 

[CyroKrypto]

And how heavily do you guys intend to shape? I'm currently only getting 300 Bytes/s download speeds from Steam on a 4Meg line.

 

[eyc]

Never.

great , thanks

 

[Crystal Web]

And how heavily do you guys intend to shape? I'm currently only getting 300 Bytes/s download speeds from Steam on a 4Meg line.

Once you are shaped, large downloads on p2p are pretty much unavailable until midnight. NNTP gives you decent-ish speeds, and http(s) gives you full line speed for smaller downloads, and then the speeds on these downloads decreases gradually over time depending on the size of the file you're downloading. Massive files will eventually be shaped down to slow speeds. Releases after midnight though.

This just means that your large downloads (once shaped) move into off-peak, so we can keep the costs down and manage the network properly. So your downloads all come down, even when shaped, and then your other protocols are not shaped.

The result? Unshaped bliss for often hundreds of gigs, then all traffic works perfectly day and night, and downloads still come down, only off-peak though, and only to large downloads. Consider the price, and you realise that there is no better value for money uncapped account on the market. We could have simply released this as a bog-standard uncapped, shaped account as per other ISPs. Instead we decided to keep you guys unshaped for quite a while.

 

[Zenbaas]

Can any of CW reps please have a look for me as I
Sent an email regarding a Telkom-CW billing issue around 11-12am today. Still waiting for a reply. Can't do live support queries during the day.

 

[CyroKrypto]

Once you are shaped, large downloads on p2p are pretty much unavailable until midnight. NNTP gives you decent-ish speeds, and http(s) gives you full line speed for smaller downloads, and then the speeds on these downloads decreases gradually over time depending on the size of the file you're downloading. Massive files will eventually be shaped down to slow speeds. Releases after midnight though.

This just means that your large downloads (once shaped) move into off-peak, so we can keep the costs down and manage the network properly. So your downloads all come down, even when shaped, and then your other protocols are not shaped.

The result? Unshaped bliss for often hundreds of gigs, then all traffic works perfectly day and night, and downloads still come down, only off-peak though, and only to large downloads. Consider the price, and you realise that there is no better value for money uncapped account on the market. We could have simply released this as a bog-standard uncapped, shaped account as per other ISPs. Instead we decided to keep you guys unshaped for quite a while.

That is definitely understandable. Would it, however, be possible to implement something to increase download speed for services like Steam? Since many gamers leave their games to download throughout the day in order to play later in the evenings. Regardless, your services are very much fair, and streaming works like a dream. Thanks for the elaborate answer.

 

[Crystal Web]

That is definitely understandable. Would it, however, be possible to implement something to increase download speed for services like Steam? Since many gamers leave their games to download throughout the day in order to play later in the evenings. Regardless, your services are very much fair, and streaming works like a dream. Thanks for the elaborate answer.

Steam is the very reason we have to implement these policies. Steam downloads can be absolutely massive, and the single biggest cost in provisioning bandwidth is Telkom's IPC, so it being locally hosted hardly saves an ISP anything at all. That data must still traverse over the IPC network to get to your premises.

If we relaxed things for Steam, we'd see a huge spike in traffic, and therefore peak capacity load, and therefore costs, I'm afraid. I understand that guys want their games when they want them, but so does every downloader to be honest. Nobody likes having to wait, and we actually don't like shaping to keep costs down. It's a technique that should have been eradicated yonks ago, but given the cost of IPC ISPs are left with absolutely no choice but to do so.

We can look at some gaming-specific packages as well with priority to Steam, as we grow and develop the product range.

 

[Crystal Web]

Can any of CW reps please have a look for me as I
Sent an email regarding a Telkom-CW billing issue around 11-12am today. Still waiting for a reply. Can't do live support queries during the day.

I forwarded it off to support. You sent it using our "suggest a feature" system, and not the support system, so it went through a few hoops before I saw it and passed it on to them. I'll follow up for you.