Frogfoot and load shedding

[cschutte]

Frogfoot recently became available in Somerset West, and I migrated from a 100 Mbps Openserve package to 500 Mbps Frogfoot. Excellent speed and low latency when it works.

But, unfortunately the service is not reliable for me. In the past week, at the end of a load shedding cycle, the Frogfoot box looses connection (the service and broadband lights go off). And it only recovers after load shedding is over. I get the impression that their backup battery somewhere is insufficient to survive a 2 hour load shed. Never had the problem on OpenServe. I complained via my ISP (HX systems / Herotel) but they say Frogfoot does not respond to their queries.

I also got a slow down at around 20:00 one evening where download speeds reduced to 20Mbps - again no response from Frogfoot.

Anybody else experiencing the same?

 

[Chingha]

Yip, same problem, also moaned via ISP. They claim Frogfoot will upgrade soon but this has been going on for a while, so we will see

 

[lightpixel]

Same in Milnerton, the last 30 mins on stage 4 is proving to be too much. Stage 2 was still ok.
Its battery capacity of the UPS @ the node. Best to report to your ISP and place press for UPS to be upgraded.

 

[portcullis]

Loadshedding is causing chaos.

All the Frogfoot pops have backup batteries, but the period of time between loadshedding events does not provide sufficient time for the batteries to fully recharge. As I write this (9:45am), there's no load shedding in Somerset West, but Frogfoot's dead in the water. This has to be due to an upstream pop (it could be DFA and not FF) having run out of batteries and an alternate route being in use. By 11:00am, load shedding will be over at that POP, batteries will have charged a little and everything will be back to normal.

I doubt any of us have sufficient staff or generators to man every POP during load shedding. Hence we have to perform triage and make very difficult decisions about who gets internet during the last hour of loadshedding and who doesn't.

 

[rubber_otter]

And they post this BS on their FB page. lol, what utter crap.

 

[cschutte]

Frogfoot will just have to upgrade their UPS at every POP - they had not designed their network to be Eskom resilient. I never had this issue on OpenServe - even when we had Stage 8 a few weeks ago.

 

[Leno]

All the Frogfoot pops have backup batteries

Not all of them, Summerstrand goes off straight away

 

[rubber_otter]

Frogfoot will just have to upgrade their UPS at every POP - they had not designed their network to be Eskom resilient. I never had this issue on OpenServe - even when we had Stage 8 a few weeks ago.

To be fair, it might be difficult to cater for guvamunt's **** ups

 

[portcullis]

Not all of them, Summerstrand goes off straight away

Thank you. That explains why we receive so many "internet's down" support tickets every time there's load shedding in PE, with the customers saying they have UPSs.

I wonder if the POP was robbed early on? It's not like Frogfoot to build a POP without backup batteries.

 

[genetic]

Have both Frogfoot and Openserve in my area. This is the exact reason why I stick to Openserve.

Frogfoot is cheaper for a reason...

 

[cavedog]

Lucky for me on Openserve though the OLT sit in the exchange on the corner with a relatively big generator. No stage of loadshedding took me down yet with zero downtime in 1 and half years.

 

[Leno]

Thank you. That explains why we receive so many "internet's down" support tickets every time there's load shedding in PE, with the customers saying they have UPSs.

I wonder if the POP was robbed early on? It's not like Frogfoot to build a POP without backup batteries.

It was initially meant to be Blitz Fibre pop before the takeover so maybe they designed it, the pop sits inside one of the neighbouring blocks of flats.

Blitz promised there would be backup power when we signed the exclusivity agreement with them in our building, our fault for not getting that in writing... Trust is nothing these days

I have tried to contact Frogfoot to offer that I supply the appropriate UPS etc but just hit a brick wall.

Generally people in the block ask me for advise and I tell them to stick with their ADSL or LTE

 

[lightpixel]

Lucky for me on Openserve though the OLT sit in the exchange on the corner with a relatively big generator. No stage of loadshedding took me down yet with zero downtime in 1 and half years.

View attachment 800477

You are right. I have never heard of an openserve pop down due to load shedding or should I say Telkom ISDN service was never down for 10 years at our previous data centre. And I mean never ever once that we picked up.

Hertitage from the old Telkom days. The exchanges were built like fortresses with a ton of backup. I mean they are buildings.

The modern pop's are tiny by comparison hence the reason the open access is cheaper. You can't get away from that fact. The problem is we're all moving to Fibre and VOIP so we need the uptime.
Move everyone to VOIP you need 100% uptime.

Our DFA pop has also never been down in 5 years due to load shedding. Hopefully the open-access guys will realise this is Africa and put some cash into better long run UPS.

I don't envy any FNO during the current Eskom load shedding though. It must be really hectic keeping your network up at the moment.

 

[hj2k_x]

Same in Milnerton, the last 30 mins on stage 4 is proving to be too much. Stage 2 was still ok.
Its battery capacity of the UPS @ the node. Best to report to your ISP and place press for UPS to be upgraded.

Same here. Also Milnerton. We haven't even had loadshedding since yesterday but fibre had been unusable for most of today. Have contacted the ISP WhatsApp line. Still waiting for a response...

 

[genetic]

Same here. Also Milnerton. We haven't even had loadshedding since yesterday but fibre had been unusable for most of today. Have contacted the ISP WhatsApp line. Still waiting for a response...

Rather switch to Openserve. They cover Milnerton too... a bit more expensive but their impeccable service (even during load shedding) is worth it.

 

[Retro1337]

never had an issue with Frogfoot going down in Port Elizabeth during loadshedding - had an amazing experience so far

 

[Doom5003]

Lucky for me on Openserve though the OLT sit in the exchange on the corner with a relatively big generator. No stage of loadshedding took me down yet with zero downtime in 1 and half years.

 

[hj2k_x]

Hard to switch from Supersonic, I'm assuming. Given the way they lock you in by providing "free installation" repayable over 24 months...

 

[Bryn]

Loadshedding is causing chaos.

All the Frogfoot pops have backup batteries, but the period of time between loadshedding events does not provide sufficient time for the batteries to fully recharge. As I write this (9:45am), there's no load shedding in Somerset West, but Frogfoot's dead in the water. This has to be due to an upstream pop (it could be DFA and not FF) having run out of batteries and an alternate route being in use. By 11:00am, load shedding will be over at that POP, batteries will have charged a little and everything will be back to normal.

I doubt any of us have sufficient staff or generators to man every POP during load shedding. Hence we have to perform triage and make very difficult decisions about who gets internet during the last hour of loadshedding and who doesn't.

Well Openserve has worked it out, so Frogfoot can too.

I have a 100% likelihood of Openserve working just fine during load shedding as long as I can power things on my end. No exception, ever.

 

[cschutte]

My ISP had confirmed that many people have this issue with Frogfoot - hopefully somebody at Frogfoot takes the quality of their service seriously! A pity that such a good service is hampered by bad planning...