How is WebAfrica's uncapped ADSL??

WebAfrica's star rating system

Dan C said:
I'm on 4mbps... I'm very light user.. I'd say under 200gb per month and you won't feel a thing (but that's speculation).
Click to expand...

Well, my experience of this change is not at all good so far. I'm also on 4mbps and have downloaded only 89GB this month, but noticed that I've been dropped to 4 stars! Hard to see with the SEACOM outage if this is having an impact on my speeds which are generally just horrible at the moment.

12GB (yes, only twelve gigs) usage in the last 7 days seems more than reasonable for an "uncapped" account. Just 1.94GB today! Not that I could really download more if I tried right now - but that's a separate issue. Seriously guys - I knew where I stood before this change which WA is trying so hard to sell us on. Hiding behind an algorithmic black box doesn't satisfy me at all. I appreciate clarity & predictability - that's what I'm paying you for (or at least what I thought I was paying you for before these latest changes).

My questions are simple:

- why have I been "downgraded"?
- how long does this "bad rating" stay in place? Is it reevaluated and reset hourly, daily, weekly, monthly or never?
- what are the real effects? Does 4 star give me 80% of "normal" in office hours? If so, what other ISPs are worth considering now since WA is not what it used to be.

Since I mainly use my ADSL for work during office hours and not between midnight and 6am, answers like "you can get full-speed browsing after midnight just don't cut it.
 
zapped said:
Well, my experience of this change is not at all good so far. I'm also on 4mbps and have downloaded only 89GB this month, but noticed that I've been dropped to 4 stars! Hard to see with the SEACOM outage if this is having an impact on my speeds which are generally just horrible at the moment.

12GB (yes, only twelve gigs) usage in the last 7 days seems more than reasonable for an "uncapped" account. Just 1.94GB today! Not that I could really download more if I tried right now - but that's a separate issue. Seriously guys - I knew where I stood before this change which WA is trying so hard to sell us on. Hiding behind an algorithmic black box doesn't satisfy me at all. I appreciate clarity & predictability - that's what I'm paying you for (or at least what I thought I was paying you for before these latest changes).

My questions are simple:

- why have I been "downgraded"?
- how long does this "bad rating" stay in place? Is it reevaluated and reset hourly, daily, weekly, monthly or never?
- what are the real effects? Does 4 star give me 80% of "normal" in office hours? If so, what other ISPs are worth considering now since WA is not what it used to be.

Since I mainly use my ADSL for work during office hours and not between midnight and 6am, answers like "you can get full-speed browsing after midnight just don't cut it.
Click to expand...
If you use ADSL during office hours, you should probably go for any ISP's business adsl account.
 
I was curious about how the new rating system is going to work and what kind of restrictions to expect.

I'm on the 1Mbps Home uncapped. My usage counter shows 61.56 GBs for this month and I'm sitting on 4 stars. I was changed from 5 stars to 4 stars at about 60GBs.
 
I moved over to WA 4mb uncapped on the weekend and so far I am happy with the performance. Pulled 42GB's in 5 days.
 
zapped said:
Well, my experience of this change is not at all good so far. I'm also on 4mbps and have downloaded only 89GB this month, but noticed that I've been dropped to 4 stars! Hard to see with the SEACOM outage if this is having an impact on my speeds which are generally just horrible at the moment.

12GB (yes, only twelve gigs) usage in the last 7 days seems more than reasonable for an "uncapped" account. Just 1.94GB today! Not that I could really download more if I tried right now - but that's a separate issue. Seriously guys - I knew where I stood before this change which WA is trying so hard to sell us on. Hiding behind an algorithmic black box doesn't satisfy me at all. I appreciate clarity & predictability - that's what I'm paying you for (or at least what I thought I was paying you for before these latest changes).

My questions are simple:

- why have I been "downgraded"?
- how long does this "bad rating" stay in place? Is it reevaluated and reset hourly, daily, weekly, monthly or never?
- what are the real effects? Does 4 star give me 80% of "normal" in office hours? If so, what other ISPs are worth considering now since WA is not what it used to be.

Since I mainly use my ADSL for work during office hours and not between midnight and 6am, answers like "you can get full-speed browsing after midnight just don't cut it.
Click to expand...

Being on a 4 star rating should not affect you in a massive way as normal protocols like browsing, VOIP, VPN should be fine and it might only affect your P2P downloads mostly during the dayon a Home account. In the evenings things should be running as per normal but of course with the current SEACOM issue its hard for us to properly differentiate whether its a star rating issue or SEACOM if you are getting slow speeds.

You were moved onto a 4 star rating because of your current usage, but again a 4 star rating is not considered 'bad'. We can't say how long it will take you to drop down as things are not set in stone with our new Uncapped AUP. Like we said before a number of factors come into play, like Network capacity/load and overall usage, when your star rating is evaluated.

We would suggest since you require the account during office hours that you opt for a Business account as you will get a much better overall experience and will not need to worry about certain protocols being prioritised over others.
 
WebAfrica Uncapped Woes

At about 7:30am this morning I noticed I wasn't getting into gmail. Tried other international sites - no luck. Using WA "uncapped".

WebAfrica's status page shows all clear - so I called support, and after almost 20 minutes on hold, I was told that another customer had reported similar & they were investigating...

Switched to FNBConnect - all working perfectly. Seems like WA's international connectivity went down around midnight.

Is this limited to JHB? Is WA even geared up to support JHB? Based on other posts, it seems like they have very different market share and therefore different priorities between the Cape & Gauteng.

Still, no excuse for not maintaining an up to date status page (still shows no problem as of 9am which is sloppy and dishonest). Surely there is some automated monitoring and proactive attention before customers complain? Or am I thinking of another service?

Anything more reliable than WA?
 
zapped said:
At about 7:30am this morning I noticed I wasn't getting into gmail. Tried other international sites - no luck. Using WA "uncapped".

WebAfrica's status page shows all clear - so I called support, and after almost 20 minutes on hold, I was told that another customer had reported similar & they were investigating...

Switched to FNBConnect - all working perfectly. Seems like WA's international connectivity went down around midnight.

Is this limited to JHB? Is WA even geared up to support JHB? Based on other posts, it seems like they have very different market share and therefore different priorities between the Cape & Gauteng.

Still, no excuse for not maintaining an up to date status page (still shows no problem as of 9am which is sloppy and dishonest). Surely there is some automated monitoring and proactive attention before customers complain? Or am I thinking of another service?

Anything more reliable than WA?
Click to expand...

I am experiencing the same problem in Durban. I logged a ticket(was too lazy to call)

It was disappointing to see that their page shows no connectivity issues when it seems that no one can get into ANY international site.

UPDATE: Facebook now works. Gmail, XDA, TPB,Twitter, Youtube and probably all other internation sites still not working. Still no issues according to Web Africa System Status.
 
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Midday update

When I called before 8am to report the international connectivity problem, I was promised I would get a call back once it was clear what was happening.

Now, 5 hours later, I have had no calls, and still there is no sign of a network update. According to WebAfrica's network status page, everything is working perfectly.

Is WA an ISP that only works during office hours? Or does updating the network status require a board decision?
 
If you want proper uncapped get an Openweb Gold shaped account. No throttling, little shaping, no rolling windows. It just works. If you really need excellent day time performance get the Gold unshaded for only a little more.
 
zapped said:
At about 7:30am this morning I noticed I wasn't getting into gmail. Tried other international sites - no luck. Using WA "uncapped".

WebAfrica's status page shows all clear - so I called support, and after almost 20 minutes on hold, I was told that another customer had reported similar & they were investigating...

Switched to FNBConnect - all working perfectly. Seems like WA's international connectivity went down around midnight.

Is this limited to JHB? Is WA even geared up to support JHB? Based on other posts, it seems like they have very different market share and therefore different priorities between the Cape & Gauteng.

Still, no excuse for not maintaining an up to date status page (still shows no problem as of 9am which is sloppy and dishonest). Surely there is some automated monitoring and proactive attention before customers complain? Or am I thinking of another service?

Anything more reliable than WA?
Click to expand...

Just to let you guys know, we experienced the exact same thing on our OpenWeb uncapped accounts. The issue started at about 2:30am, and nobody could give us feedback either.

It was not ISP-specific
 
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