MWEB + THE WEEKEND = FAIL

Very reasonable. They are (obviously) aware of the problems and of the frustrations that these problems cause to their users and they are actively looking at what they can do to prevent such problems from arising in the future. I'm satisfied with those comments.

Still no explanation of why the SAT-3 redundancy wasn't working. I assume someone will get the 'hair-dryer' treatment for not testing the failover process. (I guess its not easy to test a 'live' system...)

While you were replying, I was editing my post which you quoted above to include a comment relating to this.

Edit:This way we could have a whole conversation, without adding further replies to this thread. LOL ;-)
 
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Still no explanation of why the SAT-3 redundancy wasn't working. I assume someone will get the 'hair-dryer' treatment for not testing the failover process. (I guess its not easy to test a 'live' system...)

While you were replying, I was editing my post which you quoted above to include a comment relating to this. Certainly I was surprised that not even users on top-end business packages were spared the outage. As a 384 Connect user I guess I can't really complain, but if I was using a 4MB business package and lost almost 5 hours of connectivity, I'd be irritated.
 
I'd be happier if MWEB introduced a SMS service notifying of down time.

How many users do they have? That would be quite a number of SMS's to send. I guess they could make it 'opt-in' via the MyADSL page. What I would want is to know the expected duration more than anything else -- is the downtime going to last for an hour or a day. I can figure out for myself that there is an outage when (international) sites fail to load. They do have their tardily updated Network Status Page. AFAIK Business users receive more communication regarding outages than Connect users.
 
Is the emails having problems too? I got a guy on an iafrica address trying to send me an 11mb attachment but nothing is coming through, he said it keeps bouncing.
 
I'd be happier if MWEB introduced a SMS service notifying of down time.

How many users do they have? That would be quite a number of SMS's to send. I guess they could make it 'opt-in' via the MyADSL page. What I would want is to know the expected duration more than anything else -- is the downtime going to last for an hour or a day. I can figure out for myself that there is an outage when (international) sites fail to load. They do have their tardily updated Network Status Page. AFAIK Business users receive more communication regarding outages than Connect users.

I really wouldn't want to get an SMS telling me that international is down. I'd much rather have a proper Network Status Page. Saying that all international traffic is down, has a very low information content (kinda obvious).

AFAIK it's impossible to say in advance how long an outage is going to last. What they could say is that X or Y links are broken.

They somehow seem reluctant to do this, although its usually obvious to anyone who can run tracert, and has access to TENET's SEACOM graph:
http://monitor.net.tenet.ac.za/cacti/graph_view.php?action=tree&tree_id=6&leaf_id=874
 
Well - thats not really my problem - they can fund it by the amount of bandwidth they save when people can't browse.

They don't save when people can't browse. They pay for a certain sized pipe, not the number of bits that get pumped through it. So, for example, they buy a 100Mb/s pipe - not 400GB of downloads.

That also explains why it gets shaped, because only 100Mb/s can go through it at a time. As more people use HTTP/Email, the less other (torrents, etc) they allow through.

(It also debunks the theory that some people have advanced which is that they are "running out" of bandwidth at the end of the month, so they have to switch the pipe off.)
 
And in other news, the Bulls are playing the Stormers for the Super 14 final in a few hours. Hope they run at full throttle.
 
Is the emails having problems too? I got a guy on an iafrica address trying to send me an 11mb attachment but nothing is coming through, he said it keeps bouncing.

I've always had this problem with iafrica. Tell your friend to use smtp.saix.net as his outgoing mail server.
 
Ahh gotta love the shaping on p2p. Newservers arent even peaking over 50KB
 
Very reasonable. They are (obviously) aware of the problems and of the frustrations that these problems cause to their users and they are actively looking at what they can do to prevent such problems from arising in the future. I'm satisfied with those comments.

I think we can rule out the comments mentioned here that it was all a great conspiracy concocted by MWeb to save them some bandwidth :erm:

To continue with the 'sugar' analogy from earlier. If you were to visit your local shop looking for sugar only to discover that he did not have any in stock because the truck did not arrive, you could jump up and down and engage in as much weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth as you like, he still would not be able to produce a kilogram of sugar for you. Chances are, the lack of sugar delivery irritates him as much as it does you. He has to deal with irate customers who may go elsewhere and he has to fight with the sugar delivery people.

The same applies to MWeb of course. I'm not sure what it says about us as a community when our response to an outage is pure vitriolic hate towards MWeb. We've discussed this at length of course. We want what we pay (much less than before) for, with 100% redundancy. We won't accept a second of downtime, but we also won't pay thousands of rands per month for 100% redundancy. Yes, I know people on R2000 business packages were also affected. Possibly MWeb could have had a better response for them. I just get frustrated when the initial and recurring reaction from the community is to flame the living hell out of MWeb. It's their fault, they cut us off to save bandwidth, this is all a greater conspiracy, etc. I'm sure they hate outages and always do their best to resolve them.

The only way to avoid dealing with upstream providers is to be your own. Like that other large telecommunications monopoly in this country.

Fcking +1 my friend. ;)
 
Is the emails having problems too? I got a guy on an iafrica address trying to send me an 11mb attachment but nothing is coming through, he said it keeps bouncing.

lots of ISP mail servers in ZA have a 10mb size limit. If he's getting a bounce back, he should actually read it, as it will tell him exactly why its being bounced.
 
lots of ISP mail servers in ZA have a 10mb size limit. If he's getting a bounce back, he should actually read it, as it will tell him exactly why its being bounced.

Some are even lower... 5mb!
 
Fcking +1 my friend. ;)

You seem to have liked that a lot and I only saw it when you responded so let me ask you, and SabreWolfy, about this part :

To continue with the 'sugar' analogy from earlier. If you were to visit your local shop looking for sugar only to discover that he did not have any in stock because the truck did not arrive, you could jump up and down and engage in as much weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth as you like, he still would not be able to produce a kilogram of sugar for you. Chances are, the lack of sugar delivery irritates him as much as it does you. He has to deal with irate customers who may go elsewhere and he has to fight with the sugar delivery people.

Let's take that analogy further....... would you happily sit without sugar while the specific shopkeeper made promises that he would ensure the problem was sorted shortly or would you jump in your car and spend your money at another shop that can supply you with sugar? Even if that shop was a few rand more expensive? Would it matter to you what reason the original shopkeeper gave for not having sugar? Would you assume it was just an excuse?

And if that first shop seemed to always be out of stock of things would you not eventually stop frequenting that shop at all and tell your friends about it too son they don't waste their time?

Sabre, already touched on this by stating that the sugar customers may go elsewhere so I really am not sure what he is wanting the response to be.
 
....and just to add, out of interest, my downloads are now maintaining constant, decent, speeds for the first time the whole weekend :)
 
You seem to have liked that a lot and I only saw it when you responded so let me ask you, and SabreWolfy, about this part :



Let's take that analogy further....... would you happily sit without sugar while the specific shopkeeper made promises that he would ensure the problem was sorted shortly or would you jump in your car and spend your money at another shop that can supply you with sugar? Even if that shop was a few rand more expensive? Would it matter to you what reason the original shopkeeper gave for not having sugar? Would you assume it was just an excuse?

I would assume that it's life and deal with it. As life is not perfect and fussing about it just proves useless. In my experience leaving the fist shop keeper for another shopkeeper just ends up with other problems. I think there is a saying the grass is not always greener on the other side? While that might be going a bit far out of context, my point is one will never be truly happy with the service. I was with Openweb before MWEB and they had their share of ups and downs, and that was with a 10GB Semi-Shaped account, never mind uncapped. And I've seen the pattern here as well, people jump ship more than people change their underwear. Why? Because the ISP had a week? Month? Then they rant on how crap the service is and how these ISP's lie and scam us. It's like the world revolves around them, forgetting that actual people do hard work to supply this service at this cheap rate and that they are most likely just as annoyed as you are, not to mention all the verbal abuse they take. I think as a consumer one should also some respect.

Don't get me wrong, if the service doesn't work for you, change. By all means. But don't come around saying this and that, and they are **** because you had a bad experience. Say I like the sugar at this shop, and I don't mind waiting for it. Because at the end of the day I know the sugar is good. Even if the shopkeeper could not supply me at the time I needed it. I know that the Shopkeeper did everything he could, to supply me with my sugar. Not to forget, that the same shopkeeper has to supply thousands of other people as well and not just me. And please lets don't forget that the shopkeeper had no control over the truck, he just signed a contract saying the truck will arrive at said time with enough sugar for everyone. The shopkeeper at the end of the day is just as pissed as you are, as he is wasting money on a service that he is also not getting.

The service clearly states the terms and conditions and that it's shaped and anybody with an IQ would know because it's a new service, several hic-ups are to be expected for the first 6 months, if not more.

Bleh - now I'm done.
 
I'm in the same boat as most of the people - experiencing extremely horrific service from these A$swipes and i'm getting more and more fukkked off with these stooopid kuntts.....i've experienced max download speeds of <50Kb/s for the past 3 days, phoned mweb and telkom repeatedly today . ....no effin joy!!!!! And to think i actually pay my bills timeously for this effin crap service . . . fukkkk you MWEB -
Way to go MWEB - proving that you guys can offer the world and actually deliver for 2 days in an entire month - I so wish we had other options so i could phone MWEB support and tell them they can suck my KOKK and fukkkk off with their ****tttyyyy service -

Apologies for my tone - but i'm sick and tired - and all those people that tell me that i can cancel my subscription so they can benefit from one less MWEB user and have an overall better internet experience - i say - wake up...smell the roses - one less person aint gonna make a difference to your internet experience - hell a 100 000 less people wont - you know why - mWEB is just out to make money - load up on as many subscriptions - split the load and see how far and feasible it can be till they can the service - throw it out as an unfeasible venture yet extremely profitable venture while it lasted.

I would strongly discourage new DSL users to go the MWEB route - rather support a less crappy Service Provider. There are none out that are good enough - but theres tons out there thats less crappy than the FUKKKNUTS!
 
Have you heard of the small fact that one of the international routes is down, very possibly due to Seacom maintenance to bypass the reliance on Sea-Me-We 4?....

Oh and the fact that they're shaping P2P heavily..

I haven't had any issues with normal browsing and such...
 
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