My hellish first experience with Openweb

A

asiv

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I don't know why, but I thought I'ld give up a R99 uncapped package that was giving me a decent 50+ Gigs monthly in
the hope that the R139 Openweb uncapped would perhaps give me a speed advantage and similar Gigs.

Due to my being unable to utilize the net as much as I'ld hope to, I only used abt 17GB in September.

I thought Il'd catch up on some video streams from you tube etc. this month. But lo and behold, I'm informed that shaping is in force at specific times therefore streaming and other high use protocols would be shaped(choked).
Yet my problem began after 7pm on a Saturday which is off peak.

I decide to test after midnight(just now) and behold, No streaming, no direct downloading nor any torrent download use is possible(after midnight even!). All I can do is surf pages. Are they serious? I just depleted a capped package before midnight(from elsewhere) which ran smoothly as usual.

Well, if I m not getting any positive feedback and amends, í'm certainly reporting the issue to the ombudsman and will rely on the CPA for restitution.

How difficult is it to run an ISP? And especially for a supplier who has been doing this for a decade plus?
 
Hate to say we told you so. Did you not read anything on this forum before signing up? OpenWeb is not a real ISP, they are just resellers.
 
deweyzeph said:
Hate to say we told you so. Did you not read anything on this forum before signing up? OpenWeb is not a real ISP, they are just resellers outsourcing support to their alter egos and running the who thing from their (his) bedroom in his mother's basement.
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FTFY.
 
deweyzeph said:
Hate to say we told you so. Did you not read anything on this forum before signing up? OpenWeb is not a real ISP, they are just resellers.
Click to expand...

I was thinking the same.

Nowadays you have to research your ISP very carefully before signing up...these days "not knowing what's going on is not an excuse" anymore.

Get yourself a nice VOX account...you will NOT be sorry.
 
As has been mentioned, you only have yourself to blame for not doing your research beforehand.
 
I'm not a "frequent flyer" on My BB, however I respect the research that is available very much. Am generally not too suspicious of suppliers. Sadly I missed ALL the criticism regarding Openweb over the years and did not even give it a thought when I decided to sign up.

I've never had an "ÏSP" place so much of emphasis on their terms of service above actually delivering the ''goods''. So, for me it's the first that I've been bitten like this.

I hope that others will get to see this article so they don't end up losing..
 
asiv said:
I'm not a "frequent flyer" on My BB, however I respect the research that is available very much. Am generally not too suspicious of suppliers. Sadly I missed ALL the criticism regarding Openweb over the years and did not even give it a thought when I decided to sign up.

I've never had an "ÏSP" place so much of emphasis on their terms of service above actually delivering the ''goods''. So, for me it's the first that I've been bitten like this.

I hope that others will get to see this article so they don't end up losing..
Click to expand...

Welcome to the club...
 
My latest feedback is that after complaining that my modem constantly needed to to be restarted so that I could stream Youtube (i.e. daily), I was advised to enter a fixed IP address. However this did not help. I got fed up with the thought of having to regularly complain to OPenweb, so I just did the restart thing for the month(October).

Given their full calendar month advance notice exploit, I decided to send an email just now to see if Openweb has a heart left and would resolve the streaming video issue(today at +- 2 pm onward, and after 3 restarts of the modem, no video streaming was possible). Am awaiting nothing...but a positive solution.

More feedback to follow in due course.
 
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asiv said:
My latest feedback is that after complaining that my modem constantly needed to to be restarted so that I could stream Youtube (i.e. daily), I was advised to enter a fixed IP address. However this did not help. I got fed up with the thought of having to regularly complain to OPenweb, so I just did the restart thing for the month(October).

Given their full calendar month advance notice exploit, I decided to send an email just now to see if Openweb has a heart left and would resolve the streaming video issue(today at +- 2 pm onward, and after 3 restarts of the modem, no video streaming was possible). Am awaiting nothing...but a positive solution.

More feedback to follow in due course.
Click to expand...

Can't you downgrade your account to something cheap, like a 1GB capped account, give cancellation notice and then start using another ISP immediately? I did that when I left Mweb back in the day. The capped account cost me R29.
 
Reply from Openweb rep is as follows:

Hi A...

Thank you for your email.

Streaming is not prioritised on this account at that time (16.43)
Account type: 2Mbps Home Uncapped Special R139.

The PLUS account offers : Priority on Streaming between 19:00 and 07:00
http://openweb.co.za/home-uncapped-plus/

Kind regards,
Zelda Coetzee
OpenWeb.co.za
Client (Don't)Care Executive

Words in parenthesis are mine.

Just so I dont have to waste money hospitalizing myself for their ridiculous Terms, I scoffed at it in my reply with a laugh, and promised to demote their company to all....

The bottom line is: OPENWEB is NOT cheap! It's just cold blooded marketing that's being done.
 
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Bryn said:
Can't you downgrade your account to something cheap, like a 1GB capped account, give cancellation notice and then start using another ISP immediately? I did that when I left Mweb back in the day. The capped account cost me R29.
Click to expand...

Hmm. I did not think of looking into that when I gave in my cancellation notice. Now it seems that those options don't show on my dashboard(or where not there in the first place). Not certain actually.
 
I heard Openweb use bonded ADSL lines from Afrihost as their IPC.
 
deweyzeph said:
Yip. They don't even have their own network.
Click to expand...

Nor do many of the big ISPs, however, they do choose their own shaping options etc. And customer support is way better than OpenWeb, which makes a huge difference when having issues.
 
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