Official Afrihost Q&A Thread

[Abe]

If you use the account as the AUP is laid out (No unattended usaged) then I doubt you will experince throttling to 128kbs.

That part a bit of a cop out. I hardly use 10 GB per month (no torrents, news, etc) and even I have unattended downloads. In fact I just downloaded the latest office trial with FDM and I wasn't sitting next to the computer to do it <shudder>.

I understand why they are doing it, my office download went through at 280k/s with 15 odd threads on a 4 Meg line and I have a capped account so the uncapped thing is even having an effect on the capped accounts. It's been a long time since I have downloaded a file from a major international web site at less the 400k/s with multiple threads running.

 

[ponder]

I feel a bit like Marvin the Paranoid Android from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - very depressed.

rotflmao

 

[johnjm]

Thanks for the feedback - having read this now I still want to cancel my account with you - my email address used to sign into client zone is 888jjm at gmail dot com. I did PM earlier, if you could please see that you cancel my account and reimburse as originally request that would be great.

 

[Zyzzyva]

Im very happy with my mweb account. Pings were horrible but now seem sorted.
MWB has been helpfull too!
But this thread is about Afrihost

If mwebs speed stay fast over the next few months its because mweb is subsidizing it. If thats the case and you want to download 100 gig or more then i would recommend moving to mweb to enjoy the below costs pricing while it lasts. I know i will if that the case. But for now i can live with the honestly and the usage limits Gian has proposed. I would like to see some after hours grace periods though.

 

[froot]

While I appreciate a plight by the ISP owners, I have to ask if users of other ISPs are finding the same throttling (after 60gb) being imposed?

I'm on about 4GB for the month (maybe even less) and I'm being shaped to death here. News servers and torrents refuse to work during the day and even at night it doesn't reach 15KBps. I'm only able to YouTube and browse. Http downloads (gtalk/skype files included) don't reach even close to linespeed, ever.

 

[ponder]

I still don't think this product should be called uncapped. With their logic my 56k dialup modem is is also uncapped, uncapped but useless.

 

[Mypro-D]

If mwebs speed stay fast over the next few months its because mweb is subsidizing it. If thats the case and you want to download 100 gig or more then i would recommend moving to mweb to enjoy the below costs pricing while it lasts. I know i will if that the case. But for now i can live with the honestly and the usage limits Gian has proposed. I would like to see some after hours grace periods though.

Im close to 100gigs already :/ I just wanted to see how much I could get and if I got in Poo hehe!

 

[fonoi]

I transfer a lot of files via ftp for work/development purposes..... which often go above 30GB in total a month. It's not overkill, and it's not unattended either - I work with the stuff. That doesn't justify heavy throttling, just btw

Then you wont experience heavy throttling...

 

[VertigoZA]

The lot of you sound like a bunch of whiny brats. Gian, keep doing what you're doing.. you have the support of 95% of your user base.

 

[killadoob]

Im close to 100gigs already :/ I just wanted to see how much I could get and if I got in Poo hehe!

LOL no dude we are with mweb luckily . People keep talking like companies are making a loss offering these account but how are they making a loss? Anyone know what they get charged per gb? Afrihost hired 10 engineers, hardly sounds like a company running at a loss.

So how do people know anything is being subsidized?

 

[Re83L]

I'd advise WHEN you change the above 'rules' or 'terms' again - you let your uses know.

For me, the worst part was the complete lack of response from Afrihost, even a simple query asking what was going on last night was ignored.

You have had the affirmative-action type thought process from last night, and have been VERY childish in my eyes.

Are you one of the guys that used to use the R29/GB accounts?

If so, you should know that the guys from Afrihost have been trying to get us a more affordable solution from the start, and you shouldn't have cried like a little fat girl whose cake was stolen from last night.

You should go to MWEB (I can guarantee with 98% certainty that you will run into the same issues there, the ONLY reason Afrihost started this earlier is because they are more effective than MWEB....)

I sincerely hope that whenever you're even slightly off timing with any important project you work on in your life, you're scrutinized as badly as you have been doing Afrihost the past 24 hours.... Did you ever read in their T&C that the account is still in testing? Because clearly your behavior from the start towards them have been very hostile.

A warning to all the other idiots out there (Supamansa comes to mind): These uncapped accounts will be unsustainable if you keep trying to rape the account, rather than thinking of your neighbor as well. Spread out the 1000GB of (illegal) downloads you want to do over a 6 month period, you won't use all that data immediately anyway.

I have to salute Afrihost for acting in the best interest of the ordinary Joe's out there.
The 1TB/month (most likely pr0n watching) losers can buy R2500 accounts, ,as even at that rate, it comes down to R2.50/GB, which is a give-away IMO.

I also have to add, that when you advertise your account ass uncapped, you should probably also put an asterisk with some T&C in it, as our current usage resembles people going to the Panarotti's eat-as-much-as-you-can pizza special, and trying to eat about 200 slices....

I fully understand that you'll be able to lift the 60GB to 100GB or even 200GB once the high-end users get over it.

I'll support you okes, from start to finish, because you can make sense out of SA's Internet situation, unlike most of the guys posting in the "ADSL ISP discussions" forum..

 

[PaulMark]

Im close to 100gigs already :/ I just wanted to see how much I could get and if I got in Poo hehe!

Its thanks to idiots like you that Afrihost is forced to impose shaping and throttling on the rest of us. Hope you've cancelled your account and good riddance!

 

[warchylde]

Then you wont experience heavy throttling...

That's not true - when I hit 30GB my connection was throttled so badly my skype wouldn't sign in and my VOIP office phone wouldn't work. My connection was throttled down to dial up speeds.

 

[Mypro-D]

Its thanks to idiots like you that Afrihost is forced to impose shaping and throttling on the rest of us. Hope you've cancelled your account and good riddance!

Im on MWEB you idiot!
Cant you read???

 

[fonoi]

so - I am supposed to sit and watch it download a movie, say Paranormal Activity, and then go watch it, where theoritcally, I could have watched it live (except for the constant buffering issues).

If you are watching it via a paid webservice then +1 to you and unfortunatly the South African internet is not at that level yet, if you are pirating the movie then .... I really dont care if you get throttled. Go buy the DVD of five of the movies you download in a month then come tell me again how expensive R500 for 30GB is...

 

[Zyzzyva]

LOL no dude we are with mweb luckily . People keep talking like companies are making a loss offering these account but how are they making a loss? Anyone know what they get charged per gb? Afrihost hired 10 engineers, hardly sounds like a company running at a loss.

So how do people know anything is being subsidized?

Telkom ipc pricing, as well as seacoms pricing is common knowledge. Those two things alone give us all we need to know.

 

[killadoob]

Its thanks to idiots like you that Afrihost is forced to impose shaping and throttling on the rest of us. Hope you've cancelled your account and good riddance!

LOL dude, they said hundreds of gb's so what do you expect hahah. Uncapped with a fair usage of hundreds of gb's.

Why don't afrihost just block pirate stuff during the day like mweb and then let it free at night? Poor planning, not expecting people to pull gb's or what?

 

[Hectic]

... and so we all learn about this relative unknown phenomenon called "affordable uncapped". Our dreams and expectations were set to high it seems, for us as users and for Afrihost as ISP.

The problem is then, who will use this account then? Not the "mom & pops" that just send emails and their 2.5 kids who need to do a school task once every 2 weeks. A 1- 5GB account will be more than enough. The so called power users will now for sure stay away from this account, as this is not for them as been several times indicated by Afrihost.

So users between 10 - 30GB, it seems that this account is for you and just in case you forgot to switch off the pc off after the normal 20 minutes a day use and your AV and Microsoft updates, guess what? You won't be capped!!! Oh life in SA is just gr8! Slow but uncapped.

Thank you for the reply Gian. I knew you would. It is just the way Afrihost has been run all the time and why we are so impressed with Afrihost. I personally have benefited from decisions Afrihost made after email queries from my side and they gave me what I wanted in situations that other ISP's would not.

It is also the reason I waited with great anticipation for Afrihost's uncapped offer.

I accept your reasons for implementing the steps as stated, but are very disappointed with the Afrihost uncapped offering.
After all the innovation and ructions you caused with your R29/GB and special offerings, this is such a "safe" offer and for me, truly not in the "Afrihost spirit".

 

[Hamjob]

Thanks for the honesty, unfortunately this setup will not work for me, 30GB over 30 days is 1GB per day before I start getting throttled, 1 GB per day is nothing, even 2GB per day is nothing, (if you go to the first 60 GB throttle).

How can I go about cancelling my account? Do I email [email protected] or do I PM you Gian?

Personally, I would be happy with some sort of shaping for the downloading services during business hours and after hours when the unusual work load is not on the pipe anymore just ease up a bit on the shaping (throttling).

 

[fonoi]

That part a bit of a cop out. I hardly use 10 GB per month (no torrents, news, etc) and even I have unattended downloads. In fact I just downloaded the latest office trial with FDM and I wasn't sitting next to the computer to do it <shudder>.

I understand why they are doing it, my office download went through at 280k/s with 15 odd threads on a 4 Meg line and I have a capped account so the uncapped thing is even having an effect on the capped accounts. It's been a long time since I have downloaded a file from a major international web site at less the 400k/s with multiple threads running.

Use your mind! This is not a cop out it is aimed at the abusers, people who queue 24/7 downloads for a week/month at a time. They obviosuly dont expect you to sit and wait for your 2gb update to download just that you should not queue the 2gb download followed by 100 such downloads. Understand?