Official Afrihost Q&A Thread

The Afrihost uncapped account isn't uncapped at all. You won't break 200GB with Afrihosts account. Calculating MAXIMUM theoretical download per day, keeping in mind when the next throttle kicks in, you won't break 171GB in a month.

Roughly Cumulative totals:
Week 1 116GB
Week 2 145GB
Week 3 162GB
Week 4 171GB
Week 5 174GB

Call a spade a spade.
 
Anyone here anything about refunds yet for those who cancelled pre-april
 
pevans said:
Check that you are using only PAP authentication. CHAP authentication isn't properly supported by Afrihost for some reason. Forcing your account to use only PAP should solve the authentication issues....well...it did for me anyway. :)
Click to expand...

<n00b>
Where would I check that?
</n00b>
 
In your router settings under the adsl/wan/pppoe configuration section.
 
Apparently the slow speeds i experienced during the day were due to Telkom's testing, causing line instability.
Not sure if this is true or just a standard response.

Speeds are back to normal again.
 
Anyone got refunded for April 2010? I'm also planning to cancel my Afrihost uncapped account....speeds are terrible here since yesterday.
 
Yeah speeds have been shocking for me too, got 2 http downloads going atm at 20kbps and 15kbps respectively.

Would love a response from Afrihost to confirm that they are aware of a problem.
 
To put it in hon terms, you will get slowed by demented shaman, then arachna, then slither, at like 60gb/30gb intervals. BUT you will never be stunned by pebbles for example. Unfortunately.... IF you were to get slowed by all of those heroes... you would still die. EVEN though they don't really affect your spell casting and stuff you WOULD get owned xD

Oh btw, I sent an email through to support@afrihost at the beginning of this month requesting the cancellation of my account due to these new terms of service... Maaaaybe one day you'll receive it? And maybe reply to it? Or should I send another 5?
 
What Afrihost should have done is limited P2P from 7 AM - 11 PM and on weekends a larger window and everyone would have been happy, but released the product far too quickly without any forethought, just to beat MWEB...

(no fan of MWEB but impressed with the connectivity)
 
For kicks, I tried working out how the throttling would actually look. Assuming max download capacity at all times (4mbps 24/7), the throttling curve looks like this: http://woganmay.com/files/afrihost/afrihost-throttling-c.gif

Yep - you hit 60GB after 36 hours, and your speed vanishes for the remaining 4 weeks. At max, you can pull around 175GB in a month. The spreadsheet with all the calculations are here (in case anyone's interested in details): http://woganmay.com/files/afrihost/Afrihost.xlsx

Assuming 4mbps for the whole month, that's over 1200GB, so I can understand the throttling. Hopefully Afrihost will raise these limits in the future (or at the very least consider 2048k as a throttling stage).
 
^^^

Well at least you know you'll never reach the initial 200GB where they might of cancelled your service :) PS - I think someone did that calculation in one of the other 200 Afrihost threads.
 
Funny how people still complain. You get 175GB per month for < R500. That's R2.80 per GB! Sure I know the whole "uncapped" advertising argument might have a point. Sure maybe the guys on MWEB will get more (bearing in mind that it's been mentioned that MWEBs AUP might only kick in next month....we'll see...), but it's still the cheapest bandwidth we've ever had!

Simple fact is - South African networks cannot sustain 1.2TB per user per month. So full 4mb isn't going to be a reality any time soon. Enjoy what you're getting!

While on the topic.... perhaps there is room for cheap high-capped accounts. At least then you could get you 200GB at full speed......
 
Another unhappy guy going to cancel his account here - I signed up last month, but only started using it this month. Only read the old terms and conditions, so imagine my surprise when after moving 30 gb, my line speed dropped to half (even at 3 in the morning, including http traffic like youtube or downloading software IDE's).

Totally bait and switch - I was quite happy to keep my downloading under 200, or even under 100 as originally promised. 30 GB is just not enough for an uncapped account - Cutting my line speed in half for browsing etc is not acceptable as I use it for work (downloading things I need for work). This means about R17 a gig as that is all you will get at your line speed, not uncapped by any means. I would rather have full line speed and pay for it through 14.5 recharge specials. (And 30 gb over 7-8 days is not what I would call abuse of the network.)

I used to rave about Afrihost, and almost got several friends to sign up for this as well as the company I work for - no longer!

They really dropped the ball on this one - how about an email stressing the changes ? Why do I have to read about this on a forum ?

Cheers, it was good while it lasted.
 
pevans said:
Funny how people still complain. You get 175GB per month for < R500. That's R2.80 per GB! Sure I know the whole "uncapped" advertising argument might have a point. Sure maybe the guys on MWEB will get more (bearing in mind that it's been mentioned that MWEBs AUP might only kick in next month....we'll see...), but it's still the cheapest bandwidth we've ever had!

Simple fact is - South African networks cannot sustain 1.2TB per user per month. So full 4mb isn't going to be a reality any time soon. Enjoy what you're getting!

While on the topic.... perhaps there is room for cheap high-capped accounts. At least then you could get you 200GB at full speed......
Click to expand...

Indeed, i consider myself a 30GB user if i just download/stream regularly (+- 1GB a day) . Now i looked for a good 30GB CAPPED solution, but guess what, there is -nothing- below R500 ! [and unavailable specials doesn't count].

Just going on 30GB @ R500 = R16 p/GB .

Now even Afrihost themselves do not offer capped packages at that price, they have the R14 p/GB special which is completely random and not something i'd continue to bargain on (especially not with the uncapped offerings) , but to get that you need to have a R30 p/GB default package anyway...

So simply based on that, all the uncapped packages are the best deal if you're a 30GB user......now if you're a 60GB+ user, only THEN one would need to investigate a little further. I don't see myself doing 60GB+ every month, so i guess all this hoo-hah about the FUP does not bother me. I suppose Afrihost basically might as well just say it straight "if you're doing 60GB+ a month and require 100% performance, this package is not for you" . Simple, doing more than 60GB? Move on.

My ultimate evaluation will thus be based on the 0GB-30GB performance of the package, irrespective of what they do after that. If it performs poorly in the first 30GB [and yes that includes being shaped differently during the day than the night] when there are other packages at the same price performing better, then that would be my queue to move.

I expect shaping, since this is shaped bandwidth anyway, but i don't expect being shaped MORE (in the first 30GB) than if i bought 30GB capped traffic.
 
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I've been holding my tongue and waiting to see how things unfold. Trying to give Afrihost some time and the benefit of the doubt.

I'm on 384 uncapped. Last few days of last month were fantastic. This month for me started off okayish but then went from bad to worse. I'm no where near 30gb and I basically can't browse or download anything. I had to switch to my telkom account to be able to check MyBB.

The account is pretty much useless.

I can relate to diabolus - I don't need 200gb a month. I'd say that 60gb would be a dream for me. But whats the point in having 60gb when I can't even browse?

I'm giving Afrihost until the 24th. If things carry on like this, I too will be cancelling my account.

I'm very frustrated with Afrihost. Not only because of the terrible experience I have had so far, but mainly because Gian's silence is deafening. He promised to answer questions and hasn't bothered. Yes this is a messy thread, but thats no excuse to start a thread and then disappear, leaving his loyal customers frustrated.
 
I have just logged a support ticket asking them if these policies will be amended any time soon as Gian has promised to update this thread and has failed to do so. If I don't get a clear response I am cancelling. Unfortunately if they throw the book at me I will have to stay for may as well. I have just hit 30GB and this is my speedtest result.

http://www.speedtest.net/result/776020201.png
 
warchylde said:
I have just logged a support ticket asking them if these policies will be amended any time soon as Gian has promised to update this thread and has failed to do so. If I don't get a clear response I am cancelling. Unfortunately if they throw the book at me I will have to stay for may as well. I have just hit 30GB and this is my speedtest result.

http://www.speedtest.net/result/776020201.png
Click to expand...

Hi XXXX.

I trust that you are well.:)



I see that your uncapped account has already used more then 30Gb of bandwidth, remember at this point your account is then throttled as per our Acceptable Use Policy (AUP).

Below is a extract from our faq page on this particular point: I hope it answers your question....

https://www.afrihost.com/adsl-uncapped-faqs.php

I want to use this account to download heavily - How is my usage going to be throttled if I do download heavily?

This is how we are currently dealing with our Uncapped 4096 accounts:

===============
PLEASE NOTE: These are our current settings we plan to use - however, they may change in the future.

This is our first iteration of a brand new product and we are learning as we go - We are hoping to refine this and over time make the limitations less
===============

On signing up to our Uncapped product you will get our standard ADSL service. (i.e. certain ports are shaped somewhat and web and email are prioritised.)

After you have moved 30 GBs you will be moved into a different category whereby certain ports will be shaped more aggressively. However, web and email will still be prioritised.

After moving a total of 60 GBs you will be moved into a different category where your line speed is throttled to 1024 kbps per second and certain shaping protocols are in place.

After moving a total of 90 GBs then you will be moved into a category where you will be throttled to 512 kbps. Certain shaping protocols will also be in place here.

After moving a total of 120 GBs you will be moved into a category where your line will be throttled to 386 kbps. Certain shaping protocols will also be in place here.

After moving a total of 150 GBs you will be moved into a category where you are throttled to 128 kbps.

You will never be capped.

If you use this account for heavy downloading then you WILL be throttled at some point in the month so please think about whether this account is for you.

Please note: The above explanation is how we are currently planning on dealing with accounts from April but we do reserve the right to change these at any time - The bottom line is that if you intend to use this account for heavy downloading you will be shaped and throttled at some time.

Thanks
Have a great day & please feel free to let me know if I can be of further assistance.

Warm regards.

Faraad
 
I've also logged a ticket asking them to give us a response or risk potential customers loss. When these uncapped accounts were first announced Gian and co. were right on the scene making promises and trying to alleviate the worries and doubts we had about the authenticity of these "sudden" uncapped offerings. Now that they've baited many people into joining they've suddenly begun dodgy amendments to their terms and conditions under the premise of "testing" what works best.
 
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