Official Afrihost Q&A Thread

I've got a question. Up to now for the really heavy downloader one of the best options was Axxess at R1000 for a 4 Meg line with the limitation that if you download more than the rolling window you will get throttled between 8 am and 8 pm. But a couple of crazy buggers can move around 700 gigs in a month and axxess is fine with that. Axxess even shows the top download stats on their site. This whole setup runs over SAT3 I think????

Now we have Seacom landing and every-one and their grandma is offering so-called 'uncapped' but with service issues so severe we have 44 pages on this thead alone (and me typing about it while I could be doing something way more interesting - ok ,maybe not?????). Now we were promised WAY more bandwidth at reduced prices, and this seems to be true since I'm involved with a few universities sitting on Seacom and for the same money a year they have vastly more bandwidth.

My question is why aren't we seeing an axxess like deal with similar rules for a cheaper price now. How come Seacom is giving us lower prices but with really really bad throttling, shaping, limitations etc etc aka inferior service from ISP's.

I'm obviously simplifying the Seacom situation way too much, so can someone in the know please enlighten us?

Thanks
Werner
 
I'd just like to put up some stats for anyone who cares:

I've recently switched away from Afrihost (to OpenWeb) because of terrible line speeds. I have a 4 meg line and I'm seeing about 1/8 of that on Afrihost, with an uncapped account. I've only downloaded 36 gig this month (a large chunk of that was the HL2 cinematic mod, over 9 gig), so according to the Afrihost FUP, I should only have "certain ports" aggressively shaped. I assume that means p2p such as torrents and the like. According to the FUP, I should be able to enjoy regular web access at "normal" speeds. Before I went uncapped and in the first few days of uncapped, I used to get about 3.4 mbps down and 0.5 mbps up (according to speedtest.net).
These are my current figures:
http://www.speedtest.net/result/781294613.png (Durban)
http://www.speedtest.net/result/781296174.png (Johannesburg)

When I logged a trouble ticket, I was told originally that the problem lay with IS upstream. When I queried on it further, I was informed that the system administrators were still looking into it and I would be kept up to date on the matter -- I wasn't. This lack of communication and what feels, to me, like blatant violation of their own FUP has caused me to switch from Afrihost. Now, I'm quite a loyal person -- and I'm big on word of mouth. So I'm also quite embarrassed to say that I encouraged a few of my friends to sign up with Afrihost. Now I look like a bit of a chump ):

Anyway, on Openweb, about 2 min after the Afrhost tests above, I get the following results:
http://www.speedtest.net/result/781298539.png (Durban)
http://www.speedtest.net/result/781300134.png (Johannesburg)

And speedtest.net still reports my upstream provider as being IS. So I guess the problem isn't at IS. I would hazard a guess at one of two sources:
1) Afrhost oversold and IS is throttling them because they are over their allotted bandwidth for the month
or
2) Their shaper is very dodgy and doesn't know how to properly classify me now that I'm over the initial 30 gig mark. A friend of mine is experiencing the same problems.

Listen up Afrihost: the last thing you want to do is disgruntle loyal geek clients. We can be your best sales force -- and your worst nightmare.

Personally, I hope they sort this out. It's a nasty stain to recover from, but I would like to see them come right again. If they could verify that they have sorted out their stuff and will stick to a reasonable FUP, I might consider switching back -- of course, so far, OpenWeb is winning me over by just working as advertised.
 
Used - Action taken

30 GBs - Shaped more
60 GBs - line speed throttled to 1mb
90 GBs - throttled to 512 kbps
120 GBs - throttled to 386 kbps
150 GBs - throttled to 128 kbps

Ok so I have now hit the 60GB mark and boy was i surprised, here is my speed check done at 11pm (so unshaped)
781383253.png


Now that is just bull sh*t! I really cant beleive Afrihost would do that kind of thing! Only used 60GB and got worse than 120GB speed throttling!!!

Good bye Failhost hello Mweb
 
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They seem to be throttling a lot more than their AUP states. :(

Is anyone else having trouble accessing the Afrihost clientzone?
 
notstpaul said:
They seem to be throttling a lot more than their AUP states. :(

Is anyone else having trouble accessing the Afrihost clientzone?
Click to expand...

I couldn't access the clientzone on my 384 connection once I had reached 15GB. Or any other website for that matter.
 
For everyone who is interested, I have an "official" reason as to why uncapped accounts are being so heavily throttled. Apparently it's only the people who decided to pony up for uncapped accounts who are automatically assumed to be criminals, and, as such, are being forced into using something they didn't pay for -- a service which flies in the face of the Afrihost FUP and T&C. Below, for your reading pleasure, is the email I received a few minutes ago:

-----------
Thanks for your mail.:)

Firstly I would like to sincerely apologize if you have been mislead by our uncapped option. Unfortunately we needed to put these restrictions in place ,as we were receiving alot of abuse reports through IS of clients downloading illegal movies,games and software. We needed to throttle them,unfortunately as we only have one pipe which our uncapped accounts run through and this has affected all the users. Our Directors and developers are currently trying to create a better system or solution for all uncapped users to provide better speeds. We hope that this solution will be effective from or before end of the month.


Thank you and take care.

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

Warm regards.

Darryl
----------

So, at least we all know why we are (or were, for people like me who have already had enough of the attitude of AH) getting such terrible line speeds: apparently, we're all nasty pirates.

Arrr, I say.
 
necr0mancer said:
I call BS! thats the worst excuse I have ever heard. Sorry, I dont buy it.
Click to expand...

What part of it aren't you buying? The part about people downloading illegal content? Or the part about them ending up throttling everyone instead of the abusers?

Just looking at how many people posted their "abuse letters" on this forum, all coming from IS/Afrihost, its quite clear they are clamping down on illegal downloaders.

What do you think the real reason should be? "We just like taking your money, we're gonna throttle everyone randomly or whenever we feel like it" . Why would they do that? I'm sure they're aware of the reputation damage this is causing, so i can't fathom why they'd just throttle without reason.

Hell, maybe IS throttles any account at 30GB if it's flagged for abuse.........


....actually that makes sense.
 
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hahaha that's a horrible excuse.

they throttle everyone because someone download "illegally" (not in SA for personal use it isn't just sayin). Great service won't buy again.
 
rabbiddog said:
Thats what I have been thinking, but I will find out tomorrow as thats when I will hit 30GB, without having an "abuse' letter.
My current speed is still fine http://www.speedtest.net/result/783199557.png
Click to expand...

Yea, maybe it's a bit more complicated in that an IS account is not tied to one single Afrihost account. So 1 person gets flagged for abuse and the entire IS-account [which might serve 20 users] gets throttled.

To speculate further, maybe the only way Afrihost can get the account "unthrottled" is to send this letter to the user and hope they "resolve" the issue quickly so they can tell IS to unthrottle.

And that's why Afrihost might even be forced to go as far as locking/closing accounts if the user do not comply or continue to abuse....even though most ISPs do not give a crap.

Anyhow i'm just speculating, but it does sound logical. It might explain why other IS related users [not on Afrihost] reports similar problems.
 
davydm said:
...Unfortunately we needed to put these restrictions in place ,as we were receiving alot of abuse reports through IS of clients downloading illegal movies,games and software.
Click to expand...

It's a very minor point but someone should really explain the definition of the word "legal" in the above contect to both AH and IS. Movies, games and software are not illegal; they're either unlicenced or in breach of copyright. If they're going to reduce everyone's line speed to a crawl, they could at least have the courtesy of getting the details of our alleged crimes correct. Sorry, but it really irritates me, particularly when ISPs use it as an excuse to screw their customers.
(Goes off to find cutlass, eyepatch & parrot...)
 
ajc said:
It's a very minor point but someone should really explain the definition of the word "legal" in the above contect to both AH and IS. Movies, games and software are not illegal; they're either unlicenced or in breach of copyright. If they're going to reduce everyone's line speed to a crawl, they could at least have the courtesy of getting the details of our alleged crimes correct. Sorry, but it really irritates me, particularly when ISPs use it as an excuse to screw their customers.
(Goes off to find cutlass, eyepatch & parrot...)
Click to expand...

Now you're just being semantic.

illegal [ɪˈliːgəl]
adj
1. forbidden by law; unlawful; illicit
2. unauthorized or prohibited by a code of official or accepted rules
Click to expand...

Copyright Infringement / Piracy / Unlicensed is all "illegal" somewhere to someone. South Africa might not have specific clear rules against it , it still doesn't mean it is "legal" to the owners/creators of said content. It just means they can't pursue you here, but they certainly will try.

IS can choose to ignore the copyright owners and go "wha wha, can't touch us" , problem is that's how entire IP ranges gets blocked from half the internet content. Somewhere someone eventually decides IS is an "uncompliant" ISP and then the entire network gets screwed. So i'm sure IS have an obligation to do "something" or at least make it look like they are doing "something" about anything that is considered "illegal" to someone.
 
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Interesting. A few weeks back I asked Afrihost to please tell me how I had suddenly lost around a gig and a half of bandwidth that I don't remember using. I asked them if they could tell me what was downloaded and they said they had no way of knowing that.

So how can they tell who's downloading illegal files and who isn't?
 
Pixual said:
Interesting. A few weeks back I asked Afrihost to please tell me how I had suddenly lost around a gig and a half of bandwidth that I don't remember using. I asked them if they could tell me what was downloaded and they said they had no way of knowing that.

So how can they tell who's downloading illegal files and who isn't?
Click to expand...

It was handed down to them by IS. They are allowed to troll through our packets, apparently....
 
Pixual said:
Interesting. A few weeks back I asked Afrihost to please tell me how I had suddenly lost around a gig and a half of bandwidth that I don't remember using. I asked them if they could tell me what was downloaded and they said they had no way of knowing that.

So how can they tell who's downloading illegal files and who isn't?
Click to expand...

They don't. Most prob the IP assigned to you was seen on a tracker downloading the file and that authority contacted your ISP which taced the IP to you and forwarded the letter. Got one myself but since I do not do torrents I suspect the guy looking after my house over the easter weekend did something he should not have :D
 
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