OpenWeb ADSL Account

Been following this thread and I will say that I feel for you BlankMan. You were paying a premium price for an Unshaped, Uncapped Gold Account and you weren't receiving what you were paying for. You were obviously paying more than the standard Gold account because your account was Unshaped. I for 1 remember seeing the two different Gold Accounts on OW site before.

It beats me why some people wanna be the spokesperson for their respective ISP and feel the need to chastise anyone that has anything negative to say about them. Fan boi much Cableguy??? Dont bother trying to explain contention ratio's or shaping to me thanks, I been in the IT industry 15 years already, I think I got the knack of by now...

Anyway BM, goodluck with your new ISP and dont be bothered by people that cant read
 
My experience with OW was also problematic, they don't come across as professional at all with the way they handle their business.
Seeing instances like what BM is going through simply adds to this feeling.

My OW account wasn't performing very well at all, so I contacted them and was given another account to use. The new account worked better until a few days later when it simply stopped working. My old account also had also stopped working. I contacted OW and they had cancelled both accounts, even though I was still paying. They then reactivated the account but this was shocking and I can't imagine I will ever go back.
 
I am a big OpenWeb fan and I love the service I get, but for the love of who knows what. I cannot see why all the OpenWeb fan boys(I don't know if its just passionate OpenWebbers or staff on their private accounts) have to flame so BlankMan vigorously for questioning why he wasn't getting the service he was paying for. It just seems way to unorthodox for some of these users to come with flying knifes at the oke for using this forum, for exactly the same purpose everyone else uses it for. This forum is there for people to raise their concerns about good and bad ADSL internet service. I think a lot of people have forgotten that.

If I pay purely for the fact that a service is unshaped and it is not, then I will also question the parties involved. This after several people came out at the time of BlankMan's post also stating that they experienced the same service. At the end of the day, if you pay money for a premium service, you can at least expect to receive what is stated as the basic features on the products site on the day of purchase (Taking into consideration the TOC, "Best effort" etc. etc.) An account is either Shaped or it is Unshaped. And as sad as it makes me to say it, that sadly does not help OpenWebs case as it has nothing to do with "Best effort". It's either one or the other. And no I am not insinuating that OpenWeb wrote it off to this, but I am rather trying to convey that I cannot see what other clause in their TOC can allow them to not provide the client with an unshaped service, for which they are specifically paying for. If there is such a clause, I am open to be corrected. :)

Gboss said:
Been following this thread and I will say that I feel for you BlankMan. You were paying a premium price for an Unshaped, Uncapped Gold Account and you weren't receiving what you were paying for. You were obviously paying more than the standard Gold account because your account was Unshaped. I for 1 remember seeing the two different Gold Accounts on OW site before.

It beats me why some people wanna be the spokesperson for their respective ISP and feel the need to chastise anyone that has anything negative to say about them. Fan boi much Cableguy??? Dont bother trying to explain contention ratio's or shaping to me thanks, I been in the IT industry 15 years already, I think I got the knack of by now...

Anyway BM, goodluck with your new ISP and dont be bothered by people that cant read
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Gboss said:
Been following this thread and I will say that I feel for you BlankMan. You were paying a premium price for an Unshaped, Uncapped Gold Account and you weren't receiving what you were paying for. You were obviously paying more than the standard Gold account because your account was Unshaped. I for 1 remember seeing the two different Gold Accounts on OW site before.

It beats me why some people wanna be the spokesperson for their respective ISP and feel the need to chastise anyone that has anything negative to say about them. Fan boi much Cableguy??? Dont bother trying to explain contention ratio's or shaping to me thanks, I been in the IT industry 15 years already, I think I got the knack of by now...

Anyway BM, goodluck with your new ISP and dont be bothered by people that cant read
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for me i recognize BM's plight. the other customers too. what i object to is the fact that he kept on spamming that the official feedback thread with the same story. it just pi$$ed people off in the end. then they turned. he has a point about that account as i mentioned previously. we just didnt want to have 5 posts about it everyday.
 
Wackyza said:
I am a big OpenWeb fan and I love the service I get, but for the love of who knows what. I cannot see why all the OpenWeb fan boys(I don't know if its just passionate OpenWebbers or staff on their private accounts) have to flame so BlankMan vigorously for questioning why he wasn't getting the service he was paying for. It just seems way to unorthodox for some of these users to come with flying knifes at the oke for using this forum, for exactly the same purpose everyone else uses it for. This forum is there for people to raise their concerns about good and bad ADSL internet service. I think a lot of people have forgotten that.

If I pay purely for the fact that a service is unshaped and it is not, then I will also question the parties involved. This after several people came out at the time of BlankMan's post also stating that they experienced the same service. At the end of the day, if you pay money for a premium service, you can at least expect to receive what is stated as the basic features on the products site on the day of purchase (Taking into consideration the TOC, "Best effort" etc. etc.) An account is either Shaped or it is Unshaped. And as sad as it makes me to say it, that sadly does not help OpenWebs case as it has nothing to do with "Best effort". It's either one or the other. And no I am not insinuating that OpenWeb wrote it off to this, but I am rather trying to convey that I cannot see what other clause in their TOC can allow them to not provide the client with an unshaped service, for which they are specifically paying for. If there is such a clause, I am open to be corrected. :)
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I agree with your sentiments, and BM was not receiving the service he paid for. Point is, he should ask for a refund if that's what he wants and move on with his life. But instead he is persisting with the an agenda no one knows of.

Im with OW, love them but agree their support is absolutely horrible. Luckily I don't have many problems, but if I did, I would simply leave to another ISP, as opposed to wasting my time moaning about the same thing in multiple threads.
 
akescpt said:
for me i recognize BM's plight. the other customers too. what i object to is the fact that he kept on spamming that the official feedback thread with the same story. it just pi$$ed people off in the end. then they turned. he has a point about that account as i mentioned previously. we just didnt want to have 5 posts about it everyday.
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^this
 
Haha good point. ;) Create a healthy discussion, raise your concerns, bring all parties together and try and find a solution. If you cannot seem to settle, then move on as the battle is lost in the consumer world. At least it is only like that in the Internet consumer world. I am actually surprised that both parties couldn't just settle this, but like someone else also stated, I guess you lose a client, and right away somewhere else you win a client. Probably doesn't matter in the bigger picture.

I am in the same boat as you @F1 Fan. Its all smooth sailing for me with OpenWeb. However, both my OW accounts run smooth 24/7 so I have never had to deal with support. I should perhaps count myself lucky then.

F1 Fan said:
I agree with your sentiments, and BM was not receiving the service he paid for. Point is, he should ask for a refund if that's what he wants and move on with his life. But instead he is persisting with the an agenda no one knows of.

Im with OW, love them but agree their support is absolutely horrible. Luckily I don't have many problems, but if I did, I would simply leave to another ISP, as opposed to wasting my time moaning about the same thing in multiple threads.
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@ Wackyza & akescpt

I'm glad to finally read some objective perspective's here, if only other narrow-minded people could open their eyes and see that this is just a customer who didn't get what he was paying for. I cant comment on the service from OW as I've only tested their network with a trial account and it worked well during the 10days it ran for.My uncapped is with TI but you don't see me flaming anyone with bad things to say about TI now. And no matter what anyone says about TI, its the only ISP (and I've tried them all) where I can download Torrents at line speed (200kbps) during business hours as well as after hours. Put that in your Gold Account and smoke it Cableguy!

The only thing that BM is guilty of is swearing while dealing with OW support staff. And really now who hasn't lost their cool because they were frustrated, the man's human after all. Lord knows if I was paying Top Dollar for an unshaped service I wasn't receiving I'd have let off a few choice words myself.
 
Gboss said:
@ Wackyza & akescpt

I'm glad to finally read some objective perspective's here, if only other narrow-minded people could open their eyes and see that this is just a customer who didn't get what he was paying for. I cant comment on the service from OW as I've only tested their network with a trial account and it worked well during the 10days it ran for.My uncapped is with TI but you don't see me flaming anyone with bad things to say about TI now. And no matter what anyone says about TI, its the only ISP (and I've tried them all) where I can download Torrents at line speed (200kbps) during business hours as well as after hours. Put that in your Gold Account and smoke it Cableguy!

The only thing that BM is guilty of is swearing while dealing with OW support staff. And really now who hasn't lost their cool because they were frustrated, the man's human after all. Lord knows if I was paying Top Dollar for an unshaped service I wasn't receiving I'd have let off a few choice words myself.
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I have to totally agree with this statement. Anyone can lose their cool - we are only human. The problem is ISP's pretty much do what they want. If anyone asks them a question about the service it is usually just said to be a privacy issue or it cannot be released. Everyone seems to play the cloak and dagger game. OW during the day is slow but I was with Afrihost before and they were exactly the same (except after 5pm OW does fly - whereas AH only flew after 11pm). AH did say that this would be fixed when there was more capacity which came and went and I was still getting horrible daytime speeds. All ISP's are not transparent enough and are all very secretive. I have to say that I have received the best service so far from OW and I am happy with what I am getting and I know that from 8am to 5pm not much will happen (mostly P2P). But if something is sold as unshaped and there is nothing wrong with your line surely sub 20kb/s on your 4mb line is not acceptable. Especially if you are paying for a service that did that. I work hard for my money and I expect the service I pay for. I would throw out all my toys if that happened to me as well. I do understand that the man did swear at the staff at OW but I can also see how angry someone could get over this. We (the clients) are farting against thunder with ISP's. They WILL do what they want (I think I am starting to slide off topic here).
 
The OW thread dont seem like such a happy place right now. Everyone is complaining how slow their daytime speeds/downloads are, while the fanboi's try to explain it away with network load/contention ratios etc. Yet somehow miraculously at 17:30 the contention ratio's and network load suddenly lighten up and your speeds increases. Mmmmmmmm seems fishy.....

All while some of us are downloading at line speed on "****ty" TI :whistle:
 
Yip there are fears that OW is getting over subscribed. I am one of those people fearing it.
However, the day time thing is simple. Its purely shaping. Telkom Internet doesn't shape but throttles after X amount of usage. OpenWeb doesn't throttle but shapes during business hours.

I guess in the end, it depends what you are after in terms of Internet. I am a very average uncapped user and don't download that much, but I personally hate the idea of being throttled. I am at work during the day, so OW works just fine for my needs. If I was home during the day and didn't want to dish out for unshaped I would of put up with the throttling and also go TI.

I guess it comes down to personal preference. :)

Gboss said:
The OW thread dont seem like such a happy place right now. Everyone is complaining how slow their daytime speeds/downloads are, while the fanboi's try to explain it away with network load/contention ratios etc. Yet somehow miraculously at 17:30 the contention ratio's and network load suddenly lighten up and your speeds increases. Mmmmmmmm seems fishy.....

All while some of us are downloading at line speed on "****ty" TI :whistle:
Click to expand...
 
Wackyza said:
Yip there are fears that OW is getting over subscribed. I am one of those people fearing it.
However, the day time thing is simple. Its purely shaping. Telkom Internet doesn't shape but throttles after X amount of usage. OpenWeb doesn't throttle but shapes during business hours.

I guess in the end, it depends what you are after in terms of Internet. I am a very average uncapped user and don't download that much, but I personally hate the idea of being throttled. I am at work during the day, so OW works just fine for my needs. If I was home during the day and didn't want to dish out for unshaped I would of put up with the throttling and also go TI.

I guess it comes down to personal preference. :)
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I share your sentiments and think that OW is becoming oversubscribed, MWEB is heading down the same route. That's normal considering the popularity of OW and the success of their accounts.

I too dont download that much either, some months I can pull 200-250Gbs and other months less than 60Gbs. But I hate having to be limited to a data cap. The daytime "slowdown" as I like to call it was beginning to to get to me. I work on a 3 month rotational shift, 1 month Projects and then 2 months day and night (2weeks day/2weeks night) and being home during the day and trying to download was becoming painful.

I personally dont mind TI's throttling after +-250Gb (2MB line) at least I have an idea of how close I am to being heavily shaped vs some randomly calculated, un-measurable algorithm based Star rating of sorts. I now just stream (XBMC)alot of the content I'd usually download these days anyway thus saving hard drive space.

I'd still consider using OW if I the TI thing don't work out, in fact all IS based ISP's accounts seem to perform well.
 
F1 Fan said:
I agree with your sentiments, and BM was not receiving the service he paid for. Point is, he should ask for a refund if that's what he wants and move on with his life. But instead he is persisting with the an agenda no one knows of.

Im with OW, love them but agree their support is absolutely horrible. Luckily I don't have many problems, but if I did, I would simply leave to another ISP, as opposed to wasting my time moaning about the same thing in multiple threads.
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As i have said i have friends and family that are experiencing the same issues, so my complaints is for them as well to get the performance they pay for.
 
Wackyza said:
Haha good point. ;) Create a healthy discussion, raise your concerns, bring all parties together and try and find a solution. If you cannot seem to settle, then move on as the battle is lost in the consumer world. At least it is only like that in the Internet consumer world. I am actually surprised that both parties couldn't just settle this, but like someone else also stated, I guess you lose a client, and right away somewhere else you win a client. Probably doesn't matter in the bigger picture.

I am in the same boat as you @F1 Fan. Its all smooth sailing for me with OpenWeb. However, both my OW accounts run smooth 24/7 so I have never had to deal with support. I should perhaps count myself lucky then.
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The problem with this is that if the ISP is just saying the same thing, they just want their customers to believe what they are saying.... That is not right . . and that is why it turned out the way it did ....

as i have said, all they must admit to, is that they don't have the capacity as they have had e few months ago....
 
Gboss said:
I share your sentiments and think that OW is becoming oversubscribed, MWEB is heading down the same route. That's normal considering the popularity of OW and the success of their accounts.

I too dont download that much either, some months I can pull 200-250Gbs and other months less than 60Gbs. But I hate having to be limited to a data cap. The daytime "slowdown" as I like to call it was beginning to to get to me. I work on a 3 month rotational shift, 1 month Projects and then 2 months day and night (2weeks day/2weeks night) and being home during the day and trying to download was becoming painful.

I personally dont mind TI's throttling after +-250Gb (2MB line) at least I have an idea of how close I am to being heavily shaped vs some randomly calculated, un-measurable algorithm based Star rating of sorts. I now just stream (XBMC)alot of the content I'd usually download these days anyway thus saving hard drive space.

I'd still consider using OW if I the TI thing don't work out, in fact all IS based ISP's accounts seem to perform well.
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Ye I have to agree. It must be great to have unshaped 24/7. As stated I for one do not download much, so perhaps Telkom Internet would work well for me. One of the main reasons I have stuck with OpenWeb is because they meet all my basic requirements and I am happy with the service I have received. One of the main contributors is the fact that OpenWeb is on the IS backbone and due to this I get 190ms ping in games to EU etc. What are the international pings like on Telkom Internet for interest sake?
 
I have been following this thread and the Openweb thread for the past couple of days. I have a gold ( not unshaped) account. The account get shaped heavily during the day, "depending on how busy the network is" and all that blah blah blah. I cancelled my account at the end of the month as the feedback thread is full of examples of guys on "lesser" accounts, e.g silver etc who get full speed 24/7, and I personally don't. Point is, it doesn't matter how many post you write about the subject, nothing is going to change your situation. Please move on as I have, Openweb is not the only ISP around. Hopefully one of them will give you the experience that Openweb could not.
 
BlankMan said:
The problem with this is that if the ISP is just saying the same thing, they just want their customers to believe what they are saying.... That is not right . . and that is why it turned out the way it did ....

as i have said, all they must admit to, is that they don't have the capacity as they have had e few months ago....
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You could perhaps be right. It would explain why all of the Gold Unshaped users are experiencing limited service. Sadly without facts you will never know. And all the facts are considered company sensitive information. Thus, sadly this is a sleeping dog you will have to let lie. :)
 
Guys and Girls, i will pose a new question to you on the over subscription topic. (just to think about)

We have monitored the OW Site the past few days, i urge you to do the same.

Go to OW Web Site, and you will see how many accounts they still have available, every day, there is 300+ available.
Yes it has "come down" during a day, but check the next day ...... then again the next day, they have some how got more bandwidth from somewhere and they opened up more accounts ??

Does this seem right ??

When i bought/paid for my 4MB Uncapped, UNSHAPED account in Nov 2012, they said they will only have 700 of these accounts, how many do you think they have sold ??
 
BlankMan said:
Guys and Girls, i will pose a new question to you on the over subscription topic. (just to think about)

We have monitored the OW Site the past few days, i urge you to do the same.

Go to OW Web Site, and you will see how many accounts they still have available, every day, there is 300+ available.
Yes it has "come down" during a day, but check the next day ...... then again the next day, they have some how got more bandwidth from somewhere and they opened up more accounts ??

Does this seem right ??

When i bought/paid for my 4MB Uncapped, UNSHAPED account in Nov 2012, they said they will only have 700 of these accounts, how many do you think they have sold ??
Click to expand...

ISP's purchase new capacity all the time. The whole business model is about maximizing capacity utilization, matching supply and demand. An oversubscribed network is going to fail over time. An under-subscribed, under-utilized network is going to fail financially. Its a fine balance that ISPs have to juggle with to survive and profit. It's pointless trying to second guess how ISPs are balancing the supply and demand. Because we will never know. The only thing we, as consumers, have to worry about is that the products we buy perform in the manner they were marketed. And if they don't, take our money elsewhere.
 
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