Screamer: The consensus?

Yippee, just managed to cancel my Screamer subscription!

I had to contend with a family rebellion at my home due to the absolutely pathetic Internet speed we have experienced since moving to Screamer. I sent them a message last week with the results of a number of speedtest.net tests but received no response from them. Last night, I simply gave up and called them this morning to cancel my subscription. That is also an exercise in frustration, since their call centre numbers all just go through to voice mail. If the voice mailboxes are not full, I also know by now from experience that it does not help to leave a message - they just don't call back. Happiness was at last when I got hold of a human a few minutes ago to get confirmation of the cancellation of my subscription. It is really obvious that they have been trying to sell something they do not have.
 
Stay away from Screamer for now

I dearly regret signing up for a Screamer uncapped account!

Used to be loyal Cybersmart subscriber. Moved to Gconnect for the billing/multiple concurrent account options, but ran into strange problems where certain pages would load when connecting using a mac (yes, sounds impossible, but they even admitted to it)

Moved to Afrihost - great service, great network speeds.
Moved to Screamer due to loophole in Afrihost contract allowing you the possibility to cancel without having to give any notice. Chose the Screamer uncapped account. Managed to log onto the Screamer network once, for about an hour, only getting about 9KBps download speeds! From there on the account stopped functioning. Tried everything through support - they could never help me. Every time they phoned back I had to explain the whole story again. Finally managed to get through to accounts department and demanded an immediate cancellation without notice period seeing that it had been less than 7 days from sign up, but without any connectivity for that period. They agreed (actually encouraged me to cancel, saying they are experiencing huge technical problems). My account was still debited R142. They have not been able to explain what this amount is, and when I can get it back. And despite a fully confirmed immediate cancellation, they still ended up debiting my account yet again this month.

My advice - stay away for now. Afrihost seems to know what they are doing (except for the complete lack of any form of ADSL terms and agreements) They run the buy one get one free topup special somewhere in the month (R14.50 per gig is not bad).

I have heard rumours that Cybersmart may be launching some new, more competitive services (including uncapped...)
 
Telegamer said:
Teething problems are to be expected
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No, not really. Beta testing is to be expected and, last time I checked, it wasn't acceptable to charge testers.

Well done to DigiChilli and Web Africa:cool:
 
Telegamer said:
Teething problems are to be expected
Click to expand...

waahahahaha

these are not teething problems, these are THE EXACT SAME PROBLEMS screamer users have been having for years!

Only a fool would expect a change from them
 
Yes, I was willing to give Screamer a go for a month, but having internet slower than a 56K modem for over 3 days I had enough. Goodbye Screamer (appropiate name!!! for the wrong reasons) hello DigiChilli, cannot wait for launch this Saturday.
 
aekritzinger said:
Yes, I was willing to give Screamer a go for a month, but having internet slower than a 56K modem for over 3 days I had enough. Goodbye Screamer (appropiate name!!! for the wrong reasons) hello DigiChilli, cannot wait for launch this Saturday.
Click to expand...

Are you the Eskom Andrew Kritzinger? Not that you would say yes even if you were I suspect.
 
Give them time

I recently joined Screamer (i.e. 1/12) and my first impression was that I was somewhat unhappy. My surfing get timing out, and every now and then my P2P would go down, and this is using the connection after hours. So I ran a test between Screamer and my Axxess account. My ping from Joeys to Durbs was about 105ms with Screamer and 111ms with Axxess. Not bad really. My torrents though is where things looked upsetting. Downloading the exact same file, I averaged 32K with Screamer and about 40K with Axxess. Thus it's a bit of a catch 22 situation. Do I keep Axxess and satisfy my needs with a faster connection and limited bandwidth, or do I use Screamer and deal with unlimited bandwidth but a crappy connection.

I guess my decision is that I'll give Screamer another chance during December, and if they haven't got the rear ends into gear by the new year I'll change ISPs.

I'm a great supporter though of the fact that they are taking the bull by the horns and trying to change the market, so I'll support them for now.
 
From what I read though, DigiChilli are having the same probs as Screamer, yet so many people are singing their praises. It doesn't make ANY sense

"HTTP downloads are going at 6.5KB/sec at the moment."

"Getting very slow streaming and steam is running at 6kb/s"

"Please could we have some feedback regarding the very slow HTTP downloads. This is the only aspect that is putting doubt in my mind. There has been so many posts but I haven’t seen any solutions? Is this ever going to become stable. Most of the time it is well below the minimum guaranteed speed?"

A few posts from the DigiChilli thread mere minutes ago

And that's with the few test accounts on it... Imagine when everything kicks in on Saturday...
 
G8crasha said:
I recently joined Screamer (i.e. 1/12) and my first impression was that I was somewhat unhappy. My surfing get timing out, and every now and then my P2P would go down, and this is using the connection after hours. So I ran a test between Screamer and my Axxess account. My ping from Joeys to Durbs was about 105ms with Screamer and 111ms with Axxess. Not bad really. My torrents though is where things looked upsetting. Downloading the exact same file, I averaged 32K with Screamer and about 40K with Axxess. Thus it's a bit of a catch 22 situation. Do I keep Axxess and satisfy my needs with a faster connection and limited bandwidth, or do I use Screamer and deal with unlimited bandwidth but a crappy connection.

I guess my decision is that I'll give Screamer another chance during December, and if they haven't got the rear ends into gear by the new year I'll change ISPs.

I'm a great supporter though of the fact that they are taking the bull by the horns and trying to change the market, so I'll support them for now.
Click to expand...

That's the problem with good deals, we all rush in and grab them before seeing the cons. Though I'm battling on whether to sign up myself to my current ISP's uncapped account, or wait for testing.

Doesn't seem anyone's testing them, so I might become their first user:erm:
 
milomak said:
Are you the Eskom Andrew Kritzinger? Not that you would say yes even if you were I suspect.
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LOL, yes, it is me, due to screamer absent internet connection I was not able to deliver my gas reports on time . .. . :eek::eek:
 
Rah_Skill said:
From what I read though, DigiChilli are having the same probs as Screamer, yet so many people are singing their praises. It doesn't make ANY sense
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Lol, people are singing their praises because they bothered to test their network. When they are happy with it, they will go live. If they have paying customers and problems at the same time, I expect them to get the same treatment as Screamer received.
 
Slow is not the word

I just sighned up on the 384 uncapped option, have to say..web browsing and http downloads are supper slow hope they will sort it out soon ........:mad:
 
enezar said:
I just sighned up on the 384 uncapped option, have to say..web browsing and http downloads are supper slow hope they will sort it out soon ........:mad:
Click to expand...

Buyers remorse - you should have done your homework - SCREAMER are USELESS.

There have been many threads on this. They can go take their endless NAT'ing elsewhere.

J
 
Gotta say I'm in love with the account from SAOL, 40KBps and all :D

Now where is the tutu video? Gonna buffer nicely on my account, too bad for the screamer customers. They won't get to see the video with their speeds :p
 
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Rah_Skill said:
Gotta say I'm in love with the account from SAOL, 40KBps and all :D

Now where is the tutu video? Gonna buffer nicely on my account, too bad for the screamer customers. They won't get to see the video with their speeds :p
Click to expand...

exactly why i signed with SAOL!

No time to screamer at support and slow speeds, and Chilli will just make me hot under the collar! I'd rather stick to a known name, than a no-name! Sorry Chilli-Phreaks!
 
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