The Truth about Un-capped ADSL

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Ignus

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Well.

I cannot even start to explain my anger right now.

I signed up for the 4096 uncapped account at Afrihost.

And yesterday I clocked a usage of 30 GB and noticed a very poor QoS.

Below is the email trace from Afrihost:

What I want to know from you guys is what is the other ISPs doing???

Thanks
 
Response from Afrihost:

==========
Hi Ignus.

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


Ticket Details

Ticket ID: YAU-697010
Department: Afrihost.com - One Hour Reply
 
Last edited:
This is my response to this:

====
This is totally unacceptable !!!!

I was on your site a 1000 times reading the FAQ a 1000 times

--- I have never seen this disclaimer ---

You sell this under the wrong pre tenses! If you going to throttle me, then you should charge me less!!!
I paid for a 4096 kb UNCAPPED account !!!!!
Currently I only have a 1024 kb line?!?!?!


Now, I understand the "fair usage policy" It is used around the world. But that should kick in affect after I have downloaded over 100's of GBs.
And I will accept the policy; by being shaped - during business hours - but when I get home and want to stream media - then I expect the quality of services that I PAY for!

And then you have the arrogance to not even tell me that you are shaping me!?
I want an apology for this unacceptable behaviour.

I am a loyal customer of Afrihost - and I pay with my hard earned money over to you, because I thought I can trust Afrihost? And then this is how you repay that trust!?
 
How is mweb so far??? How much have you downloaded???
 
Ignus said:
I paid for a 4096 kb UNCAPPED account !!!!!
Currently I only have a 1024 kb line?!?!?!
Click to expand...
I think that sums it up very well. They are not allowed to decrease your speed at any point in the month if they advertise (and you're paying for) a 4096kbps uncapped service. False advertising in my eyes.
 
Exactly. I am so upset right now.

I peruse the other threads and it looks like all the ISPs are doing this?
Can someone please verify my assumption???

We should sue the ISPs!

I tried normal HTTP traffic tests now. The fastest I can get is 80 KB/s.
And Afrihost claim that web works fine. Thus http on port 80 should not be shaped, but it is.
The same with FTP on port 21. Also shaped.
 
Afrihost throttle you based on how much you, individually, have downloaded.

Mweb shape and prioritize the account based on traffic types and how busy the network is, without any reference to you.

It is a major difference in approach, and I know which I prefer.
 
fragtion_ said:
I think that sums it up very well. They are not allowed to decrease your speed at any point in the month if they advertise (and you're paying for) a 4096kbps uncapped service. False advertising in my eyes.
Click to expand...

That is an interesting point, especially as you are still paying Telkom for a 4096 connection. Aggressive shaping is annoying but understandable, throttling is a blatant breach of contract If you have payed for that service (twice as you have to pay telkom too).
You may as well have a 512k line and save money if that is the average you can expect at months end from Afrihost.
 
Khanya said:
Quite good, ain't 4096 though...
Click to expand...

One should get 440 KB/s.
Thus this is 5.5 times slower.

@Gatecrasher:
Thanks for your response. This sounds a lot better. I will try and move me account asap.

@caroper:
Yip. We need to educate South Africans about this.

Do anyone know how one can get the editors to post an article?
 
Last edited:
@Ignus, as an ex-Afrihost uncapped user I can definitely recommend Mweb (thus far.) After downloading 40GB with Afrihost during late March through to early April everything went fine till my speed dropped and I noticed that Afrihost changed their Terms; I made the switch to Mweb as quickly as I could. With Mweb I have full line speed available as well as my downloads are running well.

As I understand it most of these other ISP's run off IS (where IS apparently controls the shaping), Afrihost actually paid IS per Gig used which gave Afrihost the ability to shape and control it, but I think they didn't budget on the hunger their user had for bandwidth so they slammed on the brakes as quickly as possible. You might well see a bit of a difference between Afrihost and the rest of the IS bunch, although apparently I would still not put my money with any of them after I read some comments users posted here. Mweb on the other hand is a Tier 1 provider and seems to be a good control of their bandwidth systems and are supplied through Seacom. All of this could change at anytime of course.

I fully agree, some one should post an article about this. If this isn't news worthy I really do not know what is.
 
I got exactly the same problem.

They changed the T&Cs after I signed up, which is a bit offsides imho.

I'm not even getting 1mbps on speedtest.net after I surpassed 30GB (12GB of that was upload BW)

I canceled my account today and will either be moving to mweb or stay on my WA 30GB int. account.
 
@Voicy, I think if you're up for it and if you do download quite a bit... Mweb is going well. I just really hope they don't go changing things now, although I doubt it since they have quite deep pockets to keep this going till they can leverage their user base against their usage and make a tidy profit.
 
pay that extra R22 with MWEB and you will not look back--remember, this extra comes with all the value-added stuff--like free 300min WIFI as well, etc. Move over already!
 
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