Uncapped Services - Fair Usage Policy Changes

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Vonnii

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I, like many others, were thrilled at the new uncapped services being offered. I went around reading any and all the information I could find to make an informed decision as to which ISP to go with. Basing my decision on factors such as cost, fair usage policy etc and service provider history I finally decided to go with Afrihost.

Signing up late last month on pro-rate and continuing my subscription this month I was shocked to see that without notifying me Afrihost just went ahead and changed their usage policy.

Surely they cant just go ahead and insert the following terms, without notification since this substantially alters the service:

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:

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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
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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.
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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.
I have not yet reached 60GB's neither do I want to download 100's of GB's worth of data. But this is substantially different from the 200GB they originally had on their website.

We as subscribers surely cant be at the mercy of ISP's changing their terms at any time without notifying us?
 
We have clearly noted that Afrihost must retract their 'uncapped' statements - someone must take them to the ASA!
If I was using their package, I would've done it.
I'm with MWEB (for now)
 
Its very strange that they would be causing so much hassles since Afrihost was one of the first movers when it came to cheaper ADSL. Which package are you on with MWEB and how does their shaping/fair usage compare, I'll definitely jump ship since it seems Afrihost is going down very quickly.
 
gdiza said:
We have clearly noted that Afrihost must retract their 'uncapped' statements - someone must take them to the ASA!
If I was using their package, I would've done it.
I'm with MWEB (for now)
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+1
 
*sigh*

There are threads about this ALL OVER the forum. Deal with it. Move on if you have to.

I must say though, if you did all the research you claimed I'm a little surprised that you concluded that Afrihost was your best option.
 
Vonnii said:
Its very strange that they would be causing so much hassles since Afrihost was one of the first movers when it came to cheaper ADSL. Which package are you on with MWEB and how does their shaping/fair usage compare, I'll definitely jump ship since it seems Afrihost is going down very quickly.
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Well Ive been with Mweb since 18th March.

18-31st of March my usage was 107GB and I could still use p2p and Usenet and everything at full speed. Compared to afrihost i would have been limited to 512k and God knows how bad p2p would have been.

**BTW my usage might look really bad but 40% was local. 30% was uploading. Since I no longer limit my upload speed and find myself seeding a int torrent for 2-3days. :-)
 
Rodent-Boy said:
*sigh*

There are threads about this ALL OVER the forum. Deal with it. Move on if you have to.

I must say though, if you did all the research you claimed I'm a little surprised that you concluded that Afrihost was your best option.
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+ 1 Million. There are threads all over the place about this. It has pretty much been addressed.
 
Are you people living under a rock or something? There's a zillion threads already about this. Afrihost offers refunds due to this change, take it and move on. Everyone seems to be throwing a hissy fit over one ISP putting in an extensive throttling system...big deal, there's at least 4-5 other ISPs offering uncapped -without- the throttling. So stop moaning and go to them, this is the only way things change, by actually not paying for it.

Afrihost will most likely not change the throttling, but rather offer an entirely different product. So even if ASA gets them to rename the package to something generic like "Afrihost Platinum No-Cap" , you're not gonna get anything -better- out of it. In fact chances are Afrihost will simply retract their uncapped completely and then you will have to go to MWEB anyway.

If you really want to moan, moan about the ISPs that are charging R60 p/GB without ANY uncapped offering or ANY offering even resembling "uncapped" . Your energy is much better spent on those than continuously taking down one ISP who are offering a solution which is kind of in a grey area, but if you get right down to it, is still a zillion times more economical than any capped product in the market.
 
Thank you to everyone who replied, I was unaware of the changes that occurred from the time I signed up with Afrihost till now, since everything seemed to be going fine. I have now phoned Afrihost and promptly started cancelling my account. I will be join Mweb as soon as it goes through but would just like to ask if there is any reason I should not join them? Thank you for all your feedback.
 
I feel that the above changes is purely to prevent abuse of bandwith, how many of us actually reach the 60GB mark, unless you are 24/7 on the net and are only downloading, I am using the capped package and buy extra when I run out. (they have a special at the moment, buy 1 gig get 1 gig for free for R29)
 
@Harold, I felt exactly the same, until Afrihost started throttling and shaping to the extreme during the day. I am lucky if I het 300k/s down speed on my 4mb line!

I have thus far oinly used 1,2Gb this month and I am so slow during the day that I cannot even surf the web - nevermind play a game online!

I have subsequently cancelled my account and will be signing up with MWeb soon :)
 
At the moment Afrihost is experiencing a lot of technical issues. On my 4mb line i'm getting: and that's locally. Apparently it's mainly Cape Town subscribers.
 
They're crooks. Stay away as far as you can from them. They're current setup is unlawful, it's against the ISPA code of conduct, they advertise a false product and they deceive their customers in any way possible. They're a no-go!
 
haroldj said:
I feel that the above changes is purely to prevent abuse of bandwith, how many of us actually reach the 60GB mark, unless you are 24/7 on the net and are only downloading, I am using the capped package and buy extra when I run out. (they have a special at the moment, buy 1 gig get 1 gig for free for R29)
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Buy 5 new games per month using steam,ect and you can easily reach that amount. A lot of new games are 14 gig's in size.;)
 
stefan9 said:
Buy 5 new games per month using steam,ect and you can easily reach that amount. A lot of new games are 14 gig's in size.;)
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If you can afford 5 -new- games -every- month at $50 a game, then you can afford paying for an unshaped/dedicated/serious solution without any restrictions...not a cheap shaped throttled offering like the one this thread is about :D
 
Downloading games from steam is one of the few legal ways of using this account, or do you expect everyone to get a business account to download games? The fail is with Afrihost and the fact that they now have a product that's not even close to what was originally advertised, not in using these account for legal, non-business or non-24/7 activities.

Idiot.
 
The Web Africa ADSL package have the value added benefit of FreeZone which allows effective uncapped access to any server or services running within that area of our network. That means that since a STEAM content server is within the FreeZone one can download as many games and patches as you want, from the Steam server, without being "throttled" or even using any bandwidth.

The value add of FreeZone will be expanded on in the near future to bring more value to both gamer and non gamers. The only requirement on our side is that you have at least a little bit of bandwidth on your wadsl package, to access that feature ;)
 
An FYI if anyone's interested - "ppedrick" from Imagine explained how this works on another thread:
Basically, there's 2 IS packages which people can resell - a high cap package that the ISP can shape and throttle however they like. It's not proper uncapped cos they pay IS a price per gig. This is what Afri resells which is why they MUST enforce their usage policies, cos they actually pay for every gig. They get away with calling it uncapped cos they never actually cut you off.
The other IS package is totally uncapped, and the ISP (reseller) has no control over shaping / throttling. These are subject to IS' usage policies and management. I assume these accounts are more expensive tho' which is prob why people like Afri aren't selling them.
 
I can imagine if Afrihost was busy paying per gig that they quickly realized that users were eating away at their piggy bank. If what I hear is true that their capped subscribers are also now suffering and if you think that they had to go on extra expenses to deal with the influx of new subscribers they were faced with either doing an emergency stop or crash the business into the ground. I think in the future people will be much more cautious not to fall into a similar situation as user and service provider.
 
Vonnii said:
I can imagine if Afrihost was busy paying per gig that they quickly realized that users were eating away at their piggy bank. If what I hear is true that their capped subscribers are also now suffering and if you think that they had to go on extra expenses to deal with the influx of new subscribers they were faced with either doing an emergency stop or crash the business into the ground. I think in the future people will be much more cautious not to fall into a similar situation as user and service provider.
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hehe, in the future? Some of us decided to wait and see this time already. Thankfully.
 
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