Web Africa ADSL general feedback

[Webafrica Helper]

So are the thresholds different now?

Does green have the same thresholds as 5 stars?
Does amber have the same thresholds as 3 stars?
Does red have the same thresholds as 1 stars?

Giving those percentages don't really help as we have no idea what usage puts you in what pool.

Hi Chevron,

Let me start by indicating that based on our testing of the new Business Uncapped AUP system, prioritisation will only take effect further down the line than usually would be the case versus the star rating system i.e. On average 95% of Business Uncapped accounts remain in the green/great experience category and around 5% move into the other 2 categories.

What does this mean in reality? Thresholds are a lot more “forgiving” & therefore customer experience on the whole is improved as far less customers will are prioritised. The star rating system and the new 3 category rating system are completely different systems and to try relate one to the other is very difficult.

We’d appreciate it you could take the system for a spin and provide us with feedback (positive or negative). Thanks

 

[whatwhat]

Can you tell us what the thresholds are per line speed?

 

[OnePingOnly]

Also note that P2P/NNTP traffic is listed as 'best effort' on all bandwidth profiles as it is a non-essential protocol and all other essential protocols will take preference.

Your knowledgebase article on bandwidth priority profiles doesn't make any mention of NNTP, which implies that it should be treated as "Other". There is no logical reason for anyone reading the article to think NNTP would be treated the same as P2P.

 

[AthenianOwl]

We have given you a clear explanation in your DSL console on why your account is being affected by throttling and what you need to do to get out of that zone. Most of your usage in the past 10 days on your 2mbs Business Uncapped account has been between 6am-6pm and 6pm-11:59pm. I have as well explained to you in detail what you will need to do to get your account out of the throttled zone in your previous post about this here but it doesn't seem like you made any changes to your usage patterns so if it continues as it has you will stay in the throttled zone.

This is how our uncapped works and is exactly what you signed up for. We do not hide the fact that we throttle or that we have an AUP in place for all our uncapped accounts and all this info is on our website as well as on our sign up pages.

You have the follow options available to you and it is your decision on what you would like to do:

• Lower your daytime usage and push all downloads for 12-6am,
• Upgrade to a bigger uncapped package as the 2mbs thresholds are not suited to your needs, or
• Upgrade to a suited capped account so that you won't have to worry about throttling.

Also note that P2P/NNTP traffic is listed as 'best effort' on all bandwidth profiles as it is a non-essential protocol and all other essential protocols will take preference.

Can you list all the differences between WA Home Uncapped and Business Uncapped, besides the obvious cost difference? FYI, I'VE NEVER DOWNLOADED ANYTHING VIA P2P DURING BUSINESS HOURS SINCE I STARTED USING THIS ACCOUNT!!!!!!! So tell me who is the culprit? Automatic Windows Updating system???!!!!

AH Business Uncapped is not subjected to such silly restrictions but a bit cheaper. Why not just rename it to WA Home Premium Uncapped or something like that to avoid misleading future clients about the product? I'm very disappointed. I will be leaving WA at the end of next month. I'm done with this South African flavoured "Uncapped" ADSL nonsense!

 

[Chevron]

Hi Chevron,

Let me start by indicating that based on our testing of the new Business Uncapped AUP system, prioritisation will only take effect further down the line than usually would be the case versus the star rating system i.e. On average 95% of Business Uncapped accounts remain in the green/great experience category and around 5% move into the other 2 categories.

What does this mean in reality? Thresholds are a lot more “forgiving” & therefore customer experience on the whole is improved as far less customers will are prioritised. The star rating system and the new 3 category rating system are completely different systems and to try relate one to the other is very difficult.

We’d appreciate it you could take the system for a spin and provide us with feedback (positive or negative). Thanks

That's all I needed to know thanks.

Can you tell us what the thresholds are per line speed?

I think that's difficult as doing 500 gigs a month after midnight isn't the same as someone that does 300gigs during the day.

The system has only been love for a few days. I'm on 80GBs. Mostly daytime usage.

 

[AthenianOwl]

Can you tell us what the thresholds are per line speed?

Hahaha, you think they would reveal the thresholds so you can "abuse" the network to the max in such a way to avoid being throttled? Good luck.

I'm so sick of being screwed around again and again by the ISPs.

 

[Chevron]

Can you list all the differences between WA Home Uncapped and Business Uncapped, besides the obvious cost difference?

The reason I chose is because Business has higher threshlds. IE stars fall slower. On home 10Meg I was on 1-2 stars, on business never worse than 3 stars even though 100% of my usage is during the day.

 

[AthenianOwl]

The reason I chose is because Business has higher threshlds. IE stars fall slower. On home 10Meg I was on 1-2 stars, on business never worse than 3 stars even though 100% of my usage is during the day.

Well, they've recently changed the way the shaping system works. No more star rating system. What now, bud?

 

[whatwhat]

Hahaha, you think they would reveal the thresholds so you can "abuse" the network to the max in such a way to avoid being throttled? Good luck.

I'm so sick of being screwed around again and again by the ISPs.

I'm genuinely interested in what they consider "enough usage" to drop the green/yellow/red rating outside of the 12-6 usage.

Their streaming is good, much better than AH, but if I watch an hour or two of Hulu Plus every night and say 5 hours on the weekend I could be in the 50-80Gb bucket of "normal hour" usage. I don't know if that will be enough to trigger their system that I've had enough internet for the month.

 

[bboy]

Eight days later.
I have supplied speedtests using TELKOM,AXXESS and WA
I have supplied threaded download tests using TELKOM,AXXESS and WA
I have supplied the results of these tests at different days as well.
I have had my call auto closed.
I have reopened it. I have supplied speedtests from http://capetown.spdtst.saix.net/ now.
Everytime it shows my WA account being throttled to 650KB/s and my telkom capped and axxess uncapped running almost 1000KB/s.
I have an email now suggesting my exchange may be congested. Obvsiously nobody doing the webafrica support is paying any attention. My only option now is to terminate both my WA accounts as I don't have all year for someone to actually start paying attention. When WA introduced their new high cap accounts I asked them if the service of my old account would drop, they said no, so I continued to keep paying the higher rate just to get proper high speed bandwidth, this obviously changed now.

 

[Chevron]

Well, they've recently changed the way the shaping system works. No more star rating system. What now, bud?

And so what bud?

It's a similar system with higher thresholds bud.

What's your problem bud?

 

[Chevron]

I'm genuinely interested in what they consider "enough usage" to drop the green/yellow/red rating outside of the 12-6 usage.

Their streaming is good, much better than AH, but if I watch an hour or two of Hulu Plus every night and say 5 hours on the weekend I could be in the 50-80Gb bucket of "normal hour" usage. I don't know if that will be enough to trigger their system that I've had enough internet for the month.

Then is even if you hit the threshold the system eases up a bit after 5 anyway. You should be fine.

 

[whatwhat]

Then is even if you hit the threshold the system eases up a bit after 5 anyway. You should be fine.

Yeah, will give them a try. Cancelled my AH Business 20Mb, I cannot stream HD without it dipping to SD every minute or two.

 

[Fulton17]

You have the follow options available to you and it is your decision on what you would like to do:

• Lower your daytime usage and push all downloads for 12-6am,
• Upgrade to a bigger uncapped package as the 2mbs thresholds are not suited to your needs, or
• Upgrade to a suited capped account so that you won't have to worry about throttling.

Also note that P2P/NNTP traffic is listed as 'best effort' on all bandwidth profiles as it is a non-essential protocol and all other essential protocols will take preference.

So this is a business account but you must keep you large DL to DL+ hours (which is sure outside of business hours). Also to say lower daytime usage, well that is business hours - again this is supposedly a business account.

Why sell this as a business account and then say lower your business hours usage?

I wish WA would stop hiding behind names etc and just be upfront as basically they are saying this is a home account but maybe you can expect a bit more from it than a home account, but you must really use it the same as a home account and not what the name would lead you to believe.

A business account that you can't use during business hours? Doesn't make much sense to me.

+1

It is a Business Uncapped account sold with an AUP attached which means it is subject to throttling based on usage. Again, all this info is supplied to any and all customers on our sign up page so if you took an uncapped account you should be aware of the AUP.

Just do what you advertise and it is amazing how things will go so much better. I love how you guys hide behind AUP - just call your "uncapped" accounts semi capped or such like as that would be more accurate

WA is great at re-branding things in the hopes that this will solve problems or misdirect people. Before we had five stars, now we have three colours :erm:

When I read these type of posts, it puts to bed any desire I have for "uncapped". I am thankful I am on a capped account which for the most parts works for me as long as I manage it wisely during the non DL+ hours.

I do think WA does capped much better than "uncapped" - a few glitches recently but hopefully things will get ironed out

 

[FHTheron]

I know it's unlikely to happen, but I would like to see a package that basically leases the bandwidth to you directly at a profitable price for the ISP. Taking into account local IPC and international bandwidth, ISPs surely have some R/Mbps price that they could add some markup to and sell you a 1:1 contention ratio X Mbps ADSL service. This is what most users around here want - internet that keeps going at all times of the day without anyone else influencing you in any way. If you don't use your X mbps for an hour, you wasted your own money and nobody cares.

The price of such a service would then serve as a benchmark. If this costs R1 000/mbps/month (or some other real number), then you know that a Home Uncapped 1Mbps at R179/month can clearly not be providing the same dedicated level of performance.

 

[Chevron]

Funny how the below statement works for me as well

I am thankful I am on a uncapped account which for the most parts works for me as long as I manage it wisely during the non DL+ hours.

 

[JesseG]

I agree with fulton17, +1 bud...i really hate managing data that's why I always opt for uncapped, but to have to manage a business uncapped account is unfair, well that's my opinion....but if it works for you, then enjoy guys...there's no other ISP's to choose from, how sad...

 

[Yuu]

50 000GBs , you have my attention WA. Even though i can't win, i am thankful . The countdown begins....1st August

With the last promo, i had really great performance all the time and i also have seen Chev' mention your service (business uncapped too) so i know what he says isn't baloney. May just switch to you guys when i am upgrading our line to 14Mbps in a month or 2 time.

 

[FHTheron]

Pity. Can't get faster than a 4mbps line so WA's suggestion of upgrading my line to win a macbook air isn't making this any easier to swallow. I would be able to do about 216GiB in August during DL+ hours. A solid 40mbps line would do roughly 10 times that, so 2 to 3 TiB of 50 TB then. Still fun to see the large number.

Can't help but wonder about the future of this thread during August though, when that delayed usage accounting starts to become something that WA will have to make sure is really handled like they say it is.

 

[KoKaRoT]

Guys can one tell me how WA is for steam updates, Dota 2 and warthunder if anyone plays it?

Looking at the promo im interested.