webafrica

[Fur]

Hey Peeps

Just some advise......

I currently have afrihost 5gig account, telkom 9gig account and a webafrica 1gig unshapped account, Iam thinking of getting rid of my telkom and afrihost account and moving over to one of webafrica's titans accounts. I currently have the 3 account so i can switch between seacom and saix if there are problems, so the question is, is webafrica stable enougoh to move to them and just have one account or is it just better to keep 3 accounts at diffirent ISP's.

Ofc webafrica will also have its problems but i dont want to get stuck like i did with iburst were they dont fix the problem blame the client and give you the big finger.

also is it a good idea to move your line over to webafrica (not that i have had to many problems with it being with telkom)?

 

[diabolus]

Webafrica is fine, but very expensive. If you're coming from iburst, then yes , world of difference.

You will most likely need an Afrihost type of account -anyway- for your larger downloads , WA is great for low bandwidth type of usage (requiring good speeds and latencies) . As for support , WA fix things pretty quickly, so can't complain there.

So my main problem with WA is the costs , and they are not getting cheaper but more expensive. In contrast Afrihost et al are having constant specials [i haven't seen a special from WA since March] .

Keep in mind the Titan package [now called "Complete" ?] will require you to move your Line rental to WA also [so you will be locked to them] . I personally are not a big fan of that, since it's alot of red tape to move your line between Telkom <--> ISP <---> Telkom everytime you want to cancel a package with said ISP.

My ideal setup:

1. Line Rental at Telkom
2. Cheap bandwidth ISP for higher usage : Afrihost is good for this [or even Mweb uncapped etc]
3. Premium bandwidth if you need consistent speeds, good latency [gaming etc] : Webafrica / SAIX is generally considered the best for this.

Now since i do have that exact setup, i can tell you the difference between #2 and #3 can be marginal. It all comes down to how the ISP shape and throttle at the times you are using them....... but there's a good chance you'll get away with a simple Mweb or Afrihost account -only- . I think only seriously hardcore gamers or business users might notice the difference between #2 and #3 , average user...i doubt it.

 

[Crowley]

The Titan accounts was a limited deal so you can't get them any more. My line and internet access is with Webafrica and I have no complaints about either of them.

 

[purejimcn]

ya was also thinking of getting the titan special but now its finished... o wel, sticking with afrihost then

 

[WAJeff]

Hey Fur,

I believe that a sales agent is in the process of requesting details from yourself to offer you a package that suites your needs from what you've mentioned above.

@diabolus, I hope I can answer some of your questions below:

Webafrica is fine, but very expensive.

We aren't expensive at all. Our Titan packages were around R7/GB, current standard DSL Complete package have an in-bundle rate of R19/GB and comes down to R13/GB if off-peak traffic is included here, being Download Plus.

Keep in mind the Titan package [now called "Complete" ?] will require you to move your Line rental to WA also [so you will be locked to them] . I personally are not a big fan of that, since it's alot of red tape to move your line between Telkom <--> ISP <---> Telkom everytime you want to cancel a package with said ISP.

We don't "lock" you in at all. Our DSL Complete offerings do require you move your line to us yes, but this has benefits. (ie. Not having to deal with Telkom and no contracts) If you feel that a DSL Complete offering is no longer suiting your needs, we can simply cancel the data portion and allocate another to your account, keeping your line with WA.

 

[who.is.michael]

Hi Fur

I would strongly advise you to reconsider your move to WebAfrica;

Not only has their pricing increased considerably, their support and connectivity has declined substantially. With WebAfrica's Rupert Bryant, Chief Operating Officer making some strange marketing analogies.

This is not the WebAfrica we were so impressed with a year or even six months ago. This company seems to be geared in making as much profit as possible, without offering their client's anything in return.

You might be disappointed if you were expecting to receive the same level of support that you are currently receiving from Afrihost.

Regards

Mike

 

[Crowley]

Hi Fur

I would strongly advise you to reconsider your move to WebAfrica;

Not only has their pricing increased considerably, their support and connectivity has declined substantially.

I've had 3 support tickets that got sorted out over the phone within 10 minutes in the last year so. Their support has stayed the same for the last 3 years I've been with them. As for the connectivity, we are 3-4 people playing WoW 7 days a week at my place and my latency has been on average about 350. The times I had no connectivity can be counted on one hand and then it was only for a short while. When everybody was crying about the Seacom outage we were playing/browsing/downloading with zero hassles.

As for pricing, Webafrica has always been a bit more expensive than other ISP's but you get what you pay for I guess.

 

[who.is.michael]

I've had 3 support tickets that got sorted out over the phone within 10 minutes in the last year so. Their support has stayed the same for the last 3 years I've been with them. As for the connectivity, we are 3-4 people playing WoW 7 days a week at my place and my latency has been on average about 350. The times I had no connectivity can be counted on one hand and then it was only for a short while. When everybody was crying about the Seacom outage we were playing/browsing/downloading with zero hassles.

As for pricing, Webafrica has always been a bit more expensive than other ISP's but you get what you pay for I guess.

It is good to hear that at least some user(s) have received a decent level of support - not being sarcastic.

I can't say the same, with three accounts with WebAfrica - 147 emails to [email protected], sitting in my sent items (with some issues still outstanding and not counting those via the online portal - substantial)

This is the highest amount of support request I have sent to any ISP - ever.

Also hold; MWEB, FNBConnect, Telkom, Afrihost, Tradepage, TRLTech, RSAWeb accounts and combined they do not amount to 35 emails.

Please accept that you are required to look at the overall picture of the issues an ISP is experiencing and the ability of the ISP to reply and adequately resolve the issues experienced by their subscribers.

I would advise you to have a look at this: Issues

Regards

Mike

 

[Fulton17]

Hey Fur,


We aren't expensive at all. Our Titan packages were around R7/GB, current standard DSL Complete package have an in-bundle rate of R19/GB and comes down to R13/GB if off-peak traffic is included here, being Download Plus.

I have been with WA for a good few months now and do appreciate the fact that it is not too often that I have not been able to connect.

Beware some of the market speak such as what I have highlighted above - the fine print has been left out.

Support - mixed. I have had some tickets responded to a month later, and other issues dealt with on the phone. I have found that in part it depends on who you deal with. Some of the support guys are great, and others are plain terrible.

I would suggest a Plan B account. I have a gig with Afrihost and this month I have used it once.

Whilst there is a lot to be thankful for with WA - just beware marketing and changing goal posts. They think they know what is best for us and do not always deliver on what they promise - sometimes they will say what they think we want to hear, and then not deliver on it later.

Good luck in making your choice

 

[HavocXphere]

would advise you to have a look at this: Issues

Which points to a google search:

webafrica problem issue terrible site:mybroadband.co.za

Balanced view FTW.

At the very least attempt to make somewhat relevant. e.g. By running the search terms above twice with two ISP and comparing the number of results.

Afrihost - 765 results
Webafrica - 474 results

And then weigh those by subscriber numbers and years in ADSL business. Then you might get something remotely credible.

 

[who.is.michael]

Which points to a google search:


Balanced view FTW.

At the very least attempt to make somewhat relevant. e.g. By running the search terms above twice with two ISP and comparing the number of results.

Afrihost - 765 results
Webafrica - 474 results

And then weigh those by subscriber numbers and years in ADSL business. Then you might get something remotely credible.

So why don't you, if it concerns you.

 

[Big Bean]

I got a prepaid account with Webafrica and it flies and gives the lowest latency / ping (lower than these "unshaped" accounts)
It is faster that my Telkom, afrihost and cybersmart account
I havn't had any issues with my prepaid

 

[who.is.michael]

I got a prepaid account with Webafrica and it flies and gives the lowest latency / ping (lower than these "unshaped" accounts)
It is faster that my Telkom, afrihost and cybersmart account
I havn't had any issues with my prepaid

How long have you had the account?

 

[Smirnov]

i have to agree, WebAfrica's latency is the lowest ive experienced for world of warcraft, but when i saw the nicely priced top up packages vanish, i checked their new pricing structure which did not suit me. From paying R114 for 4GB(1GBpm@R59 + 3GB top up@R45) of data i was happy and it suited my needs, so u could say, a +/-R100 increase as their 5GB package is R250, farking hell. Quite a kick in the pants imho.Rather big price hike! Sure R100 is bugger all to some, but its a big increase.
I would have thought in todays competitive ISP market you would be seeing prices getting lower, not higher. So, it seems like "We know we are better than all ISP's for gaming and DL speeds, lets bleed some more cash out of our clients" - and obviously my reaction to that is to give them the finger and find greener pastures.

That said, i am an mweb client atm, and quite frankly, living in CT, the service stinks to high heaven, latency without an mtu change(which shouldnt even be used ffs), their support service sucked until i threatened to leave mweb, then all of a sudden, i got red carpet treatment >_>, a call at 7pm, now thats service , lol, i feel forced to go to WA now just because i know they are very reliable when it comes to low latency and fast download speeds, and thats just on their vanilla accounts.eish.....***ken eish!!!

 

[Fur]

Hey Peeps

thx for all the replies , still gonna have to think a little about this. Afrihost has been great and there prices are the best i have seen but they do seem to be unstable with regards to latency on wow, one day i will get 250ms the hole night (using lowerping ofc) and the next day i will be on 800 -1000ms and this seems to happen quite often. Telkom are ok but not great there prices are quite high and the lowest latency i can get using lowerping with them is around 400 -500ms but they do seem to be a little more stable then afrihost with regards to latency. Webafrica i get around 230 -280 ms max and i dont think i have ever seen it go above 300ms but saying that just like when i was with iburst there was a stage i was very happy with them, then ond day i woke up and everything went for **** with them speed, latency, browsing all got crap and i basicaly got the middle finger from them. Atm iam a 100% convinced that iburst is only interested in taking your money and screwing you as much as possible. (not intending to flame iburst, they just a sore subjected for me )

From what i have read and it might not be accurate but it does sound like webafrica could\might adopt the same attitude iburst did.

What i suppose i will do is take the advise and go google the various ISP's and service levels and decided from there. I dont wanna get stuck like i did with iburst.

From a business point of veiw athere is very little difference between the 3 of them in regards to speed, downloads and surfing

 

[Deep78]

hmmm been with WA for a good few years now and was lucky enuf to catch one of the titan specials and to be honest
i have a 1gig mweb account as well but have not used it once for at least 2 yrs, so WA has been pretty good to so far.

 

[Smirnov]

they are indeed the best, jsut pisses me off that they are expensive!!

/targets WA
/angry

 

[WAJeff]

they are indeed the best, jsut pisses me off that they are expensive!!

/targets WA
/angry

Hey Smirnov,

Would you mind explaining on how expensive we are?
Our in and out-bundle rates are extremely cheap along with superior bandwidth being provided here.

For some more info, please refer to my post earlier.

 

[diabolus]

Hey Smirnov,

Would you mind explaining on how expensive we are?
Our in and out-bundle rates are extremely cheap along with superior bandwidth being provided here.

For some more info, please refer to my post earlier.

The expensive part is coming from the straight forward pricing of WA products. An average consumer will NOT be able to navigate through the various options to get to the pricing being mentioned by WA. Let me illustrate:

If one look at your "Home Data" packages http://www.webafrica.co.za/home/data/ (this is most likely where most people will START) . Your recommended package is 10GB @ R449 .

That is R45 p/gb , alot of people will consider that as expensive.

So now, down there in the fine print , you can take download-plus [which is an additional cost] that gives 10GB Peak and 10GB offpeak [20GB] for about R500 [assuming the special is still active] . So now it's R25 p/gb , which is very good price BUT you have to split your usage patterns into "offpeak" and "peak" patterns and all that (not exactly convenient) . So it might be acceptable to some, but for the average consumer, sorry, they look at the 10GB bundle and see R449 , that's it. Even if the "add-ons" look good, the BASE PRICE is sky high.

Likewise someone who wants 30GB a month , they will not look at the "10GB and the download plus" option, they will look at the 30GB option = R1359 per month . That's a FORTUNE to pay for "home usage" 30GB, it is starting to become business type of pricing.

Now if the user somehow did not give up right there, they might go into the "Complete" package pricing, which is considerably better (assuming you know how to make the calculations with line rental etc) , but suddenly it's not as easy since now you need to move your line rental away from Telkom [and maybe you have other services at Telkom already] and it's suddenly a much bigger decision to make.

So from a marketing perspective, WA is not exactly exposing the "cheap pricing" in an obvious manner, my parents will NEVER figure that pricing out. The "base" prices are expensive and that alone is a deterrent , to go and say WA is cheap IF you take package X, with addon-s A,B,C and use your internet between hours X and Y THEN the pricing is decent is only going to fly with extremely savvy users. The rest of the population just want affordable, simple internet .


Anyway, i think WA should consider adjusting their "packages" to expose these cheaper pricing. As it is, the first thing you see is definitely not the R17 p/gb pricing. The conclusion most users will make is that you only get the pricing on "bulk" packages and it's merely a marketing gimmick and not applicable to average consumers.

 

[WAJeff]

Wow!
Some extremely good points here diabolus. Much appreciated. We're always looking at ways of improving.

I'll have your post forwarded onto the Product Team and a few other people around the office and throw some ideas around

@Everyone else: We really do take community feedback extremely seriously. If you have suggestions, constructive critism or anything else you'd like to raise you are more than welcome to either post it here on MyBB or on our forums.