why such a big price difference between Afrihost and Mweb uncappped?

[AfriGuy]

That's really what is making me hesitant, been burnt way too many times.

We provision our network for this though, we'll never let our clients suffer

 

[RoosTa]

If everyone keeps punting Afrihost, their network will become oversubscribed. I've been on Afrihost since they moved to MTN Network, and I used to stream youtube @ 1080p no problem, now it struggles on 720p, especially during peaks hours.

 

[The_Unbeliever]

Mweb have built in redundancy, more capacity and a far superior network, thus providing their customers with the ultimate ADSL experience.

if SEACOM goes down, Mweb is down as well - but Afrihost still continues working.

That is, if Mweb haven't upgraded/updated their redundancy links yet...

 

[FalconZA]

Just to touch on how our network runs briefly, our Home Uncapped accounts are shaped according to the IPC usage in your particular region. Realtime services like VoIP, streaming etc are never shaped - non-essential protocols like torrents are shaped should there be high demand on our IPC.

Business Uncapped and our Capped accounts are never shaped

you mention that non-essential protocols are shaped....

Torrents being one of them...are there any others?

Essentially i am interested in...

Gaming (to EU servers)
Game patch downloads (sometimes large like world of warcraft and starcraft 2)
Local Gaming
Video Streaming (Youtube, Netflix, Hulu)
FTP Transfers during the day (sometimes i work from home and move database/files around VIA inter company FTP)
Streaming radio

anything else is not important to me.

 

[grim]

you mention that non-essential protocols are shaped....

Torrents being one of them...are there any others?

Essentially i am interested in...

Gaming (to EU servers)
Game patch downloads (sometimes large like world of warcraft and starcraft 2)
Local Gaming
Video Streaming (Youtube, Netflix, Hulu)
FTP Transfers during the day (sometimes i work from home and move database/files around VIA inter company FTP)
Streaming radio

anything else is not important to me.

I'm on Axxess(Same network and shaping as Afrihost) and my usage is more or less the same as yours, the only thing I ever notice not going full speed is torrents during the day if I've been hammering the account for a few days.

 

[AfriGuy]

you mention that non-essential protocols are shaped....

Torrents being one of them...are there any others?

Essentially i am interested in...

Gaming (to EU servers)
Game patch downloads (sometimes large like world of warcraft and starcraft 2)
Local Gaming
Video Streaming (Youtube, Netflix, Hulu)
FTP Transfers during the day (sometimes i work from home and move database/files around VIA inter company FTP)
Streaming radio

anything else is not important to me.

Other than torrents, HTTP downloads and NNTP

There are two main types of traffic that you can use when connected to the Internet:

Instant, Realtime traffic protocols such as: Web browsing (HTTPS); Live Streaming (YouTube); Secure browsing (HTTPS); VOIP; Email; Terminal services (SSH)
Non-Realtime Downloading protocols such as: HTTP Downloads (downloading a file from your browser), Torrents (BitTorrent), News servers (NNTP)

^^ Directly from our AUP.

 

[Orihalcon]

From your list;

Gaming (to EU servers) [unshaped]
Game patch downloads (sometimes large like world of warcraft and starcraft 2) [shaped]
Local Gaming [unshaped]
Video Streaming (Youtube, Netflix, Hulu) [unshaped]
FTP Transfers during the day (sometimes i work from home and move database/files around VIA inter company FTP) [shaped]
Streaming radio [unshaped]

HTTP downloads and P2P will be your shaped protocols. The rest...full speed priority.

And unfortunately the problem when your speeds are slowing down is NOT always to do with your ISP. Case in point my situation. My 4mb behaves like a 2mb from 17:30 till about 22:00 when everyone get's home and uses internet. From there on till 17:00 the following day my line flies at 440kB. So that would be Telkom needing to upgrade my exchange. While this does suck a bit, it is not my ISP's fault.

 

[FalconZA]

darn...shaping FTP is a killer.....

game downloads not so bad, i assume that would not slow down to a crawl but just be slower than usual?

this is sounding pretty complicated....perhaps i should just stick with MWEB premium 2mbps ( i get full speed on FTP for my remote work and game patch downloads for wow and SC2) instead of always wondering....

thanks guys.

 

[AfriGuy]

If everyone keeps punting Afrihost, their network will become oversubscribed. I've been on Afrihost since they moved to MTN Network, and I used to stream youtube @ 1080p no problem, now it struggles on 720p, especially during peaks hours.

While this is a valid concern, we're constantly monitoring our entire network and will ensure that sufficient capacity is available

 

[Orihalcon]

You will get full speeds until you trip over that magic invisible limit they have and be throttled to death. Good luck with that. IF your usage is relatively low...then sure thing, stick with Mweb and you won't have problems honestly. Going from the threads which have been spawning the last few days on people being throttled and at what amounts, you should be able to get a decent idea.

As for when afrihost applies shaping it is ONLY when the network is under pressure. So if there is never any high demand you will have full speed all the time. If demand does increase you will at least be guaranteed of 100% functioning real time use - where as on Mweb EVERYTHING shuts down to a crawl.

All depends on your usage

 

[FalconZA]

Interesting Orihalcon.....

i have never been "throttled to death" by mweb so i guess i have always been under their usage limit? that being said i would be pretty miffed if i was suddenly throttled.

perhaps i will give afrihost a try for a month and see how it goes...( i have already cancelled with MWEB, so i am in the market anyway).

perhaps i am always low enough to not be "shaped" to the max.

 

[Orihalcon]

Exactly!

I have many friends that are on Mweb and they have no issues with speeds or services. I also know that on their accounts they very rarely go over 150gb.

From the threads there are people on 1mb premium accounts which are being throttled to around 15kB/s after having done 70gb from the 1st till the 13th of this month. Others on 4mb accounts (standard) have also been throttled when usage have just broken 100gb for first 2 weeks.

It is honestly a case where you need to review your usage. If you don't use that much and you currently have no problems on Mweb - by all means stay with them

 

[rambo919]

The problem is MWeb has no clear limits so they can say you "went over the threshold" no matter how much you did or did not do. Most likely that is why they refuse to give any limits, so that their thresholds can be as "dynamic" as their shaping. Too much deception and outright lies from them over the years, whoever I go to now I will never go back to them. Afrihost is a good candidate though.

 

[Chevron]

darn...shaping FTP is a killer.....

If you're worried about that just get a business account. They are so cheap at Afrihost anyway.

 

[grim]

If you're worried about that just get a business account. They are so cheap at Afrihost anyway.

Or pull the data over a VPN connection which is far more secure than FTP

 

[AfriGuy]

darn...shaping FTP is a killer.....

game downloads not so bad, i assume that would not slow down to a crawl but just be slower than usual?

this is sounding pretty complicated....perhaps i should just stick with MWEB premium 2mbps ( i get full speed on FTP for my remote work and game patch downloads for wow and SC2) instead of always wondering....

thanks guys.

Remember, the shaping only takes place when our network is busy - so it's not all the time
The only way to tell is to grab an account, or a 1GB Free package.

 

[Keeper]

Other than torrents, HTTP downloads and NNTP

HTTP downloads is classified as a non-essential protocol? WTF how can you say that with a smile on your face?
I was interested in the 4mb uncapped @ R700 but your AUP just sounds horrible. ugh

 

[iAmThePope]

I've been thinking about moving over to Afrihost myself. Currently on MWeb Premium uncapped 4mbps . But I get this nagging voice in my head saying "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". I average roughly 200 - 400GB a month and I have not had a single issue.

 

[AthenianOwl]

Just to touch on how our network runs briefly, our Home Uncapped accounts are shaped according to the IPC usage in your particular region. Realtime services like VoIP, streaming etc are never shaped - non-essential protocols like torrents are shaped should there be high demand on our IPC.

Business Uncapped and our Capped accounts are never shaped

Nice! Now I'm seriously considering a switch to Afrihost from Openweb. Twitch always lags on my Openweb account

 

[Orihalcon]

HTTP downloads is classified as a non-essential protocol? WTF how can you say that with a smile on your face?
I was interested in the 4mb uncapped @ R700 but your AUP just sounds horrible. ugh

It makes perfect sense because it leaves open direct downloads to run rampant otherwise.

/joke mode on
But please keep in feeling sick and perhaps preferring an AUP that can throttle you to unusable speeds
/joke mode off

:sly: