Frogfoot explains outages and network performance complaints

Frogfoot says that mass communication of isolated outages affecting a handful of customers is creating a perception of significant issues on its network in certain areas.

A spokesperson for the fibre operator provided feedback to questions after MyBroadband followed up on customer complaints about the performance of its Garden Route network.

The Facebook group Frogfoot needs to up their game has seen numerous recent posts from frustrated customers in these towns complaining about regular downtime and intermittent speed drops.

One customer in Mossel Bay said Frogfoot had failed to fix his connection after four weeks of problems.

He posted screenshots showing multiple periods with ping spikes and packet loss on his Internet connection. These are a significant issue for applications like online video calls and multiplayer gaming.

A support agent told him that meetings were in progress regarding a “change that will be taking place”, without providing further details.

Several others also complained about periods where upload speeds were much lower than their package’s advertised performance.

For example, one user with a 400Mbps symmetric connection was only getting upload speeds of 7Mbps in early July.

While the majority of complaints came from Mossel Bay and George, there were also posts about issues in Somerset West, Gordons Bay, Table View, Yzerfontein, Richards Bay, and Port Elizabeth.

When MyBroadband previously asked Frogfoot about these problems in March 2024, the FNO said the outages were “within expected parameters” for a network of its scale, comparing favourably to historical data and industry standards. 

“Each identified outage was due to unrelated issues, which were promptly identified and addressed,” Frogfoot said.

Frogfoot previously attributed the outages in Mossel Bay and George to a network migration.

While it did not go into further detail, this development possibly referred to transferring customers from Garden Route Network — one of two small FNOs it acquired in October 2023 — to its own network.

One major outage

In response to the most recent complaints, Frogfoot acknowledged a major outage two weeks ago, which caused some disruptions to a large customer base across the Western and Eastern Cape.

“This is the only major outage to be experienced on the Frogfoot network in the last 60–90 days and did not affect all customers within that region,” the company said.

Frogfoot explained this was due to a software bug on its core network, which was resolved.

“We have not been notified of any current connectivity issues in this area,” Frogfoot said.

The FNO said it was currently aware of just one customer with intermittent connectivity in George, with no other recent complaints from the Mossel Bay and George regions.

“While this is not impacting the larger customer base, there has been a change control scheduled to mitigate the impact on the customer. Since replacing the SFP, the issue has been resolved,” Frogfoot said.

SFP stands for small form-factor pluggable — a type of interface converter used in fibre networks.

The operator added that it has received a total of 15 individual customer reports of connectivity issues over the last two weeks, two of which were last week and all of which had been resolved.

“Frogfoot is one of the only FNOs that has direct lines of communication with customers, beyond the communication they have with their ISPs,” the company said.

“We know that our customers want to know what is happening, and we are doing what we can to keep them informed as effectively as possible.”

Frogfoot explained that the perceived outages experienced in larger areas is being exacerbated by some ISPs sending communication of an outage to an entire area, when it is limited to only a few customers.

“We are liaising with our ISP partners to collaborate on a more accurate method going forward,” Frogfoot said.

“This method allows ISPs to geo-locate this communication to only those affected and minimise miscommunication.”