Hi all,
Posting this to see if there's others having similar issues. These are extracts from two mails I sent Axxess customer service (I have now cancelled with them). It concerns a 4mbps uncapped, shaped, account, in CPT.
Scroll for tl;dr..
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Over the last four weeks or so I have been experiencing randomly occurring, yet constant (almost daily) drops as my line disconnects and I have to reset my router for it to reconnect. I've spoken to various consultants and all they would tell me was that the connection looks fine. But then why do I dc so often!?
Over the last 25 or so days I've had around 27 DCs, according to their logs, all due to "port error" (i.e. line).
I mailed their customer feedback address last Friday and got a really prompt reply from David Gunston, who assured my they reset my port and mentioned everything should be fine. However, they'd done this previously and nothing changed.
The connection dropped again on Sunday, at approximately 12pm, and I was unable to connect for a full ~ 6 hours. I spoke to one of their consultants and he mentioned that Axxess were aware of issues and their dev team was trying to sort it out. So I thought fair enough, but to be honest the nature of problem to me specifically is irrelevant. All I experienced was no connectivity for the majority of the day, which just adds to my frustration given the similar issue of constant DCs mentioned previously.
Furthermore, after having been able to reconnect yesterday evening I found that the connection had, once again, dropped over night... back to square one.
I've been with Axxess for almost two years and never had issues like this, ever. What has changed is that about one month ago they moved their entire client base away from IS and over to the MTN base - around the same exact time I started getting DCs.
In addition to the problem of constantly being kicked out of games and dead downloads due to line drops, my international latency has moved from an average of ~ 200ms/220ms to ~250ms/350ms.
Also, they got some new shaping policy which targets protocols over general browsing, whereas before it was full shaping during office hours and after hours and weekends were clear. Now I'm shaped all the time due to my high usage.
Lastly, we were never informed that we were able to upgrade our 4mbps line to a 10mbps line. I found this out after having to log into my profile due to these incessant problems.
I've mailed them again, but have not received a reply. I guess they don't care now that I've cancelled my service and it's probably too much effort to try and persuade me otherwise.
TL;DR
Downloading and gaming performance has been severed due to constant disconnects and some of the worst latency of any SA ISP (min. 250ms, max. 350ms (!)). Essentially what we're left with is a 4mbps connection to browse the internet, which is pointless. This is the case since they moved their entire client base away from IS and over to the MTN base.
So, anyone experienced similar issues? I'm likely to move to Afrihost 10mpbs uncapped, apparently their latencies are much better. However, afaik they are also on the MTN base. Does anyone know if these issues are likely to be ISP specific or MTN?
I've tested the line's performance with various routers and machines and the problems persist.
Thanks..
Posting this to see if there's others having similar issues. These are extracts from two mails I sent Axxess customer service (I have now cancelled with them). It concerns a 4mbps uncapped, shaped, account, in CPT.
Scroll for tl;dr..
____________________________________________
Over the last four weeks or so I have been experiencing randomly occurring, yet constant (almost daily) drops as my line disconnects and I have to reset my router for it to reconnect. I've spoken to various consultants and all they would tell me was that the connection looks fine. But then why do I dc so often!?
Over the last 25 or so days I've had around 27 DCs, according to their logs, all due to "port error" (i.e. line).
I mailed their customer feedback address last Friday and got a really prompt reply from David Gunston, who assured my they reset my port and mentioned everything should be fine. However, they'd done this previously and nothing changed.
The connection dropped again on Sunday, at approximately 12pm, and I was unable to connect for a full ~ 6 hours. I spoke to one of their consultants and he mentioned that Axxess were aware of issues and their dev team was trying to sort it out. So I thought fair enough, but to be honest the nature of problem to me specifically is irrelevant. All I experienced was no connectivity for the majority of the day, which just adds to my frustration given the similar issue of constant DCs mentioned previously.
Furthermore, after having been able to reconnect yesterday evening I found that the connection had, once again, dropped over night... back to square one.
I've been with Axxess for almost two years and never had issues like this, ever. What has changed is that about one month ago they moved their entire client base away from IS and over to the MTN base - around the same exact time I started getting DCs.
In addition to the problem of constantly being kicked out of games and dead downloads due to line drops, my international latency has moved from an average of ~ 200ms/220ms to ~250ms/350ms.
Also, they got some new shaping policy which targets protocols over general browsing, whereas before it was full shaping during office hours and after hours and weekends were clear. Now I'm shaped all the time due to my high usage.
Lastly, we were never informed that we were able to upgrade our 4mbps line to a 10mbps line. I found this out after having to log into my profile due to these incessant problems.
I've mailed them again, but have not received a reply. I guess they don't care now that I've cancelled my service and it's probably too much effort to try and persuade me otherwise.
TL;DR
Downloading and gaming performance has been severed due to constant disconnects and some of the worst latency of any SA ISP (min. 250ms, max. 350ms (!)). Essentially what we're left with is a 4mbps connection to browse the internet, which is pointless. This is the case since they moved their entire client base away from IS and over to the MTN base.
So, anyone experienced similar issues? I'm likely to move to Afrihost 10mpbs uncapped, apparently their latencies are much better. However, afaik they are also on the MTN base. Does anyone know if these issues are likely to be ISP specific or MTN?
I've tested the line's performance with various routers and machines and the problems persist.
Thanks..
I want to move to 10mb uncapped and have now looked at Axxess as an ISP.. This is not convincing at all! 
Looks like the norm is now starting to move away from Axxess/Afrihost. Plaguing connection/connectivity issues, slow responses..