Afrihost ADSL

[Monty]

I was assuming the line would be running at full speed, but they don't.
My line is about 80% efficient, so my numbers per month would be

96gigs a month
125gigs a month
1000gigs a month
2025gigs a month

[SykomantiS]

@Stuart, I think they mostly mean that if you download more than 200GB a month, they may investigate, and if you are found to be pirating, they may terminate your contract. If however you spend ludicrous amounts of money on steam downloads, it's legit and they won't (in my opinion) have a problem with it.

That's just how I understand anyway.

[KillerByte]

I think I'll be sticking with MWEB. Once I figured out that I needed to disable DHT the entire experience has been very pleasant.

[Stuart]

I think I'll be sticking with MWEB. Once I figured out that I needed to disable DHT the entire experience has been very pleasant.

I'm sorry ... explain please? Disable DHT?

[KillerByte]

every time I left uTorrent use DHT the line would disconnect. I did a bit or research and decided to disable DHT which seems to have solved the disconnection issue.

DHT allows for trackerless torrents.

[Stuart]

Lol ...

*UNLIMITED DATA: You can use as much data as you want. Our uncapped service is designed for someone sitting in front of their computer using the internet as much as they want. It is not designed for computer programs that are setup to continuously download 24/7, 30 days a month. If it is your intention to setup programs to download every hour of the day, every day of the month then these uncapped packages are not for you. We reserve the right to terminate any account whose usage affects our other clients internet experience negatively. We reserve the right to investigate and possibly terminate any account that moves over 200 GBs per month. Our primary concern is for the majority of our clients. If there are individuals that are putting strain on the network through their downloading habits and in so doing affecting our other clients negatively we reserve the right to stop offering them the service.

It's uncapped so long as you don't exceed 200GB per month.

Wow, this has caused an uproar!

Uncapped ADSL: How much data may you use?

Over the last few days a slew of affordable uncapped ADSL offerings entered the South African ADSL market.

MWEB was first to surprise the market last week with its uncapped ADSL services starting from R219 per month, but this announcement was quickly followed by uncapped offerings from both Vox Telecom/@lantic and Afrihost at lower rates than the initial MWEB announcement.

These uncapped offerings, typically priced between R200 and R600 per month depending on speed, can mean per-GB pricing of well below R1/GB. This pricing in itself is completely unsustainable, but an uncapped business model typically relies on low-end subscribers subsidizing high-end users.

Many ISPs have Acceptable Usage Policies – aka Fair Use Policies – to protect their business model and ensure that all users on their network receive an acceptable level of service. According to one research report 1% of broadband customers use 30% or more of the available bandwidth during peak hours – something which ISPs want to avoid through Fair Use Policies.

These fair use policies differ significantly from country to country and ISP to ISP.

International standards

There are varying ways broadband service providers protect their networks and structure their ‘fair use’ policies.

Telecom New Zealand’s uncapped offering does not have a ‘soft cap’ usage limit, but they ‘manage’ all the traffic on the network to optimise the experience for everyone on the plan. “When the network is busy (generally inside the hours of 9am and 2am) you may notice reduced speeds, in particular you are likely to see reduced speeds in relation to file sharing traffic and online gaming,” the company says.

BT in the UK also throttles the speed of ‘heavy users’ on their broadband plans. “BT continuously monitors network performance and reduces the speed available to very heavy users,” the company’s fair use policy states. “Customers who are classified as very heavy users will experience significantly reduced speed at peak times for a period of 30 days, or for as long as very heavy use continues.”

India’s Airtel recently faced a consumer backlash after it introduced its Fair Usage Policy which saw subscribers’ services being throttled if they exceeded 25GB of usage in a ‘certain period’.

Comcast in the US on the other hand implemented a policy to cap monthly broadband usage at 250 GB per month in late 2008, something that did not go down well with some consumers.

Australia’s BigPond steers clear of throttling high-end users by only offering capped accounts. The highest account size is 200 GB and retails for around R1200.

MWEB Uncapped ADSL

MWEB CEO Rudi Jansen explains that they are planning to keep their service completely uncapped and unshaped as far as possible. Jansen made it clear that there will be no port prioritization, no shaping, no throttling and no capping on the service for the most part, and that shaping may only kick in during very busy periods to ensure good service levels for the user base as a whole.

Jansen further explains that they have no desire to set an unacceptable usage limit after which users will be reprimanded. Abuse will be handled on a case-by-case basis, and it will basically be users which are not using the service as a residential access medium.

Jansen explains that it will not be fair to use an uncapped residential ADSL service to host a large Internet Café or Torrent Server (hence business type services), and that they have specifically launched affordable uncapped ADSL business services which can be used as business solutions.

Strict Fair Usage Limits

Other ISPs have a stricter ‘Acceptable Use Policy’ – aka ‘Fair Use Policy’.

Afrihost says in their terms and conditions that they “reserve the right to terminate any account whose usage affects our other clients internet experience negatively. We reserve the right to investigate and possibly terminate any account that moves 100s of GBs per month”

SAINET also have set ‘fair user’ standards where abuse of the network is based on the drawing of monthly usage reports by SAINET. Excessive usage on the SAINET ADSL network is 62GB on a 384 Kbps account, 75GB on a 512 Kbps account and 100GB on a 4096 Kbps account.

Vox Telecom has also indicated that they will have a Fair Use Policy to protect the majority of their users against network degradation, but the exact details of this policy are not yet available.

[StarPhoenix]

What a bunch of whiners!

[DeathStrike]

yeah. did you read that thread? its like over 40 pages long by the time i got to the end. and most was just ppl complaining.

I am happy with the 200 GB a month. don't think i will even use more than 50 GB anyway. i don't leave my pc on all night cos i can't sleep with the fan noise.
SO..

O/T

anyone know of a fan that is super silent and cheap?

[Stuart]

yeah. did you read that thread? its like over 40 pages long by the time i got to the end. and most was just ppl complaining.

This is true, but I think there is actually a middle ground here. I think that those whining about a 200GB cap (which is not really what Afrihost stated anyway) should be granted automatic access to PCF's tard list. At the same time, I think that those who are defending these products are "uncapped" should join their colleagues on the tard list.

I do not envision using in excess of 200GB monthly in any regular way. That said, the moment you have a clause in your TC that says you can terminate someone for "abusing" the product, it is hardly uncapped, is it now? I really doubt that Afrihost will start cutting people off for exceeding 200GB, but I still think that if there is any point at which a person will be cutt off the product is not uncapped. I want to shoot those over at MyBB who are making a huge distinction between "uncapped" and "unlimited."

I for one am delighted at the price cuts. I intend to make full use of one of these cheaper products. I think that Mweb, Vox, OpenWeb and Afrihost (and now a rumour of Axxess) have offered wonderful products for the South African market. I also do not think that they are uncapped.

[KillerByte]

anyone know of a fan that is super silent and cheap?

Cocage True Spirit - R360 from Wootware.co.za

reviews look very good. It seems to give the Thermalright Ultra-120 eXtreme a run for its money.

[DeathStrike]

@KillerByte Thanks

Just got this in an email from Gian, NOTE the Ps. at the bottom.

Hi {My Name}

I am sincerely sorry if you've had to wait longer
than usual to get help from us in the past few days.

We've been overwhelmed by the response to our
Uncapped ADSL launch earlier this week and as
such our support levels have not been up to the
usual high standards we strive for.

Our team of rockstars are all working flat out but
it is taking longer than we'd like to get to all the
phone calls and emails.

I promise you that we are doing everything we
can to make sure that our service levels stay the
best in the country - We've always taken great
pride in delivering products that absolutely delight
and amaze and we're not going to stop now!


So what are we doing about it?

We are hiring 10 new Support Engineers and I
was hoping that you'd be able to help us find
the perfect support rockstars for our team.

If you know someone who may be interested
in joining us at Afrihost HQ in JHB, please let us
know and we'll pay you a R5,000 referral fee
as a way of saying 'Thank you' if they join us.

You can see details of the job position here:
http://www.afrihost.com/adsl-support-job.php

I'd be sincerely grateful if you would send any
CV's or possible candidate details through
to jobs@afrihost.com

Thanks again for your patience and help.

Enjoy the rest of your day!

Gian

CEO, Afrihost.com



P.S. We are launching our 384kbps and 512kbps
Uncapped ADSL early next week - Thanks
for your patience!

EDIT: So this is why they have an Acceptable Usage Policy...

6. ISPA members must have an Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) for their Internet access services. This policy must be made available to customers prior to the commencement of any such service agreement and at any time thereafter, on request.

Source: IPSA Code Of Conduct

There are others that are interesting in there too. have a read.

[Stuart]

384k and 512k uncapped options now available. You can upgrade from your client zone, but existing customers only get activated 1 April. New users can sign up immediately and pay pro rata.

[SykomantiS]

So I bit the bullet and got the 512 account today. We'll see how things go from here on out.

[ADV4NCED]

I upgraded to the 4mb uncapped account with afrihost a few days ago, so far its been inconsistent, download speeds pretty good but international latency has been really bad.

Also take note, it seems Afrihost have amended their T&C and have added a clause stating that once an uncapped account reaches 60gb of usage, the account is severely throttled and shaped, providing slower performance than their capped accounts. ATM, it looks like I'm sitting on a 256K or something to that affect, getting roughly 25kbps on HTTP downloads and barely manage to get a single kb on a torrent.

Many of the afrihosts users are complaining how Afrihost suddenly sprung this on us, without any notification and most are threatening to leave them - as some already have.

So think twice about signing up with afrihost.... atm I'm considering Mweb

[DAE_JA_VOO]

Hmmm. I'm going to use next month as a trial with Afrihost. If I'm not happy, I'm move over to Mweb or Openweb.

[ADV4NCED]

Yeah I dont really have a problem with them trying to control all the traffic but they have been so indirect in what constitutes heavy usage on their lines...

firstly it was similar to a 200gb cap, then suddenly it became 100's of gigabytes, then another clause about heavy users going to be shaped, then suddenly a 60gb 'soft' cap which basically puts you on a 256kb/s line from there on, from what I understand anyway.

And although I feel that 60gb soft cap is ridiculous for a so-called 'uncapped account', yeah I guess its their prerogative as to how they want to control the traffic but then to simply just impose this on the users without notifying us at all... this is extremely frustrating and poor service from them. Why not just send an email around informing us they will be severely throttling our lines once we hit 60gb's?

I don't think that's unreasonable from the user side of things...

TBH I'm dissapointed with afrihost

[Stuart]

Okay, wait a second here. Where do you see the clause about a 60GB soft cap, ADV4NCED? I've just glanced through their TC again and I see no such clause? Do you have something substantial on which to base this claim?

Edit: And for what it's worth DJV, I'm running both the Mweb and the Afrihost offerings (Mweb at work, Afrihost at home) and, so far, have been more impressed wih Afrihost.

[DAE_JA_VOO]

Edit: And for what it's worth DJV, I'm running both the Mweb and the Afrihost offerings (Mweb at work, Afrihost at home) and, so far, have been more impressed wih Afrihost.

Thank you

[SykomantiS]

Not that I've done anything with my line at home yet, aside from running a few speed tests to some servers in za, But I've not had problems. I did however pick up that streaming radio via winamp ran into buffer problems the other night- I've seldom if ever had this happen on my capped account. I didn't check if anyone else in our household was using the net at that stage, so the problem could have come from our side. Regarding the speed tests, they were virtually identical to the ones I ran a while back whilst still on a capped account. Heck, I even had a short burst of 0.96mbps for a very short time in the one test.

This is all on a 512 line and account.

Will keep you guys posted.

[ADV4NCED]

Hi Kevin.

We have also been advised of the following via our server-admin.

"The Afrihost uncapped solutions are designed to give great results for the first 60GB of usage, but after that Afrihost will shape or throttle the service to protect other users on the network. You will still be able to use your account and it will never be capped, but it will not be as fast as our capped accounts at that point. Our capped accounts are designed for users who require continuous downloads 24 hours a day. The uncapped service is relatively new and we will be looking at how we can improve these thresholds as more clients join our network.
Have a great day & please feel free to let me know if I can be of further assistance.

Warm regards.

Faraad

Ticket Details
Ticket ID: HOZ-503494
Department: Afrihost.com - One Hour Reply

Hi there

I trust that you are well.

Because you have used 65.857 GB, throttling affects speed of your connection.This will also be depending on what is happening on the network.Honestly i'm not sure when this will be changed or increased to 200GB

Apology for all the inconvenience


Thanks for all your patience.


Have a great day & please feel free to let me know if I can be of further assistance.

Warm regards.

Derrick

These emails were replies to some of the MyBB guys who emailed afrihost to ask why we're being shaped so badly, or why our connections have become so shoddy..

And I just checked my bandwidth usage - I havent even done 60gb's

[Stuart]

Ah, some answers at last!

Initially you will be getting our standard service. (i.e. certain ports are shaped somewhat and web and email are prioritised.)

After you have moved 30 GBs you will be moved into a different category whereby certain ports will be shaped more aggressively. However, web and email will still be prioritised.

After moving a total of 60 GBs you will be moved into a different category where your line speed is throttled to 1024 kbps per second and certain shaping protocols are in place.

After moving a total of 90 GBs then you will be moved into a category where you will be throttled to 512 kbps. Certain shaping protocols will also be in place here.

After moving a total of 120 GBs you will be moved into a category where your line will be throttled to 386 kbps. Certain shaping protocols will also be in place here.

After moving a total of 150 GBs you will be moved into a category where you are throttled to 128 kbps.

You will never be capped.

[DarkStar]

Aha!

Now those are shaping rules that I can agree with! (Mainly because I don't think I'll ever exceed 30GB )

[ADV4NCED]

Considering it's supposed to be an uncapped account @ 4 mbps speeds, I think I'm likely to do more than 60gb's a month - possibly anyway

As such, I'll be leaving afrihost, and signing up with mweb on thursday!

[ryanrich]

lol, those Afrihost terms are ridiculous! MWEB for me thanks...

[SykomantiS]

So what happens if you're not on a 4096 line when you hit 30 and then 60 gigs?