PCFormat Forum Archive

Hey ppl. I'm currently on Mweb uncapped 1meg. I've been getting really bad pings at night for the last month. I used to get a ping to jhb on speedtest.net of about 25ms all the time. Now I get this ping from 9am until 5pm, after which it increases to over 400ms (I've noted it to be over 580ms at certain times)

I have pings of over 350ms the entire weekend now. I have contacted Mweb and they say its telkoms fault. I phoned telkom and they have no idea what a ping is. seriously, at the end of the conversation where I explained my ping is high, the guy says "So the problem is u have a high usage at the end of the month?"

My point is I think Mweb is shapping me and I want to change to Afrihost. How badly do they shape their uncapped lines? Are there any other ISPs that you recommend? My main concern is ping not download speed.

try webafrica

If your primary use is gaming you're wasting your time with any uncapped offering. Honestly, on the whole, Mweb is about the best. For gaming, use a capped service.

Well I don't really download alot but I do use my internet alot. I did have a capped Neotel account but always went over my cap which costed me a fortune. I'm interested in what pings do ppl get with their uncapped lines. I was happy with mweb until this month

Again, a 50GB Afrihost account or something similar will be a better bet if ping is your primary concern.

Once again, cost is an issue. R300 is all I'm willing 2 pay 4 internet. Y must I change 2 a more expensive option? A month ago I had 20-30 pings 24hrs a day and now i only get fast pings 6hrs a day (while Im working)

Fair enough. I'd then just suggest jumping from one to another until you finally settle. I really doubt you're going to find anyone who will give you wildly positive feedback on uncapped ping.

Perhaps we should get our resident WebAfrican to give some thoughts.

Geoffrey?

Stuart wrote:Again, a 50GB Afrihost account or something similar will be a better bet if ping is your primary concern.

This.

Or get the max amount of cap you can for R300. I have the 50gig account from Afrihost, I don't have any problems (that I'm aware of) regarding ping or latencies. And I've never capped that account, not even close. And I do a fair amount of downloading and youtube streaming.

I do have connection and line drop issues every now and again, but that is another story entirely, and I'm blaming telkom squarely for that one

Stuart wrote:Fair enough. I'd then just suggest jumping from one to another until you finally settle. I really doubt you're going to find anyone who will give you wildly positive feedback on uncapped ping.

Perhaps we should get our resident WebAfrican to give some thoughts.

Geoffrey?

I'm here!!
Havn't logged in, in so long I had to talk to Mr Ron2K for my details....

@OP: Anyway, so you're looking for decent ADSL
With a budget of R300 I'd recommend you have a look at our Home Connect packages.

http://www.webafrica.co.za/home/adsl/connect/

Take a look at the 25GB for R239. Gives you:

• 5GB's peak

• 20GB's off-peak

• Add R400 for a line up to 10Mbps

• FreeZone access

• 4 Concurrent connections

We don't shape any of our account, but rather implement bandwidth prioritisation. This is explained on our KB article
If you take out the stock standard package, you'll be sitting on a silver priority.



If you want higher priority for gaming you can add the "Home Pro" add-on which pushes the priority on gaming from Medium to High, which will give you fantastic ping and latency to both local and international gaming servers.

Nice marketing to have no low rating on any package.

Makes one wonder about that so-called "best effort"

Best effort priority only takes place when the network is extremely busy.
Since we launched bandwidth prioiritisation we haven't once slipped into "best effort mode" on protocols.

Still waiting for you guys to bring out a competitive uncapped service. I'll come back to you guys once you do that.

KALSTER wrote:Still waiting for you guys to bring out a competitive uncapped service. I'll come back to you guys once you do that.

Big things are happening around WA
http://forums.webafrica.co.za/showthrea ... #post50897

Not sure if you guys are aware, but Matt Tagg stepped down as CEO with Tim Wyatt-Gunning taking over the reigns. Read more about over on MyBB http://mybroadband.co.za/news/business/ ... a-ceo.html

Just to add here, if you guys want to - give our network a bash.
http://blog.webafrica.co.za/2011/03/giv ... est-drive/

WAJeff wrote:

Stuart wrote: @OP: Anyway, so you're looking for decent ADSL
With a budget of R300 I'd recommend you have a look at our Home Connect packages.

http://www.webafrica.co.za/home/adsl/connect/

Take a look at the 25GB for R239.

Thanks. K i'm interested in the 25gig option. 3 questions tho:
How can you keep track of ur data usage? Is there an easy way to do this with webafrica or must I keep track of it myself?

If I go over my cap, do I get throttled or do they just charge u for whatever gigs u use over ur cap?

How does converting my ADSL line work? Must I cancel my line with telkom or is this handled by webafrica when I join?

Thanks alot

O ya, does webafica have newsgroup servers? I used to dl off of the Mweb newsgroups but I've now been blocked from them

AgilePeanut wrote:

WAJeff wrote:

Stuart wrote: @OP: Anyway, so you're looking for decent ADSL
With a budget of R300 I'd recommend you have a look at our Home Connect packages.

http://www.webafrica.co.za/home/adsl/connect/

Take a look at the 25GB for R239.

Thanks. K i'm interested in the 25gig option. 3 questions tho:
How can you keep track of ur data usage? Is there an easy way to do this with webafrica or must I keep track of it myself?

If I go over my cap, do I get throttled or do they just charge u for whatever gigs u use over ur cap?

How does converting my ADSL line work? Must I cancel my line with telkom or is this handled by webafrica when I join?

Thanks alot

You can log into the client zone on WA's website to check. You can also set alerts via SMS and email. If you hit your cap they cap you completely till you top up. You can set auto top up thresholds in the client zone.

Honest opinion: Do not convert your line. Keep the line with Telkom and just use WA as your ISP. Also be absolutely sure that 5GB peak traffic will suit your needs.

How do I access my usage on WA?
You can view this via our DSL Console. Historical usage, authentication and top-ups can all be seen from here

If I go over my cap, do I get throttled or do they just charge u for whatever gigs u use over ur cap?
No throttling involved here. Since these are capped accounts, once you've reached your allocation you will be capped. You can use your off-peak or top-up with some prepaid

How does converting my ADSL line work? Must I cancel my line with telkom or is this handled by webafrica when I join?
This is where you can choose. You can keep your line with Telkom or save a bit of bucks and move it over to us. The benefits of this is you won't have to deal with Telkom - we'll do all of that for you.

Does WA have a newsgroup server?
Yup, we do. Give our blog a read for some more info.

Hope that covers it!

I was wondering.. How long would the average ISP shape a client for?

There is no average. Read your ISP's Fair Usage Policy. Most of them lay it out reasonably clearly in their FUP. Did you fail to acquaint yourself with the FUP when you signed up, or are you shopping around for an uncapped option?

Iv been shaped by mweb. Just wondering for how long so that I can decide whether to change ISP's.

Mweb normally just shapes when the network is really busy. If it's permanently throttled on your side, have you called the support desk?

I have.. They first said they were checking for problems. (Couldn't find anything wrong on their side) So they referred me to telkom. Telkom said there are no problems. Iv noticed an increased latency in CSS and slower torrent downloads. Its been 3 weeks now

Mike,

Ask a mate to come test his ADSL account at your place, then test the latency and speed of that account on your telkom line.

This will help diagnose whether your issue is with Mweb or Telkom

Why not post some Pingtest.net and speedtest.net screenies for us to see

Afrihost has some pretty good capped deals. Since no shaping or throttling takes place its even more impressive.

http://www.afrihost.com/site/product/ad ... rc=nav#209

R400 for 50gb.