For those that don't understand what MWEB has done to gamers in SA

N

Neo

New member
1. MWEB has stolen the opportunity to host Black Ops servers in South Africa. This means that GameServers recognized South Africa as a high interest country after a LOT of effort was put in by local gamers to suggest our country and basically form huge petitions to get their attention to our little country. Then MWEB showed up, signed an exclusivity agreement when they KNEW they were applying their stupid peering rules which would close the door for most online SA gamers.

2. They screwed over their OWN gaming members on their network because where they once had normal latency to the servers hosted in SA, they now have latency so high that they cannot play - why? Because most of the servers hosted in SA are on the SAIX network or on some other network not peered with MWEB. I'd be pretty pissed off if I was an online gamer with an MWEB account.

3. They're actually using SA gamers in conjunction with a popular gaming title to try and FORCE other ISP's to peer with them. There HAS TO BE some sort of BENEFIT that MWEB will gain when other ISP's peer with them - why is no one asking that question???

In short: MWEB should be dragged out into the street and shot in the back of the head in front of witnesses for STEALING the opportunity from other hosting services in South Africa to provide Black Ops. ALL of the online gamers in South Africa did the effort to get those servers into the country, MWEB swooped in at the last second and stole what is rightfully something that belongs to the entire SA community - now they're using it as some sort of carrot in front of a donkey. SCREW YOU MWEB.
 
Dude I think you're taking this all too personally and you're ignoring all the good that MWEB has actually done for the S.A. gaming community. They managed to secure us the servers that we so desperately wanted where it looked like we wouldn't be getting them at all. Xerowing himself stated in another thread that they attempted to get in contact with Gameservers but were completely ignored. Who then was going to get the servers here? As far as I've seen no-one else proclaimed to have made any attempt to broker a deal with Gameservers to get us dedis.

As for the peering issue, if you can't see the good this move will do the S.A. broadband community then I probably can't convince you of it now.

MWEB should be praised for their efforts, since they didn't have to take any of these risks since the Free The Web revolution started. I for one give thumbs up to them.
 
The reason why GameServers ignored people like XeroWing was because MWEB had to secure some sort of service that would somehow "attract" people to their network. Why? Because they knew they were introducing changes that would upset a LOT of people. Like I said, MWEB stole the chance we had to get the servers and are using it as some sort of "lure" for online gamers to jump onto their network. WHY any person would leave their ISP in favor of MWEB is beyond me.

Person signed up with MWEB: Can play CoD Black Ops, but NO other game hosted in SA, especially if it's on the SAIX network.
Person signed up with any other ISP: Cannot play Black Ops, but can play any other game hosted in SA

Which of the above seems like the better deal to you?
 
Neo said:
1. MWEB has stolen the opportunity to host Black Ops servers in South Africa. This means that GameServers recognized South Africa as a high interest country after a LOT of effort was put in by local gamers to suggest our country and basically form huge petitions to get their attention to our little country. Then MWEB showed up, signed an exclusivity agreement when they KNEW they were applying their stupid peering rules which would close the door for most online SA gamers.

2. They screwed over their OWN gaming members on their network because where they once had normal latency to the servers hosted in SA, they now have latency so high that they cannot play - why? Because most of the servers hosted in SA are on the SAIX network or on some other network not peered with MWEB. I'd be pretty pissed off if I was an online gamer with an MWEB account.

3. They're actually using SA gamers in conjunction with a popular gaming title to try and FORCE other ISP's to peer with them. There HAS TO BE some sort of BENEFIT that MWEB will gain when other ISP's peer with them - why is no one asking that question???

In short: MWEB should be dragged out into the street and shot in the back of the head in front of witnesses for STEALING the opportunity from other hosting services in South Africa to provide Black Ops. ALL of the online gamers in South Africa did the effort to get those servers into the country, MWEB swooped in at the last second and stole what is rightfully something that belongs to the entire SA community - now they're using it as some sort of carrot in front of a donkey. SCREW YOU MWEB.
Click to expand...

Over a game.... a fsking game.

Its a game, a game you would not have purchased anyways coz sa didn't have servers.

As I keep telling you idealists. Its business. They want money. They dont care that you cant play ur silly little game all they want it money. MONEY.

I have an idea: write to mweb tell them to create a fee for gaming, make it an open letter in which all gamers agree to pay R100 more to their isp to cover the peering costs. That way you get to play ur game and Mweb does have to pay those other isp to peer.

Hows that?
 
Last edited:
Neo said:
Person signed up with MWEB: Can play CoD Black Ops, but NO other game hosted in SA, especially if it's on the SAIX network.
Person signed up with any other ISP: Cannot play Black Ops, but can play any other game hosted in SA

Which of the above seems like the better deal to you?
Click to expand...

That is not MWEB's fault. You have to understand that part of the reason we pay so much for bandwidth in SA is the ridiculous local peering costs. They are campaigning to do away with these.

Meanwhile, Telkom/MTN refuses to drop these charges.

And also, if you really want to play Black Ops, and for some reason refuse to leave Telkom as your ISP, just buy a couple of GB's of Afrihost's IS bandwidth (R29 currently gets your 2GB), and use that?
 
Neo said:
Person signed up with MWEB: Can play CoD Black Ops, but NO other game hosted in SA, especially if it's on the SAIX network.
Person signed up with any other ISP: Cannot play Black Ops, but can play any other game hosted in SA

Which of the above seems like the better deal to you?
Click to expand...

Dude, come on! There are IS hosted servers that work perfectly fine. Also, you're spending your energy for the wrong cause. If the ISPs all went with open peering, we would not have this issue AND we would have cheaper internet.

And yes, Mweb have a lot to gain by open peering with the other ISP's. It will reduce costs for them as well as the other ISP's. At the moment, local bandwidth costs more to procure for Mweb than it does for international. How are you fine with this situation?
 
I actually think the whole Server move was a very clever one. I'm sure a lot of other ISP's are shooting themselves in the foot for not jumping at the opportunity.

Not that I'm affected*, so I don't really care that much.

*COD is not really even on my radar at this point and if it was, I'd be playing it on a console.
 
Tinman said:
That is not MWEB's fault. You have to understand that part of the reason we pay so much for bandwidth in SA is the ridiculous local peering costs. They are campaigning to do away with these.

Meanwhile, Telkom/MTN refuses to drop these charges.

And also, if you really want to play Black Ops, and for some reason refuse to leave Telkom as your ISP, just buy a couple of GB's of Afrihost's IS bandwidth (R29 currently gets your 2GB), and use that?
Click to expand...

All valid and when Black Ops does come out I'll have a look at getting from AfriHost bandwidth - but, please don't get me wrong - I'm not taking this thing personally at all - my debate is still that MWEB has some sort of agenda behind this move and I really have a bad feeling about it. The fact that they schnaaied us over with Black Ops is just an insult....but - I think I've basically said all I could possibly say about this. Aren't you glad? lol
 
Tinman said:
That is not MWEB's fault. You have to understand that part of the reason we pay so much for bandwidth in SA is the ridiculous local peering costs. They are campaigning to do away with these.

Meanwhile, Telkom/MTN refuses to drop these charges.

And also, if you really want to play Black Ops, and for some reason refuse to leave Telkom as your ISP, just buy a couple of GB's of Afrihost's IS bandwidth (R29 currently gets your 2GB), and use that?
Click to expand...

The Tinman has spoken! His word is law!
 
This whole topic actually resulted in the most constructive forums posts ever. So far that's the only positive thing I've seen that's come from this whole issue lol
 
1) Mweb stole BO servers? Plz provide link supporting that statement. I always thought they did what no other ISP could do, that is getting us BO servers or at least get a Gameservers.com deal

2) I wouldn't know of any of that, I'm still a Telkom loser :mad:

3) I actually thought this was smart on their move on their part considering the whole peering thing. Anyway, untill this affect me I'll say kudos to mweb (or untill my IS accounts disappoint)

In short) Err, where do you get the info that mweb just swooped in the last minute to land a deal for BO? I remember a few days (or a week) ago when we had no info regarding any BO servers in SA (Now that was a DARK time lol)

OK, so maybe MWEb are using us SA gamers to push this whole peering thing, but until I get any info stating that RSA would have anyway landed Gameservers BO Dedi's, I still say mweb did a good thing.
Yeah, it would be ignorant thinking this is just by coincidence they landed BO just when they anounced putting Operation Free Peering into effect, but things aren't always black and white
 
As I just said on the other thread, Mweb are not in the wrong here. They are not holding you back from playing on their servers. In fact, they are trying to make it cheaper and thus easier for more people to play online. It is Telkom/SAIX & MTN that is holding everyone back by not peering for free. THAT is a clear indication of them not wanting to lose profits.

As for Mweb securing an exclusivity deal with www.gameservers.com well who can blame them? Wouldn't you if you could? It is a very good business strategy. As for their broadband penetration, I think it is fairly substantial to warrant their actions.
 
Ag, I'm over this. Every time there's a CoD game being released there's some sort of rollercoaster ride that happens where I inevitably end up canceling my pre-order for the game. This time is no exception. At this stage I couldn't care less about CoD - but if MWEB so much as LOOKS at signing some sort of "exclusivity" deal for Battlefield 3 servers, there will be blood.
 
Neo said:
Ag, I'm over this. Every time there's a CoD game being released there's some sort of rollercoaster ride that happens where I inevitably end up canceling my pre-order for the game. This time is no exception. At this stage I couldn't care less about CoD - but if MWEB so much as LOOKS at signing some sort of "exclusivity" deal for Battlefield 3 servers, there will be blood.
Click to expand...

"whistling: Isn't there normally blood in the Battlefield series? Unless I've missed something...
 
Neo said:
All valid and when Black Ops does come out I'll have a look at getting from AfriHost bandwidth - but, please don't get me wrong - I'm not taking this thing personally at all - my debate is still that MWEB has some sort of agenda behind this move and I really have a bad feeling about it. The fact that they schnaaied us over with Black Ops is just an insult....but - I think I've basically said all I could possibly say about this. Aren't you glad? lol
Click to expand...

I don't see an MWEB agenda at all. Sure they want to lower their costs, but the knock-on effect is that ALL ISPs will have reduced costs. A far cry from Telkom's "profit from everyone" bulldozing routine. I for one am glad that a telco in this country is looking to increase it's bottom line by doing something that will benefit everyone and not just themselves.

Another thing - MWEB did not "schnaai" you, or anyone else. It's not MWEB's fault that you are using an inferior service provider. Touch luck. You have a choice to use others, you don't exercise it. It's like people complaining about the government and then not going to vote. You have a vote... so use it.
 
http://www.news24.com/SciTech/News/Afrihost-promises-free-data-20101103

"International bandwidth is cheaper and we've seen that MWEB routing traffic overseas and back. The bottlenecks in speed are the local ones - about 70% of our cost is local bandwidth cost. The lowest price I think is about R7.50 ex VAT per Gig to Telkom. That's ridiculous."
Click to expand...

That's Gian from Afrihost supporting Mweb's move. Yes, we inconvenienced now but if we sacrifice this for now and support the ISP's that are actually trying to improve the broadband market, how can it be bad?
 
I'd like to add that although gaming is pretty much what gives our lives meaning, I doubt it's a substantial chunk of MWEB's overall local data transfer. For example, a recent statistic revealed that SAIX gaming has about 700 concurrent connections at any one time. Comparing that to all the other applications of the local internet (business hosting, consumer internet connectivity, VoIP, data hosting, etc) it's unlikely that MWEB saw the gaming segment as a huge leveraging tool. Gamers changing ISPs or purchasing additional bandwidth through a new ISP in order to play Black Ops will probably at best have a marginal effect on the overall ISP business in SA.

It would have taken a large ISP such as MWEB to secure some kind of exclusivity deal with Gameservers. They have the necessary infrastructure and are large enough of an ISP to make the necessary service level promises likely required. IMO the peering issue and Gameservers deal occurring at the same time was coincidental. Of course I could be wrong (excuse me while I put on my tinfoil hat).

The peering agreements are still being hammered out so all of this could prove to be a storm in a teacup within a few months and we'll go back to complaining about hackers and #%@#$^ camping snipers.
 
Sirf said:
http://www.news24.com/SciTech/News/Afrihost-promises-free-data-20101103



That's Gian from Afrihost supporting Mweb's move. Yes, we inconvenienced now but if we sacrifice this for now and support the ISP's that are actually trying to improve the broadband market, how can it be bad?
Click to expand...

Agreed.
Just byt vas.

Times will get better.

Remember, Mweb brought us affordable uncapped internet.
Mweb is one of the only ISP's I know that does not have a cap on their uncapped accounts.
We have pulled a couple of hundred gigs (okay, 100GB - 140GB) in one month and the speed was consistent.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top