MWeb or Afrihost for Gaming

I've been with Afrihost for years and only ever had a problem with the recent upgrade where they were still charging me the original price (R497p.m.) for 2meg uncapped when their price had dropped to R397. Seems you have to temp upgrade/downgrade or sign on as a new customer - however, with Mweb, my landlord was left on a 1meg bundle when the upgrades happened and their 1meg bundle costs the same as their 2meg so both ISPs were sneaky like that.

Otherwise, with Afrihost the service is great, their Clientzone and tools (such as 'Fix My Line') available to users are awesome AND they don't appear to shape/throttle based on my usage - only do according to network load at a given time - which only seems to take affect during business hours anyway.

Soz, forgot to finish...In terms of gaming (with Xbox at least) I have no issues and all works well, even with my girlfriend watching Netflix/Hulu at the same time. GTA Online, Max Payne 3 and Left 4 Dead 2 are pretty much what I play.

In terms of other ISPs, I'm not sure of their performance but I know I'm not gonna get shaped/throttled when I hit 110gigs (A la Mweb - according to their Call Center sales dude I spoke to).
 
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Scotty said:
I've been with Afrihost for years and only ever had a problem with the recent upgrade where they were still charging me the original price (R497p.m.) for 2meg uncapped when their price had dropped to R397. Seems you have to temp upgrade/downgrade or sign on as a new customer - however, with Mweb, my landlord was left on a 1meg bundle when the upgrades happened and their 1meg bundle costs the same as their 2meg so both ISPs were sneaky like that.

Otherwise, with Afrihost the service is great, their Clientzone and tools (such as 'Fix My Line') available to users are awesome AND they don't appear to shape/throttle based on my usage - only do according to network load at a given time - which only seems to take affect during business hours anyway.

Soz, forgot to finish...In terms of gaming (with Xbox at least) I have no issues and all works well, even with my girlfriend watching Netflix/Hulu at the same time. GTA Online, Max Payne 3 and Left 4 Dead 2 are pretty much what I play.

In terms of other ISPs, I'm not sure of their performance but I know I'm not gonna get shaped/throttled when I hit 110gigs (A la Mweb - according to their Call Center sales dude I spoke to).
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So you say that you use 'bout 110 gigs a month and dont get throttled?

Then i would say afrihost seems more tempting *licks lips*
 
Applause said:
So you say that you use 'bout 110 gigs a month and dont get throttled?

Then i would say afrihost seems more tempting *licks lips*
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110GBs isn't that much. Afrihost sat they never throttle web browsing, email, YouTube etc (If I remember correctly).
 
Try openweb dude, never had any issues with them, been with mweb and afrihost, and not again no thanks.
 
Over the years, I've found Webafrica to be the most stable. Downgraded from a Webafrica Titan account (10mbit business uncapped) to a 4Mbps uncapped (due to a budget cut). When MWEB had their "gaming account" promotion, we switched to MWEB — but so did everyone else. We then experimented with Axxess and Afrihost, and found Afrihost to be superior. Eventually, after horrible connectivity issues in FFXIV, we switched back to Webafrica, and all has been well since!
 
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Here is my 2cents about Mweb.

I have been a customer with them for almost 7 years never and had some problem nothing major, my first line was their 512kbps line. So when they upgraded to their 1mbps lines I was bumped up automatically.

When telkom announced that they are going away with 1mbps lines and moving all to 2mbps lines, I was exited thinking Mweb will bump people automatically as well. Well here is what actually happened and my crap started with them.

Mweb "introduced" two 1mbps packages: 1mbps Standard and 1mbps premium.

The customers on the 1mbps Standard was bumped automatically to the 2mbps Standard package, where as the 1mbps premium customers was not due to "technical" problems and some sort of contact legal thing.

If you are on a 1mbps premium you are still on a 1mbps premium unless you asked to be bumped to the 2mbps Standard package for R199 p/m ( R339p/m + line rental). So I phoned and got bumped. Got a lot more then usual latency with the 2mbps line vs my 1mbps line.

The 2mbps premium gos for R369 p/m ( R509p/m + line rental).

But this is the massive catch that most customers wasn't told about.

The 1mbps Standard WAS throttled at 70gb and the 1mbps premium WAS throttled at 100gb.
Now the 2mbps Standard IS throttled at 70gb and the 2mbps premium IS throttled at 100gb.
All uncapped Mweb packages are shaped.

It's not your normal throttle it's a 30day roll over throttle. It's 30 days from the contract start not from first day of month to next first month day. Which means if you download lets say 60gb this month your next month will start with 60gb, IT WILL NOT RESET back to 0gb !!

I specifically ask if it will ever go back to 0gb as I am a above average user (180 - 200gb per month) and with a firm voice I was told "NO, it will never rest end of story". So what will happen I asked if I get to 70gb the answer was short "You will be throttled till we can get you close to 70gb", meaning you will always be throttled to the max if you go over the limit.

So I am also considering moving to Afrihost after 7 years with Mweb. Just have to get all the ducks in a row and some more facts.
 
Hav0c said:
Here is my 2cents about Mweb.

I have been a customer with them for almost 7 years never and had some problem nothing major, my first line was their 512kbps line. So when they upgraded to their 1mbps lines I was bumped up automatically.

When telkom announced that they are going away with 1mbps lines and moving all to 2mbps lines, I was exited thinking Mweb will bump people automatically as well. Well here is what actually happened and my crap started with them.

Mweb "introduced" two 1mbps packages: 1mbps Standard and 1mbps premium.

The customers on the 1mbps Standard was bumped automatically to the 2mbps Standard package, where as the 1mbps premium customers was not due to "technical" problems and some sort of contact legal thing.

If you are on a 1mbps premium you are still on a 1mbps premium unless you asked to be bumped to the 2mbps Standard package for R199 p/m ( R339p/m + line rental). So I phoned and got bumped. Got a lot more then usual latency with the 2mbps line vs my 1mbps line.

The 2mbps premium gos for R369 p/m ( R509p/m + line rental).

But this is the massive catch that most customers wasn't told about.

The 1mbps Standard WAS throttled at 70gb and the 1mbps premium WAS throttled at 100gb.
Now the 2mbps Standard IS throttled at 70gb and the 2mbps premium IS throttled at 100gb.
All uncapped Mweb packages are shaped.

It's not your normal throttle it's a 30day roll over throttle. It's 30 days from the contract start not from first day of month to next first month day. Which means if you download lets say 60gb this month your next month will start with 60gb, IT WILL NOT RESET back to 0gb !!

I specifically ask if it will ever go back to 0gb as I am a above average user (180 - 200gb per month) and with a firm voice I was told "NO, it will never rest end of story". So what will happen I asked if I get to 70gb the answer was short "You will be throttled till we can get you close to 70gb", meaning you will always be throttled to the max if you go over the limit.

So I am also considering moving to Afrihost after 7 years with Mweb. Just have to get all the ducks in a row and some more facts.
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Mweb was good in the beginning, I was a client of theirs when they started the 384k uncapped deals, it was great! then got 512k for free, a 1Mb/s upgrade for free, the trouble started there last week of the month I was throttled at about 90 GB's of usage. Phoned and enquired about the throttle and was told that I had reached my data limit. Opted for the 2Mb/s being told I would get more data usage I chose that. It's been about 2 years and slowly but surely the service has begun to deteriorate more so in the last couple of months.

In the end, I just went and signed up for Afrihost 30+30GB top-up deal. I can stream video way more easily now and not worry about getting shaped due to Mweb's ridiculous policy's.
 
Would anyone happen to know if computer gaming is a "realtime service"? Because if it is not then afrihost uncapped will be useless, because they say that realtime will never be throttled, but every other non-realtime service will be...

Can I please get some clarity on this
 
Applause said:
Would anyone happen to know if computer gaming is a "realtime service"? Because if it is not then afrihost uncapped will be useless, because they say that realtime will never be throttled, but every other non-realtime service will be...

Can I please get some clarity on this
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Hi Applause, i'm with Axxess for the last few years and up until recently even when i was being throttled i could still play games with a reasonable ping. As far as i know Axxess and Afrihost are on the same network.

But i've cancelled my uncapped account last month(31 July it ends) as my speed have been poor and had a lot of issues where connection was either dead or very poor. Sometimes my ping on local servers would be around 900 when playing Dota2.

But it might just be my account :)
 
Go Afrihost, all the way.
For streaming and gaming, they are far superior.

I've been a user of Mweb for over a year now and never had to care about throttling in the least.
...Until recently.

Their new policy ... Sucks.
I was informed that I have a 100gb "Cap" on my 4mbps "Uncapped" line beforegetting throttled. Well, at least they're honest.
After some very complicated math I worked out that at full tilt (At a reasonable speed- taking congestion into account as well) you can use your entire cap within 75 hours. There are 720 hours in a month, meaning you only get just over 10.4% of the maximum possible usage out of your line.

Taking into consideration that video streaming sites like youtube automatically adjust quality based on your line speed, a 4mbps line will almost always be streaming at 720p - which eats cap at a ridiculous rate. I have no idea what on earth they were thinking when they thought 100gb sounded reasonable.

Afrihost on the other hand will not throttle you unless you "Abuse" their line. On the phone I was quoted I'd have to reach monthly usages up to a terabyte to be considered abusive.
What Afrihost does is, they simply slow down direct downloads and torrents based upon congestion - you will be slower than Mweb at the busiest hours, but it is still perfectly acceptable in my experience. In addition Streaming and Gaming are never slowed. Ever.
 
Tydmors said:
Hi Applause, i'm with Axxess for the last few years and up until recently even when i was being throttled i could still play games with a reasonable ping. As far as i know Axxess and Afrihost are on the same network.

But i've cancelled my uncapped account last month(31 July it ends) as my speed have been poor and had a lot of issues where connection was either dead or very poor. Sometimes my ping on local servers would be around 900 when playing Dota2.

But it might just be my account :)
Click to expand...

Good To know

killkrazed said:
Go Afrihost, all the way.
For streaming and gaming, they are far superior.

I've been a user of Mweb for over a year now and never had to care about throttling in the least.
...Until recently.

Their new policy ... Sucks.
I was informed that I have a 100gb "Cap" on my 4mbps "Uncapped" line beforegetting throttled. Well, at least they're honest.
After some very complicated math I worked out that at full tilt (At a reasonable speed- taking congestion into account as well) you can use your entire cap within 75 hours. There are 720 hours in a month, meaning you only get just over 10.4% of the maximum possible usage out of your line.

Taking into consideration that video streaming sites like youtube automatically adjust quality based on your line speed, a 4mbps line will almost always be streaming at 720p - which eats cap at a ridiculous rate. I have no idea what on earth they were thinking when they thought 100gb sounded reasonable.

Afrihost on the other hand will not throttle you unless you "Abuse" their line. On the phone I was quoted I'd have to reach monthly usages up to a terabyte to be considered abusive.
What Afrihost does is, they simply slow down direct downloads and torrents based upon congestion - you will be slower than Mweb at the busiest hours, but it is still perfectly acceptable in my experience. In addition Streaming and Gaming are never slowed. Ever.
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Great, so Afrihost only throttles those okes who use terabytes per month. I just need some constant high uploads and downloads so i can upload videos to youtube easily.


Yet again anyone know if gaming is a real-time service?
 
Applause said:
Great, so Afrihost only throttles those okes who use terabytes per month. I just need some constant high uploads and downloads so i can upload videos to youtube easily.


Yet again anyone know if gaming is a real-time service?
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I can confirm gaming is a real-time service. It was the first question I asked them XD.
 
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