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Cape Town - Internet service provider (ISP) Afrihost has apologised to ADSL network customers for network problems.
In a letter sent to customers, Afrihost CEO and founder Gian Visser said: “As promised here's an outline of the ADSL problems we've been experiencing and what we are doing about it. I've tried to answer as best I can but I am somewhat technically challenged so forgive me if something is not completely clear.”
MTN [JSE:MTN] has bought 50% plus 1 of Afrihost’s shares. The existing shareholders, including management, would retain the remaining shares of the company.
READ: Competition commission approves MTN, Afrihost deal
On July 3, Visser took steps to reassure customers about the independence of the business in the wake of the MTN acquisition.
READ: Afrihost reassures customers after MTN buy
On Thursday, Visser said the traffic and bandwidth on Afrihost’s ADSL network is managed by devices made by a leading overseas tech company.
“These devices manage all the different type of traffic protocols (such as video streaming, online games and peer-to-peer torrents and downloads) at different times depending on how much capacity is available on our network.
“Unfortunately they have been behaving inconsistently over the last few months for some reason. It has been a tricky problem to deal with because there were times everything seemed fine and we weren't sure exactly where the problem was.”
In September 2009 Afrihost entered the broadband ADSL market, through an initial offering of R55 per GB that failed to attract a significant number of signups.
Visser said the company has been working closely with MTN and the device hardware company over this time to try to get to the bottom of it, but the problem has proved way more challenging to solve than expected.
The devices' software was upgraded early last week to improve traffic management and give clients a better ADSL experience. This was done after months of R&D by the overseas company and after weeks of testing locally, said Visser.
“Unfortunately since the updates, for reasons we are not completely sure of at this time, these appliances have not been working as expected. They are not classifying all types of traffic correctly. This means that we cannot properly shape some key traffic, such as certain types of peer-to-peer torrent downloads, because the devices are not always picking these protocols up accurately,” said Visser.
Working around the clock to fix glitches
This in turn means Afrihost cannot manage the network usage as effectively as it needs to, leading to sub-optimal performance when it is filled to capacity.
So what is Afrihost doing about it?
“All of our top guys - the top network guys from MTN and the engineers from the device manufacturer - are all working around the clock on sorting this out as soon as possible. We have a whole team that is working from Afrihost. An engineer from the overseas company flew in and is working with the top engineers from Afrihost and MTN. We are also in constant and direct contact with all the engineers based overseas and everybody is working around the clock to solve this as soon as possible,” said Visser.
When will this be sorted out?
“The honest truth is I am not sure. I am hopeful that we will all have sorted out the problem very, very soon. As mentioned we have top tech guys of Afrihost, MTN and the device manufacturer working on it but the problem is proving to be challenging to fix. I honestly cannot give you an exact time to resolution with certainty,” he said.
He added that MTN has been putting in great effort to help. “They often get the short end of the stick, and I'd like to use this opportunity to publicly thank them.”
