Poor connectivity followed by poor maintenance followed by poor service

I am extremely dissatisfied with my recent experience as a new client with afrihost.

This is disappointing since ironically enough, afrihost's pre-client service was the reason I bought in on a 100 Mbps up/down-load fiber package in the first place.

My other option was telkom, not great with customer service, but as a former customer, I can honestly say that I have never had network problems. I would have preferred my network infrastructure be done by openserve, but this was not an option with Afrihost in my area.

Nevertheless, VUMA is the standard in my area and so I didn't have a choice.They took an entire week to review "installation of a second line on the premises" query and took another week to show up on site to install the line.

The first day the installation team came to install the line on a Thursday, the guys complained as it was late in the afternoon and it is a big job. They ended up rescheduling to Saturday early in the morning at 8. Fine. So I'm excited and everything because I'm getting fiber.

After the installation was completed, my line was not yet active. I decided to wait until Monday to see if it would be active then. On Monday 22 November, the line became active after I asked an afrihost consultant to check what is the matter with my line.

I then received the object/activation number to activate the router and configure it on my network. So that's what I did. At this point I could still not access the internet. I was trying to search results on google in futility since the browser just wouldn't load, even a result page.

I complained to many afrihost consultants who all tell me the same procedure of restarting the network router and hard resetting it and plugging in the network cable directly into the ONT (fiber box installed by VUMAtel).

So I obviously comply with the whole trouble-shooting process and nothing seems to work. Then, all of a sudden I have internet access, but it's so weak that the speeds are comparable to 0 Mbps. My search results are still not loading.

So VUMA sends out two guys with a machine testing god-knows-what and they leave, claiming that there is nothing wrong with their box. The issue persists, I still have speeds close to 0 Mbps. Keep in mind I'm actually paying for a 100 Mbps line So not getting any internet speed is extremely unacceptable.

They then send out two more guys to come and check. This time they changed a component in the fiber box and the internet seems to have gone up to about 30 Mbps, not exactly the speed I purchased. But here's the thing, the speeds are inconsistent and jump around, mostly below 10 Mbps. So this goes on for about a week. I complain at a consultant, and the consultant talks in circles, logging tickets, actually never really addressing the problem of solving my internet connection.

So on Friday I mostly converse with Janes Naicker via email, who did some follow up with me but didn't lead to fixing my problem. On Saturday I speak to Sabelo. After that the google speed test and VUMA speed tests increase dramatically to normal speeds.

However, the speeds on mybroadband and ookla are still below 10 Mbps. The reason I noticed this is because I could download large files from my google drive in a short period of time. However, poor internet speed kept me from updating my linux machine.

So I concluded that this must be because VUMA didn't fix my issue with international networks. Earlier the same week, money of R300 was deducted from my ABSA account to Afrihost. I was first confused, but I went to check my billing and apparently it was for the last week of November's internet usage.

I am extremely unhappy about that, because I actually didn't get the speeds I'm paying for. In fact, all my valuable time and frustration is worth more than the money for which I request a refund. I don't mean this in a hyperbolic sense. I mean it quite literally.

I want the money for my time spent trying to resolve an issue not caused by me. To top it all off they want to charge me 1000 bucks for cancellation fees and refuse to clear the line to be used by any other ISP even though I have already paid 1500 for the installation of the line.

Another problem that I have with afrihost in general is that they put me (as the client) between themselves and VUMA as a third party participant in resolving client-ISP-Network-related issues.

I don't feel comfortable being the middle man. I only speak to my ISP about matters which should then be communicated to subcontracted services. The communication between me as the client and VUMA should be minimal, and communication between afrihost and VUMA should be direct and efficient, which it is not.

I was asked questions about VUMA by afrihost and questions about afrihost by VUMA.

I expect deduction from my account to be halted until the issue is resolved.

I WILL BE MAKING THIS MATTER PUBLIC IF MY ISSUE IS NOT RESOLVED OR IF ANY MONEY IS DEDUCTED FROM MY ACCOUNT BEFORE THE ISSUE IS RESOLVED.