Afrihost speed test

What speed is normal on Afrihost?

Afrihost sells fibre over networks such as Openserve, Vumatel, Frogfoot and Octotel, plus Afrihost Air, which is fixed LTE and 5G delivered over partner mobile networks. Fibre results should track your package closely; Air results move with signal and time of day.

Air speeds assume three or more bars with the router at a window. Afrihost publishes fair-use terms for uncapped Air plans; check them if speed drops late in the month.

Why your Afrihost speed is slow, and what to do about it

Split the problem into WiFi, line and ISP. These steps tell you which one you are dealing with.

1. Test on a cable, not WiFiPlug a laptop into the router with an Ethernet cable and test again. If the cable result is much higher than WiFi, the problem is inside your home, not with your provider. Move closer to the router, switch to the 5 GHz WiFi band, or add a mesh unit.
2. Check the ONT lights (fibre)A red LOS light on the ONT means the fibre line is down and the network operator must fix it; log it with Afrihost and they escalate. Normal lights with slow speed point elsewhere.
3. Reposition the Air routerFor Afrihost Air, put the router on a windowsill facing the nearest tower. Signal bars in the router page tell you whether the location is good enough for the plan.
4. Confirm the package in ClientZoneCheck the speed you are on and, for Air, whether a fair-use cap has applied. Package changes can take up to a day to reflect.
5. Test at a quiet hour and at peakRun the test at 10 am and again at 8 pm. A big evening drop points to congestion on the network, not your setup. A steady shortfall at every hour points to the line or the plan.
6. Restart the routerSwitch it off at the wall for 30 seconds. Routers that have been on for weeks leak memory, drop to slower WiFi modes and hold onto poor connections. Do this before anything else.
7. Contact Afrihost with your numbersIf daytime speeds on a cable are still far below your plan, log a ticket in ClientZone or the app, or use WhatsApp. Send the download, upload and ping numbers, the time of day and whether you were on cable or WiFi. That gets you past the first-line “restart your router” reply.

Fibre network vs ISP: who is responsible

The fibre operator owns the cable and the ONT on your wall. Afrihost buys capacity on that network and routes your traffic. A dead line is the operator’s problem, and an evening slowdown on a healthy line is usually the ISP’s. Either way you log with Afrihost, but the distinction helps you describe the fault properly.

Afrihost Air and load-shedding

Air runs on mobile towers with battery backup. During long outages towers get congested and speeds fall. Fibre is unaffected if your ONT and router are on a UPS.

Common questions

Test by provider

Guides: WiFi speed testFibre speed testPing test