ADSL speeds.

[Dave A]

I did a trace route (tracert) -it seems the main slow down is from my router through to the local telkom exchange and then again from the local exchange to telkom jhbcore. So if I am analysing this correctly, the slow story is happening in the local Telkom arena.
The speeds through the other ip addresses seem to be slightly slower but not affected that much.

Marq, you and I route through the same exchange, and I've noticed a marked drop in responsiveness over (approximately) the last two weeks. The good news is today it seems to be back to normal, so perhaps there was an infrastructure problem and it's now sorted.

I know the Dbn to Jhb leg runs pretty much on the rivet at the best of times and anything that hurts throughput tends to have a pretty dramatic impact on performance.

[Marq]

Andy, It seems to be mainly direct downloads. Cybersmart assure me that they do no throttling or tuning.

What I dont understand, Dave is that for about a week (about three/four weeks back) I had speeds of about 8.5 and the local technician that has been working in our area for many years told me the lines should handle at least 12.
But it was Cybersmart who told me the line at that speed (8.5) was unstable and they had reduced it back to 5.
I do not understand who is doing what - do isp's have control of the whole line from computer point to exchange as well?
and what does 'unstable' mean? I thought it was working great.

Dave, they have also been working in my area on something with many teckies down the main man holes and many vehicles lined up at the various exchange sub stations. I was told they were connecting the optic fibre stuff. So perhaps that was creating a problem on the existing infrastructure. They have now gone - so hopefully you are right and we are back to normal awaiting the final big switch over sometime in the future...........

[AndyD]

do isp's have control of the whole line from computer point to exchange as well?
and what does 'unstable' mean? I thought it was working great.

Yes, the ISP can control line speed. I guess unstable in the context they're using it would mean there's high transfer errors or dropped packets due to noise or attenuation caused by poor line infrastructure or long line distances to the exchange.

I'm with Cybersmart and I've not had any problems with speed in the past or even now. I have unshaped and I test it regularly to see if they're throttling or prioritising protocols and in all fairness I've never caught them doing it. Most of my larger filesize downloads are via bittorrent protocols via VPN but I direct downloaded a 115Mb PDF file this morning and it took < 3 mins.

[Marq]

Thanks for the input Andy.
I am fairly sure my speeds are slower than I had before but cannot be sure as to whether its the isp or telkom. It seems that its telkoms local network, but being slowed down more than they should by the isp.
The one thing though thats really annoying is Cybersmart's lack of response. They ignore emails and have taken over a week on average to answer some of my questions. I left the previous guys as a result of their lack of interest, not sure if I am worse off at the moment.
Time will tell, but they are on short notice so far.

[AndyD]

Weird, all the queries I've ever sent them I immediately get a reference number by return email and a response within 24h. They can actually become annoying because there's usually at least one and sometimes as many as three follow-up phonecalls to make sure the response can be closed on their system after it's been dealt with. Maybe it's a difference in service levels between areas. I'd give you good odds on it being a Telkom issue, I could only suggest you become a pest and keep reporting the issue until you get a satisfactory result.

[twinscythe12332]

Hi
When doing your speed test, are you connecting to a server in the region that you are downloading from? International traffic has been up to crap since telkom started rolling out their connection upgrades.
You aren't the only ones, if that is any comfort.
http://mybroadband.co.za/news/adsl/9...-problems.html

[Marq]

Here is my last tracerts -The first one is while downloading - the second is with no downloads.
The main difference or problem seems to be the link from durban to jhb. There is not much difference in the international speeds.
I am not sure how to read this but it sure looks like the differences are in the local areas.
The speedtest is from my machine to the local server - apparently its in ballito?

My speed went up to 8.6 for few days after I bitched but has been reduced to about 5 on average which is lower than before. Today its at 6.1. Seems there is no consistency.
As soon as as I download anything - say a you tube file - it goes down to 4.4
Download second you tube at same time, it goes down to 3.9 and so it will go down.
I am not sure why - but thought that the speed would be the same and it would just sort out the packets coming through (ie the new download itself may halve the time it takes to come through but the speed would be contestant.)

[Marq]

This blame game has been going on since the start of the computer age.
All the techies scratching heads and all the users frustrated and not knowing where to turn to.

It used to be ...its the software .....no its definitely hardware.
Hardware seems to have been replaced by .....network - that great nebulous pie in the sky area that has no home base or person in charge of any one section that we as users can turn to and actually get an answer.
Then suddenly some one somewhere along the chain flicks a switch or ticks a box and hey presto ...its all working again. Wasnt a problem in the first place - you users just dont know how to use the system.
Dont know how or why or where but its working and we can all individually or as a group along this chain receive credit and ra ra's.

Then another guy comes along and ticks the same box and ........so the cycle goes.

[Justloadit]

Could it be our new age techies don't actually understand how these systems work, after all 30% and over is considered a pass.

[irneb]

As soon as as I download anything - say a you tube file - it goes down to 4.4
Download second you tube at same time, it goes down to 3.9 and so it will go down.

As I described before, the speed test is itself a download (it simply downloads and then uploads some arb file/generated data and times it to find out how fast it went). Your line doesn't become faster in total because you're downloading more - it's like a water pipe: if you open one tap the water comes out at a certain speed (usually maximum the pipe can handle), when you open a second tap the 1st's speed drops (because the pipe's max hasn't increased by magic), if you open a 3rd both the 1st 2 drops in their speed (same non-magic pipe).

If you're downloading something else at the same time that you do a speed test, it means you're only getting a test showing how much is left of your download after sharing your line between 2 concurrent downloads. If you test while downloading 2 other stuff, then the test reveals how much is left when sharing your line between 3. These might not be equal to each other, it works more like a dif on a car - i.e. the one which downloads easier gets more speed. Thus it seems as if the test's download is easier than the youtube download and the 2nd download. The drop in the speedtest's speed due to the 1st youtube and the 2nd download shows that the drop is not proportional.

If you want to figure out exactly how much your line is getting in total you need to add the speed test's result to the speed the youtube is getting as well as the speed the 2nd download is getting. It's this total which you should gripe about, not the shared speed between downloads - that's always going to be less than the maximum. That's why you should stop all other downloads (including stuff like emails) while performing a speed test - it's the easiest way to try and get an accurate maximum speed test.