iBurst very slow

[James]

Please can users post some latency tests(int and local) and download speeds so I/everyone can see what things are like these days, if they have increased/decreased or stayed the same. Many thanks,

James

[alchamy]

Hi James

Well its definately been getting a lot slower to respond, however nothing much has changed in the overall speed. Have a look below

http://www.mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php?t=16529&page=1&pp=15

[Snotface]

Well when it is up, it seems fine. I got a download that started at 120Kbps and finished at 117Kbps. Granted it was only a 5.x mb file, but it was from McAfee.com at around 19:00 our time.

I've been down all this week, and bouncing around last week so proper (read consistant) tests are a bit difficult at the moment.

[aborg]

My connectivity and speed has been really bad the last few days - has anything changed on the Iburst network - are they starting to employ shaping to internet traffic...anybody?

[TheYak]

speaking of shaping, i noticed that last night as well... p2p was running at 0.15kbps - no higher, it used to be MUCH better...

don't do this WBS, please...

[ic]

A possible solution to our iButt problems- if you haven't already mailed testing@myadsl.co.za to opt-in for iButt testing:
(RPM's thread) Broadband QoS measurement: Testers needed (http://www.mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php?t=16640), then I suggest you do so now, testing is due to start in January, and anything that WBS will be ashamed to admit will not escape the spotlight ;)

PS: You don't do any work, an application that you get from RPM, and install, will do all the work for you...

[bb_matt]

speaking of shaping, i noticed that last night as well... p2p was running at 0.15kbps - no higher, it used to be MUCH better...

don't do this WBS, please...

Of course they are going to do it. You are not thier intended customer base.
Joe and Jane Average with thier occassional email usage for business purposes are.

As IT geeks, the early adopters are just guinea pigs before the real service kicks in - a service that will offer great speeds on two protocols, http and email. The rest will be choked into the ground.

Mark my words on this, I have absolutely no dought in my mind that this will be the case.

[hArTh]

speaking of shaping, i noticed that last night as well... p2p was running at 0.15kbps - no higher, it used to be MUCH better...

don't do this WBS, please...

My sig speaketh for me in this instance ... :rolleyes:

[aborg]

Thx ic - I think I will be part of the test. There is definately shaping happening http downloads fly at 105 KB/s and p2p barely makes it off the ground.
Is there any proper ISP out there in SA that caters for the internet junkie? I don't think so.
OT : Btw Vodacom your 3G offer sucks... :-(

[ic]

aborg, I 2nd that.

I would love to post some controversial (alternate) marketing slogans, but I think I might get moderated.

PS: I got the deranged traffic light thing this afternoon- the 1st time in about 1.5..2 weeks.

[alchamy]

P2P is not usable, As I remember we were meant to get 64k????? its worse than ADSL capped. atleast there I could get like 2kb. Now my P2P barely connects. I can live with 64k but not 0.... not very impressed right now. I thought they were going to offer better packages for P2P users. They should release those before killing it totaly.

[aborg]

I am paying for my freekin 3GB I demand it to be unshaped,unmonitored,free of interference - what I want to use MY 3GB for is my bussiness, ftp,http,VPN,telnet,p2p,hosting is that to much to ask - thereafter they can cap the bloody connection. I knew this was gonna happen, bloody a**holes. I see a WBS goin the sensuck route, they might be outta here before my 24 month contract runs out.
Jeesh I'm an a**hole too for thinking this was gonna be better. Harth you nail it right on the head with your comments.

[alchamy]

Gotta admit, Harth was right. We getting nailed on this one.

[TheYak]

It seems that they've only been shaping recently... I used to get good speeds via p2p - now it just plain sucks.

Well, another ISP bites the dust :(

[aborg]

I will not be recommending or re-selling Iburst based on current happenings...they better bring out other offerings on the 1st of April...I don't wanna use Iburst just because its "cool" and "mobile" - unshaped speed is the key here.

[TheYak]

well, if they're going to be shaping it, then it's not cool, is it? It's stupid!

When are these guys going to learn!?

[tibby.dude]

When are these guys going to learn!?

When are YOU guys going to learn ???.

Some of you jump headlong into the latest and greatest buzzwords and unproven broadband technology and sing it's praises until the reality (more users are added and bandwidth needs to be paid for) sets in a few weeks later and you start bad mouthing it ???.

ADSL
MyNoWireless
Wisp's
IBurst

So what next chaps ... Vodacom 3G perhaps or back to 56K dialup ??? :) :) :) :)

[ic]

When are YOU guys going to learn ???.

Some of you jump headlong into the latest and greatest buzzwords and unproven broadband technology and sing it's praises until the reality (more users are added and bandwidth needs to be paid for) sets in a few weeks later and you start bad mouthing it ???.

ADSL
MyNoWireless
Wisp's
IBurst

So what next chaps ... Vodacom 3G perhaps or back to 56K dialup ??? :) :) :) :)tibby.dude, it sounds like you are suggesting that we do not adopt any kind of broadband technology at all. If we have limited options, and we adopt 1 of them, and we are paying in blood for it, we have the right to complain, if you don't like us complaining then ignore what we say, just like we will ignore what you have said...

[TheYak]

Agreed with IC here. If we didn't "jump headlong into the latest and greatest buzzwords and unproven broadband technology" these technogolies wouldn't never be tested and released and we'll be stuck in the stone-age with Neandertal internet connectivity. So much has happened in the past four or so years in this arena -and it's because people like us are willing to go out on a limb and test something new!

We're not complaining about the technology as much as what companies like WBS, Sentech, Telkom et al are doing to their offerings: caps, shaping etc.

All we want is high-speed, unlimited internet access... is that too much to ask for!?

[tibby.dude]

All we want is high-speed, unlimited internet access... is that too much to ask for!?

Let me guess ... for less than R300 per month ??? :).

[TheYak]

no, I'm not expecting it to be dirt cheap. The prices that they are charging at the moment, I feel, are "reasonable".

I don't mind paying R600 a month for a high-speed connection, but that's just me.

At the end of the day there is one company that is responsible for all the nonsense we have to go through wrt internet connectivity in SA... Telkom.

[ic]

Actually, I do think that R200..R300 per month is reasonable and R700 is totally unreasonable. Add to that a higher (than ADSL) speed connection, that is throttled down to far less than it's potential, and you are restricted in what you can and cannot do with it, would you still say that R700 per month is reasonable?

PS: don't start talking about R454 per month, I am talking about what we can expect from April, seeing as it looks like we have a taste of what is to come.

[TheYak]

that's what I'm saying IC - it's not worth R700 if we're going to be restricted and such... if they want to charge us R700, then it should be unrestricted

pipe dreams...

[alchamy]

What really gets to me is that we are meant to get 64k and shaped services, we were all prepared for that, obviously the whiz kids at WBS could not get it right so they just killed the ports all together.

[ic]

AFAIK, WBS have never mentioned what the contention on that 64K is going to be (perhaps it is 64K & we are all contending for it).

[alchamy]

ic, thats very possible. If thats the case then WBS is Telkom version 2. :(

[aborg]

There is nothing wrong with the Iburst technology - its the application of it and the people that manage it. Believe me the Iburst technology seems much better than the 3G nonsense of Sensuck.
I have said it many times, I am willing to pay R500-600 for decent service with minimum interference in type of traffic and even with a cap, but then something decent like 6 - 10GB - I don't want to download the internet that gets very boring very quickly.
Tibby what technology did you adopt just out of curiosity.

[ic]

aborg, I can only agree with you, iBurst seems quite sound as a technology, it is just this whole capping, shaping & to a lesser extent prioritisation thing that has me worried- shelling out R700 a month for a 3Gig limit, with Suckingtech-like shaped limiting of downloads, to a highly contended 64K.

Not fair IMO, if we are willing to pay R700 a month it should be better than ISDN and 56K.

[Perdition]

Yep, I'll be sticking with ISDN for the moment, WBS can keep their faggy ass offerings. With ISDN at least I know what I'm getting, no shaping or capping and with InfinitCall it works out to less than these "broadband" offerings. The only downside is no surfing in the daytime during the week but I can live with that.

[nexushub]

Side note: It seems that you all forget about 3 years ago what kind of internet connection R599 would get you :D Lets just be thankfull that we can finally enjoy a 24/7 connection for a fixed rate!

Message:
Anybody used iBurst in Boksburg... namely Sunward Park etc.?

[Perdition]

We haven't forgotten but when it is blatantly obvious that every player in the market is just out to bleed the public dry rather than help bridge the digital divide one loses faith very quickly.

[tibby.dude]

Tibby what technology did you adopt just out of curiosity.

ADSL

[Razer0]

Side note: It seems that you all forget about 3 years ago what kind of internet connection R599 would get you :D Lets just be thankfull that we can finally enjoy a 24/7 connection for a fixed rate!

Hmm i wonder what type of connection you could get overseas with that same price at the same period. Lets not make it acceptable now..

[ic]

Side note: It seems that you all forget about 3 years ago what kind of internet connection R599 would get you...Sorry mate, no idea what you are talking about, 3 years ago I didn't even look sideways at any ISP offering with that sort of pricetag :confused:

[tibby.dude]

We haven't forgotten but when it is blatantly obvious that every player in the market is just out to bleed the public dry rather than help bridge the digital divide one loses faith very quickly.

Hey what are you talking about Perdition ???.

"Bridging the digital divide" ... ag please ... my poor bleeding liberal heart ... you just want to leech movies and mp3's and pay as little as possible just like the rest of us :).

We are really a priviledged lot in S.A .... able to afford a PC and the cost of 24/7 internet compared to the rest of the population and yet some of us are still not satisfied and keep on whinging because our porn don't download any faster.

[TheYak]

tibby, you're missing the point: Those of us that DON'T download pr0n (like myself) still want a fast connection for browsing, so that I don't have to sit and wait for a page to load 'till the cows come home or wait for ages to download something from downloads.com - not everyone is a pirate!

Priviledged? You have GOT to be kidding me! Most people in SA can't afford a 24/7 connection and that's exactly the point we're trying to make: that it's unaffordable and out of reach for most people in SA.

Let's put aside broadband and 24/7 connections - let's talk about dial up. Not even that is affordable to some people! If it were, wouldn't more people have internet access?

Face it... it's a money-making mess... nothing more, nothing less.

Hey, that rhymes! :)

[ic]

TheYak, you have yakd the nail on the head there.

I would like to add: my browsing experience is on an iBurst go-slow this morning- perhaps I am now contending for that 64K for http as well?

Also, most South African people cannot afford even a Telkom landline in this country, and I think that it is everyone's basic human right to have access to a landline (if they so choose), so arguments of priveleged few doesn't wash with me at all.

[TheYak]

LOL @ "yakd"

Browsing was VERY slow for me last night. Didn't check this morning.

Are they capping allready, or is it still download-as-much-as-you-can?

[ic]

This morning I am experiencing a definite problem trying to get anything done, and everything I'm doing is local http traffic (including 2 minuscule local downloads off the ICASA website for the updated VANS Gazette notice, and those took a decade to download as well).

Pages are taking about 60..90 seconds from the time of request to the time when iBurst sends the http to my PC (DUMeter is registering no traffic inbetween).

Initially I thought there might be a router and/or latency problem somewhere, but pings to these local sites are averaging on 95ms, so I can only conclude that I am being capped in a major way.

Internet Banking- I cannot even transfer money due to the lag as I am being logged off automatically in mid-transfer.

Added: Just tried international browsing - even slower - looking at 120 seconds before the page can be rendered.

This is actually waaaaaay worse than 56K, at least you can do what you need to on dial-up, with this you can do virtually nothing, and it is even slower than dial-up. My guess, I'm contending for that 64K.

Am I the only one experiencing this ATM, or are you not able to get here to post about how awfully contended your browsing has become?

[TheYak]

I am at work at the moment, so I can't check. I'll have to check tonight at home. I'll let you know.

If what you're experiencing is their idea of a cap - they better wake up! There's no way that that is 64k contended!

The downhill spiral has begun... :(

[hostkill]

well i must add my few pennies in here, i brows fine and my download from last night and i just downloaded a 20m file from file planet and i finnished on 121k wile i was doing that i done two transfers no probs, i done this after reading this whole thread.

so just a few questions i want to ask...

1) what % signal do you have or get?
2) when did you get the unit and if you got it over a month ago did ou get the Firmwear upgread done? ( befor the firmwear upgread their was a few probs ).
3) why did you get the connection in the first place?

now for me

1) i get between 93% - 100%
2) i got 4 connections and two of them i had to go and get a firmwear upgrade and now they work great thats when i got another two for laptops.
3) i got it cause of mobility, and a decent price for what you get, and the extra bit of bandwidth i do get currently i tested and it say " my current bandwidth reading is : 995.00kbps and i can download at 124.38KB / Sec " and i done this 4 times in 10minutes and same thing. so that tells me it is good compared to.

if you have not had a firmware upgrade yet just ask and i can sort you out.

[ic]

hostkill, are you directing those questions towards me, or just generally to everyone on this thread?

My answers to hostkill: Signal strength leds: usually 4 or 5, so by extrapolation between 80%..100%, sometimes lower for brief periods (I assume during an attempted basestation hand-off). Note my UTD is attached to my PC via ethernet, not USB. 2nd week of November 2004; I upgraded my UTD's firmware (http://www.mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php?t=16580) very shortly after the update was posted on iBurst.co.za We decided to get iBurst because: We were using ISDN, and the Telkom call charges were killing us. We needed an always-on connection at a fixed monthly price. Being on the move with a notebook was never a factor, which is the reason we got a UTD instead of a UTC. HomeDSL384 / ADSL512 startup costs were just going to be too expensive. I didn't feel that I would get value for money on HomeDSL384 when Telkom couldn't even get ISDN working @ the Olivedale exchange. At home, using HomeDSL384 is/would be a problem due to lightning. MyWireless was a disaster, as well as being more expensive than iBurst on startup costs. A bunch of other smaller reasons that I am not going to bore you with.

[hostkill]

To every one, im intrested as well the users that are talking here round about when did you all get your unit.

to be honest i have had my units for a while now and i have not had much problems that have not been sorted out and has not come back.

yes their is one or two things i could mention to improve on or change but befor i do that i will first investigate befor asking, just how i am, befor making a silly nana out of my self first make sure i know what i am talking about.

i see a great future for Iburst not only in South Africa But around the world as long as they keep up with tech trends and keep on working at it.

[hostkill]

thats cool at home i use ethernet i find it to improve more. i went in to WBS to get my firmwear updated.

these costs of DSL and so one can get costly thats main reson why i left ISDN.

[ic]

I was going to say that it looks like the speed is increasing, but I was sadly mistaken, perhaps one or more people I was contending with stopped contending with me.

If W-BS-M have in fact instructed that the tap be reduced to a single drip of bandwidth every 60 seconds, then it would've been nice to at least let us know before actually doing it. One of my major gripes with W-BS-M is their failure to communicate ahead of time WRT scheduled maintenance/Genetic-Burst-Eye-Mutation-Experiments, or whatever it is that goes on there that kills my connection & gets me rattling my cage all the more (or should that be running about in circles on that wheel that all guinea-pigs are cursed with). Yes, I know pre-launch phase...

[Bishop]

Well, I must add in that my speeds are still fine as well.
By Bittorrent finished a 4 GB download last night, running at about 30kB/s towards the end. This is not full speed, but that could be many factors. I still managed to pull the 4GB down in about 3 days of 24/7 downloading.

I was playing WOW and nothing has changed at all there, same latency, etc.

I also pulled a 100MB file down at 115kB from an http server in the states somewhere through flashget.

So I am still flying...

as for hostkill

1. Signal Strength - 100%, even in a storm. I must be on top of a tower.
2. Got the new Firmware, doesn't seem to have done much.
3. i) For online MMORPGs, so that I can play when I get home and not wait for callmore time.
ii) Leeching huge files off P2P systems.

That's basically it. Browsing and emailing I can do at work. Mobility is not a factor.

[hostkill]

well playing games on WOW and STEAM will be a factor for a while longer, after a few tweaks and a program later it works ok on XP with sp2, on a 2000 pro computer it works like a dream a few settings change with the virtul port and get round about 30 - 60 ping in a storm so their is always a way around computers just need to take that itme and play around. downloading for me is a dream when i do see some thing i like. Bittorrent speeds depends on how many people are downloading from you and how many people are seeding or reseeding, a few days ago it took me almost a full 24hours to down load a 2.8gig file with bitorrent. just have to understand how things work to make the best out of it.

the firmwear was just for signal detection and stability. i get a full 100% and im about 1,5k away from the closest tower.

[TheYak]

I get full signal as well, and my connection has been great, 'till last night. i'll check tonight when I get home though and report back.

I haven't done the firmware upgrade,'cos there's nothing wrong with my current firmware, it works and I'm loathe to do something that could stop it from working.

[hostkill]

well like they say if it works why fix it. been on now for over 18 hours and still all good. :cool:

[ic]

Decided to bite the bullet & call WBS to find out what is going on, Tshepo said he would get "the technician" to call me back.

Added: I just knew I would be wasting my time calling the helpdesk- still no call back from WBS. Oh well, I am leaving now, will probably be stuck with the same problem in the morning. I think tomorrow, I will just email Anakin (Luis) instead of waiting for a call-back.

[TheYak]

bljech... it's SO slow!

I phoned last night, and an extremely grumpy and quite rude Thato (I think that was his name) answered. He told me to hold and and check if it doesn't get better within an hour and phone him if it wasn't better.

Wasn't in the mood for phoning him back, so I went to bed...

This morning, same story: as slow as snail***** flowing uphill... so, I'll be phoning today. I'm on leave the whole of next week, and I do NOT want a slow connection!

[aborg]

My speeds are also up the pole...can barely browse - I am getting slightly pissed off. Can't even play CS Source anymore - What is going on? WBS seems to be clueless.

[TheYak]

That lasted longer than i thought... only a month and a half this time before the ISP goes belly up. happens to any ISP I join...

I am Yak - Destroyer of ISPs!

*insert evil cackle here*

[ic]

A quick update: I got back home last night (~23:00) to find that the problem I had been experiencing all of yesterday (as well as again today), which I am going to define with the term UNRESPONSIVENESS, had mysteriously disappeared, it was fine until sometime in the early hours of the morning.

WBS et al, note this particular problem is:
Not a speed of connection issue, it does not take ages to send or recieve data, on the contrary data is sent & received at the normal speedy speed. Not a latency problem because I checked that yesterday, and pings were actually good. Definitely a lack of responsiveness because after a simple http request to receive a webpage has been submitted by whatever browser, the request is transmitted immediately, then you sit about waiting for 60..90 seconds before the requested data is actually relayed back by iBurst.
Another thing, right now the effective download throughput (not speed) is capped at 0.1kB/sec, which leads me to believe that we are all being played with, like a cat does with a mouse.

[aborg]

Yes ic, this is cat and mouse. I tried both usb and ethernet with my UTD. Strange enough on usb things sucked then I changed to ethernet and suddenly browsing was working again.
Are they trying to implement the 3gig cap software and shaping on their server at the moment - according to the sales person this was only to happen march/april 05.
Speed is back up...interesting, downloading tribes demo from sierra ftp site at 90 KB/s. Who has his hands on the bandwidth valve?

[ic]

Sadly, my speed is NOT back up, and hasn't been all day today. No callback from WBS, no reply from Luis (Anakin), if anyone @ WBS is paying attention to the plight of your customers then some sort of communication would be appreciated- even if it is smoke signals...

[ic]

Just decided to call WBS again, when I dial 0118774700 I get that ancient old recorded Telkom bird saying The number you have dialled does not exist, strange bcos I got through on 4700 yesterday (after trying 0118774733 several time & it just rang continously).

So this time I got through on 4733, this is the gist of the conversation:
Hello WBS, Tato here (or at least I think that's what he said)
Hello, I have a major problem with iBurst that started yesterday
What is the error message?
There is no error message, I am connected but it takes ages for data to come back from the internet
Aaaah, we have been having a major problem with our upstream supplier UUNET, they are aware of the problem and are working on it
How long will it still take to fix?
There is no timeframe at the moment, it is not a serious problem, so it shouldn't take long, but we know it has been two days now
Is Luis there?
No he is not here
Ok, thank you, bye

BTW, apologies Tato, we both forgot to wish each other a Happy Christmas & New Year.

Now for my post-conversation-blues: how difficult would it have been for someone from WBS to send an email out to us (I still get email at half the pace of a disabled snail, but the point is I get it- duplicating of course), OR how difficult would it be to post something on this thread to let us know whats down & calm the angry beast in each of us?

WBS guys, communication with your customers is key, especially if you want to avoid a high turnover of helpdesk staff.

[aborg]

mmm two days is not a serious problem...
'nothing dad I just smiled'

[ic]

Well, I will probably regret saying this in about 60 seconds, but it looks like "the problem" has (temporararily) been solved.

Thing is I won't be around tomorrow to verify if it has been fixed- I'm spending the day in a boat!

[TheYak]

still having problems here. Connection is fine and then gradually starts slowing down.

A disconnect and reconnect sorts it out for the next few minutes.

Very irritating.

[aborg]

I am an avid warcraft fan - the problem is that the world of warcraft website utilises p2p to distribute patches,demos and movies and since all p2p is effectively blocked by Iburst/WBS it is impossible to download. More and more sites are using this and have been using this technology legally. Can't there be some comprimise - again I say do not shape or control any of the 3gig we pay for. Do it after the limit has been reached, this will at least keep p2p leeches under control. Any better suggestions are welcome.

[ic]

...A disconnect and reconnect sorts it out for the next few minutes...Sadly, I have been trying that & it hasn't worked for me at all.

[alchamy]

I find it interesting that they said they had a general problem with UUNET, i did not experience any degraded service over the last week. hmm.... :confused:

[ic]

I find it interesting that they said they had a general problem with UUNET, i did not experience any degraded service over the last week. hmm.... :confused:To be honest, the moment someone shifts blame somewhere else, I immediately suspect they are lying to me, from the moment the UUNET story was spun, I doubted it- a lot more people would've noticed & reported it.

Even the usually apathetic would not have put up with what I experienced on Thursday & Friday, basically I would've been less frustrated if I had not been able to connect at all.

[ic]

Was I told a load of hooey on Friday by Tato @ WBS?

This is what UUNET-SA have on their site:
NETWORK NOTICES (http://www.uunet.co.za/_sanetwork/networknotices/networknotices.asp?n=463)
The most recent network notice, which UUNET say was resolved: 24 Dec 2004 9:57:54 AM (http://www.uunet.co.za/_sanetwork/networknotices/networknotices.asp?txtAction=D&id=1362), which certainly does not fit with the problems experienced throughout Friday 24 (i.e. long after 9:58 am, Sunday, patchy today...).

[ic]

Just a quick update, Luis called me this morning (he was on leave, so he is excused for not getting back to me sooner).

From my perspective: fortunately the unresponsiveness problem I was experiencing up to yesterday is not happening today (so far), but Luis said I must just call him the moment it happens again, and he will monitor from his side.

Thank you Luis, much appreciated.

[anakin]

We experienced severe degradation last Friday morning, at the same time our upstream povider reported latency issues. This appeared to have affected our network, as degradation continued even after latency issue was resolved - we had to reset one of our devices to resolve the issue on our side.

Issue was eventually resolved approx. Friday 11:00am. Other issues are unrelated to this incident, although poor communication on my side (I was on leave) at the time may have created confusion.

[DFantom]

Sorry for this going slightly off topic, but anyway Anakin, any plans for a noticeboard on the iBurst site? This would clear up any communication problems.

[anakin]

Sorry for this going slightly off topic, but anyway Anakin, any plans for a noticeboard on the iBurst site? This would clear up any communication problems.
This should be available shortly. Definately, before we launch iBurst.

[ic]

This should be available shortly. Definately, before we launch iBurst.Anakin, that is very good news, but please make it better than Sentech's General/MW noticeboard.

[ic]

Just so there is a record of this- the Unresponsiveness problem has been happening again since last Thursday 2004-12-23, and is still happening:

My theory:
I suspect that when my UTD sends some data to the basestation, the basestation (or something else inbetween) queues the data in a first-in-first-out (FIFO) queue.
What seems to be happening is that the basestation is not releasing that data from the queue and sending it on to where the routers connect up with the internet.
When my UTD sends another (unrelated) block of data to the basestation, it appears to trigger the release of the previous (unrelated) block of data from the queue.
Very shortly after, the reponse data is received for the just released-from-the-queue data, while the last block of data still sits trapped in the queue.
There must be a 60..120 second timeout for trapped data to be released from the queue, bcos you usually wait that long for the reply to your last request to come back (we are talking about simple http here, it happens with this site as well as EVERY other site, it happens with downloads, uploads, absolutely EVERTHING).The effect of this is an extremely bad iBurst experience.

[ic]

Ok Anakin (Luis) was out on site today, but he called me back a short while ago, I'm going to see if the problem is solved by setting MTU lower...

[rebel]

Is there something wrong with iBurst right now? Just logged on and noticed that every international site I go to is slow as hell. The local sites seem fine just a bit slow as well.

Tried downloading a 1MB file from download.com and it's going at 0.7kb/s.
Downloaded a 2MB file from saix.tucows.com and it was slower than usual: 30kb/s, usually +/-110kb/s.

Somebody help!!!

[rebel]

Everything seems back to normal.

Did anyone else experience this?

[TheRoDent]

Yes, indeed. I experienced exactly the same kind of unreliable and unpredictable **** from Sentech when I signed up for their ****ed up service.

[LoneGunman]

Since around 6pm on the 30th, noticed a dropout of signal happening. Stays connected but the bandwidth itself just dies. For up to 6 seconds or more. This interrupts any kind of downloading - local and international, via http, ftp and single thread flashget. Using a dos box to do a perm nonstop ping at iburst seems to force the connection to stay 'alive' - but this is just a temp solution, and the same dropout of signal keeps occurring, screwing up any downloads.

[TheYak]

yep. a bit sluggish this morning... come on guys... fix, fix fix...

[rebel]

Since around 6pm on the 30th, noticed a dropout of signal happening. Stays connected but the bandwidth itself just dies.

Yup that's what happened to my connection last night and this morning.
Computer's off till midday tomorrow. Time to party and BS.

Wishing all MyADSL users a happy new year!

[ic]

...Stays connected but the bandwidth itself just dies. For up to 6 seconds or more. This interrupts any kind of downloading - local and international, via http, ftp and single thread flashget. Using a dos box to do a perm nonstop ping at iburst seems to force the connection to stay 'alive' - but this is just a temp solution, and the same dropout of signal keeps occurring, screwing up any downloads.LG, this sounds ominously like what I've been experiencing 2004-12-23..2004-12-30, can you confirm whether your i-non-burst-experience fits this theory?

[alchamy]

Getting the feeling they might be testing there capping for the new year.

[LoneGunman]

Noticed today (1st Jan) that via Northcliff tower, the interrupts - ie: b/w stops but signal stays strong - is continuing - just enough to disrupt the more finickity of downloads, which wont tolerate a five second or longer 'pause' in reception.
Switched to Rosebank tower, and thus far only had one brief interrupt, which wasnt enough to mess with the http download..

Also noticed, and perhaps other users can confirm/deny - there seemed to be a clear connection between the start of different protocols being used and the sudden 'drop' in signal-bandwidth.. ie: I'm downloading solidly via http, and I open an FTP - and theres a clear stutter in the signal, as if some fast calculation is going on in the mind of the transmission/router/base-station.
This would occur in various combo's of thread 'A' being downloaded, and then a second thread 'B' starting - usually ftp, but also in combo with an IRC 'get' - and also in combo with a flashget 'get'.
I'd clearly see a total break in data in/out with the start of a second protocol.
(Thats my take on it..)

Via Northcliff it does appear that there's still a problem - assuming that a phenomenon which 'interrupts' downloading, is seen by IBurst as a 'problem' :)

PS: Their Orcs arent too bad in terms of helpfulness, by the way - altho I'm not so sure about the IT-free Orc known as Portia.(And having a checklist of 'things to ask the customer when there's a problem' - isnt enough to compensate for a lack of IT knowledge.)

PPS: And Luis is a decent bloke who needs to gather up some equally tech-savvy and customer-friendly techies around him - as when things start going wrong, its not good enough to have an admittedly helpful support staff who can only say "I'm looking at the monitors now, and everything looks fine" when its clearly not.
They need a couple more techies lurking around, who have skills to run toolz if/when customers whine. Help staff who can only look at monitors and say "I'll have to phone Luis" or "When Luis comes in I'll tell him" means there's an awful lot riding on just one guys knowledge and ability to be around..

But looping back: to Iburst users noticing what seems to be a 'sluggishness' or 'unresponsiveness' - see what kind of protocols you're doing or starting, and watch your send/get data transmissions at the same time - to see if you also get a direct drop off at certain actions.

I find setting a permanent ping going, or starting a huge local download which takes up half the available b/w, seems to override the drop-off - allowing me to sneak in the download without a drop-off problem - but its a brutal method which is irritating as hell. Shouldnt have to do this. So its an ongoing error, which they're not seeing..

(While writing this, its just happened twice via Rosebank tower - but each time luckily, the http downloads I was pulling, decided to continue..)

[rebel]

Also experiencing the same crap. I'm using the Bedfordview/Primrose tower and it started yesterday morning. How can I switch towers?

All I can say is it sux.

[LoneGunman]

Not sure of the geography where you are, or the tower(s) you have available - Im lucky enough have a big brick block of flats, on one side of which I can get rosebank, and from the other side, and a loooong ethernet cable, it gets northcliff..

Ping reply on IRC during the last 'interrupt' = "XXXXXX (xxxxx@196.31.80.xx) had a ping reply of 29.672 Seconds!"
Ping reply on IRC when the signal came back = XXXXXX (xxxxx@196.31.80.xx) had a ping reply of 3.547 Seconds!"
edit: Ping reply NOW, when signal seems stable and fine again -
"XXXXXX (xxxxx@196.31.80.xx) had a ping reply of 1.641 Seconds!"

rebel - I'd suggest that phoning the help desk and telling them that you're having the same problem, is vital. So that they (and Luis) see that its not just one whiney customer, but a genuine Network problem being experienced by other users as well.

Thus far they seem way more willing to interact and respond to customers, especially on tech-issues, than Sentech, so make that phone call - coz otherwise they arent going to know there's a real problem..

To override the drop off, or at least 'punish' IBurst while I sit with no way to download anything, and broken http downloads, I use a browser link to one or another 1gig file resting at saix's game site..

[ic]

LG, assuming that the problem you are experiencing is the same as the problem I have been getting (not willing to say it has disappeared yet), I can definitely say that it happened when the only thing I was doing is browsing mostly locally (no downloads going except a/v update checks every 3hours).

Not to say that I have done 0 downloading at all since 2004-12-23, but it has definitely struck me when I have only been browsing.

[LoneGunman]

ic - hmm, maybe I'm linking it to various actions/protocols, because Im always fiddling and grabbing things when the signal drops - still, if the help desk gets at least 3 or 4 people wanting to speak to Luis, and having a roughly similar story, from different suburbs, this'll prod him/them into seeing that its something needing to be addressed.. (although earlier when I spoke to the Orcs, Luis' phone was off..dunno if he'd be coming in today/before monday)

[ic]

LG, I agree - too much seems to rest with poor Luis (Anakin), they need to accelerate the cloning of Luis process.

As a constructive suggestion to all of us iBursters - if you have not yet decided to Quality of Service test iBurst (http://www.mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php?p=154287#post154287), please get off that apathy fence you are sitting on, and email RPM now at: testing@myadsl.co.za (testing@myadsl.co.za), the more people involved the more undisputable the results will be (whatever they will be) :)

[anakin]

Believe or not, there are other Luis at WBS. Your Luis was struggling somewhat with his senses today. :cool:

I checked Bryanston and Northcliff for IC and LG moments ago. Bryanston seems to be humming along nicely, with lots of users getting their share of speeds.

Northcliff appears to be experiencing some kind of interference, although users on it seem to be humming along nicely with speeds too, but some packet loss could be experienced. I will notify the radio guys to check out the interference - I hope they have recovered their senses today.

EDIT: I spoke to another Luis, aka Sugar, and he was aware of Northcliff and had been busy on it today. He hopes to have issue resolved by Sunday morning.

[ic]

Thanks Luis aka Anakin, so Northcliff people should ask for Luis aka Sugar when calling between now & tomorrow...

This cloning programme is confusing me :)

[anakin]

Ok, to avoid confusion - by other Luis, I meant clones of Luis. There is only one Luis at WBS, but there are clones of him at WBS, e.g. Sugar and rest of technical team.

Normally, clones and jedis do not liaisse with iBurst subscribers directly - Sihen and his Customer Care team manage this aspect. Occasionally, clones are asked to assist as well.

[hArTh]

I would have thought wireless coms hardware developers would try rather harder to make their designs less sensitive to interference :eek:

[LoneGunman]

Hmm, seeing as the Star Wars analogies are flying here, with clones and Jedi's - can I be the first to suggest that maybe the Help Centre phone answerers at IBurst be called Ewoks or Wookies.?
(It has a certain ring to it, for instance "According the portia wookie, the towers seem fine right now").. although I miss the Orc analogies :P

Sunday morning, 8.30am, the 'stuttering' of bandwidth is continuing, messing up downloads. Ive had to re-download a 36meg file four times sofar.

EDIT: As I'd noticed previously, when running pings, this seemed to stop the connection dropping for some reason - but who wants to have a dos box continuously pinging, in order to have a stable and decent bit of useable b/w - have found that having a continuous http download going, also forces the issue and stops the stuttering, which interrupts IRC d/l's.
So a continual http d/l - whether local or overseas - seems to force a solid connection and allow other apps (specifically IRC) access to a stable b/w. Not a good 'fix' - but it works for me..its a b/w guzzler, but its that or nothing..

[ic]

Hmmm, I took my UTD to a friend's place last night in Randpark Ridge, I assume it connected to Northcliff, there were no problems at all, which surprised me.

LG, you are only ever using RJ45 as opposed to USB with your UTD right? (I assume due to your loooong cat5 cable vs max 5m USB cable). I know this might sound crazy, but try USB when it happens again on the side of your flat closest to your pc (an experiment to confirm or deny another theory).

I think I prefer the Star Wars analogy applied to the WBS Helpdesk, they haven't reached the levels of disservice inflicted by Sentech on its customers.

[ic]

Ok, Luis (aka Anakin) bad news, the Unresponsiveness problem has just struck again (btw I am back on Bryanston basestation not Northcliff).

[native]

What can i do to be a clone of Luis?

[Dodge]

Just confirming that the service is extremely slow today and yesterday as well. Hopefully it'll improve soon...

[ic]

Dodge, what area/basestation(s)?

[LoneGunman]

ic - I get the state that I see as 'stuttering' of the bandwidth, and which perhaps is the same or similar to what you see as 'unresponsiveness' - regardless of whether its ethernet or USB. Tried every variation possible, short of killing a chicken and conducting voodoo experiments over the modem..

[ic]

If that fails, try santa-ria, apparently it is closer to the dark bandwidth spirits than old pleb voodoo.

No seriously, last night I used USB in RR - preumably Northcliff tower, connection was used all thru the night until about 5am, no stuttering/unresponsiveness. If you have tried USB then it should rule out the theory that MTU changes will make any sort of difference.

I am considering a packet capture with EtherEal/EtheReal (WinPCap) the next time it happens.

[ic]

The attack of the stuttering/unresponsiveness again- decided to initiate a manual linespeed test when it struck- download speed shows as 18Kbits/s and upload speed 0 (results timestamp 03 Jan 2005 13:21).

[LoneGunman]

After puzzling a Wookie at the helpdesk, I spoke with a certain Jedi at Iburst, who said they couldnt do anything about what I was experiencing via MIRC - I mentioned this thread and that others are experiencing variations on what Im getting, but via http - and the Jedi effectively shrugged and said they'd look into it.

Mention was made of the fact that IRC (DCC) is a dodgy protocol and dependent on the other persons pc and speed - but still - there SHOULD be a solid pool of bandwidth available that doesnt stutter or hesitate regardless of what one might be doing with it.

Methinks a followup call to Iburst might be in order ic - especially if you have toolz which can/have recorded the phenomenon..

Currently I'm using a ton of their b/w on a perm local d/l to stabilize my 'gets' off IRC, Ive mentioned this to them, and the fact that I dont like doing this - but they dont seem to get the wastefulness or the horror I have of wasting so much b/w, (perm d/l @15-25k local - in order to get x3 7-8k steady IRC d/l !) but Ive told them, so its not my problem.
I was just told to the effect that 'once capping starts you wont be able to do that' - which perhaps missed the basic point - namely that something is wrong and is requiring a solid download to stabilize signal. Its either that - or no IRC downloading at all..

Once capping starts however, it'll be interesting to see whats left of the Internet for IBurst users to access in a reliable fashion - if p2p is blocked, and MIRC stays a stop-start-erroring-out experience.. then it would pretty much be just http and ftp left.
Even though it may be 'fast' - there's precious little these days on web and ftp, to justify the pricetag..

[Bishop]

I wonder why there is such a vast difference in the download speeds we are getting. My iBurst has been flying since the time I first got with no problems at all. The Force might just be with me... but torrents run fast, DC++ runs at full ( 120kB) speed, international pings stay well below 600ms.

On the test we are all running I am also clocking a nice 50kB average download.
http://www.tcpiq.com/tcpIQ/LineSpeed/Results/TestStats/?CountryId=196&ConnectionId=11302&UserId=146562
Oh... and these tests usually run while I am busy playing City of Heroes.

I have a friend also on iBurst in the same complex I live, I am going to get him on the test and see what his speeds are. Maybe we are living in a hot broadband spot.
*Bishop sees property price increases in the near future*

[ic]

LG, will call a wookie to get to a Jedi, as soon as I have rein-forced-my-light-sabre (with some packet capturing), busy with other urgent stuff now, besides stutter has left my hovel in search of Bishop ;)

[morebroadband]

Bishop, what area are you in?

My test results seem very different from yours!

http://www.tcpiq.com/tcpIQ/LineSpeed/Results/TestStats/?CountryId=196&ConnectionId=11307&UserId=146695

Not sure which tower I am connecting to, but I am in Paulshof.

[Bishop]

Hi, I am in Douglasdale, between Bryanston and Fourways.

The storm the other night seriously dropped my stats, but I seem to be back at 50 again. How or Why I do not know, I am just enjoying it ;)

[TheYak]

to the wbs guys: my connection is EXTREMELY slow... what's going on? it's been like this for this whole week...

this is not good...

:(

[TheYak]

oi ve! what's going on guys!? This connection is BEYOND slow! :(

Look at my linespeed tests!!

http://www.tcpiq.com/tcpIQ/LineSpeed/Results/TestStats/?CountryId=196&ConnectionId=11302&UserId=146640

From about 13:17 there has been a serious decline in speed... :eek:

22 KBits/second!! :confused:

Something is NOT right... :(

[morebroadband]

Mine connection seems even slower. Is there any way to see which tower I am actually connecting too?

I have a suspicion it may be Midrand, which is far from Paulshof. I am using PC card as I do travel, but can't wait for WBS to bring in the Antenna. I need to pick this speed up, otherwise I will just have to change to ADSL.

Yak, at least you don't have these crappy speeds......

http://www.tcpiq.com/tcpIQ/LineSpeed/Results/TestStats/?CountryId=196&ConnectionId=11307&UserId=146695

[ic]

mbb, agreed those are not really speeds, they are unclassifiable/undefined.

The only way to find out (for sure) which tower you are connecting to, is by calling the WBS helpdesk.

I know that I am on the Bryanston tower bcos that is the only one in range, or so I have been told.

When you confirm 100% the tower you are connecting to, please ask them what the distance is from you to the tower, curious to know if you are outside the 12Km..13Km max range.

[Raithlin]

I'm connecting to the Midrand tower, and my LEDs are disco lights. 0, then 100, then 50, then 0... nuts. Anything I should know of???

[TheYak]

it's insane! even MyADSL loads slowly... and that's local...

come on guys... don't let this happen... :(

[ic]

Raithlin, yes, please post that in this thread & call Luis @ WBS in the morning.

[native]

For the first time since i started using iBurst i saw it bursting to 1Mbps, I was downloading from www.tucows.saix.co.za. while I was downloading from www.tucows.is.co.za the download was slow. It did stay for long at 1Mbps.

[ic]

Been experiencing the attack of the stuttering/unresponsiveness thing again- for the last 10mins, running another manual test now.

Added: Just been to check my results, and AGAIN it shows a problem with UploadSpeed==0! Most of the time the download speed is still ok but unusable (unless you know how to be tricksy), the trend is 0 upload speed with the stuttering/unresponsiveness issue.

Since WBS don't seem to believe there is a problem, I suggest that whenever your Burst-i has a stuttering/unresponsiveness problem, do a manual test & post here as well so that the raw test results data can be matched to what you were experiencing.

If we all do this, we can document the problem effectively and force WBS to do some legwork bcos it is clearly recurring and definitely not isolated.

Added: Easiest WORKAROUND, when you experience the stuttering/unresponsiveness problem, just do what LoneGunman suggested, i.e. run this in the background:
ping -t www.iburst.co.zait works like a charm for me, should work for everyone else as well, with the added benefit of increasing traffic to www.iBurst.co.za.

[kuberkoos]

i'm setting up some latency monitoring up at the moment.

is there a way i can post the graphs (.PNG's) to this forum?

i'm also experiencing degradation in service. (comparing it to mid-december)

unfortunately i don't have the numbers from when i first subscribed.

chz,
kuberkoos

[ic]

...is there a way i can post the graphs (.PNG's) to this forum?

i'm also experiencing degradation in service. (comparing it to mid-december)...I know what you mean, you could try the [IMG] vBulletin thing, but I for one have that disabled in my UserCP Options, I suggest just posting [URL=...png] instead.

[kuberkoos]

i don't want to make it available from my machine at home. the traffic generated by that will skew the very results that i'm trying to measure. catch 22.

i don't have anywhere else to host the stuff so i'd be cool if i could attach it to a message to this forum.

just finihed setting up measurements to
- localhost (as sanity check)
- my ppp ip (to see when connection was down - could be my own fault)
- to ppp peer (could be the tower? or some iburst device)
- www.wbs (traceroute showed it was relatively close)
- is.co.za, saix.net etc (some big local ISPs/IXs)

- more to come...

chz,
kk

[ic]

Well how about a free hosting account somewhere- just upload the .png's & post the url's to the png's here?

[Raithlin]

Or email it to me. I'll host it for you. Less hassle. ;)

[kuberkoos]

latency from kuberkoos' to PPP peer (http://img92.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img92&image=iburstlast108001md.png)

looks like it's working OK. hope imageshack doesn't give you popus and other cr*p.

will post again when i've gathered some more data.

over,
kk

[ic]

Results of my continuous background ping -t www.iburst.co.za, which I have just ended (and just had to start again bcos the unresponsiveness problem is still happening): Up to: 2005-01-07T16:17:00
Ping statistics for 196.30.192.182:
Packets: Sent = 13403, Received = 10690, Lost = 2713 (20% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 30ms, Maximum = 1453ms, Average = 167msI should not be forced to do this to get iBurst to work.

I certainly don't want to have to do this when the cap is implemented, as everyone says- fun (not) & games ahead...

Added: Up to 2005-01-07T17:54:00:
Ping statistics for 196.30.192.182:
Packets: Sent = 5560, Received = 5180, Lost = 380 (6% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 30ms, Maximum = 1372ms, Average = 104mssomewhat less packet loss, but then it ran for less time, and according to the test results graph my upload speeds have picked up a bit from 0Kbps.

I am going to try installing SmoothWall this w/e in a virtual machine, and then get SmokePing going, Dorris - are you back from your holiday yet...might need some advice - well not to worry I will look @ the community forum first - then I will bug you (only kidding).

[TheYak]

ARGH! this is SO frustrating!!! Come on guys! Fix it allready! I've sent Luis and Dylan messages and none of them are coming back to me...

This is irritating... I'm starting to lose my trust in WBS allready :(

[kuberkoos]

latency to www.wbs.co.za (http://img50.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img50&image=wbswwwlast216000ha.png)

latency to ppp interface - i.e. connection status (http://img50.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img50&image=kuberkooslast216004nn.png)

chz,
kk

[bb_matt]

http://www.mybroadband.co.za/vb/forumdisplay.php?f=90

[ic]

http://www.mybroadband.co.za/vb/forumdisplay.php?f=90Normally I can be obtuse enough to follow, but Matt what was that? :confused:

[bb_matt]

A link to the MyWireless forum - a rather odd way of me saying "I've seen this all before" :D

I think I had too many beers at lunch yesterday !

[ic]

A link to the MyWireless forum... - a rather odd way of me saying "I've seen this all before" :D

I think I had too many beers at lunch yesterday !Ok, not obtuse - just me being a bit slow on the uptake :), I'm sure the Burst-i forum will definitely be similar to the MW forum soon enough :rolleyes:

[ic]

The support guys at iBurst need a change of tune. They refuse to admit that their system is borderline unuseable. According to them, we are all delusionary.Luis asked me to email him a bunch of things, which I did 1 hour 11 minutes later @ 2005-01-04T02:00, which means that Luis was diligently trying to sort out problems at 2005-01-04T12:09 (am). Any other clones of Luis working all hours like that?

The first step on the transformation path from Burst-i to iBurst - recognition @ the wookie level that there is a serious and widespread problem.

What is the latest word from the Wookies & Jedis @ WBS? (that's if you are still calling the helpdesk out of sheer desperation)

If you are looking for a workaround, try the Burst-i strategy (in my siggy), it would also be interesting to know if that doesn't work at all in some cases (i.e. possibly a different problem altogether).

Another thing, if you haven't joined the MyADSL QoS testing initiative- my UTD's test results clearly show when there is a stuttering/unresponsiveness problem, and I hope that the raw data collected by the test app will be even more revealing. Moral of the story, if you haven't already done so, download the app & run it- at the very least you will be able to show the Jedis graphically that there is a problem.

[TheYak]

my "speed" is atrocious at the moment... one of my tests came back with ELEVEN KBits/s!!! :(

I emailed Luis as well, and he just replied saying that I must phone someone on MOnday morning and tell her exactly where I connect from... okay :confused:

[kuberkoos]

- graphs plot latency vs. time
- coloured line shows the MEDIAN during each interval
- colour itself shows packet loss green(excellent) through red (dismal)
- "smoke" shows range of measured latency during interval

kuberkoos (http://img12.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img12&image=kuberkooslast864009ql.png) - basically monitors my connection

iBurst PPP peer (http://img77.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img77&image=iburstlast864007dq.png) - first hop - maybe tower? or some iburst device

www.wbs.co.za (http://img33.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img33&image=wbswwwlast864005zk.png) - iburst/wbs local website

UUNET/MCI.com (http://img33.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img33&image=uunetlast864006nn.png) - big .com ISP

hellkom/SAIX (http://img151.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img151&image=saixlast864009jd.png) - big local IX

is.co.za (http://img151.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img151&image=islast864005cm.png) - big local ISP

chz,
kk

[kuberkoos]

if you're interested i can add some iburst users onto my latency graphing system (i use smokeping)

all you need to do is
- be prepared to keep your machine running
- configure your firewall to allow me to ping you (simple echo requests)
- register with a dynamic dns provider (there's some quality free ones available)
- install a suitable dynamic dns client to keep your DNS name/IP in sync
- lemme know what your dynamic DNS name is

it'll generate about 315kB (kilobytes) (a third of a MEG) per DAY - if you're concerned about bandwidth. that's 30bps!!! (bits per second) a drop in the iBurst bandwith ocean.... :D

chz,
kk

[Daveogg]

KuberKoos thanks for stats very interesting seems consistently about 100ms greater than my isdn connection. I am looking to get iburst but do a lot of voip so am worried about the latency issues. How close are you to a tower and what signal strength are you getting?

[kuberkoos]

How close are you to a tower and what signal strength are you getting?

i'm in midrand so i guess i'll be on the tower thats just north of vorna valley (in the vodaworld area).

i'm getting between 3 and 5 lights - i'd say 4 or 5 80% of the time. used to get 5 solidly before i upgraded firmware, but newer firmware probably gives a truer, more real time indication.

would be nice if i can the signal strength so i could plot that as well, but i'm using pppOE on linux. does the windows driver allow you to monitor signal in driver properties.

chz,
kk

PS: had minor flooding last night. had to go off air. will post graphs again as soon as i've collected enough and from there on i'll try to post semi regularly and definately when there's iburts problems.

[ic]

does the windows driver allow you to monitor signal in driver properties.The Windoze iBurst systray app only displays Signal Strength & FER (Frame Error Rate), no logging AFAIK, and definitely only when you have your UTD attached via USB, assume same with UTC PCMCIA.

Perhaps logging of FER & Signal Strength fluctuations should be a feature we request to have added to the systray app.

It would be better for WBS' Wookies & Jedis, as well as us UTD customers, if the systray app could be made to work with UTD attached via rj45 ethernet.

Related threads:
UTD(esktop): USB vs Ethernet cable
Sihen: technical UTD question...?

[ic]

Just so that there is a record of things not always being stuttered/unresponsive, this morning my iBurst seems to be running the way it should, but I have probably jinxed it now.

Also, I've been connected for 1 day 9 hours 40 minutes, which is a major improvement bcos I normally get disconnected all the time.

[kuberkoos]

i'm also looking better than over the weekend. maybe it was the weather...

[ic]

Had a disconnect @ 10:00, only just managed to get reconnected now. Definitely jinxed it!

[kuberkoos]

'xactly whats happened to me now!

before i left for work all was fine and now i can't get to it from work. had a look at latency between you (ic) and me (kuberkoos) and it looked WAY better than the weekend.

will post a graph as soon as dyndns has caught up or connection reestablishes.

chz,
kk

[TheYak]

will you guys NEVER learn?! if it works... shhhhhh!

:D

[ic]

will you guys NEVER learn?! if it works... shhhhhh!

:DOk, next time I will send a private message to everyone instead :D

[TheYak]

NO! just... smile... nod... and enjoy it!

the walls have eyes and ears... don't you KNOW!

*looks around frantically, wide-eyed...* :eek:

[torgo]

Hi Guys

Just a question. How are you managing to swap between towers? I am in Sandton so guess I am stuck with Sandton City tower. My reception jumps all over the place as I am a bit in a valley behind many concrete buildings.

[regardtv]

- to ppp peer (could be the tower? or some iburst device)


Heya,

The peer you mentioned is AFAIK actually the gateway sitting at UUNET. So at this point the packet has already travelled accross all intermediate links.

The down side of this situation is that we, as end users, cannot see where network degradation is occuring.

R

[kuberkoos]

didn't search to see if this has already been done...

my ppp peer is 196.30.31.100. what's yours?



The peer you mentioned is AFAIK actually the gateway sitting at UUNET. So at this point the packet has already travelled accross all intermediate links.


so the tower doesn't do IP at all. hmmmm.....



The down side of this situation is that we, as end users, cannot see where network degradation is occuring.


yep, it would be like trying to measure, using TCP/IP tools where, how many and how far hub/switches are on an ethernet - between yourself and the default gw. ok i know it's not a broadcast medium but the analogy sort of holds up. i think... :o

chz,
kk

[limnos]

Have had iBurst for a day already and have been disappointed with it. Either i Burst have been experiencing problems today, or i just simply dont have signal in my area (Midrand, Kyalami). Takes me between 10-15 tries to connect, and when it does connect, the speed fluctuates between 5-30% - not even a little more! Ill give it till Wednesday to impress me, if not ill be returning it back.

[twixt]

Hi all,

Woke up this morning - connected to IBurst and got what I can only assume to be the flashy "Robot" thingy that other members of this forum have experienced. Literally all the lights on my UTD were dancing up and down, flashing different colours.

I could still surf - but at very very reduced speed (0.5 - 1KB / second) and packet loss was incredibly high - it was actually like the network was dieing every couple of seconds. I ran a -t ping against www.wbs.co.za and it looked like +- 40% of the pings were receiving no reply (pretty darn awful) and the other pings were coming in at 1000+ (ridiculously high).

After 10 minutes of this (being the well trained consumer I am) I decided to call the helpdesk and complain - whereupon I got through to Portia (I feel very sorry for her - she sounded completely out of her depth) and she told me that IBurst was having "network problems" and the technical guys were looking into it as we spoke. Shortly after that the problem went away?

I have a couple of related queries:
1. If it was a network problem - how did that affect my UTD - I though that the fancy lights on the UTD measured signal and activity? (maybe I need a manual :) )
2. If it is the "robot" problem - does IBurst have a handle on it? I really wouldn't mind an explanation (Curiousity killed the cat and maybe my internet connection :D )
3. Was it limited to Durban or countrywide?

[LoneGunman]

Had same thing in Joburg, and it returned just now - around 6pm-ish Sunday night..
It seems to have gone away again..

Naturally the Orcs at Iburst go offduty at 5pm on sundays...oh and also the call number seemed to have quietly changed without anyone telling the customers. "Yes but its on our website" I hear IBurst say
Duh, what if you cant GET to the website, because the network is down?

and as for Portia, hmm, you cant 'train' people who clearly arent geeks, dont know their way around computers, the internet, or dealing with fairly IT-literate customers - you gotta either employ them with most of their skills and knowledge already learned, or else deal with the rising frustration you're creating in your customers who clearly know a lot more inherently than your helpdesk staff.
Its pretty insulting to deal with IT-ignorant people when there's a problem, it doesnt matter how 'helpful' they're trained to be. If they're puzzled when someone says to them 'I'm pinging your network and there's heavy packet loss' and they respond with a puzzled silence, you really have to fire them and employ some grateful 14 year old schoolkid geeks who'd actually appreciate the job and have fun with the linespeed on the network, rather than some incompetent person whose clearly out of their depth. You need geeks on the helpdesk, who understand conceptually everything unfolding around them (and who therefore, might even spot problems all by themselves - not just when the screen tells them that tower X has a problem)
(my 2cents worth)

[ic]

All day long!!! :(

I have also had the worst signal non-strength with fluctuations like I've never experienced before. :(

I have also had 0 response from WBS - that I have had before. :(

I am not a happy camper, I am not a happy iBurster, right now it's Burst-i for WBS.

[twixt]

First off - I'd just like to apologize for my spelling in my previous post :) I just reviewed it now - and it was bad even by my low standards.

With regards to the forum ->

Weird - I had the trouble for most of the morning (the portion of it I was awake for) - but since 1pm my connection has been going like a dream. I just got off a 3 hour WoW stint where it didn't lag a bit.

It'd be nice if somebody could tell us if this is a "forever" thing - or if they're just ironing out network problems, reinstalling or whatever... Because whilst I accept that wireless is less reliable then ASDL - what was happening this morning was unacceptable and theres no way they could get away with providing that type of service even 1-2 days a month going forwards.

btw - any IBurst staff members are paying attention - I'd really like to know what the flashy robot light affect means on my UTD.

[Fibre]

twixt, I have to agree with you on that one...I was informed by Luis at WBS that the "speed" issues are due to last minute upgrades etc. I hope this is the case, I find nothing more irritating than bringing friends over to show off my new line and the bloody thing drops or dies a horrible death! :(

How have things been recently?

[TheYak]

Fiber, yeh, that's quite embarrasing :)

I found something interesting last night: I had my MTU set at 1399 and I was getting crap speed again...

So, I phoned the helpdesk and spoke to Tyrone (sp?) who told me to set it down to 1392 - and it improved vastly!

Still not great, but MUCH better! :D

[ic]

...So, I phoned the helpdesk and spoke to Tyrone (sp?) who told me to set it down to 1392 - and it improved vastly!...Strange, I do remember having said we all need to set our MTUs to 1392 (0x570) ;)

Anyways, I have had my MTU set to 1392 for yonks & I still have problems to this day.

Right now signal strength is still fluctuating from Bryanston-bs, mostly 1Led used to be 4..5Leds up to last Thursday. Have emailed Luis about this bcos he said Radio Guys & Kyocera would have that fixed yesterday - literally.

Also still getting stuttering/unresponsiveness which is negligible compared to packet loss as a result of virtually non-existent signal.

[TheYak]

heheh, well, guess I didn't read that post :D

I noticed last night for the first time that my UTD was doing the deranged traffic light thang - 3, 4, 3, 5, 4, 5 lights...

Sigh... what to do, what to do...

[kuberkoos]

i have a couple of post earlier in this thread. for the record: i'm on midrand tower.

my iburst connection is definately looking better than early last week:

- i have solid 5* (indicated) signal strength
(improved from disco'ing between 2 and 4 with very frequent orange flashing)
- peer latency is down to 80-90ms with negligible packet loss
(was 150-200ms range)
- getting decent 50-70kB/s single downloads locally
- doing a couple of parallel downloads approaches claimed 1Mbit (~100kB/s)

it not quite as good as the mid-december "golden era" but noticably better.

chz,
kk

[Raithlin]

Getting that here too, KK. I have line of sight from our office next to VodaWorld (up on 2nd floor). Tremendous speeds :D

Now if they could just use that tower in Noordwyk... <edit>That was misleading. I have between 2 and 4 leds... but there's an existing tower that could be useful. ;)</edit>

[TheYak]

It does seem better yes... but let's not do the Snoopy dance yet...

[ic]

Sadly I cannot comment as there is still a problem at Bryanston-bs (one of the amplifiers blew last Friday), hopefully that will be fixed this morning (almost over) & my signal strength will be back to normal at 4..5Leds from the 0..2Leds I have now.

I will wait until the morning officially ends at 11:59:59.99 then it is time to rattle my cage again & go/throw ape-****...

[BucK]

How are these, I am seriously considering canceling...

The uunet uncapped ADSL is expensive but 1000000000000 times better than this :mad:

Ping statistics for 196.30.192.182:
Packets: Sent = 66, Received = 46, Lost = 20 (30% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 52ms, Maximum = 4366ms, Average = 1853ms

Download time: 170.593 seconds
Size of file: 500 KiloBytes
Estimated line speed: 23.9 (kilobits/second)
Estimated line speed: 2.9 (kiloBytes/second)

Not even going to try international, what is wrong I have 3 - 5 signal.

[Mercury]

As a point of comparison, the responsiveness of my connection has improved over the past few days. As I reported in http://www.mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php?p=156901#post156901, I no longer need a background ping.

I have tried to replicate your tests with the following results:

----196.30.192.182 PING Statistics----
66 packets transmitted, 66 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip (ms) min/avg/max = 60/143/380

Telkom http speed test:
* Download time: 8.36 seconds
* Size of file: 500 KiloBytes
* Estimated line speed: 488 (kilobits/second)
* Estimated line speed: 59.8 (kiloBytes/second)

[BucK]

What tower are you connecting to? I'm connecting to the midrand tower. Anyone else on the midrand tower?

[Swoosh]

Speeed is waaayy ok since 6pm..... :)

[Mercury]

What tower are you connecting to? I'm connecting to the midrand tower. Anyone else on the midrand tower?

Probably Rosebank.

[Raithlin]

What tower are you connecting to? I'm connecting to the midrand tower. Anyone else on the midrand tower?

I am. I connect from 2 places in Midrand (work and home), and I have noticed a serious difference between speeds, dependent upon signal strength. I get excellent speeds from work, where I have line of sight. Connecting from home gives me 2 - 4 lights (the 5th led lights up every now and then just to tease me), but the speeds I get there are much less. I'll try get some stats to post (LSM didn't want to give me anything)..

[limnos]

BucK, how's your signal looking in Midrand? Mine still veerryyy slow (30-50kbps - MAX) , i'm waiting for Poynting to release their external antenna - they said it should be ready by the end of the month.

My cousin uses iBurst from his offices in Midrand, and tells me his speed is awfully quick!! His speed test measured a wopping 1080kbps! And it doesn't drop less that 900kbps.

Let you know when i get the antenna!

[Gatecrasher]

Let you know when I get the antenna!

Also waiting. But in the meantime, you could try the parabolic reflector idea to boost your signal. So far has worked a treat. See FAWrIze's post in the "Antenna Solution" thread. There is also a link to the one I rigged up. A pait of scissors, a piece of stiff cardboard, a sheet of flexible cardboard, and some of the wife's tinfoil...

[kuberkoos]

(maybe we should have a separate, perpetual (sticky?) thread going for people reporting their current connection status. mods?)

anyway.

anybody getting any international bandwidth at the moment? mine SUX!!!!

location: midrand
reception: 100% (solid)
latency: local is not too bad

anyone?

chz,
kk

[Mercury]

Not so hot yesterday evening or this morning.

----196.30.192.182 PING Statistics----
66 packets transmitted, 66 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip (ms) min/avg/max = 60/221/1030

Telkom http speed test:

* Download time: 29.054 seconds
* Size of file: 500 KiloBytes
* Estimated line speed: 140.4 (kilobits/second)
* Estimated line speed: 17.2 (kiloBytes/second)

[Andre1]

How much longer do we have to wait for iBurst to sort out the speed problem.
I'm using a UTC on my laptop. Signal 100%, but since last week Wednesday my speed is a whopping 10bites/sec. I was told by the helpdesk that it will be sorted out by today, but it seems that it is just getting worst by the day. I think iBurst must start to pay us users to use their system.

Very UNHAPPY client from Albertsville Johannesburg.

[Raithlin]

Midrand was useless last night. Tried to download Battlefront 1.2 patch (164MB) - still wasn't done this morning. Busy pulling it now from the office on the same terminal - 116kB/sec according to DU Meter.

[fishfly]

I'm in the Highlands North Area, reception is like a biach fluctuates between 3 and 5 lights. but getting around 500k which isn't too bad, tried some ut2k4 online local servers and that was smooth all the way. now if only they can fix the connection prob I want to try online gaming on 1mb!!!

[Jerry]

Ping ping ping
Ping ping ping
Will all passengers on flight iBurst please ping ad nauseum to keep your link going
Sheeeeez....enough already!

[Mercury]

----196.30.192.182 PING Statistics----
66 packets transmitted, 0 packets received, 100% packet loss

Perhaps related to the problem discussed at http://www.mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php?t=17221

Telkom http speed test:

* Download time: 8.187 seconds
* Size of file: 500 KiloBytes
* Estimated line speed: 498.4 (kilobits/second)
* Estimated line speed: 61.1 (kiloBytes/second)

[Mercury]

It seems appropriate to resurrect this thread this weekend!

Internet solution site used in http://www.mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php?t=17439&page=2&pp=15

----196.4.160.2 PING Statistics----
66 packets transmitted, 58 packets received, 12% packet loss
round-trip (ms) min/avg/max = 60/120/260

Iburst web site:

----196.30.31.120 PING Statistics----
64 packets transmitted, 62 packets received, 3% packet loss
round-trip (ms) min/avg/max = 60/110/280

Telkom speed test:

* Download time: 25.312 seconds
* Size of file: 500 KiloBytes
* Estimated line speed: 161.2 (kilobits/second)
* Estimated line speed: 19.8 (kiloBytes/second)

[Simple Twist Of Fate]

some work was scheduled for today on the rosebank tower
rba-cache1.saix.net
maybe thats why its slow

[Mercury]

some work was scheduled for today on the rosebank tower

That might be the problem in my case but it seems to go further than the Rosebank tower, if you look at the support centre crit thread. In any event a mail from the helpdesk notifying all the users likely to be on that tower, as was done for the Sandton City tower reboot, would have been nice.

[Simple Twist Of Fate]

I am with TSOL in durban
i just done a speed test so i can compare to Iburst users

* Download time: 38.593 seconds
* Size of file: 500 KiloBytes
* Estimated line speed: 105.7 (kilobits/second)
* Estimated line speed: 13 (kiloBytes/second)

ERHM yes my connection is supposed to be 64k NIGHT AND 32K DAY

it is wireless, and running a linux proxy with debian 3 on a celeron 433 and have 5 pcs connected to 3 hubs :)

[Mercury]

Add www.netcraft.com:

----195.92.95.5 PING Statistics----
64 packets transmitted, 50 packets received, 21% packet loss
round-trip (ms) min/avg/max = 350/365/450

IS:

----196.4.160.2 PING Statistics----
66 packets transmitted, 64 packets received, 3% packet loss
round-trip (ms) min/avg/max = 60/86/210

iBurst:

----196.30.31.120 PING Statistics----
66 packets transmitted, 66 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip (ms) min/avg/max = 50/73/140

Telkom http speed test:

* Download time: 17.656 seconds
* Size of file: 500 KiloBytes
* Estimated line speed: 231.1 (kilobits/second)
* Estimated line speed: 28.3 (kiloBytes/second)

[Impressed]

Told you guys... it was this weekend and it was not just iburst.

My mates on 512k adsl and i was performing tasks about 5 times faster than him.

There must have been a bandwidth issue across the board over the weekend.

Maybe someone can tell us how sentech performed?

:confused:

[Luke7777]

ST has been down on Sunday eve (Mine at least). Rest of weekend was OK

[asqus]

Is 'Impressed' employed by iBurst or something?

[ic]

That's what I thought, but probably just a reseller trying to offload all the UT's that he/she bought from WBS.

[Gatecrasher]

Is 'Impressed' employed by iBurst or something?

Nah, he's just pasted himself into a corner with his screen name.

[Jakes]

Something happend this morning. My Speed up from up from 112Kbps:

Your line speed is approximately 707.7 Kbps or 86.7 kBytes/sec

[asqus]

hahahha! IC, that makes good sense!

I can see some ADSL resellers popping up with nicks like !Impressed already :)

[zepher]

iBurst was running all spooked on Sunday.

On an average of 10 pings to a site; 2 where lost and about 3 where over 2sec.

Very erratic.

[Gatecrasher]

At home, so able to use Iburst again. It seems to be sailing at *almost* full speed.

My concern is that this is going to be regular weekend thing. I hope not, because that's when I need it most.

[evilsee]

Hi

I got iburst last week (wed-fri), was running realy slow, like 20kbps.

today it was extremely useable averaging about 500-600 kbps.

weird aint it.

[fairlady]

I've been asking them the same question since the first week of January and get the same reply - we're working on it!

My signal strength is 100% yet some guy at Iburst suggested I buy an antenna (that's not even there yet). Then they told my husband they will fix the 'intereference problem' in Northcliff by the end of the PREVIOUS week. Frankly, I am fed up with speeds of 2 - 16 kbps.

:mad: Linden Ext., 100% signal, top speed 33 kbps (if lucky)



How much longer do we have to wait for iBurst to sort out the speed problem.
I'm using a UTC on my laptop. Signal 100%, but since last week Wednesday my speed is a whopping 10bites/sec. I was told by the helpdesk that it will be sorted out by today, but it seems that it is just getting worst by the day. I think iBurst must start to pay us users to use their system.

Very UNHAPPY client from Albertsville Johannesburg.

[Shaun Green]

You may hammer me on this, however, i am willing to get ISDN, Sentech and of course IBurst in my home and run nightly tests to compare results from my home location. Willing to do this for one month only.

What are your feelings, IBurst users. Want the truth?

Should the tests take place?

Let the Masters of this site know and they will contact me.

Thanks for all your input.

Shaun Green

Nat. Ops. Manager
WBS

ps. All good things come with time, Miracle's will come via IBurst

[TheYak]

We would love the truth Shaun... that's all we've been asking for all this time - tell us wtf is going on and when our connections are going to be back to normal again.

You guys are also blocking/shaping some ports, because a chatroom I could get onto yesterday, is inaccessible today.

Don't fix it if it's not broken - my connection was working like a charm last week, not it's all mucked up again! :(

[Gary Waterworth]

You may hammer me on this, however, i am willing to get ISDN, Sentech and of course IBurst in my home and run nightly tests to compare results from my home location. Willing to do this for one month only.

What are your feelings, IBurst users. Want the truth?

Should the tests take place?

Let the Masters of this site know and they will contact me.

Thanks for all your input.

Shaun Green

Nat. Ops. Manager
WBS

ps. All good things come with time, Miracle's will come via IBurst

Hi Shaun ....
I havent spoken to you yet on the phone , but I think some of the guys would like straight answers instead some of the bull**** that the helpdesk gives us.

1. What the hell is going on with the MTU size as that seems to change on a regular basis , if not , can you please tell us what your hardware has been set to.

2. Let us know when changes such as Port Shaping and CAPS are being tested so that we can be a bit more understanding.

3. Please inform the helpdesk some of us actually work in IT / Networks / Non windows enviroments and can actually understand a technical explanation. ( This probably pissed me off the most ).

4. Maybe sort out the communications between helpdesk and techies so that a sensible explanation can be given , Not only the problem has been isolated and 2 days later , they are still working on it ! ..

5. Status on components like antenna's , SMTP servers ( I have no idea on this one as I use my own linux box 2 send out mail) etc.

6. Possible future packages as I would probably be interest in more cap , but less overall speed . eg 6 or 10 GB cap , 512 KB downlink speed.


as for the tests , quit frankly I couldnt care . I expect a decent service up to par with the advertising.

At the moment , i am actually fairly happy , My speed seems to be flying again after the weekends crap.

Regards
Gary Waterworth
gdwaterworth@hotmail.com
bomber@bomber.servebeer.com ( When Iburst is up <grin> )
I will send you a cell no if you want 2 talk to me.

[Shaun Green]

Been connected for 4h32 minutes.

Downloading at speeds which are not optimum but acceptable.

What the engineers are doing to solve our problems seem to be working.

I am sure to get flamed if the service deteriorates through the nite.

Will check the forum in the morning.

I have a wife and a life..

Good night to all IBurster's

Speed be with you

Shaun Green

[Luke7777]

Will check the forum in the morning. I have a wife and a life..
Do you think *we* do this kind of stuff from work ? :D

[AcidRaZor]

Shaun, I suggest if you run any kind of test (between Sentech/ISDN etc) you should also consider testing the iburst service from more saturated towers like Northcliff etc.

Sitting on the tower you are on may give you great speeds (as you've claimed) but actually going around experiencing what your users are really experiencing is a different kettle of fish.

Back when Sentech users (including me who helped sponsor the adventure) drove around testing different high sites, I'm sure they won't go through that **** again and just go ahead and cancel.

People in IT have no lives... I suggest you try some other arena re: Operations Manager if you expect to survive the onslaught of questions :D

[bebob]

Shaun is welcome to test my connection. Northcliff tower. I average a download speed of about 15 kbps. 100% signal strenght. It sometimes(very seldom) goes up to 100kbps for about a second or two normally followed by 0kbps. Glad I did not sigh the contract.
Current speed 18kbps

[Shaun Green]

Back from the firestation getting my new asbestos suit.

I have been driving around with my notebook and a utc. Will take
a trip to the Northcliff area later this week to test IBurst and report back.

What kind of tests would you like me to perform. I would like to make the trip worthwhile and not report garbage that you guys would not be interested in.

Mail me via the site master.

Thanks for the suggestion.

Shaun Green

[bebob]

I will wait for your report. How about telling how you are testing your connection and then I will run exactly the same test. If my connection does not compare then perhaps it will warrent a visit from your able staff to bring me up to speed.
Ta

[Mercury]

Netcraft:

----195.92.95.5 PING Statistics----
66 packets transmitted, 66 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip (ms) min/avg/max = 350/415/760

IS:

----196.4.160.2 PING Statistics----
66 packets transmitted, 66 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip (ms) min/avg/max = 60/113/270

iBurst

----196.30.31.120 PING Statistics----
66 packets transmitted, 66 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip (ms) min/avg/max = 60/100/240

Telkom http speed test:

* Download time: 6.812 seconds
* Size of file: 500 KiloBytes
* Estimated line speed: 598.9 (kilobits/second)
* Estimated line speed: 73.4 (kiloBytes/second)

[Luke7777]

noone, why don't you (or anyone involved in the ST wardrive) provide Shaun with the info for a similiar or the same "testbed".

PS. Why don't Iburst users post their towers as part of their sig ? or don't they know ?

[bebob]

How is one suppose to know. All I know is that my closest tower is NorthCliff. The unit might be going somewhere else.

[Chronos]

Hmmm. my connection was rocking on the weekend, every since Sunday its a disaster - i keep getting disconnected even though my signal shows full all the time.

I phoned the helpdesk twice, i was told 2 different stories ;

1. The new switches fitted to some base stations are causing connection problems
2. There are protocol problems (shaping) and certain protocols are causing people to be disconnected (how?)

Shaun, Can you confirm EXACTLY what is the cause of the constant disconnection? I went through over 50 IP's this weekend....

I happen to also be testing this system on our VPN for our company (a bank) and i must say currently its pointless. I cant even sync my Outlook because the connection drops all the time...

Why not put a "Whats Wrong" section on your website and tell us what is going on? Better to have problems that you understand than "mysteries" floating around :)

[Luke7777]

How is one suppose to know. All I know is that my closest tower is NorthCliff. The unit might be going somewhere else.
Then it's something iBurst should be looking into. Maybe ProAsm should be *contacted* to adapt MySignal for iBurst ;)

[ic]

The purpose of the Communication thread was to keep everything to & from WBS together in one place, ATM it is a case of trying to follow multiple threads & IMO not easy for us or WBS to get to actual issues & resolution of problems.

[alchamy]

Then it's something iBurst should be looking into. Maybe ProAsm should be *contacted* to adapt MySignal for iBurst ;)

Not a bad idea :)

[WickedWeasel]

I am suffering such slow speeds gprs seems great, anyone else ?

[AcidRaZor]

Yea, at least then your customers would also stop b1tching about the slow uncapped speeds

[Shaun Green]

My apologies if i get this wrong. (what a way to start)

You sound as though you have almost no time whatsoever for IBurst.

Why so negative?

If you cant post reason here please call me at the office.

Thanks for all

Shaun Green

ps Which call centre do you run?

[Chronos]

If my international gets any slower i swear I'm going to get out and walk...local is flying.

[alchamy]

International is a joke, local is good. International pings are:



Ping statistics for 64.233.187.104:
Packets: Sent = 60, Received = 42, Lost = 18 (30% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 362ms, Maximum = 4220ms, Average = 2282ms

[Mercury]

Netcraft:
----195.92.95.5 PING Statistics----
66 packets transmitted, 66 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip (ms) min/avg/max = 350/365/430

IS:
----196.4.160.2 PING Statistics----
66 packets transmitted, 66 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip (ms) min/avg/max = 60/79/150

iBurst:
----196.30.31.120 PING Statistics----
66 packets transmitted, 66 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip (ms) min/avg/max = 50/71/140

Telkom http speed test:
* Download time: 5.172 seconds
* Size of file: 500 KiloBytes
* Estimated line speed: 788.9 (kilobits/second)
* Estimated line speed: 96.7 (kiloBytes/second)

Even got a response to my e-mail to the helpdesk over the weekend. Someone is working through the backlog... ;)

[dizzyg]

howdy, just wanted to know if anyone could let me know what to actually expect from my iburst? it worked really well for the first week, then just went downhill from there (i got it at the start of Feb)
i never get more than 8k, and 8k is a good day, sometimes the iternational is quick and local is slow, sometimes local is quick and international is slow :\ it makes no sence.
packet loss is a major problem, i range from 25 to 75% packet loss most days, even though i have all 5 bars of signal.
mostly the thing that annoys me the most is the random disconnection, i mean if im busy with something and it d/c's its damnd annoying.

[8321]

howdy, just wanted to know if anyone could let me know what to actually expect from my iburst?
So the disease has spread from the northern suburbs of Joburg to Durbs. How is Cape Town?

[playkiller no.2]

Who is near the Goodwood/pinelands tower because my area Edgemead is in the green zone on the rollout map
How is that tower doing in terms of speed and performance.

[Drastik]

I will be spending a week in Cape Town next week and will be sure to test.

[Daveogg]

Dizzyg, Which tower do you connect too?? When you say you get high packet loss who are you pinging?? If you get packet loss when you ping iburst.co.za then your problem is on the radio side of things. Just because you have five leds on the modem does not mean you are getting a "good" signal you may well be getting a strong signal which includes a lot of "noise" which the modem has to filter and slow you down. If you ping iburst with no packet loss, but you are getting packet loss further upstream ie if you ping a local or int site out of ibursts "home" network then you are experiencing the mystery speed issue.
Anyway thats my theory

[ic]

This is my ping list (extract from .cmd file):
call ping -n 2500 www.wbsmobile.co.za
call ping -n 2500 www.saix.co.za
call ping -n 2500 www.iburst.co.za
Now I get heavy packet loss on each of those.

[Shaun Green]

Hi all..

Have not received word yet.

My speed seems to be flying +-90KB/s. Nav def dl.

Will read comments in morning.

Night all

Shaun Green

[AcidRaZor]

Nav def dl not even 3.5kb/s

Pings to local site iburst.co.za, ms in excess of 2000ms and alot of ping loss. Lets hope the speed/ping issue is related to the disconnection issue and that magic Luis will pull somehting out his @ss

[Raithlin]

Thusrday afternoon. Downloading ISOs at 80KB/s. DL speed dies for about 30 seconds, after which auto disconnect, reconnect - back up to 80KB/sec. :confused:

[AcidRaZor]

still struggling to get a consistant speed

[ghostim]

Drove to Midrand Tower just now.
Used a notebook wiff the UTC.
Guess what happened ?
ping times averaged 200ms with the occational dropped packet
download speed with flashget from www.sun.com were about 120kbytes/sec
turned south into the k101 and the speed dropped like a stone.
C/o K101 and Dale road Midrand = zip nada boogerall speed and constant ping timeouts (and that is in a very dark green area on the coverage map.)
Can somebody explain that ?

[Luke7777]

The map is wrong ? :D

[ghostim]

:p
the moral of the story
dont generate maps without testing it

[Grimsqueaker]

Is there anyone else using the tower in Plumstead here? I would like to know of some good ways to test the speed of my connection and I would also like to know exactly what I should be expecting of it. The IBurst terminal program was saying 1000kbps on Monday when I got it, but since then I seem to be getting about 200kbps average. It also seems to disconnect if I leave it on in the morning and come back at night.
Thanks

[Gatecrasher]

Just try these:

http://www.mybroadband.co.za/myadsl/speedtest.php

I'm currently getting 1050kbps on the Telkom speed test. I also think the disconnect problem over the past week has finally been fixed.

[Karel_01]

Below is the data used to calculate your download speed:

Download time: 6.922 seconds
Size of file: 500 KiloBytes
Estimated line speed: 589.4 (kilobits/second)
Estimated line speed: 72.2 (kiloBytes/second)

Best out of 3 not great but much better than what I have been getting
also connected for 2hrs 12min :cool:

BTW MTU set at 1352

[Gatecrasher]

A moment ago:

* Download time: 4.125 seconds
* Size of file: 500 KiloBytes
* Estimated line speed: 989.1 (kilobits/second)
* Estimated line speed: 121.2 (kiloBytes/second)

And I have an FTP D/L going on in the background! :o

[d@v1d]

:mad:

A moment ago:

Results:
Below is the data used to calculate your download speed:

Download time: 45.641 seconds
Size of file: 500 KiloBytes
Estimated line speed: 89.4 (kilobits/second)
Estimated line speed: 11 (kiloBytes/second)

[Gatecrasher]

Download time: 45.641 seconds
Size of file: 500 KiloBytes
Estimated line speed: 89.4 (kilobits/second)
Estimated line speed: 11 (kiloBytes/second)

Buddy, you've got a problem. :eek:

Give us some details of your location, gear, etc.

[Grimsqueaker]

Do I have to stop as much other traffic as possible to run these tests?

[Gatecrasher]

If you want the test to be accurate, yes.

[Grimsqueaker]

OK I will check tomorrow thwn I am busy d/ling a large file and I need sleep. :)

btw is there a mirc channel to discuss IBurst like this?

[Gatecrasher]

None that I know of.

[d@v1d]

Download time: 45.641 seconds
Size of file: 500 KiloBytes
Estimated line speed: 89.4 (kilobits/second)
Estimated line speed: 11 (kiloBytes/second)



Originally Posted Gatecrasher
Buddy, you've got a problem.
Give us some details of your location, gear, etc.

Olivedale Randburg. Windows XP. Iburst UTD. 5LEDs.
Base Stations: Bryanston Randburg???

Conection so bad had to post a reply at the office today.
Helpdesk no help.

[Gary Waterworth]

OK I will check tomorrow thwn I am busy d/ling a large file and I need sleep. :)

btw is there a mirc channel to discuss IBurst like this?


on za.ethereal.web.za #iburst ..

It is not that busy yet , but hope to get there

[bebob]

Connection so bad speed test fails. How much longer must we suffer...

[AcidRaZor]

They're updating towers tonight sometime. Should be fixed by end of this weekend, even before, lets hope and pray

[alchamy]

Lets hope they dont break it and only get it fixed by tuesday again :rolleyes:

[Karel_01]

:D been connected for 20 hours and logged into eq for the same amount of time :D

Please give some advice to packet loss though :confused:

[Karel_01]

:confused: I am trying different placements for my UTD and have found the closer i am to my pc and monitor the lower the telkom speed test although all 5 leds are lit ?????? is this noise from monitor/hdd Psu??? :confused: :confused: :confused:

Below is the data used to calculate your download speed:

Download time: 3.797 seconds
Size of file: 500 KiloBytes
Estimated line speed: 1074.5 (kilobits/second)
Estimated line speed: 131.7 (kiloBytes/second)

[TheYak]

I'm really getting sick and tired of this fcking bouncing up and down... This connection is SO slow it's actually moving backwards! And it's so blood tempramental, it's not even funny: Last night I had NO problems getting into my art chat applet - tonight it just doesn't want to load again... What a load of bollocks!

*there is no emoticon to express how pissed off I am...*

[ic]

I hear you, my DL s-peed is jumping around (like mostly less than) 33kbits/s (according to DU Meter), UL:0.0 kbps constant - I have no idea how my PC manages to send any ACK packets at all.

[Grimsqueaker]

Extremely slow since last night - is there some work being done on the towers or something? :(

[ghostim]

--- www.iburst.co.za ping statistics ---
25 packets transmitted, 23 received, 8% packet loss, time 24699ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 155.853/1560.879/4747.058/1265.121 ms, pipe 5

DL is about 1.58 kbytes a sec
and the disconnection gremlin is back on Midrand tower
and the authentication failed too



Ubuntu/IPCOP:UDT:ethernet:mtu 1432

[native]

Brace urselves for tomorrow's rough ride for 2 hours
http://www.iburst.co.za/networkstatus2.php

[ic]

Brace urselves for tomorrow's rough ride for 2 hours
http://www.iburst.co.za/networkstatus2.phpHow did you find about about v2 of the Network Status?

[ic]

--- www.iburst.co.za ping statistics ---
25 packets transmitted, 23 received, 8% packet loss, time 24699ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 155.853/1560.879/4747.058/1265.121 ms, pipe 5

DL is about 1.58 kbytes a sec
and the disconnection gremlin is back on Midrand tower
and the authentication failed too



Ubuntu/IPCOP:UDT:ethernet:mtu 1432Ghostim, just noticed your post mentions disconnection problems, please could you repost about that in the Problem Reports thread, also more info on the re-Authentication issue was it constant timeouts at the authentication stage or what actually happened?

[Mercury]

Mmm, I see I need a background ping again to get decent response times when accessing this site. Here are the results from my usual set of tests. Interesting dichotomy between the ping and speed test results.

Netcraft:
----195.92.95.5 PING Statistics----
66 packets transmitted, 64 packets received, 3% packet loss
round-trip (ms) min/avg/max = 1030/1120/2100

IS:
----196.4.160.2 PING Statistics----
66 packets transmitted, 64 packets received, 3% packet loss
round-trip (ms) min/avg/max = 60/302/1090

iBurst:
----196.30.31.120 PING Statistics----
66 packets transmitted, 66 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip (ms) min/avg/max = 50/305/1150

Telkom http speed test:
* Download time: 4.039 seconds
* Size of file: 500 KiloBytes
* Estimated line speed: 1010.2 (kilobits/second)
* Estimated line speed: 123.8 (kiloBytes/second

[Impressed]

I have been disconnected 8 times since midnight.

My little 6 mb file came in at under a minute.

My speed problems are sorted. I am a little concerned about the amount of disconnections i am getting.

Almost there....

The force seems to be with me. :)

[Sytze]

I must say that after some testing of myself, I can conclude that the iBurst flies! There is the occasional down time/disconnect, but in general my reception is +90 and download speeds are above 1Mbps. This I only get when using download accellerators or or run multiple downloads. Looks like the equipment and pipe behind iBurst is well capable, but no server local or abroad seems to allow this kind of traffic.

What concerns me still is a direct connection to a friend's PC sitting next to me. Copying files is like watching paint dry. Any idea why? Using UNC to copy.

[zepher]

Bryanston Water Tower BS still seems problematic.

Ping statistics for 196.30.31.120:
Packets: Sent = 100, Received = 86, Lost = 14 (14% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 41ms, Maximum = 2751ms, Average = 180ms

Here is hoping that the morning of the 26th brings some improvement.

Streaming audio to Posix sucks, Skype sucks, local downloading from mirrors sucks, VPN to work sucks.

This is a new low for me.