whats the TRUE SPEED for Telkom 4mb line ?

[william riker]

hi guys,

as i have stated somewhere on this forum, i want to upgrade from my 384 line to the 4mb line but i hear stories that the line normally goes up to 640 kb/s or something, is this true? is the 4mb line worth it ?
why are they calling it 4mb/s line then ?

Thanks.

[orin76]

My router syncs at 4096 kbps down and 512 kbps up. According to speedtest.net, I usually get 3.5Mbps downloads and 0.4 Mbps uploads. When downloading, I usually get a constant speeds of around 440 kilobytes per second.

[Lalers]

It should technically not be able to go up to 640kb/s. The line speed is 4 megabit so 4000/8 should be roughly what you'll be able to get in kb/s. you should get like 450kb/s unless you have some kind of issue with copper wiring and all that(I've heard of many people who have old wiring and who have to get telkom to limit their line to slower speeds otherwise the line is very unstable).

As for is it worth it or not, that all depends on what you are using it for. For gaming it wont have any major impact on ping. For downloads/browsing it will obviously be a lot quicker.

[william riker]

i have the router that telkom gave me, can i get those speeds with that router or do i have to get another one?
are there other factors involved ?

thanks

[Alestorm]

i have the router that telkom gave me, can i get those speeds with that router or do i have to get another one?
are there other factors involved ?

thanks

That router is fine, and the other factors are out of your control. It depends on the quality of the Telkom line to your house. You'll be able to see on the router settings page what speed you sync at. Seeing as you're on 384kb at the moment, you can check the quality of your line on the router page before getting 4mb. Try to find the Line Attenuation and Noise (SNR margin/ratio) values on the router then post them here, it gives an indication of how high your line can sync. I don't have a Telkom router myself, I'm sure someone else can tell you exactly where to find this. It should be on some status or ADSL related page.


i hear stories that the line normally goes up to 640 kb/s or something, is this true?

You've actually got this part backwards. :p The lowest it can sync at is 640kb, which probably isn't very common.

[froot]

My router syncs at 4096 kbps down and 512 kbps up. According to speedtest.net, I usually get 3.5Mbps downloads and 0.4 Mbps uploads. When downloading, I usually get a constant speeds of around 440 kilobytes per second.

Remember that there is line overhead on the TCP/IP protocol, so you can only utilise 83% of your line speed, ie 4096 => ~425KBps (it does differ somewhat depending on the distance to the exchange) and 512-> ~53.12KBps

The 640kbps upload is only for exchanges that support it. I know of several people that have 640kbps upload speed.

[froot]

i have the router that telkom gave me, can i get those speeds with that router or do i have to get another one?
are there other factors involved ?

thanks

The speeds that you can attain is solely dependant on your adsl line. Not the router.

[bekdik]

it also depends on the server to which you are connected and the path there to

[killkom]

First question why do you want to upgrade

If its to download things quicker or you have other people in your house using the line and it gets flooded a 4Meg line is worth it and is a big upgrade from a 384K line
I get 448kb/s on mine quite easily

If you are upgrading to reduce Latency don't bother it won't make any difference unless the latency is caused by other people using your line.

[william riker]

thats fine then!
just called telkom and they confirm that my line is capable of 4mb/s.
was crossing my fingers cos i hear for some ppl their line are maxed at 512 kb.

[william riker]

First question why do you want to upgrade

If its to download things quicker or you have other people in your house using the line and it gets flooded a 4Meg line is worth it and is a big upgrade from a 384K line
I get 448kb/s on mine quite easily

If you are upgrading to reduce Latency don't bother it won't make any difference unless the latency is caused by other people using your line.

to be honest, im tried of waiting 2,5 hrs per 350mb torrent using my 384 line...

[killkom]

on Torrents I get 4meg some times depending on seeds so definitely worth it then

[thedoc!]

http://www.speedtest.net/result/695415010.png (http://www.speedtest.net)

This is the speed you should be getting of you're lucky - dont mind the uplink speed :):D

[I am Penguin]

Depends on many things. I just tested my new 384 line, an http download and it was running at +- 38 and just by moving it back to the 4m line it went up varying between 60-95 but mostly at the higher speed.

[Mr.Jax]

Somewhere on MyBB some clever dude described why you don't get the full effective 4mbps...something about ATM overhead and TCP/IP overhead.

E.g. a 4mbps ADSL line will give you an effective ~3.5mbps, or rather ~425kB/s (4096/9.6 = ~425kB/s)

Here's my speedtest result:
http://www.speedtest.net/result/695465461.png

[Technically]

It is Impossible to determine the ADSL sync speeds based on line of sight distance or street distance and no simple way to find out what speed your line will sync at, it could be anything from 640kbs to 4096kbs. A method you can use to find out what type of speeds you are looking at getting in your area is to look at the attenuationon your line. Attenuation is simply signal loss due to distance and is measured in dB (decibels). You want this value to be as low as possible. The other dB value signifies the signal to noise ratio (SNR). An SNR that is too low will cause connection problems, while a high SNR can indicate that the bitrate is unnecessarily low.

To Estimating distance and speed

The standard signal attenuation spread for a given speed is somewhere in the region of 25-30dB for ADSL. Below is a quick list of what your standard copper lines can do, and their dB.

Less than 1km should be 23-24Mbit
1.0km = 13.81dB = 23Mbit
1.5km = 20.7dB = 21Mbit
2.0km = 27.6dB = 18Mbit
2.5km = 34.5dB = 13Mbit
3.0km = 41.4dB = 8Mbit
3.5km = 48.3dB = 6Mbit
4.0km = 56dB = 4Mbit
4.5km = 62.1dB = 3Mbit
5.0km = 69dB = 2Mbit

Now if you want to find out the speeds you might be looking at getting at your home or office find out what your attenuation is on your line and enter it into the calculator below. Look at only the ADSL1 Value as we dont have ADSL2 in SA (other than testing in JHB) if its over 4096 you will mostlikely have a good connection and get towards the top of the 4096 range, if not then you are going to set stuck paying for 4096 and only receive the speed listed.

http://fremnet.net/article/216/adsl-theoretical-speed-calculator

[Speedyza]

you should get 425kb/s

[william riker]

That router is fine, and the other factors are out of your control. It depends on the quality of the Telkom line to your house. You'll be able to see on the router settings page what speed you sync at. Seeing as you're on 384kb at the moment, you can check the quality of your line on the router page before getting 4mb. Try to find the Line Attenuation and Noise (SNR margin/ratio) values on the router then post them here, it gives an indication of how high your line can sync. I don't have a Telkom router myself, I'm sure someone else can tell you exactly where to find this. It should be on some status or ADSL related page.



You've actually got this part backwards. :p The lowest it can sync at is 640kb, which probably isn't very common.

thats a relief!

[william riker]

guys,

i really appreciate all the effort into helping me!

definately upgrading tomorrow!

[CrAzYLeGs69]

thats fine then!
just called telkom and they confirm that my line is capable of 4mb/s.
was crossing my fingers cos i hear for some ppl their line are maxed at 512 kb.

Dude, it's not a 4 megabyte line, it's a 4 megabit line. Which means that you divide it by 8 to get from megabit to megabyte. So 4000 kilobits/s divided by 8 = around 500 kilobytes/s

So don't be surprised when you find out that you cannot donwload at 4megabytes/s ;)

[william riker]

Dude, it's not a 4 megabyte line, it's a 4 megabit line. Which means that you divide it by 8 to get from megabit to megabyte. So 4000 kilobits/s divided by 8 = around 500 kilobytes/s

So don't be surprised when you find out that you cannot donwload at 4megabytes/s ;)

yeah, after i had posted this a friend told me the same thing as well :)
also from reading posts here and other threads, ppl said to expect around 400-425.kb/s..

4 megabytes a second would be great though, right ?
imagine how fast your torrents would go :D

[rtzouves]

It should technically not be able to go up to 640kb/s.

incorrect, a 4mb line should definately do at least 640kbps (small b means bits, big B means bytes) Telkom guarantees a minimum of 640kbps or 640kbps/8= 80 KBps on a 4mb line. lakers has his big/little B's mixed up.

@ the OP. The 4mb service is a best effort service as the other guys on the forums have already said. if your line supports it you will get 4mb (4096kbps/512KBps) speeds and if it does not then telkom guarantees a minimum 640kbps/80KBps.

p.s. all the above speeds are calculated based on theoretical speeds. Real life speeds will be lower as stated already by other members. Personally i get anywhere from 400-460KBps and i am syncing at 4mb with excellent line attenuation and a great SNR margin.

[Obelix]

It should technically not be able to go up to 640kb/s. The line speed is 4 megabit so 4000/8 should be roughly what you'll be able to get in kb/s. you should get like 450kb/s unless you have some kind of issue with copper wiring and all that(I've heard of many people who have old wiring and who have to get telkom to limit their line to slower speeds otherwise the line is very unstable).

As for is it worth it or not, that all depends on what you are using it for. For gaming it wont have any major impact on ping. For downloads/browsing it will obviously be a lot quicker.

b = bits
B = bytes

Learn the difference

[MJ INC]

I and most of the people I know get around 420KB from a Telkom 4MB line and though it does fluctuate a little bit you average around 1.5GB per hour.

[nukefission]

my fastest download as telkom isp was 417kb/s < at 3 am
then i switched to afrihost and got 397kb/s at 2 pm afternoon

yayz
my ds = 43
= 8mbit = hopefully i`l get my 8mb upgrade from telkom

or am i confused :P

[cavedog]

Why do you guys argue about something so stupid. A 4mbps line can download @ 425kb/s finish and kla. No need to argue about bits and bytes. Cause when i say i have a 4mb/s connection doesn't mean I download 4mb a second. It means I have 4096k line. Finish.

Yes I get that people get it wrong but there is no confusion.

I download at 4mb/s
My connection is 4mb/s

That is technically incorrect but learn English if you can understand.

P.S: I'm not attacking anyone here. just saying arguing about something like this is irrelevant.

[nukefission]

yea some idiot said that coz he haz a 7.2mbps line with a 20gb cap and pays 4k amonth that means that he can download 7.2mb a second
IDIOT BAKA

[milomak]

Why do you guys argue about something so stupid. A 4mbps line can download @ 425kb/s finish and kla. No need to argue about bits and bytes. Cause when i say i have a 4mb/s connection doesn't mean I download 4mb a second. It means I have 4096k line. Finish.

Yes I get that people get it wrong but there is no confusion.

I download at 4mb/s
My connection is 4mb/s

That is technically incorrect but learn English if you can understand.

P.S: I'm not attacking anyone here. just saying arguing about something like this is irrelevant.

I would say that whether you use 4Mbps or 4MB/s or 4mb/s, in the South African context, is irrelevant. We know that no home user can get 4 megabytes a second so while technically incorrect, there is no ambiguity given our broadband context.

However the distinction in using bits or bytes in the kilo context is relevant. Because 425kb/s or 425kB/s is two different measures which both apply in the SA broadband context.

[JvanD]

Best i've seen is 490 kb/s via Newsbin Pro with 60 in comming bots.