Newbie to Broadband - what speed should I expect ?

J

JVO

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Cape Town
Morning all.

After a 3 month wait, Telkom finally installed my 512 line on Friday. I have been on dialup speed since then (on the ADSL line) but this morning it is certainly much faster although I'm not sure what I should expect.
The Telkom Download Speed Test page says I am getting 162 Kbps or 19.9 kBytes/sec and I just downloaded Skype at an average speed of 14 KB/sec, does that sound about right or should I be complaining ?
My ISP is Web Africa.

Thanks

John
 
Hi John.
Sorry but you should be going a lot faster than that! Telkom speed test should give you 400-480kbps, and something like skype should come down at around 50-55KB/s. Its not web africa, they are reselling saix accounts. Those speeds you have look at lot more like 192 speeds are you sure they installed 512??
 
Thanks Dave,

That's exactly what I needed to know. Well, I applied for a 512 line and the tech installing it said it was 512.... At least I now have an idea of what I should expect.
Will be on the phone to Telkom tomorrow although I have found dealing with them on a par with a visit to the dentist - you know you have to do it but the prospect is dreadful !!!

Reading this forum I see I am not alone in my thoughts !!!

Cheers Dave, enjoy your Sunday

John
 
Telkom is seriously screwed up in terms of getting the right line speed - I think their exchanges must be a complete mess right now.

I'm on 384 and getting 512, John, it looks like your on 512 but getting 192 !

I would've said go for the 384 instead of the 512 - but it's too late.
You can try to change it, but there's a 99% chance that Telkom will stuff it up one way or another - and you will still be billed for the 512, because Telkoms billing system only allows for increments and not decrements - it's programmed that way I assume.

So, you can go for a more expensive service and they'll do it, but don't ever try to cancel a service or change to a cheaper service, because that confuses the system and you end up in my situation, being billed R750 too much because Telkom didn't want to cancel the ISP portion of my ADSL when I asked them too !

Ahhh, what fun.
 
JVO said:
Morning all.

After a 3 month wait, Telkom finally installed my 512 line on Friday. I have been on dialup speed since then (on the ADSL line) but this morning it is certainly much faster although I'm not sure what I should expect.
The Telkom Download Speed Test page says I am getting 162 Kbps or 19.9 kBytes/sec and I just downloaded Skype at an average speed of 14 KB/sec, does that sound about right or should I be complaining ?
My ISP is Web Africa.

Thanks

John
Click to expand...
*sigh* ...Well thats TELKOM! Their " 512" service.Cancel the line as soon as sepco offers residential dsl lines!

HEY GUESS WHAT ???? MY DIAL UP SPEED INCREASED FROM 3.8 KB A SEC TO 4.1 KB .......BUT WHERE THE HECK IS MY 7KB ??????? MWEB BLAMES TELKOM ,TELKOM BLAMES MWEB. >>>>> I BLAME TELKOM
URRRRGGGGHHH!!!!!
 
Until friday I was on 192 and was getting 256 (80% of 320, which what router reported my line speed to be)

I now have 384 and regularly get 410 (80% of 512, which is what my router reports my line speed to be).

You should be getting about 512kb/s (which is 80% of 640 which is what telkom set 512 lines to)
 
ashveer said:
HEY GUESS WHAT ???? MY DIAL UP SPEED INCREASED FROM 3.8 KB A SEC TO 4.1 KB .......BUT WHERE THE HECK IS MY 7KB ??????? MWEB BLAMES TELKOM ,TELKOM BLAMES MWEB. >>>>> I BLAME TELKOM
URRRRGGGGHHH!!!!!
Click to expand...

Huh? You won't ever get 7KB/s on dialup :P SA lines are only capable of 48kbps (or some such number) and PPP overhead kills you on dialup.
 
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