Slow speeds

[killadoob]

Ok so my adsl lines got stolen and i have signed up to iburst in the meantime.

I have got 95% signal yet i only have speeds of 0.29 meg . I have been recommended to use a cheap aerial i think it's omnidirectional or something.

Now the support guy says this will give me faster speeds but i find that hard to believe because i have 95% signal strength, there is another aerial option but it's about 1.8k. My connection says it is a 1 meg connection but speedtest thinks otherwise so perhaps he is right about the aerial. I would imagine the 2 meg modem would connect at 2 meg but also run slow. If it was not able to get 1 meg speed would it connect at 1 meg or the only speed it can?

Does any of this shyte work or have have i signed up for 0.3 meg service . They tried to sell me the 2 meg modem so i figured the speeds must be good.

[Bursty-dude]

Welcome to our world............

I was getting way over 2Mbps last year (before the new packages were released) with a 2mb modem, then speeds dropped like a drol into a longdrop.
After months of moaning a Flatpanel antenna was fitted, speeds were around 1Mbps then (ie: half of what they used to be).

Speeds did improve last week to over 1Mbps and a few did smack the 2Mbps barrier again, but the joy was short lived.
Back down to under 1Mbps any time of the day or night again.

And all this with 100% signal.....

[killadoob]

Ok but dude tell me do you think my slow speeds have to do with the signal? i am getting 90% signal sometimes 95% signal but i was told the antenna would boost the signal and speed would increase.

I have no issues with 1 meg speed. So a flatpanel will get me 1 meg?

I am going to get the omni antenna tomorrow but i fear i am not going to see much improvement. If i could just get enough speed to play online games i would be happy, so i need about 500 and i am good to go. Not worried about packet loss and so on. I was offered a 2 meg modem so i just assumed my area had good coverage.

I must admit though the connection is pretty good and i have no issues with the connection but if i could get close to 1 meg it would be perfect.

Also how do i go about finding out where the tower is so i can point my omni in the right direction?

[PsyCLown]

I have a 1Mbit USB modem, I had 100% signal and was getting pretty much 1Mbit speeds (well, just short off, around high 90's, low 100's(.

I have since moved and the signal is rather.... Dodgy, I have managed to position the mini antenna in such a place where it gets 94/96% signal strength. Although I am now getting horrid speeds compared to before. At the moment the speeds are very good and are in the 30KB region (33KB/s it seems).

If the antenna drops down, the signal drops to 30/40/50 % signal. If I move the antenna a bit it can drop as well, to like 70/60 % signal. Have ADSL now too though, so using that and am just trying to use as much of my cap on iBurst as possible while I wait for it to be canceled

So yes, I think an Antenna could help quite a lot, unless perhaps it has something to do with the towers being overloaded? I am not too sure. IMO it does not make sense that 100% signal strength = pretty much full speeds, yet 90% or greater = less than 384K speeds...
Id have imagined 50% signal strength to give around 512K speeds. Does not seem to be how wireless works though. -shrugs-

[killadoob]

Yea i got adsl as well but telkom cannot tell me when the lines will be replaced, so it could 1 week or 6 weeks. Iburst will be great for a back up and i can it on my lappie as well. Much cheaper than 3g.

Well i am off to buy the antenna and i hope it works .

[PsyCLown]

Yeah, let us know how well it works.

[killadoob]

OMFS lol what a mission, i bought the square and normal antenna. What i can say is too get a good signal i need to go about 10-15m above my house, so i got my contraption on a piece of wood for now, 7 m higher than my roof and i cannot break .3 meg. I held it about 1.7m higher which was basically by my head haha and i got broke half a meg. Tomorrow i am gonna rig up a 15-20m wood piece and go about 14m leaving me 1m to get into my window.

So i am finished for the day, got a lekka tan in the 30 degree heat . There about 5 stations in randburg but that doesn't seem to matter. It seems height is the key. We can only a maximum of 15m sadly.

[PsyCLown]

Hmm, that would make some sense and is rather interesting.
Previously I was in a double story upstairs, now I am downstairs...

I would have hoped for some better speeds than what you got, but lets wait and see I guess.

[spizone]

Anyone experiencing slow speeds Cape Town (City Bowl) area, speeds are 25k, 30k the highest in last hour ?