fergus
Expert Member
I'd like to find out from those with DSL192 what their take on it is? So how do you find it? How fast does it 'feel', in other words how responsive is it and how good is Skype on it? Any comments would be great. Thanks!
-
Join the MyBroadband community
South Africa’s biggest forum. Discuss, discover, and connect with thousands of members.
-
Question of the Day: Have you ever been to an airshow?
192 any good?
- Thread starter fergus
- Start date
well i am very happy with 192! Never downloads @ less that 19KB/s, skype works 100%. I find that browsing speed is exactly the same as 384/512 with MOST sites. Million times better than dailup & isdn. I even finished my 30GB cap
fergus
Expert Member
Wow, I'm impressed. Hows bittorrent?rburley said:
DGremlin
Well-Known Member
Got 192 and it works just fine, esp with the cap ... perhaps in the future when/if the caps goes I will upgrade ... but I am very happy with my 192 line.
Moederloos
Honorary Master
I have 384 - that was the "smallest" when I ordered.
Simply put: Cap + fast line = waste of time.
Simply put: Cap + fast line = waste of time.
What's strange about 192 is that the speed fluctuates... upwards. I've had long periods of downloading 50kB/s with it, other times I get around the 30's and then sometimes it actually sticks to what it's supposed to be and gives 18-20kB/s.
Bittorrent works fine sometimes, other times it's almost unusable (like they're changing the level of shaping). Some days it starts out 4-5kB/s but as the business day ends the speed picks up, and a torrent that seems to be doing nothing when you go to bed can often download as much as 1GB by the time you wake up.
HTTP downloads are always fast, and rarely ever below 15kB/s.
Still on the expensive side of course, but well worth it if you spend R470 or more on dial-up each month. Personally I quite enjoy my connection, the only thing I can complain about is the price tag.
Bittorrent works fine sometimes, other times it's almost unusable (like they're changing the level of shaping). Some days it starts out 4-5kB/s but as the business day ends the speed picks up, and a torrent that seems to be doing nothing when you go to bed can often download as much as 1GB by the time you wake up.
HTTP downloads are always fast, and rarely ever below 15kB/s.
Still on the expensive side of course, but well worth it if you spend R470 or more on dial-up each month. Personally I quite enjoy my connection, the only thing I can complain about is the price tag.
leonb
Senior Member
rburley said:
Skype definately does NOT work 100% on a shaped account. Maybe local Skyping, or maybe you're just lucky and got an unshaped account.
Even international PC to PC Skyping is so fustrating (because of bad voice quality, breakups), that its better to pick up your Telkom phone and phone direct.
Is there any other program that is unaffected by shaping (to the extent that you can get a conversation going with good voice quality) for pc to pc calls. Will msn, etc work better that Sype for this.
Im also very happy with my 192k connection I used ISDN extensively before and it was working out a lot more expensive for me than my 192k does now. The speeds are better and I have a fixed cost each month.
As for Skype, I havent used it a lot on my shaped account but I bought some skype out credits and called somebody in the uk for 45 minutes last Sunday and the quality was really impressive to be honest just like having a 'normal' telephone conversation.
As for Skype, I havent used it a lot on my shaped account but I bought some skype out credits and called somebody in the uk for 45 minutes last Sunday and the quality was really impressive to be honest just like having a 'normal' telephone conversation.
I am not happy with with my 192k connection, shaping totally destroys it. I cannot watch any type of streamed video at all, p2p is pathetically slow. HTTP speed is good however, but that doesnt count for much when you are capped :/
I dont want to even try WoW or skype ;p
But i guess this shaping is happening with all adsl connections, so the answer ill give to you is that no adsl connection in south africa is any good IMO :/
I dont want to even try WoW or skype ;p
But i guess this shaping is happening with all adsl connections, so the answer ill give to you is that no adsl connection in south africa is any good IMO :/
koffiejunkie
Executive Member
I have 192 at thome and 512 at work. Browsing feels the same, really. What is slower is sending large mail and uploading stuff.
Also skype to my sis in Texas doesn't always work too well. I can hear her crystal clear, but she says I break up from time to time.
Then again, maybe I should stop my torrents before I use skype....
What's weird though, as other posters mentioned, is that it doesn't really seem to be restricted to 192/64. I've seen torrents upload at a solid 10kytes/s, and this morning I downloaded gentoo package cd from ftp.up.ac.za at around 35kbytes/s
Also skype to my sis in Texas doesn't always work too well. I can hear her crystal clear, but she says I break up from time to time.
Then again, maybe I should stop my torrents before I use skype....
What's weird though, as other posters mentioned, is that it doesn't really seem to be restricted to 192/64. I've seen torrents upload at a solid 10kytes/s, and this morning I downloaded gentoo package cd from ftp.up.ac.za at around 35kbytes/s
doobiwan
Executive Member
I recently went from dial-up to 192 and I'm extremely happy. Local gaming is fantastic (I can't blame lag for my $#@# skills anymore 
)
My wife uses Skype to Europe a lot and the signals as good as any land line.
And yeah koffiejunkie, DEFINITELY dissable the torrents before you call or get a router with QoS. 192 just isn't good enough to do more than one thing at a time. You can't play Internet backgammon and Battlefield 2 at the same time.
)My wife uses Skype to Europe a lot and the signals as good as any land line.
And yeah koffiejunkie, DEFINITELY dissable the torrents before you call or get a router with QoS. 192 just isn't good enough to do more than one thing at a time. You can't play Internet backgammon and Battlefield 2 at the same time.
192 is fine if you do normal browsing, some downloads etc lag will suck for gaming but then thats not to do with the line speed but shaping. i don't see all the fuss about the fast line except where you have eihter ALOT of simultaneous users on the line(internet cafe, companies etc) or a heavy downloader who wants to cut down on time waiting for download to complete. Other than that the price tag for it is a bit too high since it s barely broadband. If only isp + 192k came to about R300 or less then alot more people would be able to afford it(middle income ?) or even cheaper so everyone can afford it. 3GB is about minimum though else you will reach the cap with surfing and somedownloads etc especially with some games.
DGremlin
Well-Known Member
I use my 192 for gaming , BF2 particularly ( which is a huge bandwidth hog ), and on the local servers I sit around a 40m/s ping and no real lag.
Downloading I have no real gripes, the files come down and well, since its up 24/7 I am not in a fervent rush ... besides no matter how fast I download I still have my 3GB limit. High pricetag in some respects maybe, but for someone with a budget who wants DSL convenienece its a good medium ...
Downloading I have no real gripes, the files come down and well, since its up 24/7 I am not in a fervent rush ... besides no matter how fast I download I still have my 3GB limit. High pricetag in some respects maybe, but for someone with a budget who wants DSL convenienece its a good medium ...
Yeah 192K is fine. In my case its more than fine because I've been monitoring my actual line speed daily : its usually between 284 and 300 kbits/s. The times when it was at the normal speed everything was still fine, but currently I use the line for BF2 exclusively, well until someone decides its time to check the mail at least. When there is any other activity on the line my ping in BF rockets up to about 500 - 1000ms. I can survive someone browsing on the other PC, because it only uses the line for a few seconds at a time.
All in all though I would recommend going for the 192K line. When you do feel that you need more you can upgrade you bandwidth once for free. I also had a spasm in my left foot not too long ago, which means that, besides the gay per gig billing system, November 1st may hold something else we weren't counting on.
All in all though I would recommend going for the 192K line. When you do feel that you need more you can upgrade you bandwidth once for free. I also had a spasm in my left foot not too long ago, which means that, besides the gay per gig billing system, November 1st may hold something else we weren't counting on.