A Good Week?

N

nonroker

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South Africa.
I've been downloading solidly for the last Week.

My Avg. download speed for the last day according to rrdtool is 30.25KB/s
My Avg. for the week is 25.97KB/s -> Translates to 15.3GB of data I've downloaded in the last week [;)]

And this is all intl......

I'd say things are looking better, I just hope this holds [:)]
 
3 weeks of **** service and counting.

I think since I cancelled on Monday, they've flipped the "even slower for bb_matt" switch at Orc Central.

Download speeds under 2k per second - I've been ssh'ing into my hetzner account, downloading files via lynx and then downloading from hetzner via sentech - it's freakin' mad !

18 days to go and it's all over for me and Sentech, but my biggest worry now is the ADSL news and how Telkom are f'ing things up. I applied earlier this week and have heard nothing yet.
I asked for a reference number, but the guy who helped me sign up (in the wonderfully speedy and incredibly efficient Randburg offices - NOT) said I'd get a reference number by telephone.

Oh boy, hope this isn't a case of "out of the frying pan, into the fire !" [8D]

If I haven't heard from Telkom by this time next Friday, the chances of getting ADSL installed before my Sentech is terminated are slim ...

Sentechs definition of Broadband - http://www.3r.co.za/bushboy/bb_sentech.gif
 
Anyone else on linksfield notices a dramatic loss of signal these last few days?

or is it really just me? [:(]

_________________________________________________________________________
custenna, variable 2 - 13 signal, ber 28% - 42%.<i> "I am the only one with this problem." </i>
 
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by vowthorn</i>
<br />what are your single threaded download speeds?

Mine sit at 1.5KB on a MW 128

myWireless 128, 64, 48, 16 - depends on its mood.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

About the same - 1.5KB/s - also on 128

Surfing is horrible - compared to the work ADSL. It's comparable to surfing on a land line that only gets 28.8 - my brother has a dialup and due to his line, he can only get a 28.8 connection. It functions pretty much identically to my surfing experience with Sentech now.

Of course, I've noticed you can load 2 pages at once with Sentech and it'll be a bit faster than a modem experience.

I have no idea what Sentech are up to and don't really care anymore. It seems they are load balancing the different packages - the 128 used to be the best experience for most, now it seems to be the worst.

Sentechs definition of Broadband - http://www.3r.co.za/bushboy/bb_sentech.gif
 
well the latest news I recieved from Sentech is their plan to switch over to satelite bandwidth because they have now established where the bottle neck is occuring. Apparently this is not Sentech's fault (as usual). Their current bandiwdth supplier overseas (BT) are the problem and they are waiting for BT to fix the problem and while BT do that we will be switched to an alternative International link.

Now I do not know if it true because it was a help desk fool who told me this and there doesnt seem to be anything on Sentech's notice board....

In other words it could just be another lie or empty promise...

My speeds today are slightly over 3KB/s (single threads ofcourse)

myWireless 128, 64, 48, 16 - depends on its mood.
 
Vowthorn are you implying that we have been switched to satellite as a temp measure while BT fix things, or that we will be switched to sat. permanently cos BT are messing up?

For the last week I have been unable to retrieve any mail larger than 5k or so from a UK server, simply times out forever. Worked fine prior to this 'improvement'. On 28.8 dialup it works fine of course.

Could of course also be that POP traffic is shaped out of existence.

MW, makes proton decay look fast.
 
Forgot to mention, International speeds? Took 1hr. 40mins. to download a 6.3Mbyte Zone Alarm update. Perhaps we could take up a collection to distribute some 'clue' to Stch.

MW, makes proton decay look fast.
 
Firstly I dont know if what was said was true, but the orc implied that Sentech users would be switched over to an alternative international link while BT sort out their mess.

I phoned again this afternoon to compare information and this time I was told how did I get the information and I told that orc that another orc had given it to me, which is what happened.

He started off by saying that they shouldnt give out information like that because although there was going to be switch over nothing has been finalised. So this weekend seems highly unlikely... and I am sure Sentech would mention it on their notice board or make some kind of press release... unless they want to keep it quiet.

So it seems there is some truth to it but as for when and why it is still very sketchy...

What I want to know is Sentech only recently made this BT bandwdith Purchase and I can not understand why it would effect speed so badly. It almost sounds like another Sentech mistake or misjudgement. And also I dont think the BT purchase was ever mentioed in a public release.




myWireless 128, 64, 48, 16 - depends on its mood.
 
vowthorn : Was it Chris, I got the same story when opening a ticket relating to international single threade downloads averaging at 1.7KB.

P.S CAN I ask any 128K users to do a little single thread speed test, local,
go to ftp.is.co.za pick a rather largeish file, and start a download, let it download for 10 minutes, and then post the average download speed, mine averages at 4KB.

Heres some advice, my downloads off ftp.is.co.za push up to 7KB if its already on the sentech proxy server, so if a download goes up to 7K, try a more obscure file that definitely isn't cached on the sentecch proxy server.

For lots of these, try ftp://ftp.is.co.za/packages/linux/mysql/Downloads/MySQL-4.1/

and pick an obscure build, that probably hasn't been downloaded,
ie mysql-debug-4.1.6-gamma-apple-darwin6.8-powerpc.dmg

perhaps, if someone does a test, and downloads a file, he should say the file he tested on, so others know not to download those files!



In regards to using satellite, it can be determined very simply by reading the response times, if anything ever goes under 500ms, its NOT SAT, its rather difficult even without it being satellite to assume sentech is capable of low latency, but here is the proof that sat does not exist yet!

Notice pings of 438ms, and 349ms, well under the sat limit!
64 bytes from www20.thny.bbc.co.uk (212.58.240.120): icmp_seq=11 ttl=243 time=1301 ms
64 bytes from www20.thny.bbc.co.uk (212.58.240.120): icmp_seq=14 ttl=243 time=478 ms
64 bytes from www20.thny.bbc.co.uk (212.58.240.120): icmp_seq=15 ttl=243 time=1455 ms
64 bytes from www20.thny.bbc.co.uk (212.58.240.120): icmp_seq=17 ttl=243 time=1473 ms
64 bytes from www20.thny.bbc.co.uk (212.58.240.120): icmp_seq=18 ttl=243 time=1372 ms
64 bytes from www20.thny.bbc.co.uk (212.58.240.120): icmp_seq=19 ttl=243 time=973 ms
64 bytes from www20.thny.bbc.co.uk (212.58.240.120): icmp_seq=20 ttl=243 time=1475 ms
64 bytes from www20.thny.bbc.co.uk (212.58.240.120): icmp_seq=21 ttl=243 time=1349 ms
64 bytes from www20.thny.bbc.co.uk (212.58.240.120): icmp_seq=22 ttl=243 time=1071 ms
64 bytes from www20.thny.bbc.co.uk (212.58.240.120): icmp_seq=24 ttl=243 time=1059 ms
64 bytes from www20.thny.bbc.co.uk (212.58.240.120): icmp_seq=25 ttl=243 time=938 ms
64 bytes from www20.thny.bbc.co.uk (212.58.240.120): icmp_seq=26 ttl=243 time=349 ms
64 bytes from www20.thny.bbc.co.uk (212.58.240.120): icmp_seq=27 ttl=243 time=1331 ms
64 bytes from www20.thny.bbc.co.uk (212.58.240.120): icmp_seq=28 ttl=243 time=1050 ms
64 bytes from www20.thny.bbc.co.uk (212.58.240.120): icmp_seq=32 ttl=243 time=951 ms
64 bytes from www20.thny.bbc.co.uk (212.58.240.120): icmp_seq=33 ttl=243 time=349 ms
64 bytes from www20.thny.bbc.co.uk (212.58.240.120): icmp_seq=34 ttl=243 time=1330 ms

AND ANYWAY, IF SENTECH CAN'T PROVIDE DECENT LOCAL BAND FOR SINGLE THREADED DOWNLOADS, HOW CAN SAT HELP THE FSCKERS!
 
I tried multiple files from the above ftp line and I kept getting an average of 9.5KB
On my own server with files that I know woudlnt be cached I get averages of 11KB

So I am not sure if it could be your tower because it seems very tower specific.
Woodmead the tower I am on seems to have excellent local speeds but crappy international although
I must admit international seems to avergae out at about 3.5KB comapred to 1.5KB I have been recieving.

But nothing is consistent with Sentech.

myWireless 128, 64, 48, 16 - depends on its mood.
 
#1 They already used Satelite for their downstream... here's the catch, it was only for HTML pages
#2 They already told me (and the other guys who sat in the meeting 3 months ago) that they were going to use satelite, nothing has happend
#3 It was told to me in confidence (and I don't care anymore) that they bought an extra 25 megs worth of international bandwidth, but that marketing and sales management do not want to release said bandwidth yet so technical can implement.

Kiddies, the bottle neck is not Sentech themselves, it's the people who run, or think they can run, the bandwidth management portion of Sentech. They are marketing and sales. And last time I checked, marketing and sales was as dumb as a doornail. They don't understand the technology, yet refuse to give those that do, the power to correct it.

So everything is covered in red tape and no one (not me) can do anything about it.

That is one of the major reasons why I choose not to be a customer of theirs anymore
 
Very enlightening if true, which it probably is.

I wish someone form itweb work pick it up, investigate and run it


_________________________________________________________________________
custenna, variable 2 - 13 signal, ber 28% - 42%.<i> "I am the only one with this problem." </i>
 
Hell, my gran with her <i>Zimmerframe</i> and a memory stick is faster than Sentech ! [:D]

Sentechs definition of Broadband - http://www.3r.co.za/bushboy/bb_sentech.gif
 
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