ADSL Performance Degradation since October

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citizenb

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Hi mybbers

I've noticed some worrying symptoms on my ADSL line and I was wondering if anyone else is having a similar experience: I have a 10mb line using a 4mb uncapped account - the ISP is not important as I don't have an issue there.

My line is the thing that's bothering me. It used to connect perfectly at 10mb and stay connected almost indefinitely, but since around October last year it just started deteriorating.

The first thing I noticed was that it suddenly started dropping the connection 4-5 times a day for no good reason (of course this always happened while I was gaming). When I check the line reading on my router I noticed that the SNR readings were a lot lower than what I was used to seeing. I logged line faults which of course came back clean and tried other routers, but eventually the only way forward was to drop the line speed to 6mb which seemed to stabilize it to a degree, but the connection still drops more than it used to and the SNR readings have never come back to what they used to be before.

Since then I've spoken to a few gaming buddies who have had similar experiences and they all seem to point back to when Telkom started doing the 1mb and 2mb upgrades last year.

So my question to the smart folk out there is firstly how many of you have also experienced your line quality deteriorating like this and can anyone explain how this might be related to Telkom's upgrades. It's almost like having more people on my exchange with higher line speeds has actually affected the physical quality of my connection. Luckily I don't have a congestion problem to add to this, but the line has just become unstable.
 
I've been having recent performance issues related to my line as well and I've been hearing similar stories from a lot of other people, so I really think something is up with Telkom's infrastructure somewhere along the way.
 
Same here , endless disconnects for the past couple months. Line readings look okay though. Router reboot works most of the time.
 
Mine has dropped three times this morning alone and it's not syncing at 2048 as it should.

It's annoying because it's pretty much making online gaming impossible at the moment.
 
I think it's linked to the line upgrades that were done last year, now the infrastructure can't copy with all the extra speeds that people are running
 
Ag shame! Mine is perfect..............
 
saliehendricks said:
What is your location? Which exchange?
Click to expand...

That is my point! OP, no location, no line speed ........... In my case 2mb line Milnerton. My lights went off and flassing when cable was stolen and back to normal within 12 hours. I am approx 1 k away from the exchange.
 
Doubt it`s related to a specific exchange though. Some of my friends are experiencing the same thing.
 
pgs said:
That is my point! OP, no location, no line speed ........... In my case 2mb line Milnerton. My lights went off and flassing when cable was stolen and back to normal within 12 hours. I am approx 1 k away from the exchange.
Click to expand...

Sorry should have been a bit more detailed.

It's Cape Town S/Suburbs - Clareinch exchange.

The Attenuation is good, in the mid 30's, but the signal to noise ratio (SNR) went down noticeably around October when all the line upgrades started.

It was almost literally overnight that I used to get SNR readings of like, 16 odd and then the next day it was down to 7 or 8 and my line kept dropping because it couldn't hold a sync at 10mb anymore.

I've tried changing filters, router etc but the only thing that improved it was dropping the speed to 6mb. Telkom of course say there's nothing wrong with the line, but even at 6mb it still drops fairly often and the readings aren't what they used to be. Its frustrating because the line used to be perfect and I'm trying to understand what changed?
 
citizenb said:
Sorry should have been a bit more detailed.

It's Cape Town S/Suburbs - Clareinch exchange.

The Attenuation is good, in the mid 30's, but the signal to noise ratio (SNR) went down noticeably around October when all the line upgrades started.

It was almost literally overnight that I used to get SNR readings of like, 16 odd and then the next day it was down to 7 or 8 and my line kept dropping because it couldn't hold a sync at 10mb anymore.

I've tried changing filters, router etc but the only thing that improved it was dropping the speed to 6mb. Telkom of course say there's nothing wrong with the line, but even at 6mb it still drops fairly often and the readings aren't what they used to be. Its frustrating because the line used to be perfect and I'm trying to understand what changed?
Click to expand...

I'm in the northern suburbs, Panorama to be specific, on the Voortrekker Parow exchange and I feel your pain - been experiencing the exact same symptoms from around the same time, October 2012. Highly annoying and according to MWeb/Telkom, there is nothing with the "line", but quite obviously, there is something wrong.

I used to sync happily at 4096/507 with an SNR margin of around 11.6 - 12.5 with barely any problems.
Now occasionally my line will desync and resync at a slower random speed i.e. 3425 or something.
Not to mention the flurry of Super Frame/HEC/OCD Errors recently.

I think what really makes it annoying is that we're in the dark about the entire matter. If they're constantly fiddling/upgrading the physical lines then sure, by all means go ahead! But atleast bother to let the customers know what's actually happening.

Anyway citizenb, best of luck finding out what's going on, I sure as hell cannot.
 
Grassy park/lotus river here. Been getting worse every month here too. Ive mostly been getting bad latencies and speed is lower than it should be. Got a 10mb line with synced at 6mb and a 2mb openweb account. This past week i have been struggling to access any websites or if they do manage to load any streaming service like youtube videos and online games are not working.

ping test to varies sites show packet loss from 25-50%, and traceroutes were relatively normal nothing that would indicate the severe lack of access. The performance fluctuates, like it was working perfectly fine for 4 hours this morning while it was completely useless 2days prior. Right now im back to browse only.
 
Its congestion. I have recently moved and I have a brand new line, but still the same exchange.

What I have found is this with the new Telkom equipment:

If you are too far from the exchange, the line suffers reflections which manifest as crackling or soft hissing on the phone.
If the MSAM is malconfigured it screws up the voice channel badly, the line goes dead at times, and when you phone it from your cellphone the ringing voltage jolts it alive and it works again for 10 minutes. On my old line I used to charge up a capacitor to 300V and zap that on the line, and it would work fine for a while, Telkom refused to fix that line in the end I closed that account.

My new line is free of this nonsense, but, despite synch being spot on I get poor speeds at specific times of the day. Its not MWEB, or my PC because it happens when one would reasonably expect people to be at home. From 6-9pm its slow, and then by 1AM its flying... typical signs of congested exchanges.

Telkom, never has, and never will give a flying flap about its customers. So ADSL remains best effort.
 
I have the same thing at our office. No connectivity all of a sudden, then reboot the modem and boom - it works. Used to be on 4 mb/s now all the way down to 2 mb/s <- no improvement thou. This is after having a solid 4 mb/s for more than a year. Techie told me (5th one to come out) that it is indeed the exchange upgrades coupled with the poor copper lines which have been joined with different thicknesses in sections. The entire length needs to be replaced which could take forever. Apparently the upgraded exchanges (ADSL 2+) don't work well with the crappy wiring, while the older ones (ADSL / G.DMT) were fine with it.

On a side note (maybe it could solve someones problem here) if the line isn't syncing properly - especially late in the day - then get a techie to change the pair on your line. They basically just use another set of wires already in the cable.That was the problem I had at my house, and it sorted it out more than a year ago.
 
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