ADSL Slower than EVER?!?!?

My net has been screwed for the last few days. Speed tests reveal connection bandwidth varying between sub 56k level and just better than 512k DSL. I'm on 4096k business ADSL and have multiple accounts (a 9gb SAIX account from Mweb, unshaped account from WebAfrica and local IS accounts). All of them are as poor as the next.

This is a printout of "ping dsl-cache.saix.net -t" done in command prompt. ~600ms times to the cache, when it should be reading 16ms, is just plain poor. I hope this issue gets resolved soon, because it's horrifically 3rd world.

Pinging ndf-cache1-vif0.saix.net [196.43.9.21] with 32 bytes of data:

...
Reply from 196.43.9.21: bytes=32 time=686ms TTL=252
Reply from 196.43.9.21: bytes=32 time=826ms TTL=252
Reply from 196.43.9.21: bytes=32 time=834ms TTL=252
Reply from 196.43.9.21: bytes=32 time=772ms TTL=252
...
Request timed out.
Reply from 196.43.9.21: bytes=32 time=665ms TTL=252
Reply from 196.43.9.21: bytes=32 time=583ms TTL=252
Reply from 196.43.9.21: bytes=32 time=614ms TTL=252

Ping statistics for 196.43.9.21:
Packets: Sent = 82, Received = 81, Lost = 1 (1% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 478ms, Maximum = 834ms, Average = 626ms
Click to expand...
 
saidin said:
I hope this issue gets resolved soon, because it's horrifically 3rd world.
Click to expand...

News flash: this is the third world, and Telkom is staffed by people, the majority of whom are as intelligent as dead fish.

Back On Topic, I am in CPT and also having connectivity problems, but only to international sites - local is okay.

As for speeds... let's not go there. I was getting 2000ms+ pings (and a lot of timeouts) to both local and international sites. Doing a tracert to google.co.za dropped around 30% of all packets.

I think this is a problem on SAIX's side, because my local 30GB IS account seems to be working normally.
 
Last edited:
Yeah I use ADSL in Newlands and Kenilworth and its been shocking for the last week including today.

Request timed out.
Reply from 196.4.160.12: bytes=32 time=891ms TTL=57
Reply from 196.4.160.12: bytes=32 time=836ms TTL=57
Reply from 196.4.160.12: bytes=32 time=830ms TTL=57

Reply from 196.25.1.1: bytes=32 time=733ms TTL=251
Reply from 196.25.1.1: bytes=32 time=692ms TTL=251
Reply from 196.25.1.1: bytes=32 time=666ms TTL=251
Reply from 196.25.1.1: bytes=32 time=694ms TTL=251

Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Reply from 196.43.9.21: bytes=32 time=667ms TTL=251
Click to expand...

Eish
 
My DSL was back to 30ms ping around 11am today. Now it's skyrocketed back to 700ms.

Pinging ndf-cache1-vif0.saix.net [196.43.9.21] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 196.43.9.21: bytes=32 time=674ms TTL=244
Reply from 196.43.9.21: bytes=32 time=731ms TTL=244
Reply from 196.43.9.21: bytes=32 time=765ms TTL=244
Reply from 196.43.9.21: bytes=32 time=934ms TTL=244

Ping statistics for 196.43.9.21:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 674ms, Maximum = 934ms, Average = 776ms
Click to expand...
934ms max is not funny anymore.

EDIT

Ok, I've finally got a definitive answer from Telkom.

There's a card in the exchange which broke. Also, the lightning protection broke. The reason it's been taking so long is because they had to order new parts, which is pathetic in my opinion. How can you run the NATIONAL internet grid and not keep spares? Regardless, the parts have been replaced and the exchange is just being tested. Apparently service should be restored any time from now (~5pm).
 
Last edited:
I hope so! Service was back to normal at about 1am this morning, but has since reverted back to last nights problem of bad pings.

Hope they sort their s**t soon!
 
Got the "feeling" that our ADSL is also slow... and this over sat and not fibre...

will run a few tests tomorrow to see what's going on...
 
Just checked on Cybersmart's support section, to see if there was any information about this situation, heres something that is relevant:

ADSL Planned Maintenance
Time Down : 3 May 2007, 22:00:00
Time Up : 4 May 2007, 04:00:00
Impact : Customers may experience intermittent service interruption
Site : ADSL
Sites/Services Affected : ADSL
Estimated Time to Repair : N/A

So it looks like Telskum have pulled finger, hopefully they will figure out which way the card goes in by tomorrow.
 
Same here on an openbrowse 384 i am getting pings of 4000 to google! Even local is slow!!!
 
yep - websites timing out, youtube just not moving!. Google also dead. Some sites loads, most don't!. :(
 
Anyone notice this is only happening after hours? Like clockwork.. it's perfect during the day, after hours comes, bang, 800ms local pings.

Spoken to the fifth separate telkom support center dude - just as clueless as the others.
 
Slower Than Slow

bwana said:
I'm getting pathetic international speeds on my openweb IS account.
Click to expand...

Been having problems on my uncapped openweb account since Friday can't even access certain international servers and then the following day I can access those servers but other servers are then unreachable. It's now the 3rd of May and it's still occuring a total of 7 days now one week to be precise and the problem is still not resolved.
 
The funny thing is, people complain, then it may take a wile to get fixed, its fine for a short short wile, then it all slowly goes to hell again. This Speed issue has been BAD since mid December - on and off!.
 
I used to have pings between 260-320 on WoW-EU on my unshaped account. But for the last two weeks I have been lucky to see pings under 400, and its often over 600.

Last 3 days, average ping of 1700ms. WoW is unplayable. Have logged daily faults with telskum to no avail. This morning (approx 7AM) I checked my pings before going to work and it was 260 on WoW. Awesome. I got home from work at 18.30, and pings were back to 1700ms /cry.

I have a telskum technician coming out to my place tomorrow, and I just know that during the day while I am at work there will be no problem. But the evening when I try to play WoW my ADSL (unshaped) will be totally screwed again.

Just WTF can we do? Where can we turn?
 
EXACT same problem as you MikeJ - I doubt that technician is going to find anything. Get up in the morning - WoW ping is perfect and unshaped is performing flawlessly. Get home in the evenings - unshaped has 800ms LOCAL pings and anywhere between 1500 to 3000ms pings in WoW.

So far I've heard several different stories from the telkom support people I've talked to. Some have no idea there's a problem. Others tell me there's an overloaded exchange. Then they're doing upgrades. Then there's an overseas line down (yeah, that explains the local latency), then maybe my line needs to be throttled down to 2mbit (uh huh, it's been working fine for a year) etc etc.

The only progress I've made is realising the problem is now occurring regularly directly after working hours and ending just before working hours. Conspiracy theories aside, it sounds like Telkom is covering its ass by switching unshaped to a different route during business hours (presumably for important customers using unshaped) and then switching to a saturated link after hours. (who gives a crap about residential customers, eh?)

Who knows when this is actually going to be remedied. If it carries on, we may as well cancel those unshaped accounts - no point paying 300+ rands for a non-existant service, eh?
 
Sounds kind of like a dodgy thing to do. Right up Telskums street.

I am an all night kind of guy, like I said in an earlier post it was fine at 1am on 3rd of May, then from about 5pm onwards (I only got on to my pc then, so dont know what it was like during the day) it just got helluva slow.

Telskum take us for idiots if they dont think we can spot a pattern.

/tinfoilhat ON!
 
Pings as of 2AM on a 384k Shaped

Ping statistics for 196.43.9.21:
Packets: Sent = 25, Received = 25, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 1096ms, Maximum = 1398ms, Average = 1209ms
 
After that post with details on a scheduled maintenance from Telkom yesterday, I was hoping for a miracle when I got up this morning.

Reply from 196.25.1.200: bytes=32 time=1378ms TTL=251
Request timed out.
Reply from 196.25.1.200: bytes=32 time=1483ms TTL=251
Reply from 196.25.1.200: bytes=32 time=1492ms TTL=251

Ping statistics for 196.25.1.200:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 3, Lost = 1 (25% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 1378ms, Maximum = 1492ms, Average = 1451ms

Good stuff that.
 
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