Nothing would surprise me lessMaybe a Telkom Official Rep did the testing?
Made a new Telkom ADSL ad to replace previous ones..
hehehehe
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Question of the Day: Have you ever ordered a product online and received a fake knock-off?
Made a new Telkom ADSL ad to replace previous ones..
hehehehe
fz1
Senior Member
Can you say 'overhead'?
I mean, come on. Yes, Telkom screws us over every chance they can. Yes, we don't always get line speed (minus TCP/IP overhead) on international downloads. Yes, bandwidth should be a lot cheaper and unshaped.
But Telkom is NOT 'shaving' 15-20% off DSL lines. A DSL 4Mbps (4096Kbps) connection that gets a 3500Kbps speed on speedtest.net is operating at over 85% efficiency, which, given that TCP/IP overhead is (apparently) 13-15%, is NOT bad.
http://pflog.net/dsl_overhead/
http://www.pixelbeat.org/speeds.html
I'm no expert on TCP/IP. Did anyone here actually get 56Kbps when they were on dial-up? Nope. Sure, even if you can really only connect at, say, 48Kbps, were you downloading at a full 6KB/sec constantly? I doubt it. It was probably closer to 5KB/sec. Again, that's because there is an overhead.
What service provider is going to advertise 'real-world' speeds in this day and age? It's all about marketing and claims. Anyone ever achieve the 54Mbps that wireless-G promises? I doubt it. How about the 480Mbps that USB 2.0 promises? Unlikely.
I'm not coming to Telkom's defence here. All I am saying is that what they are doing is advertising theoretical speeds - obviously common and accepted practice across industries. Consider the 'real-world' speeds that are achieved compared to what is promised, and you should come to the realisation that they are not far off* and IMHO, certainly better than any of the wireless ISPs.
* Local speeds, at least. International is slower for sure but this is not surprising.
Threepwood
Senior Member
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I think fz1 has a point.
On that note, I used to get pretty much constantly 4KBps with dial-up, someone I know who is still on dial-up says she only gets about 2KBps (doubt she actually has measured) now and that it has gotten a lot worse since I was a dial up user.
Also, what about this IS semi-shaped being a fibre link? I thought IS only had international connectivity via satellite? What fibre link are they using?
On that note, I used to get pretty much constantly 4KBps with dial-up, someone I know who is still on dial-up says she only gets about 2KBps (doubt she actually has measured) now and that it has gotten a lot worse since I was a dial up user.
Also, what about this IS semi-shaped being a fibre link? I thought IS only had international connectivity via satellite? What fibre link are they using?
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fz1
Senior Member
I can't find any solid references, but I don't think it can be anything other than SAT-3 (same as SAIX). I think they use their satellite products for their cheaper bandwidth (e.g. Uncapped Express accounts). If you think about it, Uncapped (Fibre) IS accounts have been around a while too, so they've had both satellite and fibre international connectivity for some time (we just haven't always been able to get capped usage on their fibre links until relatively recently).
This is a screenshot of a download of a single file with two download threads, green is download, yellow is upload - are you telling me that black area is purely overheads? Not a chance mate.
Point is no Telkom ADSL connection reaches 100% claimed speed so its funny how the ASA says that less than full speed is still full speed. If Tesla claims their car can do 'up to 100km' and it only does 90, then it doesn't do 100.
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fz1
Senior Member
This is a screenshot of a download of a single file with two download threads, green is download, yellow is upload - are you telling me that black area is purely overheads? Not a chance mate.
Point is no Telkom ADSL connection reaches 100% claimed speed so its funny how the ASA says that less than full speed is still full speed. If Tesla claims their car can do 'up to 100km' and it only does 90, then it doesn't do 100.
You didn't mention what line speed you are running, MaD. Also, if that is NetMeter, it auto-scales the graph by default, so that black area at the top is the maximum download speed that you have recently hit (unless you have customised its maximum to be fixed...?) - so, I don't have any idea what that black area is in terms of size in KB.
Another well known fact is that SAIX access is pathetic for downloading (internationally). I am assuming that this is an international download. I'm sure you have heard of that 'magic' 50KB/sec barrier when browsing/downloading that crops up from time to time. I suggest you give that file download a shot using IS Fibre Semi-shaped. If you are on DSL 4Mbps, I can almost guarantee you will be surprised by the difference in speed. Also, I am sure you have heard of the 4Mbps lines that are somehow limited to 50KB/sec because of a fault at the DSLAM, etc. Are you sure you aren't a victim of that?
Can you please do a speedtest.net and post results?
On a final note, in keeping with your example of cars: think of acceleration claims from 0-100km/h that manufacturers make. Those are also not real-world figures; try as you might, it is highly unlikely that you will ever match the acceleration that your manufacturer claims for your car. Fifth Gear proved this (albeit with a very limited sample of three cars) an episode or two ago. That's another example of what I am saying: marketing rules this world and manufacturers are not necessarily held to report real-world figures only. This applies to Telkom as well: if you do a speed test via speedtest.net that comes out at 85% of your line speed, considering the overhead (15%), you are technically getting what you paid for. The fact that SAIX SUX for international speeds is a separate matter because your line is still capable of the speeds you are paying for
Telkom could bump up DSL 4096Kbps lines to 4818Kbps speed so you hit your 4096Kbps (at 85% efficiency of 4818Kbps), but the point is that it is a moving target - you can never get full line speed in a download (download speed reported by your download manager or browser).Oh and I bet that the Tesla only returns the claimed range going down a 30 degree decline with no passengers on board, gear in neutral, all other electronics switched off, etc. etc.
cool ad heheh....
It was on a 384Kbps line and in the options it's on 384.fz1 said:
Internationall I always get full speed minus 15%fz1 said:
It is an international download yes, and I've tried 4 different types of accounts, same result every time I'm afraid.fz1 said:
309 kb/s 79 kb/s 830 ms Londonfz1 said:
321 kb/s 104 kb/s 111 ms Cape Town
DSLAMs have hardware rate-limiting so setting the maximum speed at X amount, like they're doing now, would allow one to achieve the advertised speed. My point is that Telkom claims you get full speed - which you don't. ADSL used to be faster than it currently is and many people noticed when they started shaving speeds. To get an ADSL line to perform at a set speed is trivial and comparing it to acceleration of cars won't work, the limits placed on an ADSL line can be changed at any time, getting full speed is the easiest thing for them to do. Overheads have nothing to do with it - the green area would be far less consistent, like when downloading torrents.fz1 said:On a final note, in keeping with your example of cars: think of acceleration claims from 0-100km/h that manufacturers make. Those are also not real-world figures; try as you might, it is highly unlikely that you will ever match the acceleration that your manufacturer claims for your car. Fifth Gear proved this (albeit with a very limited sample of three cars) an episode or two ago. That's another example of what I am saying: marketing rules this world and manufacturers are not necessarily held to report real-world figures only. This applies to Telkom as well: if you do a speed test via speedtest.net that comes out at 85% of your line speed, considering the overhead (15%), you are technically getting what you paid for. The fact that SAIX SUX for international speeds is a separate matter because your line is still capable of the speeds you are paying for
Oh and I bet that the Tesla only returns the claimed range going down a 30 degree decline with no passengers on board, gear in neutral, all other electronics switched off, etc. etc.
[/QUOTE]Doesn't affect me, enjoy the sound of my car far too much to stray away from petrol any time soon 