ADSL Speed, the truth?

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Navaho

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Im a fussy consumer and I want to get what I pay for, Im also not a technical guru so bear with me on that, but I want to ask everyone out there:

Has anyone, anywhere ever got anything close to the speed that you have paid for?

Now before we scream "best effort" speeds, having tried at all times, on all days of the week and never got anything more than 2.5Mbs on a 4Mb line, after re-setting the ports and all the other advice I have read up.

All I am asking for is the truth about the services we pay for, I am not interested in copper, distances from servers, lines and exchanges, thats up to the provider to sort out, so if thats the "reason" I am afraid I reject it completely, its not my problem. I live in a "4Mb area" and I pay for a 4Mb line, I dont think I am asking too much.

It shouldnt be about where I live and where the exchange is, or how congested the networks are, it should be as simple as this: I was sold a 4Mb line and Im not getting even a 3Mb line?

Think of it like this: You buy a Ferrari, and the specs say 19 inch rims and 300km/hr, but when you get it, the rims are 18inch and it only does 190km/hr, and when you go to the manufacturer or the sales agent, they say, "well, it could do 300km/hr if you were on the moon and fuelled it up with shoe polish, and sorry about the rims, our technicians are working on it"

So back to the origional question, based on a 4Mb "best effort" line from Telkom in the Northern Suburbs of Johannesburg, has annyone, ever, got anything close to what they are paying for? And are you happy with that?
 
Navaho said:
Im a fussy consumer and I want to get what I pay for, Im also not a technical guru so bear with me on that, but I want to ask everyone out there:

Has anyone, anywhere ever got anything close to the speed that you have paid for?

Now before we scream "best effort" speeds, having tried at all times, on all days of the week and never got anything more than 2.5Mbs on a 4Mb line, after re-setting the ports and all the other advice I have read up.

All I am asking for is the truth about the services we pay for, I am not interested in copper, distances from servers, lines and exchanges, thats up to the provider to sort out, so if thats the "reason" I am afraid I reject it completely, its not my problem. I live in a "4Mb area" and I pay for a 4Mb line, I dont think I am asking too much.

It shouldnt be about where I live and where the exchange is, or how congested the networks are, it should be as simple as this: I was sold a 4Mb line and Im not getting even a 3Mb line?

Think of it like this: You buy a Ferrari, and the specs say 19 inch rims and 300km/hr, but when you get it, the rims are 18inch and it only does 190km/hr, and when you go to the manufacturer or the sales agent, they say, "well, it could do 300km/hr if you were on the moon and fuelled it up with shoe polish, and sorry about the rims, our technicians are working on it"

So back to the origional question, based on a 4Mb "best effort" line from Telkom in the Northern Suburbs of Johannesburg, has annyone, ever, got anything close to what they are paying for? And are you happy with that?
Click to expand...

What part of "best effort" do you not understand?
 
You mean like this on a 4mb line?



Might be because I live in a 4mb area and I am close to the exchange.
 
I say, if you don't like what you're getting from your ISP, no one is forcing you to pay for it. This is South Africa, get used to it.
 
I pay for a 4mbps uncapped account and generally see up to 6mbps speeds which is what my line syncs at. No complaints from me.
 
OP you are confusing issues.

I have a "fastest DSL" (or whatever it may now be called) line which is at 4Mb/s and seems to sync that way without a problem. When I use capped data from Telkom I get great speeds but some sites are still slow or down - as sites have to be hosted somewhere and their capacity could be a problem or a server could be down or a dozen other problems. Sometimes on capped my distros don't download at great speeds for a few minutes but that could be congestion anywhere from the ipad being used to watch something through to a problem with the seeds. Some of the ... In the early-ish days and when the ADSL regulations started Telkom refused to guarantee minimum speeds at all and there was a situation where ASASA had ruled that iBurst was not broadband because of no guaranteed minimum speed so I took on Telkom with ASASA however I am glad to say Telkom have since introduced minimum speeds (although its not their advertising routine) and on the one occasion I was not getting minimum speeds - I was getting 64k on my line for a few days, not only did Telkom send out a technician etc ... but I was fully refunded for the period. Bottom line ADSL is a consumer product with a best effort structure but this doesn't mean that you should pay if you are getting no service. In my view Telkom has a responsibility to downgrade a fastest or faster line with respect to billing if the line is only delivering speeds of a cheaper service - but as far as I know that pretty much already happens.

On my uncapped account I similarly always have a best effort in the context of a contended uncapped and shaped product. The total package tends to deliver acceptable internet for my current usage but that is going to change because demand for data is constantly growing. Fundamentally given the dynamics of the market I am getting what I pay for. I have a relatively high capacity line (compared to several years ago and so forth) with a moderate uncapped account and 20Gigs of "premium" connectivity a month which also serves as backup.

You haven't indicated what ISP you use or whether your usage is primarily web browsing (in which event it should all be about response time) or whether you are getting lower speeds on shaped protocols or how many PCs you have running. You seem to assume that a 4Mbs line will translate into 4Mbs downstream. Nobody has ever advertised this. If you line is only syncing at 2.5Mbs then you should really think about going for a cheaper line, but if your line is syncing at 4Mbs but your speeds are still slow it could be that you are using a poorer ISP or a problem at the exchange or any of a dozen problems.

edited: because I need sleep
 
hi There,
I am on a 1Mb connection and am getting it. As has been pointed out it is up to the speed that you have selected. It is a shared service and if everyone is on at the same time you may not experience the 4Mb that you want.
If you want it dedicated then you have to look at diginet where it is your line and only your line.

Regards

Tim
 
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