Advice needed regarding ADSL line issues

User217

User217

Active Member
Joined
Nov 6, 2007
Messages
57
I stay in the Goodwood Area and I have never had any ADSL issues before. This however all changed on Friday the 13th September... Ok, make your jokes! :D

I have a 2048Kb line and my line speed slowed down to a CRAWL! I am talking about 20 to 50Kb/s out of 2048Kb/s! Latency is incredibly high with ping speeds of between 100 and 400ms! Some times websites would time out while I wait. At first I thought it was just the rain as we have had a lot of rain that week. In August the whole area here flooded with water going up to a meter deep, but that did not affect my ADSL line speed one bit. If it is the rain, then why did it happen now and not before? :confused:

I have a 2048Kb uncapped line with Afrihost. I have never had any issues before. Before I would easily get up to 2500kb/s which is faster than my line speed! The weirdest thing is that there is no specific time this happens. The issue is always there! I have transferred my ADSL line to Afrihost, because I did not feel like battling with Telkom on my own. There are just too many people working for them that does not have the foggiest clue what is going on around them! Trying to explain to someone with such limited intelligence what your problem is a nightmare I do not wish upon my worst enemy! :p

I reported the problem to Afrihost on the 14th of September. They logged a complaint on my behalf under reference number AH20130916-75369 on the 16th of September. A technician was here and he checked things on my side, the connection box on the premisses and at the exchange. He could not find anything wrong... but the problem persists!

I went as far as to replace the line from my wall socket to my modem. This did nothing. I bought a 1Gb pre-paid account from Axxess to see if the issue was ISP related. It was not that either. :wtf:

It's been more than a week now and I am really at the end of my line so to speak! I have read elsewhere that I am not alone. There are several other areas having the same issues... I am seriously considering going wireless. I work from home and I need the stable connection which I am paying for and not getting!

I did a trace route to telkom.co.za and listed below is the results.

If anyone has some advice I can try; please!


Tracing route to telkom.co.za [196.43.22.222] over a maximum of 30 hops:
1 2 ms 1 ms 1 ms 192.168.0.1
2 3 ms 3 ms 1 ms 192.168.1.1
3 123 ms 115 ms 100 ms 105-236-5-65-esr-lo.mtnbusiness.co.za [105.236.5.65]
4 102 ms 90 ms 70 ms ipc-send-tb-3a.mtnbusiness.net [41.181.53.214]
5 78 ms 83 ms 79 ms tb-dca-2.za--qux-c.za.mtnbusiness.net [41.181.198.188]
6 113 ms 23 ms 23 ms unc-cpt-1.mtnns.net [196.44.18.8]
7 102 ms 118 ms 292 ms tb-pr-1.za--tb-cr-2.za-a.mtnns.net [196.44.18.143]
8 * 81 ms 80 ms wblv-ip-se-2-gw.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.25.165.197]
9 101 ms 84 ms 80 ms 196.43.25.205
10 104 ms 88 ms 76 ms 196.43.39.162
11 105 ms 98 ms 110 ms rrba-ip-bssr-1-ge-2-48.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.43.23.6]
12 116 ms * * nbsc-ip-bssr-1-atm-5-0-0-1.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.43.23.30]
13 89 ms 90 ms * nbsc-ip-rcache-1-vif0.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.43.22.222]
14 87 ms 79 ms 76 ms nbsc-ip-rcache-1-vif0.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.43.22.222]
Trace complete.

Line Sync Speed: 2048Kbps

Attenuation: 12.0db
 
F

froot

Honorary Master
Joined
Jun 2, 2009
Messages
11,347
You've got congestion, see hop 3:
3 123 ms 115 ms 100 ms 105-236-5-65-esr-lo.mtnbusiness.co.za [105.236.5.65]
Click to expand...
What to do about it? Wait it out.
 
User217

User217

Active Member
Joined
Nov 6, 2007
Messages
57
Thanks for all the help sop far and the suggestions, but I don't think a new modem will do it of congestion is the issue...

I did another trace route, this time via AXXESS. The previous one was via AFRIHOST.

Tracing route to telkom.co.za [196.43.22.222] over a maximum of 30 hops:
1 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms 192.168.0.1
2 2 ms 2 ms 1 ms 192.168.1.1
3 120 ms 107 ms 107 ms 105-236-5-65-esr-lo.mtnbusiness.co.za [105.236.5.65]
4 124 ms 83 ms 88 ms 41.181.221.254
5 150 ms 82 ms 84 ms tb-dca-2.za--qux-c.za.mtnbusiness.net [41.181.198.188]
6 98 ms * 78 ms unc-cpt-1.mtnns.net [196.44.18.8]
7 100 ms 89 ms 86 ms tb-pr-1.za--tb-cr-2.za-a.mtnns.net [196.44.18.143]
8 73 ms 70 ms 79 ms wblv-ip-se-2-gw.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.25.165.197]
9 217 ms 86 ms 75 ms 196.43.25.205
10 142 ms 132 ms 132 ms 196.43.39.166
11 90 ms 103 ms 100 ms rrba-ip-bssr-1-ge-2-48.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.43.23.6]
12 76 ms 86 ms 94 ms nbsc-ip-bssr-1-atm-5-0-0-1.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.43.23.30]
13 55 ms 65 ms 82 ms nbsc-ip-rcache-1-vif0.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.43.22.222]
Trace complete.

Both companies seem to get their service via MTN Business and it now seem to be a problem on the MTN Business Network...
 
ponder

ponder

Honorary Master
Joined
Jan 22, 2005
Messages
92,881
User217 said:
Tracing route to telkom.co.za [196.43.22.222] over a maximum of 30 hops:
1 2 ms 1 ms 1 ms 192.168.0.1
2 3 ms 3 ms 1 ms 192.168.1.1
3 123 ms 115 ms 100 ms 105-236-5-65-esr-lo.mtnbusiness.co.za [105.236.5.65]
Click to expand...

User217 said:
I did another trace route, this time via AXXESS. The previous one was via AFRIHOST.

1 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms 192.168.0.1
2 2 ms 2 ms 1 ms 192.168.1.1
3 120 ms 107 ms 107 ms 105-236-5-65-esr-lo.mtnbusiness.co.za [105.236.5.65]
Both companies seem to get their service via MTN Business and it now seem to be a problem on the MTN Business Network...
Click to expand...

The problem points to the mtn edge services router.

Try the telkom guest account,

Username: guest@telkomadsl
Password: guest

Username : guest1@telkomadsl
Password : guest1

Do another traceroute and post the info here.
 
Last edited:
S

Saajid

Expert Member
Joined
Aug 8, 2008
Messages
4,559
User217 said:
I stay in the Goodwood Area and I have never had any ADSL issues before. This however all changed on Friday the 13th September... Ok, make your jokes! :D
Click to expand...

Sounds like congestion at the exchange from the info provided. You said you tried an Axxess 1GB account, but Axxess is a sister company of Afrihost, and they both run on the same MTN backbone. So testing out an Axxess account will probably give you the same result. Try another ISP - WebAfrica, MWEB, OpenWeb.

And check out my blog post, which might help you: How to diagnose ADSL line, speed & stability problems
 
E

elievan

Member
Joined
Mar 20, 2010
Messages
26
Hi, it won't make you feel any better, but I'm having the exact same problems.

My line is so horrible and I'm soon gonna give up - it is just ridiculously slow. And by slow I mean, when I go on speedtest.net I get on average 0.15mbps download, BUT MY UPLOAD IS FINE and always consistent at 0.44 or so (2mb line).

If I watch the download part, or hell if I actually try download anything, it goes at about 20kb/s for a few seconds, then stops, then continues for a second, then stops etc.

EDIT: I wanted to add, that its not like the speed is just slow and consistant. If I try load websites, they seem to 'jam up', and nothing will load for minutes at a time, and then boom the data will just flow again. Also want to add I've tried axxess, openweb, afrihost as ISPs and all the same.

I've contacted ADSL, I got an sms this morning to say 'your fault has been resolved' which is a joke - I called back and told them it hasn't.

Below are some of my tracerts, I don't know what you can tell from them but maybe someone can help. It seems a lot of jumps time out though.

C:\Users\Evan>tracert telkom.co.za

Tracing route to telkom.co.za [196.43.22.222]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 1 ms <1 ms <1 ms dsldevice.lan [192.168.10.1]
2 22 ms 24 ms 30 ms 196-210-138-129.dynamic.isadsl.co.za [196.210.138.129]
3 * 56 ms * 196.38.72.229
4 32 ms 54 ms 51 ms cdsl2-rba-vl150.ip.isnet.net [196.38.73.9]
5 37 ms 44 ms 53 ms 168.209.1.140
6 56 ms 48 ms 112 ms 196.26.0.130
7 19 ms 19 ms 18 ms rrba-ip-se-2-wan.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.25.46.89]
8 * 74 ms 55 ms 196.43.25.137
9 * 30 ms 41 ms 196.43.39.166
10 * 43 ms * rrba-ip-bssr-1-ge-2-48.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.43.23.6]
11 40 ms 50 ms 63 ms nbsc-ip-bssr-2-atm-5-0-0-1.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.43.23.34]
12 34 ms 54 ms 66 ms nbsc-ip-rcache-1-vif0.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.43.22.222]

Tracing route to google.com [74.125.233.39]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms dsldevice.lan [192.168.10.1]
2 * 38 ms 38 ms 196-210-138-129.dynamic.isadsl.co.za [196.210.138.129]
3 47 ms 18 ms 24 ms 196.38.73.85
4 * 51 ms 55 ms cdsl2-rba-vl150.ip.isnet.net [196.38.73.9]
5 42 ms 40 ms 45 ms 168.209.1.140
6 32 ms 72 ms 41 ms 196.26.0.130
7 55 ms 39 ms 32 ms 74.125.49.66
8 52 ms * 62 ms 64.233.174.21
9 18 ms 27 ms 22 ms jnb01s01-in-f7.1e100.net [74.125.233.39]
 
F

froot

Honorary Master
Joined
Jun 2, 2009
Messages
11,347
elievan said:
Hi, it won't make you feel any better, but I'm having the exact same problems.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't be that quick attribute your problems to congestion - your second hop latency isn't high enough to describe or cause the problems you say you have. However, all the *'s in your trace routes are a cause for concern.

Have you tried doing a traceroute to Telkom's website using the guest@telkomadsl account?
 
User217

User217

Active Member
Joined
Nov 6, 2007
Messages
57
I have done the following three test this morning and the results are as follow:

AFRIHOST [2013-09-25 06:08]

Tracing route to telkom.co.za [196.43.22.222] over a maximum of 30 hops:
1 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms 192.168.0.1
2 2 ms 2 ms 1 ms 192.168.1.1
3 34 ms 40 ms 42 ms 105-236-5-65-esr-lo.mtnbusiness.co.za [105.236.5.65]
4 50 ms 49 ms 57 ms ipc-recieve-tb-2a.mtnbusiness.net [41.181.54.86]

5 84 ms 87 ms 87 ms tb-dca-2.za--qux-c.za.mtnbusiness.net [41.181.198.188]
6 27 ms 48 ms 28 ms unc-cpt-1.mtnns.net [196.44.18.8]
7 87 ms 85 ms 72 ms tb-pr-1.za--tb-cr-2.za-a.mtnns.net [196.44.18.143]
8 60 ms 66 ms 65 ms wblv-ip-se-2-gw.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.25.165.197]
9 71 ms 69 ms 71 ms 196.43.25.205
10 70 ms 59 ms 52 ms 196.43.39.162
11 43 ms 33 ms 35 ms rrba-ip-bssr-1-ge-2-48.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.43.23.6]
12 66 ms 61 ms 66 ms nbsc-ip-bssr-2-atm-5-0-0-1.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.43.23.34]
13 89 ms 95 ms 103 ms nbsc-ip-rcache-1-vif0.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.43.22.222]
Trace complete.


AXXESS [2013-09-25 05:57]

Tracing route to telkom.co.za [196.43.22.222]over a maximum of 30 hops:
1 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms 192.168.0.1
2 2 ms 2 ms 1 ms 192.168.1.1
3 53 ms 51 ms 54 ms 105-236-5-65-esr-lo.mtnbusiness.co.za [105.236.5.65]
4 70 ms 68 ms 67 ms 41.181.221.254
5 58 ms 71 ms 72 ms tb-dca-2.za--qux-c.za.mtnbusiness.net [41.181.198.188]
6 66 ms 61 ms 54 ms unc-cpt-1.mtnns.net [196.44.18.8]
7 67 ms 66 ms 74 ms tb-pr-1.za--tb-cr-2.za-a.mtnns.net [196.44.18.143]
8 43 ms 40 ms 40 ms wblv-ip-se-2-gw.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.25.165.197]
9 73 ms 78 ms 73 ms 196.43.25.205
10 122 ms 125 ms 125 ms 196.43.39.166
11 125 ms 121 ms 129 ms rrba-ip-bssr-1-ge-2-48.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.43.23.6]
12 61 ms 52 ms 51 ms nbsc-ip-bssr-1-atm-5-0-0-1.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.43.23.30]
13 108 ms 124 ms 121 ms nbsc-ip-rcache-1-vif0.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.43.22.222]
Trace complete.


OPENWEB [2013-09-25 07:28]

Tracing route to telkom.co.za [196.43.22.222] over a maximum of 30 hops:
1 2 ms 1 ms 1 ms 192.168.0.1
2 2 ms 2 ms 2 ms 192.168.1.1
3 * 52 ms 52 ms 196-210-148-129.dynamic.isadsl.co.za [196.210.148.129]
4 50 ms 52 ms 45 ms cdsl2-ctn-vl2276.ip.isnet.net [196.38.72.125]
5 65 ms 71 ms 79 ms 196.35.115.136
6 52 ms 57 ms 64 ms 168.209.6.12
7 102 ms 107 ms 96 ms 168.209.6.130
8 29 ms 34 ms 43 ms 196.25.247.25
9 52 ms 51 ms 53 ms 196.43.25.205
10 103 ms 84 ms 64 ms 196.43.39.166
11 115 ms 71 ms 124 ms rrba-ip-bssr-1-ge-2-48.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.43.23.6]
12 89 ms 110 ms 129 ms nbsc-ip-bssr-2-atm-5-0-0-1.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.43.23.34]
13 79 ms 76 ms 82 ms nbsc-ip-rcache-1-vif0.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.43.22.222]
Trace complete.


At the moment I am getting 1.5Mb/s on my 2Mb/s line which is acceptable. It sure beats the hell out of last weeks 0.2Mb/s speed!

I read elsewhere in this forum that Telkom is dealing with an exchange congestion problem. I will believe this explanation a lot more than the one about the weather which they gave me! They obviously did something last night that relieved a lot of pressure, because up to last night, the maximum speed I could get was 0.5Mb/s...

What gets me, and I am sure a lot of you too, is the fact that we always have to first threw all our toys out of the cot before something happens! They first lie by making up some pathetic excuse as if they think we are all idiots! Tell us that you have an congestion problem and tell us that you are working on it. TELL THE TRUTH! It works best!
 
ponder

ponder

Honorary Master
Joined
Jan 22, 2005
Messages
92,881
User217 said:
At the moment I am getting 1.5Mb/s on my 2Mb/s line which is acceptable. It sure beats the hell out of last weeks 0.2Mb/s speed!
Click to expand...

Doing tests in the morning is of little use as it's out of peak time and pretty quiet.
 
E

elievan

Member
Joined
Mar 20, 2010
Messages
26
froot said:
I wouldn't be that quick attribute your problems to congestion - your second hop latency isn't high enough to describe or cause the problems you say you have. However, all the *'s in your trace routes are a cause for concern.

Have you tried doing a traceroute to Telkom's website using the guest@telkomadsl account?
Click to expand...

I'm not sure whats going on but I can't even access the telkom website. Through my afrihost, axxess or the telkom guest account. (Other sites are working).

ADSL technician came today and is coming back tomorrow. He seemed to have no idea what was wrong, he just kept saying well the line is fine... He said tomorrow he will go try change my port or something at the exchange.

EDIT: the telkom site finally loaded after 10minutes, so i tried to tracert it when it did... below, check all the time outs:

Tracing route to telkom.co.za [196.43.22.222]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 1 ms <1 ms <1 ms dsldevice.lan [192.168.10.1]
2 30 ms 48 ms 46 ms 196-210-138-129.dynamic.isadsl.co.za [196.210.138.129]
3 46 ms * 32 ms 196.38.73.85
4 * * 44 ms cdsl2-rba-vl150.ip.isnet.net [196.38.73.9]
5 28 ms 36 ms 24 ms 168.209.1.140
6 * * 51 ms 168.209.1.179
7 52 ms 38 ms 27 ms rrba-ip-se-2-wan.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.25.46.89]
8 28 ms 61 ms 62 ms 196.43.25.137
9 38 ms 50 ms 59 ms 196.43.39.166
10 33 ms 53 ms 64 ms rrba-ip-bssr-1-ge-2-48.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.43.23.6]
11 55 ms 48 ms 35 ms nbsc-ip-bssr-1-atm-5-0-0-1.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.43.23.30]
12 32 ms 33 ms 61 ms nbsc-ip-rcache-1-vif0.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.43.22.222]

Trace complete.
 
Last edited:
E

elievan

Member
Joined
Mar 20, 2010
Messages
26
Logged on using the guest account - could access the telkom.co.za website in my browser. Traceroute wouldn't do anything, tried both guest and guest1 account:

C:\Users\Evan>tracert telkom.co.za

Tracing route to telkom.co.za [196.43.22.222]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 1 ms <1 ms <1 ms dsldevice.lan [192.1
2 42 ms 26 ms 31 ms dsl-165-145-22-01.te]
3 * * * Request timed out.
4 * * * Request timed out.
5 * * * Request timed out.
6 * * * Request timed out.
7 * * * Request timed out.
8 * * * Request timed out.
9 * * * Request timed out.
10 * * * Request timed out.
11 * * * Request timed out.
12 * * * Request timed out.
13 * * * Request timed out.
14 * * * Request timed out.
 
Hectic

Hectic

Executive Member
Joined
Sep 15, 2009
Messages
6,266
Not sure if the guest account can connect to the site, but try tracert capetown.spdtst.saix.net
You can replace capetown with rosebank if you dont rout through Cape Town
 
E

elievan

Member
Joined
Mar 20, 2010
Messages
26
RoMark said:
Not sure if the guest account can connect to the site, but try tracert capetown.spdtst.saix.net
You can replace capetown with rosebank if you dont rout through Cape Town
Click to expand...

Sorry still can't tracert anything while on the guest account!

Still have perfect upload speed, good pings (+-30ms), but a download speed of 0.15 to 0.30mbps.

Please can someone put me out of my misery. Is it possible that the exchange is responsible for this? Could it be my computer? It appears not to be the 'line' which telkom has checked a million times
 
P

p13t

Member
Joined
Sep 8, 2012
Messages
15
So I actually had quite a nice fight over the phone with some lady at Telkom about the same congestion issue this morning. I have a 1mbps line and I used to get like 1.01mbps/1.02mbps on Speedtest.net, recently it has gone down to between 0.70mbps and 0.80mbps max. Not that much of a difference I know, but hey doesn't mean I have to like it. So what actually send me over the top this morning is when the lady told me that in the fine print of the contract it actually says that if you are on a 1mbps line it is actually completely acceptable for Telkom if you get as low as 0.20mbps, because that is still within the spec of the line and that they do not guarantee speed. So technically they are within their right to add more people to a already congested exchange as long as the speed for a 1mbps line for example doesn't drop below 0.20mbps. Anyone know if this is actually true?
 
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