Am I being cheated or what?

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ejbengine

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I'm a new subsriber.Only been connected for just over 24 hours.I've got the

MyWireless Professional : shared Internet access with maximum uplink bandwidth of 128Kbps and maximum downlink bandwidth of 256Kbps
Click to expand...

I've just used the Sentech speed test(which does not offer the 256 option , but 512 and above).I got the following results:

Your download speed is: 5.44 KBps, or 43.54 Kbps
Click to expand...

I then tested with the speed tester at Telkom's website , and got the results :

Your line speed is approximately 39.6 Kbps or 4.8 kBytes/sec
Click to expand...

Frankly speaking I'm not seeing a difference between this 256K connection and my old 128K ISDN line....even the response times to browse websites.
I also tried downloading the FedoraCore 4 iso image from Internet Solutions and got a maximum of 9KB/s(~72Kbps which is way way below 256Kbps).I then tried getting the same iso image from an international ftp server , and got 2KB/s(~16Kbps).Is this is it?Worse than an ISDN?

What sort of speeds should I be getting?I'm located in Claremont , in Cape Town.

I'm really disappointed by this.

:mad:
 
if you've only been connected for 24 hours, maybe you still fall under the 'cooling off' period? (or isn't that applicable to sentech contracts)
anyway, personally, i think the 256K package isn't worth it at that price. Not for the speeds you're getting.

Secondly, people have been reporting slow speeds on mywireless the last few days, so it might be just a passing thing.

But if I were you, i'd take a look at my contract and see if i could still cancel it...
 
i'm kind of in a tight spot.My other alternative is iBurst but then I wont be able to do P2P :(
 
On this side of the country to the same server and I assume the same file :
Single thread wget :
Code: 
    0K .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........  0%   14.22 KB/s
   50K .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........  0%   20.91 KB/s
  100K .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........  0%   20.65 KB/s
  150K .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........  0%   24.43 KB/s
  200K .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........  0%   14.81 KB/s
  250K .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........  0%   23.53 KB/s
  300K .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........  0%   25.00 KB/s
  350K .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........  0%   28.31 KB/s
  400K .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........  0%   25.81 KB/s
  450K .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........  0%   27.82 KB/s
  500K .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........  0%   23.02 KB/s
  550K .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........  0%   27.35 KB/s
  600K .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........  0%   25.00 KB/s
  650K .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........  0%   27.11 KB/s
  700K .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........  0%   25.20 KB/s
  750K .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........  0%   25.80 KB/s
  800K .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........  0%   29.36 KB/s
  850K .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........  0%   22.70 KB/s
  900K .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........  0%   26.67 KB/s
  950K .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........  0%   20.12 KB/s
 1000K .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........  0%   29.10 KB/s

Terminated at 5MB, speeds as above. Multithread d/l manager, pretty much same speeds as above

Sentech speed test : Your download speed is: 26.22 KBps, or 209.73 Kbps

InternetFrog
Download: 226,056 bps
Upload: 70,744 bps
QOS: 73%
RTT: 274 ms
MaxPause: 657 ms

Telkom HTTP test : Estimated line speed: 24.6 (kiloBytes/second)

Must be that damn mountain over there that's screwing up your speed :)
 
same test (also in CT - Pinelands)

Speed Test
Your download speed is: 1.92 KBps, or 15.36 Kbps
The test took 278.561 seconds to complete

That's on a 128K package which untill last week delivered nearly full speed.

Must be all those new people signing up for mywy here in CT.
(and the weather has been wet and cold, maybe that's what keeps the sentech technicians indoors)
 
Last edited:
i've just performed another test (InternetFrog) and got the following results :

Download: 141,448 bps
Upload: 34,840 bps
QOS: 38%
RTT: 142 ms
MaxPause: 766 ms

Things seems to have improved a bit.Does the fact that i only have one bar on my modem(got the new ones that dont have a point-antennae) affect my DL speeds?
 
In my experience, the strength of the signal is not related to the download speed...
 
Yesterday my pings to the sentech site were ranging from 900ms to 3000ms. Must have been a problem with the network. Today they back to normal ... 150ms
 
Well i give up for today, i've learned a new language in the time i was waiting for stuff to download tonight...
 
Vlad said:
In my experience, the strength of the signal is not related to the download speed...
Click to expand...
Yeah we have the same here - sometimes my signal quality is a lowly 13% but the connection is full speed.
 
yep signal strength only affects maximum speed, but 13% still offer a valid 1mbit on wifi equipment for instance, I suppose same with mywireless except even fastest package doesnt cater for 1mbit+, so 6-13% signal should be fine for what you get from mywireless ;-)
 
Signal strength means very little, its your SNL (Signal to Noise Level) that counts.
If that is low, like below 5 dBm then even if your signal strength is 30+% you gonna have major problems, especially latency ones.
 
By playing around with a Poynting patch antenna, I have been able to get a SNL of 16dBm.
(This with a signal in excess of 40%, and a ber reading of 71%)
Anyone been able to get a SNL higher???
 
Will take the wife's laptop and the normal patch antenna for a stroll later, but I'm sure I've had around 19 during previous walks (with 40 signal and 71 ber) But don't quote me (yet)
 
Please note that there is a problem in Cape Town (in the last few days speeds have been poor) and many users there are experiencing slow speeds. Refering to the original post, I would hang in there as they are working on the problem and you can be sure that they will sort this out (as the alternative is that all the customers will leave).

Cheers
 
To obtain the best SNL, you need to find a Tower thats as far away from the city, or built up area as possible, ie where there is minimal noise :)
 
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