Any faster and it will melt the copper...

M

MKFrost

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For the past 5 odd months this has been the norm. Attached image is for the past 20 odd hours on my 1M line :sick:

Guess that's what Telkom means with 'best effort':

Best Effort = You pay for 100%, we will try our best to see if we can give you anything over 40%

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PS: Below is for a test I ran just now. Could not get any better. The world is standing still.... (sarcasm...)


zmhttHScDtw


PPS: Maybe I misunderstood, its not uncapped ADSl, its UNPLUGGED ADSL.... (loads of sarcasm)
 
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AlmightyBender said:
Who is your ISP?
Click to expand...

Telkom.

My line was fine up to about May this year. From June it started having 'problems' in that I would run into periods where it was just useless. As from middle August onwards it has been a bit of a nightmare in that it would just have days, like today, where you can get almost nothing out of it. Best speed I got on any test today was just over 300Kbps and had several times where it just 'froze' up. So much so that the speed test (testmy.net) times out.

Line tests fine. I'm only 1.2Km from the exchange (if measured along the road). Can hit it with a stone if I try hard enough.

Each time I contact Telkom its the same story...line tests fine... switch off router and wait.... blah blah blah....

Vodacom runs at one hell of a speed here and on Cell C I hit the 3 to 4Mb mark easily without problems, no matter the weather.

Maybe time to call it a day with Telkom. Will be a bit more expensive but sick and tired of this 'downtime'
 
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Update...

And all of a sudden all hell breaks loose...

Attached image shows the results of the automated speed tests done over the past 6 odd hours. You can see that I have been around the 100 to 200K mark the whole day. In the past hour however it is like somebody 'unblocked' the pipe. I am now constantly hitting 900+ marks and everything just screams along nicely.

Why does this happen? Why the bottlenecks the whole day long then a couple of hours of this glorious speed only to be back to sub par 300K later today?


ZCh1lX3byCd
 
MKFrost said:
And all of a sudden all hell breaks loose...

Attached image shows the results of the automated speed tests done over the past 6 odd hours. You can see that I have been around the 100 to 200K mark the whole day. In the past hour however it is like somebody 'unblocked' the pipe. I am now constantly hitting 900+ marks and everything just screams along nicely.

Why does this happen? Why the bottlenecks the whole day long then a couple of hours of this glorious speed only to be back to sub par 300K later today?


ZCh1lX3byCd
Click to expand...

What are you using to do the speed tests with?
 
grim said:
What are you using to do the speed tests with?
Click to expand...

testmy.net

Its similar to speedtest.net but it has an option to set it to do an auto test every hour. I'm not that technically inclined but apparently, to what I have read on there, the test is a more realistic test of the true speed than that as given by speedtest.net.

I've stopped using speedtest.net as I've found that I will do a speed test and then get the download speed to hunker down to say 100K the whole time and quickly give a spike up to say 900 en then drop down again. In such a case the download speed is reported as 900K even though it was below say 100K for 90% of the test. (This is just an example)
 
doesn't Telkom throttle uncapped account during certain hours and then relax the throttling as the day goes on? Could this explain the low speeds during day. But could be any number of things causing this.
 
MKFrost said:
testmy.net

Its similar to speedtest.net but it has an option to set it to do an auto test every hour. I'm not that technically inclined but apparently, to what I have read on there, the test is a more realistic test of the true speed than that as given by speedtest.net.
iI've stopped using speedtest.net as I've found that I will do a speed test and then get the download speed to hunker down to say 100K the whole time and quickly give a spike up to say 900 en then drop down again. In such a case the download speed is reported as 900K even though it was below say 100K for 90% of the test. (This is just an example)
Click to expand...

I've never gotten very good results from testmy.net even though I can download at 1MB/s all day long.

Did 5 tests now on there, highest was 4.2Mbps

4 Threads download of Win7SP1:
159af5.png


I don't trust any speed test sites, the best way to test is to download something from a server you know you won't be maxing the servers connection.
 
AlmightyBender said:
doesn't Telkom throttle uncapped account during certain hours and then relax the throttling as the day goes on? Could this explain the low speeds during day. But could be any number of things causing this.
Click to expand...

I doubt this is the problem as this problem crops up at any time of day/night. I run several trading applications 24/7 and they are quite stable even on very slow connections/low bandwidth. When they start disconnecting you can be sure that something is wrong in a big way.

Since August I get two or three days, like today, per week where my connection will just drop to a crawl for about 2 to 5 hours and then just go back to normal and run as if there never was any problems. Take today as an example. My connection dropped to sub 200K for about 5 hours and just went back up to 1M from around 2 this afternoon. For the past 4 hours I am getting up to 1.5M on my 1M line and the slowest speed test was around 960.

The problems seems to be more one of congestion if you ask me. I think that's why the local Techie from Telkom does not know what to do as the problem comes and goes.

I'm not a heavy data user. My platforms draw about 10 to 15Mb a day and my monthly usage is around 15 to 30Gig of which up to half is going via my mobile connections when the ADSL is acting up. I run a Vodacom data connection as a backup and for times when I'm mobile and I've never had a single issue with it in over 3 years. Always on and reliable, no matter where I am in the country and always at excellent speeds.

I now have a Cell C connection as well which I am starting to test out due to their better data pricing and due to the fact that I am looking at going 100% mobile with Cell C and still keeping Vodacom as a backup. Just not willing to pay for an ADSL service that's only working half the time.

I dont mind paying but I do mind paying for something I am not getting.
 
grim said:
I don't trust any speed test sites
Click to expand...

Valid point and I tend to agree. I will play with some downloads over the weekend and see what it gives compared to the speed test results.

I know the speed tests are not always reliable but when things come to such a standstill that your browser even timeout on google.co.za then you know somewhere there is a big cockup or somebody is running into the distance with your copper under his arm :)
 
grim said:
Get a 1GB Prepaid account from Axxess and see if the problem persists, it's only R29
Click to expand...

I will do... do I understand this correctly... if the problems go away it then means that the problem is with Telkom as the ISP right?

I think this might be the case as there is clearly nothing wrong with the line (technically).
 
MKFrost said:
Valid point and I tend to agree. I will play with some downloads over the weekend and see what it gives compared to the speed test results.

I know the speed tests are not always reliable but when things come to such a standstill that your browser even timeout on google.co.za then you know somewhere there is a big cockup or somebody is running into the distance with your copper under his arm :)
Click to expand...

That actually happened to one of my friends, his internet at home died so as he's leaving his house to go work at the office they were busy rolling up the copper, no jokes.

MKFrost said:
I will do... do I understand this correctly... if the problems go away it then means that the problem is with Telkom as the ISP right?

I think this might be the case as there is clearly nothing wrong with the line (technically).
Click to expand...

If the problems go away with the Axxess account, the fault is on Telkom ISP side, if not it could be that your exchange is congested.
 
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