Any improvement after this morning's upgrade?

[MrGray]

Well, after their scheduled router hardware upgrade this morning I must say my connection is flying - From the speed test (256k package):

Your download speed is: 24.5 KBps, or 195.99 Kbps
The test took 41.797 seconds to complete

Low latency and packet loss as well.

As usual, though, we'll hold our breath to see what happens when everyone else gets back online during the day. Their network shutdowns are usually always followed by euphoria at the sudden high speeds, followed by disappointment as the congestion builds up again.

Who knows, myabe this time it will be different??

There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of by mere mortal men - Shakespeare

 

[Kevinf]

Well browsing speeds have definitely increased.

 

[Headend]

Looks like the packet loss issues are resolved. While downloading (6 threads) from ftp.is.co.za I got the following pings...

Ping statistics for 66.18.65.115:
Packets: Sent = 50, Received = 50, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 78ms, Maximum = 641ms, Average = 131ms

Lets hold thumbs

Headend
Tower: Mintek (82 was 12) - Signal: 19% - Firmware: 4.2.1.8 - 128k - Smoothwall and PPPoE

 

[arf9999]

hmmm...not that much change for me.

Results:

Telkom speed test:
* Download time: 64.188 seconds
* Size of file: 500 KiloBytes
* Estimated line speed: 63.6 (kilobits/second)
* Estimated line speed: 7.8 (kiloBytes/second)

Sentech speed test:
Your download speed is: 7.99 KBps, or 63.89 Kbps
The test took 66.985 seconds to complete

At least they are consistent.

My pings look slightly better in terms of packet loss (about 3%), but latency is still sh*t.

Min=115 : Max=2455 : Ave=481 ms : Packetloss = 5%



MW128, Tower <b>60</b>(Northpark Plaza), Signal:16%,S-N-L: 7, BER: 45%

 

[TadMadLad]

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by garp</i>
<br />Well, after their scheduled router hardware upgrade this morning I must say my connection is flying - From the speed test (256k package):
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

well, i cant give specifics because i havent spent time monitoring, but... it does actually feel niftier, i downloaded 300mb last night, first time in a long time because i basically gave up on it, but yeah, it seems rather nice now.

 

[pmik]

Mine is cruising! First time in a long time I'm getting download rates over 10KBps. I'm on a 128K package.

Tower 126 (Fourways) - signal 19%

 

[regardtv]

After a typical "network fix" the Sentech connection flies. This is because most users don't immediately re-connect. As more users connect we get back to higher latency and slower speeds.

I'd suggest you wait till monday evening to say there has been an improvement.

On a personal note I will say:
1) Latency is a "tad" better"
2) Variability in latency has reduced (a good sign)

Personally I'll be giving them time till end August to see the "promised" improvements

 

[Brolloks]

I won't start jumping up and down either.
Some things seem faster ie. p2p
Browsing? Had to disconnect and reconnect twiceand restart before I could browse.
Seems to be same as usual

 

[Robone]

I still think that if you reduce the ber your ping times improve. Now I see everyone with bad a ber (i.e. less than 70%) are having bad ping times and increased packet loss

That means improve the signal strength

 

[FacELesS]

This morning at 9:30 am I had 0% packet loss when pinging www.sentech.co.za, saix.net and mweb.co.za. I was able to play natural-selection with almost no packet loss and a ping between 150 and 350, which is playable in a way.

Just got back home at 2:51 and tried pinging www.sentech.co.za and 10% packet loss. Guess the packet loss is returning which makes gaming complete no-go area.

 

[hArTh]

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by FacELesS</i>
<br />Just got back home at 2:51 and tried pinging www.sentech.co.za and 10% packet loss. Guess the packet loss is returning which makes gaming complete no-go area.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

[B)] &lt;- Faceless
[}] &lt;- Winston Smith

-Information anarchist-
www.sentechhatesfreespeech.org.za
I support:
www.poopband.co.za
www.hellkom.co.za

 

[Brolloks]

Just checked again... still much of a muchness

 

[noswal]

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Brolloks</i>
<br />Just checked again... still much of a muchness
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

or, less of a lessness

_________________________________________________________________________
No more catenna, now its a custenna

 

[TheRoDent]

Same ****, new billing month:

--- www.sentech.co.za ping statistics ---
27 packets transmitted, 23 packets received, 14% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max = 203.8/361.6/2170.5 ms

<center><h6> MyWireless <s>Hacks</s> Tweaks & Tech Info || Have you checked the fawking FAQ? <br /> <font color="red">Tired of Sentech's bad service? Want to compare speeds? We at least listen...</font id="red"></h6></center>

 

[MrGray]

Yes rodent, I see the same and my speed is unacceptable again - on the 256k package:

Your download speed is: 8.62 KBps, or 68.98 Kbps
The test took 62.046 seconds to complete

and wildly fluctuating latency with packet loss is back:

Ping statistics for 66.18.65.115 (www.sentech.co.za):
Packets: Sent = 27, Received = 23, Lost = 4 (14% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 78ms, Maximum = 547ms, Average = 183ms

I'd love to know what us going on that following these "hardware upgrades" things work well for a few hours and then deteriorate again. Is it purely attributable to their network resets throwing a lot of users off or is there something more to it? Like maybe they actually make the right configuration changes on one level but they are not persistent because something is still misconfigured??? Or are there some users that are doing something they shouldn't be - like reselling bandwidth on a massive scale?? It's quite frustrating to see that it can sometimes work, but not consistently.




There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of by mere mortal men - Shakespeare

 

[Prescription]

My speeds are still pathetic too. I'm connecting via Mintek Tower on the 128k package, here's the latest results from Sentech speed test:

Your download speed is: 4.85 KBps, or 38.83 Kbps
The test took 110.235 seconds to complete

From the Telkom test i got these results:

Results:
Below is the data used to calculate your download speed:

Download time: 110.343 seconds
Size of file: 500 KiloBytes
Estimated line speed: 37 (kilobits/second)
Estimated line speed: 4.5 (kiloBytes/second)

This is real Boredband at your fingertips..

 

[mrbob]

Yip speeds were great from yesterday morning until late last night, then they went to **** again.

I must say though they are still technically better than before, although on p2p I'm still spending most of time downloading less thank 1K a second with occasionaL spikes, those spikes are a lot higher... like 11Kb/s , but they only last for one second so it's hardly helpful.

Anyways , maybe they're just busy tweaking things? Who knows, we can just hope.

 

[TadMadLad]

maybe they are packet shaping....... would that not be the best news ever.

 

[Saul]

They most certainly arent using port shaping, I average roughly 14K on Bit torrent. What they are doing however is badly distributing the bandwidth.

The problem with the whole network is that there is a highly uneven distribution of users per tower. Linksfield tower which I am on doesnt seem to have a large base of users compared to brixton.
The only solution is to increase the bandwidth on those towers.

Am I totally wrong or does this make sense?

 

[arf9999]

Well, something has changed... but not for the better.

This evening my speeds are right down. on p2p I was getting 13KB/s or more...now down to 8K max (with 10 streams active). Browsing is deathly slow. Pings are in 300+ average and packet loss is 20% or more.

WTF?



MW128, Tower <b>60</b>(Northpark Plaza), Signal:16%,S-N-L: 7, BER: 45%