How does Telkom limit you to 512/256.

[Myrrdin]

Hi all.

Need a question answered. There are various posts about being to upload at a greater speed than 256k but so far I have not noticed anyone being able to exceed the 512k down limit. Why I am asking is that in one of the Sentech forums someone mentioned a certain tape about Cameron Diaz which he was downloading. Being a bit of a fan I though cool would like to see it. [}] Didn't have a p2p thingy so went to the best p2p tool topic here. I downloaded and installed and did a search for said tape and was pretty impressed to find it.

Started the download and after crawling along at about 10kb went and fiddled the ports as per another discussion in this forum to port 80. Lo and behold it set of at a blistering pace of 350kb in total after connection to something ridiculous like 121 resources. Please correct me if I am wrong but that speed would be consistent with a 3mb connection as I take 3072/8 = 384 odd. So with a bit of overhead 350kb could be achieved? At first I though no, its the p2p tool that reporting it incorrectly. So while this download was running (btw it downloaded the 66.4 mb file in just under 5 minutes) I fired up getright and downloaded a 13mb file from bike crashes dot com. It grabbed 17kb from the p2p tool at first, then I changed it to multiple connections and zoom it jumped to 124kb which is consistant with load sharing, ie 1/3rd of the total bandwith.

Now back to my question. How does Telkom limit your connection to 512?
If you have the answer and Telkom have made a mistake somewhere please delete this post asap.[] I like downloading at 350kb. The only prob is that I will zoom through my cap so fast I could get a sonic boom.[] Has anyone else experienced this?



Of course I don't look busy.....I did it right the first time.

 

[Myrrdin]

Hi all.

Just went for my first smoke for the day and may have answered my own question while thinking about it. (Whoever said smoking is bad for you). So a change to the question.

Because I changed my port to 80 I was going through Telkom's trasparent proxy and there were so many people looking at this file that it was cached. Hence my phenomonal download speeds.

Is this possible? MMMaybe not... wouldn't explain the getright download. I am going to shut up now and let the clever people answer my question. (Smoking is bad for you) []

Of course I don't look busy.....I did it right the first time.

 

[Scandium]

Ohhhh.... That Cameron Diaz Tape >;p Let me know how that goes...

Space isn't remote at all. It's only an hour's drive away
if your car could go straight upwards."
--Sir Fred Hoyle

 

[Andre]

Sounds like you have bits and bytes mixed up. One byte=eight bits.

ADSL is 512 kiloBITS/sec download. That's 64 kiloBYTES/sec in theory

 

[Strobemeister]

Myr, have you checked the results of your d/l yet?
I had a similar experience while d/l a certain film about our favourite US President.
Its a fake of course and tricks the P2P client into indicating a higher d/l speed than it is, and also fakes the size of the completed file.
for a list of these offending files, go to www.fakefiles.tk.

Telkom - South Africa's Handbrake to progress.

 

[Myrrdin]

Hi all.

Just to confirm I am not going crazy. Did a test tonight.

First screen dump
http://server6.uploadit.org/files/Myrrdin-Dump1.JPG

Second screen dump
http://server6.uploadit.org/files/Myrrdin-Dump2.JPG

And before you say that the monitor in the bottom right hand corner is showing only 56kb I took dumps of the monitor as well.

http://server6.uploadit.org/files/Myrrdin-Dump3.JPG

I obviously did not get the same speeds as last night but I was only running it for about 5 minutes. Dont want to download 66 meg again.

Yes, the file seems fine, watched it. Nothing to get too excited about. Looks more like a "How we made the video" type of documentary.


Of course I don't look busy.....I did it right the first time.

 

[Scandium]

shareaza is a bit misleading as its bandwidth measurement is done in bits. ie: kb/s kilobits, so that 81 kb/s on your monitor was in fact 10 kilobytes per second. Which is pretty normal for ADSL. Am I missing something?

Space isn't remote at all. It's only an hour's drive away
if your car could go straight upwards."
--Sir Fred Hoyle

 

[SK33T]

im sure your d/l was fast ,and u didnt get bits and bytes mixed up.
I hear what u say,lucky basdard.
Theres no ways u could d/l a 66mb file so fast if it was in bits,so dont listen to that crap just enjoy the file

 

[Scandium]

Okay, well...

I was just pointing out how shareaza does in fact report the download speed in bits, this is factual and far from "crap".

The 350kbps attained by Myrrdin was not 350 kilobytes per second, but kilobits per second aka 43.75 kilobytes per second.

I can't believe this:

66 400 kilo bytes in 5 minutes (300 seconds)
66 400 / 300 = 221.3 kilobytes per second

which is a whopping 1770.4 kilobits per second, wow, you achieved a data rate tripple that of a normal ADSL connection.... sure... unless you got some kryptonite next your ADSL modem, it's just not possible.

Myrrdin, your screen dumps dont support your theory either as all the speeds are in KILOBITS NOT KILOBYTES.

Im not trying to call you a liar, im just voicing my opinion and experience with p2p. I am skeptic by nature and don't believe everything I am told on a forum.

Space isn't remote at all. It's only an hour's drive away
if your car could go straight upwards."
--Sir Fred Hoyle

 

[Myrrdin]

Geez people. Please don't turn this into another fighting post.

Scandium, I agree that I am also very sceptical, and I have been using Kazaa, Morpheus, WINx (something cant remember) for a very long time while I was on 56k modem, 64K ISDN, 128K ISDN so am not a newbie in regard to p2p. Have not been p2p'ing since I went to ADSL 'cause of the cap. That is why I asked the question in the first place. If you look at my initial posts you will see I asked about cache'ing as that is the only explanation that sort of made sense. And yes, it would also explain the similar results I got on Getright which btw does not report the speed in kilobits. I am not going to try and convince you that it did in fact download the file in 5 minutes, believe me or don't believe me *shrug*. Go and try it out yourself if you would be satisfied.

Thanks for the vote of trust SK33T.

If however my original question is considered "How does Telkom limit you to 512Kilobytes down/256Kilobytes up". I was wondering if the DSLAM in the exchange is 2MB capable and have 4 ports as reported somewhere on the forum, couldn't be bothered to search for it, and I am the only user in my exchange on the DSLAM would it give me the full 2MB. Just a question? I am just considering all the reasons for the mega download. I myself is leaning in favour of the cache'ing solution. I did try and download other files and I never even got close to those download speeds which makes me think even more that the file was cached.

If you now extend this logic a bit I think I know the reason the cap has shifted from being on international vs everything. Telkom's transparent proxy caches all kinds of files so it would not be valid ,if you download a file and the source is international but you are getting if from the cache, to count it toward your international cap. It would also mean Telkom would have to interrogate the cache constantly for international files that are cached.

Due to the nature of the file's content it is not available from many "free" sources other than p2p so I cannot use any download managers on it to truly test the cach'ing theory. Unless you want to install another p2p package and retry the download, feel free to do so and report back.

So basically if anyone else would like to waste 66mb of their cap and try to download the file to test that I am not the only getting this experience it would be nice. If noone does so be it. I was only asking a question about an anomaly I experienced. I certainly did not expect to have my values and integrety questioned.

Of course I don't look busy.....I did it right the first time.

 

[Scandium]

Myrrdin, I was not trying to challenge your values or your integrity. I was merely pointing out that you may have been deceived (as many have before) by the way in which Shareaza reports download speeds.

I am certainly not trying to start a flame war as no one can learn from such frivalous argument. Let's rather see if we can figure out what you did to obtain these speeds... like, did you put in any proxy details for shareaza etc.

I don't think all p2p data can really be cached as it is sent in segments which vary in size and these segments by themselves carry no significant meaning and hence are not usually cached. I believe that p2p query data can be cached.

I am willing to give it a go with shareaza and the same download, will let you know what happens tomorrow...

If you manage to get it to do what it did again, let us know and take screenshots (to satisfy me ) and yeah, don't take my post personally Im just trying to find sanity. In my +- 1 year of ADSL use I have never seen it go above 52 kilobytes per second and that is why I am sceptical, forgive me.

Space isn't remote at all. It's only an hour's drive away
if your car could go straight upwards."
--Sir Fred Hoyle

 

[SK33T]

Some p2p also has compression in the software,that coild also be a reason.
Ive had plenty d/l starting of at 350kb/s then slowly taper of to a steady 100kb/s and was also thrilled.Did files easily of 10mb in a minute,although i must say its not something that happens all the time,I just wish it was all the time.

 

[Scandium]

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by SK33T</i>
<br />Some p2p also has compression in the software,that coild also be a reason.
Ive had plenty d/l starting of at 350kb/s then slowly taper of to a steady 100kb/s and was also thrilled.Did files easily of 10mb in a minute,although i must say its not something that happens all the time,I just wish it was all the time.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Indeed, I've never experienced this before, but emule runs at 100% utilization, which is odd considering p2p traffic is shaped, I am running it on port 25, so I suppose that makes all the difference but like I say, I had two downloads going +20 kilobytes per second and another one chugging along at 7 kilobytes per seconds. Was quite pleased, unfortunately the cap exists

Space isn't remote at all. It's only an hour's drive away
if your car could go straight upwards."
--Sir Fred Hoyle

 

[SK33T]

Then u must try a local hub bru,very often im getting 52kb/s on my d/ls

 

[Scandium]

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by SK33T</i>
<br />Then u must try a local hub bru,very often im getting 52kb/s on my d/ls
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

The dc++ hub or is there a working torrent network. I would love to know how to gain access, for ligitimate reason's of course ;P

Space isn't remote at all. It's only an hour's drive away
if your car could go straight upwards."
--Sir Fred Hoyle

 

[Myrrdin]

Ok, thanks guys. No offence take Scandium.

So we agree that p2p traffic seems to be running at max when you do use it, ie very little time is lost as the connections seems to be very stable and the swapping between connections is almost instantly. Especially if you run on a "non-p2p" port. Could this be good news? I doubt it. Or only till Telkom discovers this.

Yeah Scandium, I agree, the bloooooooody cap. Thanks for the double checking that you ran.

Ok, so downloading this file at a full 56kilobytes per second should take 66400/56 = 1185 seconds = under twenty minutes is still impressive. But to answer the question of the mega download. I think sk33t might be on to something with his reply. I have noticed that download managers start the download the moment you select the download (to memory/temp file) and then asks you for the location to store it. If you then take lets say 5 minutes to select the location it does a dump from memory/temp file to your selected location. The download manager takes the file size divided by the time to display the transfer rate, hence you get the 350kb which then slowly deteriorates as the time increases but the download speed not.

As I said in my initial post I did start the download first before I started to fiddle with the ports which may be the key to the whole question. IF the port shaping was disabled for some reason and Sharezaa was not updating its totals while the settings window was open, but was still downloading the file to memory/tempfile. Now I did not time the time it took me to read the post on MyAdsl, swap, apply changes to the setting in Shareza, swap back to confirm I got it correct, Swap back to Sharezaa, etc, etc so that could have taken lets say between 10 and 15 minutes let say. I click on apply and suddenly Sharezaa discovers it has 45 odd mb in memory and includes the size in the total, but resets the time as I clicked apply. It actually only has 20mb odd left to complete the download which is quite do-able at a full 56kb/s (20000/56=357 seconds = 5.95 minutes). I know this streches a lot of envelopes, but it sort of satisfies me (dont know about Scandium though []).

If this situation stays like that until the end of the month. On the last day I have 24 hours = 86400 seconds times at full 56kb speed I could do 4.8gb. Yep, thats gonna leave a bruse on Telkoms server. [}]





Of course I don't look busy.....I did it right the first time.

 

[Scandium]

Okay, let me take another crack at this...

Now we know that p2p data over the wire is nothing more than segments of data, when shaping occurs it needs to (depending how hardcore) first determine the nature of the data, this is difficult as this type of data is segments of arbitrary bytes. So, I guess as an easy way out, they simply limit the regular p2p ports by dropping the packets etc.

I have been using other ports (25, 80) for a while now and it hasnt failed, I also don't think telkom can really do anything about it.

sk33t is correct, Compression does indeed increase the download speed drastically, but only in certain scenarios. Sometimes you get a file that has whitespace in it, which as you can imagine compresses extremely well, ie: 5mb of whitespace could compress to a few kilobytes. Documentation and the sorts also compress well, increased speeds are noted whilst downloading these types of files.

Space isn't remote at all. It's only an hour's drive away
if your car could go straight upwards."
--Sir Fred Hoyle

 

[SnowWar]

Gees peeps,

I've also looked at the connection speeds on a few ADSL Routers (D-Link, NetGear etc.) and noticed the following:

Modem Status Connected
DownStream Connection Speed 2048 kbps
UpStream Connection Speed 512 kbps

I also know personally that on those 2 routers my ADSL in the UK showed 512/256 as the connection speed. Just as it is suppose to be and I got my 64KB/sec down and 32KB/sec upload most of the time.

Is it just me or does it look like we connect at the maximum speed capable here in SA (I know that was the case in the beginning stages of testing ADSL in SA) and then our speed just gets limited with server-side software or something like that.

I was just wondering...

 

[jake]

I concur with snowwall,

Is there any possibility that the 512 limit is part of the shaping at the transparent proxy but we get 2mb downstream from the proxy ?? - just a thought.

 

[Andre]

Isn't the limiting done at the DSLAM? Where's Podo?[]