How to test if your ADSL exchange is congested

[Tinuva]

This is what my congestion looks like on a general evening:

I will add a Telkom guest account and test that too.

 

[DJ...]

Here's what mine looks like at the moment on two different accounts:

Axxess:

Openweb:

So I'm assuming that this means that there is currently no congestion on my exchange, as hop 2 seems fine. Don't understand what else is going on and why there are errors further down the path. Perhaps someone can shed some light?

Interestingly speedtests are fine, but torrents are at a practical halt, so I'm gonna go ahead and assume that this is ISP shaping and not an issue with my line, considering it hits full line speed after 11pm every night...

 

[atomcrusher]

Your traceroute is fine. Lower millisecond numbers are indeed better, while the jump from hop 6 onwards would most likely be your packets traversing a long physical route at this point (i.e. hops 2-5 are routers in the Cape, from 6 onwards are routers in the Transvaal).

Thanks for the explanation .. apreciated

 

[system32]

I have been battling for 6 months, I always had a download speed of 3.47MB (4MB ADSL) all day! now only in the evening do I get close to those speeds. Now from 8AM - 5pm speedtest shows 1.5 - 2MB dowload if I am lucky.
<SNIP>

This is similar to the ADSL issue I had.
I had a 4Mbps line.
Excellent speeds 3.5Mbps at 5am, slowing down to 0.2Mbps during peak times 2pm-midnight.
I tried 3 different ISP's MWEB, WebAfrica, FNBConnect and a private APN.
All ISP's had the same throughput profile, fast in the morning, slow in the evening.
Could not even watch youtube without buffering.
I logged a call with Telkom, kept the call open for 6 months.
After 6 months of calling Telkom they admitted to exchange congestion.
I gave up, cancelled ADSL, asked for a refund from Telkom for the 6 months of rental, and switched to 3G.
Been very happy ever since - I used about 20GB-30GB per month.

 

[ranger]

traceroute on IPC can't prove dslam congestion

 

[atomcrusher]

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

1 14 ms 8 ms 13 ms Billion.400G [10.0.0.2]
2 17 ms 18 ms 17 ms ti-224-92-01.telkomadsl.co.za [105.224.92.1]
3 27 ms 44 ms 28 ms ti-226-0-06.telkomadsl.co.za [105.226.0.6]
4 28 ms 20 ms 28 ms ti-226-0-13.telkomadsl.co.za [105.226.0.13]
5 36 ms 30 ms 17 ms wblv-ip-hsll-1-wan.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.25.39.45]
6 53 ms 45 ms 63 ms 196.43.39.162
7 40 ms 40 ms 39 ms rrba-ip-bssr-1-ge-2-48.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.43.23.6]
8 41 ms 42 ms 43 ms nbsc-ip-bssr-2-atm-5-0-0-1.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.43.23.34]
9 42 ms 42 ms 42 ms nbsc-ip-rcache-1-vif0.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.43.22.222]

Trace complete.

Does the "step 2 = 17ms ... "step 3 = 27ms" mean my local (Swellendam, WC) exchange is congested?

The biggest increase in milliseconds is in Step 5, i.e. from 36ms to 53ms. How does one identify where the congestion is?

 

[MickeyD]

Does the "step 2 = 17ms ... "step 3 = 27ms" mean my local (Swellendam, WC) exchange is congested?

The biggest increase in milliseconds is in Step 5, i.e. from 36ms to 53ms. How does one identify where the congestion is?

Those are pretty good stats...

 

[hstrauss]

The biggest increase in milliseconds is in Step 5, i.e. from 36ms to 53ms. How does one identify where the congestion is?

That's actually fine, since I've rarely seen sub 35ms CPT to JNB.

The wblv in step 5 indicates w=western region, blv=Bellville.

Also important to note is that traffic through the particular hop is usually prioritized and traceroute generation is deprioritized, so always check that the high latency continues beyond the indicated hop, e.g.

5    100ms 100ms 100ms
6    200ms 10000ms *
7    120ms 120ms 119ms

indicates hop 6 might be under load, but the traffic is passing through it quickly, whereas

5    100ms 100ms 100ms
6    200ms 10000ms *
7    1220ms 1020ms 1190ms

indicates it's congested from that hop onwards.

 

[shauntir]

I have exactly the same issues. Slow speeds during the evenings between 5:30 pm until about midnight. It's frustrating especially since I moved from 1Mbps Mweb uncapped to Openwen 2Mbps uncapped and have exactly the same line speed when I actully do need to use the service - 0.3 - 0.5 Mbps.

Even browsing the net becomes an issue. Was also going to get a new modem/router since I have one of those crappy Mega 105 modem/router.

I wish I knew what else to do since most other broadband services are expensive or capped. *sigh*