I'm confused - internation slow?

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rvent

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Hi,

I've had a 384kb at my last house for a couple of years and all internet traffic (local and international) would top out and download at the same speed 38kb/s or so all the time, this would be on either the Telkom ADSL account or Axxess or WebAfrica accounts that I've used over the years.

No I've moved and have a 4mbs ADSL line. I'm finding that I top out local download speeds (off ftp.is.co.za or client's local webserver) at about 250kb/s for downloading a file.

When I try download off international servers (www or ftp) I can only manage at most 40kb/s unless I use a download manager which can maybe make that 3x or 4x that speed. I've tested it with the Telkom ADSL account I have and a Afrihost account.

These results are confirmed when I test on speedtest.net using the local midrand server vs the San Francisco servers (or any international server).

I'm confused, what's going on here? Maybe I'm doff or something but what's the benefit of a fast line if I can't get fast international speeds :(

Any comments and info would be greatly appreciated.
 
That does sound strange indeed. Are you absolutely sure about what is happening? Local downloads max your 4mb line out, but international downloads don't go over 40kB/s (kilobytes per second), unless you do a multi-threaded download? And this happen's with both Afrihost and Telkom?

Does this happen consistently, everytime? How long have you had your 4mb line for? Have you tried testing a different modem on your ADSL line, or testing your modem on someone elses ADSL line?
 
Yep, both Afrihost (which I think goes through IS) and Telkom accounts.

I was thinking that I should try another modem on my line, if it still happens then I suspect it's a line problem.
 
Highly unlikely that it is a line problem. If you are getting full speed on local, then your line is fine. Might be the modem, could even be your DNS settings.

What DNS settings are you using on your router/modem? Are they set to "Automatic" or have you manually configured them?
 
Yeah, my thoughts exactly. Either both local and international is slow due to a modem or line problem or they're both fast. Hence my confusion.

The modem is a Telkom Billion 800VGT and the DNS settings the the automatic Telkom ADSL account ones, which are at this moment are 196.43.50.190 and 196.43.53.190

Could this be a line shaping problem or something like that? Also I'd be interested to find out what speeds people should be getting on average on speedtest.net for US servers, so that I can know what the norm is.
 
I am having exactly the same problem. I am on a 4mbt line and for the past 2 weeks have been getting frighteningly poor international latency and download speeds. Since I mostly use my connection for World of Warcraft purposes, this has been very frustrating.(Constant disconnects and very bad lag spikes)

Using speedtest.net I am getting an average download speed of 3.48mbit to all their local SA servers but this drops to as low as 200-300kbits when running the tests on there European/ American servers.
I have tried Axxess semi-shaped, Afrihost shaped and Openweb unshaped accounts and though there are slight performance differences, the overall results are the same. Occasionally the International speeds match their SA counterparts, but drop soon afterwards. The only thing all 3 of the accounts have in common is that the bandwidth is supplied by IS. Is there some kind of international shaping/throttling going on - even on what are supposed to be unshaped accounts 0.o ?

I am currently living in the Welgevonden area of Stellenbosch. I have already contacted telkom and according to their results there is nothing wrong with my line. I am less than 1km away from the exchange and have never experienced 1 drop in connectivity. :(

As a last resort I have bought a Webafrica unshaped account to see if it makes any difference, but am still waiting for it to be activated so I can test it.
 
I'm going to pickup a mate's ADSL modem to test.

I did a 100mb file FTP test to web server in Los Angeles, I can upload at an average of 50kb/s however when I download it averages 26kb/s. Surely it should work out to be faster to download than to upload.
Doing local server (Hetzner) FTP tests I get 250kb/s download and 50kb/s upload.
 
A friend let me test his Linksys modem, I'm getting the same results. I can only conclude that it's some type line related problem
 
Interesting...

There have been a few threads and posts lately about slow connectivity. At first I thought it was only with Afrihost but now it seems that it sometimes affects other ISPs as well. I'm capped on my Telkom account so I'll have to wait another three days before I can retest this issue.

I have simular issues with my 384kbit line on Afrihost/IS. The performance seems to differ geographically. Pulling locally is fine, youtube is fine but most other sites I get almost half my line speed.

I got so frustrated that I went looking for some overseas proxy servers to see what happens if my traffic were routed differently. Surprise surprise, when using a random UK proxy my browsing and speeds were fine. Turned the proxy off and it was slow again, turned it on again and it was fine, turned off.. well you get the idea.

So now I'm starting to think that it is something related to the international pipes and routing, but I can't be sure.

Can't say that you guys would get the same results as I'm only on 384kbit and my max is 38KB/s. I don't like the idea of using an unknown proxy routing all my traffic so I turned it off but it was an interesting test.
 
1. If local is max speed and international is not, it is not a line or modem or pc problem.
2. International is highly contended, especially during business hours but even after hours there could very well be shaping on it.
3. While you have tested 2 different ISPs, ie. a resold IS and SAIX account, you have not mentioned whether either of these are Shaped or Unshaped bandwidth.

Personally I think you should also try a Unshaped account, but chances are nothing you change on your side, or anything Telkom do on your line will improve what you experience. I wouldn't be surprised if there are per session limiting for international on most networks, it would keep bandwidth usage sane as well as try and keep it fair per person.

Also this i why most download managers support multiple threads, so that you can do as much as you can to max out your line speed, its about the only thing you can do.

I'd like to suggest Orbit download manager, not only is it free, but it does not contain ads or annoying popups like most other download managers. Generally it just works.
 
Hi Again. Thanks for all the replies so far. I ran my tests again today, using my new Webafrica unshaped account. Local speedtests show a download speed of 2.5 - 3.4 mbits. International is peaking at at about 300kbits >.< This is to all of the international sites I tested. And with that went my last hope for solving this problem :cry:

Latency is good, with pings of about 200 to the European sites, but a lot of good that does if someone is throttling the living crap out of international bandwidth....

Has anyone else experienced a similar issue and solved it?
 
My international speeds on Afrihost are also not as good as they should be, about the same as you, its annoying i know
 
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