International slow speed while local is okay - Webafrica via SADV/Vumatel 100/100mbps

[queery1985]

I ordered 100/100 Mbps fibre line from WebAfrica with the line installed by SADV(now Vumatel) in Sep 2019 in Ekhuruleni.

From the start the Download and Upload locally (usually test to Afrihost) on speedtest.net has been 100/100 Mbps
As soon as I cross the border (Usually Vodafone UK - London) Download drops. 30/100 Mbps. The upload is fine.

WebAfrica gave me an IPERF3 server to test to in CPT and London and it clearly showed that Locally I get 100/100 Mbps on both IPERF and IPERF-Reverse, while to London I get 100/100 Mbps on IPERF but 30/100 Mbps (at best) on IPERF-Reverse

During Lockdown my line was bumped to 200/100 but I saw no change on the international line. (I'm not getting the 200mbps, but I'm fighting one fight at a time)

At one stage they blamed Liquid Telecoms, now they blame SADV, but in the meantime, I'm not getting good download speeds. SADV says it's not them and Liquid just didn't come back to WebAfrica.

Who is responsible for that speed internationally, Webafrica, SADV/VumaTel or someone else?? And why can't WebAfrica figure this out?
It's been 10 Months...

 

[pinball wizard]

What would Liquid have to do with anything?

Your problem is squarely with your ISP here.

We as the FNO have zero control over your international capacity.

 

[cavedog]

What would Liquid have to do with anything?

Your problem is squarely with your ISP here.

We as the FNO have zero control over your international capacity.

So loss on the fibre line have zero effect on tcp performance to destinations 160ms away?

 

[pinball wizard]

So loss on the fibre line have zero effect on tcp performance to destinations 160ms away?

They would.

Specifically in this case:

I doubt that any issues on the fibre between his house and Teraco would be isolated to him alone. We would have a slew of complaints from end points on that backhaul link if the physical infrastructure was to blame. And I don't see any.

 

[cavedog]

They would.

Specifically in this case:

I doubt that any issues on the fibre between his house and Teraco would be isolated to him alone. We would have a slew of complaints from end points on that backhaul link if the physical infrastructure was to blame. And I don't see any.

I think @Cav5034 would disagree....

Last mile loss is more common than you think even when FNO deny it.

 

[pinball wizard]

I think @Cav5034 would disagree....

Last mile loss is more common than you think even when FNO deny it.

I think the ISP blaming Liquid who have nothing to do with it says everything you need to know.

Either way, the end user's first line of support is the ISP who would escalate this to the FNO. If that was done, the OP is welcome to PM me his ref number and I can take it up.

 

[Sinbad]

So loss on the fibre line have zero effect on tcp performance to destinations 160ms away?

Packet loss on your local fibre will produce EXACTLY the symptoms you are seeing.
To add, could also be an issue at the handoff between SADV and the ISP.

 

[queery1985]

What would Liquid have to do with anything?

Your problem is squarely with your ISP here.

We as the FNO have zero control over your international capacity.

We saw a massive increase in the ping between 2 liquid servers locally (last year).

I’ve spoken to my boss about this, currently we have escalated this with liquid telecom as we have noticed there is high latency and poor speeds to their servers and this shows up in trace routes we tested
To add to this, they are an international company, we use Echo as our upstream provider who has reached out and we currently awaiting feedback from them as there seems to be a bit of push back from their side claiming no issues found.

This was Aug 2019

I think you would be surprised at how few people actually test the international speeds.

So how do I get my ISP to handle this properly, who can I talk to that could solve this issue. I have massive files that I have to download on a regular basis from international servers.

 

[queery1985]

Packet loss on your local fibre will produce EXACTLY the symptoms you are seeing.
To add, could also be an issue at the handoff between SADV and the ISP.

But the packet loss is between 196.25.153.41 - rndf-ip-ll-1-wan.telkom-ipnet.co.za (telkom) and 10.189.30.2 (whatever is 160ms far)
Why would my fibre line influence that?

Shouldn't I then also see it on the local speed test and MTR?

 

[Sinbad]

But the packet loss is between 196.25.153.41 - rndf-ip-ll-1-wan.telkom-ipnet.co.za (telkom) and 10.189.30.2 (whatever is 160ms far)
Why would my fibre line influence that?

Shouldn't I then also see it on the local speed test and MTR?

No, not necessarily. The latency on local connections is so low that the odd dropped packet and subsequent shrinking of your TCP windows has no significant impact on throughput.

 

[John Tempus]

I ordered 100/100 Mbps fibre line from WebAfrica with the line installed by SADV(now Vumatel) in Sep 2019 in Ekhuruleni.

From the start the Download and Upload locally (usually test to Afrihost) on speedtest.net has been 100/100 Mbps
As soon as I cross the border (Usually Vodafone UK - London) Download drops. 30/100 Mbps. The upload is fine.

WebAfrica gave me an IPERF3 server to test to in CPT and London and it clearly showed that Locally I get 100/100 Mbps on both IPERF and IPERF-Reverse, while to London I get 100/100 Mbps on IPERF but 30/100 Mbps (at best) on IPERF-Reverse

During Lockdown my line was bumped to 200/100 but I saw no change on the international line. (I'm not getting the 200mbps, but I'm fighting one fight at a time)

At one stage they blamed Liquid Telecoms, now they blame SADV, but in the meantime, I'm not getting good download speeds. SADV says it's not them and Liquid just didn't come back to WebAfrica.

Who is responsible for that speed internationally, Webafrica, SADV/VumaTel or someone else?? And why can't WebAfrica figure this out?
It's been 10 Months...

Let me potentially save you ton of hassle, this might be the case with you.

One of the windows 10 updates over the last couple of months have produced some screwed tcp mtu window tuning that affected international with local being unaffected.

The only thing in your results that semi concern me that it might not be related is the loss you see on the one hop for international but tcpoptimizer following my details below will not break anything and at any point you can just run it again and select windows default if you wish or before first run you can also backup your exact settings via the top FILE selection.

So if you want to see if this changes your luck, download the tcpoptimizer : https://www.speedguide.net/downloads.php

You can first verify if you had an update making changes by selecting the windows default button and current button. If your current settings is not the same as windows default settings then you were most probably affected by a recent update.

1. At the top slide bar select the speed as close to your speed so in your case slide it all the way to 100+
2. Under the network adapter select only the network adapter that you are using for internet connection.
3. select dont modify all network adapters
4. Under choose settings: select "Optimal"
5. Click the apply button at the bottom.
6. Redo international tests and see if it is better, it should be relatively close to your local speedtest results.

 

[Cav5034]

I think @Cav5034 would disagree....

Last mile loss is more common than you think even when FNO deny it.

You know... Metrofibre line went active this week and it is like day and night. SADV/VUMA have a backhaul capacity issue in Port Elizabeth. Have email from them admitting it.

I wish you the best of luck...

 

[pinball wizard]

Port Elizabeth.

Ekurhuleni isn't PE...

 

[Cav5034]

Ekurhuleni isn't PE...

SADV/VUMA told me for 5 months it wasn't their issue before finally admitting to what the real problem was.

I have a long list of emails if you'd like proof of the denying and then admitting.

Point being the ISP is only as strong as the Fibre network you are using.

 

[queery1985]

Let me potentially save you ton of hassle, this might be the case with you.

One of the windows 10 updates over the last couple of months have produced some screwed tcp mtu window tuning that affected international with local being unaffected.

So if you want to see if this changes your luck, download the tcpoptimizer : https://www.speedguide.net/downloads.php

Erg, I don't really use windows. I'm on Linux (Ubuntu 20.04). I'll try this over the weekend when I boot into windows.

 

[queery1985]

You know... Metrofibre line went active this week and it is like day and night. SADV/VUMA have a backhaul capacity issue in Port Elizabeth. Have email from them admitting it.

I wish you the best of luck...

Is there a way to test for it and what can an enduser do?

 

[Cav5034]

Is there a way to test for it and what can an enduser do?

The issue I had was similar but not the same as yours (atleast from what you have explained). During off-peak hours everything ran fine (except int., that has always been slow speed wise maxed out at 15mb on 100/100 line).

What actually brought the issue to my attention was the insane amount of packet loss. After 5pm until about 10-11pm my speeds would drop to about 60-70mb down and my packet loss was at 30-50%. International was at 2mb or lower.

Any tests done outside those time frames would yield normal results hence my frustration with SADV or Vuma when they did the tests at lunch time and told me to contact afrihost.

First and foremost, if you can check with neighbour's or people nearby on the same network but different ISP and see if they have the same issue. Otherwise people on different Fibre network but using afrihost as isp.

If you can, download ping plotter and test in the evenings. Just local sites like afrihost and Google. And then test again during the day and compare results. Whenever I have lost speed there has been packet loss. If you experience the same then it might be the Fibre line and you can take it up with Vuma.

I will never use SADV/VUMA again, nor recommend them to anyone, sure I have had a bad experience with them but the way the situation was handled by them was dismal. Afrihost was not perfect in the handling of my complaint but again, they had their hands tied with SADV so not much they can do.

@cavedog kept me sane during the last couple months when I was about to throw in the towel.

 

[queery1985]

If you can, download ping plotter and test in the evenings. Just local sites like afrihost and Google. And then test again during the day and compare results. Whenever I have lost speed there has been packet loss. If you experience the same then it might be the Fibre line and you can take it up with Vuma.

I'll see what I can set up. Maybe I can script my Raspberry Pi to run an MTR every hour and write the results to a file.

 

[My_King]

I can respond with what I have found with a different supplier:

Basically the higher LATENCY you have the slower the line would be. They also gave me a iPERF command where the threads were set to 80-100 to get the line speed that we were paying for.
So unless we were threading from the download server our speeds were kak.

But now sitting at home this is what I get (Note the "Connections"):

 

[queery1985]

I can respond with what I have found with a different supplier:

Basically the higher LATENCY you have the slower the line would be. They also gave me a iPERF command where the threads were set to 80-100 to get the line speed that we were paying for.
So unless we were threading from the download server our speeds were kak.

But now sitting at home this is what I get (Note the "Connections"):

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