Is ADSL a real cloud solution? Very slow

[Hal]

Am I the only one battling to use Unshaped ADSL 1. For the most part its to use gmail, as in cloud usage, but occasionally for other sites and POP3 services. Gmail regularly times out and falls over.

My speed test shows the local (SA) speed to be 170 kbs download and 405 kbs upload with a latency of 73ms and a ping rate of about the same.

The international test reveals a down load of 40 kbs and and upload of 326 kbs. The ping/latency is 277 ms.

This is clearly not a viable way of working.

Does any one else have the same problem? My ISP, Posix, have had no joy at addressing the slowness which has been a problem for a while but has now become acute.

Any ideas.

Henry

[email protected]

 

[MartyMarts]

My ISP, Posix, have had no joy at addressing the slowness which has been a problem for a while but has now become acute.

To rule out a direct ISP issue maybe try a different ISP? Sign up for a free Afrihost 1GB account or get a trial account from one of the other ISPs. MWEB or Openweb maybe...

 

[Fudzy]

Never heard of Posix before but I see they use Seacom which has been having issues since last week.

 

[bekdik]

When you make use of a cloud service you will need to connect to a remote server over a network upon which you will always be totally reliant to various third party suppliers, some of which, in turn, are reliant on other third party suppliers. This means that your service performance will vary according to many factors, over none of which you can have direct control.

Obviously, the further your logical distance from the source of the service, the more likely its reliability will be affected. This applies no matter what your connectivity is; again, obviously the faster the connection and the fewer the intermediate players, the better will be your experience.

I feel that Internet, ADSL or other, cloud services are still not reliable enough for core critical requirements; however, if you can put up with some down times, some slow times then cloud can work.

If you do decide to go with ADSL on a critical service, then you must go with a business class fastest connection you can afford, at least then you will have a better chance of winning.

 

[fragtion]

Gmail is notoriously slow over IMAP. Nothing new there, and it won't make a (noticable) difference if you use unshaped. Indeed most Gmail users use the native web UI, which will be much more responsive. I, on the other hand, also prefer to use my default mail client (Thunderbird in this case) as I have other e-mail accounts not hosted with google, and I want to easily be able to drag messages between the accounts, etc. I've solved this problem for myself by implementing the software OfflineIMAP on my linux server, which integrates with dovecot/postfix as the mail server hosting my gmail account as a virtual host. It does the IMAP sync for me every 3 minutes, and then the messages appear in my Thunderbird instantly. That way, I don't have to worry about Thunderbird hanging on the sync all the time. I recommend this path if you have some experience working with linux and mail servers.

 

[Hal]

Posix, who are they?

Never heard of Posix before but I see they use Seacom which has been having issues since last week.

Posix is run by Mark Elkins certainly one of the longest members of the Internet community in SA. I suggest you need to visit i-Week later this year to meet the real industry veterans.

My problems have not been only on the international links. Accessing Telkom to report the fault was so slow the job timed out. I eventually used my cell-c data service to do so.

I believe the problem lies in the SAIX/Telkom infrastructure with faulty or over loaded equipment not coping. Certainly traceRTs indicate time outs not far from my router.

Today it is running much better which tends to bear this theory out since Telkom have not reported any work on the line.

 

[Hal]

I use Thunderbird extensively but having lost a huge amount of e-mail when my system collapsed last year I have decided to use g-mail for important stuff. Thunderbird does not allow easy backup of mail folders. I tried to recover the e-mail but this required linking to g-mail or something else and the stuff became network dependent anyway.

The only alternative is to install a local server, as you have done, and then used Thunderbird on the desk top. Worth thinking about but after 45+ years in this game I was looking for a simple, not too technical, solution.

My wife uses Pegasus mail on her machine and that backs up easily. May be I should revert.

Ah well more fun and games.

Henry

 

[Fudzy]

Posix is run by Mark Elkins certainly one of the longest members of the Internet community in SA. I suggest you need to visit i-Week later this year to meet the real industry veterans.

My problems have not been only on the international links. Accessing Telkom to report the fault was so slow the job timed out. I eventually used my cell-c data service to do so.

I believe the problem lies in the SAIX/Telkom infrastructure with faulty or over loaded equipment not coping. Certainly traceRTs indicate time outs not far from my router.

Today it is running much better which tends to bear this theory out since Telkom have not reported any work on the line.

His website needs a serious overhaul.