Is this a joke????? - [bad iBurst speeds again]

[Daveogg]

I hear what you guys are saying but i am using the same proxy and the same international bandwidth as you guys but consistently have good speeds on all protocols(except p2p). I am really not coming here to brag but i think if we use some logic we can get closer to where the problem lies.

So my theory is that if Jhb has a problem on the "local loop" then the Jhb subscribers are going to battle to access the "external" network. If i am routed directly into the gateway then i will have access to all the international bandwidth and hence:

Bandwidth reports
Your download speed : 847448 bps, or 827 kbps.
A 103.4 KB/sec transfer rate.
Your upload speed : 196180 bps, or 191 kbps.

 

[slimothy]

my speeds are good too though and i'm not in durban, so far for me personally it looks like you have contention being a major factor in bad speeds, which i'm sure is mainly JHB because more people are on the towers but there do seem to be some core JHB problems in the network here, for instance 5 towers down today, 2 yesterday and 2 the day before for long periods and i think degraded radio signal in PTA sometime this week.

even if we the users diagnose the problem, what then?

 

[Jongi]

I'm getting at least 350kbps since yesterday

 

[Roman4604]

I have my own theories of whats going on however I need some more info ...

1. Is there any relation between base station & ip range allocation. I dont believe so from my testing ... can anyone clarify?

2. I've never been capped ... does the ip range allocated when capped differ from the ones that are issued when you're not capped?

3. Has anyone tested what the fastest re-authentication (logins) that can be achieved on the iBurst network. My tests show that you got to wait about 15-20sec between auth requests (for them to be successful) ... anyone done any testing?

4. When my connection goes into SLOW mode, throughput to SA & Intl Internet about 1-4 KBytes/s, but www.iburst.co.za always full speed (up to 1 Mbps/s) ... do your experiences differ?

5. Today (Sun) my SLOW to FAST (all sites run at full speed) auth ratio on UTD resets is about 3:1. That is only one out of every 3 resets results in fast auth, rest are slow ... how are your experiences?


The more info shared, the clearer picture we can all get (to flog WBS tech support with).

 

[slimothy]

1. no
2. no
3. yes, its instant if you dont bombard it and if you disconnect and recconect right away around 3 - 20 seconds, depending on external factors
4. yes thats because traffic to and from iburst.co.za wbs.co.za and all iburst users never leaves the gateway, its always fast no matter if you're capped or not or the network is fine or not, and its never shaped
5. As i said the fast auth thing is if you don't bombard it, its actually deliberate, there used to be a loophole where you could get fullspeed if capped for a little while by starting downloads a few seconds after you connect (sometimes it would get throttled in 30 seconds sometimes not) and people ran macros to connect, start a download, wait for 30 seconds and disconnect over and over again, so WBS put in a mechanism about a month ago that if you disconnect the old session isn't killed right away, this is why if you disconnect right now and connect again instantly you'll get access denied for a few tries and then it will work when the old session is killed (i think the time is 30 seconds, but it seems shorter sometimes), also you get errors like 'the computer didn't respond', its all part of the same mechanism

this isn't ADSL, i know what you're thinking that certain IPs are getting bad speeds because of problems in a part of the network, but it isn't so, its almost always area specific. Also all throttling is controlled via software, its not a redirect liek on ADSL where you're directed to a different pool which is slower, its all software which is why if you get capped and buy more GBs you dont have to disconnect and why if you start a download it might start at about 30KB/s if you're capped but take 2 seconds to get throttled

 

[slimothy]

and remember we had EVERYONE on the network downloading at once and nobody was capped, i'm sure that has somethign to do with the bad speeds on that day

 

[Roman4604]

Hi Slim,

# 3, 4 & 5 were for my own interest to get a clearer understanding, however 1 & 2 are the important ones.Your answers to 1 & 2 above mean that there must be some integration code between iBurst's auth system (assume Radius) and their BW mgmt system.

From the problems I & others in this thread are getting I assume the BW mgr is inclusive, that is all IPs are throttled (capped) unless the your auth account has bandwidth credit (i.e. NOT capped).

This would mean as you login, the auth system instructs the bw mgr to dynamically add a rule to give the IP, that you've just been allocated, full speed (until your session is logged out, timed out or runs out of credit).

I believe that the 'glue' code (probably custom develped by themselves or someone in Aus) between the auth sys & the bw mgr is where the problem lies.

Why would all the UNCAPPED people (affected in this thread) logging in yesterday & today get capped speeds? The auth sys did'nt communicate properly with the bw mgr due to overload, crap coding & or some other system related problem.

Well this is my theory & the one I'm going to keep pressing WBS support with ... Slim does this sound plausible to you?

 

[jmn]

Seems feasible. I had BAD upload speeds last night, called helpdesk, was told that it seems like I'm capped, should wait 5 minutes for a reset of the account, then disconnect and reconnect. Did that and got auto disconnected later as well, but uploads are still bad.

 

[slimothy]

From the problems I & others in this thread are getting I assume the BW mgr is inclusive, that is all IPs are throttled (capped) unless the your auth account has bandwidth credit (i.e. NOT capped).

I unserstood it to be the opposite, that is that we are all uncapped by default but yeah

This would mean as you login, the auth system instructs the bw mgr to dynamically add a rule to give the IP, that you've just been allocated, full speed (until your session is logged out, timed out or runs out of credit).

I believe that the 'glue' code (probably custom develped by themselves or someone in Aus) between the auth sys & the bw mgr is where the problem lies.

it is custom, luis did it apparantly, and this is why its a work in progress, to this day they tinker around with it, I think the last time I saw a major change was just 2 weeks ago

Why would all the UNCAPPED people (affected in this thread) logging in yesterday & today get capped speeds? The auth sys did'nt communicate properly with the bw mgr due to overload, crap coding & or some other system related problem.

well this thread was made on the first and I was one of the users that got those speeds the first day and my speeds were sorted after the business day ended on the 1st, which is why I put my problem down to contention. If you have the same problem today but didnt have it on the 30th I would say its feasable its contention, if the problem gets lesser as the month goes on, I would definatly say contention

With that said, your theory does sound plausable, especially when I look at logs of chats I had with some WBS people and them mentioning changes in the bandwidth system, and since we pretty much know that they wrote that code in house and that its not a stable piece of commercial software they bought.. I'd say its a definate possibility.

If I may ask, when were your speeds last good?

 

[Roman4604]

Well they were either full speed (~ 105 KB/s) or 1-4 Kb/s. I reset my UTD many times to try to understand the problem. As I said it depended on which login session I was on.

BTW www.iburst.co.za was always full speed (continually download Win UTD Drivers to test).

Am currently on fast login session ... just keep resetting UTD until comes right.

 

[slimothy]

you know what.. i think you're on to something, I just remembered when I connected about 3 hours ago I went to check my bandwidth usage and it was the same as it was last night, even though I had since downloaded around 300MB, and it always resets when you connect. I tried 3 or 4 times to recconect and get it to show an update but it didn't budge at all. If we tie that in with the recent bandwidth manager changes plus your theory plus the 5 towers down today, 2 yesterday and 2 before.... I think this could definatly be the cause of your problems.

Would be a bit worrying if your slow speeds were down to a simple bug in some software they wrote or a misconfiguration

 

[jmn]

Had the same issue with disconnecting / reconnecting and not getting bandwidth updates (o/t still no reports either), I've noticed it since about the 29th

 

[Roman4604]

Well I picked up this problem due to the fact that I configured my router for 'Connect on Demand' with a 2 min timeout (no better firewall than disconnection), as I use iBurst for email & surfing only (nature of my work/company means I dont need to do any downloading at home).

So I would be re-authing even between reading long web pages and thats when the speed difference between login sessions became apprent. Have reverted my router to 'Always connected' ..... however waiting to see what happens the first time iBurst times-out/resets my login session.

My router starts retrying to auth in a split second, however sometimes the PPPoE client craps out due to the 'cool off' period set by the auth system (the reason for my auth questions above).

The more info I gather, the more it seems like this interaction between auth & bw mgr systems seems like the issue. The problem is how can you get to the right people at WBS to tell them/ask them whats happening?

 

[slimothy]

you dont talk to anyone at WBS except luis or shaun green, only they will be able/bother to help, if you call shaun he will either relay the message to luis or give you his number

 

[Ravilj]

Gah my connection is snail pace today, anyone else have issues?

 

[slimothy]

ravilj keep recconecting, its weird but you'll find one time where you're back on full speed

 

[ic]

It's an instinctive thing to disconnect & reconnect when one has a vrot connection - a throw-back to dialup days...

Often when I try it with Olivedale-BS I find that I cannot reconnect again for ages - another reason I assume that Olivedale-BS is now highly contended, although I don't think there's a maximum number of concurrent customer UTz that the base-stations are programmed to accept, which is confusing unless after say 50 or so UTz the base-stations simply cannot handle anything else due to the way their s/w was written - max buffers or something similar...

 

[KSI]

Degradation Of Service

Anyone noticed a substantial degradation of the iBurst service in the last couple of weeks. Slow (and I mean slow) downloads, continual signal breaks etc??

 

[RichardG]

I've noticed that slow downloads, I'm getting like 3 kb/s on downloads when CAPPED, don't know if thats normal but i get between there and 5 kb/s if lucky

 

[Kei]

Anyone noticed a substantial degradation of the iBurst service in the last couple of weeks. Slow (and I mean slow) downloads, continual signal breaks etc??

The service has indeed degraded yes. I can no longer get a speed of 1000kbit/sec from the Telkom speed test. I am now getting around 500kbit/sec and my downloads have consequently suffered. Gone are the days of downloading at 34kbyte/sec, I am now getting ISDN speeds, and latency which is shockingly high to say the least.

There have been a lot of outages and the basestation to which I connect seems to have suffered a reduction in output RF power. WBS haven't got proper battery backup on the basestations so everytime there's a power failure in my area or surrounding areas the signal goes for a ****.

The following things I've noticed:

Lack of battery backup = WBS was too cheap to worry about this and clearly illustrates their lack of experience/knowledge about standard telecoms installations. Your typical Telkom exchange has enough battery power to run without the mains for at least 45 minutes. And every single exchange has a diesel generator. Vodacom/MTN basestations are also equipped with batteries and can run without power for long periods of time. Those basestations that are on Telkom premises benefit from the diesel generator anyway. SO what happens, when the power goes out and comes back, you find signal is up to k@k and your speeds are abysmal because the basestation is busy booting up/reconfiguring itself/whatever.