Is this normal speeds for Cell C?

[Wolfling]

Hi

I am having a few issues with my telkom line, so I am considering swithing to a new delivery method. Since Cell C is all the rage at the moment, I decided to go there first.

I borrowed a Black Stick from a collegue and took it home (Rivonia, Johannesburg) to test. The results were rather poor:



I then installed mdma and it reports a 'green bar' and rssi of -77dBm. From what I can read on this forum that is acceptable, so why is my speedtest so bad?

I understand that is end of month so speeds can be bad, but I also read in other threads that there is a backhual problem in Gauteng.

So did I just pick a bad day to do my testing, or can I expect this kind of connectivity during the rest of the month as well?

 

[Dolby]

I got mine mid-December after borrowing a friends as well (Randpark Ridge) and it was impressive - so I bought one.

Speeds for the 1st 2 weeks were 3-4mbps and I remember downloading a few files at 600kbps/sec. Buffering was non-existant on YouTube and I wasted huge amounts of data. It was actually the quickest net I'd used - and I loved it.

I woke up on 1 Jan and it was almost dead - but I only had the single day downtime. From 2 Jan onwards speeds were still quick - albeit slower than what I got in 2010. I still got 1.5-2.5mbps

That is until last night after not using it for a while. It was horrible (about 128kbps) and reminded me 10 years ago with ISDN and modems. As I hadn't been on for the last few days - and it seems there's been an issue for a while. I'd hoped it would be better tongiht - but I'm at around 56kbps now ... So useless. I can't use my cap this month - so its going to fall away *shrug*

What I'm trying to say is ... I have no idea what is normal. In my 2 months, I've had between 56kpbs and 3mbps on average - with peaks of 5mbps - all while in the same location.

 

[Wolfling]

Thanks for the reply.

Sounds to me like it started out good but has been going down-hill for a while now, like it normally does for ISP's that get oversubscribed.

The problem is I was thinking of using this to replace my MWeb and get rid of my dependance on a Telkom landline. However currently that very noisy landline (Attenuation -60dB) is currently still performing better than the Cell C connection...

Is there anybody else out there that have an opinion?

 

[dread]

Well for me in cape town - its been mostly good.
There are times when speeds drop through the floor - but luckily those days have been the exception rather than the rule.

Have noticed that on extremely windy days I do get dropped connections quite a bit.

Me happy since joining in December