IS Uncapped aDSL Blazing?

[RatX]

My company just transferred their Internet connectivity from a R23,000 per month 512kbps leased-line from DataPro to an uncapped 1024kbps "fibre" aDSL connection from IS, for a total saving of about R17,000 per month.

We have only had the aDSL for about a week now, but the performance has generally been rubbish. There have been spikes and bursts where it has generated decent throughput, but for the most part downloads crawl along at a smoking 8KB/s and speed tests (Speakeasy, Internetfrog) generate results in the 50-60kb/s bracket.

Today, I'm consistently getting significantly more than 1024kbps on both speed tests (http://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest/ & http://www.internetfrog.com/mypc/speedtest/ ). I'm generally convinced that IS deliberately hobble their aDSL solutions to force customers onto more expensive leased line products, knowing that business customers will typically go for a "name brand" ISP.

This is in the Cape Town area - would like to know if anybody else has experienced anything similar.

 

[martin]

Excuse my ignorance but is the IS ADSL line contended?

 

[matt156]

Hi RatX

There is a reason that the 512k Diginet line was an extra R17,000. Aside from the increased reliability from the physical line point of view, Diginet is a point-to-point connection which allows the ISP to guarantee bandwidth speeds. With ADSL, huge contention ratios will result in degraded speeds, espcially for international access. IS don't 'hobble' their speeds - they buy bandwidth for Rx per 64k, and have to multiplex this with large ratios to make broadband cost effective. End of the day, you get what you pay for

 

[.geek]

Also on IS ADSL, uncapped, unshaped at work and yes, it's rubbish. Local, international, FTP, HTTP, everything.

 

[Franna]

Maybe, just maybe IS is already using Neotel for international bandwidth.

 

[Fantastic1]

does any1 know the general contention ratios that IS use for their uncapped ADSL Solution. Please advise

 

[RatX]

Hi RatX

There is a reason that the 512k Diginet line was an extra R17,000. Aside from the increased reliability from the physical line point of view, Diginet is a point-to-point connection which allows the ISP to guarantee bandwidth speeds. With ADSL, huge contention ratios will result in degraded speeds, espcially for international access. IS don't 'hobble' their speeds - they buy bandwidth for Rx per 64k, and have to multiplex this with large ratios to make broadband cost effective. End of the day, you get what you pay for

Thanks Matt, was aware of that. It wasn't actually a "true" Diginet solution, in that we connected via Ethernet to a network which DataPro provides in our area which in turn connects via two 1.5mb/s Diginets to their POP.

Performance was never up to scratch on the 512kb/s line anyway, hence the decision to give aDSL a go. I've experienced highly contented connections at home (aDSL, iBurst) and have never seen performance which has been quite consistently as poor as IS's aDSL offering (current conditions aside, of course).

 

[RatX]

Also on IS ADSL, uncapped, unshaped at work and yes, it's rubbish. Local, international, FTP, HTTP, everything.

Have you noticed any speed increase today, .geek?

 

[jontyB]

I am convinced that IS has oversold waaay too much. My webafrica account is going along as expected, while my IS uncapped, unshaped accounts at work is quite simply attrocious

 

[.geek]

Nope RatX, it's getting progressively works this week. Agreed with jontyB.

 

[matt156]

There is a prob at the moment on the international side. AT & T's side is apparently causing hassles. Local should be fine though.

 

[eugenevdm]

I'm generally convinced that IS deliberately hobble their aDSL solutions to force customers onto more expensive leased line products, knowing that business customers will typically go for a "name brand" ISP.

Your statement sounds paranoid because it's in the best interest of any professional ISP to not cripple a service so that people would favour another. And yes ADSL is a contended service. South Africa is generally in a transition phase going from Diginet to ADSL because before ADSL & IP ADSL existed most people bought from Telkom and Telkom manages to keep prices artifically high. Is this not obvious?

 

[RatX]

Your statement sounds paranoid because it's in the best interest of any professional ISP to not cripple a service so that people would favour another. And yes ADSL is a contended service. South Africa is generally in a transition phase going from Diginet to ADSL because before ADSL & IP ADSL existed most people bought from Telkom and Telkom manages to keep prices artifically high. Is this not obvious?

The only thing which is obvious is that it's essential to regard any local Internet offerings with a high degree of paranoia. You do make one valid point, in that all ISP's only really have their own best interests at heart. This comes at great expense to the average consumer. Telkom might artificially inflate prices, but I'm not seeing any other ISP's doing anything significant to alter this fact. Much like Telkom use their ex-partner SBC as an excuse for many of their extortionist practices, so local ISP's use Telkom as an excuse to get the fattest slice of pie possible.

Furthermore, I have no problem with the fact that aDSL is a contended service. However, if the contention ratio is so high that it renders the final product's performance so erratic that it is almost unusable, then something is very wrong somewhere.

 

[ByronM]

Also use IS ADSL, uncapped, unshaped, one in JHB and one in CPT and yes I can confirm that it's rubbish. Local, international, FTP, HTTP, everything.

We see ongoing intermittent packet loss. Looks like I.S are having problems with ADSL. They think every thing is fine!!! Wake up and smell the $#!^ I.S.

 

[eugenevdm]

...so local ISP's use Telkom as an excuse to get the fattest slice of pie possible.

Real change and competitiveness will only start happening when ISPs are able to purchase and compare on equal grounds data from at least two major upstreams providers, such as Telkom and Neotel. So far it has been impossible because even though the other first tier data providers (IS, Verizon, etc.) have good data deals Telkom slaps Martis / Diginet fees on top of those links. Only SAIX does not charge access charges (they bundle it). So buying from any other first tier is financially impossible for a lot of ISPs. So is hooking into Telkom IPConnect. Of course ISPs hold Telkom as an excuse because it's actually a very valid excuse. 1 mbit of uncontended 1:1 data costs between R 35 000 and R 50 000 so for how much must they sell it?!