ISP Test Results (Regions)

[Icemanbrfc]

So having read through most isp threads(i like to keep up to date with things), i noticed a specific trend.

Certain users in the same region, on the same package (capped or uncapped) on the same isp, having different experiences. Is it genuinely an ISP issue, or is it an exchange issue or a combination of both?

So i thought, perhaps you can share the following:

Isp: Afrihost
Region: Cape Town
Capped/Uncapped: Capped
Current Router: Aztech
Local: 18ms
International: 190ms
Browsing: Good
Streaming: Good
Gaming: n/a
Torrents: Okay
P2P: n/a
Distance roughly from the exchange: 700 meters
Best time of day: early mornings and Afternoons
Worse Time of day: sometimes around 9pm. Weekends, mostly streaming affected

Im really keen to see what the trend is like in the various regions for different users.

If i have missed something, please feel free to add it.

 

[Dan C]

Never really had congestion problems, always running full speed on Vox , Telkom and Afrihost. Vox however gives me the best international latecy.

When last spoken to a Telkom rep, my DSLAM was only 30% max usage at peak times.

 

[Icemanbrfc]

Never really had congestion problems, always running full speed on Vox , Telkom and Afrihost. Vox however gives me the best international latecy.

When last spoken to a Telkom rep, my DSLAM was only 30% max usage at peak times.

Thats the interesting bit, and why i started this thread. Im hoping to see people post which region they are in, which isp etc, so we can see how different or the same an experience is. Too many people in the same region, on the same packages having different experiences are interesting.

 

[Dan C]

Thats the interesting bit, and why i started this thread. Im hoping to see people post which region they are in, which isp etc, so we can see how different or the same an experience is. Too many people in the same region, on the same packages having different experiences are interesting.

I never had to phone my ISP for slow speeds and never done a port refresh or whatever you call it in over 11 years. I did have 2 line faults though, but they were sorted out quickly.

 

[Icemanbrfc]

Surprised nobody has said much here. Would be interesting to see which regions are primarily affected or having a good time of things

 

[MickZA]

Not saying all ISPs are equal but I get a good experience from axxess, WA and TI (also CW before I cancelled last month).

From what I've seen in the threads it's mainly gamers complaining the most because of problems with latency.

 

[MarkS]

ISP: Web Africa
Region: Cape Town
Capped/Uncapped: Business Capped
Current Router: TP-Link TD-W9970
Local: 17ms (average ping to 196.25.1.1)
International: 230ms (average ping to Neverwinter servers)
Browsing: Good
Streaming: Good (struggle with 1080p all the time and 720p in the evening and on weekends)
Gaming: Battlefield and CS:GO good. Neverwinter struggles every night between around 18:30 to 22:00 to login. Once in, gaming seems fine until I need to change characters then back to the struggle again.
Torrents: n/a
P2P: n/a
Distance roughly from the exchange: Roughly 800m per Google Maps
Best time of day: Most times of the day
Worse Time of day: Evenings until around 22:00 to 22:30.

 

[Icemanbrfc]

Not saying all ISPs are equal but I get a good experience from axxess, WA and TI (also CW before I cancelled last month).

From what I've seen in the threads it's mainly gamers complaining the most because of problems with latency.

Have to say i noticed this as well. Speed results are good, streaming good, but they complain about latency when gaming. Not sure how isp's handle things like that, when maybe only a few are affected at any given moment in time.

 

[SiR_BP]

Nice idea Icemanbrfc... Might be worthwhile to break the region down a bit further, as I have seen many users saying they having issues in Cape Town (for instance) then its not all users affected.

Region: Cape Town
Suburb: Athlone

 

[Scary_Turtle]

Isp: Axxess
Region: JHB
Capped/Uncapped: Capped
Line Speed: 10mb/s
Current Router: Tp-link
Local: Gonna depend how far you are from the server.
International:
There are too many variables with international.
Connecting to America you aren't going to get 190ms or 230ms but you will connecting to Europe. Then depending where in Europe you are connecting you could add an extra 30ms. I could say international pings are 37ms to Botswana
In order for this to work everyone would have to do a speed test to a certain server one in Europe and one in America.
Browsing: Good
Streaming: Great 1080p on kodi, Youtube, Netflix and secondary stream at 720p-1080p without any problem at any time of the day
Gaming: Don't have any problem depending on the game and server can vary again.
Torrents: over 900kb/s on popular torrents every time I have checked for a year now.
P2P: Same as torrents.
Distance roughly from the exchange: 2.5-3km
Best/worst time of day: Honestly I have a very stable line and don't have a problem at anytime of the day. I don't test the line religiously so a few variables may change but not enough to effect me.

 

[Icemanbrfc]

Nice idea Icemanbrfc... Might be worthwhile to break the region down a bit further, as I have seen many users saying they having issues in Cape Town (for instance) then its not all users affected.

Region: Cape Town
Suburb: Athlone

Yeh i thought about that, but then i thought about what you said as well. Not everybody is affected within a region, and i do feel sorry for both users who are affected and the ISP's. Its a tough one to call for ISP's to be fair, as they cannot send out messages to people saying there are issues within a specific region.

If you see as an example, Afrihost has a green status if everything is okay, but they cant change that to say red (not okay), if its only affecting certain users. Likewise notices that isps send out, its very difficult, unless a region is completely down and affecting everybody

 

[Icemanbrfc]

Isp: Axxess
Region: JHB
Capped/Uncapped: Capped
Line Speed: 10mb/s
Current Router: Tp-link
Local: Gonna depend how far you are from the server.
International:
There are too many variables with international.
Connecting to America you aren't going to get 190ms or 230ms but you will connecting to Europe. Then depending where in Europe you are connecting you could add an extra 30ms. I could say international pings are 37ms to Botswana
In order for this to work everyone would have to do a speed test to a certain server one in Europe and one in America.
Browsing: Good
Streaming: Great 1080p on kodi, Youtube, Netflix and secondary stream at 720p-1080p without any problem at any time of the day
Gaming: Don't have any problem depending on the game and server can vary again.
Torrents: over 900kb/s on popular torrents every time I have checked for a year now.
P2P: Same as torrents.
Distance roughly from the exchange: 2.5-3km
Best/worst time of day: Honestly I have a very stable line and don't have a problem at anytime of the day. I don't test the line religiously so a few variables may change but not enough to effect me.

Interesting to see how far away you are from the exchange, and still getting good results.

 

[ranger]

So having read through most isp threads(i like to keep up to date with things), i noticed a specific trend.

Certain users in the same region, on the same package (capped or uncapped) on the same isp, having different experiences. Is it genuinely an ISP issue, or is it an exchange issue or a combination of both?

I would expect differences like this to mainly be "exchange" issues. But technically it is actually "DSLAM backhaul" issues. There may be multiple DSLAMs in an exchange, and each DSLAM has its own backhaul link to the edge router. The older DSLAMs only support ATM backhaul, and the maximum bandwidth supported is about 150Mbps (well, 155Mbps minus the ATM overhead and/or "cell tax").

AFAIK, the MSANs all have MetroEthernet backhaul, and I think the default during the early phase of the rollout was to provision them with 600Mbps backhaul.

So, if you are on a DSLAM with ATM backhaul which is over-subscribed (e.g. there are 50 users with 10Mbps ports on uncappef products with leeching tendencies) the only thing that can improve your service is being migrated to an MSAN.