Latency is up...

Karnaugh, why is that latency barely worth complaining about ?
Click to expand...

Its hyperbole. If it was 150ms, I'd say go ahead, but you're nit-picking (30ms difference??) as far as any level headed ISP would be concerned. I wouldn't call 50ms "crappy performance" or reason to start a riot.

Apparently after they complete making the changes to your DSLAM the latency returns to normal.
 
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Whilst I don't have ADSL, and whilst I wish I did instead of a Burst-i, I still have an internet [dis]connection that somewhere along the line uses Telkomonopoly controlled international bandwidth, which means that latency increases are a major issue when the latency I already had is on the increase. I truly would not be surprised if Telkomonopoly had built some sort of Latency control knob that they turn left & right to :confused: everyone.

However, after reading MaD's post:
"[post=166063]Telkom putting lower priority on VoIP ports[/post]"
I would not be surprised if it was actually a case of general latency having been increased, which would [also] be a symptom of lowering VoIP Port traffic priority (AFAIK).

If I have it all wrong please correct me, my understanding is that when you lower the priority of traffic for a specific port, the end result is an increased amount of latency for traffic on that port, correct?
 
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It has nothing to do with packet shaping. Telkom have done something to screw up first hop latenecy. I'm now getting the kind of latency from Muizenberg to Bellville that I should be getting from here to Joburg.

This is going to make all the FPS gamers pretty unhappy when they discover that their expensive ADSL gives them ISDN style pings to local servers.
 
Andre said:
It has nothing to do with packet shaping. Telkom have done something to screw up first hop latenecy. I'm now getting the kind of latency from Muizenberg to Bellville that I should be getting from here to Joburg.

This is going to make all the FPS gamers pretty unhappy when they discover that their expensive ADSL gives them ISDN style pings to local servers.
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haha, ISDN players are actually getting _much_ better pings (30ms less) than me at the mo :P

Spike
 
Karnaugh, ur missing the point, that extra 30ms is giving us ISDN pings, and when a server is full i get about 20ms MORE than isdn ppl playin at same time. We paid for ADSL to get lower pings for games, believe me the diff between 20ms and 50-60ms is noticible and gets progressivly worse the more ppl join a server.

We understand nothing is garanteed but when they brake something that was working fine this needs to be adressed and fixed, especially if it affects a subscribers MAIN reason for purchasing their product. To simply write it off under a no garantee clause is just a corporate spin on saying "we don't care about our cleints".

So lets keep to the adressing of this problem.
 
Hi, I have had this same problem for about a week and a half now and until recently had thought it was something to do with my side, but i play quake 3 on the net and now there are at least 3 people that I know of that also have bad pings. I used to get an average of 18ms on kalahari.mweb.co.za, now my average is 70ms, It gets worse in team games, up to 100ms at times.

I just wanted to post my own reply to add to the amount of ppl complaining.
Opium is right, we didnt pay out of our a-holes for 70ms when we can gladly pay MUCH less for 50ms.

I did a tracert to kalahari.mweb.co.za and came up with the following...

Tracing route to kalahari.mweb.co.za [196.2.33.21]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms 192.168.10.200
2 60 ms 61 ms 61 ms rndf-146-0-01.telkomadsl.co.za [165.146.0.1]
3 60 ms 60 ms 61 ms rndf-ip-er-2-fe-12-0-1-1.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196
.43.10.181]
4 61 ms 62 ms 63 ms rrba-ip-esr-1-ge-6-0-0.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.4
3.11.166]
5 62 ms 62 ms 63 ms 196.25.5.30
6 65 ms 64 ms 63 ms core1a-rba-gi2-0-0.rtr.isnet.net [196.26.0.7]
7 65 ms 66 ms 64 ms 168.209.0.134
8 66 ms 64 ms 68 ms 196.36.218.142
9 65 ms 67 ms 66 ms kalahari.mweb.co.za [196.2.33.21]

I am no expert, but that tells me that the problem is at the exchange.

Hopefully something can be done soon, otherwise im just gonna have to get ISDN again and be less poor.
 
word from telkom

ok guys after having spoken to someone at telkom who's got a clue, here's whats going on:

The guy i spoke to is gonna do a little more digging and im gonna speak to him on wednesday again.

Telkom are going to be changing the sync ratio (to 640/384) on the DSLAM's nationwide. Every dslam in every exchange is gonna be changed. This is NOT whats causing the latency issue (obviously). The second major change that they are doing is chaning the Path Mode from Fast to Interleaved. This basically repackages the packets and does extra error checking. This (according to him) is what is introducing the extra latency (25ms+). They have no intention to roll back to Fast Path mode. Their reason for switching is better error-control for future ventures such as VoIP, etc. The dude also said that we can get low latency back by getting the Unshaped account but i dont see how this will work. It looks as if ISDN is the only feasible way to get decent latency if ure living in areas outside of Pretoria.

Anyway...

Spike
 
Spike said:
...
The second major change that they are doing is chaning the Path Mode from Fast to Interleaved. This basically repackages the packets and does extra error checking. This (according to him) is what is introducing the extra latency (25ms+). They have no intention to roll back to Fast Path mode. Their reason for switching is better error-control for future ventures such as VoIP, etc.
...
Click to expand...
Thanks Spike for posting the above (or with my settings the below). Now, I seriously doubt that they have added 25ms to improve VoIP, perhaps it is better explained when you look at VoIP from Telkomonopoly's POV - they regard VoIP as an error that must be controlled...
 
Interesting info, Spike.

Here is a copy paste from my modem status page (Netgear 814):

Modem Status Connected
Connect Mode Interleaved Mode
Down Stream 640 Kb/s
Up Stream 384 Kb/s
VPI 8
VCI 35
 
Here is copy of my modem status (d-link DSL-300)


DSL Status Connected
DSL Speed 512 Kbps Upstream,
2048 Kbps Downstream
 
It looks like they made this change to my exchange last night too..
I find it interesting that Interleave is now on...

This is a port restriction at the DSLAM.. I dont see how getting an Unshaped account would change it...

Can anyone with an unshaped account do some comparisons?
 
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Um - I don't have a Teklom unshaped account.
But :: the same problem seems to exist with the UUNET account:
Tracing route to saix.net [196.25.1.200]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms rain.mshome.net [192.168.0.1]
2 * * * Request timed out.
3 70 ms 69 ms 69 ms atm4-0-0sub103.gw11.jnb6.alter.net [196.30.9.109]
4 145 ms 109 ms 109 ms pos8-1-0.gw11.jnb6.alter.net [196.30.121.157]
5 158 ms 109 ms 119 ms 196.30.156.41
6 86 ms 209 ms 109 ms 196.31.39.53
7 76 ms 89 ms 79 ms 196.43.11.30
8 113 ms 109 ms 119 ms 196.25.1.200

Notice how the first hop does not respond.
This is kinda wierd and does imply some kind of routing by auth rules at the exchange/dslam/saturation point.
Also - UUNET is terrible for saix - well - it's still under 150ms, but its allover the place all the time.
 
stoke said:
Notice how the first hop does not respond.
This is kinda wierd and does imply some kind of routing by auth rules at the exchange/dslam/saturation point.
Click to expand...

It just means that traceroute isnt getting any ICMP back from its UDP datagram - most likely, your router is missconfigured to firewall that ICMP. Or they have added an ACL to block UDP traceroutes on that hop, possibly to "protect you"
 
Heres a copy and paste

Netgear DG834
Modem Status Connected
DownStream Connection Speed 2048 kbps
UpStream Connection Speed 512 kbps

It never was a gaurenteed service though guys so I doubt theres anything that you can do about it sadly.
 
thanks sneeky, we know that but we still gonna try keep this thread open to inform ppl. Thanks :)
 
Spike said:
Telkom are going to be changing the sync ratio (to 640/384) on the DSLAM's nationwide. Every dslam in every exchange is gonna be changed. This is NOT whats causing the latency issue (obviously). The second major change that they are doing is chaning the Path Mode from Fast to Interleaved. This basically repackages the packets and does extra error checking. This (according to him) is what is introducing the extra latency (25ms+). They have no intention to roll back to Fast Path mode. Their reason for switching is better error-control for future ventures such as VoIP, etc. The dude also said that we can get low latency back by getting the Unshaped account but i dont see how this will work.

Spike
Click to expand...

Good work spike!, this is really dissapointing news. Looks like Telkom may be trying discourage low-latency uses of the ADSL product to keep the Diginet cash flowing.

On the otherhand Interleave = less risky and less support, since it handles noisier environments better so maybe they thought its better to piss off a few more technically minded ADSL users and have less support overall across the userbase.

For more info:
http://www.broadbandreports.com/forum/remark,10961058~mode=flat
 
This all looks very fishy indeed and a change like this is in keeping with Telkom's continuing strategy to worsen their product offerings. I remember reading about using 2 ADSL lines (one say in JHb and one in CT) to create a local VPN between two points. With uncapped local bandwidth, companies could setup a Voip link at 512K for peanuts as apposed to a 512K diginet (cost 2 kidneys, a liver and a spleen). Maybe this extra latency is one of many new methods of making VoiP perform dismally? What next, Pentium 1 proxy servers in the exchanges with ATA33 harddrives?
 
This just enforces the lesson that Telkom can do just what they want.

I phoned my friend explaining the changes and he asks: "but how can they just change it?" and teh answer is simple, "Why Not" they can do just what they like.

We seriously need some way to get them to be able to guarantee service levels or face the music.

:(
 
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