Latency question

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Fulton17

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Since December my latency went from 270 ms to mid to high 500 ms (Durban to New York). This happened overnight. I have spent the last few months working with my ISP and Telkom to get this resolved.

The matter was escalated at Telkom and after much comings and goings they have responded along the following lines: "There is congestion on the ESR feeding the entire Tollgate Exchange. The bandwidth capacity is 60 meg, and currently running on 66 meg."

I am not technical but would have thought that this would impact browsing rather than latency. Can someone help me to understand this? Thanks so much
 
Bandwidth and latency are related. Once the bandwidth capacity is reached, the receiving end will start to drop packets which will then have to be resent. The resending takes time and hence higher latency.

Your issue seems strange though, although I would have been very surprised if you had received any useful feedback.

My advice is to try another ISP account and you will likely find out that your ping improves.
 
Wyzak said:
My advice is to try another ISP account and you will likely find out that your ping improves.
Click to expand...

Thanks Wyzak

I did try an IS account and latency was in high 500 ms which - in my understanding - meant it is a Telkom, not ISP, issue
 
There is congestion on the ESR feeding the entire Tollgate Exchange. The bandwidth capacity is 60 meg, and currently running on 66 meg
Click to expand...
My advice is to try another ISP account and you will likely find out that your ping improves
Click to expand...

Changing ISP's will not help as the congestion / capacity problem is in Telkom's ADSL infrastructure - before it gets passed on to the ISP.
You need to change to another Telkom Exchange.
This can be done by:
  • Asking Telkom if they can route you to another exchange
  • Moving house to another suburb
  • Changing to a different technology - eg Celllular (Cell-C, VodaCom, MTN, 8ta) or iBurst
I have the same problem - Telkom Exchange is overloaded - have tried different ISP's and unshaped - no improvement.
I switched ISP's and though the problem was solved, the slowness returned later in the day - I then realized that the throughput is time-of-day dependent - fast in the early mornings and slow in the afternoon/evening.

I'm probably going to switch to Cell-C.
 
@Fulton17: I think we've even moved you across to a different DSLAM hey Fulton?
Bit tough this one, if the ESR is overloaded along with the Exchanges in the area the best bet is for Telkom to upgrade equipment :(
 
system32 said:
This can be done by:
  • Asking Telkom if they can route you to another exchange
  • Moving house to another suburb
  • Changing to a different technology - eg Celllular (Cell-C, VodaCom, MTN, 8ta) or iBurst

I'm probably going to switch to Cell-C.
Click to expand...

After months of just getting to this point with Telkom, not too keen to get them to try me on another exchange.
Once I win the lotto, I will be moving :)
On my current deal, the bandwidth would just be way to expensive and would see major cost increases :mad:
 
WAJeff said:
@Fulton17: I think we've even moved you across to a different DSLAM hey Fulton?
Bit tough this one, if the ESR is overloaded along with the Exchanges in the area the best bet is for Telkom to upgrade equipment :(
Click to expand...

Jeff I know they did do something with a port - not being too technical not too sure what it was, but a few things were tried.

As to the upgrade - that could be quite a while
 
Fulton17 said:
After months of just getting to this point with Telkom, not too keen to get them to try me on another exchange.
Once I win the lotto, I will be moving :)
On my current deal, the bandwidth would just be way to expensive and would see major cost increases :mad:
Click to expand...

Same here, Cell-C needs a few more packages - eg 10G, 20G, 30G.

Do you also experience fast in the morning (6-7am) and slow in the afternoon/evening (3pm+)?
 
system32 said:
Do you also experience fast in the morning (6-7am) and slow in the afternoon/evening (3pm+)?
Click to expand...

I am on a 4 meg line and have generally - well the last few months - that browsing is generally not up to scratch. I will try and be a bit more "scientific" about it over the next few days and see. I think I have come to a point of accepting that browsing is generally average and so try not to expect what I believe I should be enjoying - if that makes sense
 
Fulton17 said:
I am on a 4 meg line and have generally - well the last few months - that browsing is generally not up to scratch. I will try and be a bit more "scientific" about it over the next few days and see. I think I have come to a point of accepting that browsing is generally average and so try not to expect what I believe I should be enjoying - if that makes sense
Click to expand...

It took me a while to realize that the performance was time-of-day related.
I then tried switching ISP's and found that the problem was independent of the ISP.
i.e. when it was slow/fast, both ISP's had the similar performance.

I'm trying to get Telkom to provide traffic details on my exchange - but no luck so far.
 
Telkom has no test for latency. In fact the techie who visits can't measure it at all.
 
I may have the same problem, but I'm in cape town, during the hours of 5pm - 7pm I get extremely high latency, not matter which ISP's account I used (webafrica and mweb). Very weird indeed
 
Lounger said:
Telkom has no test for latency. In fact the techie who visits can't measure it at all.
Click to expand...

True that - in fact most of the time I had to try and explain to him what latency is. All they ever seem to do was to tell me I have a 4 meg line (knew that already) and that my noise levels were acceptable
 
evilsee said:
I may have the same problem, but I'm in cape town, during the hours of 5pm - 7pm I get extremely high latency, not matter which ISP's account I used (webafrica and mweb). Very weird indeed
Click to expand...

AFAIK latency is not time related; my results are pretty much the same regardless of when I test. I did find slight differences on the two accounts I use
 
system32 said:
I have the same problem - Telkom Exchange is overloaded - have tried different ISP's and unshaped - no improvement.
I switched ISP's and though the problem was solved, the slowness returned later in the day - I then realized that the throughput is time-of-day dependent - fast in the early mornings and slow in the afternoon/evening.
Click to expand...

Does anyone know how to get Telkom to assist with a problem where the ADSL infrastructure is overloaded?

I have heard suggestions to ask them move your number to a different port group - how do you get to the correct level Techie who understands this and can do something about it?
 
Difference between latency and bandwidth explained very simply: Think of your internet data as water through a hosepipe. Bandwitdh is the diameter of the pipe. A large pipe (4mb line) will be able to deliver more water than a thinner pipe (384k). Latency is how quickly the water starts running after you opened the tap, regardless of the diameter op the pipe. You could have a 4mb line but if you use a VPN to remote desktop to another country, latency is more important than bandwith as you need a quick response rather than the ability to move massive amounts of data. When you wan't your youtube videos to cache quickly or want large files to download, you need bandwidth
 
Electron1 said:
Does anyone know how to get Telkom to assist with a problem where the ADSL infrastructure is overloaded?

I have heard suggestions to ask them move your number to a different port group - how do you get to the correct level Techie who understands this and can do something about it?
Click to expand...

Over the last few months I have had a range of tech guys working / testing my line. One of the guys took it upon himself to change my port whilst others simply did the basics. In some ways as we are dealing with Telkom I think it is based on the luck of the draw!!

I guess just keep asking - maybe also try via 0800 375 375. The more you ask, the better your chances!!
 
I think Telkom often over subscribe their exchanges and it just causes problems for everyone down the line.
 
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