Line attenuation and https

[dkhaley]

So my Telkom line has terrible line attenuation. About 55 download and 27 upload. However, I can usually browse site (just very slowly).

I have noticed that I cannot access any secure sites (those with https). Is there something with the packet size with SSL that makes it more difficult to load than standard web pages.

On another note, I just move to SA recently. I understand that the price of data traffic may be higher due to international cables. However, Telkom absolutely screws people on the price of the DSL line. In Europe I was able to get a 1 mpbs connection, phone line and cable TV for R350 per month.

 

[Nuro]

Https will not affect packet sizes. The MTU for tcp/ip packets stay the same no matter what traffic is actually going over the line. If you are accessing unencrypted sites fine, https should work. Can you possibly post results from pingtest.net and speedtest.net?

 

[al360]

yeah thats the story of our lives

 

[AnimateX]

Yep, that is the way of Telkom. Did you not get the complimentary bottle of vaseline when you ordered?

Yes a packet is a packet.

Some sites keep their SSL connection timeouts short, that could probably be why your http can manage but an SSL session will timeout on you before you can finish loading. I know I struggled to get into gmail on SSL when I still had to use GPRS (slow).

If you can't access https at all (as in no connect, no data coming through) then you may have a different problem. Make sure you don't have stray proxy settings in your browser.

 

[dkhaley]

Regarding the SSL sites it must be the timeout problem. I never had problems on other networks, and I've also tested it with various browsers and on different machines.

 

[dkhaley]

Https will not affect packet sizes. The MTU for tcp/ip packets stay the same no matter what traffic is actually going over the line. If you are accessing unencrypted sites fine, https should work. Can you possibly post results from pingtest.net and speedtest.net?

Below you will find the results of the various tests. When it does work it seems to work fine. However, the connection often drops out completely or to speeds below 1kbps. This is best illustrated by the traceroute I did (see below). Oddly enough, it keeps stalling at a Telkom ATM router.

I suspect it has something to do with line quality (SNR = 10-11, Line Attenuation 50 Down, 28 Up). Is there an easy way to test if the problem is in my home or in the external Telkom lines?

PINGTEST.NET

Test Packet Loss Ping Jitter Grade
---------------------------------------------
1st * Failed test as connection dropped *
2nd 0% 28 ms 9 ms A
3rd * Manually aborted after 5 minutes *
4th 0% 24ms 8 ms A

SPEEDTEST.net

Test Ping Download Upload
---------------------------------------
1st 35 ms 2.5 mbps 0.42 mbps
2nd 34 ms 2.47 mbps 0.42 mbps

PING TO WWW.SAIX.NET

PING www.saix.net (196.25.1.200): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 196.25.1.200: icmp_seq=0 ttl=250 time=30.207 ms
64 bytes from 196.25.1.200: icmp_seq=1 ttl=250 time=29.625 ms
64 bytes from 196.25.1.200: icmp_seq=2 ttl=250 time=29.546 ms
64 bytes from 196.25.1.200: icmp_seq=3 ttl=250 time=30.924 ms
64 bytes from 196.25.1.200: icmp_seq=4 ttl=250 time=29.344 ms
64 bytes from 196.25.1.200: icmp_seq=5 ttl=250 time=32.850 ms
64 bytes from 196.25.1.200: icmp_seq=6 ttl=250 time=34.654 ms
64 bytes from 196.25.1.200: icmp_seq=7 ttl=250 time=30.908 ms
64 bytes from 196.25.1.200: icmp_seq=8 ttl=250 time=30.049 ms
64 bytes from 196.25.1.200: icmp_seq=9 ttl=250 time=29.409 ms

--- www.saix.net ping statistics ---
10 packets transmitted, 10 packets received, 0.0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 29.344/30.752/34.654/1.643 ms

TRACEROUTE TO WWW.SAIX.NET
—————————————
Traceroute has started…

traceroute to www.saix.net (196.25.1.200), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets
1 10.0.0.2 (10.0.0.2) 1.023 ms 0.879 ms 0.756 ms
2 * * *
3 wblv-ip-essr-1-atm-2-0-0-2.telkom-ipnet.co.za (196.43.11.30) 29.180 ms 29.077 ms 29.622 ms
4 * * *
5 * * *
6 * * *
7 * * *
8 * * *
9 * * *
10 * * *
11 * * *
12 wblv-ip-essr-1-atm-2-0-0-2.telkom-ipnet.co.za (196.43.11.30) 189.567 ms !X * *
13 * * *
14 * * *
15 * * *
16 * * *
17 * * *
18 * * *
19 * * *
20 * * *
21 * * *
22 * * *
23 * * *
24 * * *
25 * * *
26 * * *
27 * * *
28 * * *
29 * * *
30 * * *
31 * * *
32 wblv-ip-essr-1-atm-2-0-0-2.telkom-ipnet.co.za (196.43.11.30) 29.247 ms !X * *
33 * * *
34 * * *
35 * * *
36 * * *
37 * * *
38 * *
(aborted)

 

[dkhaley]

Here's a traceroute that worked to www.google.co.za

traceroute: Warning: www.google.co.za has multiple addresses; using 74.125.67.103
traceroute to www.l.google.com (74.125.67.103), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets
1 10.0.0.2 (10.0.0.2) 1.679 ms 0.753 ms 0.721 ms
2 dsl-246-64-01.telkomadsl.co.za (41.246.64.1) 8.723 ms 8.453 ms 8.096 ms
3 * * *
4 * * *
5 196.43.10.130 (196.43.10.130) 12.058 ms 12.237 ms 12.292 ms
6 196.43.33.5 (196.43.33.5) 9.862 ms 9.743 ms 9.099 ms
7 lon-ip-dir-telecity-gig-1-0-2.telkom-ipnet.co.za (196.43.9.217) 284.726 ms 283.549 ms 283.802 ms
8 125-126-245-83.packetexchange.net (83.245.126.125) 324.068 ms 324.717 ms 323.009 ms
9 209.85.255.175 (209.85.255.175) 320.936 ms 319.609 ms 444.500 ms
10 209.85.250.54 (209.85.250.54) 321.880 ms 319.580 ms 320.393 ms
11 209.85.254.48 (209.85.254.48) 332.398 ms 329.409 ms 328.970 ms
12 209.85.254.247 (209.85.254.247) 330.910 ms 331.758 ms
72.14.239.127 (72.14.239.127) 331.341 ms
13 209.85.255.194 (209.85.255.194) 339.767 ms
209.85.255.190 (209.85.255.190) 329.817 ms 331.672 ms
14 gw-in-f103.1e100.net (74.125.67.103) 330.147 ms 329.829 ms 330.645 ms

 

[Pada]

The SSL timeouts are usually a couple of minutes if I'm not mistaken. I doubt that it could be a timeout problem.

is your ADSL running at 384kbps? A line attenuation as high as that shouldn't be running faster than 1Mbps or you'll experience lots of problems.

 

[dkhaley]

The SSL timeouts are usually a couple of minutes if I'm not mistaken. I doubt that it could be a timeout problem.

is your ADSL running at 384kbps? A line attenuation as high as that shouldn't be running faster than 1Mbps or you'll experience lots of problems.

The line was originally at 384kbps. Recently upgraded to 4mbps, although Telkom only activated it for 3mbps. Would downgrading back to 384kbps increase the effective speed of web browsing?

 

[Pada]

Yes, it would dramatically increase the stability by downgrading to 384kbps again. With that line attenuation you shouldn't even be synchronizing anything faster than 1Mbps (as I've said in my previous post).

Check your current line synchronization speed on the router. You could ask Telkom to reduce it to 1Mbps, but then you'll be paying quite a lot for it.

 

[robdutchmonkey]

Rubbish, I have line attenuation of 49 down and 31 up. I'm syncing quite reliably now on a 3072/512 line. Max I've synced at was 4096 but with horrible stability. The stability of the 3Mb line is not 100% more like 90%. But if you drop it down to 2048 down, you should be 100% stable. Yes your down attenuation is slightly worse then mine, but your line should be ok on a 2Mb sync provided there's no other problems with line/exchange etc

 

[Pada]

the line attenuation is specified in dB! His line attenuation isn't just slightly worse that yours, instead it's a lot worse than yours!
2048kbps would still be fairly unstable with that high line attenuation.