Mweb Shaping Beyond All Belief?

[MWEBHelp]

Same for me about 3-4 months ago. Now I never get over 11 kbps from mwebs news server. MWeb say I have an issue with my line while Telkom say it is working perfectly, so I can't do much more Personally, I think it is an mweb thing because everything else on my line works as expected.

Hi burn

Please see the PM I have sent you.

Regards,
MWEB Ops

 

[MWEBHelp]

I used to be able to get 30 - 40 kbps on Newservers but now I'm down to 10 - 15. :/ Very sad.

Hi MysteriousBeing

Please PM me your MWEB account details and I will investigate this for you.

Kind Regards,
MWEB ops

 

[MWEBHelp]

i get 8kb/s in the day for torrents and up to 90kb/s at night.on very rare occasions it would shoot to over 500kb/s in the night for about 3h or so.

Hi DCBloodHound

Please PM me your MWEB account details and I will investigate this for you.

Kind Regards,
MWEB ops

 

[MWEBHelp]

I have the same problem, been like that for a few weeks. Normal downloads are fine though . I've given up on torrentz

Hi ADRAM

Please PM me your MWEB account details and I will investigate this for you.

Kind Regards,
MWEB ops

 

[Adeptus Mechanicus]

I've had this issue for the last month on my 384kb/s line and it has been investigated several times by Mweb, the reply always that it has to do with the shared non-priority bandwidth pool. My service has now degraded to such a point that I'm lucky to get 3-4kb/s all day, every day using NNTP. Last week I averaged <1kb/s hence some renewed investigation I requested from MWeb.

The issue is quite obviously not line related as connecting to a pre-paid WA account at any point of the day results in full line speed for me. I suspect some accounts, incl. mine, are being subjected to extra heavy shaping for some reason as others are getting full line speed for at least a few hours a day (see MWEB Uncapped NNTP thread)

This afternoon I sat with an MWEB techie on the phone and demonstrated the above once again. He had me send both a ping test and traceroute through to him for investigation so I eagerly await some form of feedback.

As I sit right now my NNTP downloads are going haywire with multiple disconnects/reconnects to both the MWeb and Easynews newservers and my speeds do not exceed 3kb/s for more than a second or two.

 

[fbman]

Shaping has worsening for me too..

doing the latter half of 2010, I use to get full speed using news groups between 1am and 6am... now I get between 180k to 200k...

I cant believe mweb demand doubled in January from the whole of 2010 and how much surfing is done in those hours.. really.

The Rate mweb is going.. by the end of this year,, there network will be unuseable.

 

[ZeeCPT]

My torrents are super slow - seldom go above 80kB/s on my 4 meg line. I understand torrents are shaped, but why do some people get a solid 400kB/s and others don't? I have not got those speeds (torrents or HTTP) since moving to Mweb. R1000pm for these speeds just doesn't cut it MWEB!

 

[MWEBHelp]

Shaping has worsening for me too..

doing the latter half of 2010, I use to get full speed using news groups between 1am and 6am... now I get between 180k to 200k...

I cant believe mweb demand doubled in January from the whole of 2010 and how much surfing is done in those hours.. really.

The Rate mweb is going.. by the end of this year,, there network will be unuseable.

Hi fbman

I have checked your line and the attenuation on your line is fairly high. I recreated the port for you so please monitor your speeds and if you are still experiencing any issues, please provide us with a speed test as this will assist us with further investigation.

Regards,
MWEB Ops

 

[MWEBHelp]

My torrents are super slow - seldom go above 80kB/s on my 4 meg line. I understand torrents are shaped, but why do some people get a solid 400kB/s and others don't? I have not got those speeds (torrents or HTTP) since moving to Mweb. R1000pm for these speeds just doesn't cut it MWEB!

Hi ZeeCPT

I checked your line and everything seems fine. Can you please provide us with a speedtest in order for us to troubleshoot further into your query.

Regards,
MWEB Ops

 

[ZeeCPT]

Hi ZeeCPT

I checked your line and everything seems fine. Can you please provide us with a speedtest in order for us to troubleshoot further into your query.

Regards,
MWEB Ops

Hi Mr. Ops,

I unfortunately can't do it here at work but I shall do as soon as I get home. Thank you for the response.

Regards,
Z

 

[wetkit]

Is there a way to check you usage on an Uncapped account on MWEB?

Reason I ask is because our buisness uncapped got disabled last month due to abuse and I would like to see the consumption figures for the last couple of months.

 

[MWEBHelp]

Is there a way to check you usage on an Uncapped account on MWEB?

Reason I ask is because our buisness uncapped got disabled last month due to abuse and I would like to see the consumption figures for the last couple of months.

Hi wetkit

You can't view usage stats if your account is disabled.

Please PM me your MWEB account details in order for me to investigate into your query.

Regards,
MWEB Ops

 

[Adeptus Mechanicus]

I've had this issue for the last month on my 384kb/s line and it has been investigated several times by Mweb, the reply always that it has to do with the shared non-priority bandwidth pool. My service has now degraded to such a point that I'm lucky to get 3-4kb/s all day, every day using NNTP. Last week I averaged <1kb/s hence some renewed investigation I requested from MWeb.

The issue is quite obviously not line related as connecting to a pre-paid WA account at any point of the day results in full line speed for me. I suspect some accounts, incl. mine, are being subjected to extra heavy shaping for some reason as others are getting full line speed for at least a few hours a day (see MWEB Uncapped NNTP thread)

This afternoon I sat with an MWEB techie on the phone and demonstrated the above once again. He had me send both a ping test and traceroute through to him for investigation so I eagerly await some form of feedback.

As I sit right now my NNTP downloads are going haywire with multiple disconnects/reconnects to both the MWeb and Easynews newservers and my speeds do not exceed 3kb/s for more than a second or two.

*Sigh*

Yet another techie phoned today and explained to me that Mweb has a non-priority protocol pool which is causing my issues. I summarily explained once again that I have been with Mweb for 9 months, have seen NNTP shaping taking place all that time (albeit reasonable shaping), have had extremely aggressive NNTP shaping 24/7 for the last month's period and now all of a sudden I am being throttled to the point of NNTP being completely unusable all day, every day (see 2 week period of <1kb/s speeds mentioned above).

His reply? "Send me more traceroutes and ping tests". :wtf:

We don't seem to be moving towards a solution, Mweb. I'm afraid a new ISP is on the cards for Feb it seems.

 

[Will@MWEB]

*Sigh*

Yet another techie phoned today and explained to me that Mweb has a non-priority protocol pool which is causing my issues. I summarily explained once again that I have been with Mweb for 9 months, have seen NNTP shaping taking place all that time (albeit reasonable shaping), have had extremely aggressive NNTP shaping 24/7 for the last month's period and now all of a sudden I am being throttled to the point of NNTP being completely unusable all day, every day (see 2 week period of <1kb/s speeds mentioned above).

His reply? "Send me more traceroutes and ping tests". :wtf:

We don't seem to be moving towards a solution, Mweb. I'm afraid a new ISP is on the cards for Feb it seems.

Hi IwoJima

I understand your frustration, however when it comes to peer to peer related queries our agents are aware of the policies we have in place and the fact that p2p speeds will fluctuate and the best course of action for them is to advise you on these policies and proceed with troubleshooting to ensure that there are no underlying problems on your connection which might be having an effect on the speeds you are getting.

I've noted that there is some discussion around p2p at the moment and I think perhaps there is an element of 'holiday hangover' in effect here as everyone is now back at work and business traffic has returned to normal levels.

We do monitor the p2p experience on our shaped products and we will always allocate as much bandwidth as we can to these activities without compromising the overall network performance, however if you are a p2p user on a shaped product and you feel like downloading at line speeds from p2p sources is your primary reason for being online, please consider moving to one of our unshaped products as this is what they cater for.

Kind Regards
Will

 

[Adeptus Mechanicus]

Hi IwoJima

I understand your frustration, however when it comes to peer to peer related queries our agents are aware of the policies we have in place and the fact that p2p speeds will fluctuate and the best course of action for them is to advise you on these policies and proceed with troubleshooting to ensure that there are no underlying problems on your connection which might be having an effect on the speeds you are getting.

I've noted that there is some discussion around p2p at the moment and I think perhaps there is an element of 'holiday hangover' in effect here as everyone is now back at work and business traffic has returned to normal levels.

We do monitor the p2p experience on our shaped products and we will always allocate as much bandwidth as we can to these activities without compromising the overall network performance, however if you are a p2p user on a shaped product and you feel like downloading at line speeds from p2p sources is your primary reason for being online, please consider moving to one of our unshaped products as this is what they cater for.

Kind Regards
Will

Will, the above would be a reasonable explanation if 3 things were true:

1) My problem only began after the holiday season - False - If you read me previous posts and pm's to yourself and Mweb OPS you'll notice it began smack in middle of the holiday season and got progressively worse. When I queried it at that time you were quick to blame the holiday period for increased load. So which is it then?

2) Everybody is experiencing similar levels of non-priority (read:NNTP) protocol performance - False - Read the Mweb Uncapped Performance thread and you'll see that this isn't the case. Others are sitting with full line speed (on NNTP) for the majority of the day if not the whole day.

3) We hadn't already established that my line is not the issue - False - Again as I've stated multiple times to yourself, MWeb Ops and on these boards, switching to another ISP's pre-paid account results in full NNTP speed....therefore the problem is ISP related.

I have now just repeated myself for the umpteenth time and all you guys can offer is further line tests and a suggestion that I pay more for another one of your services when the current one has performed perfectly for the last 9 months. All I'm looking for is an explanation on what has changed and whether the changes are permanent so I can make decision on whether it's worth handing Mweb >R200 every month. I suspect your shaping policies are not working as they should and/or Mweb has overreached itself on the amount of bandwidth it has available for users.

I tell you what...put me onto your Unshaped Uncapped package for a day, let me do some tests of my own and we'll see where the problem lies and I'll decide if I want to upgrade my account.

 

[MFour]

I tell you what...put me onto your Unshaped Uncapped package for a day, let me do some tests of my own and we'll see where the problem lies and I'll decide if I want to upgrade my account.

Maybe I can offer some help here. I switched over to the MWEB 384 Unshaped Uncapped account in December 2010, after experiencing the same shaping frustrations. I had the opportunity to test a 512 Unshaped account and it ran flawlessly. I had to settle for a Unshaped 384 account (to fit my budget) and again it runs full speed 24/7 since then. I only really use NNTP (Supernews) without any sign of slowdowns or glitches. Sure it is not the fastest speed ever (constant average download speed of 47.3 kBps) but it never fails. At least now I know when to expect a download to be finished, which allows some planning and scheduling for my needs.

Best thing I could have done under the circumstances.

 

[Adeptus Mechanicus]

Maybe I can offer some help here. I switched over to the MWEB 384 Unshaped Uncapped account in December 2010, after experiencing the same shaping frustrations. I had the opportunity to test a 512 Unshaped account and it ran flawlessly. I had to settle for a Unshaped 384 account (to fit my budget) and again it runs full speed 24/7 since then. I only really use NNTP (Supernews) without any sign of slowdowns or glitches. Sure it is not the fastest speed ever (constant average download speed of 47.3 kBps) but it never fails. At least now I know when to expect a download to be finished, which allows some planning and scheduling for my needs.

Best thing I could have done under the circumstances.

It's definitely an option if the current situation with NNTP shaping is to become the norm (essentially what I'm trying to get out of Mweb atm), but I certainly won't switch over to an Unshaped account without full guarantee that I won't suffer from the same poor speeds/connection issues. Hence my request to test Mweb's Unshaped Uncapped on my line.

I've just got off the phone with the same techie I've been dealing with over the last few days. What a frustrating experience that was. He'd used a Telkom-made tool to check my line quality (once again), claimed that the performance was not optimal and that was the cause of my poor experience. I explained (once again) that signing into my WA prepaid account instantly results in full NNTP speed so line quality is clearly not the cause. He continued to debate this and even went as far as trying to claim that you can't compare an uncapped and capped accounts as uncapped is shaped heavily. How exactly does that have anything to do with my line quality? If ANY account peforms at full line speed and another doesn't it is obviously not a line issue. :wtf:

The techie, now frustrated with my logic and his inability to railroad me with technical jargon, ended the call telling me he would be wasting both of our times escalating this issue while my supposed line quality issues still persist.

 

[Will@MWEB]

@MFour Thanks for your input, I'm glad to hear you are still enjoying the unshaped experience

@IwoJima I received your PM and will call you shortly to discuss your concerns in more detail and arrange an unshaped test for you.

Kind Regards
Will

 

[Adeptus Mechanicus]

Will has temporarily changed my account from Shaped to Unshaped with the intantaneous effect of me now having full line speed from my newsserver downloads. As expected this confirms my belief that line quality is a non-issue in my case and the Shaped Uncapped product was the culprit. I will be trialing this Unshaped product for a few days and monitoring performance before deciding whether to make a permanent change to it or give another ISP's uncapped product a go.

@Will: Thanks for the call. Your answers and honesty are much appreciated.

 

[MFour]

@MFour Thanks for your input, I'm glad to hear you are still enjoying the unshaped experience

@IwoJima I received your PM and will call you shortly to discuss your concerns in more detail and arrange an unshaped test for you.

Kind Regards
Will

@Will: Indeed still enjoying it. More speed would be great, but first I'll have to get a raise

@IwoJima: I'm sure Will can sort you out, he did a brilliant job getting me sorted. For interest sake, I had the exact experience you have with NNTP. Often reading of others achieving high DL speeds, but experiencing the opposite. Swapping to my WA capped account i would immediately get full line speed on NNTP. In the end I realised that a shaped account will never perform the same as an unshaped account, which is why I made the swap.

You might have seen this post of mine, which was a 512 unshaped account. Obviously my 384 unshaped account is a bit slower, but it is as rock solid as those figures.

Hope you get things sorted.