MWEB Uncapped Subscribers Feedback

Status
Not open for further replies.
Oreomitch said:
Since the upgrade, my downloads & torrents have been flying! With the networking being so good I'm now considering the 4Mb option (from 384kb). MWEB FTW!
Click to expand...

Don't assume that at 4MBps account will give you 12 times the bandwidth. I specifically asked this question in the Official Q&A thread, and got absolutely no answer from the MWeb representative (or anyone else).

Nowhere in the Terms and Conditions does it mention the packages, and there is no guarantee that when shaping occurs the 4MBps one will get preference to the 384K one.

burn said:
I've had a good connection (384 line) all night, was even streaming a live surfing event without a hitch. All was well until I opened my torrent client. Then my http became unusuable, this is not the first time. The torrents were downloading only at a few kbs and I was only trying to load a few basic websites, so the line was not busy.

What it seems like is that my whole account is being excessively shaped when I start using torrents, not just the torrents, anyone else experienced this? Has happend on a few occassions over the past week.
Click to expand...

My experience has been that I never (day or night) get more than 30-45Kbyte/sec on international traffic. (I'm on 4Mbps capped, but was migrated to the new MWeb backbone).

Perhaps you could turn the question around, and ask why HTTP is being shaped (day and night)? I also asked this question elsewhere, but got no answer.
 
Gordon_R said:
Don't assume that at 4MBps account will give you 12 times the bandwidth. I specifically asked this question in the Official Q&A thread, and got absolutely no answer from the MWeb representative (or anyone else).

Nowhere in the Terms and Conditions does it mention the packages, and there is no guarantee that when shaping occurs the 4MBps one will get preference to the 384K one.



My experience has been that I never (day or night) get more than 30-45Kbyte/sec on international traffic. (I'm on 4Mbps capped, but was migrated to the new MWeb backbone).

Perhaps you could turn the question around, and ask why HTTP is being shaped (day and night)? I also asked this question elsewhere, but got no answer.
Click to expand...

Err you cant get 30-45KB/s on what? im getting 400KB right now... ?
 
Gordon_R said:
Don't assume that at 4MBps account will give you 12 times the bandwidth. I specifically asked this question in the Official Q&A thread, and got absolutely no answer from the MWeb representative (or anyone else).

Nowhere in the Terms and Conditions does it mention the packages, and there is no guarantee that when shaping occurs the 4MBps one will get preference to the 384K one.



My experience has been that I never (day or night) get more than 30-45Kbyte/sec on international traffic. (I'm on 4Mbps capped, but was migrated to the new MWeb backbone).

Perhaps you could turn the question around, and ask why HTTP is being shaped (day and night)? I also asked this question elsewhere, but got no answer.
Click to expand...

Yep, mweb site says i've done 46.64 GB, and torrents are still going at my full 4mbit line speed. It is a weekend though, and it seems they shape torrents at office hours at about 170kb/s, which I dont mind at all. I havent had any problems with http...
 
pastry said:
Yep, mweb site says i've done 46.64 GB, and torrents are still going at my full 4mbit line speed. It is a weekend though, and it seems they shape torrents at office hours at about 170kb/s, which I dont mind at all. I havent had any problems with http...
Click to expand...

Sorry, I was referring to international HTTP. Any feedback on this (NOT Speedtest)?

Edit: Local HTTP is plenty fast, but I can only think of a handful of sites that anyone would want to use.

Isn't that what the whole issue about local vs international (blended) bandwidth and capping was about?
 
Last edited:
Gordon_R said:
Sorry, I was referring to international HTTP. Any feedback on this (NOT Speedtest)?

Edit: Local HTTP is plenty fast, but I can only think of a handful of sites that anyone would want to use.

Isn't that what the whole issue about local vs international (blended) bandwidth and capping was about?
Click to expand...

Not entirely sure what you are on about, but im getting full HTTP download international.
 
Gordon_R said:
Sorry, I was referring to international HTTP. Any feedback on this (NOT Speedtest)?

Edit: Local HTTP is plenty fast, but I can only think of a handful of sites that anyone would want to use.

Isn't that what the whole issue about local vs international (blended) bandwidth and capping was about?
Click to expand...

My PS3 game demo downloads came down at approx 170kB/s (not sure if they're http) and my Shaiya MMMORPG game client update was running at over 400kB/s yesterday. HTTP is always fast whether international or local.
 
Im still have ping issues with my games...still giving them time to fix it...
 
Last edited:
semaphore said:
My work servers, and my work content is not cached trust me:)
Click to expand...

I'm still rather puzzled, since my performance on international has been consistently worse since MWeb switched to SEACOM (and SAT3).

Part of the difference my be longer ping times (latency) on Seacom/CogentCo, since 'real-world' HTTP (web-surfing) with medium size images (10-300KB) would seem slower because of increased latency.

Here's an example (from Nasa) of a page with several hundred (100s) images, which (on Netscape 9.0) takes forever (2-3 mins) to load! (This is a worst case example, since each image is < 2KB).
http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/realtime/2010093/

If you click on the link for Southern Africa, the 180KB image takes many seconds (4-5) to load for me:
http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/realtime/single.php?A100921155

Another difference may be that SAIX used transparent proxy-caching. It is clear that MWeb uses a rather different system, including the shaping process. (None of the images I browse has ever been cached by the proxy, even when I revisit the same site 30 seconds later).

Other differences may something like local contention-ratios (thogh this does not explain international), or routing to some destinations may be throttled, either by MWeb or the international ISP-peering. The Wikipedia article on Cogent Communications (CogentCo) is less than flattering:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cogent_Communications
 
Last edited:
Gordon_R said:
I'm still rather puzzled, since my performance on international has been consistently worse since MWeb switched to SEACOM (and SAT3).

Part of the difference my be longer ping times (latency) on Seacom/CogentCo, since 'real-world' HTTP (web-surfing) with medium size images (10-300KB) would seem slower because of increased latency.

Here's an example (from Nasa) of a page with several hundred (100s) images, which (on Netscape 9.0) takes forever (2-3 mins) to load! (This is a worst case example, since each image is < 2KB).
http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/realtime/2010093/

If you click on the link for Southern Africa, the 180KB image takes many seconds (4-5) to load for me:
http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/realtime/single.php?A100921155

Another difference may be that SAIX used transparent proxy-caching. It is clear that MWeb uses a rather different system, including the shaping process. (None of the images I browse has ever been cached by the proxy, even when I revisit the same site 30 seconds later).

Other differences may something like local contention-ratios (thogh this does not explain international), or routing to some destinations may be throttled, either by MWeb or the international ISP-peering. The Wikipedia article on Cogent Communications (CogentCo) is less than flattering:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cogent_Communications
Click to expand...

Sorry to disappoint you but that NASA site took me about 25-30seconds to load. I suspect your problem is elsewhere.
 
semaphore said:
Sorry to disappoint you but that NASA site took me about 25-30seconds to load. I suspect your problem is elsewhere.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the feedback. The fact remains that content is not cached in the way it used to be. My performance has definitely decreased (with the same PC and browser), and several other users (mainly outside Joburg) seem to be less than satisfied.

When I check in IE8 on my other PC, it defintely seemed faster. Is it possible that MWeb is somehow (inadvertently) throttling users based on browser (IE6/7/8) or operating system (Windows TCP/IP stack), due to the increased hops to the server? Or is is possible that older browsers don't acknowledge receipt of packets fast enough? This was one of the benefits of a proxy-caching server, according to the SAIX explanation.

Sorry to ramble, but there must be some common factor or explanation for the difference...

Update: Holy cripes! I tested a whole lot of international stuff on IE8, and while latency is still high, the speed is phenomenal!

I think this is quite an important issue, and needs to be discussed more widely.
 
Last edited:
The TCP/IP stack is a standard, windows and linux and mac all incorporate the same standard, how each operating system deals with in locally on the machine is a different story, but im pretty sure its the same way. As for browser throttling highly unlikely. I am using firefox, safari, chrome, ie8 and i am having no speed issues across all of them.
 
semaphore said:
The TCP/IP stack is a standard, windows and linux and mac all incorporate the same standard, how each operating system deals with in locally on the machine is a different story, but im pretty sure its the same way. As for browser throttling highly unlikely. I am using firefox, safari, chrome, ie8 and i am having no speed issues across all of them.
Click to expand...

Er, that's exactly my problem (and presumably those of others). I'm not using any of the (modern) browsers you describe, so that's definitely the common factor!

Thanks for helping (in a very roundabout way :-)
 
Gordon_R said:
Er, that's exactly my problem (and presumably those of others). I'm not using any of the (modern) browsers you describe, so that's definitely the common factor!

Thanks for helping (in a very roundabout way :-)
Click to expand...

So upgrade simple. Netscape is very old and useless.
 
semaphore said:
So upgrade simple. Netscape is very old and useless.
Click to expand...

Ha-ah. The PC that I'm running Netscape on is Win 98 (don't ask why). None of the browsers you mention can be installed on Win 98. Probably the TCP/IP stack on Win 98 sucks too...

Edit: Its also the other users (and MWeb's reputation) that I'm curious about, since noone else has mentioned this as a possible solution. (Everyone else was talking about ADSL line synch, router settings, shaping, and other off-topic issues).
 
Last edited:
Gordon_R said:
Ha-ah. The PC that I'm running Netscape on is Win 98 (don't ask why). None of the browsers you mention can be installed on Win 98. Probably the TCP/IP stack on Win 98 sucks too...

Edit: Its also the other users (and MWeb's reputation) that I'm curious about, since noone else has mentioned this as a possible solution. (Everyone else was talking about ADSL line synch, router settings, shaping, and other off-topic issues).
Click to expand...

Install linux if its an old machine:)
 
semaphore said:
Install linux if its an old machine:)
Click to expand...

My point is that if an ISP changes their conditions of service, they should at least test it on their existing users, or explain what the minimum system requirements are. (Microsoft are infamous for doing this...)

All that we were told was 'leave the proxy on automatic', and everything will be fine. NOT!
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X