Ridiculous ADSL Latency

[Arlington]

I recently applied for the Home ADSL solution. I got telkom came back to me within 2 days to tell me that they will install the line in 7 days, which i was very surprised and happy about. Then, the technicians actually came to days earlier to install the line. As you can imagine, i was very pleased with this service.
The download speeds are fine, about 40k/s .

Unfortunately, the latency is somewhat ridiculous.
I live in Hout Bay. (25 km from Cape Town City)

If i ping saix.net through command prompt a get an avg ping of 50, irrespectively at what time of the day. I know 2 other people in my are who have ADSl. The one i visited a few months back, and his ping was normal, around 15-20 to saix.net. Now both get the same pings as i do.

But, i also know some guy in Wynberg (around 20 km from Cape Town), which is 10 km from this area, he pings 13 to saix.net.
Also a guy in durbanville, he pings 15 to saix.net
Then i know 1 guy in Worcester which is 100km from CPT and one in Hermanus, which is 150km from Cape Town.
They both ping better to a cape town based webserver (saix.net) than me.

As far as i know, it doesnt not make a differenc what ISP im with, or very little, since the guys in Wynberg and Durbanville are both on MWeb (So am I).

Why is this ?

I am about to complain to telkom, but i wanna set up my argument correctly.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Andre]

Use traceroute to see where the bottleneck is.

This is from Constantia:
Tracing route to saix.net [196.25.1.200]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <10 ms <10 ms <10 ms 192.168.0.1
2 10 ms 10 ms 10 ms wbs-192-01.telkomadsl.co.za [165.165.192.1]
3 10 ms 10 ms 10 ms wbs-ip-er-1-fe-12-0-0-1.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.
43.10.46]
4 10 ms 10 ms 10 ms wblv-sr-1-atm-5-0-3.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.43.1
1.45]
5 10 ms 10 ms 10 ms wblv-ip-www-1.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.25.1.200]


Trace complete.

ISP is Telkom.

 

[Arlington]

Tracing route to saix.net [196.25.1.200]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 57 ms 46 ms 46 ms wbs-192-01.telkomadsl.co.za [165.165.192.1]
2 46 ms 46 ms 44 ms wbs-ip-er-1-fe-12-0-0-1.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.
43.10.46]
3 46 ms 46 ms 46 ms wblv-sr-1-atm-5-0-3.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.43.1
1.45]
4 62 ms 62 ms 62 ms wblv-ip-www-1.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.25.1.200]


Trace complete.

What does this mean ? Are we on the same exchange ? If so, I must be miles away from it...

 

[Tharaxis]

The first hop is not an exchange, but likely the router at Telkom that shoves you onto Telkom's IPNet. Basically what it says is that the increase in latency is probably from your home to the exchange and from the exchange to whatever other exchanges it has to run to before hitting Telkom's POP. There's probably not much you can do, because you might also be a bit of a distance from the exchange your line is connected to (thereby increasing line attenuation - ie. the rate at which the signal degrades).

 

[Andre]

Tracing from Muizenberg now:

Tracing route to saix.net [196.25.1.200]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.0.1
2 16 ms 17 ms 16 ms wbs-192-01.telkomadsl.co.za [165.165.192.1]
3 16 ms 18 ms 17 ms wbs-ip-er-1-fe-12-0-0-1.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.
43.10.46]
4 18 ms 18 ms 20 ms wblv-sr-1-atm-5-0-3.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.43.1
1.45]
5 22 ms 19 ms 19 ms wblv-ip-www-1.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.25.1.200]


Trace complete.

That time to reach wbs-192-01.telkomadsl.co.za is a bit high.

Try phoning 0800 375 375 first and complain. Also phone Mweb. Mention that you have compared traceroutes with other people and your latency isn't up to scratch. It may take more than one try to get a reasonably intelligent person on the line at Telkom.

 

[bees]

Excuse me if this is a stupid question, but what exactly does latency mean? How does it affect someone?

Still on ISDN... watch this space.

 

[caroper]

Tests from Hout Bay, same line, different accounts:

Tiscali

Tracing route to saix.net [196.25.1.200] over a maximum of 30 hops:
1 <10 ms <10 ms <10 ms 192.168.0.1
2 47 ms 31 ms 47 ms wbs-192-01.telkomadsl.co.za [165.165.192.1]
3 47 ms 31 ms 47 ms wbs-ip-er-1-fe-12-0-0-1.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.43.10.46]
4 47 ms 47 ms 47 ms wblv-sr-1-atm-5-0-3.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.43.11.45]
5 47 ms 31 ms 47 ms wblv-ip-www-1.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.25.1.200]

Trace complete.

Mweb

Tracing route to saix.net [196.25.1.200] over a maximum of 30 hops:
1 <10 ms <10 ms <10 ms 192.168.0.1
2 46 ms 47 ms 32 ms wbs-192-01.telkomadsl.co.za [165.165.192.1]
3 47 ms 47 ms 47 ms wbs-ip-er-1-fe-12-0-0-1.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.43.10.46]
4 31 ms 47 ms 47 ms wblv-sr-1-atm-5-0-3.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.43.11.45]
5 47 ms 47 ms 46 ms wblv-ip-www-1.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.25.1.200]

Trace complete.

Telkom

Tracing route to saix.net [196.25.1.200] over a maximum of 30 hops:
1 <10 ms <10 ms 16 ms 192.168.0.1
2 31 ms 47 ms 47 ms wbs-60-01.telkomadsl.co.za [165.165.60.1]
3 47 ms 31 ms 47 ms wbs-ip-er-1-fe-12-0-0-1.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.43.10.46]
4 47 ms 47 ms 47 ms wblv-sr-1-atm-5-0-3.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.43.11.45]
5 47 ms 47 ms 31 ms wblv-ip-www-1.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.25.1.200]

Trace complete.

All results are similar to yours, so it must be the link from Hout Bay to Wynburg, not the ISP, that is the problem. Must say that the Constantia latency looks good, house swap anyone?

Cheers
Chris

 

[sybawoods]

From Rondebosch:

Tracing route to saix.net [196.25.1.200]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 10 ms 8 ms 10 ms wbs-20-01.telkomadsl.co.za [165.165.20.1]
2 10 ms 9 ms 10 ms wbs-ip-er-1-fe-12-0-0-1.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.43.10.46]
3 11 ms 11 ms 11 ms wblv-sr-1-atm-5-0-3.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.43.11.45]
4 12 ms 11 ms 12 ms wblv-ip-www-1.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.25.1.200]

Trace complete.

 

[Andre]

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by bees</i>
<br />Excuse me if this is a stupid question, but what exactly does latency mean? How does it affect someone?
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Latency has to do with the time it takes for data to travel from your modem to whatever site you're interested in. The lower the better especially if you're interested in online gaming.