Sentech beats the Burst

D

dorris

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I know, I better donn the flameproof gear, It also took me by surprise when I got these stats!
Don't get me wrong, I'm not a dieHard sentech supporter, they definitely can't take down iburst on speed, I was just checking latency to start graphing it early to watch how it degrades over time as iburst gets more users, in order to give me an idea on whether to go for it next year. well, it doesn't look like graceful degredation is a strong point for the burst!
local latency doubles during daytime hours to over 200ms (whereas sentech averages 150), and even at night, sentech beat the burst on latency. Also keep in mind sentech have many more users!!

these stats might be specific to ibursts heaviest used tower, sandton!
and may also be why they still in Beta phase, but interesting nonetheless
well, nothing speaks louder than a picture, see http://dorris.imess.net

also, note that my sentech graphs packet loss is always higher than the factual stats, as my connection struggles to make an hour without disconnection, so it often attempts a ping while I'm not connected!

If any other smoothwall users want to start graphing this sort of stuff, I should be uploading the prog + install script to smoothwall forums later this week.
 
Interesting...

Dorris, I've googled to try finding the smoothwall forums you refer to, I get way too many results, obviously SourceForge.net, also +site:za +smoothwall lists way too much. So, I tried, pls post urls - I think I need to give smoothwall the hairy eyeball.
 
dorris, with what signal strength did you observe this? I read from something/someone that having a better signal gives improved speeds+pings...
 
all of a sudden I dont feel bad keeping Sentech... TO think I almost went the iBurst route...

Maybe it was a bad nihgt for iBurst though... And I am sure this month Sentech must've turned off a load of
users who have cancelled. At this rate one can only besure of a tried and tested service and that at the moment seems like ADSL or even a modem.

At least Sentech also seems to be looking hopeful. A week now of consistent service. If they manage to keep this up for a month I will be sold and back on Sentech's happy list... althouhg they shuld still be cheaper.


myWireless 128, 64, 48, 16 - depends on its mood.
 
Hey each to his/her own.

The fact is if it hurts Telkom it is a good thing - one of those enemy of my enemy is my friend - twisted logic things.

Just remember there won't even be noone around when you ask time for war?
 
dorris /headend

Just a more smoothwall related question. Is it possible to change the index.cgi web interface for smoothwall to include links to favourite websites?

Regards
 
But can u compare the ping times? Cause as far as I know ping times are not at all good or stable on wireless. Also signal strength has an affect on pings and not on download speeds. Iburst also use different technology to sentech. So maybe compare download speeds? there I think iburst is at the advantage
 
Ping times and packet loss are areas that is very grey with wireless networks, hence the importance in testing them. These results aren't very conclusive, as has been discussed in the other forums (old MYAdsl).

Brolloks, easy task, get winscp, conntect to smoothwall using ssh port, go to /home/httpd/cgi-bin, select index.cgi for editing, determine where on the page you want your links, and put in your links, if in an html code section, just slam them in, alternatively, use command
Code: 
print " <HTML CODE FOR LINKS> ";
My best advice is to browse http://community.smoothwall.org/forum
get the mods tab at http://community.smoothwall.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3086
and make a page in there dedicated to your links page.
If you can't find what you looking for on the forum, to create your page in there, feel free to PM/mail me, or find me on msn.
 
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This is actually insanity, just went to check the mates stats on iBurst,
489.18ms is the average ping response to www.iburst.co.za.
PacketLoss is at 10%

Things went from bad to worse, perhaps its the effect of the firmware, the user I'm getting my stats off hasn't done the upgrade yet, will post the results on the same page as the previous set!
They did something very wrong on friday at midnight! (See the very last graph on the page)
if u didn't get it earlier click this link

Any Iburst users want to comment on this?

hope things start to stabilise, will keep you posted on what happens after firmware upgrade.
 
I can confirm that things have been getting worse on iBurst for me, will look at the graphs after lunch, BUT, Dorris what's this about a firmware upgrade?
 
Those of us who followed the MW launch will confirm that iBurst is earily following in the exact foot steps of MW. Talk to people who had MW from the beginning ... :(
 
Bwahahahahahahaha

Boy, am I glad I decided to give them a few months to settle in first :P
what's that noone?

Anyways, I really hope they pull themselves together, this is even before the official launch in March....if things keep going this way, the chance of a 3GB cap being introduced in March is very high.

Just shows you what happens when you start advertising ;)
 
Right now, I DO NOT REGRET going iBurst (yet), sure I'm somewhat wingy & vocal about WBS' degradation of, well everything... and I'm not going to stop complaining - it is my constitutional right to do so, if things get worse around launch time then I will take steps...

I had a decision to make, and I knew (thanks to MyADSL members) that it was extremely risky, in my specific situation wireless whether MyWireless or iBurst, is still more feasible than Telkom ISDN or ADSL.

So I will put up with it, but I sure as hell ain't gonna shutup, even if WBS put my contract out on me (if you get the mungling of that phrase).
 
I got a call from an iBurst reseller... quiet interesting really...
but at this point in time i will stick to Sentech which as improved.

fact is I average between 6.5GB - 8 GB a month and that suits me fine for
R650.00.

although I will watch the Burst very closely and make a decision later in life...
 
I agree that latency is becoming a concern on Iburst, when I started using the product I had local pings under 100ms and International was around 250ms. Now its more like 300ms local and 800-timeout international. Which is pretty bad. However my download rates have not changed I still cruise at 120Kbs quite easily.

However I guess we have to remember that it is burst technology and will never be consistent. However the current latency is worse than I would expect.
 
Just an update, since last week friday night, 10/12/2004, I noticed latency on the burst stabilized for that user, It is happily now kicking sentechs @ss again, the AVERAGE local RTT now fluctuates between 70ms and 180ms at the worst.
Lets hope it stays that way, perhaps Iburst can start setting a new standard for sentech.
 
ic, I agree - I am stuck using sentech because right now, they're the only ones that suit my needs. The whole wireless mobile thing is exactly what I need, flat rate is what I need, browsing/email/occasional downloading is what I need, etc, and mainly they have coverage where I need it. But I will still complain, because they are still not providing what they said they would - and on top of that they are being sneaky about it too.
 
Q for Donovan

Donovan,

Did you get the answer to your dual-logon MW Q? I'm sure that ST posted something on their MW bb (October) saying they had closed that loophole, but as we all know, what ST says & what ST does are very different things...

If you haven't already signed up for RPM's Broadband QoS Testing, it might be very interesting to see the results of the same MW account being used (regularly) in the same two different locations. A bit mungled that was, but I'm sure you know what I mean.

Added: I don't think that sort of test would work with iBurst bcos WBS seem to authenticate the combination of: Username, Password as well as UTID (hardware ID) when you connect. Surprised MW doesn't / didn't work the same way.
 
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