Sentech Solution

J

jacauc

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Now you all might sneer at me because i only have a couple of posts...

but wait!
I have been keeping track of the posts in the forum for quite a couple of months now, and i'm a MW256 subscriber myself (well... basically just to assess the situation)

to justify the point a little bit: I am part of the Networking Team for a MAJOR oil company. We have a massive network with 77,000 PCs accross the globe working seamlessly. Obviously we have issues with slow link sites and expensive bandwidth..(think about all the wireless LAN connections we need offshore and so forth) and we are doing this effectively.

although i've been very passive about posting on this forum, i have done quite a bit of research on the technology and the situation Sentech is facing.

Well... As a matter of fact, i beleive i'd be able to solve a LOT of the issues Sentech are currently facing.
Before i go on though... i need some basic questions answered:

Can someone give me some more background on WHY exactly we are getting Ping latencies of around 300Ms? what part of the technology has this kind of bottleneck?

My question is: If i am sitting on a MW connection in JHB, and i'm connecting to a tower that is say 5km from me... and from the tower to Sentech is another 5km... why the slow latency if i ping only to sentech? (not even internationally)

Do they go up to satelites from the towers?

if so, then a 300Ms latency doesn't make sense, becuase the minimum latency for a satellite hop is 500-600Ms.
(Because signals travel at about 300Km/s)


Well... this is my first question, and i've got quite a couple more lined up... but i REALLY DO beleive i can make a proposal to Sentech and once i prove that it can work, no doubt they will buy into it.

....imagine all the people...
all the (at least a bit happier) people


and once again... i know what you are thinking... try and trust me though coz i'm trying my best to get a solution for the scenario we are ALL facing...

Well... lets see where it goes from here

THANKS!
 
Hi jacauc,

The latency mainly comes from the technology used. Still...modem to tower latency with UMTS-TDD should not be more than about 50-70ms. I think it's the backhaul links that's pushing our latency higher.
But we all knew when we signed up, that this service is not for gamers. The big thing was the uncapped downloads.

I must say, in the last few days I've been getting full 256K speeds locally as was the case a few months back, but the international seems like it's forced down to 1/4 of my total bandwidth. I can't get higher than 8KB/s intl, doesn't matter how many threads I start up. I believe sentech's problem lies in the bandwidth management software they're using. Maybe it's good software that's just badly configured.

--
256k ... BAH..more like 25.6k
FSCK YOU Sentech!! [:(!]
 
Thanks nonroker,

I recall some posts shortly after sentech has launched mywireless where people were already complaining about Latency issues (even while their downloads were working ok, and the network not saturated)

I get the same thing on MW256... nothing higher than 8k... (maybe 10 if i'm lucky) Doesnt matter what time of day or night.

One of my colleagues stay in belguim, and he agreed that i can try to set up some advanced Compression/decompression from my house to his house, and in effect access the internet from his machine in belguim. Rather complicated setup using advanced equipment, but it might help.

We use the same kind of compression on some of our links at work, and we generally get up to 16Mb/s on a 1Mb/s link due to the compression.

This is NOT a well known technology, and i actually doubt that any ISP in south africa use it. (well... the boxes are pretty expensive too... so most companies prob. don't even have the budget for it)... also, this technology is not available in a "software" format, as it is licensed by the company, and nobody's bothered to port it to linux.

So, i will try and set up the 2 boxes, one at my place and he will set up one at his place.
Technically speaking (and its been proven over here) i'd be able to get 16times 8K...

Sentech might cut me off at 32K total throughput though... but if this works, we can solve some headaches.

I defnitely think its worth a try!!!

What do you think?
 
I doubt that will work. And im familiar with the comperession you're talking about, my company tested it for several months to see if their link between their office and datacenter (and responsiveness) would improve. Amazing piece of technology.

However, I doubt this will work with Sentech. The primary problem is their bandwidth manager. If you were to theoretically get your full speeds, yea right, they'll probably cap that to the 8-10 you're currently getting.

This said, lets assume this works, we as the consumer should not be forced to go to an even more expensive route just to get the speeds sentech claims your package can achieve and what you're already paid for. People on this forum even spent several thousand rands on decent antennae just to get a connection.

Really really REALLY crappy service from Sentech....

<font size="1">
Selling my soul to Telkom for better internet speeds.

Person Me = New Person();
while (Me.Alive)
{
try
{
Me.Drink(Alcohol.Any);
}
catch (HeaveException h)
{
Me.PrayToCeramicGod();
Me.Promise("Never again");
}
}
Me.Dispose();
</font id="size1">
 
noone, unfortunately your code is against thiers

&lt;?
$sql=mysql_query("SELECT * FROM customers");
$rows=mysql_poor_service($sql);
$r=Rand(0,$rows);
@mysql_capped_service($sql,$r);
@$arr=mysql_Limited_bandwidth($sql);
@extract($fromcustomers);
echo"&lt;a href=blanketdenial.php?;
mysql_query("UPDATE customers SET fprofit=$profitnow WHERE fnum=$inthebank");
?&gt;


_________________________________________________________________________
custenna, variable 8 - 13 signal, ber 28% - 42%.<i> "I am the only one with this problem." </i>
 
There is only one problem though. Lets hypothetically say that your solution works or alternately you could fix the problem. Unfortunately Sentech's higher management are Air Headed. A large corporation would never take help from a so called "Consumer". It would yield complete embarassment in the media and so on. If you look at it, this all should not have happened in the first place, which in turn shows that Sentech are a bunch of amateurs when it comes to Infrastructure and Networking.

I give a full 100% thumbs to you jacauc and when you do come up with a solution and if its turned down by Sentech's Higher Management give me a shout to tackle the big guys. I have a couple of connections in high places that could prove worthy.

Tower 90, 256K Package
 
I personally wouldn't bother, jacauc. There are other companies more deserving of your idea (WBS perhaps?). Sentech have proved time and again that they're not willing to listen to anyone and when they do it's just to appease the media and masses. Members of the CUG (Close/Concerned/Whatever User Group), well those that still frequent this forum, will tell you just how far they got with Sentech.
 
Yes, fly your idea past the iburst guys, I'm sure they could use that piece of technology to boost their international bandwidth

<font size="1">
Selling my soul to Telkom for better internet speeds.

Person Me = New Person();
while (Me.Alive)
{
try
{
Me.Drink(Alcohol.Any);
}
catch (HeaveException h)
{
Me.PrayToCeramicGod();
Me.Promise("Never again");
}
}
Me.Dispose();
</font id="size1">
 
Thanks for the advice and support!
I think it might well be a solution to fly by WBS.
i will give it a try anyways, well... it is for a personal learning experience as well... Setting up this and getting familiar with ALL the possible issues in implementing might well prove a worthy skill for my CV - I have the basics to set it up, but i'd like to get to learn the ins and out of the box. :D
Obviously, working for a big company, you are almost never left to figure something out on your own... You are just sent a piece of equipment and step-by-step documentation..on how to set it up... So i'd like to be able to play around with it in a non-production environment
We will go-ahead and start the testing and see what result we get (and i will keep you updated)
My intention is not to have the customer pay extra for any equipment, but rather to have sentech implement this on their side of things. (but not as a consumer helping a company, rather as a Company to Company deal)

I will only be back in SA in a couple of weeks for my time-off, so we will give it a try then.

Thanks again for the support on this matter,
Cheers
 
jacauc, noone, mind telling us what this technology is? Where can we read more about it?

--
koffiejunkie
 
I agree with TheRodent, but I won't be suprised though. The equipment we installed increased our 128k to around 384-512k

And it's sort of compression, sort of proxy, the device will send the file (if requested multiple times) to the users, without making the trip to the web again...

not too sure baout the exact science tho

<font size="1">
Selling my soul to Telkom for better internet speeds.

Person Me = New Person();
while (Me.Alive)
{
try
{
Me.Drink(Alcohol.Any);
}
catch (HeaveException h)
{
Me.PrayToCeramicGod();
Me.Promise("Never again");
}
}
Me.Dispose();
</font id="size1">
 
That's not really compression then, more just a perceived increase in speed (much like M-Web's Accelerator *cough* [;)]) I also agree with TheRoDent, the only thing that may compress 16:1 is HTML and for most pages it isn't really worth it. There is not much chance of compressing gifs, jpgs and archives (zip, rar, ace etc.).
 
The problem with most of us here is we are using the wrong service provider.

Sentech quite obviously have no interest in fixing their network. 2 months now my service
has degraded to speeds of 1.8-2.5K international.

Is that fair? R650 a month. We are all being poked in the ass and whats even funnier is people
are trying to solve Sentechs probelm for them.

Fcukit... we should be taking legal action... or throwing petrol bombs at them or something
a bit more constructive.

I mean... you actually pay $$$ to someone and you are working for them to fix the service you are buying?

If thats south african mentality then in a way perhaps it makes sense... if you tilt your head and make strange
cow noises type of way.

Geeez... why dont we wash their cars too... fyckit... lets wipe their asses while we at it.

myWireless 128, 64, 48, 16 - depends on its mood.
 
Hehe, actually I think people are starting to wake up now. There are more people cancelling than offering solutions as they've just had enough waiting for Sentech to sort themselves out. The solution is very simple and has been reiterated time and again... BUY MORE FRICKIN' BANDWIDTH! It's all very well having a good bandwidth management system but it will only help so much and I think the international bandwidth they've assigned to MyWireless is running near 100% capacity most of the time. This is proved by the fact that you can get near 128kb/s local but only crappy international.
 
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