Somerset West Helderberg ADSL Problems

[AchmatK]

--Give a short explanation of the problem

- Line drops randomly from time to time (tried a brand new router that did the same).
- The latency occasionally spikes up to 150+ locally and traceroutes reveal the first hop after my router to have such high latency.
- Openweb accounts not authenticating at all.
- Line is very bad at 10Mbps


--Give the first six digits of our phone number

021 852


--ADSL line speed (like 1Mbps, 4Mbps etc)

Supposed to be 10, running at 8 at the moment, occasionally have to drop down to 6Mb.

--ISP name and account type (like MWEB uncapped)

Afrihost 4Mb Uncapped, Openweb 4Mb Gamersking

--The time of day when you typically see these problems

Evenings between around 8pm to 1am.

Optional, but it will be great if you can also give the following information:

--A traceroute to Telkom.co.za

Will update my post with this tonight.

--The actual sync speed of the line
--The attenuation stats of the line

Copied from another thread.

 

[flipjo]

signates: I think you meant 021 852 ;-)

I'm in 021 851 and also see bad latency and speed performance. We had bad weather in the last couple of days that could have caused some of my issues.

 

[donal]

I have almost the exact same issues:
- Line drops randomly.
- Latency occasionally from 110 up to 300 and timeout.
- Line is very bad at 1Mbps

--Give the first six digits of our phone number

021 852


--ADSL line speed (like 1Mbps, 4Mbps etc)

1Mb.

--ISP name and account type (like MWEB uncapped)

Mweb 1Mb Uncapped

--The time of day when you typically see these problems

6pm to 1am.

Other info:
- friends living 1.5km from us have no problems

-line sync speed usually around 300 to 400Kb/s - when tested with speedtest.net (highest I've seen was 800k, but that was 8 months ago)

 

[AchmatK]

signates: I think you meant 021 852 ;-)

Thanks. Fixed it now.

Speeds are great my side.

021 852

8Mbps

Telkom Internet 4Mbps uncapped

Local


Jhb


London

 

[optymyst]

Problems - poor speeds, service freezes at times for variable periods.
When - worst in late afternoon and in the evening up to 2300.
My exchange - 021 855
ISP - Telkom
Line speed is supposed to be 1Mb

Trace done at 16.30

Tracing route to telkom.co.za [196.43.22.222]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 2 ms 1 ms 1 ms login.router [10.0.0.2]
2 664 ms 657 ms 663 ms ti-224-88-01.telkomadsl.co.za [105.224.88.1]
3 * * 3375 ms ti-226-0-06.telkomadsl.co.za [105.226.0.6]
4 774 ms 747 ms 740 ms ti-226-0-13.telkomadsl.co.za [105.226.0.13]
5 657 ms 640 ms 694 ms wblv-ip-hsll-1-wan.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.25.39.45]
6 435 ms 400 ms 385 ms 196.43.39.166
7 635 ms 423 ms 393 ms rrba-ip-bssr-1-ge-2-48.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.43.23.6]
8 583 ms 603 ms 580 ms nbsc-ip-bssr-2-atm-5-0-0-1.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.43.23.34]
9 670 ms 534 ms 531 ms telkom.co.za [196.43.22.222]

Trace complete.


I tried to do a speed test at 17.30 but couldn't open the website - "Latency error" when eventually got there.

 

[DJBotha]

Somerset West Business Park Area...

Hi all, so glad I came across this thread!!!!!

Been struggling with drop outs on our internet for the last 2 months!!!!
Our offices used to be close to Somerset Mall (with same ISP with no issues), but 2 months ago moved to Somerset Business Park on Hazelden Drive.
And after the first week we starting having drops on internet.
Have phoned numerous Telkom technicians and support etc, but they always have something else to say...eventually got hold of our area technician's cellphone number...and got to a point were he said it seems to be the UMC that is faulty.
I have no clue what the UMC is...but he said there is a lot of congestion on it and that they will come sort it out.
IT STILL hasn't been sorted out!

Getting really frustrated as more than 90% of our companies work relies on internet access.

I have chatted to other companies in our complex and they also complain about drop outs of their internet.
I have even go as far as a block from us to companies to find out if they also have issues, and most of the ones I have spoken to, have got the same issue.

Here are the details I have at the moment...

--Give the first six digits of our phone number -- 021 852
--ADSL line speed -- 4MB
--ISP name and account type -- Afrihost 4MB Business Uncapped.
--The time of day when you typically see these problems -- 9am to 6pm

Optional, but it will be great if you can also give the following information: (Haven't got these at the moment)

--A traceroute to Telkom.co.za
--The actual sync speed of the line
--The attenuation stats of the line

Thanks for your time
Daniel

 

[FraserBlade]

-snip-

2 664 ms 657 ms 663 ms ti-224-88-01.telkomadsl.co.za [105.224.88.1]
3 * * 3375 ms ti-226-0-06.telkomadsl.co.za [105.226.0.6]

-snip-

Ouch. That hop 2 ping looks like exchange congestion. I'm not sure if line attenuation & SNR's would affect that, but I'd make sure and check it in your router's software (or just call 10210 and ask them to check if those 2 things are within normal parameters). They'll probably do a port refresh as well.

There's always the possibility of larger problems beyond the exchange, but that would affect whole towns e.g. the whole of Helderberg.

The only other thing that causes large amount of latency on hop 2, is when you have a strong upload component running in the background when you do the test - it can be as obvious as bittorrent traffic, or more subtle, like a Google Drive, Dropbox or Evernote syncing in the background. If you're sure you don't have any uploads/downloads running while you do the tracert, and if the problem persists, I would definitely log a fault.

Just be aware that the operator on the other side of the 10210 line have limited information and tools at their disposal and in my experience with Telkom, they hardly ever admit to exchange related problems. They would however be able to assist with testing your line, refreshing your ports and logging your fault - and eventually get a technician to contact you or come around to your place. (Just be aware of the "unnecessary call-out fee" that applies if the fault is on your end i.e. faulty pots filters, extensions, router problems/internal congestion [which I doubt, since hop 1 looks okay]).

If the problem is on their end and it affects a small amount of users, the solution might be as simple as having a technician plug your connection into a different, less congested DSLAM. You might have to wait a bit though, since call-out technicians and the technicians that's authorized to work at the exchanges aren't always the same person.

If you have access to Twitter, tweet @TelkomZA - the folks on there are usually very helpful and it looks like they're trying to create a solid presence here at MyBB as well.

A great tool to use for extensive testing, is a program called "pingplotter" - just google it and download it from their site - the portion of the program you'd be using is free. Run a trace to, e.g. 8.8.8.8 and keep it going for a few hours and then send a screenshot to Telkom (apparently, they have a social media e-mail address - you'd have to tweet @TelkomZA to get it).

Good luck.

 

[optymyst]

Thanks for your comments Fraserblade.

I spoke to 10210 at 1600 today, and while the chap was pleasant and we went through the usual ritual of switching the modem off and on, while I was talking to him I was on the internet and it was so slow I was unable to connect to do a speed test. All he could do was to log a fault.

Shortly after that I did a trace route:

Test done at 1700 Thursday 2013-08-15

1 2 ms 1 ms 1 ms login.router [10.0.0.2]
2 12 ms 11 ms 11 ms 105.224.88.1
3 * * 3906 ms ti-226-0-06.telkomadsl.co.za [105.226.0.6]
4 12 ms 13 ms 12 ms 105.226.0.13
5 13 ms 12 ms 12 ms 196.25.39.45
6 37 ms 36 ms 36 ms 196.43.39.166
7 90 ms 93 ms 90 ms 196.43.23.6
8 39 ms 38 ms 39 ms 196.43.23.30
9 * * * Request timed out.
10 * * * Request timed out.
11 * * * Request timed out.
12 * * * Request timed out.
13 * * * Request timed out.
14 * * * Request timed out.
15 * * * Request timed out.
16 * * * Request timed out.
17 * * * Request timed out.
18 * * * Request timed out.
19 * * * Request timed out.
20 * * * Request timed out.
21 * * * Request timed out.
22 * * * Request timed out.
23 * * * Request timed out.
24 * * * Request timed out.
25 * * * Request timed out.
26 * * * Request timed out.
27 * * * Request timed out.
28 * * * Request timed out.
29 * * * Request timed out.
30 * * * Request timed out.

Trace complete.

Astonishingly, a little later I returned to the internet and it was magically operating well! I did a trace route test

Test done at 1900 Thursday 2013-08-15

Tracing route to telkom.co.za [196.43.22.222] over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 2 ms 1 ms 1 ms login.router [10.0.0.2]
2 11 ms 11 ms 10 ms ti-224-88-01.telkomadsl.co.za [105.224.88.1]
3 13 ms 12 ms 12 ms ti-226-0-06.telkomadsl.co.za [105.226.0.6]
4 13 ms 12 ms 12 ms ti-226-0-13.telkomadsl.co.za [105.226.0.13]
5 13 ms 13 ms 13 ms wblv-ip-hsll-1-wan.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.25.39.45]
6 36 ms 35 ms 37 ms 196.43.39.166
7 35 ms 34 ms 34 ms rrba-ip-bssr-1-ge-2-48.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.43.23.6]
8 40 ms 39 ms 39 ms nbsc-ip-bssr-1-atm-5-0-0-1.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.43.23.30]
9 39 ms 39 ms 39 ms telkom.co.za [196.43.22.222]

Trace complete.

I think a good fairy had been at work.

 

[FraserBlade]

-snip-
I think a good fairy had been at work. -snip-

Cool man. Glad you got sorted.