"Sorry another client is using it all"

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mbvdl

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This is what we got from telkom...
The whole area, on the same DSLAM i assume, have been experiencing major issues since about january (Eversdal Primary school area and surrounds)...

After a long fight with people at telkom who do not know anything about the technical side of ADSL or what a DSLAM is, we finally managed to get through to a guy who does, a very nice chap...

Anyway, since we explained the issue that our dsl basically drops off to unusable levels, especially over weekends and after hours, the logs and facts came out...
The DSLAM is overutilised, and telkom has zero-idea when they can upgrade it.

Why is it over utilised? Well one or more users (on the logs) are downloading 600 GB + per month, and saturating the DSLAM's capabilities.

Where does this leave the rest of us in the area?
Shouldn't we demand they upgrade it, so that we can get what we pay for, or at least be able to use the internet normally? (I couldn't even log a fault on telkom.co.za, thats how slow it is)...
Or maybe people should stop downloading the damn internet like a bunch of criminals?

I don't know, this situation sounds quite unacceptable, and I don't even have the balls to try and start a fight with telkom. They won't care, and won't give us jack.
 
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Recently my DSL has started dropping fairly regularly.

When I switch my router on and watch the ADSL statistics, I see the attainable rate shrinking from 22000 to 5000. after each time that my ADSL drops.
My router supports ADSL/ADSL2+.

Does anyone know what can cause such behaviour?
 
1 user? I doubt it!!!
I also doubt a telkom employee will hand over logs to you lol. but nice try...
 
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@Wikus, get yer own thread.

@mbvdl, run a command called tracert (trace route), it will confirm if what the Telkom nice guy is saying is true.

Tracert basically returns the latencies at each routing point as your data heads out towards it's destination.
If your DSLAM is the cause of the problem, then traceroute will return massive (400ms and greater) latencies at the very first point.

But, I am willing to bet that this is not true, and that trace route will show a latency problem further upstream.

WinXP:
Start -> Run -> type in: cmd
Click Ok
In that black box, type in:
tracert www.gamesunited.de
press enter

sit back and wait for it to show you where the congestion is..
 
drukkie, right, believe what you want.
I have logs emailed, and a reference number, and I am aware of two other people on these boards, in my area, with the same information.
Feel free to continue to express your ignorance though :)

Ad for tracert, been there done that, did all the **** we learned in kindergarten...

Fact of the matter is, the DSLAM is overused according to these telkom folks, and an upgrade is "undetermined"... that's my problem.
 
mbvdl said:
drukkie, right, believe what you want.
I have logs emailed, and a reference number, and I am aware of two other people on these boards, in my area, with the same information.
Feel free to continue to express your ignorance though :)

Ad for tracert, been there done that, did all the **** we learned in kindergarten...

Fact of the matter is, the DSLAM is overused according to these telkom folks, and an upgrade is "undetermined"... that's my problem.
Click to expand...
Well, does the latency to the gateway exceed 400ms during these bad times?
 
He didnt technically hand over the logs, he just told me that this is a probable cause. Since this guy is the only new 4mbyte user, who uses this much data in a month. This is the telkom technicians theory ofcourse and might be wrong..

Like mbvdl said, this problem only arise after 7pm on weekdays and over weekends. It hits like clockwork though, which makes our problem really strange!

Also u can see a clear difference in ping replies, before and after hours. With local domains like mail.ananzi.co.za, www.saix.net and other all giving inconsistent ping replies with several ping timeouts in between. While before 7pm its perfectly stable with maybe 1 timeout in every 10000 pings.
 
If he is on uncapped he can download as much as he wants. It's the service provider's responsibility to make sure that people get the service they pay for...and if they pay for unlimited gigs, he should be able to download as much as he wants because thats what the deal is. Hence the "service" in service provider.

Your ISP should get Telkom to upgrade the area so that it isn't an issue.
But that would be in a logical business environment....which Africa isn't.
 
davemc said:
Tracert basically returns the latencies at each routing point as your data heads out towards it's destination.
If your DSLAM is the cause of the problem, then traceroute will return massive (400ms and greater) latencies at the very first point.
Click to expand...
More like 2nd point since the DSLAMS upstream is probably the cause.

drukkie said:
1 user? I doubt it!!!
Click to expand...
Probably not 1, but at 1:20 contention a single 4mbps user running 24/7 PLUS normal load could congest a DSLAM noticably. I'm pretty sure there are DSLAMs out there that aren't yet on fibre, so I reckon his scenario is possible.
 
Thanks for the positive support, and as arcane stated, I ahve noted packet losses of up to 40% to most locally hosted sites, after 7-8PM, and during the day it seems to be fine.
HavocXphere, indeed, there are latencies between 300-400... I also agree that it's impossible that a single user can cause this, his point was, "one new user" as an example, was pulling 24/7.
Be as it may, I got the ****tiest response from telkom today trying to get this logged as a fault, so I don't know. Myself, arcane here, and everyone else in the area will just have to continue paying our dues to telkom and isp's while we cant really use the internet. Ive lost all energy to persue this further. :(
 
mbvdl said:
drukkie, right, believe what you want.
I have logs emailed, and a reference number, and I am aware of two other people on these boards, in my area, with the same information.
Feel free to continue to express your ignorance though :)

Ad for tracert, been there done that, did all the **** we learned in kindergarten...

Fact of the matter is, the DSLAM is overused according to these telkom folks, and an upgrade is "undetermined"... that's my problem.
Click to expand...


I think its sick the way that they have no idea when they'll solve this issue for you, as if they're waiting for better days. But 600GB is a lot of data! :D I don't see one user using it, it's probably something else that's a bit wishy-washy, I hope Telkom get up from their ... and have this sorted for you ASAP! Best of luck to you and keep us updated seeing that you have a ticket pending!
 
In exactly the same boat here:

I stay in Centurion and connect to the Heuweloord Exchange. I've been experiencing issues with the ADSL since last year February. Its gotten incredibly bad since September last year. Been fighting tooth and nail with Telkom on this (4/5 of their technicians have had no idea what they were doing).

At last a Telkom tech called me the other day (refused to give me his full name - who'd have thought). Apparently the DSLAM/exchange is over saturated. Basically told me that Telkom budget for +-5GB of use per user on the DSLAM and that it was just too bad that the people in my area pushed far more than that. The only way to get the exchange upgraded was for 61 MORE people to get onto the exchange so that it would become worth their while to upgrade it.

Everyone in this area are screwed and according to Telkom it doesnt make economic sense to upgrade the exchange. In my mind this is a serious issue and as this Tech mentioned it is eventually going to be affecting many other exchanges country wide. I wish we could push some kind of solution around this.
 
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mbvdl, do you get the same kind of results with different ISPs (mweb/webafrica/axxess) & different accounts (shaped/unshaped)?
I'm quite interested to know how you got hold of the logs stating that the user managed to download 600GB per month, since it has to come from the ISP that he's at.

Slightly off topic: If you know who the person is that's downloading 600GB+, then ask his ISP to send him some Infringement Claims. I'm pretty sure that the people who's downloading more than 200GB a month has to download illegal content.
 
Reading all the responses here I can come to the one conclusion

We cant put a first world solution (i.e. uncapped internet) on a third world network (Telkoms DSLAMS)

I fear when the speed upgrades happen later this year, the entire network may just collapse. If people are doing 600 Gig on 4 Meg, what will they do with 10 Meg???????
 
Reading all the responses here I can come to the one conclusion

We cant put a first world solution (i.e. uncapped internet) on a third world network (Telkoms DSLAMS)

I fear when the speed upgrades happen later this year, the entire network may just collapse. If people are doing 600 Gig on 4 Meg, what will they do with 10 Meg???????
 
Reading all the responses here I can come to the one conclusion

We cant put a first world solution (i.e. uncapped internet) on a third world network (Telkoms DSLAMS)

I fear when the speed upgrades happen later this year, the entire network may just collapse. If people are doing 600 Gig on 4 Meg, what will they do with 10 Meg???????
 
fbman said:
Reading all the responses here I can come to the one conclusion

We cant put a first world solution (i.e. uncapped internet) on a third world network (Telkoms DSLAMS)

I fear when the speed upgrades happen later this year, the entire network may just collapse. If people are doing 600 Gig on 4 Meg, what will they do with 10 Meg???????
Click to expand...

Reading all here, tells me that the majority of responders have no clue what's happening.
 
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