Speed on a 384k line

Lessir said:
Don't want to start a new thread but I have a question.

Is the Telkom line what gives you the speed or your ISP? (yes, I'm a Noob)

So if I have a Telkom ADSL LIne and I have 384 / 3Gb cap does that mean my line speed is max 384 kBs and the amount of ISP internet access I have is 3 Gb?:confused:
Click to expand...

Yes. Max is 384kbps, not kBps. kB and kb are different. kB = kb divided by 8
 
I remember when I first got 384kbps a couple years ago. I used to continuously get around 48kbps.
Then over-night the speeds dropped down to where they are now - ave. ± 39 - 41kbps

I seem to remember that there was plenty people here that complained about it. Sync speeds were probably slightly higher then, and Telkom possibly made a couple profile changes.
 
Hi,

When you refer to the "exchange" are you referring to the box on the corner that you are connected to or the actual Telkom Office?

Regards
Aharon
 
stroebs said:
Yes. Max is 384kbps, not kBps. kB and kb are different. kB = kb divided by 8
Click to expand...

So would that mean if I change my ISP from Telkom to M-Web then I can only choose the 384kbps uncapped package?
 
Aharon said:
Hi,

When you refer to the "exchange" are you referring to the box on the corner that you are connected to or the actual Telkom Office?

Regards
Aharon
Click to expand...

i think the box on the corner is just a few hundred metres away...
its what Mweb told me before, I had numerous problems with my unshaped 1 Gig package before.

I just called them....during my problems with the performance of a.m. unshaped package they tried to downgrade me to a 1Mb, then upgraded me again to 2 Mb....until I had enough of it.
I got for my gaming purposes a WA unshaped prepaid account, and the performance was up by 30% in terms of ingame latency.
For my normal internet needs I got then the uncapped 4Mb package from Mweb, and asked them to double check if it was at full speed again.

I just called them...it is still 2Mb. Before they could do the downgrading immediately while I was on the phone. Today the technician just opened a case, and she said that she can't do it immediately.

So, my new question...what kind of dl speed can I expect on a 2Mb line?
 
Aharon said:
Yes, uless you upgrade your line
Click to expand...

called them again...for better understanding :confused:

what they are telling me is that they can downgrade my package, but my line needs to be upgraded.
very strange that they never mentioned that before...1 year of dissatisfaction with almost weekly calls.
They tried everything to rectify this, even gave me a new router where I could actually setup a different adress (it was not locked)....nothing helped.

do you guys think that my dl's will be significantly faster after the upgrade? or will it be just a drop on a hot stone? ;)
 
Tom242 said:
I don't want to open another thread for the same question on a 4MB line...so, here is my scenario:

I am on the uncapped 4MB package, what kind of dl speed can I expect, i.e with torrents?
I am 5 km's away from the exchange, and have currently an average of 30kB/s, sometimes its much higher, had over the weekend up to 100kB/s. Don't have a clue why its so erratic :confused:
Click to expand...

Torrents are no indication of your lines capability. Also keep in mind that they shape torrents and some other traffic, especially during business hours.

Download a 20MB or so file of a local file server via http & ftp that you know is fast to get an indication of your speed. Also try this at different hours of the day.
 
stroebs said:
download speeds of 70-100KB/s (Myself included) on a 384K line for a few seconds and then drops down again. Someone once explained to me that this was due to someone else connected to the same exchange and within a fairly close distance from you was downloading the same or similar binary pattern... Don't know how true that is.
Click to expand...
Unfortunately not true. At that line sync speed it is physically impossible to push 100KB/s through the line without some from of compression (there isn't any in SA).

Many applications just measure the speed in a really shtty way. Specifically Firefox. If you think of the calc (data / time elapsed), you'll notice that at the start of the download, the time elapsed is necessarily very small. So if the denominator is off by say 500ms then it can dramatically alter the reported speed. As the download progresses, but the numerator & denominator get bigger thus smoothing out the initial inaccuracy.
 
Tom242 said:
I don't want to open another thread for the same question on a 4MB line...so, here is my scenario:

I am on the uncapped 4MB package, what kind of dl speed can I expect, i.e with torrents?
I am 5 km's away from the exchange, and have currently an average of 30kB/s, sometimes its much higher, had over the weekend up to 100kB/s. Don't have a clue why its so erratic :confused:
Click to expand...

Dude. 5km is far.

You're better off transporting your packets via StarGate.
 
Qwikslver said:
Dude. 5km is far.

You're better off transporting your packets via StarGate.
Click to expand...

guess so...and that in one of the fastest growing suburbs in SA, the only thing that never grows here is technology, it seems. if i have to move again one day i have to consider moving next to an exchange...is there a listing actually? where the exchanges are? :D
 
39kb/sec.

I got this in Durban, Johannesburg and now in Bloemfontein.

Not counting the random burst to 41kb/sec. That's just stupid. Basically if the download server is 100% right I get 39kb/sec 99% of the time.
 
I have a 512 line but getting 35-42...I think its better to stick with 384 or jump to 4mb ^_^ The 512 feels as slow as the 384
 
Fayera said:
I have a 512 line but getting 35-42...I think its better to stick with 384 or jump to 4mb ^_^ The 512 feels as slow as the 384
Click to expand...
wtf. You do realize that your dumping ~R150 down the drain every month? If your 512k line can only provide 384 speeds then downgrade & save the cash.

And upgrading to 4mb won't help improve the quality of the copper either. Have it checked out or downgrade to 384.
 
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