Telkom Internet Softcap Feedback

PostmanPot said:
ranger has been of no help whatsoever, in fact useless. Pity.
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I don't have any recent PMs from you. I had a lot of things I wanted to get done at home over the weekend, so didn't manage to reply to your previous message in this thread until this morning.
 
Can't speak for other regions but KZN has always been pretty good. Unshaped most of the times except for p2p during the day which is shaped....
 
cavedog said:
Unshaped most of the times except for p2p during the day which is shaped....
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How much shaping do you experience with torrents during the day?

Curious as I get at least 70-75% of normal speeds during the day.
 
ponder said:
How much shaping do you experience with torrents during the day?

Curious as I get at least 70-75% of normal speeds during the day.
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Yeah that is about right. About 600-700KB/s during the day. Some times full speed but most of the time about that. Rest of the traffic seems relatively unaffected.
 
cavedog said:
Yeah that is about right. About 600-700KB/s during the day. Some times full speed but most of the time about that. Rest of the traffic seems relatively unaffected.
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Ok so basically the same. Can't really complain about it, rest of traffic seems normal.
 
ponder said:
Ok so basically the same. Can't really complain about it, rest of traffic seems normal.
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Yeah but I expect Telkom to be above the rest. I mean they have it all. Tons of people using them because you get your data with your adsl so I want the accounts to be top of the range but they are not always the best choice.

I'm going to be completely honest here and this is my opinion only and how it is for me but IS just have a way better network than Telkom. Low latency which Telkom got too but best off all unshaped capped accounts and they are so stable no matter when you decide to game or for how long you always get a good connection where with Telkom Today might be awesome like in the best but tomorrow the latency is 50ms higher and laggy......
 
cavedog said:
Low latency which Telkom got too but best off all unshaped capped accounts and they are so stable no matter when you decide to game or for how long you always get a good connection where with Telkom Today might be awesome like in the best but tomorrow the latency is 50ms higher and laggy......
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Shaping on capped is not an issue of the network, but of convincing senior staff that the shaping (which we inherited from the SAIX product definitions) should be removed. We have put in some effort in this regard, and hopefully it will pay off within a month or so.

I wouldn't mind more specifics on gaming latency issues.
 
ranger said:
Shaping on capped is not an issue of the network, but of convincing senior staff that the shaping (which we inherited from the SAIX product definitions) should be removed. We have put in some effort in this regard, and hopefully it will pay off within a month or so.

I wouldn't mind more specifics on gaming latency issues.
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I mostly just play League of Legends on EUW which is French based servers I believe and although latency is not a problem per se it just varies sometimes. For example today I might get 200ms then tomorrow I would get between 230ms to 250ms so there is always something that causes it to vary when compared to a IS based account the latency is pretty much stable 205ms to 210ms alsways.
 
cavedog said:
Yeah but I expect Telkom to be above the rest. I mean they have it all. Tons of people using them because you get your data with your adsl so I want the accounts to be top of the range but they are not always the best choice.

I'm going to be completely honest here and this is my opinion only and how it is for me but IS just have a way better network than Telkom. Low latency which Telkom got too but best off all unshaped capped accounts and they are so stable no matter when you decide to game or for how long you always get a good connection where with Telkom Today might be awesome like in the best but tomorrow the latency is 50ms higher and laggy......
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Their internet division is desperate to make a profit, hence the extreme shaping. What they don't seem to realise that their market share will drop directly in line with the data they fail to provide when customers need/want it.
 
AntiGanda said:
Their internet division is desperate to make a profit, hence the extreme shaping. What they don't seem to realise that their market share will drop directly in line with the data they fail to provide when customers need/want it.
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I wouldn't say we are desparate to make a profit. In our case, profitability is a regulatory requirement.

For some reason, much bigger dominant players in the broadband access market (e.g. MTN) are free to compete by having their fixed-line ISPs (e.g. Afrihost) be loss-leaders, but because MWEB runs to the competition commission every time they aren't profitable enough, we have no option but to be profitable.

If you don't like that, please get the competition commission to accept that Telkom is no longer a dominant player (Vodacom and MTN together have more broadband traffic than all ADSL traffic) or donate the R400m fine that will be demanded from Telkom.
 
ranger said:
Shaping on capped is not an issue of the network, but of convincing senior staff that the shaping (which we inherited from the SAIX product definitions) should be removed. We have put in some effort in this regard, and hopefully it will pay off within a month or so.

I wouldn't mind more specifics on gaming latency issues.
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One of the biggest issues with shaping, is that it leaves the customer wondering whether there's actually something wrong with their internet connection, or whether they're being shaped. It also give Telkom support an easy scapegoat to say, "Oh, these accounts are shaped" even when you feel that you feel that you're being shaped to an extent that seems unreasonable.

HTTP downloads should never be shaped under any circumstances. To this day I have no idea whether it was shaped or if there was a problem with the account itself. It was too convenient for Telkom staff to just use the "It's shaping" excuse than to provision me with a new account.
 
Totempole said:
One of the biggest issues with shaping, is that it leaves the customer wondering whether there's actually something wrong with their internet connection, or whether they're being shaped.
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Not necessarily. Almost all IPC-based ISPs prioritise speedtest (the speedtest.net / Ookla variety).

Also, note that different ISPs have different definitions of unshaped. We have unshaped accounts (for some reason the consumer ones are not advertised) whose traffic always has the highest priority. Afrihost users seem to complain from time-to-time of bad shaping on the supposedly "unshaped" capped accounts, which is technically impossible on our unshaped products.

We are considering removing the protocol-based shaping that is applied to p2p, however the grnersl shaping will remain (p2p will be shaped the same as all other traffic). This in theory should be similar to ( but probably better than :-p) Afrihost capped.

It also give Telkom support an easy scapegoat to say, "Oh, these accounts are shaped" even when you feel that you feel that you're being shaped to an extent that seems unreasonable.
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But maybe it wasn't shaping by the ISP?

HTTP downloads should never be shaped under any circumstances.
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Never is a strong word, and since the internet is converging on http/https, it is inevitable that some traffic over http will be shaped.

Currently, shaping of http downloads (equally with other traffic) is mandatory on patch Wednesday, otherwise users would complain that the (non-http) internet is broken once a month.

To this day I have no idea whether it was shaped or if there was a problem with the account itself.
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Did you do a speedtest to a server in the same region as the download server at the time?

Of course, there could have been a cause other than shaping, without details it is hard to rule any possible causes out.

It was too convenient for Telkom staff to just use the "It's shaping" excuse than to provision me with a new account.
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A new account of the same type will not change anything, unless you were over quota (which both you and the call centre agent can both essily see). Of course, giving call centre agents tools snd training doesn't guarantee that they will use either - but that is one reason they have been outsourced. Whether that helps or not remains to be seen.
 
ranger said:
Not necessarily. Almost all IPC-based ISPs prioritise speedtest (the speedtest.net / Ookla variety).

Also, note that different ISPs have different definitions of unshaped. We have unshaped accounts (for some reason the consumer ones are not advertised) whose traffic always has the highest priority. Afrihost users seem to complain from time-to-time of bad shaping on the supposedly "unshaped" capped accounts, which is technically impossible on our unshaped products.

We are considering removing the protocol-based shaping that is applied to p2p, however the grnersl shaping will remain (p2p will be shaped the same as all other traffic). This in theory should be similar to ( but probably better than :-p) Afrihost capped.
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Unlike with Telkom Internet, I've never had issues with P2P on Afrihost capped. Streaming is another story, due to packet loss on AH.

Never is a strong word, and since the internet is converging on http/https, it is inevitable that some traffic over http will be shaped.

Currently, shaping of http downloads (equally with other traffic) is mandatory on patch Wednesday, otherwise users would complain that the (non-http) internet is broken once a month.
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This doesn't seem to be the case with other ISPs. Even on an IS based shaped account, HTTP downloads always seem to run at full speed for me.

But maybe it wasn't shaping by the ISP?
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By comparison, both my Afrihost and my Webafrica accounts were working at full line speed. With Telkom, even downloading Firefox via FTP was working at less than a quarter of my 4Mb line.

Did you do a speedtest to a server in the same region as the download server at the time?

Of course, there could have been a cause other than shaping, without details it is hard to rule any possible causes out.
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Speedtests always looked great, regardless of whether I was using TI, Afrihost or WA.

A new account of the same type will not change anything, unless you were over quota (which both you and the call centre agent can both essily see). Of course, giving call centre agents tools snd training doesn't guarantee that they will use either - but that is one reason they have been outsourced. Whether that helps or not remains to be seen.
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I tried the call centre once. I told them I was experiencing performance issues with my ADSL account... I was forwarded to the Accounts department. A lesson in terminology might be helpful. :mad:

I made a number of trips to my local Telkom Direct branch to try and sort it out to no avail.
 
Pleased to say that my account has been working well.

@ranger:

I've sent you several PMs (none recently as I gave up a while ago) and commented in threads where you've been involved, to no avail. Thanks for all your efforts nonetheless. Appreciate the dedication, and extra info and transparency.
 
PostmanPot said:
Pleased to say that my account has been working well.

@ranger:

I've sent you several PMs (none recently as I gave up a while ago) and commented in threads where you've been involved, to no avail. Thanks for all your efforts nonetheless. Appreciate the dedication, and extra info and transparency.
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Serious or taking the piss?
 
ambroseg1 said:
Serious or taking the piss?
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Serious, even though I am/was dissatisfied. Why, did it seem like sarcasm to you?

It takes a lot to be a rep of sorts in one's personal capacity for no gain, and I respect and appreciate that, even though I was not helped.
 
I've had very slow international the past few days although tonight after 9 it picked up again. Anyone else experience problems? I am in the cape too
 
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