Sign up with GoogleI hope I don't get cut off before I click the submit button on this one heh,
I've decided to document the month so far so people who weren't aware of some of the weirdness could be educated.
OK the month started on a Friday, on the Thursday night some users were eagerly awaiting thier 1mbit speeds back and as the new month came in at midnight started downloading. The throttling was lifted at different times for everyone with the earliest being about 5 minutes after midnight and latest being at about 1AM. The speeds were amazing, I've been on the network for a while and I've never seen it liek that, i got 1.5mbit (true 1.5mbit) for a few minutes and everyone was downloading at speeds over 1mbit.
In the morning the dream was over and the speeds were sluggish to say the least, across the network people were reporting some of the worst speeds they've ever seen. The problem was put down to all the users being unthrottled and hitting thier downloads heavily at the same time, although it seemed like a likely explanation even people on empty towers had speed problems which raised questions. As the month went on the day speeds stayed bad but for the Pretoria users (and some others) the speed was slower than dial up and the problem persists to this day even though congestion should be sorted out.
The first weekend, my bandwidth wasn't recorded, I disconnected a few times and it still said I had used less than I had, I didn't say anything for obvious reason. A couple days later DaveBuchannan made a thread stating the same, a few users posted in there, he requested it be deleted so some of you may have not seen it. He did so for the same reason I never posted about it, we take every inch, and why shouldn't we. BUT the problem is sorted now and its safe to assume alot of users did a GB or two when they found out, is that enough to get WBS to cut users off or make slow down to save money?
The speeds reported were around 6.4kbit a second (which as you can see is freakishly similar to 64kbit we should be getting), Roman found an interesting quirk, if you disconnected a few times (or sometimes once was all that was needed) the speed problem was sorted out, he put it down to the bandwidth manager, which I agree with as all signs pointed directly at the bandwidth manager 'glue' software coded by WBS that links the database with all your session data in and the intelligent firewall (database holds the data and intelligent firewall shapes connections based on rules the bandwidth manager sets).
A few days in the month 5 towers went down for long periods... twice. The next week Pretoria and Sandton went down, WBS said they changed switches.
5 days into the month I was capped and got cut off from the net, I made a thread about it, the following day I recieved 3 PMs in my inbox about people who had the same problem and felt forced to buy more bandwidth to sort the problem 9even though when unthrottled they no longer got 1mbit, it was the only way they could surf at all). The next day I called WBS and was told by an un-happy employee I was the victim of a policy decision
from high up. The same day i received credible information in my inbox from a respected member of the myADSL community, so I was sure it wasnt just me at that point.
Kei, mentioned he had to change his 'sweet spot' that had been fine for months, but now only received 60% (at best) signal, compared to 100%.
So far WBS has denied all problems, and has said it hasn't changed anything, although admitted it was in the proccess of drafting a new acceptable user policy.
Interesting things to note, last month WBS spent alot of time playing with the bandwidth manager (the thing that throttles us), i can't tell if they've done it this month because I get cut off after being capped.
I've decided to document the month so far so people who weren't aware of some of the weirdness could be educated.
OK the month started on a Friday, on the Thursday night some users were eagerly awaiting thier 1mbit speeds back and as the new month came in at midnight started downloading. The throttling was lifted at different times for everyone with the earliest being about 5 minutes after midnight and latest being at about 1AM. The speeds were amazing, I've been on the network for a while and I've never seen it liek that, i got 1.5mbit (true 1.5mbit) for a few minutes and everyone was downloading at speeds over 1mbit.
In the morning the dream was over and the speeds were sluggish to say the least, across the network people were reporting some of the worst speeds they've ever seen. The problem was put down to all the users being unthrottled and hitting thier downloads heavily at the same time, although it seemed like a likely explanation even people on empty towers had speed problems which raised questions. As the month went on the day speeds stayed bad but for the Pretoria users (and some others) the speed was slower than dial up and the problem persists to this day even though congestion should be sorted out.
The first weekend, my bandwidth wasn't recorded, I disconnected a few times and it still said I had used less than I had, I didn't say anything for obvious reason. A couple days later DaveBuchannan made a thread stating the same, a few users posted in there, he requested it be deleted so some of you may have not seen it. He did so for the same reason I never posted about it, we take every inch, and why shouldn't we. BUT the problem is sorted now and its safe to assume alot of users did a GB or two when they found out, is that enough to get WBS to cut users off or make slow down to save money?
The speeds reported were around 6.4kbit a second (which as you can see is freakishly similar to 64kbit we should be getting), Roman found an interesting quirk, if you disconnected a few times (or sometimes once was all that was needed) the speed problem was sorted out, he put it down to the bandwidth manager, which I agree with as all signs pointed directly at the bandwidth manager 'glue' software coded by WBS that links the database with all your session data in and the intelligent firewall (database holds the data and intelligent firewall shapes connections based on rules the bandwidth manager sets).
A few days in the month 5 towers went down for long periods... twice. The next week Pretoria and Sandton went down, WBS said they changed switches.
5 days into the month I was capped and got cut off from the net, I made a thread about it, the following day I recieved 3 PMs in my inbox about people who had the same problem and felt forced to buy more bandwidth to sort the problem 9even though when unthrottled they no longer got 1mbit, it was the only way they could surf at all). The next day I called WBS and was told by an un-happy employee I was the victim of a policy decision
from high up. The same day i received credible information in my inbox from a respected member of the myADSL community, so I was sure it wasnt just me at that point.
Kei, mentioned he had to change his 'sweet spot' that had been fine for months, but now only received 60% (at best) signal, compared to 100%.
So far WBS has denied all problems, and has said it hasn't changed anything, although admitted it was in the proccess of drafting a new acceptable user policy.
Interesting things to note, last month WBS spent alot of time playing with the bandwidth manager (the thing that throttles us), i can't tell if they've done it this month because I get cut off after being capped.
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