Things I learnt

[passif]

Dunno whether this makes a difference to anybody, I had a long chat to one of the second-level Orcs on Thursday (they are getting desperate to close long-running open tickets from the sound of things) and the following came to light (the following is according to said second level Orc - I'm just putting the stuff down verbatim):

Sentech is using some kind of port-shaping. Apparently they flood the (popular) ports that p2p programs use with packets to slow down the p2p program speed (and somehow this increases 'normal' bandwidth).

To get better speeds, switch to a different tower. Yes - apparently, said Orc has tested my userid on an alternative (new) tower that went up and got amazing speeds, and apparently the Mintek tower - or rather specific lobes on the tower) is oversubscribed. When I questioned him about tower capacity, he mumbled something about the number of people per lobe on a specific package. The way I understood this is that from the lobe I am already contented - he stated as much.

Dunno how much stock one should place in this, or whether any of this actually makes technical sense. All I know is that in three weeks of daily tracing of speeds, I achieved a speed in excess of 20KBps once for a half an hour period. The graph brought a tear to my eye...

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Sentech and Telkom: The pupil surpassing the master

 

[hArTh]

Can you imagine the network meltdown if Sentech, as is their plan apparently, expands their network to cover all areas of all the major metropolitan areas?

Will make Hiroshima look like a sunday afternoon braai.

For them to run into fundamental networking issues with ~3000 subscribers doth not bode well for the future.

Here's hoping they sort out the issues and start providing a consistant as-advertised product.

[}]

-Professional information anarchist-
I support:
www.hellkom.co.za

 

[RogueKill]

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by passif</i>
Sentech is using some kind of port-shaping.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Does that include ports range 1-65535?

 

[passif]

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by RogueKill</i>
<br /><blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by passif</i>
Sentech is using some kind of port-shaping.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Does that include ports range 1-65535?
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

ROFLMAO!

Who knows, quite likely!

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Sentech and Telkom: The pupil surpassing the master

 

[CrazyMadMan]

I am going to look into this, if this is the truth there will be war

Fantasy is what people want, reality is what they need.

 

[gripen]

If it is the truth, then ProAsm was lying and we have a pure and simple breah of contract which means *ALL* of us can withdraw from the contracts straight away. Im not sure if the word "unshaped" appears in the contract but the service was advertised as such. Count me in on the war if this is true.

 

[aftermath]

I'm in, or should I say, out of Sentech...hopefully

 

[Claymore]

I wish I could try another tower - but where I am, I can connect to Tower 12 only, and nothing else.

 

[regardtv]

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by passif</i>

Sentech is using some kind of port-shaping. Apparently they flood the (popular) ports that p2p programs use with packets to slow down the p2p program speed (and somehow this increases 'normal' bandwidth).

Mintek tower ... is oversubscribed.... the number of people per lobe on a specific package.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

<b>Sorry, but I must say that said orc smoked something powerful during the conversation with you.</b>

Port shaping does NOT do any FLOODING of bandwidth - it does tcp ACK delays - this tells your pc and others in the p2p group to send data at a slower rate. It they are doing it by 'flooding' we are in SERIOUS trouble. That statement from said orc is BS.

As to over-subscription of the nodeB's or the tower as a whole .... unless IPW are speaking TOTAL crud in their technical docs there is NO way that over-subscription is an issue on tower12 Mintek. The units installed at the towers should be able to handle 2000 users. That's just about Sentech's complete user base.

I currently have a open ticket concerning tower differences and the issue is being actively investigated. I'm the last person to defend Sentech but I must say that with enough prodding I am now getting the sort of technical service and responses I'd expect.

Now one can just hope the rest of the problems get resolved

R

 

[passif]

I agree with you - I raised the 2000 figure per tower as that was my impression from previous posts on the forum, which is when the package per node thing was raised. Sounds like left and right hands don't know what each other is doing...

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Sentech and Telkom: The pupil surpassing the master

 

[TheRoDent]

The nodeB's can handle up to 2000 people a Megabits per second. It'll easily handle us, at 128-512K, in excess of 2000 people, so that is utter bull****. The traffic shaping is utter bul**** as well. This is just another case of an Orc saying <b>anything</b> to get you to shut up.

<center><h6> MyWireless <s>Hacks</s> Tweaks & Tech Info || Have you checked the fawking FAQ? <br /> <font color="red">Tired of bad Service? Want to compare speeds? We at least listen...</font id="red"></h6></center>

 

[guest2013-1]

if you can confuse the enemy into thinking you're not the enemy, then you have the upper hand.

I never read the art of war, but I think it should be in there somewhere....

TheRodent, have you seen any speed increases? I haven't downloaded anything since I started my campaign.....

Help save the bandwidth. Decent download speeds for TheRodent! Stop downloading now!!!

 

[TheRoDent]

No, my speeds is still horrendous. 2K/s from tucows.is.co.za

<center><h6> MyWireless <s>Hacks</s> Tweaks & Tech Info || Have you checked the fawking FAQ? <br /> <font color="red">Tired of bad Service? Want to compare speeds? We at least listen...</font id="red"></h6></center>