Tower 110, Helderkruin, Jhb speed problems?

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Jhbgirl

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I'm on the 256k package and for the last 2-3 days browsing have been very slow. This forum takes ages to open. Is anyone else having speed problems on this tower? I think it's time to call the "help" desk again. I'm downloading at 2KB/s this morning :(
 
I think that applies to everyone. I got an average download speed overnight of 0.6kB...

Uploading was 5kB but i limit to that.

Whats wrong??????......Ummmm SENTECH is all i can come up with

Good Luck to all!!!!!!
 
Could it be because I haven't upgraded to the newer firmware?
 
Jhbgirl, no. There seems to be a general problem everywhere. I got a call from Kallie this morning, saying they've made network changes, and I told him it's made things worse.

I had been getting between 10-12K/s since Monday, but it dropped off to 0.6K/s yesterday, and today around 1.3K/s.

I instructed him to leave my ticket open. Make sure you log one too!

<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>
 
My ticket has been open since last monday, but you hardly ever hear from them. Callie is supposed to call me at lunch time today. I will make sure I add this to the list of problems ;)
 
What's interesting though is that BT is still flying. Maybe I shouldn't say that too loudly incase they mess that up too.
 
yip speeds very very slow today,cant download faster than 4kb/s from anywhere.Evrything been fine for 2 weeks untill now ;(

Glory Glory Man United!
 
Yep today is slow, and yes it has been fine for a few weeks now.

Fantasy is what people want, reality is what they need.
 
Nice to see Internet Solutions' FTP server now sees us as internal addresses ;-) ... too bad I cannot break the 2.5K barrier...

I wish they'd put the training wheels back on this system...

Change is as good as a holiday --&gt; A holiday from service ... seems Sentech are trying to change EVERYTHING ... bad to worse ... oi

************************************************************
The views expressed on this site are my own and NOT those of my employer.
 
Your speed is: <b>3 KBps</b>, or <b>24.01 Kbps</b>
The test took 178.281 seconds to complete

Just had a call from Callie, so I told him about the above speeds. He says it was still more than they guarantee!!! Eesh. It's 10% of what I usually get. According to him <b>they guarantee</b> <b>1KBps</b> or <b>8Kbps</b>. Huh? That's not broadband! *pulls out hair*
 
TheRoDenT, I would like to know what your opinion on this is.. I have opened a ticket (well during the slow time I sent a 'please open ticket' email -- still no response) and would like to know (assuming I get a ticket no) if they call back a week later (as per usual) when the speed is improved, should I tell them to leave it open ie. lie that it is still slow? This would be for the benefit of the other users since there is and will always be a select group of users who are experiencing slow speeds.
 
Shoot I can't rem exactly..all i know is that he divided 24 by 8 and came up with some crap. (can u tell i am less than thrilled?)
 
but I want to know if it should stay open even if in my opinion (such as now) the speed is good?

UPDATE: I have now got an open ticket. My plan if they call me, is to tell them I want decent service for at least (at the very least) 1 solid week. Otherwise, they ticket stays open.

The more open "speed" tickets the better. So I think we should campaign to stick to the above policy.

&lt;/update&gt;
 
I also sat with sub-2k speeds - and when I enquired about my ticket Friday morning was also told it is normal speeds that I have been experiencing. Suffice to say that five minutes later, the Orc passed me on to his team lead as I got extremely unhappy. I had him telling me to 'please calm down' at various stages.

I decided to escalate it myself, and have no somebody seniorish' email addy. I have also demanded to know what Sentech's official policy is with regards to contention. Will we suffer from it 5% of the time, or as has been shown 95% of the time. According to the Dark Lord I spoke with, contention ratios should only be experienced on the odd occasion.

Quite frankly, if I am always going to experience contention, then the 256k product is theoretical only. They could have sold it as a 512/60 contention ratio product then (since top speed is based purely on some Sentech employee's fantasy).

I am very unhappy with the situation at the moment, and have been promised a call back on Monday from the Dark Lord himself. I'll wait and see whether that pans out...

Addendum: I am also emailing said team leader and Dark Lord at regular intervals with my (Sentech and other) speed tests as well as a daily report from my firewall that shows just how poor the throughput is generally. Makes you shiver when you see - on a supposed 256k connection - that at any time of the day or night you get an average of 2k, with dips down to under 1k and a massive 'spike' of 5k...

Please people, go and visit http://www.hellopeter.com and put down your complaint. I have it on very good authority that sites like that (and this one) are being watched... *waves at Clinton*
 
I complained about a 128kb Vstar downloading at 32kb, they said I'm lucky to be getting over 8.5kb as that is all they guarantee with a 15:1 contention ratio. Can you imagine 10 people in an office trying to share 8.5kb. They are already pulling their hair out at 32kb.
Fortunately I only have a (Datapro) 64kb ISDN at home, I always get 64k. At my office always I get 128kb on a 128kb (Telkom) diginet. I can see I am maxing out and the only restriction is my budget as my MRTG graphs go straight to the top and stay there.
Would anyone on this forum trade their 64kb ISDN at R1500.00 per month for MyWireless at 30:1 contention? I don't know why they are contending local bandwidth so highly, local is cheap? If they just throttled the international at least people would be able to send and receive email decently and download from local mirrors. Maybe a mirror and a big cache on the Sentech backbone (and 1:1 up to the backbone) would solve 90% of the complaints.
P.S. I almost signed up for MW this week but ended up on this forum after hearing about Rodent's sentechsucks.co.za and mywirelesssucks.co.za. Thanks Rodent
 
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by greedyflyza</i>
<br />but I want to know if it should stay open even if in my opinion (such as now) the speed is good?

UPDATE: I have now got an open ticket. My plan if they call me, is to tell them I want decent service for at least (at the very least) 1 solid week. Otherwise, they ticket stays open.

The more open "speed" tickets the better. So I think we should campaign to stick to the above policy.

&lt;/update&gt;

<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

I agree with the greedyflyza - I've also decided that I will fight toot and nail to keep my speed ticket open until such time as I have acceptable speeds (one week's worth). And I define 'acceptable' as being at 75% of bandwidth. Not close to my ISDN line (which is also contented) but still...
 
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by greedyflyza</i>
<br />but I want to know if it should stay open even if in my opinion (such as now) the speed is good?
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
DO NOT close any speed tickets based on seemingly good speeds experienced on a weekend (or Friday night such as now). The Internet is generally much "quieter" during this time <i>anyway</i>, i.e. there is much less traffic, so more of the (limited) bandwidth to go around, so speeds are inherently going to seem better. I agree to rather wait until seeing at least, say, one full week of decent speeds.
 
It's a pleasure ChrisW. This whole contention ratio crap is utternly nonsense i.m.o. We're not seeing contention ratio problems here. What we're seeing is a complete and utter breakdown of the communications between the towers, a severly overloaded core router, and a single, horrific peering point.

I have it on anonymous authority that IS considers Sentech a "mickey mouse" customer.

passif, now you feel the pain we've had. The service stinks. It is STILL worse than a 56k modem (much worse in fact), and the cancer seems to be spreading.

This contention ratio bullsh1th is getting my hackles razed. Where in your LIFE can you imagine signing up for a 128K connection, only to be told that the best they have to give you is 4K and then that's the deal done? I mean, are these people fscking insane?

Oh wait. Yes. I forget...

<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>
 
Last night at around 11 this tower completely dissapeared. We have a dish up outside and it can't pick up the tower at all. Argh. I don't feel like calling the helldesk :(
 
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