Unshaped ADSL feedback

sybawoods · Jun 26, 2004

Thought I'd post some more feedback on unshaped ADSL for those interested. As you know, I posted some initial results, fights with TELKOM etc, when I first signed up for the service (http://www.myadsl.co.za/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=3172&whichpage=1).

About a month later, and after the initial disappointment, apart from the costs, I have to say that the service has been consistently reliable:

1. Latency is consistently better than shaped ADSL. Local pings (from Cape Town) to Jhb based servers are consistently in the high 20ms to low 30ms range - identical to shaped ADSL.

International latency is where the difference really kicks in - I ping all European servers in about the 250ms range. During peak hours in the middle of the day it's slightly higher by about 30-40ms. To the USA results seem to vary depending on whether I'm connecting to East Coast or West Coast servers. East coast servers are in about the 280ms range, while West Coast at about the 330ms range.

2. Peer to peer I'm not a heavy user of p2p applications, but I have done some random downloads now and again - and on each occasion downloads maxed out at about 450kbps. Again, this was tried at random times of the day and night, and I seemed to get identical performance. I have also tested Bit-torrent downloads over the last week, and that also maxed out consistently at 450kbps.

3. Web browsing can't notice any discernable difference other than during peak hours in the middle of the day when the unshaped account is noticably quicker. In the evenings, performance appears identical.

Last, but not least, I made some cryptic hints about this in other posts for fear of Telkom picking this up, but what the hell... I have no real need for it so if things change tomorrow at least I'll know how closely they monitor these forums [

]. My i.p address has been static since they put me on the correct unshaped i.p. range about 2 days after initial sign up. Their may well be a logical explanation for this e.g. maybe there are so few unshaped ADSL users ?. I have disconnected, reconnected, reset my modem etc - but the address has remained consistent. I check it every day, and after every disconnection and it hasn't changed at all - yet!

I have not needed to use my ISDN line at all since being on the unshaped service, and my total bandidth usage as at today is 2.8 gigs. As you may know, the unshaped account has a 4 gig cap, so I am still comfortably within the limit without sacrificing any of my usage habits. The downside is that you are completely disconnected from the network when you cross the 4 gig limit. I have no plans to test that yet [}

], but do have access to a family member's shaped ADSL account should that happen [

]

BTTB · Jun 26, 2004

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">The downside is that you are completely disconnected from the network when you cross the 4 gig limit<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

For me this would be useless. At R900 a month, it's already in a high pricing range. To buy another account to just use up maybe 1 gig is not worth it. That would be R1800. I don’t p2p, but lately I’m using up to 6 or 7 gigs a month, but of that I would say half is for Local Gaming Servers. I have 2 kids and 2 Nephews who play a lot of CS that consume most of my bandwidth. Plus Steam is a dreadful piece of software. When it works its fine, but it starts downloading and updating several times a month at the full ADSL speed. Yesterday alone it consumed nearly 500 MB on the network here. I’m paying MWeb R539 for 6 gigs and the service is "decent". But R900 or a possible R1800 is ridiculous.

It's great to see what speeds you get and the service we should be getting from Telkom. All the port shaping is useless to me. It only slows me down. I don’t use P2P, but I do upload files to the ftp server and for that Telkom penalises its users of the ADSL service. That’s ridiculous. I have complained to them, but that won't resolve anything as we know they limit the one service to stop P2P and to help sell the new unshaped service.

IMO, they could rather meter the Usage on the Unshaped Account. So if you only use 2 of the 4 gigs you would pay half of the account. Nobody can work to specific usage patterns every month. And the price is way too high. For what I need the 6 gigs at R539 is far cheaper.

In restrospect it's good to see what the service is capable of and whats been "withheld" from SA>

<hr noshade size="1">You can take Telkom out of the Post Office but you can't take the Post Office out of Telkom.

podo · Jun 26, 2004

Man, at that price, I wouldn't go for it.

For about R200 per month more, you could have DataPro's uncapped ADSL. While that has shaping as a downside, you do have unlimited bandwidth, so for people who don't P2P or game that much internationally, but do want to be able to download A LOT, the DataPro offering might be a good competitor for Telkom's unshaped offering.

I am not affiliated with DataPro in any way.

Willie Viljoen
Web Developer

Adaptive Web Development

onionpeel · Jun 26, 2004

My ADSL usage (two PCs connected to the router) for a month is a conservatively 4GB.
This is without: gaming, downloads or P2P. If I add these in, I shoot to >6GB. The unshaped is NOT the way to go for me.

The_Right_Honourable_Brit · Jun 26, 2004

How can you use 4Gb conservatley. I download about 1GB of the 3Gb cap. You must be a heavy internet user then.

CrazyMadMan · Jun 26, 2004

What a waste of money, that price is unheard of anywhere else in the world. People would just laugh to hear what we are paying for and what we think is a good deal! LOL

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

georgestrydom · Jun 26, 2004

It's nice to get that feedback about the "unshaped" connection,. Your overseas ping, for which you initially got your connection, is certainly not good enough to warrant the extra expense.
I would be more inclined to say that the only advantage you have achieved is that all the rest of us "unshaped" connectors have now got really bad connections. Ever since you started your quest for better latency, my latency has gone for a ball of chalk. During the day my ping varies between 10 and 1000ms. Game play has become so dissapointing that I am on the point of chucking this really pathetic service out of the window. My browsing to local web sites ie. IOL etc, is so erratic, that I might as well go back to the old 56K. Even this is not satisfactory as now when I through neccesity have to use my old modem to connect, I rarely achieve better than 32k on this adsl line from Telkom.
On Friday I put in a complaint to Telkom internet and was promptly told that it was due to my capping. Considering that I had only been capped that very day, I was not impressed. He then also told me that my service would be slower now that I was capped. I said that according to there laws, there should be no difference on local surfing. He said that yes I would be as all capped people were grouped together and that basically we were now slowing each other down. What a load of [xx(].
So yet again the lines are being changed. Well I suppose the best way to get people to stop buying adsl, is to make the service unuseable, expensive and generally just not care. Then everybody at Telkom can sit on there derrières and drink tea all day.

sybawoods · Jun 26, 2004

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by georgestrydom
 Your overseas ping, for which you initially got your connection, is certainly not good enough to warrant the extra expense.
I would be more inclined to say that the only advantage you have achieved is that all the rest of us "unshaped" connectors have now got really bad connections. <hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"> Mmm - I think you give me waay to much credit there. If anything, normal ADSL latencies have also improved. "Latency is my life", I'm a serious gamer, and monitor it every single night. For the past month even shaped ADSL accounts have been running with relatively low latencies - I still have access to my old shaped account, and right now latency to Europe is in the 300+ range. Much better than it was a month or two ago. But that's probably due to the restoration of the SAT-3 service, and nothing to do with my little crusade.

As for it being "worth it". It's all relative. There are many 56K or ISDN dial-up users who would argue that the additional cost for ADSL is "not worth it". It depends entirely what you attach value to.

Prior to unshaped ADSL, in order to do competitive gaming internationally, (the leagues I participate in require sub 400ms pings), I used:

- an ADSL account for local gaming and surfing
- an additional ADSL account get more cap
- rental of an ISDN line for international gaming
- subscription to an ISDN ISP
- subscription to TELKOM's R7 plan (now R8.50 plan

)
- payment of dial-up costs for ISDN gaming

All of that to get an effective internet service. My need is not for bandwidth, it's for latency. Currently I'm able to wrap up all of the above into one service. Granted - it's costly. In fact, that's the service we should all be getting with basic ADSL. But given the limitations of what's available to us, at least I have one broadband product that suits my needs.

When you game competitively, in my case on-line racing, you will know the frustration of practising all week for an event, only to be excluded at the last minute because you're unable to establish a connection to the server, or being disconnected mid-way during a 2-hour event because your throughput fell to unacceptable levels.

Is the additional cost worth-it? For me, "yes". Currently I can connect to on-line racing servers in the USA and all across Europe, and do bumper to bumper racing with competitors across the globe.

To get a sense of what I'm talking about, check out some of the on-line leagues I participate in:

http://brsc.racesimcentral.com// (that's me 5th in the standings

)
http://escors.racesimcentral.com/

Serious business, this gaming [

]

BTTB · Jun 26, 2004

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Granted - it's costly<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">
<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Is the additional cost worth-it? For me, "yes"<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

I'm sorry to burst your bubble. But you are very much in the minority, which I'm sure you are aware of.
Your experience with the Unshaped Service is of great value and interest to all on MyADSL. But I just hope Telkom don't get the wrong idea, or even ICASA, heaven forbid. The services provided by Telkom are horrendously overpriced. Perhaps you can afford it boet, but the bulk of South Africans don’t even earn what you spend on your connections in a month.

MyADSL must also make ICASA aware of the fact that ADSL is for the betterment of all South Africans and not just the elite few "rich" people or businesses. They need to look at the fact that one ADSL connection at say R300 per month, using Internet Connection Sharing could bring valuable information to say a whole class of students or help a new small business take off. All these shaped and unshaped accounts are merely disguising Telkom’s poor infrastructure and throughput and making a fat profit out of a tool that could benefit all.

<hr noshade size="1">You can take Telkom out of the Post Office but you can't take the Post Office out of Telkom.

sybawoods · Jun 26, 2004

No bubble bursting at all. Some people here use ADSL and Mywireless. The point is that TELKOM provides us with horrendous internet solutions. Many people have to use more than one kind of connection in order to get the complete service they need. Am I defending it? Of course not!

But I was responding to the accusation that "it's not worth it". That will always be a relative statement. I have friends who find a basic dial up connection "not worth it". But they do find blowing money on booze, the odd week-end away, maybe an overseas jaunt here and there "worth-it". Get my drift?

The point of my little review of "unshaped ADSL" was that currently, as a product, it does what it is meant to do. Is it over-priced? Yep, like all telecommunications services currently available to us. I'm not sue that I can sustainably afford it myself. At least I can cancel it whenever I choose. For now, In am able to bite the bullet by cancelling my ISDN line, saving on dial-up costs, cancelling an additional ADSL subscription etc.

If I was paying this kind of money and the service was not delivering what it advertises, it would be a no brainer. Currently it delivers.

BTTB · Jun 26, 2004

[

] Point taken.

<hr noshade size="1">You can take Telkom out of the Post Office but you can't take the Post Office out of Telkom.

The_Right_Honourable_Brit · Jun 27, 2004

Maybe I'm missing something here because isn't it possible to UPGRADE to the 4GB Unsahped service but it stays the same cost?

If not sybawoods please tell me ALL the costs e.g line rental+ISP charge.

sybawoods · Jun 27, 2004

Very few places on this planet where you can upgrade and not pay any additional cost [

]

All info is on the TELKOM ADSL web-site - http://www.adslspeedfreak.net/adsl/prices2.jsp

Total cost for unshaped ADSL is about R1500.

paarlberg · Jun 30, 2004

To give you an idea on the cost even at the ISP level. SAIX charges just under R600 including VAT to the ISP. This is theft in my opinion.

In the US you can buy bandwidth at the 10Mb level and higher (lease lines) from tier 1 providers for about $100 per MB of BW per month. In other words, a 45MB link will cost you about $4500 per month.

To answer many business needs, we are testing a new hybrid product for SA. Static IP's may also be included after we complete our testing. More info will be provided when the product is ready for market.

The_Right_Honourable_Brit · Jul 4, 2004

But on telkom website it says and i quote

"the cost will remain R680 for home users...."

sybawoods · Jul 4, 2004

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by Dominic Rooney
 But on telkom website it says and i quote

"the cost will remain R680 for home users...."
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

That's for the line-rental. Then you have to pay isp costs...

The_Right_Honourable_Brit · Jul 5, 2004

Yeah so it will REMAIN THE SAME pricing as the 3GB offering.
My charges are R680 + R320 (Worldonline) for 3GB so 4GB will be the same right?

Cerberus · Jul 5, 2004

Er um... no as far as I know then your cost work ruffly to around :
680+890=1570 for the 4gig one.

Regards
Cerberus

sybawoods · Jul 5, 2004

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by Dominic Rooney
 Yeah so it will REMAIN THE SAME pricing as the 3GB offering.
My charges are R680 + R320 (Worldonline) for 3GB so 4GB will be the same right?

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

The R320 will change to whatever WOL charges for unshaped ADSL. Telkomsa charges R879. WOL will most likely be even more expensive. That has to be added to the R680.

The_Right_Honourable_Brit · Jul 5, 2004

So ISP charges go UP[}

]for the UNSHAPED SERVICE!!!1

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