Updates on the UUNet ADSL Network

stoke said:
Methinks that it's time we get some answers from UUNET self.
The company I work for is thinking of using UUNET, and i've show them this thread so that they can see what they're getitng themselves into.
I'm also trying to get the contact details of somebody within UUNET to explain.
Will keep ya'll posted.
Click to expand...
What sort of problems are they getting themselves into?

EDIT - I just had a look at my stats and I'm uploading ±1gb per day. This includes a massive amount of crystal clear skyping to Auz, Europe and USA; perfect video conferencing to the same; and large file uploading – all without a hitch.

My d/loads are roughly twice the volume of the uploads so you can guesstimate my monthly average. 30gb wouldn’t nearly cover it and AFAIK there isn’t any other uncapped offering at the moment – if there is pls let me know and I’ll give it a try.

Unfortunately – at least for companies - these days whoever offers the best service at the lowest price wins my business. Brand loyalty to an ISP is asinine IMO.
 
Last edited:
Basically - this thread, coupled with my personal experience, leads me to believe that their network could crumble at any point in time. Also, the slow speed with which problems are solved, and the lack of transparency is a real problem. At the moment a resold UUNET ADSL connection is flagged as unsuitable for business use by myself.
Care to counter ?
 
Last edited:
i think maybe they shape their accounts so that gamers dont get alot of speed because everyone on the network is downloading so much there isnt any gaming bandwidth, but i dont know
 
I've just gotten off the phone with UUNet regarding the increase in both national and international ping times (which you can see if you do a simple tracert to either uunet.co.za or google.com), basically UUNet's link to the national ATM network (that Telkom runs) is completely full (and apparently the vast majority of that traffic is P2P/BitTorrent). They are in the process of discussing various options that they can use to stop this from happening, even if it means temporarily blocking BitTorrent traffic until they can upgrade their bandwidth sufficiently.

As for protocol shaping, let me reiterate that the only shaping that takes place at the moment is on eDonkey (Gnutella/Gnutella2), Kazaa and BitTorrent, all other protocols are unshaped.
 
If they start restricting p2p I'm not going to be a happy camper. Skype is p2p and I'm constantly using it not only for voip but also for transferring files around the world to other employees – for some reason it seems to work the best for us.

What are the problems most people are having? Perhaps uunet could prioritize different protocols at different times. Most gamers (who, rightly or wrongly, seem to complain frequently) play in the evenings and on weekends when most businesses are closed for the day so give those ports a boost then.
 
Gaming ports = 1200 -> 65536.
P2P + Torrent = 2600 -> 65536.
It's a tricky situation.
I would use the end destination as part of the routing rule - games.saix.net will never be a bittorrent site.
 
I'm hoping that with UUnet gamers dont take preference over businesses. IMO - Sad state of affairs if they do.
 
I don"t feel any influence at the moment. Surfing and mailing are ok. Downloading is usally slower during the week then over the weekend. But this is normal and I am used to it now.
 
I agree that outright disabling P2P would not be the ideal, however, Skype should not be affected as its protocol is not being shaped at all, the only applications whose protocols ARE being shaped are Kazaa, eDonkey and BitTorrent (Skype does not fall into that list).

We agree that gaming should not take preference over business, however this has nothing to do with gaming and more-so to do with reducing congestion, and in doing so improve the ability for the network to handle realtime applications (of which online games are merely a subcategory). As it stands, BitTorrent (and lets be realistic here) is not being used by businesses in a large scale, and in fact I would guess that 90% of the BitTorrent traffic we're seeing has to do with piracy and the other 10% is probably legitimate, and in fact is having a serious effect on both pings and average downstream performance over single transfer threaded applications (such as HTTP downloads, etc.) - which for many business users (and we have had numerous complaints) is unacceptable.

Disabling BitTorrent however is a temporary solution, and won't be permanent (and it hasn't even been decided as to whether this is the solution that will be chosen), but in the interim it may be the only option that can be taken until UUNet has had the opportunity to perform large-scale bandwidth increases on their link to Telkom's ATM network.
 
tell me this i dont understand, gaming doesnt use that much bandwidth does it i mean WOW uses a little and fps games like battlefield 1942 only use about 10 k a second.

some ppl on uunet download 60 gigs of info a month and alot dont game so why is gaming such a bandwidth hog?
 
Killadoob, it has nothing to do with gaming bandwidth. As you indicated, gaming uses very little, however, there are other protocols that use a whole lot, such as BitTorrent, etc. (where do you think they got that 60GB from) if BitTorrent is using 100% (or even 99%) of the link, then no matter how little the other protocols use, they're all going to be sharing 1% of the link. That's why when the link is full, as is the case, performance suffers across the board.
 
ok also what is bittorent? i thought it was the new p2p hehehe

so then we agree gaming doesnt use alot of bandwidth so then why shape gaming ports?
 
Warichard is packet shaping posible instead of port shaping? If so is there any way UUNET could maby use packet shaping to limit p2p traffic to lets say 20k per second on a 512k line so instead of getting a max of 64k you would get 20k but only on p2p all other traffic remanes unshaped, would this not help keep pings, gaming and other apps, normal. Normal = 30-60ms to local sites and the SGS servers. Also important that the pings are stable, on the weekend pings would jump from 30ms to 500ms on local servers. What I also don't understand is how pings went sky high so suddenly. It all started on Friday!

Thanx again
 
UUNet is performing protocol/packet shaping for P2P already, however clearly it's not working well enough at the moment and it may require drastic measures such as those described, at least on a temporary basis.
 
warichard said:
UUNet is performing protocol/packet shaping for P2P already, however clearly it's not working well enough at the moment and it may require drastic measures such as those described, at least on a temporary basis.
Click to expand...
I appreciate you keeping us informed - I'm sure you probably have to pester UUnet for the info. Though not a much as if they were telkom!

On a related matter - It irks me that people automatically assume all p2p traffic is piracy - I think that they, the providers et al, should consider all p2p traffic as being legal as its not their role to police the internet. I know they’re just trying to protect a very limited resource but broad-stroke labeling bothers me.

Guess it’s the world we live in.
 
While I agree that one should not automatically claim that all P2P traffic is piracy, the reality of the situation is that 90% (at least) of it is, and it doesn't even come down to what you may or may not consider piracy, anything that has not got the express permission of the author or license to be distributed is considered copyright infringement, so even something you may consider "not piracy" may in fact be piracy.

However, this isn't really a result of P2P, before P2P there was HTTP and FTP and IRC, P2P has merely made it more efficient for the pirates and P2P itself has many useful and practical implementations, such as Skype's use of P2P to improve quality or Blizzard's use of BitTorrent for distributing large game patches - it allows for distribution of bandwidth costs, the idea being that large untapped resources can be used more efficiently. HOWEVER, in the case of South Africa, where we don't have an abundance of bandwidth, nor do we have a lot in the way of redundancy in our networks that could be used, BitTorrent is a big problem. It has a tendency to use networks to their fullest, but is designed for huge networks such as those found in the US, at the moment South Africa is having a hard time coping.
 
warichard said:
UUNet is performing protocol/packet shaping for P2P already, however clearly it's not working well enough at the moment and it may require drastic measures such as those described, at least on a temporary basis.
Click to expand...

I find it very difficult to accept being limited on what I am doing on my own computer. Please remember Warichard, that action takes imminent counter action and so many things have been tried in controlling, limiting, harrasing, charging internet users and the result.... NONE.

Just a little example. Since years now, Bernie Ecclestone tried to make the Formula One slower by imposing more and more restricitions on the cars, but every year the fastest lap is a bit faster then the year before......

I find it an embarrassment when SA is not capable to cope with other less developped countries and set up a decent UNSHAPED and UNCAPPED ADSL.

I am an disabled pensioner, spending a lot of money every month on my ADSL, because its my personal door to the world, I will not allow anybody to close it in front of my nose!!!

I am really sick and tired of fighting for each MB and each ms.....I am disgusted not to say....
 
Last edited:
to bad you have to take what is available to you?

I have to say, I hate p2p technology as I know it ****'s up any network. Also 99% of people I know who have uunet adsl use it for p2p, which is why they have trouble all the way. Needless to say I still take uunet over the telkom options, with the exception of a 3gb unshaped account for World of warcraft.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X