Upgrade, what upgrade?

[Alistair Cotton]

I upgraded my DSL512 to the Telkom maximum. Reading the 4mbps thread, I no longer know what I just bought.

What I do know is that I did not realise the line had been upgraded because the international connection seems to be running just as fast (or is that slow?) as it did with my 512k line.

I phoned Telkom to ask them when the line would be upgraded . . . they said it had already been completed. I had not even noticed!

Tests say local downloads are a lot quicker, but uploads are pretty much the same.

What I seem to have purchased is a dramatic increase in local download speed with very little, if any upload speed increase. International speed increases appear to be marginal/if any.

Is this normal for a Telkom DSL upgrade?
Is the bottleneck located at my ISP?
If so, would it be better to buy the ADSL bandwidth account through an ISP like Verizon Business?


Some results

-----------------------------------------------
Telkom's test (what's with the pokey ftp thing?)
Down only - anywhere between 210 - 270 kb/sec
Via Firefox direct download - did not bother with ftp software for the same test.

Speedtest.net - Test to local Telkom server.
Down - 1994kb/s
Up - 311kb/s
http://www.speedtest.net/result/262880673.png

London Tiscali Speed Test
Down - 443kb/s
Up - 55.38kb/s

Wave 2 Wave Speed Test NYC
Down - 408kb/s
Up - 288kb/s
--------------------------------

 

[[OUPA]MrNutz]

what speed average do you get when you download the test file from the telkomsa site?

imho - international speed , verizon is a bit quicker than saix - but much more expensive.

saix based ain't bad - just when it is office hours - its a bit slowish.

 

[milomak]

http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showpost.php?p=1672362&postcount=28

i might also guess that you are syncing at 2mbps based on the above you posted

 

[Leftfoot]

My downloads are significantly faster. i.e 512k line downloaded @ 52kB/s, the 4meg line comes down at around 420kB/s (on some international sites too)

I dont notice much of a difference browsing except say faster buffering of video stream from news.sky.com, but Skype calls and other VOIP apps are much smoother and clearer, even with video.

As for speed tests, I like the IBurst one.....just seems very comprehensive.
http://mybroadband.co.za/general/speedtests.htm

 

[milomak]

some sites allow more than one connection so on those you will see improved speed. using a download manager that shows each of the threads seperately shows this very well.

 

[Alistair Cotton]

Thanks for the comments and responses. I've noticed that the connection seems to vary drastically depending on the time of day - so I suppose that's contention ratios?

After hours local downstream is really hopping now and I'm getting quite close to the "test" 4mbps in Bordeaux, Randburg:

http://www.speedtest.net/result/263088456.png

Upstream more or less unchanged. International to UK a bit faster at 731/240 - but sadly not quick enough to speed up those VPN connections to international servers.