Very high latency on ISDN, need help please!

Shrike · Mar 28, 2004

I Live in a remote area and broadband will never be a reality here for quite some time. I am using ISDN 64k line and have been for 2 years. I have tried a variety of ISPs and each one has failed me. I have tried ISDN 128 but it has not helped at all.

I am looking for an international ping of 400 or so ALL the time. I get this weekdays but Friday nights, Saturday and Sunday it climbs to 3000.
Is this a fault of the ISP?
Is this a fault of the PoP that my searching 0860 number is finding? Or will this problem persist no matter what I do?
What ISP do you recommend that will give me my 400 ping most of the time?

I am really desperate, World of Warcraft is coming up in about 3 months and I really want a good connection at those times. My goal is to make sure I do have one by then.

Just some more questions:

1. Will using TRACERT at those peak times tell me where the bottleneck is? And if it does, will that help at all?

2. Will getting sattelite internet help?

3. Will double dialing my ISDN to 128kit help?

Strobemeister · Mar 28, 2004

Hi Shrike
I also have 64k isdn and noticed that last night was particularly bad for doing anything, couldnt play local or int. servers, file d/loads were ultra slow, but this morning all was fine again. I use Imaginet, which a lot of gamers use. But they arn't really the ideal solution for me as i'm in Cape Town, and they don't have Cape Town numbers to dial into, they also use 0860 numbers. However, they give me a Grahamstown number to dial into when i play local servers, actually, i just use that number all the time, but i don't get ideal pings on the local servers( i play on the SGS COD servers), about 120-140, sometimes lower, sometimes higher. i'm quite limited on international servers. However, if i use the "all seeing eye" program, i can find servers with lower pings, mostly in europe, and play quite well on them, pings under 300, not ideal, but ok. With Warcraft3, i can play just fine on Blizzard's US East or Europe servers, just a slight delay sometimes, but hardly noticeable. So, haven't really answered your questions, but there you go anyway [

]

Telkom - South Africa's Handbrake to progress.

MaD · Mar 28, 2004

Shrike,

1. No use, they know where the bottlenecks are.
2. Pings will be +-600, but there's a cap, not good for gaming.
3. Probly a little bit, but for the price it's not really worth it, unless u have Infinit-delaying-the-inevitable-call.

I would say try another ISP, like lantic.net, they're very fast, my downloads always average 5.5KB/s. My dial-up pings average 110-130, any day, any time.

_________________________________________________
Just imagine where SA would be now if it weren't for Telkom

sybawoods · Mar 29, 2004

Two best ISP's for international ISDN are Storm (Cape Town based - http://www.stormnet.co.za). They have POPs in Cape Town and Jhb. Ask them to set you up for both. Cape Town gives pings of about 190-250ms to European servers, but closer to 400 for USA. Jhb gives pings in the 300-400ms to USA, and not so great to Europe.

Second ISP worth checking out is DataPro (http://www.datapro.co.za) - you will get pings in the 250-350ms range to the USA, and about 380-450ms to Europe.

These are from tests via Cape Town ISDN - I have access to accounts with both, and use either almost every night for international gaming.

Karnaugh · Mar 29, 2004

You should do a traceroute and see where the problem is happening, then you can see if its the pop, your line, or the international router.

- Colin Alston
colin at alston dot za dot org

"Warning: Use with extreme caution."

Shrike · Mar 29, 2004

Thanks for all the suggestions. I have emailed the sales/tech support for the following companies to see what they have to say:

Datapro
Storm
Imaginet
Tiscali
Lantic

Only imaginet has come back to me saying that they do not have any control over their network and cannot guarantee pings of 600ms or lower.

mikkelz_za · Mar 29, 2004

Have you tried using uunet? I ping approx. 300ms to USA and approx. 400ms to Europe (UK), so it's not too bad. Local is great, 30/40ms ping to local (CPT) servers (Gamezone) and approx. 60ms to SGS (Pretoria).

No problems with download speeds. P.S. 128k makes NO difference to your ping whatsoever.

Shrike · Mar 29, 2004

I am currently using whickit.com which is an ISP that runs through UUNET. I gave up imaginet originally because they were using SAIX and the same problems persisted then.

The more I read about this, the more I am convinced that my problem is with the POP in Pietermaritzburg where I dial in to.

It cannot be my line or my PC or modem since it is only during certain times that the ping is so bad and not at others.

ProAsm · Mar 29, 2004

Have you the R7 Call plan or whatever they call it these days.
When i had ISDN I dialed Jhb all the time, hell R7 is R7 regardless of where you phone.
All Durban/PMBurg ISP's suck as far as their lines to JHB and CT is concerned.
I used to be with World Online and my pings to the UK and Europe game servers rocked at about 220 to 280 not like now with adsl which basically sucks everywhere over there.

<hr noshade size="1"><center>MyWireless Stuff
The opinions expressed here are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of my employer</center>

Shrike · Mar 30, 2004

Is this information correct? If you have R7 callmore can you call a non local number and the billing remains R7 all the time?

So the problem lies with the DBN\PMB POPS connecting to JHB?

World Online has become Tiscali here in SA, do they use the same dialup structure as other ISPs? Or is it a different one?

ProAsm · Mar 30, 2004

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Is this information correct? If you have R7 callmore can you call a non local number and the billing remains R7 all the time?<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">Yes, thats the whole idea of the R7 plan. If you play on a server in Jhb (most of them) you dial Jhb, also if the server is in CT, you dial CT.
I'm in Durban and if I dialed a local pop my ISDN pings to Mweb were around 75, if I dialed Jhb, my pings never went above 45.

<hr noshade size="1"><center>MyWireless Stuff
The opinions expressed here are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of my employer</center>

Shrike · Mar 30, 2004

Confirmed with Telscum, there is NO service available that lets you pay a flat rate for X hours that is NOT local call. In other words, R7 infinitcall only applies to local calls and not national/trunk.

Karnaugh · Mar 30, 2004

Bullsh1t, InfinitCall (R7) applies to anywhere in the country.

SAIX: 0313330000 (NDN1 Durban Central) is good pop, PMB hooks into the New Germany router.

On SAIX Durban/PMB does *not* connect explicitly to JHB. The network is interconnected, not a star that revolves around JHB (that wouldnt be logical)

MWeb and UUNet do things a bit differently (Read: Badly).

- Colin Alston
colin at alston dot za dot org

"Warning: Use with extreme caution."

sybawoods · Mar 30, 2004

Yep - ProAsm and Karnaugh are correct. I have been on the "R7 plan" since it's inception, and often connect to Jhb POPS (from Cape Town) in order to get better latency. Calls are capped at R7 for local and national - I have stayed connected on national calls for full week-ends and the bills were never more than R7 per call.

Gamos · Mar 30, 2004

Gamos · Mar 30, 2004

Karnaugh · Mar 30, 2004

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">What are the difference between Telkom InfinitCall and Telkom SurfMore?
InfinitCall provides the customer the advantage of capping all calls at R8.55 during Callmore time in all distance bands while with Telkom SurfMore only Internet calls during Callmore time in the subscribed number of hours (10/20/30) will not be charged, provided it's in the 0-50 km distance band.

Does InfinitCall work with Telkom SurfMore?
These packages were designed to assist and provide customers with a tool to manage and control their telecommunication expenditure. With Telkom SurfMore customers will have peace of mind that the Internet call charges are fixed per month provided the total duration doesn't exceed the subscribed number of hours.
Customers with the InfinitCall facility can't have a Telkom SurfMore package on the same telephone line. Customers can opt for a second residential line with Telkom SurfMore activated on the second line while InfinitCall will remain on the initial line.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

- Colin Alston
colin at alston dot za dot org

"Warning: Use with extreme caution."

Gamos · Mar 30, 2004

Shrike · Mar 30, 2004

Great! If this is true then that can certainly help. Do I need to contact my ISP to ask for a JHB/DBN number for them or can I use any UUNET number?

Gamos · Mar 30, 2004

Very high latency on ISDN, need help please!

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