Vodacom Problems: Slow Throughput, trying to Connect, DNS, High Latency

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Don't the towers have some form of UPS/backup generators? Even in quite extensive power failures I've still always had cell reception.
Reason dictates they should. During power failures I've seen my phone change tower after a short while. Even in bad weather they sometimes seem to shut down so I was actually beginning to wonder if Vodacom doesn't use solar power as of late. :D
Just checked mine - shows 236.8k on GPRS. Either way - it is the port speed, and yes, no way they modem knows what the tower stuff is doing.
Incidently - have pushed MTN and Virgin sims in mine - says EDGE for them - which is correct.
236.8k is definitely edge and not gprs. Something must be wrong. Remember that it shows the speed you connected at and does not update to the speed you are currently on.
JimM, most of the sites nowdays have battery capacity of over 200Ah. With the bigger sites drawing some 50Amps plus from the 50V battery, you can see that it is not likely that the site will last more than a few hours if the power goes off. The rectifiers in most sites are capable of supplying over 60amps at 50V to run equipment/charge batteries when the power is on.

Then there is the other issue that the equipment can run for short periods without aircon, but after a couple of hours, it generally starts shutting down as the temperature rises to around 50deg C. Most sites are fed with a minimum of a 40A 3phase supply and some of the larger require a 60A supply.

Now what size UPS would one need to run an 18000 btu aircon and supply the power to run the equipment and charge batteries?

If only life was so easy. ;)
I thought it was something like that. Nice post explaining it all.
The numbers - on battery I assume no Aircon - then 2500-3000watt.
Total supply (40A one) includes running equipment, charging batteries and running aircon - appr 22-25kw depending on power factor assumption.
I am sure they can do better - MTN uses 10m litres of diesel in Nigeria a month - most of their base stations run off generators. And they are making money.

Surely they channel money spent on other cr@p to improve this issue.

What topic is this thread again??
Without power - no base station - no throughtput. guess still vaguely related:rolleyes:
Yes but how much would direct power cost them and I suppose power isn't available everywhere like here. Generally power generated with an efficient generator wouldn't cost that much more, remember that all power originates from generators. However the initial investment in VERY expensive (this is not your ordinary household generators) generators isn't worth it for occasional non-essential backup power. I'm with them on this one, the money is much better spent on improving the network than using billions catering for a few sites going down occasionally.
I've before asked you to buy a book on networking and IP, and again implore you to do so. This is simple networking-101.

Fortunately, networks do run according to the laws of physics and thus can be understood by anyone willing to take the time to learn how it all works. You don't need to guess. It's all in the maths.

Latency is a function of transmission physics (~.7c/clock) plus the elements in the path (especially store and forward device, of which there are many where you must add the clock-in, processing and clock-out latencies, again dictated by physics) overlayed with a higher level protocol (such as TCP) that requires turn-around at some point (called handshaking) which resets the one-direction latency.

If you do the maths you'll come up with the latency you measured with something like a ping.

It's really not black magic and no-one is introducing latency just to be spiteful.

I can type up a (very long) post explaining it all, but it's just so well documented, anyone can read up on it. Google is your friend......
The problem is not the latency as mentioned but the increase in latency (more than double) for larger packets that do not fragment. No it's not simple networking 101. The latency with the store and forward devices is already there, it's the extra latency which is the problem. Even at a clock of 100MHz and I can't see it being anything less than that a store and forward device operating on a 2Mbps link and in bytes no less can not have that much of an impact on the overall latency. If this was the case 10Gbps links would be non-existent. Your first post also said you wanted to know if larger packets had higher latency meaning it shouldn't necessarily be the case. It seems like the systems simply choke up on larger packets.
 
The problem is not the latency as mentioned but the increase in latency (more than double) for larger packets that do not fragment. No it's not simple networking 101. The latency with the store and forward devices is already there, it's the extra latency which is the problem. Even at a clock of 100MHz and I can't see it being anything less than that a store and forward device operating on a 2Mbps link and in bytes no less can not have that much of an impact on the overall latency. If this was the case 10Gbps links would be non-existent. Your first post also said you wanted to know if larger packets had higher latency meaning it shouldn't necessarily be the case. It seems like the systems simply choke up on larger packets.

Everything else being the same, increasing the packet size must increase the latency. Remember the sliding window. Networking 101 ;)
 
Download Speed: 44 kbps (5.5 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 0 kbps (0 KB/sec transfer rate)

Great speeds I'm having here! No 3G/EDGE, just GPRS. The Vodacom speed site didnt even do it's job properly. This is the same location where I have gotten speeds of 1.2Mbps+ in the last few days.

Just my tower? Maybe after the power outages?
 
Unable to receive data

I've bought a 500MB ppdb last night, hoping to finish some downloads during the night while I sleep. I was only able to download 25MB through the whole night. I redialed the GPRS connection and now I can't receive more than 200bytes of data every time I connect. Last night I did a speed test at vodacom's speed test site and got 40kbps down and 1kbps up. Now my GPRS is useless and I'm sitting with a 500MB bundle.

Any suggestions?

PS: I have restarted the phone (SE K750i)
 
Cape Town??? Issues ???

Jeez its like a yo-yo this morning, working not working. Loading not loading.

Anyone else ?
 
Awful this morning.... on and off.. dc no signal, dc again... now working ok.
 
I can't open any websites and speeds are horrible when I do accomplish anything. Might be a DNS related problem? I'm in bloem
 
Yeah, I was on at about 07h15, data just stopped coming through. Had to reconnect about 3 times to get it working again.
 
my problem seems to be the same as yours though i connect and get no reply what so ever

http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showpost.php?p=1097394&postcount=544

Can you ping other sites local & International ?? Try this.
I had the same problem last night. I could ping all over and had good results but no Explorer activity at all. I suspected some system issues. I disconnect all & this morning all was up and running again. Don't try to fix something that aint broke. I am sure it is the ice on the wires.
 
Can you ping other sites local & International ?? Try this.
I had the same problem last night. I could ping all over and had good results but no Explorer activity at all. I suspected some system issues. I disconnect all & this morning all was up and running again. Don't try to fix something that aint broke. I am sure it is the ice on the wires.

i tried to ping lots of places with no reply, then tried a ipconfig/flushdns and even after that still nothing, its been like that for quite sometime now, iam thinking maybe the dnsserver isnt replying to me for some reason
 
619 Errors.

Getting 619's all over the place.
At the moment I'm still 619ed. :(

Is your problem now solved and what was the cause ?.

Which version of the dashboard are you using?. With VMC V7.x.x I get a 619 error because we have been locked/blocked. Every time I try to connect I get a 619 error: With VMC-Lite V2.x.x. Connection errors. A connection to the remote computer could not be established.
 
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slow response, no response when connecting to corporate VPN

Hi all

I have a number of users who has been experiencing problems connecting to the corporate network via 3G. The problem is random and cannot to easily replicated and we've had reports from around the country, so I can't isolate it to a particular geography.
Basic setup is as follows: Corporate network has a VPN concentrator advertised to the Internet, users have a VPN client on their notebooks. After establishing a connection to internet (via 3G), they fire-up the VPN client, they then get a challenge from the concentrator for securID. This all works fine (ie they are authenticated), but then after that they can't access any internal resources (Intranet sites, email, IM etc). The backend infrastructure has been tested and is fine, in fact we can see traffic on the concetrator for other users at the time. Often the problem will correct itself after a few disconnects and reconnects. People accessing via dial-up and ADSL have not experienced any problems.
We suspected that the general Internet APN could be a problem, so we switched some users to the InternetVPN APN, still no joy.
No error codes are reported. Connection speed indicates a 3G connection.

Has anyone experienced such a problem?
 
3G problems

Hi guys

I'm new to the site and a total non tech when it comes to these things. I have been using a Vodafone 3 G card (Globetrotter) for some months now in Langebaan.

Lately and especially since last Thursday the service has been useless. Connections lost, interruptions etc. I get 2 to 3 bars signal strength which has always been enough, but now its a major problem.

I phoned Vodacom's help line to be told by the operator that they are upgrading the system and these sort of problems are to be expected.

Can anyone supply me with a plausible explanation.

Thanks
 
3G extremely unstable the past 3 weeks

My 3G in Langebaan has been extremely unstable the past 3 weeks. I logged couple of queries at the vodacom4me site, but it does not seems as if anybody cares because nobody ever responds to the queries.

The damn thing keeps on disconnecting, sometimes it just jumps from 3G to GPRS and back or sometimes the whole network is just missing. Whenever the network is there it shows a 5 bar signal, so there is nothing wrong with the signal.

I am trying to work, but I loose tremendous man hours because Vodacom cannot provide a service.

I wish I could go back to my Telkom ADSL line, i never had these problems there.

If anybody is concidering getting a Vodacom 3G, DON'T
 
Same here,

Garsfontein, Pretoria
03 July, most of the day. Improved at around 11pm
04 July, been on since around 6pm

I am also no tech at all, and all I can base this on in World of Warcraft. I usually get around 500 - 800ms, but these past two days has seen pings of upto 5k.

ADSL users do not seem to be having any problems.

Edit: I have not installed anything new or changed any settings. I often get 619 errors but this is especially prevalent in the early mornings around 5am or so. (Yeah I'm an insomniac...)
 
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My 3G in Langebaan has been extremely unstable the past 3 weeks. I logged couple of queries at the vodacom4me site, but it does not seems as if anybody cares because nobody ever responds to the queries.

The damn thing keeps on disconnecting, sometimes it just jumps from 3G to GPRS and back or sometimes the whole network is just missing. Whenever the network is there it shows a 5 bar signal, so there is nothing wrong with the signal.

I am trying to work, but I loose tremendous man hours because Vodacom cannot provide a service.

I wish I could go back to my Telkom ADSL line, i never had these problems there.

If anybody is concidering getting a Vodacom 3G, DON'T

Won't you PM me the call numbers you got on 4me?
 
Aaaaarg

Well, it's at it again!

Had an issue previously where I just got no response when trying to ping a website. Called vodacom 155 and the dude seemed to think clearing internet cache and cookies would solve the problem. WTF!!!

Anyhow, he also wanted me to flush the dns, as if that would help!
Things went back to normal for one night and now......

Request times out.
Request times out.
Request times out.
Request times out.
Request times out.
Request times out.

How can we pay for a service that is this unstable? DAMN, we South Africans put up with WAY toooo much S**T

Cheers
ANGRY Voda Customer

- Linden, Randburg (Down the road from Northcliff Corner)
- Merlin U740 (HW REV [0:56])
- IMEI: 358661000411295
- Firmware: 27.2-27.2-00 [2006-04-28 11:27:20]
- Try both Internet and InternetVPN APNs

P.S. Have a mate in the Fourways area with exactly the same issue with exactly the same hardware.
It's gotta be a problem on Vodacom's side (Not that they'd ever admit it); tried to ping smtp.vodacom.co.za from my offices Telkom Diginet line with NO RESPONSE. I got the dude on 155 to try ping www.yahoo.com and he never got a response either, said there was a known problem with Yahoo itself. YEAH RIGHT.... 180ms response from www.yahoo.com from my office.
 
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