What's up with Cell C and poor latency?

[Carmaleeta]

I play MMO games online and have been using prepaid data along with a Huawei E1752 stick. For three years the games have been playable with the occasional lag spike and disconnection, however as of the last week it has become so laggy I find myself unable to play.

Usually I get a linear ping of around 250ms when playing World of Lagcraft which now jumps anywhere from 600ms to 19000ms. I have tested router along with various modems and nothing changes.

When I contacted Cell C I was told that I need to upgrade my modems software which I have done, and still no changes. It seems fine at around 4am in the early hours but during peak times (which is when I need to actually play) it is a feable attempt.

Can anyone advise or has Cell C just gotten so bad that I need to switch service providers?

I am running Win7 HP 64-bit (if that even helps)

Many Thanks
Confused chick.

 

[Haterade]

Ah, the woes of wireless internet. I'd say it would be safe to assume that the tower you're connected to becomes congested during peak times, do a traceroute to google.co.za at peak and off-peak times just to be sure though. The only suggestions I could give you involve playing at different times of the day, playing somewhere else, or playing on a different network.

 

[Cell_C]

I play MMO games online and have been using prepaid data along with a Huawei E1752 stick. For three years the games have been playable with the occasional lag spike and disconnection, however as of the last week it has become so laggy I find myself unable to play.

Usually I get a linear ping of around 250ms when playing World of Lagcraft which now jumps anywhere from 600ms to 19000ms. I have tested router along with various modems and nothing changes.

When I contacted Cell C I was told that I need to upgrade my modems software which I have done, and still no changes. It seems fine at around 4am in the early hours but during peak times (which is when I need to actually play) it is a feable attempt.

Can anyone advise or has Cell C just gotten so bad that I need to switch service providers?

I am running Win7 HP 64-bit (if that even helps)

Many Thanks
Confused chick.

Hi Carmaleeta, I would like to get a technician to intervene and diagnose the problem. Please PM your contact details and your coordinates, I will in the mean time check if there are any issues with the tower you are connecting to. *DM*

 

[Carmaleeta]

Hi

I will do that Thanks. Would you like a speedtest as well?

 

[Carmaleeta]

Hi

Ran a speed test at 17:52 and this is what i came up with:

IP: 197.111.223.242 ISP: Cell C (Pty) Ltd

PING:
576ms

DOWNLOAD:
0.45 Mb/s

UPLOAD:
0.02 Mb/s

 

[cavedog]

Hi

Ran a speed test at 17:52 and this is what i came up with:

IP: 197.111.223.242 ISP: Cell C (Pty) Ltd

PING:
576ms

DOWNLOAD:
0.45 Mb/s

UPLOAD:
0.02 Mb/s

1 of 2 things....

Congested tower or coverage issue.... I noticed if you are not near a tower your speeds will be bad. You might have 2 bars signal but that means you could be like 5km from the tower. Just too far to get decent and stable throughput.

If you got full signal then its simple. The tower is congested and there is nothing you can do about it....


I have noticed that there might be something wrong with Cellc on the back end. I connected to a 3G tower in the middle of no where and it was blazing 12Mbps down and 3Mbps up but the latency to EU was still like 400ms - 500ms.

 

[Carmaleeta]

Thanks Cavedog

This is what i was suspecting, pretty sad that after 3-4 years of gaming with Cell C i will have to change ISP

 

[cavedog]

Thanks Cavedog

This is what i was suspecting, pretty sad that after 3-4 years of gaming with Cell C i will have to change ISP

The best for gaming over wireless is MTN LTE or Vodacom LTE. Telkom Mobile/8ta 3G or LTE is not too bad either.

 

[Haterade]

I've noticed some weird routing from Vodacom to MWEB servers in the past, and almost all local game servers seem to be hosted by them or in their DCs nowadays. Best would be to go to a supermarket and RICA a bunch of simcards and see what works best in your area.

 

[Carmaleeta]

Thanks Haterade, ill do just that. No point in me getting up at 02:00-05:00 am just to hit world of lagcraft as thats when my mates are all asleep and we raid during peak hours so that looks like my only option.

 

[Carmaleeta]

Hi Cell C rep, I would just like to know if technical is still going to contact me. I still have data left so a reply would be appreciated.

 

[Kaine]

sadly, sa is years behind on mobile tech for it to be good for gaming. I used to raid on vodacon 25m HC and what a nightmare... considering the amount of data you must be using if you are raiding, it would probably work out the same to get a landline installed and get a 2mb line. uncapped plus phone rental on that is now about R450 if you shop around...
also a damn site cheaper when WC drops those 1gb patches....

 

[Dups!]

Thanks Haterade, ill do just that. No point in me getting up at 02:00-05:00 am just to hit world of lagcraft as thats when my mates are all asleep and we raid during peak hours so that looks like my only option.

That is exactly how I have to use my Giga 200 package, unfortunately, I don't have the energy to wake up for such an activity. I bought the damn thing to use anytime I want. During the day I get no through put, when I do get a connection I get so many disconnections that the thing is unusable. Talk about throwing my R1900 into a drain.

They (Cell C) knew that with low or better prices than the competition comes a whole lot of subscribers and thus should have prepared for this eventuality. They have had a poor network and I knew that when I ported to them 4 years ago, I thought in time they would put more effort into their network. After 4 years it is clear that is just a pipe dream.

Rubbish, rubbish and utter rubbish of a network!

 

[cavedog]

That is exactly how I have to use my Giga 200 package, unfortunately, I don't have the energy to wake up for such an activity. I bought the damn thing to use anytime I want. During the day I get no through put, when I do get a connection I get so many disconnections that the thing is unusable. Talk about throwing my R1900 into a drain.

They (Cell C) knew that with low or better prices than the competition comes a whole lot of subscribers and thus should have prepared for this eventuality. They have had a poor network and I knew that when I ported to them 4 years ago, I thought in time they would put more effort into their network. After 4 years it is clear that is just a pipe dream.

Rubbish, rubbish and utter rubbish of a network!

Totally agree. I hope that thing would have gotten better but sadly they just deteriorated to the network we see today. 0.1Mbps download and upload speed, High latency and dropped calls when traveling or even when standing still. Cellc is not a good network. They used all the money generated by the new clients to do other things like bulding a big office.... They are not investing and upgrading their network and its at a stage where I think it can't be rescued without billions of rands which they don't have.....