Why so slow?

C

Chris888

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Joined
Jul 23, 2008
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Hi Gentlemen,
Recently my download speed has decreased significantly. I have phoned Telkom and they have checked the line, and say everything is alright. I have also contacted my service provider (Afrihost) and they say from their side, it looks fine. They also say that the speeds that I am getting are acceptable for my line (4mbps) however this doesn’t help me rationalise why my download speed is ¼ of what it used to be.
Here are the line stats per my router:

Mode: G.DMT

Type: Fast
Line Coding: Trellis On
Status: No Defect
Link Power State: L0

Downstream Upstream
SNR Margin (dB): 29.2 23.0
Attenuation (dB): 6.0 2.5
Output Power (dBm): 12.3 7.8
Attainable Rate (Kbps): 10848 1124
Rate (Kbps): 4096 512

K (number of bytes in DMT frame): 129 17
R (number of check bytes in RS code word): 0 0
S (RS code word size in DMT frame): 1 1
D (interleaver depth): 1 1
Delay (msec): 0 0

Super Frames: 4121857 4121796
Super Frame Errors: 1 0
RS Words: 0 0
RS Correctable Errors: 0 0
RS Uncorrectable Errors: 0 N/A

HEC Errors: 1 0
OCD Errors: 0 0
LCD Errors: 0 0
Total Cells: 676918123 0
Data Cells: 519812 0
Bit Errors: 0 0

Total ES: 1 0
Total SES: 0 0
Total UAS: 9

And here are the results from speedtest.net that clearly show the decrease in speed which I have experienced.

Date Download Upload Latency ServerName
2011/04/09 20:02 697 393 90 Midrand
2011/04/09 19:55 537 422 86 Midrand
2011/04/02 13:08 932 419 77 Midrand
2011/04/02 13:06 1101 417 88 Johannesburg
2011/04/01 17:10 1266 420 82 Johannesburg
2011/03/20 16:04 3391 0 1111 Rome
2011/03/20 16:02 2403 423 65 Johannesburg
2011/03/06 20:02 3380 423 71 Johannesburg
2011/03/04 09:10 3045 420 64 Johannesburg
2011/03/01 18:59 3408 420 81 Johannesburg
2011/02/19 21:38 3102 400 76 Johannesburg

I used to get 400kbps download speed from a local website, and now I only get around 140kbps.

I would really appreciate it if someone who can decipher all the above stats could give me an idea as to what is going on.

Thanks
Chris
 
You would normally get that much if your phone filter is unplugged or dead. Do you have a phone plugged into the same line? Maybe try a different phone plug.
 
Hey snap! My internet has been so slow the last few days that it's almost unusable. I switched to a prepaid Axess 626 account that I had lying around and problem solved. It seems Afrihost is the problem for me. I have the uncapped account on a 384k line and so far I have only downloaded 8Gb this month so I shouldn't be getting throttled surely? :confused:
 
Im looking at giving the web Africa free 14 day account a try right now. The thing that attracted me to Afrihost was the fact that it was unshaped, is the web Africa account also unshaped?
I have a phone on the line plugged into a filter.

Sorry hereticangel, I’m not sure what you mean about staying on dslam?
 
ink the throttle is 5gb for 10days, afrihost emailed one guy on this forum and he posted the reply.

yes indeed there is white box very next to your home that gives your internetz :P ( yes white one , blue one is exchange not dslam)

that accoutn is shaped, but its pretty much full speed on anything even torrents
 
O lol yea I can see the exchange from my window :-)

Those 30 gig accounts that web Africa are offering, are they shaped?
 
@Chris888

Would you mind just letting us know if the Webafrica account worked?

Afrihost and Mweb (both the same backbone, iirc) is terribly slow and intermittent the last few days for me aswell.
I phoned Telkom and they couldn't find anything wrong.
 
Yeah, as long as your sync rate stays on 4096 and you don't accumulate many errors as you go on, it's definitely either your ISP or an increase in traffic on the shared Telkom equipment, I'd say. Things have been slowing down for me too, lately, though not nearly as drastically as yours. Still not sure if it's my ISP or just more people on the same pipe...
 
hereticangel said:
Attenuation (dB): 6.0 2.5

do you stay on dslam? o.0
Click to expand...

Thinking the same thing..your SNR is better than my Attenuation!! In contrast my attenuation is 5-6. Your stats are good - he means u probably live so close to the exchange...as in you can hear the buzzing noises from the grey/white/facebrick building close to your house :)

But what is painful is that I have a 10Mb line!!!! F-ing Telkom!

Different ISP is easy to try. Then try a friends modem or a cheapie like Dlink 250u.

If you are on uncapped- you are being throttled.

My capped Afrihost is lagging like hell!
 
the intermittent speed drop could also be due to problems with seacom, which are just about daily :) but judging from the symptoms you describeed it sounds like throttling because you exceeded how much they allow you to use in a time period
 
Ok here’s what I did.

Still on the Afrihost account, I unplugged my phone and filter. Ran speedtest.net and got a download speed of around 1500kbps, a lot better but still only half of what I used to get.

Signed up for the 14 day free Web Africa account, and connected with those details. Still with the phone and filter unplugged, I ran speedtest.net again. I got pretty much exactly the same result, around 1500kbps.

So I’m pretty stumped, how my speed can halve when my line stats are all good and I have tried two different ISP accounts is very strange. I seriously doubt there could suddenly be so much extra traffic at my exchange. I’m in Sandton/Rivonia btw.

As for the Afrihost account being throttled, I would be pretty cross if that is the case. I was on the 10gig capped unshaped account and recently moved to their 17gig Red special. I thought theses accounts were capped so there was no such thing as throttling?
 
Chris888 said:
As for the Afrihost account being throttled, I would be pretty cross if that is the case. I was on the 10gig capped unshaped account and recently moved to their 17gig Red special. I thought theses accounts were capped so there was no such thing as throttling?
Click to expand...
my apologies, i assumed you were on their uncapped, "unshaped" offering
 
Chris888 said:
So I’m pretty stumped, how my speed can halve when my line stats are all good and I have tried two different ISP accounts is very strange. I seriously doubt there could suddenly be so much extra traffic at my exchange.
Click to expand...

I'd try the same two tests, but at 3am or as close as you can get to it without falling over. :) Also, a Sunday can be a good day for comparisons...
 
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