Line Speed Issues after 10mbps Upgrade

D

doc_msk

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Was upgraded Sunday night, on 011-656-XXXX.

Issue: Line has been holding sync fine, but the speeds are highly unstable.

Whenever I do a speed test on Speedtest.net I get pings ranging from 53ms - 170ms for servers in Joburg or Midrand, and speeds downstream (very erratic) from 0.8mbps - 3mbps and upstream 0.3-0.8mbps (also erratic)
[On Monday morning was getting a consistent upstream of 0.8mbps and erratic downstream of 3-7.5mbps]

On Monday morning was syncing at 9590 d, 1019 u.
Today syncing at 9544 d, 1019 u.

On Monday:
Linestats: Down Up
SNR Margin 7.5 7.5 db
Line Attenuation 33.0 21.0 db

Today:
Linestats: Down Up
SNR Margin 7.7 6.2 db
Line Attenuation 33.0 21.0 db

Do you think I should ask Telkom to downgrade my line to a slower speed for more consistent behavior? Line does not lose sync at all. I waited a few days since the upgrade in case there was work going on at the 011-656-XXXX exchange.

Before the upgrade always I got a consistent 53ms ping, 3.5mbps down, and 0.45 up on Speedtest.net everytime

Question is: Shall I wait a little longer to see if things settle down, or try having the port recreated? If that does not help maybe systematically ask for a downgrade in 0.5mbps intervals until I find a stable "sweet spot"?

Any advice appreciated.
Thanks
 
I think you should ask Telkom to change both your down & up sync rates to like 6Mbps/768kbps, since you have quite poor SNR margins with those high sync rates.
 
I also seem to have this problem.. Im in Cape Town, Bellville area 021-913-****
Line sync is at 8128 / 864

First run on speedtest this morning gave me a nice 7.2mbps down and 0.94mbps up.
Second run got 1.2mbps down 0.67mbps up
Third run was at 0.8mbps down and 0.54mbps up
Forth run was 2.1mbps and 0.75mbps up

All tests run 5min apart..
Speeds seem to change constantly.. Websites, local and international, seem to load at will. With browser cache cleared, some pages load instantly the first time, start browsing through the forums and it grinds to a halt and then no more browsing..

At night the line is basically dead. Tried to download ubuntu updates, 5mb update running at 700kbps taking 1hour to complete...
Can this be some people hogging the exchange with downloads constantly? Or is this telkoms "NEXT GENERATION NETWORK" at its best ever?
Will have to get another router to measure the snr margins..
 
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@D@rk_4ngel Can you synch with ADSL2+? I'm on the same exchange and my speeds are also terrible. I tried to log a fault with Telkom yesterday, but was told because this is a trial, they can't reduce my synch speeds. Seriously WTF??? I can only synch at +- 5400 / 864, with a +-6 SNR, but frustratingly the SNR randomly drops to around 3, and my router resynchs.
 
@Enchanter, at the im on a crappy vox router.. Just have to go get another proper router first.. I dont know if the router is ADSL2+ compatible, on the site it also says its 384k to 4mb telkom compatible.. So, will have to see how it behaves with a proper router that is ADSL2+ compatible..
 
Our company is in Parow East and I see Telkom is busy changing our ADSL lines speed. We've got a few ADSL lines and they don't get close to 10Mbps, one line is even running slower now.

Upstream 992 kbps
Downstream 4800 kbps
Noise Margin (Upstream) 7.0 db
Noise Margin (Downstream) 8.5 db
Attenuation (Upstream) 27.0 db
Attenuation (Downstream) 47.0 db

Upstream 512 kbps
Downstream 3072 kbps (Used to be 4Mbps)
Noise Margin (Upstream) 13.0 db
Noise Margin (Downstream) 12.5 db
Attenuation (Upstream) 25.5 db
Attenuation (Downstream) 48.0 db

Upstream 640 kbps
Downstream 6144 kbps
SNR Margin (Upstream) 12.0 db
SNR Margin (Downstream) 5.5 db
Line Attenuation (Upstream) 26.0 db
Line Attenuation (Downstream) 46.5 db
 
I am on the Rondebosch exchange 021-685XXXX and approx 2km from the exchange.
Was upgraded to 8MB over the week-end.After the upgrade my SNR Margin dropped to 6 and thereafter I had speed problems and regular disconnects.Asked call centre to downgrade me to 6MB and after this my SNR margin went up to 12 and have not had any problems since.Dont know if I was just lucky but the agent I spoke to was extremely helpful and seemed to know quite a bit about router stats and most optimal speed etc.

I have read that if you have a poor SNR margin(<10), the Netgear DG834G router is the best at handling these.So if you have poor SNR stats and are loathe to downgrade your speed this might be an option .......
 
Myne was connecting at 5985kbps i then would reset my router and would connect at 6112kbps and then on tuesday morning my line would not sync anymore. I have just got hold of somebody at telkom that has set my line down to 4095 and seems ok now. no 8 or 10 meg connection for me :(
 
@ajules Thanks this is useful info. I am using a Linksys WRT54GL currently, and as you can see from my original post my SNR is rather low. Is the change of profile something the call centre can do without a techie going to the exchange?

Thanks
 
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doc_msk said:
@ajules Thanks this is useful info. I am using a Linksys WRT54GL currently, and as you can see from my original post my SNR is rather low. Is the change of profile something the call centre can do without a techie going to the exchange?

Thanks
Click to expand...

Yes,the agent can do the downgrade while you are on the phone with him.
 
I found this tool to be useful (provided you can find your chipset), as you can force your router to sync at lower speeds. You enable the last tab through the options menu, and select experimental.

http://dmt.mhilfe.de/

Currently experimenting with different SNR values to see which give me the least CRC and HEC errors.
 
Telkom is advertising 10Mbps, but I have yet to see or hear of anybody actually getting 10Mbps. Mostly people are getting between 6Mbps - 8 Mbps.
 
Update: Apparently Telkom is having "network problems" at the Kelvin DSLAM. The issue is "under testing". My line is still unstable even though I am now on an 8Mb profile. There was no time given for when this issue (the call centre person could not tell me what it was exactly) will be fixed. Once fixed if my line is still unstable I will happily ask to be downgraded until it becomes stable. Stability rather than speed is critical to me.

Will keep you updated.
 
I am having the same issues as mentioned by previous posts for my exchange on 021-424-XXXX.

I also just received a call from Telkom after I lodged a ticket with them two days ago. The Telkom agent dialled down my ADSL line speed from 8Mbits all the way back to 4Mbits while on the phone with me as we were testing the results, but unfortunately without any positive effect. The end result is still a measly throughput of between 0.1-0.2 Mbits with latency from Cape Town to Johannesburg between 800-900ms.

It has to be said however, that my line speed synched to 8Mbps after the upgrades were rolled out on Monday without a problem and I received up to 6.5 Mbps line speed for at least 1.5 days after that before it all went pear-shaped. This and the aforementioned testing implies that the issue is not merely due to incorrect line speeds in relation to the distance from the exchange.

Therefore it strikes me that Telkom themselves are not quite certain where the problem is at present and this fault might take a while longer before it is remedied.

Update: I just received another follow-up call from Telkom and they have informed me that they are looking into the DSLAM in my area. The agent assured me that I should receive another follow-up call tomorrow to test the results of that outcome. Ergo, this correlates with what doc_msk has posted, and it would seem that Telkom screwed up a number of its DSLAM upgrades during this trial phase.

Also, I reckon since I am paying for their highest speed ADSL and I am currently getting worse than modem speeds, that Telkom should credit me R18 for every day that goes by in which I don't have the service I am paying for. Who's with me on this?
 
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We used to get full 4meg download speed on our office adsl line in Durbanville, Cape Town. About 3 weeks ago Telkom upgraded us to ADSL2+ (still 4meg sync), this caused major major problems but seemed to sort itself out after a couple of days but actual throughput was much slower than before. Then we got upgraded to 6meg down/ 1 meg up sync speed on Sunday, the actual throughput speeds on our line was like dial up speed. We had the line downgraded by telkom back to 4meg but now we don't get more than 2.5meg downloads. Really puzzling. I think there is some weird issue at the exchange since the adsl2+ upgrade.
 
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