Telkom ISP / SAIX + Slow Google Services + Migraine

Hi Everyone,

Hope someone can perhaps shed some light on this problem.
Ive been all over this the past 6 weeks and no solution.

Location: Johannesburg / Fourways
Exchange: Monte Casino / 5 km
DSL: 4MB upgraded to 6MB
ISP: Telkom
Package: Premium 20GB Capped / Shaped

We are a tech savvy internet business so have ruled out all issues related to routers, viruses, trojans, etc all the things Telkom likes to highlight before attending to an ongoing issue.

Since January 16 all Google services have come to a grinding halt. That is all websites loading Google Analytics, AJAX, APIS, JSON, Google Adwords, International sites are taking on average 2 to 5 minutes minutes to load up. Facebook and Youtube are just as slow, with a standard 10 minute clip taking almost an hour to buffer / or it simply hangs up. But Google is the major pain. Pings to Google, Youtube, etc average 500ms.

I also found more info pertaining to this here, but no follow-ups.
http://mybroadband.co.za/news/adsl/41443-telkom-adsl-google-problems-reports.html

Somewhere I read, and speak under correction, that SAIX has moved all Google DNS caching to Hong Kong?

I have logged several complaints with the Telkom Helpdesk, which was escalated to the NOC. They did remote line tests and confirmed no problems whatsoever, line is fine. Ports reset. Usual story..

Logged more calls - they eventually sent out a technician to perform local tests (filter, line, exchange) and found no problems.

I have also discovered that our router is now connecting to DNS servers in Pretoria and not Rosebank as before. On speedtest and pingtest the nearest server is also Pretoria. Previously is was Rosebank. Ive tried changing DNS servers manually on the Router, no change.

I eventually called Afrihost which btw were extremely helpful and provided me with a test account / capped/unshaped. Immediately all problems were resolved. Google services etc back to normal, fast loading times.
I'm assuming this is due to them running on the IS backbone.

Tuesday night between 5 and 6, Google, Facebook and Youtube were down. But all other sites were accessible. I'm assuming Telkom/SAIX were making changes?

As of this morning, the lag is even worse. I may as well move onto a 56K dial up modem. The Google search page is taking 45 seconds on average to load up.

Is anyone experiencing similar issues?
Are there problems at SAIX?
Is it time to move ISP's or be patient / are they busy with upgrades?
Afrihost seems good, any other ideas?

Many thanks!

What IP address are the DNS servers reporting for Google?
If you ping 165.165.38.147 what are your response times?

We had a problem with one telkom account which started failing to access Google (several weeks ago) and I solved it by forcing Google to the local addresses using the hosts file. For some reason Telkom was pointing to a foreign IP address.
On my personal pc, I run a DNS server that does the same job and have not had any problems.

Hi

Thx for the response. Here is what I get:

Pinging 165.165.38.147 with 32 bytes of data:
Minimum = 731ms, Maximum = 743ms, Average = 738ms

===================================================

Pinging www.l.google.com [173.194.34.176] with 32 bytes of data:
Minimum = 981ms, Maximum = 991ms, Average = 987ms

Slight difference....

Pinging 165.165.38.147 with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 165.165.38.147: bytes=32 time=967ms TTL=54
Reply from 165.165.38.147: bytes=32 time=978ms TTL=54
Reply from 165.165.38.147: bytes=32 time=974ms TTL=54
Reply from 165.165.38.147: bytes=32 time=967ms TTL=54

Ping statistics for 165.165.38.147:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss)
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 967ms, Maximum = 978ms, Average = 971ms

We are on the same exchange...

Can you also do a tracert to the two ips so that we can see where the latency is coming from.

Try forcing Google to the local ip using your hosts file and see if it solves your problems (and if it does, let us know).

Fourways exchange has flat-lined, that seems to be the issue:

Tracing route to 165.165.38.147 over a maximum of 30 hops

1 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms dsldevice.lan [192.168.10.1]
2 837 ms 827 ms 856 ms 196-210-154-1.dynamic.isadsl.co.za [196.210.154.
1]
3 927 ms 935 ms 929 ms cdsl2-rba-vl2563.ip.isnet.net [196.38.73.213]
4 840 ms 844 ms 873 ms cdsl2-rba-vl150.ip.isnet.net [196.38.73.9]
5 913 ms 878 ms 877 ms 196.26.0.61
6 949 ms 911 ms 928 ms 168.209.1.179
7 927 ms 932 ms 883 ms rrba-ip-se-2-wan.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.25.46.8
9]
8 930 ms 914 ms 953 ms 196.43.25.137
9 936 ms 953 ms 941 ms 196.43.26.106
10 892 ms 921 ms 952 ms 165.165.38.147

The Fourways exchange appears to be the cause of the high latency, but it may not be the cause of the original posters main problem - slow Google services as opposed to internet in general.
It appears that Telkoms DNS is sending him off to an international IP, which although it is only adding 200ms to his latency, may nevertheless be unreliable. I think he need to try switching goolge over to 165.165.38.147 and see if it helps.