How to test if your ADSL exchange is congested

Problems at the second hop would indicate exchange congestion – it should always be sub 20ms for it not to be service-affecting.
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TICK:(

If the third or fourth hop is greater than 80ms it is more likely that the ISP is throttling the account in some way.
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TICK:(

1 1 ms <1 ms <1 ms home.router [192.168.1.254]
2 49 ms 57 ms 85 ms 41-133-112-1.dsl.mweb.co.za [41.133.112.1]
3 153 ms 66 ms 107 ms 197-84-8-34.cpt.mweb.co.za [197.84.8.34]
4 10 ms 10 ms 10 ms 197-84-2-2.cpt.mweb.co.za [197.84.2.2]
 
guys, please, dont use tracert as a test indicator for network congestion. Im sure its not the worst test, but there are better methods of testing.

http://www.pingplotter.com/ would be a good start. It will give you an easy to read, graphical representation of what is going on. And its realtime, until you click stop.

haha thats not congestion... THIS IS CONGESTION!!! after 12am in the morning, zero activity on the line

dorl74.png
 
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techead said:
guys, please, dont use tracert as a test indicator for network congestion. Im sure its not the worst test, but there are better methods of testing.
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True, in all honestly I think my issues are a combination of problems, 1) poor wiring in my complex (its old), 2) poor line quality the rest of the way to the exchange, 3) congestion at the exchange, 4) the possibility that I'm being throttled.

I think the key issue here is that there is no single tool or application that can tell me which is the problem so I don't know who to blame - body corporate, telkom or ISP or apartheid. I've just learnt to live with it:)
 
High latency to destinations on the local internet. Typically most ADSL services would not exceed a 50ms ping to destinations inside the country unless line conditions are sub-standard;
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Speedtest SAIX Cape Town:

Last night - Ping = 1005ms
This morning - Ping = 22ms

Congestion??? :confused:
 
There is nothing technically wrong with the tracert command, it just doesn't show the results in an easy graphical manner like pingplotter does.
 
The easiest way to check for exchange congestion is to change the PPPoE ISP on the ADSL router, if the problem persists the exchange is congested, if not - then your ISP is at fault with insufficient IPConnect or upstream bandwidth, or excessive shaping/throttling!
 
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I have been battling for 6 months, I always had a download speed of 3.47MB (4MB ADSL) all day! now only in the evening do I get close to those speeds. Now from 8AM - 5pm speedtest shows 1.5 - 2MB dowload if I am lucky. The tracert is showing quite good:-
1. 1ms
2.10ms
3. 12ms
4. 70ms
5. 12ms
6.12ms
7. - 12. all around 14ms
I have tried to get help, but who do you contact?? So frustrating dealing with call centre and when I finally get hold of someone they say nothing they can do and you know there is, they just fog you off. I even tested on saix using guest@telkomadsl and using the speedtest there, it is just the same about 1.5MB download. Speeds are supposed to be getting better not worse. I have a home business and on Internet all the time. It is so frustrating, has anyone got a good telkom network contact details?
 
So, after having performed my first ever traceroute, I get the results as below ...

Tracing route to telkom.co.za [196.43.22.222] over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 1 ms 1 ms <1 ms Billion.400G [10.0.0.2]
2 16 ms 16 ms 16 ms ti-224-92-01.telkomadsl.co.za [105.224.92.1]
3 17 ms 17 ms 16 ms ti-226-0-06.telkomadsl.co.za [105.226.0.6]
4 18 ms 17 ms 18 ms ti-226-0-13.telkomadsl.co.za [105.226.0.13]
5 18 ms 17 ms 17 ms 165.165.214.213
6 38 ms 38 ms 37 ms 196.43.39.162
7 39 ms 38 ms 39 ms rrba-ip-bssr-1-ge-2-48.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.43.23.6]
8 40 ms 40 ms 40 ms nbsc-ip-bssr-1-atm-5-0-0-1.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.43.23.30]
9 42 ms 43 ms 42 ms nbsc-ip-rcache-1-vif0.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.43.22.222]

Trace complete.
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Now, can some kind soul interpret the figures above ... I have no idea if it is good or bad or indifferent :erm:

I assume that the smaller the millisecond numbers are, the better? And why the significant jump from hop 6 onwards?
 
Your traceroute is fine. Lower millisecond numbers are indeed better, while the jump from hop 6 onwards would most likely be your packets traversing a long physical route at this point (i.e. hops 2-5 are routers in the Cape, from 6 onwards are routers in the Transvaal).
 
RGKCT said:
Speedtest SAIX Cape Town:

Last night - Ping = 1005ms
This morning - Ping = 22ms

Congestion??? :confused:
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This is exchange congestion most likely, I have a similar thing. To be sure the easiest way is to when you get the congestion test using the telkom guest account for adsl and see if the first hop for it is also useless.

This trouble started for me when they increased the 384K users to 1mbit back in October last year, at which point my smooth no problem sub 15ms 4mbit line died in terms of bandwidth/latency, 4Mbit speeds came down to 0.5Mbit and my ping times on the first hop would average between 400~2000ms between 6:30pm~8pm and again between 9:30pm~12:30pm, at around 2am in the morning it would stabilize again to a good 4mbit speed with a low 12ms latency. I had logged multiple tickets and escalations with Telkom they just done do anything about it. They are a non responsive support center. In the end I just down graded to 1Mbit since I never get more than it during the times I actually want to use my connection. Till this day it is still problamatic; it has gotten better It goes to about 70~80 ms now and 0.8mbit but in essence it is still congested now almost a year later.
 
Vio said:
This trouble started for me when they increased the 384K users to 1mbit back in October last year, at which point my smooth no problem sub 15ms 4mbit line died in terms of bandwidth/latency, 4Mbit speeds came down to 0.5Mbit and my ping times on the first hop would average between 400~2000ms between 6:30pm~8pm and again between 9:30pm~12:30pm, at around 2am in the morning it would stabilize again to a good 4mbit speed with a low 12ms latency. I had logged multiple tickets and escalations with Telkom they just done do anything about it. They are a non responsive support center. In the end I just down graded to 1Mbit since I never get more than it during the times I actually want to use my connection. Till this day it is still problamatic; it has gotten better It goes to about 70~80 ms now and 0.8mbit but in essence it is still congested now almost a year later.
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I'm in the same boat - what to do??? :mad:
 
Meanwhile Telkom gets away with charging full price for a half-price service ..
 
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