International latency on 'UNSHAPED' accounts is bull****?

Hey guys
This post is intended for 'advanced' users only please!

Right, I have a /slight/ issue with Telkom here....
Isn't UNSHAPED supposed to mean: "no limitations/packet shaping of any kind"? Well if so, why is it that unshaped accounts ping no less than 270ms internationally?

The following tracerts to a few international SAIX routers were all done using my SAIX UNSHAPED (connected to the Rosebank DSL exchange):

LON,UK:
1 9 ms 10 ms 9 ms dsl-165-0-01.telkomadsl.co.za [165.165.0.1]
2 10 ms 13 ms 11 ms rrba-ip-esr-3-gig-6-1-0-612.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.43.10.186]
3 290 ms 293 ms 292 ms lon-ip-dir-telecity.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.43.9.249]

1 9 ms 9 ms 10 ms dsl-165-0-01.telkomadsl.co.za [165.165.0.1]
2 11 ms 10 ms 11 ms rrba-ip-esr-3-gig-6-1-0-612.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.43.10.186]
3 290 ms 295 ms 293 ms lon-ip-dir-telecity-pos-7-1.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.43.9.157]

1 9 ms 9 ms 9 ms dsl-165-0-01.telkomadsl.co.za [165.165.0.1]
2 20 ms 13 ms 12 ms rrba-ip-esr-3-gig-6-1-0-612.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.43.10.186]
3 30 ms 30 ms 30 ms wblv-ip-lir-1-ge-0-0-1.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.43.11.194]
4 276 ms 275 ms 276 ms lon-ip-dir-telecity-pos-5-0.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.43.9.50]

HK:
1 9 ms 10 ms 9 ms dsl-165-0-01.telkomadsl.co.za [165.165.0.1]
2 10 ms 10 ms 10 ms rrba-ip-er-1-fe-8-0-0-1.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.43.11.146]
3 10 ms 11 ms 9 ms rrba-ip-lir-1-ge-0-0-2.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.43.9.121]
4 314 ms 314 ms 314 ms hkg-ip-dir-hongkong-pos-6-0.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.43.9.6]

NY,USA:
1 9 ms 10 ms 9 ms dsl-165-0-01.telkomadsl.co.za [165.165.0.1]
2 10 ms 11 ms 10 ms rrba-ip-esr-3-gig-6-1-0-612.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.43.10.186]
3 259 ms 258 ms 260 ms ny-ip-dir-globalc.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.43.9.250]

AMS,NL:
1 10 ms 9 ms 9 ms dsl-165-0-01.telkomadsl.co.za [165.165.0.1]
2 10 ms 11 ms 10 ms rrba-ip-er-1-fe-3-0-0-1.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.43.10.145]
3 287 ms 284 ms 283 ms ams-ip-dir-globalc-ge-0-0-0-100.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.43.9.105]

Click to expand...

I get 140-160ms to all those routers from my saix colo hosting which is also on the ipnet rrba base.
If SAIX accounts are supposedly unshaped, why do we still get such crap latency when its possible for us to all be getting 150ms internationally?
There's no point going to UUNET either, their shaped pings are RIDICULOUS (>1000ms to the UK), and their unshaped account routes all international packets through their MIAMI-alter.net routers which also ping no less than 230.
IS is a joke aswell, no less than 500-600ms to the UK.
Is there NO well priced option in south africa for low international latency? Do I HAVE to downgrade to ISDN again just so that I can get my international 180ms again? This is a joke? :/

My question then becomes: What's the point in paying twice as much for an unshaped account if theres no real advantage? I've personally felt very little noticable difference between unshaped and shaped besides for the 280ms vs 340ms avg difference in international latencies.
Please don't tell me port prioritisation, because I personally haven't felt any real difference between unshaped and shaped in terms of port prioritisation at all, except for p2p - in which case 4GB (general unshaped limit) isnt going to benefit you anyway? So is there any real advantage/point to an unshaped account?..

Please reply to this post - I'm keen to hear your guys' view on this issue..

Well Said.

But unfortuanitly we have Telkom who just wont care would they :/

ClaViuS* said:

Well Said.

But unfortuanitly we have Telkom who just wont care would they :/

Click to expand...

I'm just surprised how this issue hasn't really come up before despite it being blatant bull****. People just pay twice as much for a mere 10% or so increase in performance, and a load of false promises/fact.

I'm honestly tired of it.

I am getting ADSL very soon, and was thinking of these two packages

ADSL Freestyle 3000+ (Shaped or Unshaped) with Imaginet.

I am gonna use this mostly for local Counter Strike and U.S World of Warcraft.

Many people seem to mistake the fact that accounts from ISP's like DataPro/WebAfrica/Imaginet use those ISP's own backbone bandwidth. They are in fact just SAIX account aliases and use the same SAIX infrastructure as all Telkom-IPNET accounts. Same IP ranges, gateways, alles.

Sorry to be the cynnic bearer of bad news to you (if you don't already know), but with an Imaginet unshaped account you will not get lower than 280ms internationally. And I can tell you right now that playing Counter-Strike or Quake, or any other fast-paced game with that latency [even with the well-designed lag compensation code in those games] is practically impossible. I'm a gamer myself and have tried everything, that's in fact the main reason i'm trying so desperately to find a REAL unshaped account, but i've virtually given up in acceptance of the fact that I live in South Africa and probably wont live long enough to see the day where Telkom waking up becomes a reality...

MrG: there's zero difference between unshaped and shaped accounts in terms of games for LOCAL use, it seems telkom dont shape ports in those ranges perhaps? The only time you notice poor local latency is during office hours when our local infrastructure goes to **** anyways and it makes no difference then whether you're on shaped or unshaped because you'll get 400ms to a SAIX games server from any SAIX dsl account anyway...

U.S World of Warcraft, would it make a huge difference, or just stick with a Imaginet Freestyle 3000+ (Shaped)

How do you guys know those pings aren't because its going over Satellite?
Is there anywhere in the Unshaped specs where it says its Fibre only bandwidth?

daffy said:

How do you guys know those pings aren't because its going over Satellite?
Is there anywhere in the Unshaped specs where it says its Fibre only bandwidth?

Click to expand...

Only IS bandwidth goes over satellite, although they do have an Uncapped over Fibre product aswell.

daffy said:

How do you guys know those pings aren't because its going over Satellite?
Is there anywhere in the Unshaped specs where it says its Fibre only bandwidth?

Click to expand...

Well even if this is true, it fits in perfectly with the point of my thread. We're paying more for a better service - shouldn't they put us on the fibre then? Satellite isnt as stable and has more protocol loss/noise than fibre?
Also, I did state that I get pings of 150ish to all those routers from a SAIX-based co-lo server that I rent:

Tracing route to lon-ip-dir-telecity.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.43.9.249]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <10 ms <10 ms <10 ms censored
2 <10 ms <10 ms <10 ms stb-pln-edge0.adept.za.net [196.44.32.166]
3 <10 ms 15 ms <10 ms 196.25.251.253
4 157 ms 140 ms 157 ms lon-ip-dir-telecity.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.43.9.249]

Trace complete.

Tracing route to ams-ip-dir-globalc-ge-0-0-0-100.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.43.9.105]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <10 ms <10 ms <10 ms censored
2 <10 ms <10 ms <10 ms stb-pln-edge0.adept.za.net [196.44.32.166]
3 16 ms <10 ms <10 ms 196.25.251.253
4 156 ms 172 ms 157 ms ams-ip-dir-globalc-ge-0-0-0-100.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.43.9.105]

Trace complete.

Same routers pinged, from the same country, 150ms. Certainly not accomplishable via satellite... Those are the pings that SAIX unshaped accounts SHOULD&COULD be providing customers with, & you can't tell me a jump from 10ms to 280ms in rosebank isnt due to shaping. come on let's be real here. :/
Ripoff central continued.

And u kno whats sad about the prices....

1.) Technically are Telkom not allowd to ask money for a sertain amount of bandwith ( like a 3gb cap ), but they do it anyway.

2.) They not just charging us for bandwith ... but they charge us a ****Load for it ...

3.) If you are lucky, they come to install or fix your ADSL about 2 months after u called them ..

4.) its all bs

LOL! ClaViuS I did say "This post is intended for 'advanced' users only please!" jj - ur right

Telkom doesn't shape ICMP traffic so on a shaped and unshapped acounts you will find when you use tracert or ping that the ping times are in the 300-400 region, however when you use a program that sends "real" traffic like world of warcraft or other mmorpg's then you will see ping times of 1000-20000 on shaped accounts where as the unshapped accounts will give you ping times of 300-500.

Well, shapped or unshapped... Are there not still the issue of contention ratios (which, NO ONE except telkom knows)?

Sub 300ms on International Fiber for a contended service, is damm good IMHO. I'm not even going to talk about the sub 200ms from the colo (best I've seen in years!)

Vio said:

Telkom doesn't shape ICMP traffic so on a shaped and unshapped acounts you will find when you use tracert or ping that the ping times are in the 300-400 region, however when you use a program that sends "real" traffic like world of warcraft or other mmorpg's then you will see ping times of 1000-20000 on shaped accounts where as the unshapped accounts will give you ping times of 300-500.

Click to expand...

Not so - Try using a UDP-based traceroute application - Identical ms replies; connect to an overseas jolt.co.uk Counter-Strike server with an unshaped account and get 290ms ping. Connect with a shaped account and get 340ping.
They shape ICMP on shaped and unshaped accounts, as they shape everything else. Next thing you know they'll be shaping your air-intake per breath.. hey use some QoS and give Sipho Molopo some Oxygen priority!

savage said:

Sub 300ms on International Fiber for a contended service, is damm good IMHO. I'm not even going to talk about the sub 200ms from the colo (best I've seen in years!).

Click to expand...

You're happy with sub-300 because you've never experienced anything better and have accepted Telkom's way as normal.
Buy ISDN - your first hop will be around 30-40ms and you'll still get between 180-190ms to the UK. Buy ADSL, minus 20ms from that first hop - 160ms to the UK, naturally... not so? Well not with Telkom - rather add 100ms to that with dsl (which should be FASTER than ISDN?) on an 'unshaped' account, and get 280 instead! What a bargain - who would've guessed!?

you may wish to check this thread by sybawoods - pretty relevant and interesting: http://www.mybroadband.co.za/vb/showpost.php?p=102223&postcount=1
and, up until late 2003, people would often get insane unshaped pings on shaped accounts - check MansoN's thread here: http://www.mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php?t=16820 - of course it didn't take telkom long to fix this little booboo...

I actually still remember my rrdtool graph that monitored pings to the UK from my server pc (saix shaped dsl): the line was stable 330ms, and the one day for about 7 hours it created a nice constant 170ms depression. Please explain this?

Another nice piece by sybawoords.. ^5 dude

sybawoods said:

Source: http://www.mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php?t=12331]


1.15am, and still going strong here. Rondebosch exchange, Cape Town.


Target Name: clarity.jolt.co.uk
IP: 195.149.21.11
Date/Time: 15 Dec 03 01:13:45 AM

1 10 ms 10 ms wblv-224-01.telkomadsl.co.za [165.165.224.1]
2 232 ms 164 ms [196.43.10.138]
3 196 ms 196 ms london-dir-telecity-pos-8-0-0.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.43.9.50]
4 196 ms 196 ms pos2-1.cr02.ldn01.pccwbtn.net [63.218.52.17]
5 199 ms 196 ms pos5-1.br01.ldn01.pccwbtn.net [63.218.12.130]
6 202 ms 197 ms lon1-9.nildram.net [195.66.224.59]
7 196 ms 197 ms jolt-gw.nildram.net [195.149.20.126]
8 198 ms 197 ms clarity.jolt.co.uk [195.149.21.11]

Ping statistics for clarity.jolt.co.uk
Packets: Sent = 2, Received = 2, Lost = 0 (0.0%)
Round Trip Times: Minimum = 197ms, Maximum = 198ms, Average = 197ms

Click to expand...

Explain contention ratios in this one. And why would contention ratios apply to unshaped users who pay extra to abstain from such restrictions? Unless i'm missing something here?

Here's some more proof of what's actually possible - this is from UCT:

-bash-2.05b$ traceroute jolt.co.uk
traceroute to jolt.co.uk (195.149.21.11), 64 hops max, 40 byte packets
1 nortel8610.uct.ac.za (137.158.36.1) 4.492 ms 1.598 ms 1.582 ms
2 e0-pyroteichos.freebsd.ab-e-3-30.uct.ac.za (137.158.128.5) 0.387 ms 0.446 ms 0.384 ms
3 e14-tenet.cisco.ab-f-3-40.uct.ac.za (137.158.200.6) 2.109 ms 3.671 ms 2.115 ms
4 uct.int.uni.net.za (155.232.50.246) 7.025 ms 7.001 ms 2.937 ms
5 wblv-er-2-fe-2-0-0.telkom-ipnet.co.za (196.25.134.65) 4.409 ms 5.724 ms 3.322 ms
6 lon-ip-dir-telecity-pos-6-0.telkom-ipnet.co.za (196.43.9.50) 169.439 ms 162.736 ms 167.197 ms
7 pos2-1.cr02.ldn01.pccwbtn.net (63.218.52.17) 157.703 ms 151.862 ms 152.825 ms
8 ge2-2.br02.ldn01.pccwbtn.net (63.218.12.94) 191.936 ms 206.542 ms 281.023 ms
9 lon1-9.nildram.net (195.66.224.59) 157.314 ms 152.061 ms 174.635 ms
10 jolt-gw.nildram.net (195.149.20.126) 154.264 ms 155.378 ms 153.596 ms
11 clarity.jolt.co.uk (195.149.21.11) 155.443 ms 152.265 ms 155.212 ms
-bash-2.05b$

This from MTNNS hosting, rosebank:
1 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms 192.168.0.1
2 4 ms 23 ms 3 ms jp-ad-1-fe001-801.mtnns.net [196.44.10.97]
3 4 ms 4 ms 5 ms rb-ad-1--jp-ia-1-a.mtnns.net [196.44.8.172]
4 174 ms 169 ms 170 ms rb-nt-1--rb-cr-2-a.mtnns.net [196.44.31.26]
5 169 ms 171 ms 175 ms rb-ipd-2--rb-nt-1-a.mtnns.net [196.44.31.7]
6 181 ms 186 ms 173 ms lt-ipa-1--rb-ipd-2-a.mtnns.net [196.44.31.1]
7 181 ms 170 ms 177 ms lt-tpr-1--lt-cr-1-a.uk.mtnns.net [209.212.111.129]
8 170 ms 182 ms 169 ms linx1.multiplay.co.uk [195.66.224.224]
9 169 ms 169 ms 167 ms irc.multiplay.co.uk [85.236.110.226]

Not quite...

Been on 2400bps modems (do you remember those? ), 33.6k, 56k, isdn, leased lines, colo machines in sa, colo machines in the us... I've been arround.

All I'm saying here, is that broadband is a heavily contended service - that's one of the reasons why broadband works financially. Contention ratios will have a affect here. And no, I'm not defending anything, I'm merely stating the obvious

savage said:

Not quite...

Been on 2400bps modems (do you remember those? ), 33.6k, 56k, isdn, leased lines, colo machines in sa, colo machines in the us... I've been arround.

All I'm saying here, is that broadband is a heavily contended service - that's one of the reasons why broadband works financially. Contention ratios will have a affect here. And no, I'm not defending anything, I'm merely stating the obvious

Click to expand...

Perhaps in South Africa - but explain how i get 80ms pings to new york from london zen/btnet dsl? Lots of contention ratio work involved there. I think its time we widen the focus a little bit outside personal & .za experience and see whats theoretically possible around the world... why should we have anything less? Do we DISSERVE less just because we're in SA when the infrustructure theoretically allows for better service? Why are you accepting crap service?

-shrugs-

Personally, for me 10ms or 50ms or even 100ms (maybe not literally) does not really make a difference. I don't care about it (And yes, I play WOW too and hardly ever have issues because of latency)

You obviously do care about it. I suggest you take your venting session to telkom rather, instead of siting and biatch and moan at me about it.

If you're not happy about it, why use adsl then? Why not go and use IS, WBS, or even MTN with their promise of 30ms latency according to press releases earlier today...

We all know telkom is liars, we all know we can't trust telkom - if it's a problem for you, why do you use it? Your question should really not be why I accept whatever - this has nothing to do with me. Rather ask yourself why do YOU use it.

He has every right to complain about the service. Why does ADSL, a service that's meant to be superior to ISDN, preform far worse then ISDN as far as latency is concerned. Could it be to protect the leased line market?

No, you're right. I'm not saying he can't complain. By all means, complain all you want. Complaining at me however, won't get anyone very far. I made a suggestion, and now I get attacked?

All the sub 200ms traces I've seen, has been done out of data centers - not via dialup (unless I'm reading wrong - and except the quote from sybewoods). A colo in a DC will *obviously* have higher priorty over a dialup / broadband based service - it is a premium service.

Comparing a contended broadband / dialup service to a dedicated colo service, well yeah... Good luck with that one. ISDN, DSL, all those things are contended - *only* Telkom knows the figures. It is very likely that DSL has a much higher ratio, as it has much more bandwidth to play with. That will mean that it's quite possible that ISDN can potentially have less latency than DSL.

Like I was so blunty asked, if DSL has to much latency for your requirements, why use it then?? I'm sure people will love you to go and sit and play online games in a nice cold datacenter somewhere on a major national/international backbone...

savage: LOL dude, I'm not complaining at you, "master" ("Complaining at me however, won't get anyone very far." *shiver?*) - I'm complaining about Telkom's service. Now unless you're Telkom, I wasn't complaining about you.
When did I personally attack YOU? Righto!

savage said:

I'm sure people will love you to go and sit and play online games in a nice cold datacenter somewhere on a major national/international backbone...

Click to expand...

You'd love if I did that, wouldn't you? Ironically I'd love that -- great interpretative work there... Please don't be a troll on my thread - i'm trying to get a useful discussion going here and you go offtopic and into personal attack mode. I had full right to counter your argument and I think I gave enough physical facts to prove my point. You dont seem to catch the point of this thread at all?

As for venting my anger directly at Telkom - you should know well enough how well I'll succeed with that on my own.
And, as for "Why use ADSL if it doesn't suit your needs?" - ADSL is supposed to be the faster option right now in SA, and unshaped accounts are supposed to provide the cleanest, fastest, and stablest connection of all dial-up accounts. Do they? No - hence my thread? Additionally, do I really have much option? There's ONE DSL physical provider in South Africa and that's Telkom -- How much choice do I really have? Come on let's be reasonable here... seriously dude.
I _thought_ this was an adsl user discussion zone in which this topic would be perfectly appropriate, but you seem to have other ideas...
Please, join Telkom support bandwagon with the mindset: "Games mean nothing - all people use the internet for is to check their e-mail and browse the internet; 3GB is more than enough for a city!" - Well maybe that's what you use it for; some people have other requirements, myne being low latency international use.

But yeah, thanks for your input? *cough*...

The bottom line is that international latency is pathetic on an account we pay twice as much for. And yes some of us _do_ play games PROFESSIONALLY (laugh if you wish, i really couldn't care - it is after all my own perogative), and DO notice a 40 ping difference. As far as I'm concerned, if its going to be like this, they mightaswell scrap unshaped accounts altogether? People are wasting their money <=> Telkom is raking in the cash as usual, and some people (seems like the majority of South Africa to me because I have to take this argument into such depth to make some people understand?) are just too /thick/ to grasp my visually provided facts?