My data service provider problem

So here I am recovering from an operation and because idleness is not in my “Red-ant” genes, the internet is my escape.

Boy o boy what a farce! It’s like my serves provider had it in for me, because my local signal constantly became a fluctuation from zero to full in seconds the pass week during day time. Late at night I can sometimes open a webpage and closer to 11pm I can dare to download something, but be aware it will take you 4 hours + to download 300mb. How’s that for 3G? I did better on my old computer and my noisy modem some years back. I still remember taking to my brother in America in the late 1990’s using Net-meeting running Win 95

My modem connects at around 700kb/sec if I fiddle between its settings options so I do not see the problem at the tower I’m connected to. The transmitter (Tx) and receiver (Rx) signals also works fine between the tower and serves provider. This is clear on my monitoring graphs as the signal strength does not correspond to their volumes of data transfer. Maybe they put a bug in their bandwidth controlling software as a need it for their 4G upgrade or just need money (South Africa had a poor financial year in 2017 – most people will know about out previous president “Zupta”). The problem is I paid for a serves that they do not currently provide.

Yes, I did report it and they are looking into it.

I also can see why they do not want to fix this software induced problem as they are eating millions of their customer’s data. It must be very profitable and that from Telkom supposedly our better South African service provider.

Let’s see if I can get this rant published as it is daytime in South Africa. If you read this they either fixed it or I’m very lucky. Sorry ATS but I will unfortunately have to my use add-blocker and script dis abler to give it a chance, it’s only this once

a reply to: ICycle2
I live in a rural area in the woods. I know this nightmare much better then I would like to have to admit.

I have been dancing this kabuki much longer that that. You can trust providers to be the group that give the least and to keep on taking.

a reply to: ICycle2

My service provider sucks

"You aren’t giving their highlight package due credit"- Anthony Weiner

I must however say that I forgot to look at the frequency. It could be that only certain volumes could be affected depending on chosen frequency. I must therefore retract my statement that there cannot be a problem at the tower or with the Tx/Rx signals

Slow reaction

Triple posting

a reply to: AttitudeProblem

Accepted but I still do not get what I paid for and it was never this bad

700kb/s is roughly 88KB/s. Assuming that, it will take you more or less 1h downloading a 300MB file. This is if you keep peak performance. You're talking about 3G, which is already heavily congested. I don't see a conspiracy here, just crappy internet.

I live in a house. My 4g is constantly 3g and low connection at that. I can use speedtest and see it's 3-4mbps which nothing that my 4g advertises.

I go outside, and I get 30-50mbps.

Where you are makes a huge difference not dependant on phone reception.

most 4g states outside their speeds only count.

well most here anyway, in 3rd world Australia when it comes to broadband speeds...

Inside, my 50mbps connection is often over the rated speed. depends on who I download from. 50 down 20 up.

thats fttn, and copper to the home. so much better than it was with copper to the home from a 2.6km exchange, giving me at most 12mpbs.

With wireless the buildings construction materials can make a great difference as sometimes the building are built almost like a Faraday cage, while TX/RX signals can look good I'd get some extension leads and take it outside and see if things improve.

If it does I've known of people who have built their own aerial's to bring a clearer signal to the modem when indoors so might be worth a google to see whats required for your area.

a reply to: JameSimon

Do not understand how 700KB/s can roughly be 88KB/s. You got me.

a reply to: ICycle2

Data transfer rates are always quoted in bits per second normally a lowercase "b", while bytes are normally 8bits and an uppercase "B"

So divide your 700kb's (we can enter some arguments of the use of 2^10 or 1000) for your kilo (k or K) by 8 to give you how many bytes the transfer rate which is more human friendly.

a reply to: Maxatoria

I was actually looking at that but on a small scale with some copper wires. Will google thanx but I'm not recovered enough to really do anything about it yet. I was however walking outside with my laptop but the signals are just gone. I also have different sims cards from different providers and it looks very funny. It looks like they share and each provider have specific time period they are at the top on a daily routine. What bothers me is that there was no problems up to a week ago.

I must say that I'm connected now with a no signal message on my modem display but I'm able to communicate without the hick ups. My graph run around 100KB/s

a reply to: ICycle2

kbps is different to KBps.

kilobit per second, as opposed to KiloByte per second

8 bits to 1 byte, all that jazz.

a reply to: badw0lf

Thanx

Maybe this is more descriptive

And just after I left ATS I started struggling again as my browser freeze up. I removed my modem and used CCleaner to get this. Looks like they are busy working on something. See the bar signal strength this time around, I also experienced this invalid profile thing quite often the pass week but only around a spesific time of day.


And then this


Back up again and valid this time around with the more normal signal strength, well known the past week


See graph for 1bar signal strength opening a webpage. With this I can work.


This is what I get if I toggle between my modem options. Slower that yesterday but still sufficient for me