Bilan of the Internet “price decrease” applied on the 1st of March.
1. Sloooooow connection
Every night, it's the same story... Between 6 & 11pm, Internet slows to a crawl since usage peaks.
Unless you live in a remote area, or there aren't many peers around you, it's a hair-ripping experience. It's like going back to dial-up. Pages take minutes to load, watching YouTube buffers infinitely. Even Twitter & Facebook take ages to refresh. A slowdown just when you use the Internet the most! Downloading via browser? Forget it, speed is less than 10KB/s. :(
However, this Monday, I was experiencing the same slowness during the day! After being baffled for a while, the cause of this problem finally dawned onto me - holidays! Yes, the majority of students were at home, leeching all the available bandwidth!! :|
I was expecting this... given how MT doubled our speeds without a major upgrade of the infrastructure - which they are currently doing by installing fibre optic cables. However it'll take some time before these cables come into operation. Till then we are condemned to suffer.
So what can we do? Here are a few tips that may (& may not) work.
- My.T users, avoid the IP 196.20.XXX.XXX When you have this IP, your Internet speed is slower.
- Reset your IP. This gives you 5-10min window where you get top speed, before it returns back to 'normal.'
- Use OpenDNS. When there are more users, it's logical that MT's DNS will be overloaded. Although, I don't see any improvement...
- Be evil. Yes, run 5+ multi-threaded downloads at the same time to suck every kilobyte out of your available bandwidth. It's unfair, but would you prefer downloading at 10KB/s? On my 512k, I get up to 52KB/s by running 5 parallel downloads with 10 threads on Flashget.
- Downloading after 12am? Well, this might concern you...
2. MT's DNS down
If your livebox isn't connecting, it's probably due to a network or a DNS outage. With more users, the rate of DNS outages has also increased, the most recent one happening last week. In such a case, modifying your network settings in your OS is not enough. You need to change the DNS IPs in the livebox:
Go to Configuration avancée –> Réseau –> Relais DNS
You’ll have to re-configure it every 8h when your IP resets.
3. The price "decrease" 
As we all know, the price never decreased, only the speed doubled & quadrupled for 128k. Most 'light' users complained that they never wanted a speed double, as they were satisfied with their previous speed.
However, by scrapping the 128k & 256k offers & maintaining the starting offer at Rs 750, MT kept affordable Internet out of reach of the public. People using dial-up, Nomad 64k - most having a budget less than Rs 500 - have been left stranded.
The reason is... dial-up users are the biggest cash cow of MT. Here's how:
1. Dial-uppers use almost no bandwidth - <56K.
2. Their usage is limited not by amount downloaded, but by time spent (12h)...
3. Since they *always* use more than 12h, they pay Rs0.50/min for excess.
4. Pay-As-You-Go dial-uppers pay even more!!! - 0.57/min (day) & 0.27/min(night).
5. Consider the price-to-bandwidth ratio of dial-up vs ADSL.
- Rs 750 : 512K - Rs1.45/K
- Rs 350 : 56K - Rs 6.25/K!!!!
4. My.T Mouse 
512k ADSL users got a special 1Mbps upgrade, not available to the public. & current My.T users had their speeds doubled at the same price, while keeping the 15 channels an option.
New users? They'll be paying My.T more since it's now bundled with 15 useless channels. If they want only the Internet, then it's Orange ADSL. Actually it does make sense that there should be a disparity between the two services. But does the inclusion of 15 boring channels, VOD & a DVB receiver justify this?
The Bilan
A speed double - faster downloads, faster browsing & no more buffering. But at the cost of not being able to use the Internet for a few hours. I see no immediate improvement to this situation, at least until the undersea fibre cables connect Mauritius & we can finally dream of a speed on par with the world – 20Mbps?
Note: In 2007, I had a 128kbps connection, in 2008, 256K & in 2009, 512K. So in 2010, I should be getting 1Mbps, right? ;)
Update:
Tushal.net - Mauritius Telecom: The Failure!
Please don't spam & don't swear!
Subscribe to my feed
One of the best posts I ever read ... fran tou Telecom la bien dans pince ca ... mo diman moi ki mo pou fer kan mo retourne moris ... Ici mo pe habitue moi ek 100Mb/s :S
Hail to rubbish MT and it's ever lasting slowness. I can't even listen to a 192kbps stream! !
Hopefully MT will stop fscking users soon!! I've ranted a lot about this on Twitter and Facebook (even more than Tushal!) ;-).
Moral of the story:
Never trust MT, It su..
*connection interrupted*
*Restarting Livebox*
*waiting for connection*
@Bruno : grand noir *cough* *cough*
lol
@Yashvin
Seems you're among the few people who don't experience slowdowns. :S
@yashvin
:P 100Mb/s is heaven :D
Last time I downloaded connection did not go above 50Kb/s using MyT 512 with Orbit DL Manager. Upgrading speed but keeping same infrastructure definitely results in the same pathetic service as b4, may b those admins & techs at MT must be given some lectures and courses about networking...
before 2007 56k
2007-2008 256k
2009 512k
i fear i might have reached the maximum possible internet speed curve...
was doing the speed test recently and i found out that we get 512k only to european server and 256k to the rest of the world....myt 512 wtf????
@sleepoholic
Did some speed tests:
Cape Town - http://www.speedtest.net/result/448693530.png
D: 231k
U: 152k
Paris - http://www.speedtest.net/result/448694343.png
D: 504k
U: 262k
New York - http://www.speedtest.net/result/448695229.png
D: 499k
U: 249k
Mumbai - http://www.speedtest.net/result/448696305.png
D: 449k
U: 107k
Connection to EU & by extension NY is fast bcoz of SAFE. As for the rest of the world, probably their own fibre networks are slow?
BTW these speedtests were taken just now, at 10pm! Surprisingly, just after I posted this rant post, my connection tonight is super-fricking-fast!!! :S
- My.T users, avoid the IP 196.20.XXX.XXX When you have this IP, your Internet speed is slower.
What do you mean by this? Different IPs generated by TP provide different speeds?
When you are given a different set of IP, for instance when google geolocated us to spain (the whole google.es stuff), we are still physically far from European servers.
@keshav
The IP 196.20.XXX.XXX is the IP used by ADSL.
I don't really know why it's slow, but I suppose with that IP, the traffic goes through another MT server which is slower. :|
just hopping zat optic fibre is coming...
hehe..MyT sucks..
Hi, is it my computer, or is it my.t 512 which is really slow today and yesterday and before yesterday? I'm getting a very variable 20~40KB, not a constant 60KB + youtube takes a lot of time to load a small crappy 1 minute video.
@slownetaintcool
My.T is always slow between 18:00 & 23:00.
But given that we're in the school holidays, I suppose it might slow down during the day as well. :|
Its really really slow, I'm not sure its because of school holidays. Here are my speedtest results from a server in france:
Download: 0.12Mb/s
Upload: 0.20Mb/s
Can you do a test and post your results please, cause it may be my computer which is bugging or maybe its orange fup that slowed me down. I just want to be reassured.
@slownetaintcool
I can confirm that it was extremely slow yesterday the whole night (up to 2am).
I just did a speedtest at 7am, where I should be getting top speed, but instead it's just:
Download: 0.35Mb/s
Upload: 0.24Mb/s
http://www.speedtest.net/result/653932280.png (Cape Town)
Download: 0.48Mb/s
Upload: 0.20Mb/s
http://www.speedtest.net/result/653933973.png (France)
Were those tests done during the day? If yes, then you really need to contact Orange to explain them your situation. :|
No, it wasn't done during the day, but minutes before I post my comment, so at 11:45 PM.
I was able to download at a normal 60Kb constant as from 1:10 AM today, but it returned back to 20~40KB at 5:30 AM.
By the way, I think were last in Top countries by download and upload speed: check this out http://www.speedtest.net/global.php
Now (at 11:35 AM) the speed is normal.
I think my problem is due to the "different" ISP; when you go at speedtest global and click on "Your location" you get the top 10 ISP in Mauritius, and there at 1st you get Mauritius telecom, 2nd Internet sevice provider, 3rd Internet sevice provider, and at 4th Telecom Plus Limited. And when I did those test at 11:45 PM yesterday my ISP shown at speedtest was Telecom Plus Limited and today its Mauritius Telecom, and the speed is ok.
@slownetaintcool
The different ISPs is due to 2 different sets of IP addresses from MT - 41.212.XXX.XXX & 196.20.XXX.XXX
As far as possible, avoid the 196.20 one because it's slower. Disconnect & reconnect until you get the 41.212 one.
I'm actually on 196.27.XX.XX.
The speed fluctuates too much. As from noon today my speed was getting slowed down, and after some hours it re got up and then slowed down once again.
I suppose you are getting same problem too;
your twitter status says it so.
Anyway, now I know its not fup nor my operating system. It seems that too many students are using internet these days.
Thank you for all these info, and keep us informed via twitter.
i cant watch football live
when it is 18:00
because the buffering is too slow
did anyone know how to hack the livebox
@Anonymous
Neither can I, whether it's 18:00 or 15:00 or 00:00... the stream doesn't play.
MY.t suckssssssssss
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