Massive Bandwidth Throttling on Karoo Max

[lefty]

I just wondered if anyone else has seen massive bandwidth throttling on their Karoo Max connections?

I've been getting my connection speed shaped down to around a 1 meg connection on some evenings and weekends over the past month or so. The strange thing is, that Karoo don't seem to be all that bothered! After speaking to tech support, the guy tells me that it's kinda to be expected!

Is anyone else seeing this?

Chris.

[dylan]

Same here to be honest. I guess it started around the time of the techie problems that Karoo where having a wee while ago. I seemed (and still do seem) to be getting around 110 KB/Sec download speed at busy times, which lets face it is absolutely terrible.

To add insult to injury though, I don't even come anywhere near my 40GB of peak transfer limit a month! At the last check, I was transferring around 6/7GB per month for the past 4 months and yet I'm still bandwidth shaped even for http downloads.

[sonicfuzion]

There doesn't seem to be any particular pattern to my download speeds. Yesterday i managed 350k/s for the whole evening and tonight i cant get any more than 40k/s. Not even for something like downloading Winamp from winamp.com.....

i have the sadness.....

[stormy]

Yep, throttled massively at peak times here. I have raised a complaint with KC and got their standard letter saying they are sorry I feel the need to complain and will get back to me within 28 days.

Mike

[marko]

Are Karoo finally starting to take notice of it's unhappy customers? For the best part of this week, I've been getting decent speeds at peak times.

Or is it just a fluke?

It's a real shame because if they eased off with the traffic shaping, they would have a half decent service.

marko...

[Hobbisbang]

Karoo have a really nice copper network, the areas lines are relatively clean of water and bad joints the PCPs (green boxes) are maintained well and the exchange equipment isn’t that bad.

So well done Kingston nice network and fantastic infrastructure.

It all falls from here bad interconnections out of hull restricted ATM links low capacity backhaul and no appetite to expand this service due to high capital cost.

It’s all very well and good saying it isn’t the network (95% time not) it the fact there a bunch of cheap arsed monkeys.

 

[Kersy]

I've just told them how c**p there service is, on the win an ipod questionaire on the homepage.
Q "whats your favourite website"
A " Karooforums.net  ,somewhere I can moan about your shite service"

I to thought they were getting better, (for about a week) not getting disconected at 8pm anymore + bit better line speed,   but now noticed it happens after 10pm but there homepage loads alrite.

Paying for a service that just causes you stress, does your head in, sick of it, I try and stay off it. Only been with them about 2 months an all.

[stormy]

Hehe, yeh there is serious throttling going on with torrents now, really bad.

[GizmoGary]

Hi, new here but have been feeling the pain of Karoo for years, ever since they released ADSL in Hull...

I have to agree... the throttling seems to be out of control at the moment, don't know if it's cos of all the kids off school this week but last week I was getting 750k+ download off usenet and today (and other days this week) it's been less than 100k all day, currently at 79k... so far it has taken me 2 days (between 9am and 5pm, the off-peak, download as much as you like period) to download just over 4GB... I'd usually have this in a few hours or so...

The service is just so poor and I'm bored of complaining, have already written to people like OFCOM and OFTEL before it merged or whatever and no one seems to want to help us boo hoo... 

[GizmoGary]

The woe's continue... downloads started off well this morning, topping 600-700k... but now back down to around 100-200... I'm paying for the top package, Max 4 I believe, which I thought would give me a "bigger piece of the pie" at times when demand was high... well, that is what Karoo's description of the service would make me believe 
I can't believe we can't get a sustained 700k throughput when the internet is supposed to be used the least and we are uncapped at that time 

Not impressed at the moment in the stightest... 

[t8yman]

I just found this forum via the comments section on the "HDM petition". and boy am I glad you guys are here, I have had so many run ins with the knobheads at karoo its unbelievable.

Traffic shaping has always been my issue. From the first moment karoo have had a BB service, I have been on their top package, so I have paid a lot more than many people have, and I was sick to the back teeth of it. I lived in Hessle for 7 years on the 3mb service (top one available) recieving a steady 350kbps download speed (I download via usenet - easynews to be precise). I went onto max 4, and saw my speeds drop to 200-250, complained, had line tests done, and was fobbed off. I moved to brough, max 4 again, same problems. the line would get 800+ at the really quiet times, so I know the line is capable of holding it, but the minute anyone else so much as switched their pc on - boom - 250 again. I called them, told them the service wasnt what I was paying for, and they told me to do a couple of test downloads - itunes.exe and some flight sim via microsoft.com, full on 800kbps. so he told me they shaped a lot of stuff, but http and interactive (xbox live etc) arent shaped. I told him that I downloaded a lot of stuff via http (because easynews have an http portal) - turns out they shaped easynews.com too.

He then went on to tell me that the starter max package wasnt shaped, because it was capped at 2gb, and you paid for every 2gb over that at £2 for every 2gb, so there was no need to shape that service. great I thought, I might even save some money.

Anyway, I rang up next day, asked to go onto starter max, and was told there was a £35 fee to change within the contracted year, I argued and argued, was put onto the "manager" who argued the toss but would not budge, I relented and paid the fee. I was told it would be 5 days or whatever to change the package, so I waited patiently. guess what - exactly the same speeds as before - 170 when its busy, 600+ when its not. I have given up.

Its all smoke and mirrors with karoo- lies, smoke and mirrors.

I have a mate who is an engineer for KC, and he knows why the service is shite, the cables they laid were the cheapest ones they could get, I'm sure he said they were from israel, and the engineers told them how crap they were.

sorry for the huge first post.

[Fastethernet]

Hi t8yman,

If price is no issue then grab a hosted server download your files to there and VPN in from home to download the content off the server, I am sure Karpoo won't traffic shape VPN connections 

[t8yman]

Hi t8yman,

If price is no issue then grab a hosted server download your files to there and VPN in from home to download the content off the server, I am sure Karpoo won't traffic shape VPN connections 

or we could just get a decent ISP and save all the unnecessary cost and hassle!!

[The Dominator]

oooo
now i wouldn't do such a thing myself!! 

 

nor would i base the virtual server (VPS) in the states coz its cheaper and then use that server as a proxy and connect to pandora through it
  mmmm

there are a lot of ways around krapoo, one of the quickest is the use of encrypted p2p (if you must run them) along with peer-guardian.

but a VPN tunnel to a pop somewhere else will get them off your back.

[dylan]

I suppose the more techie minded might do something along the lines of.....

• Rent a cheap Linux based VPS from someone like www.vpsvillage.com
• Install rtorrent onto the VPS and learn how to use it
• Download your legal peer to peer goods to the VPS using rtorrent (Karooforums.net cannot condone illegality otherwise we get shut down!)
• Set SSH on your VPS to listen on port 443 (which Karoo don't bandwidth shape allegedly)
• Use SCP to transfer the file back to your home computer

Complicated but possible. If anyone is interested I could go into more detail.

The negative aspect of this technique however is that you would then be conducting p2p activity via a server based in the USA. That means that any activity undertaken by yourself, would be done under US law (and if you're downloading illegal material, the yanks are a little more serious about it than we are).