Bypass ISP Throttling

Question

Can somebody please tell me how to bypass the RUTHLESS throttling being effected by ZOL. These guys want the numbers in terms of customers but hey, their throttling is just something else. I have tried using Cyberghost VPN but that's worsened by situation. now I get pings in excess of 1500ms. you can just imagine the speeds from there. So, here I am on this prestigious forum, asking knowlwdgeable members for an EFFECTIVE, CHEAP solution to bypass the flash video and download throttling that my ISP has effected on me. Doing speedtests on speedtest.net reveals speeds above 2.5Mbps even at the height of the business day but the experience is nothing close to that. Please help.

Comments

come to think of it i am not sure... but to make it easy send an email to fourwallsinaroom at gmail.com

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a@fourwallsinaroom which download manager do you use? i see the dropbox screenshot you have there, what's it all about? Is it so that you can access your stuff from another location or what? what DL manager do you have for that?

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I am using free download manager from http://www.freedownloadmanager.org/download.htm

Allows me to schedule my downloads and has plugins for flash video support (a must if you want to pull tv shows down from certain sites) it also allows you to break a download into multiple sections.  If you have a public IP you can start and stop downloads remotely and finally the screenshot i put was of downloads i started yesterday and were done by around 3am.  So really on a ZOL link if you want to pull a GB or more a day it is possible.

When I want to access my files remotely in terms of content I access my public IP.

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dear fourwalssinaroom, does the cyberghost vpn really anonymize you and hence help to bypass isp traffic shaping? do you use the vpn even when you do your downloads? how does the shaping from zol kick in if you have any idea. thank you for helpin out

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Yes Cyberghost does bypass shaping.  However personally I found that the benefit I got during the day was not worth having it.  The reason I say this is because when my ZOL link i.e. Router -> Base station is slow there is nothing in the world I am going to do get more that what ZOL is giving me.  Therefore if my max throughput is 0.3Mbps no matter what VPN i use i will not get more than 0.3Mbps.  There may be other users who have long term experience with cyberghost who will give a better review / opinion.

All that said, if I was browsing and I did not want my browsing trends/history to be known (e.g. something i am not meant to be doing) Cyberghost is a robust solution.

To answer your question about shaping I am not sure on the formula.  I have the same equipment at multiple sites and if I ask someone at site b to start the same download I am starting at site a at the same time.  We get very very very different results.  This and a conversation with someone led me to believe some base stations are over subscribed while others arent and what we think is shaping is actually just a lot of people using that said base station.
 I never ever get anything close speed wise  to borrowdale brooke base station or for that matter NRZ base Station.

Answer 1

So was talking to someone from ZOL.  And here is the thing, take my word or dont I really can not say either way.

xxxMbps is allocated to each base station.  If your base station happens to be over subscribed too bad.  There is no real shaping or contention on the wimax platform.

Comments

hey dude ddnt u read tht he said he cn reach 2,5Mbps+? as long speed test say  yo throughput speed is xxMbps bt u r downloading at 50kbps its called traffic shaping man. its just th beggining thts y vpn has been extended to internet to bypass isp thr # behaviours

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Hey I am with you on the 2.5Mbps but to what server is that?? If its local no big story there. Ecoweb = ZINX and therefore local traffic is not limited based on the routing tables.  So to get to Utande, ZOL or Yo the pipe is a 1Gbps pipe.  Now if he is getting 2.5 on the international well I am not sure what the story is.

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so u think tht fiber optic carries 1Gbps ? u must be kidding man kkkkkkkkk. dont you know tht fbre can carry upto 1petabit per second per optical node (1Pbps) ? it also depends with th quality and type of fibre

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Last time i checked ZINX inter-connects were between 100Mbps and 1000Mbps.  If that has changed I def. stand to be corrected and remember the distance for ZINX peering was none existent as all providers linked up in Eastgate.

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Directed @ "happy dude" - This is not true. Since I get speed tests of 3.5mb while only achieving 100kb/s. during that time, it was a fact among ZoL customers that their speeds were down. So my conclusion is that the speed tests tell us what we could potentially receive on our network. Not what our ISP is able to deliver at that very moment, and I don't think that a speed test is in at all an accurate way check if you're being throttled.

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to quote "its not just traffic shaping in play here it is base station congestion, and its also international link congestion - because its clear to me that during biz hours there is lots of contention on the international links - likely a little bit of overselling going on here
 commented Nov 29, 2013 by anthonysomerset Guru  "

Answer 2

Guys, dont be fooled by Zol with engineered speed test!! I have just returned my Zol modem because the shapping is unbearable. I had it for less than 3days and l returned it, its not worth my 60 dollars.

Here is the trick Zol is doing!!

If you do a speed test from the recommended website, you get close to 3mbps. But do you get anything closer to that when using your PC normally?

The answer is straight NO.

It spooked me first time so l investigated further.

First reason was obvious shapping. Bt l waited for the wee hours and still same results 2 days in a roll.

I looked closely before speedtest begun and realised that everytime l click begin test, it automatically chose a server somewhere in drc according to map it gives.

I did my 1+1 simple maths and noticed that econet have been building fibre links across there.

What then stops them putting a engineered server to respond from speed test request since zol is now owned by them?

I changed the server to something in US and it was amazing to see how drastically the speed dropped.

Comments

try the dande or yoafrica server in zim or an SA speedtest mirror

they cant engineer the server that speedtest.net uses - all they might be able to do is disable traffic shaping for certain targets

that said - i'm on fibre - we go through the same final gateways at zol as wimax - so we will have the same traffic shaping applied

i always get 5 up 5 down all the time generally international tests do vary though.

but a test to the UK always gives me a minimum of 2 up 2 down

its not just traffic shaping in play here it is base station congestion, and its also international link congestion - because its clear to me that during biz hours there is lots of contention on the international links - likely a little bit of overselling going on here

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hey thr , js wanna correct a lil bit. 1st read how much bandwidth does fibre optic carry 2nd m torrenting @ 4Mbps (5 - 6Mbps sometimes). do your home work dude, thy r shapping your traffic. tiri kumhanya tirikumhanya tirikumhanya semabhazi vamwe muchitera sematractor. kkkkkkk.

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well i didnt say that i was torrenting - i was just making the point that fibre goes through the same gateway - when i torrent i can max out at around 5mbps (sometimes bursting up to 8mbps) without any vpn's - the point i'm getting at is that the transmission medium is just as much to blame.

wimax wasnt originally engineered for high traffic usage - or high client connections - it was originally designed to solve Point To Point communication issues where it was impossible to get cables where the use case wasnt for torrenting or downloading huge files but for reliable connectivity (note that reliable does not equal high speed)

its the ISP's fault for trying to use this to engineer around the restrictions (potraz/telone and all) and costs of getting either fibre or copper (or access to an existing cable) into people's homes with a system that isnt totally designed for the use case and on minimum viable investment (ie not enough base stations close enough to each other and with not enough backhaul capacity from base stations to the network backbone