If you work on anything web related and you have a Mac or an iOS device, I strongly encourage you to try the "Network Link Conditioner". It's a preference pane (on OS X) or a setting (on iOS) that allows you to simulate different types of networks. You can artificially limit bandwidth and transmission delay, simulate package loss and DNS delay.
For me, it's become an essential tool for testing website & app performance.
Somebody opened an issue on the Chromium bug tracker asking for the ability to customize those parameters. The Chromium devs added another preset and marked it as "fixed" even though it clearly isn't.
If you're on a Linux system, the 'tc' (traffic control) command has many similar abilities, though the UI is CLI only and is a bit cryptic. There are many posts and articles on usage though, including the Linux Advanced Routing and Traffic Control manual.
As does plain Google Chrome, at least on OSX. Open Dev Tools and click the 2nd icon on top, next to the loupe, which looks like a mobile phone. From there you can specify a set of throttling speeds (offline, gprs, edge, 3G, DSL, Wifi)
You don't have to go to Africa for network latency testing. Here's McDonald's Sunnyvale today:
64 bytes from 72.9.103.50: icmp_seq=32201 ttl=47 time=3894.012 ms
64 bytes from 72.9.103.50: icmp_seq=32202 ttl=47 time=4160.846 ms
64 bytes from 72.9.103.50: icmp_seq=32203 ttl=47 time=4438.250 ms
64 bytes from 72.9.103.50: icmp_seq=32205 ttl=47 time=4511.332 ms
64 bytes from 72.9.103.50: icmp_seq=32206 ttl=47 time=4877.157 ms
64 bytes from 72.9.103.50: icmp_seq=32207 ttl=47 time=4230.125 ms
64 bytes from 72.9.103.50: icmp_seq=32208 ttl=47 time=4140.820 ms
64 bytes from 72.9.103.50: icmp_seq=32209 ttl=47 time=3657.129 ms
64 bytes from 72.9.103.50: icmp_seq=32210 ttl=47 time=3668.067 ms
64 bytes from 72.9.103.50: icmp_seq=32211 ttl=47 time=3978.231 ms
64 bytes from 72.9.103.50: icmp_seq=32212 ttl=47 time=3639.352 ms
64 bytes from 72.9.103.50: icmp_seq=32213 ttl=47 time=3559.121 ms
64 bytes from 72.9.103.50: icmp_seq=32214 ttl=47 time=3362.324 ms
For every other location BUT Africa you can get a speed test from this site: http://www.webpagetest.org/ -- this also lets you different browsers and run an initial + repeated (with something cached) test.
Hi! I've heard good things about Habari Node[1], and Angania[2] is a startup working on Nairobi-based hosting. That said, I and most developers I know in the region host internationally. As others have mentioned latency is usually a bigger problem than bandwidth. Happy to take a look at your site if helpful (just add it to the form).
Depends on where your clients are in Africa -- if in the South then for example http://www.rsaweb.co.za/ could be a good choice. Have had some VMs with them, no issues.
From personal experience whilst traveling through Tanzania & Kenya using a 4G modem from Safaricom the issue was/is latency. Bandwidth is plentiful but the latency is horrible which resulted in AJAX applications timing out before requests could be completed. Example of this was Gmail, the application would not even function in AJAX mode but switching to plain HTML mode, whilst it took forever, worked like a charm every time.
It's a cool idea, but it is really just TaaS (Tanzania as a Service), or maybe South-east Africa as a service (decent submarine cable connections). From what I've heard bandwidth remains prohibitively expensive in places like Namibia and Botswana, while it is increasingly cheap in South Africa, where I was able to smoothly stream ''House of Cards'' from Netflix (via proxy) using an uncapped connection.
Hi! I use Smile because it's a little faster and significantly more reliable than the others. Most of my business and personal communication abroad happens via video Skype. Voda and Airtel are sometimes fast enough, but often aren't especially during peak times. I hate having to tell clients that my connection isn't good enough for a scheduled call.
For an idea of what I'm talking about, here's 70 second pings to google.com from an especially frustrating morning in January on Vodacom TZ: http://i.imgur.com/5urJcd7.png. This isn't typical but happens often enough to be a problem.
With Smile I'm paying rates comparable to 4G service in the US, e.g. TMobile[1]. The service isn't nearly as fast (peak I've seen is ~3.5 Megabytes/sec download) but the reliability makes it worth it. I suspect I'm paying as much for lower contention ratios on the towers as for "4G" infrastructure, but the end result is the same.
How fast is it? To my NZ ears these prices sound fantastic, as we usually pay about 5-6 times that for unlimited internet (if unlimited is even an option; it only is in certain urban areas). But presumably it's quite slow?
Neat. My rough understanding is that carriers here route traffic through SEACOM, EASSy (and likely others) to minimize cost and traffic. I don't think I can choose SEACOM specifically -- but I'm always up to test Cunningham's Law.
Your traffic traversed through SMILE>Zantel>Tata .. You may not be able to influence the best path to reach Google through Smile even though Zantel might be multihomed (unless the best path changes). I'd recommend testing from other providers such as SPICE-NET-TZ, TZ or simbanet-tz,TZ etc. [ Look above at the Seacom's downstream adjacent AS link I provided to find if you can use any of those carrier instead ]
# whois -h whois.cymru.com 41.138.222.196
AS | IP | AS Name
327692 | 41.138.222.196 | SMILECOMMS,UG
# whois -h whois.cymru.com 41.73.194.97
AS | IP | AS Name
36930 | 41.73.194.97 | Zantel-AS,TZ
The tech community is smallish but it's an easy place to live. Feel free to ping me with specific q's, or if your brother wants to grab a coffee if he passes through Dar. My email is my HN handle at gmail.
kiswahili lugha yangu ya kwanza kama mtanzania niliyezaliwa na kukulia dar es salaam,tanzania.
kuna watanzania wengi tu hapa HN na walijitokeza kwenye thread moja miezi michache iliyopita. Siwezi kupost link ya hiyo thread sababu siikumbuki link yenyewe na nahisi uvivu kuitafuta.
For me, it's become an essential tool for testing website & app performance.