Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Penguin]

Just to set the situation.

I recently moved to RAF Lyneham and had Sky TV/phone line etc installed, decided to get broadband too cause it sounded alright and means everything is coming out on 1 bill.  After 3months of trying to get everything set up my broadband was finally active on the 16th march, unfortunately I didn't get my modem till the 19/20th march so I've had my connection active and usable for just over a week now.

At first things seemed fine, I'm getting around 7mb line (820kB/s) but then come between 6-11pm at night my connection takes a nose dive to between  .5mb (30kB/s) and 1mb'ish (120kB/s) so for gaming its pointless. The line drops packets and pretty much every game lags even my MMO's like Warhammer and Warcraft.

Rang them up last night (Friday 27th) and had a big argument with them, one of there operators said I had a 14 day Cooling off while another says i have 7, spoke to a manager and he started spouting about BT restricting traffic etc, told them that was a load of crap because i got a mate who's in the block next to mine who's on plusnet and going thru the same exchange and gets around 5mb so its not BT, he still insisted that it was BT and not sky, spouted about sky rent the slams from BT so they control what goes on with them. Though a broadband help person had told me that Sky connect can't cope with the amount of users it has so the speed are heavily restricted at prime evening times. Told her if I'd know about that when i phone to order I wouldn't have ordered.

So at the moment I have my MAC code on order and it should be here some time next week in the post, my problem is i need to find a decent ISP for gaming, especially in the evenings, I know most do limit evening traffic but as long as its not as excessive as Sky I'll be happy.

There's not LLU racks in my exchange and so far I've looked at;

Plusnet Pro package, sounds good with unrestricted traffic though 15gb limit is a bit off putting.

also looked at Zen and IDnet since they seem pretty well rated on this site, but i don't really know much else.

Just wanted to get some opinion's on people who use the above and what its like during 5-11 at night, any help would be greatful.

As for Sky matter, I'll be leaving them just its just hoping I can get out of paying what's looking like £120 because of my contract, annoys me that they say wait 10day when you ring and the cooling off 7days, I'll see what i can do with that.

Thanks for any help given

[waltergmw]

Hi Penguin,

There are some things worth investigating a little further.

I used the RAF Lyneham phone number and postcode in

http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/adslchecker.php

You're correct that there are no unbundled services, but the speed estimate (and it is only an estimate) suggests 4mbps might be achievable on a line of road distance of 2.25 km to the Bradenstoke BRSSP exchange. However I don't know whether the systems are provided just by BT Openreach or whether some parts are administered by a defence communications contractor.

Contention could well be a problem as I'd guess that many of your colleagues could well be using ADSL services at the same time doing similar things.

Regarding ISPs, I expect that you'll find you get what you pay for.
If you want active help in achieving the best performance you could try Zen and you could explain the problem to their sales team beforehand to see how they comment.

Kind regards,
Walter

[kitz]

>> nose dive to between  .5mb (30kB/s) and 1mb'ish (120kB/s) so for gaming its pointless. The line drops packets and pretty much every game lags

May just be worth checking that its not a problem with your line.   If your SNR gets too low, then this will have the effect of slowing down speeds and dropped packets.
Check your linestats when the problem occurs.
If you want us to have a look at them, we will be happy to do so.

>> he started spouting about BT restricting traffic etc,

hmmm.  Well it could be

• a line fault /LowSNR as mentioned above.
  
• BTw exchange contention...  but in all the times Ive seen exchange contention, I've never seen it affect latency or cause packet drops as  BTw do some very minor sort of prioritisation on their dslams/msans.  If your speeds are very low and you perform a BTw performance test, it may offer you the opportunity to log on to the BTw network and do a BTw speedtest that bypasses your ISP network.   If you are using the sky router though, you cant change the log-in to the BT one required. If you have an older router around though, you may be able to use that.
  
• I have heard that sky connect users are now being throttled at peak times and that it is affecting latency too. Some users have managed to complain and get out of their contract early and migrate elsewhere when speeds 'return to normal'.

>> There's not LLU racks in my exchange and so far I've looked at;

Plusnet Pro has no traffic shaping, but as you rightly say its restricted to a 15GB cap, but any usage during midnight to 8am isnt counted. Users on the Pro package seem to be fairly happy.  If you do go over the limt you can purchase extra GBs. Downside would be a 12 month contract.

iirc IDNet had a few hiccups last year, but afaik they seem to be sorted now.

Zen - prices are a bit higher - but many are more than happy to pay a bit extra for their excellent support and reputation and consider them worth it.

[Penguin]

As far as I know its not a problem with my line, but I'll post the results from the "show statistics " when my line goes crap on sunday between 5-11pm.

This is the current Statistics at time of posting.

ADSL Link     Downstream     Upstream
Connection Speed    8128 kbps    448 kbps
Line Attenuation    20 db    12 db
Noise Margin    13 db    18 db

I do think its Sky being over zealous on the throttling issue and going to ring them monday about getting out of my contract because of the failure to provide a decent service even with throttling, I know most if not all ISP's on BT wholesale exchanges do throttle connection's but I don't think the other are as bad as this.

Also I've been doing the BTw Peformance Test as well and during the non peak hours I get the following (I've been recording these in a txt file and time stamping them)

25/03/09 14:55
Test1 comprises of Best Effort Test:  -provides background information.
    Your DSL connection rate: 8128 kbps(DOWN-STREAM),  448 kbps(UP-STREAM)
    IP profile for your line is - 7150 kbps
    Actual IP throughput achieved during the test was - 6417 kbps

If you wish to discuss these results please contact your ISP.

This is one I did before I went to work Thursday night

26/03/09 18:30
Test1 comprises of Best Effort Test:  -provides background information.
    Your DSL connection rate: 8128 kbps(DOWN-STREAM),  448 kbps(UP-STREAM)
    IP profile for your line is - 7150 kbps
    Actual IP throughput achieved during the test was - 1051 kbps

If you wish to discuss these results please contact your ISP.

I also did one tonight when the line got really bad (30kB/s) and it did like you said, asking me to redo a 2nd test using their log in details which I can't do on the netgear router I have.

As for the other ISP's plusnet Pro does seem to be the ideal option because of how much gaming i do in the evenings and the 12month contract doesn't bother me much (since most things you get these days are 12months) but if they don't count stuff between midnight-8am it makes the package even more appealing (just download late at night basically)

As for the other 2 it seems that really between them and plusnet it looks like i'm going to be ok ISP wise (well better than Sky anyway)

I'll post more Sunday Evening when more that likely my connection will go pants, may do some tracer outes to Warhammer and WoW servers to see the packet loss situation.

Thanks for helping out Kitz

[UncleUB]

Hi Penguin,

Have a look here,they seem to be one of /if not the highest rated isp's.Not the cheapest,but  you get what you pay for.

http://www.fast.co.uk/

also.

http://www.newnet.co.uk/broadband/index.php


Vivaciti are another isp who get excellent ratings.Their new packages might be of interest to you.


http://www.ispreview.co.uk/story/2009/03/28/vivaciti-isp-launches-new-broadband-packages.html

[Penguin]

Hi Penguin,

There are some things worth investigating a little further.

I used the RAF Lyneham phone number and postcode in

http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/adslchecker.php

You're correct that there are no unbundled services, but the speed estimate (and it is only an estimate) suggests 4mbps might be achievable on a line of road distance of 2.25 km to the Bradenstoke BRSSP exchange. However I don't know whether the systems are provided just by BT Openreach or whether some parts are administered by a defence communications contractor.

Contention could well be a problem as I'd guess that many of your colleagues could well be using ADSL services at the same time doing similar things.

Regarding ISPs, I expect that you'll find you get what you pay for.
If you want active help in achieving the best performance you could try Zen and you could explain the problem to their sales team beforehand to see how they comment.

Kind regards,
Walter

Well I'm around 800 meters from the exchange, thing is on Friday Night before I rang up Sky to complain I check my speed on speedtest.net and it was going at around 100kB/s go around to my mates room who's in the next block over and on plusnet pro package and did the speed test there and he was getting around 600kB/s. Even explained that fact to Sky since if it was the exchange then he'd be getting a poor connection too, they we're at a loss and started going on about BT controlling what's going on not Sky

[waltergmw]

So that suggests poor wiring in your block probably rather than noise problems.

Any chance you could trace the cables to your local DP and see if the lid has come off or if there's water inside?
Do both your blocks face in the same direction or are you getting the worst of the rain?

How about chatting up other users in your own block ?

You need an ISP who has the repair systems in place to conduct a proper investigation.

Kind regards,
Walter

[kitz]

>>> current Statistics at time of posting
>>> IP profile for your line is - 7150 kbps

The combined results show that theres nothing wrong with the line. 
The current stats are good and the IP profile shows that you appear to have a steady full 8Mb profile so its highly unlikely that its going to be slow speeds due to SNR and error count.   But obviously it was something that needed to be eliminated as a possible cause.


>> it did like you said, asking me to redo a 2nd test using their log in details which I can't do on the netgear router I have.

Yeah youd have to configure the login which you cant with the sky routers... which is a PITA as youd have to use another router to perform the full test :/



UB's chucked a couple more names into the hat that are worth looking at - I was also thinking of newnet which may also suit your requirements and nearly typed the name myself last night as an option. 
Vivaciti (Enta reseller) also have a good rep as a vISP.. but Im not sure if Enta would meet your requirements due to the the ALT which slows all traffic down during peak times.
They seem to attract the more heavier users who dont mind if all traffic (inc p2p) is slowed down at the same rate.

[kitz]

>>> Even explained that fact to Sky since if it was the exchange then he'd be getting a poor connection too, they we're at a loss and started going on about BT controlling what's going on not Sky

They are attempting to shift the blame - as mentioned in my earlier post BT congestion at the exchange does NOT cause poor latency.  Ive suffered from exchange contention myself in years gone by and I know the symptoms well.  Once there was 30+ of us all with different ISPs and seeing very low speeds right down to 100kbps and not a single one of us saw any latency problems due to the fact that BT do some very low level prioritisation on the dslams.

High Latency usually occurs if the BT Centrals are congested.  Note the term BT Centrals?  In fact they are owned/rented by the ISP and if the ISP doesnt purchase sufficient capacity from BTw to meet their users requirements then this is where you can and will see high latency starting to occur.


Theres 2 places where contention can occur (see the image below)



You'll see the BT centrals marked on there... 
Sky Connect have to 'buy' these from BT and its up to the individual ISP how many centrals they purchase... but if the ISP doesnt install sufficient Centrals then this becomes the bottle neck.

[kitz]

PS just thought..

May be worth running your exchange through the Usertools checker.  That may show if theres a problem at the exchange.
You can then go back to Sky and say 'Look no reported problems at the BT exchange".

[Penguin]

Well when I was on the phone on Friday night he check the exchange himself and said there was no problems. Though that site which I've checked myself does say it's under a Red condition though the info hasn't been updated since 09th March.

It says the following

Virtual paths: Red

BT is reporting that some of the virtual paths at this exchange are not operating within BT Wholesale's planning guidance, although they are still operating within the product specification.

At busy times, your ADSL connection may operate at a reduced speed, although not all customers on your exchange may be affected. You should only contact support if there is no current ETA date set.

The ETA fix time is: 11 Mar 09

Record last updated: 09 Mar 09

As for wiring, its not that, there is no wiring in the block. This is a new line it goes from the socket in my wall straight outside and then along the wall to the main box. Also if it was wiring wouldn't it effect it all the time not between 5-11pm at night?

[kitz]

>> it's under a Red condition though the info hasn't been updated since 09th March.

BTw only issue updates 1 or 2 times per month.  Phil usually updates it when he gets the list, (and when he has some free time).