Kitz Forum
Broadband Related => ISPs => Topic started by: jabns on March 19, 2008, 06:34:14 PM
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Hi all,
Not been on for a while for various reasons but i should be on a bit more often again now.
My exchange(Fleetwood, LCFLW) is about to get enabled for BE/O2 and i was basically wondering how good/reliable they actually are. Also latency is a major issue for me as i host alot of game servers in my spare time.
I am currently paying £95/m for 3 three bonded MAX Premium lines and can no longer afford to keep it up and i am looking to lower it to about £60/m. Also as i am sure kitz is aware the fleetwood exchange is not performing to good in general at the moment and so i would like to move to LLU.
I just read rizzla's post about the DNS issues and was wondering if this had been resolved. If not can you recommend any good paid for DNS servers.
The email servers and web servers i am not to bothered about as i host my own.
As i said latency/routing is one of the most important issues for me as i do alot of gaming so any info would be great.
Thanks,
James
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No... go away - theyre carp. *
Go Easynet/Sky/UKO
That bandwidth is mine all mine >:D
>> am sure kitz is aware the fleetwood exchange is not performing to good in general at the moment
Yep I'm aware :(
If its like this on Max Premium - I dread to think what it would be like on Max.
Between still having a stuck bRAS profile and contention Im getting pretty peed off with IPStream :(
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* Just in case anyone didnt realise - I was joking.
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PS I just hope leechnet doesnt bring the Be backhaul to its knees too.
You know what this exchange is like :(
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That would be about 55mbit/s just for me in a tripple WAN load balancing mode :P.
PS: I forgot to mention the 7.5 mbit upload :lol:.
James runs....
EDIT: Now i think my USENET access would = INSANE LOL
I think i need to get started on this tripple WAN linux box. This is going to be a learning curve :graduate:.
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>> That would be about 55mbit/s just for me in a tripple WAN load balancing mode
You really really dont want to go Be How about trying TalkTalk.
My neighbour has a TT connection - they dont use that much - nice line stats - similar to mine
Excellent speeds...............
for a 512k connection
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:lol:
We can compete for bandwidth :shoot:
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Ummm ok then...
Maybe not TT - how about UKO?
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Then i would have to have 4 lines to get the same speeds.
Looks like Be :lol: .
Don't worry i only use about 200GB/m ;D.
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Sorry James I took your subject OT
As regards to DNS - I was thinking perhaps OpenDNS I already have them as backup DNS servers they seem ok. I honestly dont know about any paid for ones since I normally only use ISP with OpenDNS. Perhaps rizla would be best answering that. mr_chris is away atm otherwise Im sure he would have contributed. Any other thoughts on DNS are welcome... but from what Ive seen chris's connection is fine.
I dont know how much Be will put in on the backhaul, but the thought of competing against a triple WAN load balancer just scared me to death.
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As regards to DNS - I was thinking perhaps OpenDNS I already have them as backup DNS servers they seem ok. I honestly dont know about any paid for ones since I normally only use ISP with OpenDNS. Perhaps rizla would be best answering that. mr_chris is away atm otherwise Im sure he would have contributed. Any other thoughts on DNS are welcome... but from what Ive seen chris's connection is fine.
I dont know how much Be will put in on the backhaul, but the thought of competing against a triple WAN load balancer just scared me to death.
I can't help with the current state of Be's DNS but I'm not aware of any radical improvement - just about everyone I know on Be uses OpenDNS. The problem with that is actually getting to the OpenDNS machines. I had ~5-10% packet loss on Level3 at peak times every day, in fact it got so that 5-10% PL was normal and what with DNS being UDP rather than TCP then a significant number of queries went unanswered.
The backhaul isn't like an IPStream backhaul. There will be a "master" exchange (not yours) which has the backhaul and several* "sub" exchanges fed into that. From my experience in Leicester things can go pear-shaped (in terms of congestion) VERY VERY fast indeed.
If you are in an area where Be are expanding into then you can also expect significant downtime as the network is built. For the first 2 months that I had Be you could virtually guarantee that the connection would be down for 12-18 hours every weekend - in fact Be inflicted more downtime on me in 2 months than BT did in 6 years. Oh and it won't look like your connection has gone down if you ping the first hop as they disconnect you at the aggregation point rather than at your exchange - no authentication and a static IP on Be remember so no RADIUS/DHCP servers to contact.
*my exchange was one of 7 "sub" exchanges for example
Edit - James you may wish to take a look at what Be do with multiple IP address assignments. You won't get them in a block like a /29. Oh no. You will just get 8 IP addresses randomly assigned to you. More of a "scatter" than a block really :lol: I took one look at it and thought "No thanks" but you might be OK with it.
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Thanks kitz and rizla.
It s a shame that they are not making the most of the opertunaties they have in terms of their coverage.
With my current ISP i learnt the importance of transits and peers. Where ever my data is going i know that it will take the right route and i just don't know whether i can live without that.
What i might do is get 2 BE Pro lines and one UKO line and make a rule in the load balancer that all DNS queries go through UKO and then through BE if that is unavailable.
James
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>> From my experience in Leicester things can go pear-shaped (in terms of congestion) VERY VERY fast indeed.
Hence concerns over the effects a few heavies could have.. then when you mentioned WAN loadbalancers why I went eeeeek.
I'm pretty certain that BTw perform some form of low level QoS on their DSLAMs - (I'm talking their newer models here - cause I know rizla was on one of the earlier BT enabled exchanges).
But if you notice even when the exchange comes under heavy congestion, no-one complains about the latency. They specifically installed a pile of Juniper ERX's in 2003/2004 because of their ability "to distribute bandwidth more fairly" which wasnt happening on some of the older dslams.
ERX's have the ability to do the Bronze/Silver/Gold prioritisation and were the model that BT chose for the vast amount of exchange DSLAMs from 2003 onwards until they started using the Huawei MSANs.
>> in fact Be inflicted more downtime on me in 2 months than BT did in 6 years.
:(
Again one of my concerns over LLU - I think theyve all been through it - Tiscali, TalkTalk/AOL etc. From what I had observed Be seemed to be one of the better ones.
Easynet do seem to have got it right, I dont ever recall seeing much complaints about their LLU. Although I have seen high packet loss and very probable signs of contention on the sky connections, I was told by UKO that sky and UKO have their own separate VPs. This would appear to be true from observations elsewhere.
>> The backhaul isn't like an IPStream backhaul.
Indeed. Some people think that BT give little away about their network, but information on the LLU Networks is even less.
I have spoken to Be in the past about other things, and they offered to give me a feed which is the same that Sam has.
Talking of which - the dates for Be around here:-
RFS date set: 30/04/2008 (originally 31/07/2007)
Blackpool Central 31/12/2006
North Shore 31/03/2007
Layton 31/3/07
Poulton 31/3/07
St Annes 31/03/2007
South Shore 31/07/2007
Cleveleys 31/07/07
Lytham RFS date set: 30/04/2008 (originally 31/05/2007)
Kirkham RFS date set: 31/03/2008
Weeton - Not available
Great Eccleston - Not available
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I'm pretty certain that BTw perform some form of low level QoS on their DSLAMs - (I'm talking their newer models here - cause I know rizla was on one of the earlier BT enabled exchanges).
Ah yes 2000ms+ latency with any traffic at all on the line and an ISP whose Technical Support manager stated that 200ms first-hop latency on an idle ADSL connection was normal. Happy days :P
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>> Ah yes 2000ms+ latency with any traffic at all on the line
I remember seeing your l8nc graphs at the time :(
I believe it was the Cisco kit/dslams that BTw found werent able to handle QoS properly. Ring any bells?
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It doesn't ring any bells but it doesn't surprise me. All I really remember re Cisco & BT was the CEF (Cisco Express Forwarding) business. As far as the DSLAM goes, it was an Alcatel but I can't remember any model details.
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DNS: I've been using Treewalk (http://www.ntcanuck.com/) for some time. It's your own local caching DNS that gets information from the authoritative servers.
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Thanks for that jelv :)
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Thanks everyone.
I have had a look at the link jelv and its looks very good for Windows based systems but i am running some linux machines and some games consoles. I might set up a caching server for DNS on my linux router i am putting together.
James
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As an aside I see Irksome is providing some DNS servers FoC :
http://www.beforum.co.uk/showthread.php?p=59157#post59157
Worth having a browse around Irksome's forums if you are considering Be as he has a fair idea where some of the skeletons are hidden ;)
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Thanks rizla i had a good read of them last night and i will definatly be using his DNS servers.
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another option could be the www.opendns.org servers, I've been using them as backup servers for quite a while now, very good free service.
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Perhaps I don't see as many DNS issues as I have a local caching DNS server (albeit win2003), so perhaps this hides some of the problems from me, I don't know. Or maybe I've just got used to it.
The only thing I don't like is the ping loss from the Be routers, but it doesn't seem to affect too much end-to-end traffic.
Having said that, I'm not a gamer, so I don't really do that much in the way of connectionless / real-time traffic.
All I do know is that my connection in Cleveleys performs at near enough 100% line rate at any time of the day or night, and if any of you Fleetwood peeps do anything to mess that up for me, I'll be coming after ya :P :lol:
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Hi Chris, what loss do you see on end to end pings? I'm just wondering because I know someone that is thinking of signing up with them who is a gamer, the odd core router that doesn't respond directly to pings isn't really an issue so long as its routing packets onto the next hop correctly.
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>> what loss do you see on end to end pings?
Didn't say I had loss on end-to-end pings, in fact I actually said that it doesn't seem to affect too much end-to-end traffic. What I meant was it doesn't appear to affect ANY end to end traffic! The core routers often don't respond at all to pings though, or they will do so very slowly, when they're busy.
So I haven't seen any end-to-end loss to write home about, but I'm only using TCP traffic in the main, apart from DNS. Now maybe I'm just lucky, but I'm not seeing the problems that rizla was experiencing on Be - i.e. repeated DNS errors due to the connectionless UDP traffic getting lost.
I can't comment on Be for gaming since I don't play online games. Maybe that's why I've not noticed any problems?
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Just got the MAC codes for two of the lines. I will get the 3rd lines done in another month so my email servers are still working. I really like my current ISP as well. Oh well here goes.
I just setup a Squid/SquidGuard server last night on Debian. I also have my load balancer setup and ready to throw the lines at.
PS** Kitz they are taking orders now, 1 month early!
Note: just undid adblock and noticed a nice bethere advert at the top of your site ;)
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Thanks chris when you said you didnt see much I took that mean there was some but if your not seeing any then thats fine then :) Id rather him have come to zen but sadly hes likes his online media so uses about 150gig a month so zne isnt really suitable given he doesnt want to pay for the unlimited 8mbit package ;)
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>> what loss do you see on end to end pings?
Now maybe I'm just lucky, but I'm not seeing the problems that rizla was experiencing on Be - i.e. repeated DNS errors due to the connectionless UDP traffic getting lost.
Luck has little to do with it I'm afraid. It depends almost entirely on how your backhaul from the exchange to Be is handled. Mine was Level3 and was rubbish. Others in London got perfect routing and much much better peering as their traffic went nowhere near Level3.
This thread on TBB illustrates the issues rather well I think although none of the participants seem to have spotted it :lol:
http://bbs.adslguide.org.uk/showthreaded.php?Cat=&Board=beunlimited&Number=3306702&page=1&view=expanded&sb=5&o=0&fpart=
rogan8's traceroute is pretty similar to what I'd see - basically stuck on Level3 with their routing and peering arrangements and it's entirely due to where you live in the UK. Not considered a problem by Be when I was there and I don't believe anything much has changed. I recollect one time Level3 routed me via San Francisco (or possibly Dallas?) to get to anywhere in Europe. That lasted a week or so.
I'm much happier with UKO :)