Kitz Forum
Broadband Related => Broadband Hardware => Topic started by: Helpneedadvice on June 17, 2008, 02:17:41 PM
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Hi, hope someone can help. I would love some clarification about what I should be expecting from speeds and whether changing my router might help.
Please excuse my lack of correct terminology on here - this broadband stuff is all new to me but I've been reading around this excellent site and the Hmmm site of B4dgers and am learning fast.
Some history: I have been having problems with speeds from my ISP. Once upon a time when I first signed up to the 8M service with my ISP (around 18 months/2 years ago) I noticed that I was syncing at about 6.5Mbps and I paid little further attention to it. My browsing was fast and efficient and I was happy. Over the last year or so, my browsing has become a lot slower. I only found the time to start looking into why a few months ago and realised that I have been getting more like 3.5Mbps sync and hence associated lower throughput during this time. (The change I believe coincided with when my ISP moved me off BT equipt and onto Tiscali equipt at the exchange). Throughout all of this, I was just using a simple Speedtouch 330 modem for my broadband.
When I reported the problem a few months back, speedtests showed that I was getting particularly low throughput even for those sync speeds and my ISP insisted I try a router instead of my modem, so I borrowed a Netgear DG834 from a friend. No difference experienced, so after more months of messing around, my ISP decided to move me back onto BT equipment. But then things got worse; I started getting a fixed 2Mbps sync instead!
More months of messing around and many further speedtests later, my ISP finally agreed it could be a fault and sent a BT engineer out. He found they had indeed set me up on the 2M service rather than the 8M service (we had suggested this to the ISP but they had said they had checked with BT that it wasn't the case - well obviously it was!); this got me back up to the 3.5M sync service that I was experiencing on the Tiscali equipt. I also smiled sweetly at him and he went away and changed my line pair to a lovely new copper one while he was about it. (Line attenuation immediately went down from 39dB to 33 dB as a result :))
This was Fri morning. Immediately, I noticed a difference: I started syncing mostly at 7-8Mbps. Hooray! However, that evening during busy hours, I started experiencing some loss of syncs (SNR fluctuated between 5 and 0, possibly lower), but 99% of the time I would resync immediately up to that level and only received one lower sync rate of 6200kbps. As a result my IP profile went down from 7000 to 5500 :(.This morning I disconnected briefly and set up a Speedtouch 585v7 router that I just purchased as I read it was more less sensitive to losing sync. It synced at 7200kbps with 5dB noise margin. Just now (Tues lunchtime) I checked and suddenly I am getting only 5088kbps and my SNR is up to 15dB and hence my IP profile is now getting lower and lower. I am currently in the 10 day training period (day 4/5) and so I am worried that my MSR will be set unrealistically low as a result.
I have had great arguments with my ISP because they gave me a fault threshold of just 1.8M on my line previously when they set me up wrongly on the BT equipt recently as a 2M user by mistake. They kept telling me that BT would not accept it as a fault because my throughput was above this! I am very keen that a realistic MSR is set for me to avoid future conflict.
So now I finally get to my point (sorry about the waffling). What speeds does anyone think that should I be expecting?
I live 700m as the crow flies from the exchange in a small market town. My ISP said my previous line length was 2.2km (a bit long?) from the exchange (I was getting attenuation of 39dB and noise margin around 12 dB). My new line is only 33dB attenuation and so hopefully taking a shorter route to the exchange. It is also a nice new copper one and not aluminium. On connection I got 7-8Mbps at 5dB SNR immediately.
I am still syncing mostly at over 7000kbps and this morning I reached the dizzy heights of 8032 kbps with 5dB Noise margin. I disconnected briefly a few times to set up the new router, resynced after set up at 7200 (at 5dB) and when I get back from lunch find I am now down to 5088kbps (at a non-busy time of day) with a 15 dB noise margin. Why have they turned my noise margin up so high in one go? Would BT have done this because i disconnected earlier and as a result I lost sync over lunch, or would I have lost sync over lunch and then this happened? I am wondering if it was an enforced loss of sync or the router didn't cope. It seems a funny time of day for traffic noise to be the cause.
I just disconnected and reconnected and got the same result.
Can anyone please help me understand what is going on? My ISP said my speeds will vary in the first 10 days but the lower speeds are surely not good news for my MSR and furure fault reporting, particularly if it was caused just by my disconnections to set up the new router. Also I read that if the SNR exceeds 15dB, it gets stuck up there and doesn't come down by itself. So my speeds will be even lower.
Thanks folks!
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"This morning I disconnected briefly and set up a Speedtouch 585v7 router that I just purchased as I read it was more less sensitive to losing sync"
Sorry should read less sensitive to losing sync :)
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Oh I have another question on my new speedtouch 585 router. Mine only came with a quickstart guide. I don't yet find the user interface as friendly as the Netgear one. I am trying to find where to set it up to poll for stats every 5 secs or so like on the Netgear one. Currently I am having to refresh the page repeatedly which is a bit of a pain.
Also is there a way to timestamp the logs? Currently it shows time since connection, but since i am emailing the logs to my ISp when necessary a proper timestamp as per the netgear router would be really useful. Many thanks :)
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Hi and welcome.
The way the BT system works, if the connection is deemed to be unstable then the target noise margin (the margin which is applied at the time of synchronisation) is increased in 3 dB steps until it becomes stable. The highest target noise margin is 15 dB. After synchronisation the noise margin will drift up and down depending on the level of interference on the line. The actual noise margin can go above 15 dB and no, if that happens it doesn't get stuck there.
It look as though you have a problem with varying levels of interference on your line, and what possibly happened during that lunch period was that there were several bursts of interference causing frequent re-syncs, so that the target noise margin ended up getting bumped right up to the maximum.
There are any number of possible reasons for this, and I suggest that you have a read of this (http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/troubleshooting.htm) and the associated pages to see if you can home in on the cause.
The web interface of the Speedtouch routers is pretty awful I'm afraid, and I don't think it's possible to make it refresh the stats in the way that you want. They are pretty good routers though.
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Thanks for replying... I know it isn't my internal wiring (problem occurs even when plugged into the master socket) and it's not my router/modem (loss of sync problem is present with both of them). There is nothing electrical suddenly coming on in the house or as far as I can tell from the neighbours either. In fact the weird thing is that apart from Fri evening (when I would expect a drop might occur) the connection was pretty stable over the weekend. I live in a residential area, no factories nearby etc. Is it possible that the noise could be coming from the exchange/ line from the PCP to the exchange? If so, is there anything I can do about it?
I read about interleaving. Would that be turned on as default by BT? Maybe I should check it is with my ISP.
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I can recommend RouterStats (http://www.vwlowen.co.uk/internet/files.htm) free software to monitor your SNRM/Sync. The site doesn't mention v7 but I think it will work fine - just point it to the stats page.
See the link in my signature to see the graphs it makes...
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Thanks B4dger! Do you manage to get a timestamp with your graphs?
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Thanks B4dger! Do you manage to get a timestamp with your graphs?
Yes, the bottom of the graph shows the 'timeline'...
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B4dger
I just read something you wrote on another site, that with interleaving switched on, the max sync you can get is 7616. My ISP tell me that interleaving is switched on but I have had had a sync at over 8M. Does that make sense?
Thanks - I see the timeline on the graphs now by the way - duh! silly me. Do you know of anyway to get the speedtouch to display the time on its own stats page. Am i missing something? I'm finding the "time since last boot" hard to decifer compared to the Netgear.
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According to the BT documentation, interleaving does limit the sync speed to 7616. However in many cases it seems that this doesn't happen, and people get higher connection speeds up to the maximum 8128. This seems to happen mainly on short lines with plenty of margin to spare.
Regarding the 'time since last boot' issue, have you got the router set up to get its time by NTP? I'm not using a Speedtouch at the moment, so I can't check, but I rather think that this is what you need to do. If you have to specify a time server in the setup, I usually use uk.pool.ntp.org
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Helpneedadvice, don't believe 'everything' I write ::)
As roseway mentions the max interleaved speed does depend on your line, so can vary.
roseway - thanks for the 'time tip' I've just added the server you quoted and changed my router log to show the actual time rather than time since startup - much better.
It's a shame the Speedtouch log only logs very basic events - unless someone knows how to make it more verbose?
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It's a shame about the Speedtouch web interface generally in my opinion. They make excellent routers with rotten interfaces. :(
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Thanks roseway - i just changed mine too. At least i can see when my loss of syncs occur now!
Would you say a line of 33dB would count as a short line with plenty of margin to spare? My noise margin at the time was 5 dB but it has since risen to 16.5 dB due to all the loss of syncs that i keep getting. It's really frustrating as I didn't get these loss of syncs before the engineer put me on this shiny new copper pair and fiddled around at the exchange. However, the old pair had it's own problems; it was aluminium for a start and took a longer route to the exchange. (Previously I was on a 39dB line which they told me was 2.2km long - it seemed rather long as I am only 700m from the exchange as the crow flies - isn't the multiplier meant to be 1.5 or something?)
My ISP asked BT if I had previously been put on the 2M service and they said no, turned out i had. Now they are saying interleaving IS on, but i just wonder...
My husband has a separate line on a computer right next to mine with BT as ISP. He gets the full 8M and he is also getting an attenuation reading of 33dB, so possibly he is using the same bundle or at least similar. He gets no loss of sync due to noise.
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33 dB attenuation isn't particularly low; it's around the level at which you might or might not get the full 8 megs connection speed, depending on the level of interference. If you're getting fairly frequent re-syncs then you will almost certainly be interleaved (enabling interleaving is the first thing that's done to improve the stability of a connection).
Your distance from the exchange is no measure of the line length, as it's quite common for lines to follow indirect routes. Your present attenuation of 33 dB is consistent with the line length of 2.2 km that they told you. The previous aluminium cable would have had a higher attenuation, so 39 dB was about what would be expected.
To find out why your connection is unstable while your husband's isn't, you'll need to do some diagnosis as indicated in the link I gave you earlier. Good luck! :)
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Taken from the main site on the Interleaving (http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/interleaving.htm) page
It should also be pointed out that whilst BTw state that applying interleaving shouldn't reduce your line speed, it does reduce the maximum line rate achievable from 8128kbps to 7616kbps due to the additional overhead required for check bytes.
Note: although BT state 7616 is maximum sync speed with Interleaving, many instances of higher sync speeds have been reported by users. This is dependent upon your router being able to support S=1/2 mode which effectively combines two RS code words (http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/error_correction.htm#RS) into a larger logical code word of 510 bytes (ANSI T1.413).
Interleaving (http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/interleaving.htm) and Error Correction (http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/error_correction.htm) are always switched on at the same time and the 7616 profile has a 512kbps error correction overhead with an increased latency of around 16 ms.
Obviously as eric correctly says it also depends on you having sufficient overhead to be able to sync at the higher speed....
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Do you know of anyway to get the speedtouch to display the time on its own stats page. Am i missing something? I'm finding the "time since last boot" hard to decifer compared to the Netgear.
You may actually find the following page useful as it lists some of the common commands for the Speedtouch CLI on how to improve and tweak a couple of things. Its not actually linked live on the main site yet - as it was something I started a couple of weeks back, but didnt get chance to finish before my absence and it was an ongoing piece of work of any tweaks I made in my own router.
However, it does have all the info you need to set the date and time in the Speedtouch 585. (and a few more)
http://www.kitz.co.uk/routers/speedtouch585.htm
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Thanks Kitz that's very helpful. :)Interestingly, my husband's BT box actually tells him in the stats that interleaving is switched on. Shame all routers don't do this.
Roseway :), thanks - it's a helpful link - I am checking out those things but I don't understand how it could be anything local to me since the sync problem wasn't there until the BT engineer changed the pair over and fiddled around in the exchange. I have tried different filters, isolated my wiring by connecting from inside test-socket, tried different routers all to no avail when I was having poor throughput on my old line. No obvious Xmas trees or streetlights on etc that might be causing it. Finally for the throughput problem, the BT engineer came out and found various things wrong at exchange and changed pair over. Now I'm getting the sync problem which is new. Anyway, I suppose fitting an NTE5 socket might be worth a try. It's currently hard to test loss of sync in isolation otherwise as it requires my telephone to be out of use for a long time, unlike the 5 mins it takes just to test the throughput. However, I doubt it's my wiring as it wasn't a problem with the old pair.
B4dger - don't knock yourself - I find your posts very useful :)
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>> B4dger - don't knock yourself - I find your posts very useful
Agreed :)
.. and he good thing about forums is that various people all have things to say and we can all learn along the way :)
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>> B4dger - don't knock yourself - I find your posts very useful :)
>>Agreed :)
Thanks guys :blush:
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Hi again folks,
Thank you Roseway for directing me to that page. I ordered an NTE5 plate, it arrived today and I have just fitted it. In doing so, I noticed that the BT engineer when changing over my master socket on his visit had reconnected the orange bell wire to my extensions! (It had definitely been disconnected on the previous socket as I had read about how disconnecting it can help solve problems sometimes and I checked it was already disconnected when I developed the initial fault). I am wondering whether him reconnecting it is why I suddenly started to develop so much noise on my line.
Anyway as a result of fitting the NTE 5 plate, my sync speed is back up to 7.8M (from 5800 kbps this morning) and my profile also jumped (from 3000 kbps this morning) to 5000 kbps. So we shall see if things continue to improve and my IP profile/ SNR improve accordingly over the next few days if I don't lose sync any more. Fingers crossed!
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Oh what I didn't mention is that my throughput was only 646 kbps this morning at 6:30am (on a 3000kbps profile) and since changing the faceplate over, I am still only getting a pathetically low throughput of 735 kbps (noon) (on an IP profile of 5000kbps). SNR 12dB in both instances.
I should be getting more than this on a Tuesday lunchtime, surely? Any suggestions?
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I am wondering whether him reconnecting it is why I suddenly started to develop so much noise on my line.
Yes, that's quite possible.
Oh what I didn't mention is that my throughput was only 646 kbps this morning at 6:30am (on a 3000kbps profile) and since changing the faceplate over, I am still only getting a pathetically low throughput of 735 kbps (noon) (on an IP profile of 5000kbps). SNR 12dB in both instances.
I should be getting more than this on a Tuesday lunchtime, surely? Any suggestions?
If your IP profile is now at 5000 kbps then the connection isn't the cause of the problem. It could be serious congestion somewhere, throttling by your ISP, a problem with the speed tester server, or perhaps you need to adjust the MTU/RWIN values of your PC. For info on MTU/RWIN, see here. (http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/MTU2.htm) It might be worth trying a different speed test site just to make sure that isn't the problem.
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Thanks roseway. I got a much healthier 4.5M throughput this morning (still on 5000k bps profile). I started looking into MTU/RWIN yesterday - can you tell me whether MTU could still be the cause if the throughput issue is variable like this? If not, it will save me some work. I have windows XP, so don't need to look at RWIN, as it's dynamic, right?
Held onto the 8M sync overnight. I have great hope over this...
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I don't use Windows myself, so I can't really help with MTU/RWIN issues, but I rather doubt if that's the issue when it's so variable.
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>> I have windows XP, so don't need to look at RWIN, as it's dynamic, right
Correct its supposed to - but XP doesnt calculate it large enough with todays high speeds in mind and often vastly under estimates the ideal RWIN. Many years ago, when I went from 512 to 1Mb I doubled my RWIN.. then doubled it again when I went from 1Mb to 2Mb.. and so on and so on.
Its tweaking (decreasing) the MTU that stops packet fragmentation (which is when "the internet" can do weird things like not display some pages especially secure sites).
Tweaking (increasing) the Receive window size in line with your internet connection that can improve your speeds.
However for optimum rwin you cant just put "any figure" in and there is an accepted formula which you then apply the multiplier. Hence why I coded the MTU/rwin calculator (http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/tweak2.htm) which will calculate some recommended rwin settings based on your speed. Select your speed from the drop down box and your MTU and the image will change to show you which settings to put into Dr TCP.
If your syncing at around 8Mb then the following is a good setting to use as it has a built in allowance for speed fluctuations
MTU 1458 RWIN 153144
or my own personal favourite
MTU 1430 RWIN 166800
Having said all that though, as roseway states I doubt that the very low speeds you are seeing is attributable to MTU/RWIN. - despite the fact that I have seen it do many weird and wonderful things
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Thanks Kitz and Roseway - just for now then, I will put the MTU/RWIN possibilities aside, but it's something to try tweaking in the future. Still monitoring the throughput, but ISP tell me BTw won't act unless throughput is less than 450kbps on an up to 8M service, even when syncing at over 8M and with a profile of 5M+. Crazy!!!
On the other hand, since changing the faceplate (and disconnecting those bell-wires), my connection seems far more stable now at least. I am keen to try and get the IP profile up and then maybe my throughput will go up too.
Prior to replacing the faceplate, my IP profile was down to 3000kbps (12dB SNRM)
Immediately after I replaced it 2 days ago, my sync immediately went up to over 8M (12dB SNR Margin) and the IP profile increased instantly, but only to 5000kbps.
Then I had a single loss of sync yesterday lunchtime and resynced at 6.9M. The SNRM then went up to 15dB. Still I was at 5000kbps profile. I left it at this overnight and my IP profile was still only 5000kbps this morning.
I got tempted this morning and did a resync and got my 8M sync back. (I thought if the differential is at it's highest, then maybe the IP profile might adjust more quickly, but of course, I am causing a loss of resync when I reset so that will go against me).
So now I must wait and hope that within the next 5 days, I can stay at a constant high sync rate will not get any resyncs and that I get a higher profile.
I have some questions that I would appreciate some clarification on:
Why did my IP profile only go up to 5000kbps if my increase in sync speed after changing the faceplate was enough to kick it up immediately, rather than wait 5 days. Shouldn't it have gone up to 7000 kbps in line with the sync?
Immediately on resyncing this morning, my SNRM was still 15dB, but I am getting an 8064kbps sync. Does this mean that my actual target SNR is not set as high as 15dB at the exchange, as I understand that there is a 700kbps loss in potential sync speed for each 3dB the target SNR goes up by? So does this tell me that some of this is just margin on my line?
If I do ever get my profile up to 6000kbps or even 7000kbps (hopefully) by staying at high speed and no loss of sync for 5 days, how do disconnects affect it? How many am I allowed? What if I disconnect my router briefly, several times? Will that just affect the target SNR and not the IP profile so long as my resyncs are all at high speeds? (I understand that if the target SNR goes up then I may get the 700kbps drop per 3dB, but if it is already set to 15dB then it is at it's maximum anyway.)
Many thanks guys - you are being so helpful and Kitz, your site is really informative - thanks again! :)
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OK just did another speedtest:
Test1 comprises of Best Effort Test: -provides background information.
IP profile for your line is - 7000 kbps
DSL connection rate: 448 kbps(UP-STREAM) 8064 kbps(DOWN-STREAM)
Actual IP throughput achieved during the test was - 1229 kbps
Good news, my profile did go up as a result of my forced resync :)
Bad news is throughput is still dire!
... and my SNRM is now reading 11.5dB Goodness knows what the target is now then?
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Your IP profile is now only a smidgin short of the maximum, so it's probably not worth bothering about the target noise margin. Reconnections won't change things unless they are frequent, or you get a reconnection at a lower speed.
I suggest that you try the MTU/RWIN values suggested by Kitz, even if just to eliminate that as a cause of the low throughput. Otherwise it's down to congestion or throttling, with the latter being more likely I think, so you'll need to raise it (again) with your ISP.
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>> Otherwise it's down to congestion or throttling, with the latter being more likely I think,
I'm in total agreement with Roseway on this one. With congestion then you would NOT expect it to be low all the time - just at peak... and certainly not at 10am... and definitely not 646kbps at 6.30am
You can try putting your exchange details into the Usertools exchange checker (http://usertools.plus.net/exchanges/), to see if it throws anything up for your exchange.
I know a few months back there were quite a few complaints about the extent of Eclipse's traffic shaping, but I thought they were mostly to have this under control when they brought out their new packages last month... Just a thought - you arent on one of the Evo packages are you?
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Hi again folks
My ISP is going to disconnect me for " 30 mins testing" of my line hopefully later today. Meanwhile, i typed my exchange into the exchange checker and it came up with:
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: 26 Jun 08
Could this be the cause of my throughput problems? However, it only mentions "during busy times" and some of my problems were off-peak.
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I know a few months back there were quite a few complaints about the extent of Eclipse's traffic shaping, but I thought they were mostly to have this under control when they brought out their new packages last month... Just a thought - you arent on one of the Evo packages are you?
No I don't think so - I'm on "Home option 1", I believe.
I suggest that you try the MTU/RWIN values suggested by Kitz, even if just to eliminate that as a cause of the low throughput. Otherwise it's down to congestion or throttling, with the latter being more likely I think, so you'll need to raise it (again) with your ISP.
That will be my next step after i get the results of the ISPs tests. What might they be testing for, do you know?
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Hi again folks
My ISP is going to disconnect me for " 30 mins testing" of my line hopefully later today. Meanwhile, i typed my exchange into the exchange checker and it came up with:
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: 26 Jun 08
Could this be the cause of my throughput problems? However, it only mentions "during busy times" and some of my problems were off-peak.
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The red virtual paths won't help, but I think it's unlikely that this would explain the severity of the slowdowns.
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Echoing Erics comments - although the red VPs wont help - theres more to it than just exchange congestion.
Obviously I dont know for sure, but it seems like some form of throttling for it to be so slow.
Is there a possibility that you have exceeded a FUP? Your ISP should be able to check that.
Ive also just had a quick scan around a few places.. and as mentioned in my post above - it would appear that users on the "old Eclipse packages" still appear to be getting some pretty slow speeds. This was immediately resolved by Eclipse transferring them on to the new products that they released last month.
Be careful if you ask them to do that though - make sure the new packages suit you.. and also make sure that they dont lock you into another new contract.
It wont harm to ask them something like "In view of the appallingly low speeds would it be possible to temporarily - and without any penalty or changes to my contract- swap me over to one of the new profiles just to make sure its not throttling at your end."
A decent ISP should do that if asked.
I had some speed problems earlier this year, and my ISP swapped my profile over to another account type just to make sure. My speeds werent even anywhere near as low as yours but they were happy to do so just for a couple of days for the sake of elimination.
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HI guys - thanks for the tips. I'm still waiting on the ISP results. So far they just told me they weren't happy with the speeds they got from their results and are doing further tests, so I'm waiting to hear from them.
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Good luck and hopefully you will hear something soon
Please let us know how it goes
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Hi folks - my ISP have come back and said the slow throughput speeds they got during testing are something to do with an issue with my "connection username" as "The speeds shown from our testing of your account do not match up with testing of other connections on the same package as yours." Not sure what this means - any ideas? How can problems with my username slow down my throughput? Surely I'm either logged on correctly or I'm not?
They are investigating with their infrastructure department apparantly and i may need a temporary username while it is sorted out :-\
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Frankly it sounds like gibberish to me, but maybe what they meant was simply that there's some issue with the way your particular account is set up at their end.
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>> an issue with my "connection username"
Hmm ..
Your username is used to authenticate you on to the Eclipse RADIUS, and is also by what they will allocate your "profile". If the connection username was wrong then it wouldnt authenticate you on to their systems at all?
If your account had been allocated an incorrect profile then it should be a simple task for them to change that.
I could be totally wrong, but to me it sounds more like there is perhaps something wrong with the their profiles (on the older accounts)... and I wouldnt be surprised if the "temporary user-name" had a profile for one of their new types of accounts.
... or knowing how bad the old Evo throttling is - wondering if there is a shortage of bandwidth allocation for the old type accounts?
Either way issuing you with another type of account solves your problem in the meantime until they get a fix.. and it shuts you up.
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Hi again folks! Story getting even more bizarre: ISP sent me an email today saying they needed to call a BT engineer out to check my line & asking me to call in to them with available times. I was confused to say the least! Called in, guy who answered phone was as confused as me, he went away & made some enquiries and called me back. BT engineer not needed after all - email was sent to me in error!
In an embarrassed voice he told me that as a result of the Friday tests that they did, by logging on as me, they have discovered that the throughput problem is definitely internal to them and that it "doesn't happen very often that it is down to them, but this time it is and er... that I must have been very unlucky". That it had been escalated to their infra-structure dept. I asked if this was to do with my profile setup (as per Kitz's suggestion - I'm a good blagger as I am well out of my depth here!) and he replied "um.. it's not for me to say...but it could be" but "we are looking into it" and "we need to sort it out with some urgency!" He seemed to want to get off the phone before I asked any more questions, so now it has got me very curious...
I am now wondering how long I might have had this throughput problem going on exactly. When would my "profile" with them have been set up - would this be when I last changed my package with them?
I'd be grateful if someone could help clarify what exactly this ISP "profile" consists of so I have more info and at least sound more like I know what I'm talking about when discussing it with them? ;) (This is different from BT's IP profile obviously.) I presume that it has something to do with bandwidth and throttling at certain times of day? Is there more to it than that? How does it work? Why would it be particularly bad on a Tuesday morning at 6:30am, but better on a Wednesday?
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ISPs can control your throughput in all sorts of ways, and this is generally referred to as 'traffic management'. They will have a profile for each customer which specifies how that customer's traffic is managed. It looks as though your profile is wrongly set up for the package which you pay for. I find it very difficult to believe that correcting this should take very long.
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>> I find it very difficult to believe that correcting this should take very long
Agreed - hence my confusion as to whats going on.
If it was that much of a problem, then IMHO they should transfer the customer to one of their new packages without any penalty.
I dont know how much you are paying atm, and how that price would compare to their new packages.
but iirc unless you go for the 1GB account then the new packages may be a little bit more expensive?
All that I am aware of is that many of their "old" customers have seen immediate speed improvements once transfered on to the new type accounts. Are you still in a contract period?
When I say old customers I must stress I mean those on the Evolution package getting less than 1Mbps throughput immediately increasing to more or less full line speed.
It would appear there is still a problem with the Evo accounts and Eclipse are very aware that speeds on this type of account are much lower than they should be.. and they are still "tweaking".
However I dont honestly know how it is affecting the old "Home Accounts" and if they have been caught up in it too. The other thing is they have moved some of their customers to tiscali datastream to try and "free up" some bandwidth.. which can bring problems in itself :/
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I pay £15/month for a 2 GB allowance (and £6/m on top for all my phone calls!) . (However with all the speedtests they've been requesting lately, I've had to pay for a lot more GBs over the top of my normal usage the last few months). A 10GB allowance on a new home package from them is currently £18/m. I've never had a contract period with them. I joined back in the days when they were rated in the top 3 and they had a policy that they didn't lock you in back then as once you were with them, you would never want to leave :no:
I was put on Tiscali equipment around 2 years ago by them and that's when my problems first started. As a result, I started having loads of dropouts which they eventually fixed after several months. Just recently, as a result of the first part of this fault, they have moved me back to the BT equipt.
Been looking at ADSL24 - they offer a 3GB peak, 30GB off peak package for £16.50 and are highly rated on the DSLZone website. It's the hassle of changing my email address everywhere that stops me moving easily. With eclipse, you lose it virtually the minute you leave. However, now that BT are offering all calls for a similar figure (which was my other tie-in), i may well consider moving. Just gotta get the hundreds of places that i'm registered to reset set to a non-ISP email address first I guess! ???
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I would certainly recommend getting an ISP-independent email account, and the sooner the better. And also consider registering your own domain with a company like 123-reg to give you total independence from lock-in. This costs next to nothing (£6.56 for two years the last time I renewed mine) and allows you to keep email addresses of the form anyone@yourdomain.co.uk however much you swap your actual email accounts about.
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I was thinking about the "connection username" change, and last night the only logical reason I could think for that is:
Eclipse have purchased some more bandwidth, BUT are allocating this "pipe" only to those users on the new type accounts.
When you log-in the RADIUS authenticates the username and can be set to direct some types of accounts to certain centrals. Normally most ISPs will allow a user to use any of their central pipes that are available. However the RADIUS can be set so that different login domains are sent to specific pipes.
To do this the ISP has to set up different login domains in order to make sure that they are sent to a specific pipe.
For example when Ive done ISP testing in the past I would be issued with a different login name for eg me@myISP1.net takes me on to their normal centrals. me@myISP2.net takes me via different routing out on to the internet. Yet both logins are tied up to the same account with the same ISP.
When you mentioned it first, I think I was focusing on "the username" and didnt make the connection at the time with the login-domain which is the bit after the @ that changes
If Eclipse are allocating the additional bandwidth only to the new type accounts then it so makes sense that by changing your login domain (not account name) that in effect you are being put onto their new pipes which probably has plenty of spare bandwidth capacity.
Thinking about it - it fully explains why users on the old type accounts are seeing very slow speeds (the old pipes are full) yet their new accounts are fine.
I strongly suspect they were offering you a change of login domain when they said a change of "connection username" which in turn should bring your speeds back to normal.
>> Been looking at ADSL24 - are highly rated on the DSLZone website.
Just a note
- Both sites are owned by the same person.
- Be aware of the Enta ALT
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Well they haven't exactly offered me the new username yet :-\ - just said on Monday that they might have to move me onto one. I'm still waiting! I chased them today, fault is still with their networks department. So much for "urgency" on their part!
They've had seventeen different members of staff responding to me on this fault to date! Can't be many left!
>> Been looking at ADSL24 - are highly rated on the DSLZone website.
Just a note
- Both sites are owned by the same person.
- Be aware of the Enta ALT
Ah OK that's interesting! Do you know of any unbiased reviews for them?
What is Enta ALT please? Tried to google it but can only find your posts mentioning it elsewhere on the web Kitz (LOL). Is this a problem with ADSl 24 then? Some sort of throttling at 2M or something?
I would certainly recommend getting an ISP-independent email account, and the sooner the better. And also consider registering your own domain with a company like 123-reg to give you total independence from lock-in. This costs next to nothing (£6.56 for two years the last time I renewed mine) and allows you to keep email addresses of the form anyone@yourdomain.co.uk however much you swap your actual email accounts about.
I just looked at the 123-reg site, Eric. £2.70/ yr for domain plus 83p per month for each email address on top of that. I need three - could be quite expensive. Also read that many non ISP email providers' antispam systems block newsletters etc. I actually already suffer from this with my current ISP providing email - they keep blocking my moneysavingexpert.com weekly emails (originator has confirmed they have been sent out each week). Get only the odd one through. Also ISP is blocking my bouncebacks from undelivered mails (presumeably treating them as spam too). Any probs with reg123 doing that?
Are you able to send email via ISP using non-ISP address as originator (for replies), or do you have to log on especially to do that? Sorry if I sound a bit dim.
Thanks for all your help guys! :)
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I just looked at the 123-reg site, Eric. £2.70/ yr for domain plus 83p per month for each email address on top of that. I need three - could be quite expensive.
You don't need to buy the email addresses - those are the charges for using 123-reg's own email service. All you need is the domain, and you use the free email forwarding facility to forward your mails to the actual email service which you are using, which could be your ISP's email service or Googlemail, or any other email service. The big advantage is that you can change your actual email service whenever you want and just change the 123-reg forwarding details to suit, and none of your correspondents need to know that anything has changed - you just give them your personal domain email address and that never changes.
Enta ALT is a system which they use to avoid anyone's internet service grinding to a halt during very heavy periods. What they do is progressively slow down all the connections on a data pipe which is getting overloaded, so that everyone continues to get a usable service. The speed is never throttled below 2 Mbps, so for most normal purposes the connection is still fully usable. It only normally occurs during the latish evening peak time, for a couple of hours or so. I've been with Entanet (ADSL24) for a couple of months or so, and ALT has never impacted on my usage at all in any way I've noticed.
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Hi Eric - I understand how emails to my domain email can be forwarded to my ISP email but can it work the other way round? ie can I send from myname@myISP.co.uk and have it appear as coming from (ie going out via) myname@mydomain.co.uk so that people respond to that and not the former ISP address?
Have you had any probs with legitimate post being blocked by antispamware from them or is there no antispam provided when you have your own domain?
Thanks
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You receive the emails via your own domain, but send them using your actual email service supplier. Depending on what email client program you use, you should be able to specify a reply-to address which would be your domain email address, so that people reply to the right place.
There's no spam blocking or any other sort of intervention in the email forwarding.
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>>> Well they haven't exactly offered me the new username yet Undecided - just said on Monday that they might have to move me onto one
Certainly worth pushing them to pursue that.
If it is a new domain login ... iirc it may take about 5 working days for BTw to complete the change of realm (what its called in BT speak).
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You receive the emails via your own domain, but send them using your actual email service supplier. Depending on what email client program you use, you should be able to specify a reply-to address which would be your domain email address, so that people reply to the right place.
Aha - just played with my account settings and tried that out with an old tesco email address from dial up days that I have that is still active! Thanks - it worked. (Not sure if tesco will delete the address one day as I no longer use dial up, but it's good as a spare and they allow forwarding).
So with companies like reg123:
Is there any file size restriction/ pathetic mailbox storage as we do send large photo files from time to time.?Don't want any full mailbox/ filesize issues. What should I be looking for in terms of decent data storage?
Can you have more than one email address running from your own domain ie no extra cost?
>>> Well they haven't exactly offered me the new username yet - just said on Monday that they might have to move me onto one
Certainly worth pushing them to pursue that.
If it is a new domain login ... iirc it may take about 5 working days for BTw to complete the change of realm (what its called in BT speak).
I'll chase them Monday - thanks Kitz!
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Can you have more than one email address running from your own domain ie no extra cost?
You can have any number of separate names @yourdomain.co.uk. In the 123-reg control panel you can set up how these are handled. So you could (for example) forward mary@yourdomain.co.uk to one email service, john@yourdomain.co.uk to another, and so on. In my case I have eric@mydomain.co.uk and a couple of other names forwarded to my GMail address, and everything else is dumped, which helps to reduce spam.
By the way, I use 123-reg as the example because I'm familiar with it, but there are several other similar services which have much the same features and prices.
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By the way, I use 123-reg as the example because I'm familiar with it, but there are several other similar services which have much the same features and prices.
Thanks Eric! Yes I realise there are others too. Just didn't really understand how they worked. So file/ mailbox size not an issue with these people?
I am curious why you forward stuff to a gmail address from your own email address, and not to your ISP email address instead. Is there a good reason or doesn't it matter?
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Sorry to have wandered O/T Kitz.. you guys have been very helpful. :)
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I am curious why you forward stuff to a gmail address from your own email address, and not to your ISP email address instead. Is there a good reason or doesn't it matter?
Gmail provides a web interface for reading your email wherever you are, rather than downloading it to your PC, if you're out and about a lot. Another thought is that some ISP mail servers are very restrictive on the size of emails that can be received, meaning you might lose one completely if it gets forwarded and the ISP server rejects it. Gmail is much less likely to reject a large email, not sure on the upper limit but it's probably bigger than most ISP mailservers!
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I originally stopped using my ISP's email service because I found that some incoming emails were being blocked along the way as a result of some unacceptable behaviour by another customer of that ISP - one or two sites blocked a whole group of that ISP's IP addresses. I rather take the view that nobody would dare block mail destined for GMail. :)
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Well they have now put me on a new temporary username/ profile/ package at no extra cost or tie in I am told. Employee number 18 is now on the case- 5th supervisor to date! He says they can't immediately find anything wrong with my old profile so it might be something else, so they are going to test it further. ???
Now it needs to be monitored and see if this was the issue or if it was something else...
Can anyone clarify - if the variable/low throughput problem still continues, could it perhaps be a VP issue between the exchange and ISP. Would the VP remain the same even if my profile has been switched over or will this be a new VP? Sorry if i sound a bit dim...
Gmail provides a web interface for reading your email wherever you are, rather than downloading it to your PC, if you're out and about a lot. Another thought is that some ISP mail servers are very restrictive on the size of emails that can be received, meaning you might lose one completely if it gets forwarded and the ISP server rejects it. Gmail is much less likely to reject a large email, not sure on the upper limit but it's probably bigger than most ISP mailservers!
Yes this is one aspect of my ISP that i have been happy with. It allows giant file sizes, I have never had any problems. Just curious why you might forward email to Gmail for purely mobility reasons. ISPs offer webmail which can do that.
I originally stopped using my ISP's email service because I found that some incoming emails were being blocked along the way as a result of some unacceptable behaviour by another customer of that ISP - one or two sites blocked a whole group of that ISP's IP addresses. I rather take the view that nobody would dare block mail destined for GMail. :)
Ah , I think I am starting to see - you can only forward mail with the domain service, but not view it in a mailbox - is that right (unless you pay the 83p). Otherwise, what else does forwarding to someone like gmail add. (I can see that forwarding to an ISP mailbox means that you can download the mail to your pc, whereas Gmail, presumeably you have to log on first).
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Ah , I think I am starting to see - you can only forward mail with the domain service, but not view it in a mailbox - is that right (unless you pay the 83p). Otherwise, what else does forwarding to someone like gmail add. (I can see that forwarding to an ISP mailbox means that you can download the mail to your pc, whereas Gmail, presumeably you have to log on first).
Yes, sorry if I didn't make that clear. The forwarding facility is just a sort of router - emails come in and are redirected somewhere else without being stored. So the emails end up in whatever mailboxes you have forwarded them to, and you access them in the same way as emails sent directly there.
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could it perhaps be a VP issue between the exchange and ISP. Would the VP remain the same even if my profile has been switched over or will this be a new VP?
Since we last talked about VPs I noticed this "I was put on Tiscali equipment around 2 years ago by them".
Ive just had a thought... Do you by any chance know if thats tiscali LLU or tiscali datastream?
- either way the BTw status checker wont apply.
But just had a thought.. if youre on so called "tiscali datascream" - then you will still be going through the same tiscali VP. - See IPStream -v- Datastream (http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/adsltype.htm).
May be worthwhile asking Eclipse if youre on tiscali datastream and if there could be a problem with the datastream VP :'(
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Hi Kitz - it must have been datastream as I read somewhere a while back (an ISP avail checker I think) that there is No Tiscali LLU available at my local exchange. I only found out that I'd been moved to Tiscali as a BT engineer they called out for me back then (for multiple dropouts that I was getting at the time) told me - oops!!! ISP seemed to want to keep it quiet, but did confirm I was on Tiscali when i asked them (but said they were glad I had said it and not them cos they weren't allowed to tell people).
Anyway, they moved me back to BT equipment a month ago as I was complaining of low throughput and sync speeds (was getting 3.5M compared to 8M sync currently). My sync speed went back up as a result (plus they changed my copper pair over), but the throughput issue has become the latest problem. So it is only the last month that I've been using the BT speedtest site along with the Speedtest.net site to check the results. Prior to this they had me using a different couple of speedtest sites.
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That was a load of waffle but basically I haven't been on any Tiscali equipt for the last month or so.
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Just checking
- Can you log onto the bt startup_domain (http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/bttest.htm)
- or can you log into the Tiscali Test login (http://www.kitz.co.uk/isp/tiscali_llu.htm)
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OK just tried: definitely cannot log onto Tiscali (and I could a month ago before they changed me over back to BT). However, since the changeover, I have never been able to logon to BT directly and bypass the ISP. The speedtest site has asked me to do this a few times for a secondary test when throughput has got really low and I can't get it to work. I can get the Big blue BT picture up whilst logged on with my ISP, just can't navigate to the site at all once I have entered the BT login details in my router. Have checked I entered them correctly several times. Told ISP the other day, they said it was most likely a problem with the BT site.
However, when I do a BT first level speed test, it does come back and tell me my IP profile speed, impying it does recognise me.
Worked immediately after getting the new username yesterday several times.Except this morning: Tried 3 times an hour apart and I've been getting:
Unexpected result received when querying the network to find your services connection details. Please try again shortly, but if this problem persists raise the issue with your service provider
Be grateful if you can make anything of this...
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Worked immediately after getting the new username yesterday several times.Except this morning: Tried 3 times an hour apart and I've been getting:
Unexpected result received when querying the network to find your services connection details. Please try again shortly, but if this problem persists raise the issue with your service provider
When I say it worked, I'm referring to the initial BT speedtest through ISP, not the logging on direct to BT minus the ISP.
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>> just can't navigate to the site at all once I have entered the BT login details in my router
That could be a DNS lookup problem.
But the main thing is you are on the BT IPStream.. sorry about the diversion.
As regards to the message, the BTw performance tester is often quirky to say the least and often seems to throw up strange errors if its busy. :/
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Oh Well.. here's the latest...
ISP now say it's not them after all. Their tests they did the other day gave wrong readings implying it was due to their network (and this was apparantly because they themselves are on a very small exchange and I think they said "suffer from congestion at busy times").
Anyway they now say my low throughput is due to contention on my exchange by BT (even when it occurs at strange times of day like 6:30 am) and that my exchange is still showing as congested on their system and due to get work completed to fix this.
Remember this:
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: 26 Jun 08
BTs completion date for this was 2 weeks ago but ISP say as it has not been updated, the work has not been completed yet.
So anything more I can do? Does this all make sense?
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I'm back on my old username now... :-\
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OK I'm out of suggestions now.
The contention thing doesnt ring true - not at 6.30am.
I'll tell you a story here...
One of the reasons why I kinda got so involved in adsl in the first place is because of contention. My own exchange has a very long history of contention. The first one in the UK that BT admitted suffered from it way back in 2003.. and it periodically suffers bad contention, and its one of the reasons why for so many years I paid extra to go on 20:1.
When visiting others homes on this exchange, I even see signs of it on some of the LLU operators such as TT and even Sky.
This exchange has suffered bad over the years, weve seen speeds down to <100 kbps when 512 was the norm, and <300kbps when 2Mbps was the norm. But one thing with exchange contention is that it varies over the course of the day.. and by around the early hours you should be able to get much better speeds. The fact that yours doesnt vary implies something else. :(
The following is what really bad exchange contention looks like (see graph at bottom).
http://www.kitz.co.uk/contention/11thJuly.htm
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Hmm.. the ISP said to me that if someone selfish was sharing my VP and had a download box and was downloading at that early hour, it would use up much of the available bandwidth and cause my contention issue, whatever the time of day. He seemed to think that BT should sort it with their fix, but couldn't tell me when that might happen since they are currently shown as overdue. Also implied that this could recur as the new bandwidth gets used up. It's so frustrating not being able to speak to the local BT engineers themselves. I feel like knocking on the door of the exchange and asking them what the status is!
So should I try and get moved back to the Tiscali datastream now, I wonder?
I haven't a clue what to do now!
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The fact that yours doesnt vary implies something else. :(
Thing is, it does vary, but in reverse to what you might expect. My worst speeds ~ 2M are either early (6:30am) or mid morning or mid afternoon. In the evening, I am getting 6M quite often. Really strange!
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Question just occured to me: if contention is an issue on the VPs to my ISP, would this vary depending on the ISP? Would I get better with another ISP? Do Bt have better capacity for themselves as ISP?
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BT did *an upgrade* in the midst of when I was recording those stats.. The effect it had was a slight improvement in speed.
eg they went from 300 to 500 kbps at peak... back then they increased in "chunks" and obviously hadnt increased it by enough.
Things are a little bit different these days in that BT now use SuperVPs, therefore VPs arent as small and theres more users on more bandwidth, which helps avoid the effect of just a handful of people being able to max out the VP.
For maxdsl they use MSANs with larger backhauls.. and exchange contention shouldnt be as drastic as it was several years ago.
600-700 day and night isnt normal.. even if you did have a dozen heavies at that exchange, then bandwidth would still increase in the early hours when all the other "normal users" on that MSAN free up their bandwidth.
Do you know anyone on a BT (or other IPStream MAX connection) to ask what sort of thing they are seeing at your exchange? If its only small then theres likely only one MSAN.
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Question just occured to me: if contention is an issue on the VPs to my ISP, would this vary depending on the ISP? Would I get better with another ISP? Do Bt have better capacity for themselves as ISP?
The VPs are a mix of all IPStream ISPs and no preference at all is given to BTBroadband.
Hence why I was wondering what others at your exchange are seeing.
You must make sure they are on MAX though. If they are on a fixed rate product, then they will likely still be on the old DSLAMs.
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My husband is on BT business broadband - he gets a better contention ratio - 20:1 presumeably? I asked my ISP about that. I was told that they have similar products, but they cost around £50/month.
I will ask around and see what others are getting...
From the Sam knows website: my exchange supports 4,860 residential premises & 417 non-residential premises. Would that be just one MSAN (whatever that is ;)) Any other way of telling?
He said that the temporary username that I'd been given had had no contention applied. He was seeing a different (higher) "pull" from his end than I was seeing. This led him to the conclusion that it was contention at the exchange and not their network or my line at fault.
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>> BT business broadband - he gets a better contention ratio - 20:1 presumeably?
Yes - so its unfair to compare like for like... although its still likely to see some form, but just not as much. Ive still seen it on 20:1 on occasions, but no-where near as bad.
>> I asked my ISP about that. I was told that they have similar products, but they cost around £50/month.
The ISP I was with (Plusnet) do it for £8 per month on top of whatever account youre on. eg £14.99 +£8. You also get the increased upstream speed (832 kbps).
Theres a couple of others that also offer it for a bit extra, such as Enta and Vispa, but you'd have to check prices with them since I cant recall off the top of my head.
>> my exchange supports 4,860 residential premises & 417 non-residential premises
Obviously not all of those will have adsl.. and some will be on fixed rate.. so yes likely just one MSAN. My own exchange has more than double those figures and only one MSAN which can support several thousand lines.
>> (whatever that is)
See pics - http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/telephone_exchange.htm
>> Any other way of telling?
Nope - there was an ISP site that did tell you up to a few years ago.. but BTw made them take the info down :/
>> He was seeing a different (higher) "pull" from his end than I was seeing.
Sorry, I dont know what he meant by that.
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>> He was seeing a different (higher) "pull" from his end than I was seeing.
Sorry, I dont know what he meant by that.
Well, he got me to download a file and the speed I saw whilst downloading was around 450kB/s, whereas he was monitoring his end and saw 500kB/s. Then he got me to download a second file at the same time which for me was around 70 kB/s. The total he monitored his end for the two files was greater than I was seeing my end (he was seeing me hit 6000kbps but fluctuating somewhat), hence his conclusion.
He went away and tested my line from his end and called back and confirmed that it was a BT contention issue.
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>> saw whilst downloading was around 450kB/s,
Thats 3600 kbps.. and whilst not great and slow for an 8Mbps thats within acceptable contention parameters.. when/what time was that?
Are you still seeing the very low speeds?
The difference between 450 KB/Sec and 500 KB/Sec could very well be things like TCP/IP/ATM overheads. Without a doubt he will be seeing the overheads - you may just be seeing the throughput speed http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/speeds2.htm
The difference between those 2 figures seem about right for overheads...
The reason why our routers will say sync at 8128 yet the maximum throughput speed we will ever see is around 7Mbps is because of overheads.
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That was around 4pm. However, at other "quiet" times of day eg 6:30 am, I've been getting as low as 1.9M and then evenings, I can get 6M, all on 6500 profile...just seems bizarre that the slower speeds are happening at the quieter times and vice versa. I would understand it if it was the other way around.
Thanks for explaining the overheads :)
Is it worth me tweaking those settings you mentioned before Kitz?
I guess otherwise I must just wait and see if BT's fix changes anything.
I'm gonna get a reprofile in the next few days anyway since the noise on my line from BT reconnecting the bellwires mucked it up before. Should get a better Fault threshold out of them at least and hopefully SNRM will decrease as instability has largely gone now. Maybe I will get some better speeds from that. :)
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>> I've been getting as low as 1.9M and then evenings, I can get 6M,
Ahh.. thats an improvement than the other week? Now we are into the the realms of contention speeds - whether it be ISP or exchange I dont know... But what is weird is that it is "the wrong way round".
Wonder if a pile of users who get free off peak usage that doesnt count towards the monthly allowance are on your exchange/ISP. ?
Tweaking (http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/tweak2.htm) certainly wont harm. Try the settings shown in the image . Select your speed from the drop down menu.
Hake also brought up an interesting topic about Window Scaling, TimeStamping and contention/congestion in this thread (http://forum.kitz.co.uk/index.php?topic=2413.msg71882#msg71882). Ive not noticed TimeStamping making any difference on my own line.. but then again Im not seeing any contention right now. So worth a try.
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Well I have "tweaked". To be honest, I'm not sure how to tell if it made any difference as my throughput is so variable, but hey whatever I can do to maximise it is great :) Thanks Kitz!
The tweak tester program said I wasn't pingable - does that matter in my case?
I noticed my timestamping is off anyway and black hole is set to yes rather than default as per the image. Does that matter?
Window scaling said it was set to 2.
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Ah OK just read the link - it's recommended to try it switched on, right?
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OK just did that T/S now switched on - well speedtests this morning were good, will see how they vary throughout the next few days.
My MTU figure was previously blank and my top receive window figure was 450120 now set to 204192. Does that mean it was a long way out from ideal before?
The adapter setting keeps resorting to "1394 Net adapter"when I go back in even though I save it as "Ethernet controller" for my router.
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Ooh interesting, I just tried to download the same file that the ISP asked me to do yesterday to look at the speed and not only was the speed up at 776 kB/s (6249kbps)(as opposed to the 450 kB that i saw yesterday) - OK this could just be doing it's usual varying as it does throughout the day, but it is normally much worse in the mornings - BUT VERY VERY NOTICEABLE was the fact that the download speed settled down quickly to a constant value and wasn't jumping around all over the place as it usually does whatever the time of day and the throughput. I will test it again later and see if it is still the same.
Am I right? Would the tweaking have this stabilising effect? The ISP yesterday also noticed the jumping around from his end of things.
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Eric - side issue again : do the companies like 123-reg give you plenty of advance warning when your registration is about to expire? (ie what if you're on holiday!) Thanks
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123-reg send you an email giving 60 days notice of the expiry of your domain, but it probably makes good sense to keep your own reminder anyway.
I'm not ignoring your questions about MTU by the way, but as I don't use Windows I know very little about the subject.
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Thanks eric :) I am definitely going to sort out my own domain.
It does seem that my download speed has signidficantly stabilised as a result of the tweaking.
Does anyone have any ideas about the questions that I posted above. i'd be grateful for input - thanks :)
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>>> The adapter setting keeps resorting to "1394 Net adapter"when I go back in even though I save it as "Ethernet controller" for my router.
I think thats just the way DrTCP lists the order in the drop down box. As long as you have selected the correct adapter and applied the MTU to that, then its ok.
>> my top receive window figure was 450120 now set to 204192.
What MTU value are you using?
>> BUT VERY VERY NOTICEABLE was the fact that the download speed settled down quickly to a constant value and wasn't jumping around all over the place as it usually does whatever the time of day and the throughput. I will test it again later and see if it is still the same.
Yes please do, this could be one of the effects of enabling TimeStamping that Hake and I were discussing in that other thread... and how it's said it may be beneficial on congested lines. Its a bit of a suck it and see area though.. and since neither I nor hake are experiencing congestion, we havent been able to see any benefit, so were not sure if it does work or not.
MTU tweaking is and can be a bit of a grey area, in that some tweaks work better on some lines than others.
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>> my top receive window figure was 450120 now set to 204192.
What MTU value are you using?
1458 (was previously blank)
>> BUT VERY VERY NOTICEABLE was the fact that the download speed settled down quickly to a constant value and wasn't jumping around all over the place as it usually does whatever the time of day and the throughput. I will test it again later and see if it is still the same.
Yes please do, this could be one of the effects of enabling TimeStamping that Hake and I were discussing in that other thread... and how it's said it may be beneficial on congested lines. Its a bit of a suck it and see area though.. and since neither I nor hake are experiencing congestion, we havent been able to see any benefit, so were not sure if it does work or not.
MTU tweaking is and can be a bit of a grey area, in that some tweaks work better on some lines than others.
It does seem to be consistently more settled and the download speed does indeed seem to be higher. Lowest I've got since changing the MTU and T/S settings has been 650kB/s versus the 450kB/s i was getting when my ISP asked me to try downloading that file a couple of days ago. Can't say whether it was due to the T/S or the new MTU settings though. :-\
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Can't say whether it was due to the T/S or the new MTU settings though. :-\
Meaning - I think one of these settings has helped but not sure which one!
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>> 1458 (was previously blank)
Ah thanks - RWIN of 204192 is for lines syncing at full 8Mb, since youre getting more like 6Mb speeds then 153144 should work well too.
>> Meaning - I think one of these settings has helped but not sure which one!
If its now working much better - which it seems to be - as there's quite an improvement.. then leave alone :lol:
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>> 1458 (was previously blank)
Ah thanks - RWIN of 204192 is for lines syncing at full 8Mb, since youre getting more like 6Mb speeds then 153144 should work well too.
>> Meaning - I think one of these settings has helped but not sure which one!
If its now working much better - which it seems to be - as there's quite an improvement.. then leave alone :lol:
Hi Kitz
I'm syncing at between 7500-8000 kbps consistently, but throughput is around 6M (limited by current profile 6500)- should that RWIN value be set for the sync or the throughput value?
Just did another download speed test 780 kBps - not bad for Fri 5pm. Got similar all day. I'm wondering if they've completed the fix at the exchange too!
Thanks for all your help Kitz and Eric - I'm a happy bunny now!
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>> but throughput is around 6M (limited by current profile 6500)- should that RWIN value be set for the sync or the throughput value
Its said to be sync - its my own preference to set for average throughput speed, and what Ive found works for me. My theory is that if you dont always get the higher speed then just take it down a notch. The lower figure I recommended gives an allowance for that fact.
>> ust did another download speed test 780 kBps - not bad for Fri 5pm.
Indeed - those speeds are much better and what you'd expect to see around this time of the evening.
There will always be some sort of contention during the evenings 6.25 Mbps is a fair figure and considered acceptable :)
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Hi folks, i'm back.
I have a couple of questions...
My ISP have agreed to ask BT to have me reprofiled. It was supposed to have started over a week ago. However, when BT last did that, the SNRM on my router stats started off at 6dB and only grew to 12-15dB over the next few days because at the time I was getting lots of loss of syncs.
- I have not had loss of sync at all in the last 5 days since the reprofile was supposedly instigated, yet there seems to have been no reset of target SNR at the exchange by BT as part of the initiation process. It has remained at 12-15dB all along. I would have expected it to start out again at 6dB like last time and I have been watching it closely. Does this suggest BT haven't started the reprofiling properly? There has been no reason for it to rise above 6dB as i haven't had any disconnects/ losses of sync.
(I got my first loss of sync this morning since the supposed reprofile 5 days ago. When it reconnected, I got 12dB SNRM on my router immediately on reconnection) - When i got the loss of sync today, my usually consistent downstream attenuation went from 33dB to 32dB. I thought this was a stable figure and didn't change? Have BT been playing with my line, I'm wondering?
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What speed are you connecting at now? Looking at the speeds you mentioned a couple of messages ago, it may be the case that you are now connecting at the maximum speed with some noise margin to spare, which would be an excellent result.
A small change in the reported attenuation has no significance. The reported figure is a sort of average of the attenuation of the different frequencies being used, and these have probably changed a bit now with the improved conditions.
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Hi Eric
Well I have been getting 7M+ consistently just recently (profile still 6.5M), but this morning i had my frst loss of sync for 5 days. I reconnected at 6.3M. I noticed it about three hours later and diconnected and got my 7M+ sync back. However, I then did a BT speedtest for throughput (profile now down to 5.5M cos of the blip) and the test failed and asked for a second test (which I can never get to work). I then downloaded a large file to look at the transfer rate. I was only getting 60kBps so around 480kbps. Something strange is happening today!
I would be happy with the 12dB target SNRif i was syncing at the max, but I am not. I do occassionally get 8.014M, but 5 days ago i resynced at 7.4M and I just left it there to see what happened as I am supposed to be being reprofiled at the moment. I just think I may get the 8M more often if they reset the target SNR.
Even with that theory you mention, would I not have seen an initial 6dB SNRM when reprofile first initiated as i did last time?
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Oh sorry - meant to say throughput has been pretty good recently pre-today. Whilst syncing at 7M+, was getting 5-6Mbps. Am wondering whether BT are carrying out VP work on my exchange today. It is still showing as Red on the exchange page.
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>> Even with that theory you mention, would I not have seen an initial 6dB SNRM when reprofile first initiated as i did last time?
Not necessarily if you were connecting at the maximum speed. The target noise margin isn't a fixed value at sync time, it's simply the lowest value which will be allowed. If your line can connect at the maximum speed with a higher margin than the target, then it will do so.
However this is perhaps academic in your case. It does look as though BT have only lowered your taget noise margin by one notch, from 15 dB to 12 dB. Personally I think your best bet is to leave it as is for a couple of weeks and see how it goes. If your target margin were to be set right down to 6 dB you might very well find that your connection becomes unstable, resulting in the target margin getting bumped straight up again.