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[Black Sheep]

Had a business customer FTTC fault that had seen 3 previous engineers attend site. You could hit the FTTC Cabinet with a good arrow, so the full 80/20 Meg product was expected.

As per our remit, a successful PQT was carried out, along with the required Eclipse Test and DSL Close-out (Synch & Data) Test. Everything was perfect, not a single FEC/CRC even with the landline in use on 'Quiet Line Test'. Exactly as the previous engineers had done.

The issue was, that the EU was only getting throughput speeds of approx 5Meg DS and 0.3Meg US. I double-checked for 'Tees' and REIN/RFI and was certain there was nothing untoward. The EU then suggested I spoke with the IT Company who maintain his comms, which I did. Luckily for me, I got the actual MD of the company as he doesn't generally man the phone but a lot of his staff were on a training event.

Straightaway, he found an issue with the firmware of the Draytek Router, and after 5-10 mins it re-synched and we then got approx 20Meg DS and 8Meg US. He then mentioned (and this is where my thread is leading to), QoS parameters being wrong ?? Whatever he did remotely, within another 5 mins the throughput was at 76Meg DS and 18.8 Meg US. Brilliant result. Although he was none too pleased his other staff had not picked up on this, when raising the 3 Openreach engineering visits. 

I couldn't get hold of one of the previous engineers, and can only assume it was they that in the words of the EU, "Removed the Draytek and connected up 2 BT Hubs, (1 business and 1 residential) and still could only get the 5Meg DS throughput speeds", as the other 2 engineers didn't comment that they had done this. So my question is, what do the QoS parameters do ?? They obviously play a part in reducing throughput speeds at the DSLAM or somewhere else other than inside the router, as when one of our own Hubs was connected it had no effect ??

I hope this makes sense reading it ??

[GigabitEthernet]

Indeed it does .

QoS is a very useful thing to have, but it is important to set it up correctly. We use it on our router, so my brother can be gaming, I can be streaming, all at the same time, for example.

But, if it isn't set up correctly, just loading websites is slow, so getting QoS setup properly really is of paramount importance .

[burakkucat]

I guess the quick test would be to turn off all QoS and recheck the throughput.

Another test might be to remove the router and connect a JDSU (or EXFO) HHT directly to the LAN1 port of the Openreach modem. (Using the HHT to emulate a PPPoE client device.)

I must say that I am surprised that a simple throughput issue had been referred back to Openreach -- surely that should have been the responsibility of the CP/ISP? 

[Black Sheep]

Thanks for the replies guys. What I'm trying to determine though is can QoS be applied elsewhere other than at the router ?? If the EU is to be believed (and there's no reason not to), new Hub's were tried on the circuit but to no avail. The PPP was there, but only giving 5Meg DS throughput.

Only when the gentleman changed QoS parameters/gates, did it make a difference. So the changes must have been made elsewhere in the circuit, not at the router ?? It's where that I'm trying to work out ??

It wasn't BT Retail (ISP) at fault here, rather the 're-seller' who's staff didn't pick up on the firmware/QoS issues. Cheers guys. 

[GigabitEthernet]

I suspect that QoS was applied on the reseller's router (the router that provides the EU's IP address). Plusnet use a similar system.

[Black Sheep]

Aha, that's what I'm after. 

So, in your opinion, could this situation arise often ?? We get quite a few reports of slow throughput, but the synch speeds are always as they should be. I'm fully aware of other issues that can cause this, but I have never heard of the QoS gates affecting it before ?? It may be a question I 'm going to start asking when dealing with the IT Support staff, in whatever guise ??

Thanks again.

[GigabitEthernet]

I don't know many big ISPs that use it, apart from Plusnet and even they've toned it down a great deal. I don't think it will cause anywhere near as large a drop as the EU experienced here.

What's happened here is QoS has been set so that the bandwidth is capped to a slow speed, whereas in most cases, QoS simply priorities traffic based on the protocol, ports used and so on; there aren't usually hard caps placed on traffic.

Speaking from personal experience of our router, we can set up a QoS rule, for example an iPlayer rule, so that iPlayer is capped to 3.5Mbps, but this is usually bad as iPlayer cannot use any more bandwidth, even if the connection isn't saturated, so in effect, you're just wasting bandwidth. Thus, like the EU has experienced here, even if the line has lots more bandwidth available, the line will never be able to use any more as there is a physical bandwidth cap applied.

In summary then, QoS wouldn't be setup by default (at least I don't think so) to cap a user's speeds so significantly, so I don't you should be too concerned .

I hope that makes sense. It did in my head!

[kitz]

>> The issue was, that the EU was only getting throughput speeds of approx 5Meg DS and 0.3Meg US. I double-checked for 'Tees' and REIN/RFI

Bit surprised that this actually got as far as a BToR engineer if the line was syncing at the correct speed.   Who was the ISP/reseller do you know?

QoS set on the router cant affect sync speed and you should easily be able to check for this problem by using your own equipment and taking the modem/router out of the equation.

>>  is can QoS be applied elsewhere other than at the router ?


QoS is usually applied at the router/network switch when it comes to businesses, although Ive  used Netlimiter (software run on the local PC) to prioritise my own traffic in the days when we had slower internet connections and certain apps that would consume most of your bandwidth if you let it.   Ive even used QoS on my router to prioritise my connection over the brats - again from when she used to stream and could consume all the bandwidth if I let her.   However these days with faster connections, I dont see that many home users that use QoS other perhaps someone techie controlling kids bandwidth.

It is still common-place in businesses who have LANs to make sure one PC or one type of traffic doesnt affect everyone and one of the reasons why Cisco routers are so popular for businesses because of its strong capabilities in this area.

Im with b*cat on this one.  I cannot see how any shaping performed at the router level, can possibly affect the DSLAM.  If you remove the router and test using your JDSU/ own equipment from the master socket then problems of this nature should immediately become apparent. 

----
 

The QoS performed by certain ISPs is different,  theres several ISPs that use ISP based QoS today including BTretail.
Even BTw apply QoS on their network and they also offer it as a service to ISPs, by performing QoS near to the RAS, for those BTw based ISPs who dont have their own resources to be able to do so.

There was a rumour - and very likely true  - that one of the reasons BT bought Plusnet because their Network guys were actually the most experienced in the UK when it came to applying QoS based on type of traffic rather than the previously used ports.   Plusnet became petty much hated in "certain circles", because of their QoS packet shaping which was pretty clever and for the first time leechers werent able to get around the traffic shaping by simply using different ports as the ellacoyas were able to detect p2p, no matter how they dressed it up.  I know for a fact that one of their network guys, was considered at that time the UKs leading expert in this type of technology which then was in its infancy.   These days its much more commonplace and off the top of my head only Zen and AAISP dont use some form of packet shaping QoS.

When BT stopped making stats available to routers, they bit themselves in the butt..  its less easy now for a home user to see if slow speeds are a result of a low sync, or a problem on the EU's network.  This  means much more work for ISP helpdesks..  and in turn BToR engineers being sent out to problems that arent BTs responsibility in the first place

[Black Sheep]

Thanks for the replies guys, another learning curve for me.

We (Openreach engineers), all knew there was no issue with the DSLAM or its performance. I have no idea who the re-seller was I'm afraid, it was the EU that made the call to them.

I think Alec has hit the nail on the head, the QoS throttling has been done at the re-sellers end, rather than at the EU's router. This was proven by a new Hub being installed and throughput tests run.
As I've mentioned before, we do have instances whereby full attainable synch is present, but throughput is poor (REIN/Bridged Tap). Our testers can't check for throughput so we need to be able to connect through the EU's router, or by installing one off our van where possible.

So once we'd ruled out the EU's router as being the major problem (apart from the firmware upgrade required), that's when the call was made and when QoS was first mentioned. I've not come across this before, but could understand how the EU's router had the capability to have changes made by way of QoS. What I wasn't aware of, was that QoS could also be applied 'beyond the DSLAM', at the re-sellers end.

As Alec states, it's probably a very rare occurrence by way of a fault scenario, but to my mind if its happened once, it can happen again. So its with thanks to this great site that I can file this information away somewhere in my failing memory, for possible future use. 

[kitz]

Straightaway, he found an issue with the firmware of the Draytek Router, and after 5-10 mins it re-synched and we then got approx 20Meg DS and 8Meg US. He then mentioned (and this is where my thread is leading to), QoS parameters being wrong ?? Whatever he did remotely, within another 5 mins the throughput was at 76Meg DS and 18.8 Meg US. Brilliant result. Although he was none too pleased his other staff had not picked up on this, when raising the 3 Openreach engineering visits.

I had another read of this ^ and Im beginning to think the term 'QoS' may be a red herring?
There's 2 issues here... 
1) the router firmware issue - whatever that was...  but possibly sounds like needed some sort of upgrade for fttc parameters... no idea.

2) the EUs account was on the wrong account profile with the ISP.  All ISPs have the ability to 'cap the line' at their end, which limits the maximum throughput.  The 20Mb/8Mb sounds more like some sort of hard cap to me rather than QoS.   If the ISP had a hard cap limiting to say 20/10, then even if you guys took the router off and connected your own equipment, then the max speed you would get would be restricted by whatever the ISP had set at their end.   Theres quite a lot of 'specialist' ISPs for business users who resell BTw based products but limited with their own caps.  The residential ISPs tend to closely follow BTw, but for commercial DSL, theres a lot more variation in the headline speeds which they sell at.   
By dressing it up as 'QoS' it perhaps doesnt sound as bad as not having switched the EU's account type over on their systems.

[Black Sheep]

Not my forte, Kitz, so can't really comment other than the guy I spoke to on the phone (The actual MD of the company) seemed as honest as the day was long ?? He didn't need to admit to the router having the original firmware, or that there were QoS failings. He could have done whatever needed doing, and made something up I suppose ??

He even looked into the previous call-handlers in relation to the fault, named them to me and said he would be having a word in their shell-like. He was also appreciative that the total cost of Openreach engineering visits, would likely fall at his feet. As I say, I can only relate what was being said to me, and he came over as a very genuine guy.     

[GigabitEthernet]

Starting to agree with Kitz tbh. What I was describing as QoS simply comes under that section in our router: it's not actually QoS per say; it's just a bandwidth cap.

So, I'd disregard what I said before. Sorry for the mis-information .

[Ronski]

I don't know about QoS, but what Kitz said about the product not being updated does make sense, had they only just changed to FTTC? I've seen it happen before on PlusNet, but only with the DS speed. A user moved from ADSL to FTTC, and his download speed remained the same as before - the PN profile had not been updated.

[Black Sheep]

Yes, he had upgraded to FTTC about 3 weeks previous but had obviously never had the correct T/Put speeds. He had a Draytek router plugged into the Openreach modem with ADSL2+ embossed on it. Hence me asking if it was compatible and the subsequent call to his IT people.