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[Weaver]

The thing that bothers me about the low upstream is that it is a mismatch vs the others, and this may, for all I know, have a bad effect on the workings of the traffic splitting algorithm that the Firebrick’s upstream egress subsystem uses. If the lowest link speed affects the total effective upstream rate disproportionately then that is a bad thing, whether it be because it is mismatched compared with the next-to-slowest, or compared to the fastest link rate. I don’t know what it is that matters, the slowest speed, or the size of the gap, or what.

Upstream is important to me because it’s so slow anyway, it’s a nightmare: uploading photos and doing a backup that can take 40 mins [!]. So I am determined to get the very best upstream effective total rate that I can. I have been through periods when I was for some reason not getting the effective total that I should be when all allowances for overheads are deducted and this is compared with much superior historical rates that are fine comparing the effective combined total rate to that expected from calculations including overheads. Then later on such sub-optimal combined effective performance just goes away. Recently the effective combined vs calculated total has been incredibly good, >%90 even.

[johnson]

Off topic and possibly totally irrelevant, but I was reading this evening about the large amount of changes merged into the upcoming 5.6 linux kernel, one that caught my eye (apart from the mainlining of Wireguard) was TCP multipath.

Maybe this could soon alleviate a lot of load balancing issues people with multiple lines face? First I've heard of it, so have no idea, but thought it was interesting enough to post.

Edit: Wireguard not shark

[mofa2020]

I don’t know about FTTC/FTTP but unless they decide to put one or two cabs in the village we are just stuffed, as it’s 7300m from me to the exchange, and after the first mile there’s not a single house, tree or wall

I am worried that from an economic point of view they might think that it is not worth it to do that or at least would not be in a hurry as the service and speeds would really suck given the distance to the exchange...

[PhilipD]

I am worried that from an economic point of view they might think that it is not worth it to do that or at least would not be in a hurry as the service and speeds would really suck given the distance to the exchange...

Eventually they want to remove all copper from the Openreach network, so it is going to go, the only question is when.

They will either run fibre optic cable to the property or do nothing at all I should think.  If they do nothing than USO kicks in, so it will be either connection to the net via the mobile phone network or satellite, either way I should think it would be more reliable than a balancing act of 4 ADSL lines that keep getting problems.

Regards

Phil

[Weaver]

@johnson I know that Apple has TCP multipath. I assumed for no good reason that it was Apple’s invention. They use it for Siri to bind Wi-Fi and 4G together, for uploading audio, and getting the analysis of it and responses to queries back. They way they use it is that whichever works wins, they get double speed or more especially on the terrible upstream and they perhaps send stuff twice to make sure it gets there and very soon.

[Weaver]

@philipd I never ever get any problems at all. The IP bonding works superbly, it’s extremely reliable even when lines go down and it always just sails through. It’s fast too: 10.5/1.5 Mbps. I’m extremely happy with it. 4G has shocking upload here; 16/0.4 Mbps measured on the iPhone with EE (sometimes get 24-26 Mbps). The lines themselves are spectacularly good considering their length, because the copper is  report problems on the forum just in case people are interested in extreme rural DSL.

[PhilipD]

@philipd I never ever get any problems at all. The IP bonding works superbly, it’s extremely reliable even when lines go down and it always just sails through. It’s fast too: 10.5/1.5 Mbps. I’m extremely happy with it. 4G has shocking upload here; 16/0.4 Mbps measured on the iPhone with EE (sometimes get 24-26 Mbps). The lines themselves are spectacularly good considering their length, because the copper is  report problems on the forum just in case people are interested in extreme rural DSL.

Hi

Always seems like you are having problems though, it is one thing after another, from lightening strikes to noise    Even if you have a fail over in place lines going down is a problem isn't it?

I would wager an external mounted antenna pointing in the right direction would get you some pretty decent 4G speeds.  I stayed at a converted barn for a couple of weeks in the middle of nowhere where all the coverage charts for the mobile networks said no coverage of anything, but they had Wi-Fi in the barn as well a telephone, so I wondered how they had done that, of course a phone yes, but it was miles and miles from the telephone exchange and no FTTC  so wondered how they had done broadband.  Turns out it was an external mounted 4G antenna on Three, getting around 30/10 on the speed tests I tried, and the phone was a Cisco VoIP phone.  None of us staying there had any coverage on our mobiles, but the mounted antenna pulled in a pretty decent signal.

Obviously if you enjoy all the tinkering and fault finding with the copper lines etc which seems like you do, a bit like keeping an old car running as a hobby rather than a necessity, absolutely fair enough.

Regards

Phil

[Weaver]

I only get 16-24 / 0.4 Mbps as measured by the thinkbroadband speed tester on an iPhone with EE and 2 ‘bars’ of signal. I can’t live with that upstream. The problems I have with 4G are the unpredictability in speed terms, and poor availability. It just vanishes for several days on end for no reason on occasion and dies when there is a power cut. So I can’t live with something that isn’t close to 100% availability and my DSL lines are highly reliable. The wild weather is part of the charm of living here. DSL is for me the optimal choice given what I practically have. I’d like to investigate combining it with 4G but I don’t know enough about the available kit and I’m too exhausted to research lots of unknown hardware. You need to appreciate that the level of drugs I’m on and yet still I’m in pain much of the time constrain my options practically.

This is just the general experience of living here. Other people in the village have no internet connection at all this week because the lightning (or high wind) has knocked out the local long-range wireless network that they are using. I’m just used to it. I write it up for all your enjoyment in case people are interested. I don’t suffer from RF noise, unless the weird line 3 upstream thing is caused by it but that seems incredible.

[burakkucat]

. . . I would wager an external mounted antenna pointing in the right direction would get you some pretty decent 4G speeds. . . .

At the Weaving Shed's location any externally mounted metal-work would be a definite lightning attractor -- I would advise against having an external aerial.

[Weaver]

Philip saw 30/10; wonder why my upstream 4G is so dire at 0.4Mbps?

[PhilipD]

At the Weaving Shed's location any externally mounted metal-work would be a definite lightning attractor -- I would advise against having an external aerial.

If things are that bad he needs to get a lightning rod/conductor installed then, besides metal work on that scale doesn't 'attract' lightning it's a myth, in fact it can do the complete opposite, hence metal rods with sharp points are mounted on tall buildings . 

Also the device is all plastic anyway and you could install it using a plastic fixing under the eves pointing in the best direction if you believed the myth over the science 

Regards

Phil

[PhilipD]

Philip saw 30/10; wonder why my upstream 4G is so dire at 0.4Mbps?

Possibly because your phone or dongle has a much lower powered transmitter to send data back to the mast than the mobile phone mast sending you a signal, worse, a phones transmitter and receiver antenna are completely non-optimal in order to give us the form factors we have.  Which is why an external powered 4G modem and antenna designed for long distance use will outperform a phone or small dongle.

At the barns location non of us got a phone signal even from the top window and one of those was on Three, yet the external mounted modem/antenna on Three (speedtests identified the network as Three) was giving a steady ~30/10.

Regards

Phil

[Weaver]

Got it. That makes sense when one thinks about it.

[niemand]

[OT]Did anything ever come of CarlT's offer to ask somebody, who knows somebody, about the Internet service provision situation for your remote location?[/OT]

Yes. The ballpark guesstimate figures mentioned to me were eye-watering.

[burakkucat]

Yes. The ballpark guesstimate figures mentioned to me were eye-watering.

That doesn't surprise me at all.