Trying to stay connected...

[Danni]

I'm posting a new topic as I need some quick advice. We're currently struggling to stay connected to MSN/IRC/Yahoo/AIM for more than a few minutes at a time, and what makes it worse is the MSN network not always detecting the drop, meaning both parties lose messages. Andrew at IDNet says it's the network problems, and should be fixed with the new central.

Now, what do I do in the meantime? Is the only way to have a conversation online (currently my only form of communication) to go back on dialup? Is there anything I can try (remember- all internal wiring and filters and stuff are fine, and get worse with testing in the test socket) before resorting to dialup?

If it does mean going on dialup for communication temporarily, what should I use? Broadband will still be used for downloads, as they're not affected by the constant connection problems in the same way. I'm most active on msn/irc between 11pm-4am.

[ThinIce]

If the problem is heavy packet loss or latency on the network (which I think it would have to be if you're getting disconnected?) I don't see how you'd be able to get round the issue aside from as you say, using a different connection.

For me this is really off putting as I was set to migrate in this week, however I both use Instant messaging for working from home during the day and occasionally play games in the evening. So I'm back on the fence and stuck on a 1mb pipex package.

When the new central is in, I'm going to phone up and ask before placing my order, but has any statement been made as to why they've been caught out like this? I'd have thought its a capacity planning issue? I basically can't afford to migrate to IDNet if this is likely to happen again 

[Adam]

ThinIce,

It might be worth considering the connection problems could be local to Danni. I have not had any issues with IM software dropping, granted I mainly use web-based IM and IRC.

IDNet have had a few issues recently, notably capacity and latency on the network, but no ISP is perfect. On the positive side IDNet has, from what I have seen, dealt with the problems fairly well.

It's worth considering when looking around for an ISP; every ISP will eventually have problems. What you really want to be looking for is an ISP that sorts the problems out in a decent manor.

Adam

[Nova]

That would also tie in to the wierdness I've been seeing on DNS resolution fails and large chunks of the net suddenly becoming inaccessible (lost access to most of paris today). There's some looney tunes packet loss occuring over the link from IDNet >> ARBInet >> Black hole router of d00m, no clue what's doing that, and I might poke CS to get moved to a central which routes to Telia differently. WoW being my major hobby, I kinda don't like it when I see 20-30% packetloss coming from the step outside their network.

Tracing route to www.wow-europe.com [80.239.174.201]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

  1    <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  192.168.1.4
  2    17 ms    17 ms    19 ms  telehouse-gw-msdp.idnet.net [212.69.63.41]
  3    16 ms    20 ms    20 ms  212.69.63.10
  4    19 ms    18 ms    18 ms  x-s-1.lon1.arbinet.net [213.232.64.54] <--- this sees intermittent loss during peak time
  5     *        *        *     Request timed out. <-- I have no clue what is on this hop, it never responds
  6    18 ms    18 ms    19 ms  lon-sa1.LON.GB.net.DTAG.DE [62.154.5.37] <-- this also sees severe loss during peak time
  7    18 ms    18 ms    17 ms  ldn-b2-pos1-1.telia.net [213.248.75.105]
  8    20 ms    19 ms    21 ms  ldn-bb2-link.telia.net [80.91.251.14]
  9    28 ms    27 ms    27 ms  prs-bb2-pos6-0-0.telia.net [213.248.65.114]
10    26 ms    26 ms    26 ms  prs-b2-pos11-0.telia.net [213.248.65.226]
11    26 ms    27 ms    27 ms  prs-tc-i2-link-telia.net [80.91.250.34]

[Adam]

Nova,

It could be that hop 5 is in fact firewalled, which would explain the time out.

Adam

[Nova]

That's my guess too, but it would not explain the inconsistent responses on 4 and 6 during peak hours. Obv, not knowing what is going on with hop 5 makes it tricky to isolate what's going on.