Speed drop all of a sudden?

[andrue]

Instead of my usual 55/14 I'm getting 33/12 using speedtest.net (to London/Namesco) and http://mcslhr.visualware.com/myspeed/admin.

This is on the Brackley/Banbury exchange. BT Speedtester seems to be dead at the moment so can't see my profile but there's no sign of a drop on the TBBQM.

[lozcart]

Everything is fine here, perhaps give your router and modem a reboot and see if that helps.

[andrue]

Everything is fine here, perhaps give your router and modem a reboot and see if that helps.

You were right. Everything is back to normal now.



Does that happen often?

[lozcart]

Ive never had it happen, just a lucky guess, if technology fails restart it!! 

[andrue]

Ive never had it happen, just a lucky guess, if technology fails restart it!! 

Damn, seems to have gone again. I am seeming some high speeds as the test runs but it's very unreliable throughput.

[andrue]

Damn, seems to have gone again. I am seeming some high speeds as the test runs but it's very unreliable throughput.

Hmmm. I just noticed there's a football match on tonight with England as one of the teams. Could that be an issue? i rather hope not 

[Rik]

Always likely, the Olympics will tell you...

[Glenn]

Tennis from next week too.

[Simon]

[andrue]

Unfortunately I never could get the bt speedtester to tell me the results so I don't know if my profile has changed. However during the Speedtest results it did sometimes hit the higher speeds (and did once give a normal reading) so I'm fairly sure it's not my connection. Maybe there's some dirt somewhere. I'm going to upload 8GB to Minneapolis when I get home tonight so that'll blow the line out 

[Rik]

Use a Dyson.

[Simon]

They suck. 

[Rik]

 

[andrue]

Hmmm. I reckon there's been a routing change. My ping to the Namesco server is now hugely improved (15ms as opposed to the 35ms it's been ever since I got connected) however the throughput is still variable. Speed results much like yesterday.

[mervl]

Anything possibly to do with the report of issues with Faraday POP (quote from TBB on Thursday: "In London, BT's Faraday PoP, one of BT's 20 core network point's of presence on it's 21st Century Network (21CN) has also seen an unrelated equipment failure which has caused the loss of service for some broadband users serviced through this site. Multiple ISP's are reporting problems with broadband lines in London and the South of England being down, and this could also be affecting capacity generally through the network".

My experience is no issues with my local exchange or the IDNet network, but all the problems seem to be based on the red6 PoP I'm connected to at Stepney Green (from north -east of London), as I can get details from the modem. Latency, profile, and throughputs are all consistent, though recently the upload has risen to around the 85% of the reported attainable speed, similar to that always achieved by downloads and was formerly stuck on about 60%.

Unlocking the modem seems good for detective work, at least on the local loop if that's where you suspect the problem.

[andrue]

It might be but my issue started on Tuesday. I've been away all weekend and it appears to be okay now. We'll see. To be honest I've been less than impressed with Support on this one. I sent email including the rest of a BT speedtest and it was ignored (at least - sent on Wednesday and still not had a reply). I called Friday and had to leave my details (after being asked a load of inane questions like 'is the router light flashing?'. Sadly I got called away Friday pm but a message was left on my answer phone saying that...


<wait for it>


..I should send an email with the results of a speedtest 

But I don't think it's anything local. Here's the speedtest result I sent to Support for them to ignore:

"Download speedachieved during the test was - 30.17 Mbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speedsis 12 Mbps-76.76 Mbps .
Additional Information:
IP Profile for your line is - 76.76 Mbps

2. Upstream Test:  -provides background information.

Upload Speed
7.01 Mbps
   
0 Mbps 20 Mbps
Max Achievable Speed

Upload speed achieved during the test was - 7.01Mbps
Additional Information:
Upstream Rate IP profile on your line is - 20 Mbps"

[andrue]

Huh. Dropped to 20Mb/s today. Interestingly as before the Speedtest.net graphs had been rough for the last week or so. It's a bit surprising if it's capacity issues on BT's network yet again. It's only a few months since the last ones.

[mervl]

Did you ever get round to unlocking and getting data (preferably logging via the graphing scripts) from the modem? Some line faults (in their early stages) do seem to manifest themselves in dry, hot weather, and damp or using the analogue phone seems to effect a temporary improvement in the circuit. EDIT: it's not uncommon for some faceplates to be defective apparently (though that might manifest itself by drops rather than just erratic speeds) - but presumably your problem is intermittent rather than ongoing?

My IDNet FTTC service has now been boringly consistent and reliable for 115 days and counting (and for 6 months before that was only affected by occasional BTW issues at Stepney Green).

[Steve]

I agree I see very little variation in downstream throughput, the only variations I see are due to WiFi variable throughput.



btw it's 20mbps - we'd all be extremely happy with 20Mb/s

[andrue]

Did you ever get round to unlocking and getting data (preferably logging via the graphing scripts) from the modem? Some line faults (in their early stages) do seem to manifest themselves in dry, hot weather, and damp or using the analogue phone seems to effect a temporary improvement in the circuit. EDIT: it's not uncommon for some faceplates to be defective apparently (though that might manifest itself by drops rather than just erratic speeds) - but presumably your problem is intermittent rather than ongoing?

Yes I did. Well - I unlocked it but I haven't been graphing it. It's normally so consistent (54Mb/s from Speedtest.net, 74Mb/s from mchs and TBB) that there seems to be no point. I check throughput once a day (usually the evening but also sometimes early morning before leaving for work as today) I check the modem roughly once a week and it's usually syncd in the high 70s. I checked it this morning because of the poor speed and it was syncd at 789xxx (don't remember the exact figure but remember it was damn' near 79Mb/s).

I might run a BT test tonight but if it's anything like last time it'll just magically bounce straight back up in a week or so.

btw it's 20mbps - we'd all be extremely happy with 20Mb/s

By the way - no it isn't.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_prefix

You might be happy with 20 millibits a second but no-one else would be

[Odos]

By the way - no it isn't.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_prefix

You might be happy with 20 millibits a second but no-one else would be

Afraid I agree with Steve,,,, it is 20mbps or 20mb/s ( mega-BITs) and not 20Mbps or 20Mb/s ( mega-BYTES )

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byte

[andrue]

Afraid I agree with Steve,,,, it is 20mbps or 20mb/s ( mega-BITs) and not 20Mbps or 20Mb/s ( mega-BYTES )

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byte

And I'm afraid you are also wrong. The two letters are separate things not one single 'word'. The first letter is the multiplier and capitalising it makes it 'mega', lower case is 'milli'. The second letter is the unit and although it's a bit confusing the general convention is 'b' for bit and 'B' for byte. From the link you posted:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byte#Unit_symbol

Mb/s = megabits per second.
mb/s = millibits per second.
MB/s = megabytes per second.
mB/s = millibytes per second.

Connection speed is given in 'megabits per second'. A lower case 'm' makes no sense in either case.

You could be forgiven for confusion over exactly what the prefix multiple is. I am rigidly SI so M is a million, and k is a 1,000 but software engineers often use powers of 2 especially for k which they treat as 1,024. But thinking that the capital 'M' changes the meaning of 'b' is just bad.



Any how that's a side issue and it just remains to be seen if/when my connection goes back to normal

[Odos]

Connection speed is given in 'megabits per second'. A lower case 'm' makes no sense in either case.

You could be forgiven for confusion over exactly what the prefix multiple is. I am rigidly SI so M is a million, and k is a 1,000 but software engineers often use powers of 2 especially for k which they treat as 1,024. But thinking that the capital 'M' changes the meaning of 'b' is just bad.

I assume neither of you are familiar with the metric system nor SI units in general. That's rather sad in this day and age 

Agreed A lower case 'm' makes no sense in either case. I used to be a software programmer then moved onto hard ware. In either case in the computer sense there is no such thing as a millbit or millibyte. As you say everything is binary or hexadecimal which makes a mockery out of trying to force the use of metric notation.

My point being that any "m" notation when referring to computer speed or storage is by default Mega not milli.

[andrue]

And of course the BT speedtester is not compatible with Chrome. How does a company as large as BT come up with such a cr*p test?


Best Effort Test:  -provides background information.

Download Speed
25.03 Mbps
   
0 Mbps 75.77 Mbps
Max Achievable Speed

Download speedachieved during the test was - 25.03 Mbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speedsis 12 Mbps-75.77 Mbps .
Additional Information:
IP Profile for your line is - 75.77 Mbps

2. Upstream Test:  -provides background information.

Upload Speed
10.27 Mbps
   
0 Mbps 20 Mbps
Max Achievable Speed

Upload speed achieved during the test was - 10.27Mbps
Additional Information:
Upstream Rate IP profile on your line is - 20 Mbps


So as before - it's just getting throttled somewhere in their system again.

[Steve]

I wish I'd not said anything.

[andrue]

I wish I'd not said anything.

Puts me in mind of some of the bug defects I've raised internally at work.



But I apologise if I annoyed anyone.

[mervl]

"So as before - it's just getting throttled somewhere in their system again."

If that's true won't others on the exchange be having the same problem, so would it help to check with a few neighbours? Unless the exchange is reported as congested, perhaps. And if there's a PoP problem wouldn't others be shouting about it? Router? - mine (IDNet's supplied model actually) was a limiting factor until I changed it.

[andrue]

"So as before - it's just getting throttled somewhere in their system again."

If that's true won't others on the exchange be having the same problem, so would it help to check with a few neighbours? Unless the exchange is reported as congested, perhaps. And if there's a PoP problem wouldn't others be shouting about it? Router? - mine (IDNet's supplied model actually) was a limiting factor until I changed it.

I might check with one of my neighbours - didn't get around to it last time. I don't think it's the router though - speed to my server is still fine and in any case it seems to be a temporary thing. It's only done this for about two weeks out of the four months I've had the service. In both cases it seems to be preceded by speedtest.net showing variable throughput which does make sense. Also the speed seems to max out at 30Mb/s which if I remember correctly someone found a BTor link saying that was the speed used when congestion was a problem.

Edit: Here we go - http://www.openreach.co.uk/orpg/home/updates/briefings/super-fastfibreaccessbriefings/super-fastfibreaccessbriefingsarticles/nga00612.do

"What speed will lines with the 80/20 product variant receive when the network is congested?
Openreach has implemented a downstream Prioritisation Rate (PR) for each of our downstream product bandwidth variants.  In the event of network congestion, we will decrease line speeds momentarily to reduce the congestion as follows:

Product bandwidth variant purchased Prioritisation rate
Up to 40Mbit/s                               15Mbit/s
Up to 80Mbit/s                               30Mbit/s"

Although quite how that ties in with 24/7 throttling I don't know. Doesn't sound like 'momentarily' to me and I struggle to see how there can be congestion at half past six in the morning.

[andrue]

Hmmm. Powercycled my router (not the modem) this morning and it came back at full speed. I didn't have time to wait though so I don't know if it's a permanent fix. Last time this happened a router reboot appeared to fix it but half an hour later it was back to slow mode.

[Steve]

Remind me which router are you using?

[andrue]

Remind me which router are you using?

WNR1000v3. I think it's the same one IDNet sell but I bought mine myself.

One thing I have noticed (which probably means nothing) is that speedtest.net thinks I'm in Macclesfield and thinks my preferred server should be Preston. I've just assumed their Geolocation DB is wrong - Google and others know where I am. I did find a few references last night to issues with FTTC and mis-identified location though. Something called 'The Dominoes Pizza Test', lol.

http://helpforum.sky.com/t5/Sky-Fibre-Unlimited/Can-someone-elaborate-on-the-Dominoes-Pizza-search/td-p/460558

[pctech]

Webkit (rendering engine for both Chrome and Safari) is cr*p so why would they support it?

[Steve]

Re the WNR1000v3 I believe that's 10/100 ethernet and on that assumption I wonder if the wan to lan transfer speed maybe a bit borderline for FTTC. I don't know for sure though.

[andrue]

Re the WNR1000v3 I believe that's 10/100 ethernet and on that assumption I wonder if the wan to lan transfer speed maybe a bit borderline for FTTC. I don't know for sure though.

Doesn't really explain why it cuts me down to 30Mb/s for three or four weeks out of 4 months though. For example it seems to have been fine since the end of June. So that's nearly two months of full speed (the mchs test and TBB showed >78Mb/s) then suddenly the brakes come on. FWIW that mchs test when it's working tends to show at least 90% consistency. Quite often it shows 99%.

[andrue]

The plot thickens. Looking at TBBQM graphs:

Yesterday:

Today


Things to note:
You can see where I rebooted the router this morning just before 7am. But notice the overall activty. Prior to this morning there was constant albeit low grade activity after 7am (which is when the house becomes empty) on the top graph. Since rebooting the router it's been very quiet. I haven't been home so don't know if the speed is still 'good'.

And here's the graph from last Friday - the last weekday when speed was good:



Another quiet graph. The peaks would be me doing a speedtest. I'm beginning to think it's a routing issue. Something happened Sunday night that put me on a cr*ppy route.

[andrue]

Still seems fine this evening:

Download speed    72190 Kbps
Upload speed    16963 Kbps
D/load COS    95 %
U/load COS    96 %
Min RTT    2 ms
Max RTT    16 ms
Avg RTT    10 ms
RTT Consistency    12 %
Max Delay    8 ms
Avg Delay    1 ms
Effective Speed    73285 Kbps
Route Speed    262140 Kbps
Forced Idle    30 %

So either my router or BT's network got its knickers in a twist   

[andrue]

Now there's a thing. My connection has gone slow and jittery again. I was away at a wedding but on Saturday it went wobbly.

You can see the jitter start.
Before:


Change over.


Today:


And just for reference during the week there is rarely anyone home to use the connection so it's 'idle' between 11pm and 4pm give or take occasional incoming spam mails.

What's rather curious is the pattern of dates I'm seeing:

* First occurrence - June 19th.
* Second occurrence - August 19th.
* Third occurrence - October 19th.

When did my connection go live - April 16th. Now I've been in this game long enough to know that coincidences happen but the above pattern seems very suspicious to me. Basically every two months my connection develops a bad case of the jitters and speeds struggle to get above 30Mb/s (instead of being a steady 76Mb/s). You'd think someone at IDNet or BT would think that interesting enough to do an investigation. I'm a software developer and if someone reported something like that to me I'd be on the case.

[Technical Ben]

Are they trialling updates during that day?

[andrue]

Are they trialling updates during that day?

I suppose they might be. It'll be interesting to see what happens in December. I power-cycled my router because of the congestion thread so if it goes wobbly again on the 19th it'll suggest that it's not my router causing it.

[andrue]

I thought it wasn't going to happen this time but lo and behold here comes the jitter:



And speedtest.net is hovering around 30Mb/s again. I'll reboot my router and then look forward to the 19th of February. Maybe I can persuade Support to take it seriously between now and then 

[mervl]

I've never had anything on a regular cycle like that on VDSL2 (FTTC). The only thing I will say with the Fritz! modem's ability to monitor my connection is that sort of disturbance when it occurs (infrequently - approx once or twice a month, though on the occasional month I get none) on my line is symptomatic of a problem at the BT interconnect (PoP) reported by my modem. But as with this morning's incident I reported on another thread, invariably overnight; and usually correlated with something on AAISP's or Zen's checkers. The usual law will say your issue is completely different, but is there any other evidence of a local loop fault or recent work on local lines where there may be a dodgy joint intermittently affected by damp?

In fairness to ISPs I think when it comes to the BT residential network customers can get better info from their modem's reporting than the ISP has access to via BT! It's bad luck that OR disable this facility (but most people don't want it and that's what you get in a democracy!). The key factor with my non-"issues" is that while actual uploads swing about (which I conclude is due to my poor quality local loop which suffers an attenuation of 20db from the Cab), the reported attainable upload and download is consistent at +/- 5% as is the SNR margin within a 1db range; and reported DSLAM disconnects are consequently at 1 or 2 a year which I think has to be expected with the work of a well-performing modem, as it needs to recover (from my meddling, apart from anything else) occasionally. Speed checker reporting (apart from the BTw one) do vary though (with seemingly "roguish" readings), but not  actual throughputs very often as far as I can tell.

[andrue]

is there any other evidence of a local loop fault or recent work on local lines where there may be a dodgy joint intermittently affected by damp?

Nothing I'm aware of. It rained a fair bit yesterday but we've had worse. Brackley is subject to real monsoon like downpours at any time. I checked the modem and it claims to have been connected at over 74Mb/s for over a month so I left it alone. BT Speed tester said 29MB/s on a 72Mb/s profile. Apparently my acceptable range is 0-12Mb/s whatever that's suppose to mean 

I couldn't get the speed to recover last night despite leaving the router powered off for half an hour. I did a disconnect reconnect this morning though and it seemed better (though still pretty cr*p). Unfortunately at this time of year there's no point pestering Support. I'll just have to hope it recovers eventually - it always has in the past.

But I've marked February the 19th in my diary - that's when it's next due 

[andrue]

I'm thinking this morning's reconnect didn't help. I can't test from work but judging from the latency spikes it still isn't back to normal:



Looks pretty active for an empty house. I don't even have a budgie to blame now 

[andrue]

Well whatever the problem is - it certainly isn't 'interference' like Tech Support's 'Nick' kept suggesting:



Not unless the 'interference' is a special kind that only affects internal Cat6e cabling without bothering the modem/DSLAM 

Whether or not I'll ever get them to take it seriously and investigate it remains to be seen. So far my attempts to resolve it by rebooting my router have failed but looking back it seems they only ever worked a few days after it started. That may be another 'feature' to add to it so far I have:

• It starts on the bi-monthly anniversary of my connection going live.
• It starts three days after the activation date.
• Rebooting the router three(?) days after it starts fixes it.

My current theory is that my old 40/10 profile is somehow still active and every two months BT's systems try to retrain it and spend three days fighting the 80/20 profile before giving up.

[mervl]

Doesn't it look like a router issue then . . . if the OR modem (which negotiates the line speed with the DSLAM, I thought) remains connected and the IP profile doesn't change? (The 12-0 minimum reported by the BTw tester is, I gather, a known error for all of us).

[andrue]

Doesn't it look like a router issue then . . . if the OR modem (which negotiates the line speed with the DSLAM, I thought) remains connected and the IP profile doesn't change? (The 12-0 minimum reported by the BTw tester is, I gather, a known error for all of us).

It's hard to see it being the router though. It's been power cycled several times over the last eight months. It would have to be a firmware bug that hobbles the router for three or four days on the 19th of every even numbered month.

Hmm.. Actually, no, of course it can't be the router. I logged in directly using my laptop on Thursday and it showed the same problems. That means it has to be the OR modem or some other part of BT/IDNet's network.

[mervl]

Do the neighbours get a similar effect on their connection? I've some sympathy with IDNet if you've eliminated anything in your premises or on your local network being responsible: if it's on a regular cycle some interfering equipment in the locality that's operated regularly on a cycle but infrequently seems a plausible possibility. What's the modem showing for CRC errors/error seconds at the time compared to normal? If desperate, you'd have to try walking back to the cab whilst it's occurring with an appropriately tuned AM radio I suppose, and listening (and hoping) for some serious interference. Any possible culprit from a visual inspection? Radio hams, or the obvious industrial/commercial activities but the infrequency perhaps makes that less likely?  At least you can plan ahead! If so, what next is the problem . . . though I think Ofcom have powers to deal with radio equipment interference.

[andrue]

I'll try and check with a neighbour when I get back home the other side of Christmas but all that will prove - if they use another ISP - is whether or not it's a cabinet or exchange issue.

Interference just doesn't make sense. The tool that produces that graph has a continuous mode and I ran it for half an hour today. The bits per tone and SNR graphs barely wavered. If there is interference all it's done is dropped my speed a maximum of 9Mb/s from 80 down to 71.

You can't be connected at a steady 71Mb/s and claim that interference is capping throughput at 30Mb/s. It's nonsensical. If I'm averaging a 71Mb/s connection then that's what my modem is capable of pulling from the cabinet.

[Simon]

This is a total shot in the dark, but it couldn't be something like a Sky box updating bi-monthly, could it?  I don't have Sky, so have no idea how often they update.

[Gary]

This is a total shot in the dark, but it couldn't be something like a Sky box updating bi-monthly, could it?  I don't have Sky, so have no idea how often they update.

Sky boxes may update a handful of times a year Simon, and that's via satellite, also the newer sky boxes have pretty much zero effect on phone lines.

[andrue]

Well I'm not home now for a few days but I have a feeling that if I was I could reboot the router and all would be back to normal - it was the 24th of Oct when I got back from the wedding and that cleared the first time. As it is it's just going to sit there with random spikes in maximum latency:



What a weird set of spikes around lunch time - I was in the car then swimming my way along the M56 :-/

[andrue]

I knew it. I got back this lunchtime and after powering the router off for 20 minutes everything is back to normal:



The first break was me testing if using the 'disconnect' option on my router that I'd recently discovered would work and save me the hassle of going upstairs. It didn't. The second break was the power off. The single spike was me downloading something.

NB: At no point have I turned off my modem so it's not a line fault. It's a network fault. Now I just have to decide how I'm going to take this up with IDNet 

[Niall]

Is this something specific to you, or are other people seeing this but do not realise? There is very little communication from FTTC users. Whether this is because they contact support directly, or there are no other users having issues I don't know.

Just worried as I've just placed my upgrade order, not even had an automated reply email and have just noticed you're still getting nowhere with support.

[mervl]

Well my live graph is here:


Absolutely no problem, given that the VDSL still uses the copper from the cab to your premises (so still has the limitations of ALL DSL over that portion of the line, but if your ADSL works, there shouldn't be an issue as the copper length will be shorter!). If though you have a nervous breakdown about your speedtests then I don't think any technology short of a dedicated fibre link will help you, but if your concerns (as mine) end with doing what you want to on your connection I find FTTC a saviour. It just works, consistently. There are occasional very short-term night-time work at the BTw PoP but they affect everybody who uses BT backhaul (all IDNet DSL customers, then).

I think the usual ordering process is automatic with OpenReach (who own and control the technology), and in my experience a darned good job they do with VDSL compared with their history with ADSL - but that's life - it's a learning curve  (well for most of us anyway). The order confirmations only come through during BT's office hours it seems though, but you can't have everything! (EDIT just in case anyone frets the bursts of maximum latency are my router giving priority to my streaming and uploads/downloads rather than responding to TBBs pings - but hey, I'm not complaining!).

[andrue]

Is this something specific to you, or are other people seeing this but do not realise? There is very little communication from FTTC users. Whether this is because they contact support directly, or there are no other users having issues I don't know.

Just worried as I've just placed my upgrade order, not even had an automated reply email and have just noticed you're still getting nowhere with support.

I've not heard of any other comments from FTTC users on IDNet. I have read of a few from customers of other ISPs (although not recently). For what it's worth I think my regrade from 40/10 to 80/20 is the problem so a new order should be fine and it doesn't seem to be a common fault. If your order was placed in the last couple of weeks it might be delayed by Christmas of course.

For most people the service works very well. To be fair for me it works very well. It's just half a week every two months when it doesn't. Even then my beef is mainly with their staff. It's such a trial trying to get past the 'firewall' of their front line staff. If you manage to get your issue seen by the real people who work behind the scenes it gets fixed eventually. I've managed it once already and I'm just antsy enough to keep trying on this issue. Sadly of course now that I've got it working properly again I've probably killed off any chance of them looking this time.

I guess you can expect to see this thread become active again on the 19th of February. Make a note in your diaries, folks 

[Niall]

That's the trouble I see with the support side of things. I have issues with my line. IDnet say there's no problem, so contact BT, BT say there's no line problems or with my equipment. My speed was half of what it was supposed to be. Engineer visited and the line was fine until one hour after he left and showed me evidence while he was here. Now, if BT say the line is fine and should get 14mb and all checkers say that, and my router reports no errors at all, either on 14mb, 12mb, 9mb, or 6mb that it always drops to, then where is a paying customer supposed to go?

Frankly I feel that people pass the buck now, saying "BT will only say the line is acceptable" rather than bother to look into my query. In what, over a year I have yet to receive a satisfactory answer as to what is happening. BT engineer basically suggested it's the ISP, but as both are saying that there is no faults and are reluctant to do anything then am I supposed to be happy with not getting what my line is capable of? It got that speed before and apparently hasn't degraded, with previous problems being circuit board issues in the cab (which they replaced - the cab that is). I've got new cable from the house to the cab too, after the engineer replaced that. My last reply from support basically said I might aswell wait for FTTC, which leaves me worried that support don't care to check into things as they used to.

This issue I've had for over a year cost me a small fortune in hardware replacements for testing/ruling things out. If this is the sort of support you get on FTTC too, then it doesn't look like it'll be as happy of an upgrade as I expect, unless of course my connection somehow gets the maximum the line supports and stays there when I switch over. Oh, and incidentally I only placed the order through IDnet's login page about 4 today, but was expecting at the very least, an automated reply to state they have the request.

[andrue]

I hope that won't happen for you. If your current modem is dropping to a slower speed it suggests a line issue and at least FTTC has a shorter line so there's a good chance the problem will go away. In my case if they do nothing I'll probably move to AAISP. The pricing is comparable for what I want and they have a reputation for fixing problems.

[mervl]

I too had an unfortunate history with ADSL - my line should have been capable of up to 6Mbps - but I achieved sync rates of 5.5Mbps for less than six months in the middle of a 4 year period  before the line card failed; and after the repair varying sync rates of 4Mbps, 3.5Mbps and  most of the time down to 2Mbps, and finally after a change in the DSLAM (from LLU to a BTw service) it rose back up to 4 again. Helpfully my ISP reduced my maximum attainable "line rate" with each reduction in sync (and it never recovered) which meant a complaint got no-where ("that's all your line is capable of sir, it's your maximum attainable line rate shown in our records"). FTTC was the answer to this maiden's prayer (but don't take that too literally, though). It's the first time I've ever exceeded a projected speed, and by a significant margin of around 5Mbps.

The installation engineer should bring a JDSU (or may check at base) which will show the cab distance and speed - which you should ask about (I didn't know at the time, and didn't) - if there's a fault between you and the cab he's as good a prospect as any visiting engineer of being able to detect it. Yes for some people their FTTC doesn't perform as they think it should - after all we don't live in a perfect world; but I've not yet discovered anyone within a reasonable distance from the cab who'd rather go back to ADSL for its superior performance, and I'm guessing other posters here aren't the exception.

A word of warning: the rest of the world seems in love with speedtest.net, but it's not universal - on my connection it shows half of the speed measured during actual downloads or uploads, and by other testers. I don't think any commercial speedtester is foolproof all of the time.

[andrue]

A word of warning: the rest of the world seems in love with speedtest.net, but it's not universal - on my connection it shows half of the speed measured during actual downloads or uploads, and by other testers. I don't think any commercial speedtester is foolproof all of the time.

True. For download speed I use both TBB and Speedtest but unfortunately TBB's tester has been broken for upload speeds for at least a year now. Another option is to upload/download data to/from the free webspace. Out of curiosity which server do you use? I used to be very disparaging of speedtest net but since getting FTTC it's been pretty good. I use the London (Namesco) server.

But either way a single test proves nothing. The real value in speed testers is to run them frequently to see how your line changes over time. If you know what your line 'feels' like normally and know what the testers normally say you can tell when something goes awry.

[mervl]

The real value in speed testers is to run them frequently to see how your line changes over time. If you know what your line 'feels' like normally and know what the testers normally say you can tell when something goes awry.

Agreed. I too use the London server on speedtest.net - much less than 50miles away. I wonder if TBB has problems with "high" uploads, as I don't get above 6.8 attainable, but TBB tester shows up to 5.5 which must be about as good as it gets - just below what measured uploads have shown (around 5.8). Speedtest.net maxes out at under half that! Traceroutes to the TBB server show a range 0ms!-25ms, with ave of about 10ms (which seems optimistic when TBBQM is consistent at 16ms and router shows 8ms latency just to the cab - but if that interested I suppose I could try a traceroute to speedtester.net to see if there's a potential congestion issue from here). I assume from the latency stats the backhaul is performing admirably, just a pity about the local loop (but that's where you get what you pay for - as little as possible).

As mentioned previously I have JDasts automatic testing running - for the first 15 months until autumn, the IDNet service was boringly consistent with as straight a graph over time as you could get (almost) - like the Essex badlands; more recently it's moving towards the gentle rolling hills of the southern chilterns - but it's an issue that seems to afflict speedtests and not actual downloads which have always varied between being a bit more spikey at the upper levels or blocky when graphed (from day to day) according to TBBmeter, which itself seems compatible with what the router shows and Netmeter on those occasions I've checked. I put it down to server congestion, perhaps time for a reboot at the other end; and the slightly greater irregularity (which hasn't noticeably affected performance at all) to the greater take up over time at the cab.

[andrue]

It's interesting about the difference between your speedtest results and mine. Presumbably it's something in the BT network. For me the TBB tester usually hits around 8Mb/s which is what a lot of people report however others have shown that the tester can go higher. It's not a universal fault by any means. I think one of the site owners has said it's something to do with buffer sizes and Java.

[Niall]

Well my line was feeling REALLY sluggish over the weekend. I've just done a few speed tests and my ms is now 40 up from 15, download has dropped by 12mb and upload by 3mb.

What the fook is going on?



Oh, the ms is 50 in this as I changed the server to test to/from.

Still, this sucks in comparison to what I'm supposed to be getting, never mind what I WAS getting!

[andrue]

Well my line was feeling REALLY sluggish over the weekend. I've just done a few speed tests and my ms is now 40 up from 15, download has dropped by 12mb and upload by 3mb.

What the fook is going on?



Oh, the ms is 50 in this as I changed the server to test to/from.

Still, this sucks in comparison to what I'm supposed to be getting, never mind what I WAS getting!

I hope it recovers for you soon. Have you run the BT speed test to see if your profile has changed?

[Niall]

The BT speedtest says:


Download speedachieved during the test was - 23.4 Mbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speedsis 16 Mbps-23.59 Mbps .
Additional Information:
IP Profile for your line is - 23.59 Mbps


Upload speed achieved during the test was - 3.75Mbps
Additional Information:
Upstream Rate IP profile on your line is - 20 Mbps

Bit of a change from 34 and 7.4  I think something has gone wrong. Now lets start guessing where it's gone wrong.

[andrue]

Now lets start guessing where it's gone wrong.

I'm guessing it has something to do with a large green metal box about 800 metres from your house 

Hopefully it'll bounce back - I wonder if someone was doing work in your area.

[Niall]

The only thing I've seen going on is the openreach chaps popping up in the mornings on my walk to work, connecting other people. They were also working on the cabinet that's a quarter of a mile nearer my house. Still don't understand why I'm not on that cabinet 

[andrue]

So the 19th of February is coming up. I want to ensure I have diagnostics in place this time. So far I have:

• TBBQM
• Bald-Eagle's modem monitoring

And I've just been accepted for SamKnows monitoring so maybe I'll have that as well. Is there any other kind of monitoring anyone can think of? This might be the last chance I (and support  ) have to track this down before my contract ends. If I can't at least get a sensible explanation I'll probably be leaving and I don't really want that hassle.

[Bald_Eagle1]

So the 19th of February is coming up. I want to ensure I have diagnostics in place this time. So far I have:

• TBBQM
• Bald-Eagle's modem monitoring

And if I can get my skates on & finish them in time, you MAY even be able to use the new programs that are more robust, much quicker and generate more informative ongoing graphs than the scripted versions 

[andrue]

And if I can get my skates on & finish them in time, you MAY even be able to use the new programs that are more robust, much quicker and generate more informative ongoing graphs than the scripted versions 

Woo hoo! I've had to postpone activating the scripts until Sunday evening now. They ran once though - I think I just have to enable the scheduled event. But snazzy new tools will always be appreciated

[mervl]

  Intriguingly Andrue, a few days ago speedtests started getting low and erratic (though I do them rarely these days) and shortly afterwards the modem re-synced with a latency jump to the cab from 8ms to 14ms, with a corresponding hike in TBBQM, with a few resyncs over the next 36-48 hours, before seemingly returning to normal this morning. First time though. Apart from the obvious weather (but would it recover quite so quickly?), the only thing I could relate it to is some new firmware on the modem perhaps taking time to settle down, but if so the "trouble" took a fortnight to emerge. My sync speeds are restricted anyway as I'm on an old package, so not much if any difference there, though. It might just be, I suppose, that my modem is "living on the edge" and doing its job pushing the connection to its limits and quite a latitude of disturbance (as far as I can tell from the stats) is tolerated before a "cliff-edge" fall. Pure speculation.

[andrue]

Muwahaha. Got my Samknows whitebox today. Not had the email giving me access yet but hopefully I now have another source of information.

TBBQM
Samknows
Bald Eagle's excellent tool.

Incidentally BaldEagle came through with the new version. Here are some graphs:

[Bald_Eagle1]

That looks pretty good, as a snapshot.
I'd certainly swap it for my connection any day.

Is there anything of "interest" in the ongoing stats ready for comparing before 19th, during 19th & after 19th?

[andrue]

That looks pretty good, as a snapshot.
I'd certainly swap it for my connection any day.

Is there anything of "interest" in the ongoing stats ready for comparing before 19th, during 19th & after 19th?

Not that I know of. I'm actually expecting the connection to sail through without a murmur. I'm pretty sure the problem is in the network not my line.

[andrue]

And here it comes again 

1. Best Effort Test:  -provides background information.

Download Speed
25.86 Mbps
   
0 Mbps 71.47 Mbps
Max Achievable Speed

Download speedachieved during the test was - 25.86 Mbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speedsis 16 Mbps-71.47 Mbps .
Additional Information:
IP Profile for your line is - 71.47 Mbps

2. Upstream Test:  -provides background information.

Upload Speed
6.02 Mbps
   
0 Mbps 20 Mbps
Max Achievable Speed

Upload speed achieved during the test was - 6.02Mbps
Additional Information:
Upstream Rate IP profile on your line is - 20 Mbps

My modem says it's been syncd for a tad over six days which is correct because on Wednesday night I upgraded my extension lead from six- to ten- gang to accommodate my Samknows Whitebox. Bald Eagle's monitoring can be summed up as 'Yawn - nothin' happening here'

The Samknows box hasn't run many tests today (not sure why - maybe that's normal) but the 2pm test was 69Mb/s the 6pm test was 25Mb/s. My TBBQM graph shows increased latency from about 3pm on:



I think the taller spikes are the Samknows tests on the hour.

So it ain't my line. I've emailed Support so it'll be interesting to see how they respond. We could open a book on it. I'm afraid that I can't take any more bets for 'Can you hear crackling on the line?' or 'Have you tried plugging your router into the test socket' 

[mervl]

  So why is it just your connection?

[andrue]

So why is it just your connection?

Good question. I think it's something to do with the regrade I had. The speeds I'm currently getting are not far off what you'd get with 40/10. My theory is that the old 40/10 profile is still in BT's system and every two months it kicks in and tries to retrain my line for four or five days.

It may also be that others just aren't noticing it - after all 25Mb/s is still a fair whack and not everyone is an anal about speed tests as me.

[Bald_Eagle1]

Very strange.

So, this ALWAYS happens on 19th of every other month & a simple ROUTER reboot ALWAYS restores normal throughput speeds?

It doesn't seem like account throttling due to excessive downloading as a ROUTER reboot wouldn't cure that.

Assuming your ongoing stats don't show any drops in SNRM levels, sync speeds, attainable rates, increased error counts etc. or any other 'strangeness' we can rule out the actual VDSL connection.

19th is the date your account was activated?
I don't know if my ISP, Plusnet still do it, but occasionally heavy users had their speeds restricted until the next billing date.
Is this a slight possiblility?
Again though, a router reboot shouldn't clear that.

There is nothing between you & the cabinet that could cause 'interference' every other month?
Even if there was, a router reboot surely wouldn't clear it up.

It must be worth a shot, with the evidence you now possess, to request that the ISP deletes your account & creates a new one, (with no new contract period) if only to eliminate a spurious reversion to a lower profile, maybe due to account corruption.

If that could be implemented, at least you would have some peace of mind that any account corruption can be ignored if it should ever happen again.

If it was a network issue, surely other users would see similar symptoms.

Are you able to try a different router around 19th of future months, just in case the router stores up some 'problems' that coincidentally surface 19th of every other month?

Have you previously mentioned that the problem still occurs if bypassing the router & using a direct connection to the modem?

[Simon]

I don't know if my ISP, Plusnet still do it, but occasionally heavy users had their speeds restricted until the next billing date.
Is this a slight possiblility?

As far as we know, IDNet have never restricted 'heavy' users - if they go over their download allowance, they are simply charged the extra, at £1 per Gb.

[Bald_Eagle1]

It may also be that others just aren't noticing it - after all 25Mb/s is still a fair whack and not everyone is an anal about speed tests as me.

Final thought, then I'm out of ideas:-

Are you using a BT Home Hub?

I believe that BT withdrew/replaced some models of a particular version due to a similar problem in that the router had to be rebooted every so often due to reduced throughput speeds.
I don't know if the timing pattern was as regular as yours though.

Does it ever vary by a day or so, depending on whether there are 30 or 31 days in the month?

As I'm not with BT & don't use a Home Hub I didn't pay too much attention to which model was mentioned.

[andrue]

Very strange.

So, this ALWAYS happens on 19th of every other month & a simple ROUTER reboot ALWAYS restores normal throughput speeds?

Yup. You can tell from the dates of my postings in this thread.

It doesn't seem like account throttling due to excessive downloading as a ROUTER reboot wouldn't cure that.

That would be unlikely anyway. I'm not a heavy user. In December I did manage to clock up 60GB but that was because I was downloading test data for work (our office connection is bad, though I'm running a project to upgrade it to a leased line). My typical month is about 10GB, rarely more than 20GB.

is the date your account was activated?

No, that was the April 16th but isn't there supposed to be a three day trial period? My TBBQM graphs of April 2012 (no longer accessible) showed a latency change on the 19th at exactly the same hour as when my connection first went live.

There is nothing between you & the cabinet that could cause 'interference' every other month?
Even if there was, a router reboot surely wouldn't clear it up.

I doubt it. It's a housing estate on the edge of a small rural town:

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=nn136ja&aq=&sll=51.528642,-0.101599&sspn=0.704844,1.198883&vpsrc=6&t=h&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Brackley+NN13+6JA,+United+Kingdom&ll=52.031603,-1.161348&spn=0.001361,0.002342&z=19

From the roundabout bottom right to top left via Pavillons Way.

It must be worth a shot, with the evidence you now possess, to request that the ISP deletes your account & creates a new one, (with no new contract period) if only to eliminate a spurious reversion to a lower profile, maybe due to account corruption.

I might try that actually. I'll see what they say in response to my email. As usual I have no idea if they got the email though because there's been no acknowledgement :-/

If it was a network issue, surely other users would see similar symptoms.

I would have thought so yes - although if you broaden 'network issue' to include misconfiguration it might be fewer people.

Have you previously mentioned that the problem still occurs if bypassing the router & using a direct connection to the modem?

Yeah, tried that - no change :-/

Compared to what Niall is going through it's a fairly trivial problem. Especially since I know it'll be over sometime on the 24th. But I'm a software engineer and it bugs me that no-one knows (and worse even cares). A reliably reproducible fault is something that any engineer should leap at. 

[andrue]

Are you using a BT Home Hub?

Nope. A Netgear WNR1000v3. The same one IDNet supply but bought for myself as it was cheaper.

Does it ever vary by a day or so, depending on whether there are 30 or 31 days in the month?

Wow! You're right - I hadn't really noticed that before:

December - 20th


October - 20th (I was at wedding so can only go by the increase in latency).


And the latency always starts in the late afternoon. Yesterday it started at 3pm which is the same as December although October looks to have been 4pm. OMG. British Summer Time. So we can say that it always starts at 1500utc. Now what's the repeat interval. 60 days?

August and June graphs are not available any more but I clearly noticed it on the 19th of previous months and it was the 19th of this month.

[Bald_Eagle1]

Nope. A Netgear WNR1000v3. The same one IDNet supply but bought for myself as it was cheaper.

Same as mine, supplied by Plusnet.
I don't have this issue though.

I did read of some Plusnet users updating the router's firmware & having problems, so reverted to the firmware version as originally supplied.
When I get chance later on, I'll try to track down what the issue was.

Have you updated the firmware version in your router?

This is from my router:-
Firmware Version V1.0.2.30_53.0.66B1
GUI Language Version V1.0.2.30_2.1.10.1


"Interesting" thing with the dates/BST times pattern.
I wonder what the relevance could be.
The only setting I can find that MAY have some effect is the timeout option.
Mine is set to 0 - i.e. permanently ON 24/7.

[Glenn]

60 days is a 1440 hour cycle, if that helps.

[andrue]

60 days is a 1440 hour cycle, if that helps.

Hmm. I just had an interesting and informative chat with Support. They'd already noticed that there was increased latency on my line even though very little traffic. They are in contact with BT to try and get some more info but of course it's anyone's guess how long it will take for a response. Overall he agrees that it's odd but it seems to be a combination of issues - to an extent it looks like a DLM issue except that I can show that my modem has been connected all through. He did explain though that the DLM is more a of a law unto itself with FTTC than with ADSL so it's conceivable it could change things even without a sync event.

Have you updated the firmware version in your router?

This is from my router:-
Firmware Version V1.0.2.30_53.0.66B1
GUI Language Version V1.0.2.30_2.1.10.1

Same as mine. I think it updated in November when I happened to log on to it.

"Interesting" thing with the dates/BST times pattern.
I wonder what the relevance could be.
The only setting I can find that MAY have some effect is the timeout option.
Mine is set to 0 - i.e. permanently ON 24/7.

Same here. Anyway even a direct connection has the problem so if it's the router it would have to be the router upsetting the DSLAM and putting it into a four day sulk rather than the router being prissy for four days

[mervl]

Resetting the account seems a good measure. But is it also possible for IDnet (or via ebay) to do a swap out of the modem, and router for good measure (I thought IDNet could loan at least a router for troubleshooting)?

I just mention this because the only time I've had something similar is once a few days after updating my modem/router firmware, when the line characteristics reported by the modem didn't change but latency and throughputs subsequently took a hammering spontaneously for a couple of days with more resyncs than I usually have in several months, then cleared of its own accord. (But the IP profile reported by the BT tester also took a hammering for the first time in my FTTC history). I'm thinking there might be some regular occurrence on the line in your case  - some sort of automated checking perhaps - to which the your modem or router takes an aversion, but which is not normal? As the line characteristics haven't changed it then returns to normal, but for some strange reason takes its time to do so. (Just thinking that as you had the issue on a direct PC connection, perhaps suggests the modem, but as no-one else has reported the same issue I guess I'm spouting rubbish but will post anyway!). The fascinating thing to me is the 3pm/4pm coincident with home-from-school "peak" start.

[andrue]

I have to thank Support this time around. They've been helpful and have raised it with BT. Unfortunately BT's response wasn't really very informative.

"Remote diagnostics have been carried out and currently all tests pass. No
over-utilisation of the cab is indicated. I have discussed the issues you
have stated (ie issues occur regualrly every 60). The FTTC network team
have stated no profile changes have taken place or any limitations on your
customer circuit.

Next course of action recommended/to be taken: As current remote checks do
not indicate any issue, if you require any further investigation and have
fully eliminated any possible cause of issues with your customer
equipment/set up/sources of interferance, in order to instigate an
Openreach engineer for further checks"

Unfortunately I don't think getting an engineer out is going to be sensible unless they know not to investigate the line itself. The latest graphs from Bald Eagle's monitoring show that there's nothing wrong there.



So I seem to have hit a brick wall at the moment 

[mervl]

Unfortunately I don't think getting an engineer out is going to be sensible unless they know not to investigate the line itself. The latest graphs from Bald Eagle's monitoring show that there's nothing wrong there.

I agree. Unfortunately at Ofcom's dicktat, BT has ring fenced divisions, and OR customer engineers only deal with the line between CPE and the original cab. I gather the DSLAMs and fibre cabs are the responsibility of network teams (BT Wholesale or possibly another division of OR?). But they seem to have responded too. But as a residential service without guaranteed service standards, what do you really expect for the lowest mandated price? Would we all be prepared to pay more so that you can get the level of consistent service you would like? Sorry. It's an occasional hiccup - it bugs you but that's life. There are more important things.

[andrue]

IDNet Support have done well. They got an engineer out yesterday but unfortunately he was only interested in the line and aside from confirming that it was a little bit noisy he said there was no problem. I showed him various graphs and stats and he agreed it was a problem but outside of his remit.

This morning I tried a temporary login and different IP address but the problem was still there. Unfortunately when I switched back to my correct login the problem had gone. Still - it's progress of a sort. We know that it's not specific to my login. I think it's pointing toward an issue with the cab and my port. Something in there is causing an increase in latency which has the knock-on affect of limiting my downstream throughput.

Curiously this morning at 6am there was some kind of sync event and DLM has intervened for what I think is the first time ever. It's knocked my sync down to 66Mb/s and put interleaving on. Unfortunately I'd stopped the monitoring the evening before (sod's law, eh?) but I had a look this morning and I'm now showing an attainable rate of 78Mb/s instead of 73Mb/s. Probably just a coincidence and it wasn't that that fixed the throughput.

As you say there are more important things to do and plenty of people would love to have 30Mb/s and I only suffer it for a few days every couple of months. Still - I'm an engineer and this bugs me 

[mervl]

Possibly not a coincidence whilst we're speculating (it's fun, isn't it?). I occasionally get disturbances, some of which are associated with latency increases (noise? not obvious but INP jumps for no apparent reason) but they usually involve resyncs and seem invariably to end with a resync to clear something. I'm not an engineer, but my my layman's perspective is that all system management software (e.g. the cab DSLAM) can be subject to occasional unexplained erratic behaviour - of course there is always a reason but its processes are so complex that the interaction isn't completely understood by any normal human brain. (Damp and cold plays havoc with electronics doesn't it?). Like humans they seem to get used to their environment and have a moan when it changes, before they (usually) grin and bear it with equanimity. I'm risking real trouble here, but I've yet to come across the software upgrade that doesn't have a sort of settling in period. Wait before you complain would have kept me out of a lot of hassle!

So a long time ago I adopted a principle: significant fail and I'll give it up to 36 hours to recover, less than optimal performance and I'll give it around 3-5 days.  Works every time, unless there's something obvious seriously faulty.

[andrue]

..aaaaand here we go again. 19th of April at 4pm the jitter strikes:



With the speed test to prove it:

Before:



After:



I've notified Support and now I wait I guess. Only odd thing - I was expecting it tomorrow based on 'every 60 days'. But it was on the dot of 4pm which I expected (1500utc).

[andrue]

Back to normal now. Nick said that when he ran diags on my line last Friday it reported a 'profile mismatch' and BT claim to have cleared that over the weekend (although Nick didn't know that until he got in today). I tried to connect using my laptop rather than through the router when I got in from work but that failed. I gave up and went back to the router and apparently it's fine.

Curious.



Hasn't really answered many questions but if there was a profile fault I can perhaps see that impacting latency and it's possible that BT's fix wouldn't take effect until I got a new session. I did notice though that Sat and Sun midnight the latency calmed down for an hour. Hasn't done that before though and might not mean anything.

No idea what was wrong with my laptop. It attempted a connect but then the hard drive jammed on and it became unusable. Had to force it to reboot.

[mervl]

Just possibly an interesting development on my lines steady deterioration (which I had put down to increasing FTTC take up) - mainly affecting average latency and uploads. The exchange link failed yesterday, and apart from the RSS feed IDNet/BTWholesale reporting operating perfectly with updates throughout, after the fibres were re-terminated on the patch at the exchange, everything is now as good as it was originally. Makes me think perhaps that in the rush that is DSL upgrades, not all the physical connections in the network are made or checked as they should be (especially at the BTWholesale bits at the exchange - and in the fibre cabs?). And not picked up by remote diagnostics up until a total fail. It's the way of the world, unfortunately. And I suspect we've all been there . . . more haste less speed, literally.

[mervl]

error post!!

[andrue]

Here's hoping it stays that way for you 

[andrue]

Well..there's a thing. The 19th of June has been and gone along with the 20th and this time no slow down. There is a difference though - I changed the router. Now what's weird about that is that I have previously demonstrated the issue connecting direct from my laptop so had ruled the router out as the cause 

It looks like my old router was doing something every 60 days that screwed up the connection and took around four days to clear - but that sounds mad. It's either that or the fault has finally been fixed. 

Hmm..although on the 19th there was of course that BT fault that wrecked our connections for most of the afternoon. Maybe that somehow 'innoculated' me.