Thinking about joining iDNet, Questions about service.

[Simon]

I have to admit, I don't know, but the 0800 331 7000 number is answered by the OOH team outside office hours, so I guess they push you through to BTs enhanced support service, if you have the Enhanced package. I don't have Enhanced Support myself, so I've never used the service.

[Simon]

Just to confirm, the above is correct.  If you're on the enhanced care package, the OOH team will raise the fault with BT, just as the IDNet support team would during office hours.

[Dealz]

Just to confirm, the above is correct.  If you're on the enhanced care package, the OOH team will raise the fault with BT, just as the IDNet support team would during office hours.

Thank you for confirming, that's good news.

Q: How much support can the OOH team give vs the DOH team when investigating issues?

[Simon]

Depends what the problem is.  I don't think they can access IDNet customer accounts, for example, so they can only try to offer support for technical issues, and I think that would be fairly basic.

Feel free to ask as many questions as you like, but perhaps the best thing would be to try them?  As long as you're not diving into FTTC territory, it's only a one month contract. 

[Dealz]

Okay then sounds like its pretty limited support when out of hours but i guess when out of office hours at least there is someone there to speak to vs no-one at all. Yeah i think i'll shoot the question over to IDNet to see what they say, I can't get FTTC yet been waiting for ages! and i think i'll have to continue waiting a long time On the bright-side i have decided to try IDNet out (over Zen & AAisp), Just waiting for migration. I have high hopes based on all the feedback i have read, IDNet "reasons' to choose them etc that all will be good

[Dealz]

My service to IDNet was connected yesterday thankfully much ahead of schedule (Long story which was looking like a long wait, but turned out very good)

So far overall i think i'm pleased, I get much less packet loss (barely any) vs my previous ISP which was very small (1%-5%) but quiet constant according to BQM (although when pinging the BBC and using pingtest.net i never got packet loss).

My ping has gone up from around 7ms-9ms with previous ISP to around 10ms-13ms with IDNet. I guess for competitive gaming that slight increase in ping shouldn't make to much of a difference when taken into account the reduced packet loss (If BQM can be trusted).

As for download speed it looks to be about the same as my previous ISP and upload is a tiny bit faster.

To be honest i was hoping for a ping the same as my previous ISP or better and a bit more on the download speed, but maybe my expectations were to high?

Is there anyway to lower my ping?

FYI: I'm now using a Huawei HG612 Modem (BCM 6368)

[Steve]

Regarding ping and FTTC -  As far as I'm aware there's nothing you can do except keep the line stable, I think the contancy of ping is probably more important for gaming than the actual figure.

[Dealz]

I'm not on FTTC 

I can't get it yet, I won't be able to get it for a while.

I think i agree and i will try it out and see how it goes after all i'm only on a 1 month contract with ADSL2+ but i'm sure the slight rise in ping will be fine.

[Steve]

Well it is a vdsl2 modem and I'll bet 99% of it's use is on FTTC,I have read the hacked version works ok on adsl2+ lines.  What happened to the DLINK?

[Gary]

I'll bet 99% of us is on FTTC

I think you would be surprised hoe many people cant get FTTC still, Steve. Also many wont go for the expense of having it if they don't need it. unless you are a avid gamer or download tonnes of music and film its not really that important to have those speeds as I see it.

[Steve]

Sorry Gary I missed an 'e' I'll edit, it was regarding the use of the Huaweii HG612 there can't be many using it on adsl2+ compared to FTTC although it does seem to do ok.

@Dealz my hacked HG612 has a higher latency on FTTC than my unhacked one only a couple, plus when a changed to the ASUS from a 7800N the latency dropped by a couple.

[Dealz]

@Steve

Yes so far the HG612 has been running okay, I stopped using the TD-8817 because when i used it before (previous isp) my sync speed was slower than the 834N and also my SNR was around 0.1 down... maybe the Trendchip was a bad choice for my line but i was sure it would be fine.

I'm now thinking maybe all that might be different now i'm with IDNet? Maybe i should try the 8817 again?

also yeah i've noticed that ping changes depending on the modem/router being used.

[Steve]

It also depends where you run the pings from at least if you can run them from the router it takes the LAN out of the equation.

[Dealz]

It also depends where you run the pings from at least if you can run them from the router it takes the LAN out of the equation.

How do you mean run it from the router?

Update: Just setup the 8817 and my speed is around 16Mbps (No thanks) vs HG612 which is around 19Mbps

Also my SNR was again around 0.1 not sure if this is bad reading or if it's just my line or maybe the DSLAM or a combo of 1 or more

i'll try the 834N...

[Steve]

I can ping from the Asus RT N66U instead of from an attached device.

[Gary]

I see what you mean Steve  A SNR of 0.1 on my line means virtually no data flow, so I would think on Dealz that may be a dodgy reading. That's just from my experience.

[Dealz]

@Steve

Oh i see, i think to do that i'd have to have the HG612 bridged to the RT-N66U so that the RT-N66U WAN IP is the IP from IDNet? is that right?

At the moment the RT-N66U has an IP of 192.168.0.2 from the DCHP range of the HG612 which 192.168.0.1, The HG612 gets the IP from IDNet.

@Gary

Yeah maybe it is a bad reading, as my connection is fine no disconnections etc. I had an 8817 before the current one i have now and that also showed the same SNR of 0.1.

Update: I tried the 834N and i was getting around 18.3Mbps, Looks like the HG612 gives me the best speeds.

[Steve]

Yes the RT N66U would provide the PPPOE connection through the HG612 as it does with FTTC whether it works the same with adsl2+ I don't know.

[Dealz]

Yes it works the same way (I've set it up this way earlier), but in my current setup the HG612 handles both the PPPoA and PPPoE. I then connect the HG612 to the RT-N66U (LAN1 > WAN) and then the RT-N66U gets the WAN IP 192.168.0.2, from the HG612 DHCP IP range. The RT-N66U has it's own DHCP IP range (192.168.1.1) for all my devices to obtain IP addresses.

[Dealz]

I've been quite pleased with the broadband over the last few days but all of a sudden i get this...

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/ping/share/0f787d162a717e9506832ca068c5af0d-07-05-2013.html



What does this mean? Should i be worried?

I was actually quite horrified to see it

[Steve]

I've seen one other looking like that on adsl with similar amounts of packet loss at the same time, something was amiss with the network somewhere hopefully it's corrected itself. Thre was packet loss on all BE LLU lines yesterday afternoon

[Dealz]

It hasn't got any better today...

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/ping/share/f39d759d6ce1b95b5a076f9bcd94c315-08-05-2013.html

Plus now my connection is dropping and re-syncing several times already (i don't think it did this yesterday)...

Since Link time = 6 min 5 sec
FEC:      0      0
CRC:      1589      1
ES:      173      1
SES:      27      0
UAS:      0      0
LOS:      1      0
LOF:      1      0   

Lasted 6 minutes then the connection dropped/re-synced.

This is for the last 1 day 15 hours (before this my connection was up for 6 days with no dropped connection/re-sync)

Total time = 1 days 15 hours 29 min 26 sec
FEC:      0      0
CRC:      17979      0
ES:      2972      163
SES:      251      0
UAS:      631      631
LOS:      8      0
LOF:      61      0   

I've done a line test and there is no noise.

Here is another one, lasted 5 minutes 30 secs then connection dropped/re-synced

Since Link time = 5 min 35 sec
FEC:      0      0
CRC:      909      0
ES:      194      0
SES:      12      0
UAS:      0      0
LOS:      0      0
LOF:      0      0   

It seems to drop/re-sync the connection every 5/6 min's

[Steve]

Obviously there's a problem somewhere, I would contact support.

[Dealz]

Update:

The issue is fixed, pretty weird issue but i'm happy it's been resolved and i'm pleased with the support i received from the support team.

I'll monitor my connection over the weekend but initial signs are showing that my connection may be even better than my first 6days before the fault.   

[Steve]

Any clues as to what was wrong?