IDNet maintenance - Saturday, January 12, 2008

[Rik]

Mmm. Maybe the routing is via Letchworth then, I thought it was to Telehouse...

[Simon]

Now you've lost me.  Is mine good or bad then?

[Ann]

purplecloud has gone again.. it's not IDNet again is it?

[Rik]

Now you've lost me.  Is mine good or bad then?

AFAIK, pings increase with distance (a bit like radar signals). So, someone in Scotland, say, will have longer ping times than someone in London (to a London site). Similarly, US sites will be slower than UK ones. I thought all IDNet routing ran through Telehouse, in London, therefore I would expect pings to decrease or increase with user distance from London.

Of course, we haven't discussed whether you have interleaving on.

[Rik]

purplecloud has gone again.. it's not IDNet again is it?

I wouldn't have thought so, Ann, 1&1 is fine.

[Ann]

Not my weekend really is it.. LOL.

But as for the ping situation, I have interleaving on or at least it was when last I checked (it's not easy to check and I'll have to remember how).. but my ping to the bbc was 28ms which seems quicker than I'd expect.  I'm in Canterbury however many miles away from London that is.

[Rik]

A 28ms ping with interleaving on sounds fine, Ann. Are you experiencing difficulties with any other sites, or is it just PC?

[Ann]

I don't think so but it's hard to tell.  PC going down on a Sunday is not good news.. I feel for them.  Everything's gone, email, web, the lot.

[Rik]

It's certainly dead from here, Ann.

[Noreen]

OK, just for interest I had a go.

Pinging www.bbc.net.uk [212.58.253.72] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 212.58.253.72: bytes=32 time=22ms TTL=249
Reply from 212.58.253.72: bytes=32 time=21ms TTL=249
Reply from 212.58.253.72: bytes=32 time=21ms TTL=249
Reply from 212.58.253.72: bytes=32 time=21ms TTL=249

Ping statistics for 212.58.253.72:
    Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 21ms, Maximum = 22ms, Average = 21ms

[Rik]

Do you have interleaving on, do you know, Noreen? The figures suggest you do.

[Simon]

How do I tell if I have interleaving on, and if I turn it off, will my pings get faster?

[Rik]

The router will usually show it, somewhere in its line stats, either by a direct reference (fast path=off), or by the error logs, where FECs indicate that interleaving is on.

You can't change it yourself, IDNet have to persuade BT to do it, but because it's used are part of the stabilisation process, it's not always easy to achieve.

[Noreen]

Do you have interleaving on, do you know, Noreen? The figures suggest you do.

Sorry Rik, I've no idea. Where would I find it on my Netgear? Are those results good or bad?

[colirv]

purplecloud has gone again.. it's not IDNet again is it?

No, all other sites work. Purplecloud's own separate status page shows everything down atm.

[Rik]

Thanks, Colin, at least we can't blame IDNet for this one then.

[Rik]

Sorry Rik, I've no idea. Where would I find it on my Netgear? Are those results good or bad?

To get the results in a Netgear, Noreen, enter this in the browser address bar:

http://192.168.0.1/setup.cgi?todo=debug

which should result in a screen which just says 'Debug enable'.
(That's assuming that you haven't changed the router's IP address from the default).

Then exit from the web interface and open a command-line window. Type:

telnet 192.168.0.1

You should get a BusyBox welcome message to confirm that your telnet connection is established.

Now type:

cat proc/avalanche/avsar_modem_stats <ENTER>

You'll get a list of the error count. The numbers will be in either the fast path section or the interleaving one, iirc.

Your pings are about what I'd expect for an interleaved connection.

[Phil123]

purplecloud has gone again.. it's not IDNet again is it?

Me too, Purple cloud has gone again, can't get to there website either:

http://www.purplecloud.com/home/

[Phil123]

I'm still getting this if I ping www.bbc.co.uk:

Pinging www.bbc.net.uk [212.58.251.203] with 32 bytes of data:

Destination host unreachable.
Destination host unreachable.
Destination host unreachable.
Destination host unreachable.

Ping statistics for 212.58.251.203:
    Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 0, Lost = 4 (100% loss)


However surfing the BBC's site is working fine and pinging other sites also works fine, so it's not causing me any problems, just thought I would post incase it indicates some other problem that IDNet might need to know about. Also even though I typed ping www.bbc.co.uk it tried to ping www.bbc.net.uk

Just realised why I can't ping bbc.co.uk I had Pear Guardian on and this was blocking the BBC, all working fine now:


Pinging www.bbc.net.uk [212.58.253.75] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 212.58.253.75: bytes=32 time=18ms TTL=249
Reply from 212.58.253.75: bytes=32 time=23ms TTL=249
Reply from 212.58.253.75: bytes=32 time=18ms TTL=249
Reply from 212.58.253.75: bytes=32 time=18ms TTL=249

Ping statistics for 212.58.253.75:
    Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 18ms, Maximum = 23ms, Average = 19ms

[Rik]

Phew.

[colirv]

Purplecloud now seems to be up again.

[Rik]

Double phew. 

[Sebby]

I've got no problems as such here, although pings to BBC are higher. I used to get on average 31ms, and now I'm getting 41ms. It's no issue for me though as I'm not a gamer.

[Rik]

Are you comparing like for like, Sebby, ie have you checked your ping times on a Sunday before?

[Sebby]

Yep. I used to get 31ms day or night and regardless of the day.

I've just tried again and it seems to have settled down, averaging 32ms.