Broadband Quality Monitor

[Ray]

I'm just trying out this BB Quality Monitor at Thinkbroadband, looks as though it could be useful if you have ping/packet loss problems, further details available here Broadband quality monitoring

[Rik]

Interesting, Ray.

[Glenn]

I've had it running for a while now, but had no problems (off to find some real wood to touch), no doubt Bill can give a little insight to it.

[Bill]

no doubt Bill can give a little insight to it.

Not much to say really, it does what it says on the tin- tbb ping your IP once a second and graph the results. One of mine from a few days ago:

My Broadband Ping

You can see the red spike of lost packets on the left where I lost PPP for a while (an indication to investigate further), and what happens when I download a few gigs from iTunes!

edit- you can also see the increase in packet loss when my exchange gets busier just on midnight, when all the off-peak downloading starts!

[zappaDPJ]

I've started monitoring my connection and I'm beginning to wish I hadn't. It's not a pretty sight especially considering I'm doing nothing but browsing a couple of local websites. I'll wait until I've got 24 hours worth of data and then post a link.

[Bill]

I can think of a few reasons why it very often isn't as bad as it looks, but I'll wait until you post a link in case it is as bad as it looks!

[Ray]

This is mine for the 20th of August.

[attachment deleted by admin]

[zappaDPJ]

I can think of a few reasons why it very often isn't as bad as it looks, but I'll wait until you post a link in case it is as bad as it looks!

Well it doesn't look much like Ray's that's for sure

[pctech]

Just set mine up so nothing to see yet

[Bill]

Well it doesn't look much like Ray's that's for sure

Don't panic!!!

Even during the fairly solid yellow part on the one I linked to earlier (attached) I didn't notice much difference in ordinary use, and that's the important thing- how your connection actually behaves.

An important point to remember is that a ping packet is low priority, so if your router (or those others that your data is going through) happens to be busy, responding to the ping will be delayed. That's what I meant when I said it often looks worse than it is.

@Ray- yours is not dissimilar to mine, but somewhat less busy. That's fair enough, I usually have around a dozen or so tabs open, many of which are auto-updating at various intervals. Not to mention other apps (eg Mail) which are doing the same thing.

I always find it mildly amusing that you can tell when I shut the browser (not the computer) down and go to bed

[attachment deleted by admin]

[zappaDPJ]

On a positive note I'm seeing very little packet loss at all.

[Steve]

Mines seems pretty stable until MobileMe decides to do a sync BTW have we had this link before http://www.robertos.me.uk/index.html ? I'm sure most people in this thread will recognise the name.

[Bill]

On a positive note I'm seeing very little packet loss at all.

Significant packet loss would be a worry... it usually means a highly congested exchange so there's not much you can do about it

I usually see a steady few percent loss starting at midnight, then it tails off over the next few hours as all the off-peak downloads finish.

[Bill]

BTW have we had this link before http://www.robertos.me.uk/index.html ? I'm sure most people in this thread will recognise the name.

I think Bob hoped that his website would mean he spent less time on the forums... not sure it worked that way

I haven't gone through it in much detail, but the response on tbb seems to be generally favourable.

[zappaDPJ]

My Broadband Ping

Interesting. My results are exemplary when my PC is turned off but start to look a bit of mess when it's on, even if it's unattended. This is in keeping with another test I used to run that plotted my ping over time. While individual pings were very low, every 20 seconds or so I'd get a massive spike which pushed my average ping quite high. At the time I did try a different network card to no avail. I do wonder if I have a faulty motherboard.

[EDIT] I should point out that I sync at 7584 kbps.

I've done nothing over the last 24 hours but browse forums. I'll try another 24 hour test later in the week using a different PC and see what that shows.

[Rik]

What caused that great slab of packet loss at the start, Zap?

[Bill]

That looks like the router was turned off, or possibly a loss of connection but I can't see any complaints

Another thought- Zappa forgot to enable ping responses from the WAN when he created the monitor

The rest doesn't look too good... seems as though something on the PC is keeping the router busy, but I've no idea what it might be or where to look. Does (his version of) Windows have a process monitor? Might be a bit of "unauthorised" software.

[Rik]

That looks like the router was turned off, or possibly a loss of connection but I can't see any complaints

Another thought- Zappa forgot to enable ping responses from the WAN when he created the monitor

I figured ping response off, Bill, but I'm curious to know.

[pctech]

Just been checking my graph, latency not bad and no packet loss.

I'm wondering whether to ask Zen to switch off interleaving as I'm seeing latency of around 25ms between my router and Zen's gateway.

[Bill]

You really need to look at your error rate- if it's high (and don't ask me to define that!) then turning interleave off will improve your pings but could well reduce your speed as more packets will need to be re-sent.

Depends whether you have gaming or downloading as a priority, my line is "better" with interleave on.

[pctech]

I'm intending to use Xbox Live so lower latency would be better.

I shall probably talk it over with tech support to see what readings they are getting from their LNS.

[Glenn]

This is My Broadband Ping The block is online gaming with iRacing.

[pctech]

iRacing?

I'm surprised Apple haven't trademarked that.

[Glenn]

http://www.iracing.com/ Mitch

[pctech]

I'm joking of course.

That looks very interesting, am a bit of a fan of racing sims.