Slow Speeds since I got the 8meg Max service

[Ann]

My connection speed is just as I said.  As soon as the students went home on Saturday my speed went up.  Just now when it would usually be 1000 if I'm lucky it's 6343.  S'funny, they were looking into why students' connections were slow at work last week.. haha.

[Lance]

At least that 100% confirms it as exchange contention, Ann.

[hairyman]

Hi All
Happy New Year!!!!

Ann ---- I hope your local students all concentrate on their studies more in 2009 and stop ripping off articles from the net and calling it research? As you say I guess even through their student haze thay notice "their" netspeeds are low and may complain to BT like you do.


Just did a New Years Eve BT speedtest( sad or what!!) the results are certainly better than last year ( sub one meg then).
I have changed nothing here as I think I had done all that I could do over the previous two years that we have had the sub one meg throughput 8Meg MAX service. I guess 60% of IPprofile as an actual tp is not to bad during the evening? Better than 600k to 1000k I got after MAX happened!

There had been little or no improvement with the initial IDnet / BT input ( the best tps had got better but they were erratic caused by congestion locally and poor BT / Openreach service to their customer). I emailed Mr Livingthin at BT and actually had replies he said IDnet should escalate the problem , Idnet said they knew no further method of applying pressure to BT, The head of BT wholesale phoned me at home on a Saturday morning to explain the next steps and he would see that Idnet were made aware of the progress and explain the escalation methodology to them as well.

I was than put onto some secondary less congested VP and spare hardware ordered and a lift and shift was planned in by the Wholesale guys. The average tputs now are much better although I doubt if VOIP or streaming video would work well as the data rates still drop near zero for half a second every 2 to 10 seconds due I guess to traffic management by BT/exchange congestion. This is no problem as I need neither right now, I guess gaming would be no go as well but again I grew up thirty years ago so this is no problem until my second childhood starts next week!!

All this and I live 400metres from the exchange!!! I can only imagine what it like with miles of rubbish 100year old technology , twisted pair!! Come on BT,, fibre to the home is the only way forward most of your existing copper will be usless within a decade probably even just for voice. Forget 21CN that is already an decade old idea which you cannot implement on time anyway. Its just like a sticking plaster.

So I will see what a long dry spell does to my SNRs. These used to muck up my connection with MANY disconnects, but maybe the 2 to 3 db gained with the lower line loss after the modifications at the exchange will keep the connection up or maybe it will stay noiseless even in long dry weather??

So my advice to those with erratic broadband speeds is to keep at it by asking "The great IDnet guys and gals" to keep at BT and use the systems set up. Also use this forum and the good advice and "support" given here.

Thanks again to all,  SEASONS THINGYS to all , go home sober (ish) , hangovers are not worth it. I am going to celebrate NEW YEAR with a weekend daywalk over on the Brecon Beacons in the icy paradise above the clouds ( I hope). I will report back next year.......................

Results below

   Hairyman 


Test1 comprises of Best Effort Test:  -provides background information.
    Your DSL connection rate: 7616 kbps(DOWN-STREAM),  448 kbps(UP-STREAM)
    IP profile for your line is - 6500 kbps
    Actual IP throughput achieved during the test was - 3931 kbps

If you wish to discuss these results please contact your ISP.

If you are experiencing problems with specific applications, servers or websites please contact your ISP for assistance.

Your test has completed please close this window to exit the performance tester.

[Philip]

  hairyman 

[Rik]

I hope you have a good walk, Chris. Even with the relatively slow performance, you're still beating me.

[hairyman]

Hi All

Hope you have all been well, I have had a good winter with some good mountain walking and climbing days in this snowy weather. All is well there then. The internet seems to have degenerated again I see Idnet have been buying duff gear from those BT thieves again. Shame about the monopoly situation where IDnet are in practice only a subsidiary of BT ( practically they are like a BT franchise, like Domino's Pizza and MacDonald's ).

My throughputs have been around 3 to 4 meg since Christmas but sometime in the last 48hrs they have dropped to sub one meg again. The sync to the exchange is still 7616kbps interleaved with no disconnects ( well about one a week at worst).

I have emailed idnet support but I am really worn down by this poor service from a once good supplier I don't care if the problem is BT or IDnet because as far as I am concerned the service is provided by BT with Idnet handling the paperwork and passing on the cash taking a percentage.

Any suggestions

Below Thinkbroadband speedtests
  Date                Downstream      Upstream
03/02/09 19:27  1040.18 Kbps   356.56 Kbps
03/02/09 18:32  1245.27 Kbps   361.98 Kbps
03/02/09 18:06  882.48 Kbps    358.19 Kbps

Test my Server by Visualware shows similar speeds, but in addition shows huge packet delays ( 500msec) and chopped up throughput with peaks at 5 to 6 meg but huge pauses at slow or near zero tput. Are the rest of you getting less than a quarter of your normal throughputs?? I have rebooted my router tonight.

PDF s attached from Visualware.

Hairyman





[attachment deleted by admin]

[Simon]

There have been some problems following a network upgrade over the last few days, Hairy, as you'll no doubt see on the forum, and in this Announcement, you'll see that there was a major outage today.  As most people's connections seem to have stabilised now, I suggest you contact IDNet in the morning, as they may just need to tweak something for you.

Glad you had a nice winter break! 

[hairyman]

Thanks for that Simon , I have emailed support, and may telephone them tommorrow , but I might just transfer the connection to another BT based franchise both will take the same amount time from  my busy working day.

O2 / Be are planning to activate to our exchange ( all the surrounding similar size exchanges are O2 enabled and a pal syncs at 10.5meg on a long line and tputs at over 8meg all for next to nothing on top of a very cheap ( £10 a month 150min anytime/anyone voice SIM only mobo deal). That will be the way to go I guess.

Why o Why should something as simple as broadband need any "tweaking" by human intervention at a provider!!!! A reboot I can understand to reset parameters.

OH well on we go. AGAIN.

Find attached a photo of me on Carnedd Dafydd in Snowdonia a couple of weekends ago ( this is to punish someone for B**gering up my net connection again)!!!!

Hairyman

[attachment deleted by admin]

[Sebby]

It could well be IDNet that are to blame for the last few days, Hairyman, as they've had some problems. A reboot of your router may sort the problems now (it'll put you on a less congested central).

If things don't improve, O2/Be could well be the answer.

[Simon]

Great pic, Hairy, that must have been quite a climb!

[Glenn]

Hairy, are you DLT or just a lookalike?

[Rik]

Worrying, isn't it.

[hairyman]

Hi Rik

Yes it was a good day out, the sun even came out, it wasn't too hard a climb up. We stay at our clubs mountain hut which is a converted stone barn only 4mls from the photos location. it was very icy beneath the fresh snow with I suspect has been below zero for nearly two months as we had good snow back before Xmas on our previous visit.

My bb tput still remains at 1meg or lower with signs of heavy traffic shaping when you look at the graph of tput vs time. There are many choppy breaks in the tput with long pauses and long pings often over 300milliseconds. Frankly I dint believe that IDnet dint traffic shape of rather BT do it for them but they probably call it something different.

I have tried rebooting several times with no change. All I want is a consistent 2meg tput like I had three years ago. I then synced at 2272kbps and downloaded all the time at 1800kbps and that was with Eclipse Internet. This ridiculous MAX service needs dumping in favour of the much better LLU system with no profiling etc.   

DLT huh I am the HAIRYman( must get the scissors out) my colleagues call me Gerry Adams. I suppose I could save cash by changing to a decent ISP and visit the hairdressers more? I does keep you warm in this cold spell though.

No reply from IDnet ref my email to them.


HAIRYMAN

[Sebby]

IDNet are probably quite busy at the moment. I'm sure they'll reply shortly.

[hairyman]

Hi All again
The old old problem has reappeared. See my BT speedtest below , I had about 50 disconnects in 24hrs about three weeks ago and a few since then.
After the 50 dropouts the speed / profiledropped to 1 meg then after a few days ( 5? ) then picked up to 4.5meg for a while then dropped to 1.5meg where we are now.

I have done all the usual line tests and local tests many times and often the voice line is so noisy we have to use the mobiles!!!

BT say the voice line tests OK, I have 37db attenuation on a line that is all underground and no more than 1.2km long
( I am 400metres from the exchange as the crow flies) , I suspect the cables are aluminium ( put in 1975-1980 ish) as the bit at my end seems very brittle and is def not copper). I only have one phone and the router ( Zoom X5V) on a ADSL nation filtered faceplate.

Currently sync at 6200k with 16db SNR , when I loose connection and the voice line is noisy the UPSTREAM link goes bonkers and ends up at 0 db SNR and drops out.

I am thinking of trying AAISP to see if their claims are true, their downloads are very good as 1gb a month in the daytime should be plenty and the limit the rest of the time is more than enough. I will email IDnet and see what they can do but BT want the usual £180 threat to turnout.

The other option is try Orange or TT LLu on our exchange ( urgh!!!) as they don't profile and their exchange contention cannot be worse than BTs, when I profiled at 6000k with IDnet/BT at best I got 4meg and mostly 1.5meg actual. I think BT put me on an Office/Commercial connection last year when the speeds fell to 1meg with a 6meg profile they said a new VP was used which I understand means a less contended one often an Office rather than a home one.

Maybe an email to Ian Livingthing again?? Or maybe the head of BT Wholesale who called me last time and seemed to effect a cure!! For a while??

I am not surprised the line is poor right now as it definitely is worse when it is dry and we haven't had any real rain since the big snow back in FEB , the garden is looking very parched, and the cable joints need some water to cut down the diode created at every ally to ally joint.

I remember when I was a shortwave radio ham the effect of poor cables on LF aerial arrays , ally is not so bad at VHF and UHF but can be a disaster at LF.

How does one avoid the BT Wholesale guys blaming the voice line and vice versa.

Would a 2meg service be better and more stable?? Seems a Backward step as the line will support the full 8128K service at 9db without the noise .

PS the noise seems worse and gives more dropouts in the daytime so I dont think its MW/LW nighttime propagation issues.

Good to be back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!???

HAIRYMAN






Test1 comprises of Best Effort Test:  -provides background information.
    Your DSL connection rate: 6368 kbps(DOWN-STREAM),  448 kbps(UP-STREAM)
    IP profile for your line is - 1500 kbps
    Actual IP throughput achieved during the test was - 1351 kbps

If you wish to discuss these results please contact your ISP.

If you are experiencing problems with specific applications, servers or websites please contact your ISP for assistance.

Your test has completed please close this window to exit the performance tester

[Simon]

Hi Hairy,

As you know, I'm no authority on these matters, and someone will be along shortly to better advise, but on the face of it, if the problem is noise on the line, as you seem to have established, I don't think changing ISPs will help, although I'm not sure how this affects LLU providers.

[Lance]

You say you have noise on the line when using the phone - is that present all the time?

[Rik]

Try a quiet line test, Hairy, dial 17070 and select option 2. If you can hear noise, report a voice fault to BT and make no mention of ADSL.

[bobleslie]

It seems as if you've got a noisy voice line if you're having to resort to mobiles to call out.

Attach a telephone to the BT master socket and try and phone out. Test it with another 'phone or two if possible.

If you're still getting perceptible line noise (crackling or whooshing sounds which impair voice communications) regularly, then pester BT until you get them to fix it. They will always deny liability, even pretending they can't hear the noise on the line as you're talking to them.   But just keep pestering until they send an engineer out to try and fix it.

It took me 18 months and three times escalating BT engineers until they found out it was a fault quite near to the exchange. This was all rewired with dual core cable and has been fine since. They paid me compensation.

[hairyman]

Quiet line test usually shows OK

THE noise is intermittant but persistant ( over three years plus) . Have tried a simple phone no change.

I really think I have tried everything ( except the 2.5kv flash tester down the phone line !!!!!!!!!!)

LLU s don't IPprofile or so I understand so they always try for best sync at the time.

Noise is always worse in dry spells ( all the lines are underground , buried near me and in ducts along the High Street in town).

The noise seems bb related ie no modem no noise but I am not sure of this. I suspect the synced broadband signal is being rectified diode fashion by poor joints that get worse when dried out. (This causes noise as the signals can be several tens to hundreds of milliwatts ) Have tried three other router/modems and many filters etc with no difference. The problem might be external ie crosstalk from other lines , I may not be on a true twisted pair , that was the last BT engineers comment ie on two wires on two pairs. The old exchanges cables were all cut many years ago by vandals ( before broadband) and I know they spent hundreds of hours sorting it out. We got other folks calls until the system wire crosses were sorted.

[Rik]

It doesn't sound too hopeful, does it? Your best hope might be to have a new line installed specifically for ADSL. If BT agree to that, then they would have to cancel the contract and refund you if it didn't work properly.

[bobleslie]

I wonder whether the problem is general to your area. Perhaps adjoining premises are having similar problems. If so, a group of you might 'scare' BT into some in-depth examination. 

I do know that in my case it really didn't get sorted out until the heavy brigade moved in. How shall I describe him? The 'heavy brigade', I mean.

Well, he was quite unlike a 'normal' BT engineer. Small, muscular and swarthy. I'm sure he hitched up the telegraph pole without a ladder. He walked with slightly bowed legs, had a week's worth of beard, and external waterproofs coloured an oily yellow, even in the summer. In short, he looked like he meant business and he wouldn't move on until he'd got it all fixed properly.

He beavered away for a couple of days until I lost sight of him up the lane. One day, he rang me up and said: "Your line's fixed, Sir. We've found the fault and rewired it back almost to the exchange. Good day, Sir". The End. 

[Rik]

A real engineer. 

[bobleslie]

Yes, a national treasure.

He should be immersed in formaldehyde resin and put on display in the reception area of BT Towers.

Only after he's dropped off his pole, though.

[Rik]