[WXC/VFX] xnet's speed issues

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8219 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#165178 17-Sep-2008 20:44

msian: thats insane. 12-am to 3am is peak? who wants to wait till 3am? if xnet does that everyone on the plan will probably move isp's. slingshot has unlimited after 1am.

I guess you've never heard of download managers (like: GetRight, FreeDownloadManager etc) where you can scheulde downloads to occur later at whatever time you like. uTorrent also has a pretty decent scheduler built in.

In my personal opinion 12 is too early for off peak to start, at the time they annouced the torrent plan I did a /facepalm and bailed for a different isp before it was implemented. It was obvious it was going to be a horrible solution in the long run.

nexttothemoon

35 posts

Geek

#165186 17-Sep-2008 21:07

Xnet should impose restrictions on the Torrent plan, maybe things such as (not saying all of them, but maybe a selection):
Offpeak is from 3-8am not 12-8am. (I really feel this is the best solution, Torrent plan users still get their 75GB but PayPerMeg users also get the speeds, as do the Torrent plan users but they have to pay more [1.54 compared to 1.02])
Connection speeds are limited to a smaller number than their current real world max speeds Kbytes/s during 3-8am. (like 40% or something)
During onpeak times (eg not 3-8am) speeds are reduced to Kbps.
The amount of Free Offpeak data is reduced to 40-50GB and/or the price for Onpeak data is increased to $2.00 GB.
Torrent Plan users go into a 'group' and have lower priority (during offpeak times 3-8am) on their traffic.
I really believe Xnet could make a huge difference in this problem if they just changed the Off-Peak times to 3-8am, that way those who require low latency activities (Voice, Video, Games) are happy (along with the Torrent plan users) at the late hours of the day, while the Torrent plan users maintain their 'free' 75GB for Torrenting (which most likely is going to be illegal movie downloading, but we shall not get into that)

Looking at those ideas from the perspective of an actual customer looking for an ISP to switch to...I'd have to say all those ideas generally wouldn't entice me to join XNet. You have to look at what other providers are offering and what the comparitive costs of competing plans are.

XNet was(is?) getting a lot of customers because their plans had good bang for the buck... lots of data for a competitive price... with no contracts and the bonus that you only payed for data you actually used (no wasted GB's).

To address all the ideas you proposed (again from my viewpoint as a prospective customer):

-Personally if the free off peak period were from 3am to 8am I'd likely look at an ISP like Slingshot for their plans which offer a wider time window.

-If connection (download) speeds were limited during off peak... especially by something like 40%, I'd be less inclined to choose that plan. Again I'd look at competitors like Slingshot instead. If XNet offered me a choice to pay more for full speed (say $10) then that would be something I'd agree to (as long as the rest of the plan changed very little (1am-8am offpeak would be acceptable). Although of course upping the plan costs wouldn't help the overall speed of the network if everyone was still in the same bandwidth pool.

- Reducing peak speeds would be a killer... I doubt most users would want a reduction in our peak speeds as we still surf and do a lot during those times. I'd simply go with another ISP with full speed plans (or that at least offered the option of full speed)... rather than a permanently crippled speed plan during peak hours.

-Reducing the offpeak data would be another killer... another well known ISP offers UNLIMITED off peak and is throwing around terabytles of data... Xnet would have no shot compared to those other alternatives. Likewise increasing the onpeak Data cost to $2.00 would mean a 33% increase in your peak data costs... hard to go with this when other providers have lower data costs for peak times.

- The last option... the grouping of off peak torrent plan users is something that could work... as long as the price, size of the data packages and the peak speeds would stay the same. My understanding is that everyone now is thrown into the same pool and everyone sucks the same bandwidth pipe so the only way they could accompish this would be to split the pipe into 2 (or more) segments for their torrent users and their "non leecher" users. In theory this sounds great but I wonder how practical this is?
I would imagine every single part of the bandwidth XNet has now is being used to the fullest (by all the complaints this isn't hard to figure out.) Breaking that already strained pipeline into smaller pipes is an almost certain recipe for even more complaints from one group or the other as one group is likely to get better performance than they currently get (sometimes) and the other will get worse performance than they currently get (sometimes). The current method of having one large pipe pumping out every bit of bandwidth the company has purchased seems to be the optimal way Xnet (or any other company) can make the best use of the expensive bandwidth they have purchased.

I'd say Xnet have looked at all the angles and have structured the plans to attract the most customers possible to fully utilize the bandwith they have purchased. Those customers that are not satisfied with their plans are likely somewhat "expendable"(though of course no ISP will say that in so many words)... maybe that's harsh... but there is no way any plan or ISP will appeal to everyone and those customers that expect more than their plans are providing are expected to and SHOULD look elsewhere... another benefit of the "no contract" terms that Xnet has.

pistolpower

139 posts

Master Geek

#165197 17-Sep-2008 21:42

Kyro: Xnet just dont seam to understand what this Torrent plan is doing. The Torrent plan works out cheaper but with much more data allowance and doesnt suffer any penalties during the day time and gets free range during 12-8am.

HSI Pay Per Meg:
$1.02 per GB, you pay for every bit of your data allowance (except local traffic).

HSI Torrent:
$1.54 per GB, but you also get 75GB of free bandwidth between 12-8am.

On first glance it looks like its fair, the Torrent plan users have to pay 52cents more per GB than the Pay Per Meg users, but they get 75 "offpeak" data (Off Peak is more like 3am-8am).
But if you really look at it, the Torrent plan users are getting a much better deal than the Pay Per Meg users. Why?
They do not have any restrictions during the day or night (apart from the network slow down, but that doesnt really effect torrent's, it only really effects Low Latency reliant applications, Games, Voice, Video, etc).
They get more data per month because if you work it out your not going to be doing HEAVY torrenting during the day because your general web browsing will suffer, so heavy P2P users (and causual P2P users) will be almost always setting them to download a times they are not 'surfing' (3-8am). It turns out that shock, its not an inconvenience for the P2P users to set their downloads at off peak times (3-8am, not the piss poor judgment of 12-8) because THEY ALREADY DO THAT.

Of your monthly data-usage (talking to Pay Per Meg users), how much of that is large downloads that you set going at times you do not use the internet ? How much for just average surfing and the occasional download? works out cheaper to go with the Free 75GB and 1.54 per GB.

Xnet should impose restrictions on the Torrent plan, maybe things such as (not saying all of them, but maybe a selection):
Offpeak is from 3-8am not 12-8am. (I really feel this is the best solution, Torrent plan users still get their 75GB but PayPerMeg users also get the speeds, as do the Torrent plan users but they have to pay more [1.54 compared to 1.02])
Connection speeds are limited to a smaller number than their current real world max speeds Kbytes/s during 3-8am. (like 40% or something)
During onpeak times (eg not 3-8am) speeds are reduced to Kbps.
The amount of Free Offpeak data is reduced to 40-50GB and/or the price for Onpeak data is increased to $2.00 GB.
Torrent Plan users go into a 'group' and have lower priority (during offpeak times 3-8am) on their traffic.
I really believe Xnet could make a huge difference in this problem if they just changed the Off-Peak times to 3-8am, that way those who require low latency activities (Voice, Video, Games) are happy (along with the Torrent plan users) at the late hours of the day, while the Torrent plan users maintain their 'free' 75GB for Torrenting (which most likely is going to be illegal movie downloading, but we shall not get into that)

Dude wth is your problem? Why do you want of peak to be 3-8am, i mean do you browse the web from 8-3am and are worrying about your speeds? Dude your anti-consumerist. I am on torrent plan and get a theoretical max download speed of 700KBps with my synch rates. But i cant download 75GB in p2p downloading everynight with uploads unrestricted. And my max upload speed is 100KBps. I do not like you dude.

Dude if theyre geting a better deal then why dont you sighn up instead of complaining. And secondly if they did what you sugested then everyone would sighn of from torrent plan. I personally would attempt to get reveange on you by downloading every day at peak times. Then xnet would be forced to start shaping really badly. They would not have enough banfwidth available at peak time but heaps spare ofpeak. You lose, i lose, xnet lose. Then after xnet starts agresive shaping then i would leave. Then xnet would have problems. And there are more effects but im not gona explain myself more.

Basicly torrent plan shifted higher users of from on-peak times to of-peak times. They needed to reduce on-peak data usage to make it useable by the majority. So you win from this, I win from this, Xnet is victourious and beloved by all. They used incentives instead of punishment and managed to make everyone win. So if you think you can do better then go start your own isp up then rant in the xnet forum. Comeon i dare you. Your such a genuise. Go on beat xnet?

wuffie

27 posts

Geek

#165206 17-Sep-2008 22:05

Kyro: ...They get more data per month because if you work it out your not going to be doing HEAVY torrenting during the day because your general web browsing will suffer, so heavy P2P users (and causual P2P users) will be almost always setting them to download a times they are not 'surfing' (3-8am). It turns out that shock, its not an inconvenience for the P2P users to set their downloads at off peak times (3-8am, not the piss poor judgment of 12-8) because THEY ALREADY DO THAT....

Acturly the torrent plans charge of $1.54 per GB during the day does put me off downloading during peak times, When I was on a 20gb per month plan I downloaded stuff whenever I wanted, regardless of other web stuff I was doing, it never effecting my gaming or web browseing!

The torrent plan is doing EXACTLY what xnet wanted it to do, helps put ppl off downloading during Peak times (5pm-10pm) when there are always going to be slow downs due to the ammount of ppl accessing the net at that time

Kyro

74 posts

Master Geek

#165221 17-Sep-2008 22:37

nexttothemoon:
-Personally if the free off peak period were from 3am to 8am I'd likely look at an ISP like Slingshot for their plans which offer a wider time window.

You do realize that slingshot is 1am->7am which 6 hours, I said numbers are changable, so it could go from 2-8am or 3-9am. Or from 3-8 which is 5 hours of Torrenting, 1 hour less than slingshots 1-7.

However I have heard nothing but bad news from slingshot so their 6 hours of free data, might be a way of making up for there service (or lack of). Your also locked into a 12 month contract (unless you pay to get out), where as with xnet your not.

nexttothemoon:

-Reducing the offpeak data would be another killer... another well known ISP offers UNLIMITED off peak and is throwing around terabytles of data... Xnet would have no shot compared to those other alternatives. Likewise increasing the onpeak Data cost to $2.00 would mean a 33% increase in your peak data costs... hard to go with this when other providers have lower data costs for peak times.

Yet they do not have the benefits of per MB charging most other ISPs do per GB and charge you in blocks like 1GB, 5GB, 10GB, etc. But your data isnt carried over (bar slingshot) each month.

pistolpower:
Dude wth is your problem? Why do you want of peak to be 3-8am, i mean do you browse the web from 8-3am and are worrying about your speeds? Dude your anti-consumerist. I am on torrent plan and get a theoretical max download speed of 700KBps with my synch rates. But i cant download 75GB in p2p downloading everynight with uploads unrestricted. And my max upload speed is 100KBps. I do not like you dude.

First off I said off-peak times should be 3-8am, when did I say that I browse the web during those hours?

And you make my point also with your comment, not many people browse the web or do any latency sensitive activities so it is the perfect time for xnet to give the Torrent plan users their free data.

I'm also not anti-comsumerist, I'm trying to suggest ways in which everyone is happy not just the people on the Torrent plan.

I never said you could download 75GB everynight.

pistolpower:
Dude if theyre geting a better deal then why dont you sighn up instead of complaining. And secondly if they did what you sugested then everyone would sighn of from torrent plan. I personally would attempt to get reveange on you by downloading every day at peak times. Then xnet would be forced to start shaping really badly. They would not have enough banfwidth available at peak time but heaps spare ofpeak. You lose, i lose, xnet lose. Then after xnet starts agresive shaping then i would leave. Then xnet would have problems. And there are more effects but im not gona explain myself more.

You can leave personal attacks out of this discussion, as the moderator said before. Also you make no points in this paragraph.

pistolpower:
Basicly torrent plan shifted higher users of from on-peak times to of-peak times. They needed to reduce on-peak data usage to make it useable by the majority. So you win from this, I win from this, Xnet is victourious and beloved by all. They used incentives instead of punishment and managed to make everyone win. So if you think you can do better then go start your own isp up then rant in the xnet forum. Comeon i dare you. Your such a genuise. Go on beat xnet?

First of all I'm not saying the Torrent plan is a bad idea, infact its a good idea however they did not think of the impact of such an early off-peak time of midnight.

You might have to go to bed at 9-10-11pm, but a large number of users are actually still online at these times. Do not make the assumption that just because your not up that late that means no one else is.

I was suggesting moving the off-peak timeframe to a more appropriate place hence the 3am->8am, your movie downloads (illegal by the way) arn't going to stop just because of a time shift.

P.S: I blatently avoided all your attacks, hopefully a moderator will do something with your post.

Overall I was throwing ideas out there, I still think 3am-8am is the best option, this way most users will be happy. Yes off-peak time is reduced by 1 hour, but Torrent plan users also benefit from the change in off-peak time.

aka: They can still surf the internet and do latency sensitive activities during the 'on-peak' times, where as at the moment they(as with the Pay Per Meg users) are also stuck with horrible speeds and latency during midnight -> 8am.

Moving to 3am-8am or even 2am-8am will improve the service for both Pay Per Meg and Torrent Plan users, while still allowing the Torrent plan users to have and easily use, because in 30 days with 6 hours of off-peak time you can get theretically ~300GB of data, obviously real world data is going to be lower but still more than the 75GB.

JUPITER2K

131 posts

Master Geek

#165309 18-Sep-2008 12:25

If you guys remember the old grand father plans from IHUG

They changed their off peak time from 12 midnight - 8 a.m to 2a.m -10 a.m
Either way its does not matter. If changes to off peak traffic can help some users
who are late owls playing WOW ,browsing etc Perhaps IMO Xnet should look at it.

I am sure most torrent users schedule their download anyway. click and forget.

Kyro

74 posts

Master Geek

#165312 18-Sep-2008 12:33

Well I just rang up xnet and they have indicated that nothing is going to change. Apparently I'm the only one who has contacted them regarding the extremely slow speeds and extremely high latency from midnight onwards. Due to the Torrent plan users maxing out their connections doing (more than likely) illegal downloading.

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Niel

3267 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#165331 18-Sep-2008 13:14

Moving the "free hours" out to 10:00 would affect business customers. And remembers the ones that would play games after midnight are probably around the age of students which makes up a small percentage of the population. Most other people either works or is in school and does not stay up late.

You can never have enough Volvos!

pistolpower

139 posts

Master Geek

#165355 18-Sep-2008 14:59

Wow my internet is going fast today.

I have adsl1 and get a good synch rate. I was downloading from here and i was downloading at over 700KBps to i downloaded the 188MB file. I downloaded it at about 2:45pm today. The torrent plan goes so slow at night and im thinking of just paying $1 per GB in the day. I might switch of from the torrent plan lol. It seems silly to be forced to dload at night. Hmh 700KBps at peak time. :D. The ftp server is in america but i think it might have been cached on xnet? Anyways speeds going 100% fine for me today at peak time and im on torrent plan. Only copmplaints here is of-peak speeds. I think il be switching of torrent so that i can download large files fast during the day whenever i want to. Um allso Torrents seem to work reasonable during the day. Althought they do shape them at night.

wuffie

27 posts

Geek

#165399 18-Sep-2008 16:19

pistolpower: Wow my internet is going fast today.

I have adsl1 and get a good synch rate. I was downloading from here and i was downloading at over 700KBps to i downloaded the 188MB file. I downloaded it at about 2:45pm today. The torrent plan goes so slow at night and im thinking of just paying $1 per GB in the day. I might switch of from the torrent plan lol. It seems silly to be forced to dload at night. Hmh 700KBps at peak time. :D. The ftp server is in america but i think it might have been cached on xnet? Anyways speeds going 100% fine for me today at peak time and im on torrent plan. Only copmplaints here is of-peak speeds. I think il be switching of torrent so that i can download large files fast during the day whenever i want to. Um allso Torrents seem to work reasonable during the day. Althought they do shape them at night.

I noticed the sudden increase of speed a few days ago :) A quick ajustment of my TCP rwin size and I can get 825KB/s max download speed :D im absolutly stoked about it

pistolpower

139 posts

Master Geek

#165427 18-Sep-2008 17:18

Yer but i get really bad on p2p at night. Hey wuffie are you using adsl2+?

wuffie

27 posts

Geek

#165460 18-Sep-2008 20:03

pistolpower: Yer but i get really bad on p2p at night. Hey wuffie are you using adsl2+?

Nope good old ADSL1, sync rate of 7616 / 896 with margins 21/16 (Avg) and Attenuation of 4 / 4 :) and im pretty sure im atificilay capped at 6600Kbit/s somewhere along the line, it use to be the DSLAM in my exchange was capped at 4.5Mbit/s, i dont know if they have updated it or swaped it to an ISAMS (is that what there called?)

pistolpower

139 posts

Master Geek

#165478 18-Sep-2008 21:34

Mhm i dont remember lol. :D. Theres a problem somewhere cause i got like 35 line attenaution both ways roughly i think. And i synch at like 6700 down 998 up. But when i get adsl2+ il find whats causing the high line attenuation. Maybe a bad cord or peace of wire behind the wall, dodgey jacks or renovations/repairs. Lol il find it and fix it up.

wuffie

27 posts

Geek

#165479 18-Sep-2008 21:44

pistolpower: Mhm i dont remember lol. :D. Theres a problem somewhere cause i got like 35 line attenaution both ways roughly i think. And i synch at like 6700 down 998 up. But when i get adsl2+ il find whats causing the high line attenuation. Maybe a bad cord or peace of wire behind the wall, dodgey jacks or renovations/repairs. Lol il find it and fix it up.

thats alot of attenaution, ADSL2+ wont help eather as it will be less stable than adsl1.
Im hoping that the roll out of adsl2 will bump any limmits or caps that are in place, cuse if adsl1 is anything to go by I wont be getting close to adsl2 max line speeds and would rather the stability over speed :)

pistolpower

139 posts

Master Geek

#165488 18-Sep-2008 22:04

Yeahr but im realy close to the exchange. So based on distance and estimated wire lenghth my attenuation should be lower. Now that means that somewhere there is something. A thing. One thing that is a really bad wire or in bad condition or something. So when i get adsl2+ i will look but untill then i can not be botherd as there would be little to gain from it.

Allso i hope national gets in this year. I want them to put in a national fibre grid like they said. And orcon being owned by a SOE would have a good future if national got in. And tvnz is a SOE and they have broadcasting towers everywhere. And orcon was gona put a fibre cable to ausie last i heard. Then im guesing they would link up to international from australia. And that would give orcon a major advantage on the isp playing field. And then they could easily do wireless internet deals by installing some hardware on the broadcasting towers. And posible offer cellphone services. Omg they have so much potential lol. And that combined with agressive marketing and pricing schemes could see telecome go bye byes and then be brought up by orcon. Orcon would then fire all there worst staff and keep the best of the best. Then they would sell a whole ton of telecos assets and hard ware. At this stage orcon would be bussy eating up telecome. New zealand would be theres and after they catch there breathe away to ausie i guess. They would own the intire copper, fibre, 3g, tvnz, wireless internet networks. It wouldnt take to much to push telecome over the edge.

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