Unsure whether to upgrade from ADSL (200GB) to VDSL (Uncapped)

Forums › 2degrees (including Slingshot, Orcon, Flip, Stuff Fibre, MyRepublic, 2talk and Vocus) › Unsure whether to upgrade from ADSL (200GB) to VDSL (Uncapped)

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#1097952 29-Jul-2014 15:56

so your line speed is 24mpbs and those above are your speed tests but you cant seem to download anything that fast? are you sure its not the download source thats the problem?

i find some things wont download at line speed,

your connection is stable or else it would be disconnecting all the time, what are your errors like?

FireEngine

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#1097956 29-Jul-2014 16:02

Here are your modem stats, you are sync'd at 24,752 which corresponds to the line speed you are getting on both eth and WiFi, the issue is therefore whether your line can be improved as this is a borderline case for rollback to ADSL depending on your actual speeds on ADSL and your distance from the exchange or cabinet. I'll have one of the team check and advise.

Regards FireEngine

FlameBeard

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#1097962 29-Jul-2014 16:06

Judging by your noise margin, you're 900 meters away from the exchange, borderline roll back cut off. You're not getting 70mb down

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hio77

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#1097966 29-Jul-2014 16:11

cant see Fireengines screenshot of your stats..

however, sounds like possibly your line settled in and synced a bit slower..

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User123456

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#1097985 29-Jul-2014 16:20

Jase2985: so your line speed is 24mpbs and those above are your speed tests but you cant seem to download anything that fast? are you sure its not the download source thats the problem?

i find some things wont download at line speed,

your connection is stable or else it would be disconnecting all the time, what are your errors like?

That is correct, when I download the speed varies drastically compared to the previous plan. I.e It would go from 600KB/s to 2.7MB/s and everything in between. The downloading before would hold at 1.1MB/s (maximum allowed on the ADSL plan)

I am confident that the source is fine as well as it has been very reliable and have never experienced issues like this before. I even tested it on another wireless network and it provided a constant download. Also when browsing sometimes in the evening, I have noticed slower than normal loading times for webpages..as if the speed has dropped.

As for errors: The modem reports none (assuming this is what you were referring to)

FireEngine: Here are your modem stats, you are sync'd at 24,752 which corresponds to the line speed you are getting on both eth and WiFi, the issue is therefore whether your line can be improved as this is a borderline case for rollback to ADSL depending on your actual speeds on ADSL and your distance from the exchange or cabinet. I'll have one of the team check and advise.

Thank you for that. Look forward to hearing what (if anything) can be advised.

FlameBeard: Judging by your noise margin, you're 900 meters away from the exchange, borderline roll back cut off. You're not getting 70mb down

Thats ok, while I would like 70mb down, I knew I wasnt going to get that much... Though the issue is just with the consistency of the download speed, not the quantity. I am quite happy with the 3.2MB/s (double what I had previously), It would just be nice if I could always get this...

hio77:

cant see Fireengines screenshot of your stats..

however, sounds like possibly your line settled in and synced a bit slower..

Neither can I actually, just realised he posted an image link. As I mentioned about, just needing the consistency now... even at the lower sync rate (refernce to the reply after FlameBeard's quote

FlameBeard

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#1097991 29-Jul-2014 16:31

it would be nice, but you're talking about a xDSL product. You're not gonna get a whole lot of promises around consistency considering you're at the mercy of your download source for bandwidth/contention. If it was jumping from 3.2 mb/s to 500kb/s or something like that every couple of seconds then yeah that would be cause for more fault investigation, but right now I can't see how we're going to be able to improve that stability for you when it is not something we control.

User123456

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#1097999 29-Jul-2014 16:41

FlameBeard: it would be nice, but you're talking about a xDSL product. You're not gonna get a whole lot of promises around consistency considering you're at the mercy of your download source for bandwidth/contention. If it was jumping from 3.2 mb/s to 500kb/s or something like that every couple of seconds then yeah that would be cause for more fault investigation, but right now I can't see how we're going to be able to improve that stability for you when it is not something we control.

Could you explain what you mean when you say "we are talking about a xDSL product"??

The variation happens during say a download period of 4 minutes... while its not every couple of seconds, its not exactly like its being different and a new day. I.e One day it downloads consistently at 3.2MB/s and then a few days later at 500KB/s... That I would definitely put down to the source being the issue.

I asked this earlier on (I think it was to Jase and FireEngine), but then could you explain why I got a consistant download speed of 1.1MB/s on the ADSL connection from the same source as opposed to now a varying download speed on the VDSL plan?

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FlameBeard

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#1098007 29-Jul-2014 17:04

User123456:
FlameBeard: it would be nice, but you're talking about a xDSL product. You're not gonna get a whole lot of promises around consistency considering you're at the mercy of your download source for bandwidth/contention. If it was jumping from 3.2 mb/s to 500kb/s or something like that every couple of seconds then yeah that would be cause for more fault investigation, but right now I can't see how we're going to be able to improve that stability for you when it is not something we control.

Could you explain what you mean when you say "we are talking about a xDSL product"??

The variation happens during say a download period of 4 minutes... while its not every couple of seconds, its not exactly like its being different and a new day. I.e One day it downloads consistently at 3.2MB/s and then a few days later at 500KB/s... That I would definitely put down to the source being the issue.

I asked this earlier on (I think it was to Jase and FireEngine), but then could you explain why I got a consistant download speed of 1.1MB/s on the ADSL connection from the same source as opposed to now a varying download speed on the VDSL plan?

Of course. What I meant by that is the ADSL and VDSL standards aren't built with a mass of reliability or user control in mind. Products like G.SHDSL (HSNS over copper) have a lot more reliability built into them and you tend to get a lot more consistent data stream. In my opinion anyway.
There are folk on these kinds of forums, not necessarily GZ, that would argue that you can get a reliable ADSL/VDSL download rate. That may be the case in certain lab or test environments, but in my experience, not in the residential/commercial one.
There are to many variables in play, the integrity of your structures cabling, the download hosts upload bandwidth/contentions rates/ outages across the world, short of running your own fiber to the servers door, you're going to be highly limited to how much you can control regarding content download. In short, you're not buying a premium product. Also being that you're so far from the exchange and very close to the threshold for a roll back, you have a Ferrari that is running like a dog, its guna misfire, and its guna cough that's just tough unfortunately. I hope that explains what I meant

Jase2985

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#1098299 30-Jul-2014 06:51

those errors are not the ones i was refering too, those ones you have shown are for inside your network, id like to see the ones for the internet side

should be on the same page that tells you how fast your modem is connected

FireEngine

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#1098323 30-Jul-2014 08:00

User123456: just needing the consistency now... even at the lower sync rate (refernce to the reply after FlameBeard's quote

Just a point I have made elsewhere but your upload usage is typically in the region of 16-37GB per day, this is enough to cause speed variations on the download due to how tcp works.

Understand what you are uploading and limit its bandwidth, you will then see properly what the download performance can be. Better still, shut of the seeding/syncing completely and run some tests at peak time, then we can better decide if there is an issue to fix.

Regards FireEngine

User123456

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#1098686 30-Jul-2014 16:14

@Flamebeard - thanks for the explanation. I see what you are getting at. What still intrigues me is as to why the download speed on ADSL was constant for me and yet on the new VDSL it varies quite a bit. Strangely enough and for whatever this may be worth, my upload speed is constant on VDSL (as it was on ADSL but @100KB/s)... I back up a lot of my stuff to cloud storage and file hosting websites, and I can achieve an upload speed of 1.1MB/s for the duration of the whole file transfer. No drops.

@Jase2985 - my apologies, I found this http://puu.sh/awTn3/cd69108352.png ... are these the errors you were looking for?? If not, then could you please advise where exactly I should go and find what you are looking for?

@FireEngine -

Just a point I have made elsewhere but your upload usage is typically in the region of 16-37GB per day, this is enough to cause speed variations on the download due to how tcp works.

Would you mind clarifying something for me, when you say "due to how tcp works", does TCP adjust in real time I.e. say I am uploading at my maximum of 1.1MB/s, would it reduce/vary my download speed until the upload speed decreases? Or does TCP look at the amount I have uploaded at and then limit/vary my download speed based on that?

Why Im asking is because when I was downloading and getting the varying download speeds, I had nothing uploading/seeding at the time. I made sure of this to give me the best results... however its exactly like what you referred to later on:

Understand what you are uploading and limit its bandwidth, you will then see properly what the download performance can be. Better still, shut of the seeding/syncing completely and run some tests at peak time, then we can better decide if there is an issue to fix.

Its exactly like the bandwidth is being limited by something, but its not uploading thats limiting it ;). Hence why I am asking about TCP whether its real time and adjusts accordingly or is it over a period of time (a couple of days)? As I mentioned earlier as well when you noted how much I am uploading, I shut all of them off and disconnected all wireless devices (except the one I was using) before doing any kind of tests.

My personal understanding is that TCP adjusts in real time, if Im uploading at 1.1 MB/s then I dont expect to get 2.7MB/s download speed.

FireEngine

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#1098701 30-Jul-2014 16:39

User123456: "due to how tcp works",

OK - simplistically data is sent in packets, each packet received will cause a packet to acknowledge the data received or request it be resent to travel in the opposite direction. Due to the upload/download speed differences to use the max download throughput you need a clear upload path for the ack packets so that further download packets get sent as fast as they can. Upload data generates the same ack packets on the download side, these are normally delivered more quickly due to the download speed advantage.

What this means is that if both upload and download are trying to send data, upload throughput will generally win at the expense of download throughput. Guidelines are for a daily usage of 2GB upload, this will likely be causing periods of poor download experience on an ADSL circuit, if on a VDSL circuit this is likely to occur from 15GB upwards, these are just based on experience.

It also suggests that if the circuit will support 30-40GB upload in a 24hr period, the circuit can't have any serious issues up or down

Regards FireEngine

FlameBeard

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#1098706 30-Jul-2014 16:46

User123456: @Flamebeard - thanks for the explanation. I see what you are getting at. What still intrigues me is as to why the download speed on ADSL was constant for me and yet on the new VDSL it varies quite a bit. Strangely enough and for whatever this may be worth, my upload speed is constant on VDSL (as it was on ADSL but @100KB/s)... I back up a lot of my stuff to cloud storage and file hosting websites, and I can achieve an upload speed of 1.1MB/s for the duration of the whole file transfer. No drops.

@Jase2985 - my apologies, I found this http://puu.sh/awTn3/cd69108352.png ... are these the errors you were looking for?? If not, then could you please advise where exactly I should go and find what you are looking for?

@FireEngine -
Just a point I have made elsewhere but your upload usage is typically in the region of 16-37GB per day, this is enough to cause speed variations on the download due to how tcp works.

Would you mind clarifying something for me, when you say "due to how tcp works", does TCP adjust in real time I.e. say I am uploading at my maximum of 1.1MB/s, would it reduce/vary my download speed until the upload speed decreases? Or does TCP look at the amount I have uploaded at and then limit/vary my download speed based on that?

Why Im asking is because when I was downloading and getting the varying download speeds, I had nothing uploading/seeding at the time. I made sure of this to give me the best results... however its exactly like what you referred to later on:
Understand what you are uploading and limit its bandwidth, you will then see properly what the download performance can be. Better still, shut of the seeding/syncing completely and run some tests at peak time, then we can better decide if there is an issue to fix.

Its exactly like the bandwidth is being limited by something, but its not uploading thats limiting it ;). Hence why I am asking about TCP whether its real time and adjusts accordingly or is it over a period of time (a couple of days)? As I mentioned earlier as well when you noted how much I am uploading, I shut all of them off and disconnected all wireless devices (except the one I was using) before doing any kind of tests.

My personal understanding is that TCP adjusts in real time, if Im uploading at 1.1 MB/s then I dont expect to get 2.7MB/s download speed.

Simply put it is because VDSL works exceptionally well within 800m cable length of the exchange. Past that you start to see what you're getting. You're borderline for us insisting on a roll back to ADSL.
If you want to proceed with that, at the cost of speed, we do that free of charge. Or if you want to stay on VDSL at the cost of stability, you're more than welcome.

User123456

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#1098708 30-Jul-2014 16:48

@FireEngine - Ok, thank you. Thats pretty much how I learnt the way TCP works. According to what you said then, "Due to the upload/download speed differences to use the max download throughput you need a clear upload path..." I did have a clear upload path, therefore the download speed should be at the maximum available, and something like the speed test confirms this for me as when nothing is uploading, I get a download transfer rate of 23mbps.

"It also suggests that if the circuit will support 30-40GB upload in a 24hr period, the circuit can't have any serious issues up or down" The circuit being what passes through Orcon?

hio77

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#1098713 30-Jul-2014 16:51

where are you testing your download speeds to?

if your doing something say, international, its likely tcp window scaling is doing its its job, and jumping around a little bit when detecting it has scaled to high.

on a graph, this will often look like sawteeth.

#include <std_disclaimer>

Any comments made are personal opinion and do not reflect directly on the position my current or past employers may have.

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