Help with Orcon Speed issue

Forums › 2degrees (including Slingshot, Orcon, Flip, Stuff Fibre, MyRepublic, 2talk and Vocus) › Help with Orcon Speed issue

eaglesd

71 posts

Master Geek

#196416 30-May-2016 12:26

I've spent about 2 weeks going back and forth with Orcon support and they've just told me they can't help anymore so I'm looking for some help from Geekzone

I used to be a Orcon VDSL customer but since upgrading to Fibre I have had significant speed drops connecting to a number of sites and FTP server. Speed test results show I have a 100/20 connection and streaming sites such as Netflix and Youtube work fine. However significant speed drops are occurring on some sites

Ubuntu.com - Downloading their ISOs is crawling at around 100KB/s
Sourceforge - Approx 5 minutes to download a 25MB file.
FTP server at my brother-in-law's house in Singapore (he has a 1 Gbps symmetric connection) crawling at 200KB/s for downloads (used to be around 2MB/s when I was on VDSL)
Facebook - Video streaming constantly buffers on some videos but not others.

I have had speed tests done to the same sites at around the same time using mates in Auckland (some on Orcon) and they have no speed issues. So the problems seems specific to my connection.

I'm now in a position of having to dump Orcon and switch ISP but as a last ditch effort I'm hoping there is someone here from Orcon who knows something and able to help.

Thanks in advance.

PeterReader

6015 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Geekzone

Lifetime subscriber

#1562265 30-May-2016 12:26

Hello... Our robot found some keywords in your post, so here is an automated reply with some important things to note regarding broadband speeds.

If you are posting regarding DSL speeds please check that

you have reset your modem and router
your PC (or other PCs in your LAN) is not downloading large files when you are testing - you are not being throttled by your ISP due to going over the monthly cap
your tests are always done on an ethernet connection to the router - do not use wireless for testing
you read this topic and follow the instructions there.

Make sure you provide information for other users to help you. If you have not already done it, please EDIT your post and add this now:

Your ISP and plan
Type of connection (ADSL, ADSL2, VDSL)
Your modem DSL stats (do not worry about posting Speedtest, we need sync rate, attenuation and noise margin)
Your general location (or street)
If you are rural or urban
If you know your connection is to an exchange, cabinet or conklin
If your connection is to a ULL or wholesale service
If you have done an isolation test as per the link above

Most of the problems with speed are likely to be related to internal wiring issues. Read this discussion to find out more about this. Your ISP is not intentionally slowing you down today (unless you are on a managed plan). Also if this is the school holidays it's likely you will notice slower than usual speed due to more users online.

A master splitter is required for VDSL2 and in most cases will improve speeds on DSL connections. Regular disconnections can be a monitored alarm or a set top box trying to connect. If there's an alarm connected to your line even if you don't have an alarm contract it may still try to connect so it's worth checking.

I recommend you read these two blog posts:

I am the Geekzone Robot and I am here to help. I am from the Internet. I do not interact. Do not expect other replies from me.

These links are referral codes: Sharesies | Mighty Ape

ubergeeknz

3344 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Vocus

#1562318 30-May-2016 12:58

Sounds less than ideal, any chance you can PM me with some account details and preferably some traceroutes/results? I'll see what I can do.

richms

28064 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#1562327 30-May-2016 13:03

What network card are you using in the PC doing the tests? I had really weird some stuff slow some fast carry on with the onboard killer nic on my gaming PC which all cleared up when using a cheap PCIe card. Was fine on slow connections, take it to something fast and became all stupid.

Richard rich.ms

eaglesd

71 posts

Master Geek

#1562331 30-May-2016 13:10

The network card is unlikely the problem as I've checked on a number of different PCs (all hard wired) and they all have the same speed issue. The same machines had great speed when I was on VDSL.

I have PM'd Dan my details so fingers crossed he can help. Thanks Dan!

eaglesd

71 posts

Master Geek

#1721870 17-Feb-2017 15:18

I have had a few PMs with other Orcon customers who have similar issues so here is an update for everyone.

Although Dan tried to help last year we were unable to get to the bottom of the problem so I decided I would simply switch ISPs once my contract with Orcon ended in April 2017.

The issues were all with random international websites and it was clear that something was throttling the connections to a number of sites (Facebook, Ring.com, Vimeo, Reddit, Dropbox etc). On Saturday my Ring doorbell stopped working, diagnostics indicated I was getting less than 1mbps to the Sydney speed test servers using bandwidthplace.com.

This was now making my internet connection unusable so I called up Orcon support once again and was categorically told *If the New Zealand speeds are fine then Orcon technical support will not be investigating this issue*. There was refusal to even escalate to second level support. This was the last straw.

Hung up, went online and signed up with 2Degrees on the spot. Got connected on Thursday and the speeds have been amazing. I'm getting 35x speeds to some of the sites I had issues with. This shouldn't be happening.

Here are the speed tests to Sydney before and after (13th Feb with Orcon, 16th with 2Degrees). Same equipment, same time of day.

To the Orcon guys here, please take a note of this and talk to someone. You have a problem on your network that technical support don't seem to know how to solve. The whole experience has left me with a bad taste in my mouth for Orcon and I can't seem myself ever coming back or recommending them to anyone anymore.

Sad to end things with Orcon after 7+ years as a loyal customer but this is bad.

System

521 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1721925 17-Feb-2017 16:25

Seems very similar to the problems I have been having with Orcon, since signing up to them for fibre I have seen speed problems where streaming sites like Netflix and YouTube will work well but as soon as I try and play a video from Facebook or download a file from a website or through FTP it will be very slow, with 100Mbps internet you should be able to see close to 12MB/s downloads at times however I have never been able to reach any higher than 2-3MB/s. There seems to be something seriously wrong that isn't being looked at as it has been months like this and still the same.

PC: 3.3ghz Core i5-2500, 8gb DDR3, ATI Radeon 5850, 27" QHD IPS Monitor

Mobile Phone: iPhone 5 32gb Graphite.

eaglesd

71 posts

Master Geek

#1721928 17-Feb-2017 16:29

System: Seems very similar to the problems I have been having with Orcon, since signing up to them for fibre I have seen speed problems where streaming sites like Netflix and YouTube will work well but as soon as I try and play a video from Facebook or download a file from a website or through FTP it will be very slow, with 100Mbps internet you should be able to see close to 12MB/s downloads at times however I have never been able to reach any higher than 2-3MB/s. There seems to be something seriously wrong that isn't being looked at as it has been months like this and still the same.

Sounds exactly like what used to be my issue. Another customer with a similar problem here http://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=82&topicid=208575

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Deimos

13 posts

Geek

#1724564 22-Feb-2017 16:47

Chiming in. I sent a message to Orcon via Facebook with screenshots of the abysmal UFB performance. dslreports was consistently reporting an overall "F" grade during peak times. (note: my father in law has rural ADSL, 5Mbit/s which achieved a 'C' grade at the same time of day on Voyager).

After getting nowhere for weeks I logged a couple of support ticket with Orcon (squeaky wheel gets the oil am I right?) two weeks ago and finally the situation became intolerable. I was getting worse than dial up speeds (yes, literally) or outright complete failure of downloads, for example, attempting to download drivers from soundblaster.com. So last week I signed up with Voyager, connected today. DSL reports gave me an "A" grade which is better than any grade I ever got on Orcon, even at 2am when speeds seemed 'normal'.

As an aside, national traffic was always at full speed. speedtest.net showed consistent 930Mbit/s and I ended up routing internet traffic through my work's site to site VPN just so I could use the internet last night.

Finally, Voyayger UFB was connected this morning, so I tell Orcon to cancel and advise that I'm not paying early termination or giving 30 days notice, then I recieve a text later today saying my fault ticket has been updated, please observe your BB speed this evening.