Orcon - Terrible speed on adsl2+ in Wellington

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Lammiwinks

22 posts

Geek

#58594 15-Mar-2010 19:39

Hey guys,

Looking for some advice here. We have had a shocking experience with Orcon in Wellington. We left them once before due to terrible speeds, and inadequete resolutiion, but moving house to a place where there was no Telstraclear cable we gave them another shot, being on one of their LLU exchanges.

Most week nights from around 6pm onwards our speed drops from around 16mb/s down to under 1mb/s. This lasts 4-5 hours, and I can barely use the internet apart from torrenting slowely and/or browsing the web. All my beloved online games are out of the question.

We have done the following:

Isolation - We are on naked dsl. We have tried using splitters (2 of them), and plugging straight in, no difference.

Modems - I have 2 X orcon provided dynlink rta modems. These have made no difference. I also bought a netgear modem/router combo which was stable all weekend, but is having the same issues tonight. I have tried replacing all cables.

Tech - We have had a technician out who apparantly found an issue, but was unclear what it was. He fixed it and said the copper was fine to the exchange. => His "fix" did absolutely nothing for the line stability/speed, the issue was present the same night he left.

Diagnostics - We have run the orcon diagnostics tool three times, once for 12 hours, once for 24, and once for a single test.

Profiles - They have changed our adsl profile 3 times. All this has done is lowered our sync rate from 18mb/s to 15-16mb/s. This has not improved the stability at all.

Overall - Im thoroughly dissapointed with Orcon. I have provided them tons of information. They swear its not congestion, yet it has been a month with no results. I can't believe they can provide such poor service and act like they don't even care. We are a relatively high usage household (when it was working fine we did around 60gb - $173 worth of broadband usage), yet they seem to make no real effort to get us working agian.

Some details:

Tracert:

Tracert

Line Stats:

Speedtest:

Is anyone able to Help? Any ideas?

I know that some people here actually work for Orcon. My ticket number is LYN-987773 if that helps. I really would like to get this resolved as at the moment, this is the most frustrating problem I've ever encountered.

I actually work a technician, and troubleshoot a lot of adsl issues, so im more than capable of running tests etc to help. As far as I can see for this one, its probably my downstream noise margin, not that your techs will actually listen to me when I try and tell them.

Thanks,

A frustrated user!

Ragnor

8222 posts

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Trusted

#307596 15-Mar-2010 22:27

Do you get the same speed from 6pm onwards on other speed tests?

http://www.consumerspeedtest.org.nz/
http://speedtest.slingshot.co.nz/
http://zeus.jetstream.co.nz/

Lammiwinks

22 posts

Geek

#307672 16-Mar-2010 08:51

Ragnor: Do you get the same speed from 6pm onwards on other speed tests?

http://www.consumerspeedtest.org.nz/
http://speedtest.slingshot.co.nz/
http://zeus.jetstream.co.nz/

I will give those a go next time the issue is happening (probably tonight), however the orcon diagnostics tool tests several speedtest sites, all which show horrid speed during these times!

tunafish

93 posts

Master Geek

#307919 16-Mar-2010 17:58

How many PC's do you have on this network, check what they are doing as they may have a virus or somebody is doing bittorent and seeding. You may have to check the transmit receive stats but before doing this reset them. disconnect all devices and start with just one connected to the internet. When my kids come home for the weekend they start downloads and then normal browsing etc can come to a halt.

cyril7

9058 posts

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Subscriber

#307958 16-Mar-2010 19:38

Not a lot of noise margin their and 15Mb/s for 27dB is a bit hot, I suggest you ask for a more conservative profile, it will lower your sync speed, but increase the noise margin, and might reduce the level of drop packets.

Just a thought
Cyril

Lammiwinks

22 posts

Geek

#308196 17-Mar-2010 11:10

tunafish: How many PC's do you have on this network, check what
they are doing as they may have a virus or somebody is doing bittorent
and seeding. You may have to check the transmit receive stats but before
doing this reset them. disconnect all devices and start with just one
connected to the internet. When my kids come home for the weekend they
start downloads and then normal browsing etc can come to a halt.

Hey Tuna,

Yea I have done it in isolation (i.e. wirless off, only a laptop plugged in) and have the same issue.

cyril7: Not a lot of noise margin their and 15Mb/s for 27dB is a bit hot, I suggest you ask for a more conservative profile, it will lower your sync speed, but increase the noise margin, and might reduce the level of drop packets.

Just a thought
Cyril

Thanks Cyrill, I may pass that on to them.

Orcon have decided to send another tech out to look at the issue. I don't have high hopes as its so intermettent, it will probably be a "no fault found" if hes not there at the exact moment it happens.

Would swapping ISP's make any difference? Im considering leaving orcon.

Lammiwinks

22 posts

Geek

#308454 17-Mar-2010 20:13

Tonight! At least the connection feels stable when gaming and im not getting constantly disconnected.

That noise margin looks bad tho...

Ragnor

8222 posts

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Trusted

#308491 17-Mar-2010 21:47

I think you are confusing Signal to Noise Ratio and Noise Margin, they are very different things.

SNR = Signal to Noise Ratio:
- This is the ratio between clean / clear (good) signal to background Noise (Bad)

SNM = Signal to Noise Margin
- This is a buffer that allows for stability.

Sharesies

Trade NZ and US shares and funds with Sharesies (affiliate link).

Lammiwinks

22 posts

Geek

#308717 18-Mar-2010 12:54

Ragnor: I think you are confusing Signal to Noise Ratio and Noise Margin, they are very different things.

SNR = Signal to Noise Ratio:
- This is the ratio between clean / clear (good) signal to background Noise (Bad)

SNM = Signal to Noise Margin
- This is a buffer that allows for stability.

SNR Margin
In general, a higher signal to noise ratio will result in less errors.

6bB. or below = Bad and will experience no line synchronisation or intermittent synchronisation problems.
7dB-10dB. = Fair but does not leave much room for variances in conditions.
11dB-20dB. = Good with little or no synchronisation problems
20dB-28dB. = Excellent
29dB. or above = Outstanding

^^ is that what the Noise Margin field on my router is?

UPDATE: A second Chorus tech has come out (during the day when the line was issue free), and cleared the copper and modem of being at fault. So now Orcon are stuck saying they have said:

"I again checked everything: the copper, exchange card, port, exchange backhual and I cant see any visible faults. I'll wait on the tech sign off notes and see if he has found anything."

Not sure what to do from here :(

powerforce

162 posts

Master Geek

#308807 18-Mar-2010 15:44

Hi, just to confirm when you say you have tried using two "splitters"

are you talking actual central splitters (as in a splitter installed where your phoneline enters your house so the ADSL signel bypasses all other house wiring)?

or do you mean you have tried two adsl filters? (the ones that just plug into your wall socket?)

If its the latter perhaps you have bad house wiring?
Did the tech just check the speed at the grey telecom pole thing at the end of your driveway/outside your house? Or did he check the speed / line from inside your house from the phonejack/port you plan on using?

If he only checked it from outside it needs to be checked from the inside so bad house wiring can be ruled out.
good luck

Lammiwinks

22 posts

Geek

#308809 18-Mar-2010 15:45

powerforce: Hi, just to confirm when you say you have tried using two "splitters"

are you talking actual central splitters (as in a splitter installed where your phoneline enters your house so the ADSL signel bypasses all other house wiring)?

or do you mean you have tried two adsl filters? (the ones that just plug into your wall socket?)

If its the latter perhaps you have bad house wiring?
Did the tech just check the speed at the grey telecom pole thing at the end of your driveway/outside your house? Or did he check the speed / line from inside your house from the phonejack/port you plan on using?

If he only checked it from outside it needs to be checked from the inside so bad house wiring can be ruled out.
good luck

Hi Power,

Yes ADSL line filters (which I know do no actual line filtering on the ADSL side anyways, just put them on as proof of concept.

Yes the tech checked from the one phone jack we have in our apartment, and verified all was a-ok. Im starting to think this is orcon, and I think I'll signup with SNAP :)

powerforce

162 posts

Master Geek

#308824 18-Mar-2010 16:17

Perhaps your suffering from "mid point injection" if your line stats are good inside and out.

Now im not exactly even sure what this is but have seen the phrase toted around here and there...

and from what i understand it has something to do with Orcon using telecom equipment/ infrastructure.

Hopefully someone will chime in and explain exactly what it is.
Im only mentioning it without knowing much about it because if it is being caused by "midpoint injection" from what i understand the only way around it is to sign up with telecom.

woudlent want you to go sign up with another ISP and have the same problems your facing now.

pohutukawa

197 posts

Master Geek

#308832 18-Mar-2010 16:28

See http://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=82&topicid=57801

Similar issues here in Auckland.

I've alerted Orcon to this thread - hopefully something useful will come out of it.

Cheers

P

Lammiwinks

22 posts

Geek

#308836 18-Mar-2010 16:37

powerforce: Perhaps your suffering from "mid point injection" if your line stats are good inside and out.

Now im not exactly even sure what this is but have seen the phrase toted around here and there...

and from what i understand it has something to do with Orcon using telecom equipment/ infrastructure.

Hopefully someone will chime in and explain exactly what it is.
Im only mentioning it without knowing much about it because if it is being caused by "midpoint injection" from what i understand the only way around it is to sign up with telecom.

woudlent want you to go sign up with another ISP and have the same problems your facing now.

Ahh I see that this midpoint injection is from being on an Orcon DSLAM through a Telecom cabinet, and apparantly swapping back to a Telecom Wholesale provider will fix. Im pretty sure SNAP resell Telecoms lines (im in the are for Orcon LLU so on Orcons hardware). That means SNAP may work :)

I will post back with results, I have signed up with them :) Unless Orcon can get their stuff sorted before SNAP swaps me over, they are S.O.L!

(currently orcon are scratching their heads at the 16mb/s speedtest the tech did today).

Isn't it silly chorus techs don't work during peak times (i.e. 7-9pm) when these issues actually occur? Instead they come at 11am when the net is sweet, and your at work, forcing you to take time off work to come home to test a no fault found.

sigh!

pohutukawa: See http://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=82&topicid=57801

Similar issues here in Auckland.

I've alerted Orcon to this thread - hopefully something useful will come out of it.

Cheers

P

Thanks P! This will be my second time leaving Orcon due to them not being able to fix a fault on my line.

Last time I ditched them for Telstraclear cable (best idea ever, was stable and reliable); I have no idea why I decided to give them another shot (I think it was being in the area for Orcon owned adsl2+).

Ragnor

8222 posts

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Trusted

#308973 19-Mar-2010 00:10

Lammiwinks:

SNR Margin
In general, a higher signal to noise ratio will result in less errors.

6bB. or below = Bad and will experience no line synchronisation or intermittent synchronisation problems.
7dB-10dB. = Fair but does not leave much room for variances in conditions.
11dB-20dB. = Good with little or no synchronisation problems
20dB-28dB. = Excellent
29dB. or above = Outstanding

That's a rough guide for SNR (Signal to Noise Ratio) not Noise Margin.

Lammiwinks:
^^ is that what the Noise Margin field on my router is?

No, your screenshot shows Noise Margin not SNR (Signal to Noise Ratio)

Lammiwinks

22 posts

Geek

#315224 6-Apr-2010 09:03

Update:

After a few weeks of testing, moving to SNAP has fixed my peak time speed issues. Now my speed is consistent, and fast.
GG Orcon!