Second Hop almost always times out.

Forums › Spark New Zealand (including Skinny and BigPipe) › Second Hop almost always times out.

Ladygrace

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#154797 7-Nov-2014 19:46

Hi all.
We have sparks VDSL package and for some reason every time i do a tracert it tends to always time out on the second hop.
I haven't noticed any performance issues with the speeds or that , but i am curious why it times out the hop to the "jetstream.xtra.co.nz" which is the second hop yet the rest of the hops go through fine.

Also has anyone in the Southland region been having any Disconnections at least once an hour since this morning?

Thanks in advance

PeterReader

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#1171097 7-Nov-2014 19:46

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:

- Is your premises phone wiring impacting your broadband performance? (very technical)

- Are you receiving a substandard ULL ADSL2+ connection from your ISP?

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.

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Regs

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Snowflake

#1171139 7-Nov-2014 20:53

just means that the second hop doesn't respond to ICMP pings. many routers on the internet block ping - doesn't mean anything is wrong :D

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sbiddle

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#1171141 7-Nov-2014 20:55

Perfectly normal, nothing is wrong.

plambrechtsen

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#1171234 8-Nov-2014 07:14

Your second hop is technically the BNG which is the device at the other end of your broadband modem and has ping / icmp disabled by design. There are known attacks especially on edge routers so turning it off is pragmatic.

As said above it's fine. But hourly disconnections isn't. If you email me "pl at spark.co.nz" with your home line number I can run a line test and see if anything is untoward.

Plus there was a migration for customers in DUN so if it was you, you may notice you get a new ip each time your modem connects. But there should be no difference apart from that.

paul151

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#1171559 9-Nov-2014 06:49

plambrechtsen: Plus there was a migration for customers in DUN so if it was you, you may notice you get a new ip each time your modem connects. But there should be no difference apart from that.

Just a quick question about...

I'm in Dunedin and noticed that after many months of the same IP I've now changed to a new address and in a new range etc. Whilst I know I can expect a dynamic IP it hadn't changed in ages (which was rather good for me) and I'm curious to know why it has now and if I can expect it to be changing often in the future?

Thanks for any info you can share :-)

plambrechtsen

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#1171564 9-Nov-2014 08:10

paul151:
plambrechtsen: Plus there was a migration for customers in DUN so if it was you, you may notice you get a new ip each time your modem connects. But there should be no difference apart from that.

Just a quick question about...

I'm in Dunedin and noticed that after many months of the same IP I've now changed to a new address and in a new range etc. Whilst I know I can expect a dynamic IP it hadn't changed in ages (which was rather good for me) and I'm curious to know why it has now and if I can expect it to be changing often in the future?

Thanks for any info you can share :-)

From now on you'll have a dynamic IP address as you haven't requested a Static one. Depending on your plan you can request a Static IP for free so it won't ever change. However unfortunately Static IP's aren't available on Unlimited plans.

The background the change is I have been working with a few colleagues replacing a system that had an outage a few years go that affected some customers. Due to us replacing that whole system with one that I personally built Spark now have a whole raft of new opportunities with great new things to do in the future. As a pragmatic company that really doesn't like impacting customer experience it's taken a while to build and more importantly heavily test to make sure it's a solid system. There is now a team of people moving customers during quite unfriendly hours (1am - 6am) a few times a week as it's not a big bang change by design. So it's going to take a while until the whole customer base is onto the new stack as we have quite a few (page 9).

From a customer point of view the only thing you will notice is a Dynamic IP address every time your modem reboots. Potentially if you have slower DSL connection you may notice a slight increase in download performance due to some nifty tweaking we now do based on the connect rate information my system receives when the DSL modem connects. Personally I noticed downloads seemed faster and more stable I have a 14mb connect rate at home but I have been rubbished by colleagues for saying it should have any significant difference. :)

On a personal note I plan to use the some of information for a crusade I have internally. But we will see how that transpires.

paul151

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#1171641 9-Nov-2014 13:49

plambrechtsen:

From now on you'll have a dynamic IP address as you haven't requested a Static one. Depending on your plan you can request a Static IP for free so it won't ever change. However unfortunately Static IP's aren't available on Unlimited plans.

Thanks for the background info, and all the hard work :-)

I was kind of hoping you would say I wouldn't see too many changes to my IP address despite the fact that it's dynamic. I'm just on a total home plan and I can't afford $20.45 x 12 months just to ensure it stays static. Wish it wasn't so expensive :(

The reason I'm interested in all of this is that I'm running an old school BBS as a hobby with telnet access via agency.bbs.geek.nz so changing the DNS A record each time I reboot will be a bit of a pain (done twice so far) .... but if it only changes on reboot, hopefully I won't need to do that very often.

My fear was that your system may auto allocate me a new IP every 7 days or whatever but it sounds like that's not the case? I did notice it seemed to take about 4 hours for the DNS server Spark runs to pick up the change whereas other systems overseas we're polling Agency BBS again for FidoNet echomail packets fairly quickly thereafter.

And yes, I have noticed a slight improvement in downstream speeds since the change over - thanks :-)

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plambrechtsen

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#1171893 10-Nov-2014 06:36

paul151: The reason I'm interested in all of this is that I'm running an old school BBS as a hobby with telnet access via agency.bbs.geek.nz so changing the DNS A record each time I reboot will be a bit of a pain (done twice so far) .... but if it only changes on reboot, hopefully I won't need to do that very often.

My fear was that your system may auto allocate me a new IP every 7 days or whatever but it sounds like that's not the case? I did notice it seemed to take about 4 hours for the DNS server Spark runs to pick up the change whereas other systems overseas we're polling Agency BBS again for FidoNet echomail packets fairly quickly thereafter.

And yes, I have noticed a slight improvement in downstream speeds since the change over - thanks :-)

If I were you I would look to get a Low End Linux VPS. As I currently have one that I spent a whopping $3 US Per Year on that sits in the US. On there as long as you don't need much space (and BBS's shouldn't as I used to run one a while ago on a pair of 1.2MB 5.25" floppies) so 3GB of space there should be plenty. Plus there are other advantages of having a OpenVPN tunnel terminate in the US.

In regards to the IP address changing, as long as your session stays up the IP won't change. I have test lines in our lab on the new stack that have been up for 8+ months. So there shouldn't be that concern. But using a DynDNS type service would be the way to go just in case.

Also glad to see others have noticed the minor increase... :)

Talkiet

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#1171934 10-Nov-2014 09:11

plambrechtsen: [snip]... I used to run one a while ago on a pair of 1.2MB 5.25" floppies) [snip]

You had an AT class machine?

Luxury.

Cheers - N :-)

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