ottenpat: Hello I am new to Telecom and new to BigTime.
Overall I am pretty happy. I have done a bit of P2P and that work pretty good for me after hours.
When I was sold the product they explained the whole shaping thing and that was ok for me especially as they said my normal interneting should work fine with good performance. (they even quoted youtube should go well).
Well they are right for the majority of what they said. Browsing is fast and youtube very rearly buffers for me even at peek times.(only very occasionally with HD content. I emphasizes the rearly)
I have run into problems in the last two days which I can't understand. My partner has been trying to watch TVNZ on demand (Masterchef Aussie). It loads buffers 20 second then I get to watch 5 secs etc etc.
I don't understand why it would be slow to TVNZ: 1. It is local content 2. Telecom and TVNZ must be in bed together with Tivo etc so there must be a decent pipe between them.
Ok so some facts on my connection and timing. Was trying to do this last night(and the previous night) around 8:30pm: Speedtest.net at the time running around 6.5 Mb/sec. Tried again around 11pm still having the same problem with TVNZ. My Speedtest.net at this time was running at about 10.5 Mb/sec. My max linespeed is about 11.75 Mb/sec. Interleaving is switched off and nothing else was running. I am in Auckland on ADSL2+
Rung Telecom and they did not seem to be able to help. They suggested it was because I choose Bigtime and that they need to shape more than P2P to make the experience good for all. I highlighted the sales pitch that they used that it should not effect normal interneting such as youtube. I would have thought that ondemand is normal interneting as well especially when it is local content.
So the million dollar question. Is this a Bigtime problem or a TVNZ problem as I seem to be rolling in bandwidth that does not look like it is being shaped optimally.
Any comments or advice
Thanks Patrick
orly they are finaly admitting that they shape more than p2p, thats just brillient
in regards to tv on demand you might have got on at a peak time when there systems go in to overdrive to reduce your speeds for the greater good
there is not much you can do about it, telecom are tight lipped when it comes to how there shaping equipment works, even more so about which piticular internet using applications they affect, do not bother contacting telecom if you are after a quick solution, all oyu hve to do is look at when this topic was initiated and see how long this issue has been going on for.
Our policy on Big Time traffic shaping has remained unchanged, it is below.
As regards TVNZ, as I understand it, much of TVNZ content is hosted overseas, the balance is hosted on another network, where we have no peering. Ideally, the content would be hosted by us for TVNZ, on our network, but this is not the case. We have been in discussions for a peering arrangement, I am not aware of what progress has been made on that front.
BIG TIME Unlike our other broadband plans Big Time has no fixed cap on the amount of data you can download or upload each month, and as such we manage all the traffic on it to optimise the experience for everyone on the plan. When the network is busy (generally inside the hours of 9am and 2am) you may notice reduced speeds,in particular you are likely to see reduced speeds in relation to file sharing traffic.
So can I tell when the network is busy? If my speedtest.net is almost at my linespeed then I would have thought the the network was getting less congested. (I am not an expert so it is an uninform opinion only) i.e speedtest.net result of 10.5Mb/sec with a ping of 20ms when my maximum linespeed of 11.7Mb/sec is pretty good.
Is OnDemand(such as TVNZ) considered to be file sharing traffic?
I would have thought that it would be similar to youtube. The Telecom sales team sold it to me suggesting I should not have problems with things such as youtube. (and as I said I am pretty happy with the Youtube performance). i.e they tested the line attenuation and other technical stuff before I signed up to give me an estimate of my connection speeds.
I am not trying to be a smartarse as I am generally happy todate. I was just trying to understand why TVNZ was impossible to watch when I have a great connection.
So can I tell when the network is busy? If my speedtest.net is almost at my linespeed then I would have thought the the network was getting less congested. (I am not an expert so it is an uninform opinion only) i.e speedtest.net result of 10.5Mb/sec with a ping of 20ms when my maximum linespeed of 11.7Mb/sec is pretty good.
Is OnDemand(such as TVNZ) considered to be file sharing traffic?
I would have thought that it would be similar to youtube. The Telecom sales team sold it to me suggesting I should not have problems with things such as youtube. (and as I said I am pretty happy with the Youtube performance). i.e they tested the line attenuation and other technical stuff before I signed up to give me an estimate of my connection speeds.
I am not trying to be a smartarse as I am generally happy todate. I was just trying to understand why TVNZ was impossible to watch when I have a great connection.
Thanks Patrick
The difference with TVNZ on demand and youtube is that youtube is heavily cached locally by telecom.
As for telling when the network is busy, well you should be able to tell by slower speeds. Id expect it to be busy peek time (just after work) 5pm-9pm~
Sorry me again So it would be unlikely for Telecom to cache TVNZ on demand because it is not so popular? (hence my constant buffering) And on slower speeds. So is Speedtest.net a worthless exercise? My lowest speed was 6.5MB/sec and high is around 10.7Mb/Sec on a line speed on 11.7. Even at 6.5Mb/sec On demand should be flying unless it is coming from offshore and it is not cached. I will need to do some offshore sppedtests.
ottenpat: Sorry me again So it would be unlikely for Telecom to cache TVNZ on demand because it is not so popular? (hence my constant buffering) And on slower speeds. So is Speedtest.net a worthless exercise? My lowest speed was 6.5MB/sec and high is around 10.7Mb/Sec on a line speed on 11.7. Even at 6.5Mb/sec On demand should be flying unless it is coming from offshore and it is not cached. I will need to do some offshore sppedtests.
Patrick
Speedtest.net doesnt always tell the whole truth.
For instance speedtest.net may be unshaped. Also realise that speedtest.net uses multiple connections (like a download manager) when you may download with just 1.
When your streaming your generally only using 1 connection. If every connection is shaped youll get a slower speed for streaming then you will downloading with multiple connections.
For example:
When i download my 100mb test file with 1 connection (no DL manager) i get about 25KB/s.
When i download with a download manager i get 800 no problem.
Hi Everyone following my problem. Look what I just got from TVNZ... See below I was under the impression that Telecom cached overseas content so they did not have to drag it across the international link all the time. e.g. window updates and popular upload or popular youtube etc. I think someone has lead me astray.... unless Telecom thinks TVNZ ondemand is not worth caching like the other ISP's.
Tony from Telecom/ORT is this right?
Hi Patrick,
Thanks for your email, and thanks for checking out our site.
We are sorry to hear about your ongoing problems. As previously mentioned we have been investigating this issue for the past few weeks.
ISPs have two options for getting TVNZ content to their users. The first and preferred option, that delivers the best performance to an ISP's customer, is to locate caches (copies) of TVNZ Ondemand content directly within the ISP's local network, or connect directly to our New Zealand cache. ISPs like Vodafone, Orcon, Slingshot, CallPlus, WorldExchange and Snap do exactly this and deliver an optimised service for their customers who choose to view TVNZ Ondemand content.
The second option, employed by Telstra and Telecom, is to retrieve TVNZ Ondemand content from TVNZ's servers in the West Coast of the United States. This model can deliver acceptable levels of service to TVNZ Ondemand across the day but at peak times of internet usage it appears that the TVNZ Ondemand content has to compete with other international traffic coming across the main pipe from the U.S. The result is that at certain times of the day TVNZ Ondemand performance may be sub-optimal for those customers.
We regret the performance problems you are experiencing and can promise that we are doing all we can to enable the best possible experience for all our customers.
I am currently on a Telecom full speed broadband adventure plan.
I have a FTP server which is hosted in the United States. On my existing broadband plan, I can download at approx 190KB per sec.
I am thinking of changing to Telecom Big Time for the unlimited usage, but wont bother changing if the speeds for FTP are unusable.
Are there Bigtime users who can advise of the speeds they experience with FTP transfers?
If someone on Bigtime is able to PM me a message, I can provide login details for FTP server if they are able to check speed on their Bigtime plan as this should give a realistic idea of what speeds to expect and whether it is worth my while to change plans.
Even this morning at 6:30am on a Saturday(well outside shaping time) I can't stream TVNZ on demand. My speedtest.net to West Coast USA(San Diago) is 4.5Mb/Sec and Auckland is 10.3Mb/sec.
4.5Mb/Sec should be enough surely but as ARCTICSILVER does say on one connection that might be a lot slower than speedtest.net tells me.
I swapped to Bigtime just under a month ago. Was all going well, fine speeds etc. Just this morning when I turned PC on, sloooooooooooooooow speeds. Takes awhile to load webpages, I play abit of online gaming, nothing to serious, but today I have been disconnected time and time again.
Its annoying, especially because it came out of the blue and not in the earlier days of me swapping to Big Time.
Hey, this still happening for people? i'm one of those weirdly addicted nubcakes that play world of warcraft and i had the bigtime plan on telecom a month and a bit ago, i recently changed back (capped plans don't hold my families usage >_<) and have found i cant log onto world of warcraft without my latency being at around 3-6k and going up to 26k.. needless to say.. i cant even check my mail in-game without it disconnecting O_O i didnt have this problem before on the bigtime plan though
So anywho.. im not the best with this stuff but could anyone tell me if theres anyway to reduce this at all, cause my dads already had arguments with telecom customer service and they don't care at all.
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