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Talkiet

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#171971 7-May-2015 12:15
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Hey guys, Spark is making improvements to our infrastructure, and we’d like some help from you guys to establish a set of websites that you feel currently aren’t performing as well as they could or should be.
 
This will help us create a baseline to measure against when we make a change to improve performance.

You can help us by suggesting websites that we watch. There are a few constraints and suggestions for the sites:
  -Should be a webpage that a basic automated system can load (The front page of twitch.tv for example, but not XYZ stream on twitch).
  -The more mainstream the page, the better (The more users that use it, the bigger an aggregate impact improving it will have).
  -Pages that have bad performance 24*7 are far more interesting, especially if you know they work well on other ISPs.
  -If everything you do is bad at peak times (8-11pmish), then please note that in your post. This is about changes to improve overall performance, not about troubleshooting individual connections – please contact the helpdesk for that.
  -Sites that are hosted overseas are of far higher interest (Late edit)
 
Please post here rather than PM – we're keen to see if there is commonality across the sites people are having issues with.

Thanks very much for your help, we appreciate it!

Regards - Neil G

[edit: added last point about intl sites]




Please note all comments are from my own brain and don't necessarily represent the position or opinions of my employer, previous employers, colleagues, friends or pets.


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wasabi2k
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  #1299840 7-May-2015 13:17
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+1 for twitch.

otherwise I am pretty happy.



insane
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  #1299842 7-May-2015 13:25
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I'd start with all sites which are hosted by another provider who openly peers in NZ :)

Talkiet

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  #1299845 7-May-2015 13:31
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insane: I'd start with all sites which are hosted by another provider who openly peers in NZ :)


Please, can we restrict this to sites hosted internationally - I should have mentioned that to begin with. The changes we're looking at making will improve non NZ hosted sites.

Cheers - N





Please note all comments are from my own brain and don't necessarily represent the position or opinions of my employer, previous employers, colleagues, friends or pets.




Inphinity
2780 posts

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  #1299875 7-May-2015 14:29
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atlassian.com, atlassian.net (these are slow on our Vodafone connection also, for reference)




gathixpower
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  #1299963 7-May-2015 15:49
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I am also having a lot of issues with Twitch during peak hours as well as a lot of other websites including gameplanetnz and netflix (a lot of other minor websites). On the other hand, Steam and P2P downloads are all normal as well as youtube. Online games are laggy during peak hours despite decent latencies, although that's kind of expected. Speedtest doesn't always load during peak hours neither and tests on certain Australian/NZ servers are much slower during peak hours, which makes me think might be causing some of the problems aforementioned.

If I use my VPN to bypass Spark's routing, I can watch Twitch and access all those other websites normally. Not sure if it's a problem with Globalgateway, Equinix or something else, but I really hope you guys can get this sorted out as other ISPs don't seem to have this issue.

Thanks for your time and effort Neil.

EDIT: there are some long discussions on the gpforums (internet tech subforums) regarding these issues if you are interested. I think GP is a lot more active than here (no offence), hopefully you regularly browse through the internet forums to check on what's happening :)

jacobd
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  #1299969 7-May-2015 16:00
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Without wanting to sound too much like "me too" without adding anything, +1 for Twitch.tv, although not too sure that hitting the main page will yield useful information, as it looks like Twitch use CDN magic to deliver the stream you're watching.

To try and add some useful information:

I'm on 30/10 fibre in Wellington CBD Using ethernet connected directly to Spark Router.
Speedtests seem normal, other high bandwidth streaming like YouTube HD, Netflix HD etc all seem fine, even at peak times.

Over in the Twitch thread, it does seem like not all Spark users are having the same issue, so perhaps something specific to routing, load balancing, magic for specific areas or connection types?

I guess just to note, based on when posts started appearing on Geekzone it does feel like the Twitch.tv issue started slightly before other users starting noticing general international speed issues or problems with other sites, so potentially something specific going on.

MrRex
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  #1299994 7-May-2015 16:12
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Another +1 for twitch.tv

Cannot watch between 5pm and midnight

This is on VDSL (45mb down 10up) Speeds to LA servers around same time are 10mbs+

Currently switching to Spark fibre tho

 
 
 

Trade NZ and US shares and funds with Sharesies (affiliate link).
Starkey
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  #1300014 7-May-2015 16:48
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Twitch.tv for me around 7pm it starts to buffer cant watch anything above medium settings, even lose complete data traffic at times, goes back to normal around midnight, all other websites are fine.

ADSL+2 connection

Talkiet

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  #1300015 7-May-2015 16:51
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I get the message about twitch.tv loud and clear but I fear you are all referring to the video streaming component, and not the web-page loading or browsing times.

Still keen to hear from people with other websites they are having issues with.

There might be a temporary change tomorrow that could impact performance (probably for the better). Although I am personally going to be away for the weekend (Otago Classic Rally Yo!) I'm keen to log in again late Sunday night and see what you all generally think of performance of all websites and twitch over the weekend.

Cheers - N




Please note all comments are from my own brain and don't necessarily represent the position or opinions of my employer, previous employers, colleagues, friends or pets.


gathixpower
39 posts

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  #1300041 7-May-2015 17:15
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Talkiet: I get the message about twitch.tv loud and clear but I fear you are all referring to the video streaming component, and not the web-page loading or browsing times.

Still keen to hear from people with other websites they are having issues with.

There might be a temporary change tomorrow that could impact performance (probably for the better). Although I am personally going to be away for the weekend (Otago Classic Rally Yo!) I'm keen to log in again late Sunday night and see what you all generally think of performance of all websites and twitch over the weekend.

Cheers - N


As mentioned above, Gameplanet NZ, Speedtest.net, battle.net (blizzard) are just some of the bigger/frequently access websites that are having problems during peak hours where load times are intermittent. Hope you guys are not being victimized by this latest wave of DDoS attacks.

Inphinity
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  #1300067 7-May-2015 18:27
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Are there known major sites that *do* have loading issues that we could theoretically do 'before' and 'after' comparisons? Personally, Atlassian is the only site I use regularly that I have performance issues with, so while I'd like to help and give feedback on improvements, I'm not sure I see anything to be improved...

Huntakillaz
268 posts

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  #1300102 7-May-2015 19:40
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Steam store page?

PJ48
295 posts

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  #1300159 7-May-2015 20:50
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http://appleinsider.com

v
ery slow to load. on Fibre 30/10

tardtasticx
3075 posts

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  #1300162 7-May-2015 20:59
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VDSL, forever having trouble loading http://dlisted.com  

Inphinity
2780 posts

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  #1300164 7-May-2015 21:16
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Some quick tests (20 pageloads for each), Spark 100/50 UFB in Auckland:
Average time to load http://store.steampowered.com : 737 ms
Average time to load http://www.twitch.tv : 181 ms
Average time to load http://www.atlassian.com : 596 ms
Average time to load http://www.gameplanet.co.nz : 165 ms
Average time to load http://www.battle.net : 494 ms
Average time to load https://www.speedtest.net : 214 ms
Average time to load http://www.appleinsider.com : 991 ms
Average time to load http://www.dlisted.com : 1201 ms

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