Why is my DL so terrible and what is the 'Spark Fallback' ISP?

Forums › Spark New Zealand (including Skinny and BigPipe) › Why is my DL so terrible and what is the 'Spark Fallback' ISP?

Djmixerdomo

255 posts

Ultimate Geek
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#183882 2-Nov-2015 14:20

So a few days ago my VDSL connection decided it would re-sync and presumably everyone connected to my cabinet did too because my download speed jumped from 34 to nearly 58Mb/s. The thing that I'm confused by is the degraded performance/congestion that I seem to to be having, downloads through steam, any browser and from most websites are are very 'slow' (compared to my sync/speedtest) maxing out at about 900kB/s, usually less though. The only site that I have come across that isn't slow is the Oracle website, getting nearly 5MB/s.

Watching youtube videos is fine up until 1080p and sometimes 1440p, 4k is just constant buffering. Comparing this to my previous connection where I could easily stream two or three 4k videos simultaneously. When I refer to Google's "Video Quality Report" My ISP is labelled as being 'Spark Fallback' where as previously it was always 'Spark VDSL', the statement "Please note that you're comparing Spark Fallback with residential ISPs" is weird to because I'm on a residential connection :/

Here's an image of the video quality report:

Here's modem stats for those interested:

I appreciate any help/advice given, thanks.

PC: 5800X3D/32GB/RTX3070

Car: Toyota Celica GT-Four ST205

PeterReader

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#1418829 2-Nov-2015 14:20

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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cbrpilot

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Spark NZ

#1418864 2-Nov-2015 14:40

That's weird. Chorus have recently been rolling out a change to VDSL called bandplan 998 which (for most customers) will increase their downstream speed, sometimes for a small reduction in upstream speed.
Given the increase in speed, it is likely that this has happened on your line.
After that change, Chorus DLM needs to kick in again and re-optimise your line.

From your DSL line stats, the thing I notice is that the Downstream FEC (Forward Error Correction) looks reasonably high (given it's only been up 24 hours).
That means that it has corrected 113k packets in the last 24 hours. It's hard to say from just a raw figure what is "good" and what is not as to be honest it's more meaningful as a percentage of total packets. What it does indicate though is you are getting transmission errors. The 113k are packets that had errors that the technology was magically able to fix, so no impact to you. What I'm not sure about is whether the CRC the total count of the packets that were too badly damaged in transit to be repaired. It sounds like it is. If so, then only 14 packets in 24 hours is fine. Overall the DLM should kick in and sort the line over time.

Whether this has anything to do with your performance issues or not is difficult to say.
Taiket will need to look at why you're falling into the Spark Fallback category with google. If he doesn't reply to this thread, then best PM him direct.
That may very well be the reason you cannot stream as many Youtube streams as previously - I just don't know. Taiket is the authority on this.

What do you get for normal speedtests to the Spark speedtest servers?

My views are my own, and may not necessarily represent those of my employer.

Djmixerdomo

255 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 53

#1418872 2-Nov-2015 14:53

Thanks for the info. After testing each spark server three just to make sure the results were consistent here are my results:

Christchurch: https://www.speedtest.net/my-result/4796089744

Wellington: https://www.speedtest.net/my-result/4796091383

Auckland: https://www.speedtest.net/my-result/4796094441

When the re-sync originally happened on Thursday night it actually sync at 73Mb/s down and the same up but there was 1.5M downstream FEC and every site would just timeout so I rebooted and have had this since.

Talkiet

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#1418875 2-Nov-2015 14:54

cbrpilot is spot on about the changes to your line being related to the Chorus 998 band plan upgrade which is currently rolling out across the country.

With specific reference to the Google Video Quality report and your Youtube performance - what will have happened is that when your line resynced after the 998 band plan change you would have received a new IP address. Given that it now maps to "Spark Fallback" it will be an IP address range that was recently added to the pool of active IP addresses in use.

Google have a mapping of IP ranges to access technologies and because of the process in getting this updated, I don't update it every single time there's a new IP range added (or moved) but I send through a new batch of changes every 2-3 months. This shouldn't affect whether you are actually served from one of our Google Caches, but will look a bit funny in the Video Quality reports. The "Spark Fallback" category is where I store address ranges that we don't usually have allocated, or ranges that we are trying to retire/migrate customers away from, before aggregating into larger ranges and re-introducing to the network.

Can you try this URL please? Paste the output from this - it will tell me what Youtube node you are mapped to. If you could also PM me your current public IP that would be great, as well as your general location.

http://redirector.c.youtube.com/report_mapping

As cbrpilot said, can you please paste the results from all 3 of the Spark speedtest.net servers here please. (Please go through the speedtest.net main page, and manually select the Spark NZ speedtest servers in Akl, Wlg and Chc)

Not sure if the other general slowness you allude to is a genuine issue, or just related to the general distance from the rest of the world. Anything from our network however should be pretty speedy - so the speedtests and youtube/Netflix/Lightbox performance should be excellent.

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.

Djmixerdomo

255 posts

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#1418879 2-Nov-2015 15:01

The PM should've sent

Talkiet

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#1418884 2-Nov-2015 15:08

Djmixerdomo: The PM should've sent

I have received nothing.

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.

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Djmixerdomo

255 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 53

#1418894 2-Nov-2015 15:20

My mistake, now it should be there.

PC: 5800X3D/32GB/RTX3070

Car: Toyota Celica GT-Four ST205