Bigpipe - not as good as they seem?

Forums › Spark New Zealand (including Skinny and BigPipe) › Bigpipe - not as good as they seem?

Oathy

8 posts

Wannabe Geek

#230596 3-Mar-2018 23:31

I'm in an apartment building that recently opened it lines to outside ISP's. The lines used to belong to Actrix but after being bought out by Voyager I guess they opened they lines up to everyone.

I heard BigPipe have a good reputation and customer service, plus one of my work mates uses them so I jumped at the opportunity to have them as an ISP.

I am totally regretting that decision now as BigPipe support have ran me in circles and seem like they don't know what they're even talking about!

So the deal was I got my fiber lines from Chorus installed and the internet was working fine. I am paying for 200mbps down and was only getting about 90 so I lodged a slow connection ticket with them.

They gave me a bunch of things to try to make sure nothing was interfering with my speeds. One of the things they told me to do was a PPPoE connection, which I complied with.

This is when the problems started happening. First of all they never told me the username and password to use for the PPPoE connection, I just assumed I should be using my standard bigpipe account logon details. I was told a little later to be using the standard 'bigpipe, bigpipe' for username and pass.

Secondly whenever I did a PPPoE connection, I would get an error telling me I had been blocked by the remote computer. For the rest of the day my internet didn't work at all, which is super frustrating being told to try something out that makes my connection turn off.

Eventually after some back and forth with BigPipe they told me "PPPoE connections have been enabled on your line", so this implied when they first told me to try it they didn't even check if my lines were allowed to make a PPPoE connection! Seems a big useless.

So I tried the PPPoE connection again, this time getting a different error messaged (error 651). The internet turns off once again, but this time it didn't reset at midnight like normal. Ever since then the internet light on my modem has been consistently flashing for 30-40 seconds, then turning off for 10-20 second. It then cycles like this all day. No internet since then.

I was then run around in circles by bigpipe support for 2 days. "Try factory reset the modem", "Try a different ethernet cord", "try another PPPoE connection" - Nothing works!

My support ticket was transferred to the "Lead Technical support" at bigpipe and he informs me my connection is being used by a completely different modem than my own! Some Zyxel modem, what the heck?! My modem is a Huawei by the way. This makes no sense to me, I've tried to get bigpipe to get Chorus to send a technician around to see if my lines have been tampered with or something, but they say I should be going through my property manager and Chorus should have nothing to do with it.

I talked to my property manager and he agrees that a Chorus technician should be able to fix the issue. Ever since I have gone back to bigpipe about this they have been dead silent, no replies what-so-ever.

I don't know what to do, I'm considering changing ISP's because nothing seems to be working. I feel like its my only choice.

Sorry about the rant, I just wanted to vent this somewhere.

Has anyone had a similar experience to this? Have bigpipe run you around in circles before?

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#1967707 4-Mar-2018 07:19

@Oathy You fail to tell us the most important bit of information are you testing over Wi-Fi or Ethernet?

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RunningMan

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#1967710 4-Mar-2018 08:18

1) PPPoE details - it doesn't matter what you put in there, as long as there are no oddball characters - they suggest bigpipe/bigpipe so people don't get confused.

2) Presumably you're not using WiFi to test - if you are, don't.

3) If they are reporting seeing the incorrect make of router at your end, then the likely problem is a provisioning error on the part of the LFC - particularly in an MDU. It can be difficult and frustrating to track these down (even for the ISP). It is possible it's an error with the MDU cabling (depending on where the ONTs are), but not very likely. Keep working with them - problems do happen, and it will be the same for any ISP by the description of your issue.

sbiddle

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#1967711 4-Mar-2018 08:21

PPPoE is the default way to connect to Bigpipe. As authentication is done by port you can use anything you want in the credentials.

How are you trying to authenticate? The router won't give you those response codes so it sounds very much like you're trying those in your Windows PC, is that correct?

The first thing to check if you're only getting 90Mbps is your cable. If your PC is only connected at 100Mbps and not Gigabit you can only get around 93Mbps maximum.

Oathy

8 posts

Wannabe Geek

#1967751 4-Mar-2018 09:19

Linux: @Oathy You fail to tell us the most important bit of information are you testing over Wi-Fi or Ethernet?

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Sorry, I'm trying all of this over etherenet.

Oathy

8 posts

Wannabe Geek

#1967755 4-Mar-2018 09:24

RunningMan:
1) PPPoE details - it doesn't matter what you put in there, as long as there are no oddball characters - they suggest bigpipe/bigpipe so people don't get confused.

2) Presumably you're not using WiFi to test - if you are, don't.

3) If they are reporting seeing the incorrect make of router at your end, then the likely problem is a provisioning error on the part of the LFC - particularly in an MDU. It can be difficult and frustrating to track these down (even for the ISP). It is possible it's an error with the MDU cabling (depending on where the ONTs are), but not very likely. Keep working with them - problems do happen, and it will be the same for any ISP by the description of your issue.

1) oh I didn't know that at all, thanks for the info
2) yeah I'm using Ethernet for everything, my computer doesn't even have a wireless card!
3)yeah all the ONTs are in a comms room together, it is very badly setup and I hear the chorus technictians complain about it whenever they are here. I guess I'll just stick on with bigpipe, I just hope I get a reply soon

Oathy

8 posts

Wannabe Geek

#1967757 4-Mar-2018 09:26

sbiddle:
PPPoE is the default way to connect to Bigpipe. As authentication is done by port you can use anything you want in the credentials.

How are you trying to authenticate? The router won't give you those response codes so it sounds very much like you're trying those in your Windows PC, is that correct?

The first thing to check if you're only getting 90Mbps is your cable. If your PC is only connected at 100Mbps and not Gigabit you can only get around 93Mbps maximum.

Yeah you're right, I'm using Windows to do all of this.
I think I'm connected at a gigabit, in one if the internet settings on my router it says Lan1 is connected at 1000mbps

sbiddle

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#1967758 4-Mar-2018 09:31

Oathy:
sbiddle:

PPPoE is the default way to connect to Bigpipe. As authentication is done by port you can use anything you want in the credentials.

How are you trying to authenticate? The router won't give you those response codes so it sounds very much like you're trying those in your Windows PC, is that correct?

The first thing to check if you're only getting 90Mbps is your cable. If your PC is only connected at 100Mbps and not Gigabit you can only get around 93Mbps maximum.

Yeah you're right, I'm using Windows to do all of this.
I think I'm connected at a gigabit, in one if the internet settings on my router it says Lan1 is connected at 1000mbps

You've totally lost me here when it comes to your setup because it seems you're trying to do things that simply can't work.

Why are you trying to establish a PPPoE connection from your PC when you have a router? Your router connects to Bigppipe using PPPoE. Your PC doesn't do the PPPoE and merely connects to your router.

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RunningMan

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#1967760 4-Mar-2018 09:37

Oathy: [snip]
3)yeah all the ONTs are in a comms room together, it is very badly setup and I hear the chorus technictians complain about it whenever they are here. I guess I'll just stick on with bigpipe, I just hope I get a reply soon

OK, given this, it's quite possible that the fault responsibility does lie with the building, not Chorus or BigPipe. As BP say they are seeing a different brand router connected than the one you have, it may be that the ethernet cabling patching between the comms room where the ONTs are and your apartment has been done incorrectly. The most likely scenario is that two apartments have been transposed, so there'll be another apartment also having similar issues to you (somewhere!). It should be a simple fix (re-patch in the comms room) but will require someone who has knowledge of the internal building cabling to do it.

Oathy

8 posts

Wannabe Geek

#1967761 4-Mar-2018 09:38

sbiddle:
Oathy:
sbiddle:

PPPoE is the default way to connect to Bigpipe. As authentication is done by port you can use anything you want in the credentials.

How are you trying to authenticate? The router won't give you those response codes so it sounds very much like you're trying those in your Windows PC, is that correct?

The first thing to check if you're only getting 90Mbps is your cable. If your PC is only connected at 100Mbps and not Gigabit you can only get around 93Mbps maximum.

Yeah you're right, I'm using Windows to do all of this.
I think I'm connected at a gigabit, in one if the internet settings on my router it says Lan1 is connected at 1000mbps

You've totally lost me here when it comes to your setup because it seems you're trying to do things that simply can't work.

Why are you trying to establish a PPPoE connection from your PC when you have a router? Your router connects to Bigppipe using PPPoE. Your PC doesn't do the PPPoE and merely connects to your router.

Sorry that I've confused you! I connect using a router with an Ethernet connected to lan1, this doesn't work at all. The internet light on the router is consistently flashing then turns off for a while like I said in my original post.
If try and trouble shoot with the router with it's 'connection wizard' I just get an error message saying it has failed to connect and I should contact my ISP.

One of the ways bigpipe has tried to get me connected is to do a PPPoE connection. They sent me a guide on how to do this.

When my connection was working and my speeds were not as fast as they should be, they also said to do a PPPoE connection and test the speeds again.

Whenever I have tried a PPPoE connection, it has never worked and usually makes my internet unusable after trying.

Does that clear up your confusions?

RunningMan

8953 posts

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#1967762 4-Mar-2018 09:40

@sbiddle, fairly sure the OP has a normal setup, using Huawei router. Router is set for PPPoE WAN, and the Windows client has a GigE connection to the router LAN side. They're just getting a little confused on terminology.

EDIT: Only complicating aspect is the ONTs are grouped together, rather than fibre to each apartment, so it's possible the ONT's been patched to the wrong apartment.

RunningMan

8953 posts

Uber Geek

#1967764 4-Mar-2018 09:41

@Oathy, when you do a speedtest, what ISP does it say you are testing from?

Oathy

8 posts

Wannabe Geek

#1967765 4-Mar-2018 09:44

@runningman is this how you @ someone?
Whenever I did do a speed test it said bigpipe. But one time I did see the provider spark show up.

RunningMan

8953 posts

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#1967769 4-Mar-2018 09:48

I'm wondering if your connection what been transposed with another tenant in the building who are also with an ISP that also used port based auth (so any user/pass will work).

RunningMan

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#1967770 4-Mar-2018 09:49

@IPv6pipe may be able to help perhaps?

RunningMan

8953 posts

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#1967773 4-Mar-2018 09:59

@Oathy, one more thing to check, just to make sure you are doing this correctly - where are you entering the PPPoE details? They should be entered into the WAN settings on your Huawei router.

Under some circumstances (for testing only), you could enter the PPPoE details as a network interface directly on your computer, as long as the router was bypassed (computer connected directly to the ONT, router not plugged in). If you have a PPPoE interface running on the computer as well as the router, the results will be unpredictable at best. BP may have asked you to do this as a temporary test only.

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