Slow speeds on new gig connection

Forums › Spark New Zealand (including Skinny and BigPipe) › Slow speeds on new gig connection

andar

67 posts

Master Geek

#245262 26-Jan-2019 12:52

Finally bit the bullet and ordered a gig UFB plan in Christchurch. I had Enable install the fibre into my house a few months ago when they installed the neighbours (on a shared driveway). I can't say the Bigpipe connection process was smooth but the main issue was poor communication around what was happening but after about a week it was connected, even though the app and website say I am not connected.

So, onto speedtest and 380Mbps download to the Spark server in Christchurch...not a good start. Ran the test to a few other servers in Christchurch and 150Mbps is about the best I can get. Not impressed at this point. I jumped on their chat support from their website, and was chatting to someone within 1 or 2 minutes (congrats to BP for that).

I explained the issue and he went away to run some tests, a few minutes later he is back and saying everything looks to be setup correctly and the speed is likely to pick up over a period of a week since it is a fresh install.

This sounded mad, so I questioned how would it improve over a week and he replied:

"Enable informed us that with plans like the Elite, the provisioning of the actual speed may take some time to kick in"

At this point I informed him that until about 10 months ago I worked at Enable as a Senior Network Engineer and what he was saying was just plain wrong. This resulted in a complete change of tack and he has now raised this with their escalations team to investigate.

Can't say I am impressed with Bigpipe so far.

1 | 2 | 3 | 4

meow
13248 posts

Uber Geek

Moderator

ID Verified

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#2167893 26-Jan-2019 13:16

1) What router are you using and
2) Are you testing via Ethernet

Also, boot into another operating system on your PC (eg - Ubuntu Linux) and test under that.

From: https://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=85&topicid=239862

Building a bootable USB stick to eliminate driver/OS issues (for the more tech savvy)

1) Find yourself a USB Flash drive with at least 4gb of capacity -This process will format it and wipe everything on the stick, so please make sure you have a backup of anything you wish to keep.
2) Download Etcher (https://etcher.io/) and an Ubuntu ISO (https://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop).
3) Install and/or open Etcher, Select the Ubuntu ISO image from the path you downloaded it to, Select destination drive and Flash!

Lastly, boot into Ubuntu by rebooting your PC. Some PC's may require you to select a boot device (often pressing Escape or F1 or F12 brings up the screen to select). Choose your flash drive as the boot device, launch Firefox once it is booted and test from http://Speedtest.net / http://nperf.com.

The problems are more than likely on your side.

Michael Murphy | https://murfy.nz
Referral Links: Quic Broadband (use R122101E7CV7Q for free setup)

Are you happy with what you get from Geekzone? Please consider supporting us by subscribing.
Opinions are my own and not the views of my employer.

Jase2985

13462 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Lifetime subscriber

#2167928 26-Jan-2019 13:26

Use the windows 10 speedtest app instead of a browser based one.

nunz

1421 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#2167942 26-Jan-2019 13:47

michaelmurfy:

1) What router are you using and
2) Are you testing via Ethernet

...

I'd second using an ethernet cable to test on and not wireless. Wireless almost never gives great speed tests - and if you have a 2.4GHz connection, then you are likely limited to 300Mbps ... your gigabit connection will be strangled by all but the most high end wireless setups.

Also - [more technically advanced option] can you connect to your ONT (fibre router) by hard coding the ip address and setting up authentication on Windows. That will take your router out of the equation as the culprit. If you have a spark route - they are not known for being performance oriented nad an upgrade of fibre may not be usable from older spark routers.

hio77

12999 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Trusted

Lizard Networks

#2167947 26-Jan-2019 13:59

andar:

"Enable informed us that with plans like the Elite, the provisioning of the actual speed may take some time to kick in"

At this point I informed him that until about 10 months ago I worked at Enable as a Senior Network Engineer and what he was saying was just plain wrong. This resulted in a complete change of tack and he has now raised this with their escalations team to investigate.

Can't say I am impressed with Bigpipe so far.

to be fair, this could quite easily have been passed back to the rep by someone far lower down the totem pole than you were.

Equally they could be confused between Fibre and DSL having ddDLM on it.

Given where you have come from, i'd expect you testing to be a bit more detailed...

Please run a speedtest using Ethernet and the windows 10/mac application.

#include <std_disclaimer>

Any comments made are personal opinion and do not reflect directly on the position my current or past employers may have.

BigPipeNZ

1170 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

BigPipe

#2169441 29-Jan-2019 09:10

Hey Andy, sorry to hear about your experience so far. If you can send me your details I can take a look at the chat and providing coaching to the person you spoke to.

You're right to say there's no 'wait time' on fibre in the same way you'd experience with DLM. You're provisioned at a certain speed, and it should work at that speed from then on. The person's probably double checked with Enable to make sure you're on the right plan, but if you can send me your details I'll double check this too.

What michaelmurfy, nunz and hio77 have indicated is correct. I'd recommend an Ethernet speed test using one of the Spark servers (Auckland, Wellington or Christchurch).

If you'd like to speak to me directly, feel free to come through live chat and ask for David and mention that it was around a Geekzone issue, or if you'd prefer to just speak on GZ send us a private message with your email address and I'll take a look for you.

Edited to add:

Never mind, I've found the case in question! I'll take a look for you now.

bigpipe.co.nz
https://www.facebook.com/BigPipeNZ
https://twitter.com/BigPipeNZ

cbrpilot

955 posts

Ultimate Geek

Trusted

Spark NZ

#2169443 29-Jan-2019 09:17

As others have said what router you are using can also be a critical factor.

Routers like the Huawei 659b work just great with the Gig speed plans. However there are many "gigabit" routers that struggle to give you the speed you are paying for. Sadly some routers have good code for IPoE (used by some service providers) but poor code (i.e. slow!) for PPPoE used by BigPipe. So even a router that worked great with one provider may not work as well with a different provider sadly (through no fault of that provider!).

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

gehenna

8506 posts

Uber Geek

Moderator

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#2169450 29-Jan-2019 09:29

The fact that you at least get 380Mbps is positive as it means you're not locked to a lower Mbps. Now you just need to make sure you're using a gig capable router (ISPs provide these for their gig connections, personal routers often aren't capable unless you've recently upgraded), you're testing over ethernet (your Wi-Fi will never hit the max bandwidth of your fibre), and you're testing against endpoints that are also gig capable. Testing via browser is fine as long as you meet all those criteria. I just tested using Google Chrome from a VM on an ethernet connected Unraid server at home, and I got 800Mbps down / 430Mbps up to CityLink Wellington.

Sharesies

Trade NZ and US shares and funds with Sharesies (affiliate link).

BigPipeNZ

1170 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

BigPipe

#2169464 29-Jan-2019 10:16

Andy's using our HG659 and is running tests via Ethernet, so it's unlikely to be related to his router. I've asked him to run a speed test directly via the ONT.

bigpipe.co.nz
https://www.facebook.com/BigPipeNZ
https://twitter.com/BigPipeNZ

Talkiet

4793 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#2169466 29-Jan-2019 10:18

gehenna:

[snip] personal routers often aren't capable [of gigabit] unless you've recently upgraded), [snip]

It's worse than that. There are decent current models advertised as capable of Gig that perform markedly worse than routers provided by some ISPs. To add to the confusion even more, some routers give good speedtest results (lots of threads, Ookla's result fudging) but are clearly not up to gig throughput in real world use.

I personally have an Amplifi HD that I bought for the better wireless and clock display (Yeah, so sue me :-) and when I recently upgraded to FibreMAX it still gave great (940+, 540+mbps) speedtest results, but only gave me about 25-30% of the throughput I could get with the Huawei 659b on actual downloads.

(Yes it had the latest firmware, yes it was using HW forwarding, it's still bad and I swapped the 659b and the Amplifi HD in and out a few times to convince myself)

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.

DarkShadow

1647 posts

Uber Geek

#2169505 29-Jan-2019 11:03

nunz:

Also - [more technically advanced option] can you connect to your ONT (fibre router) by hard coding the ip address and setting up authentication on Windows. That will take your router out of the equation as the culprit.

That's actually not good advice for gigabit. Bigpipe use PPPoE authentication. The PPPoE stack on Windows isn't very good once you get to higher speeds. It's much better to use a proper router to offload PPPoE processing.