Download speed

Forums › Spark New Zealand (including Skinny and BigPipe) › Download speed

tcpdump

311 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 3

#77287 14-Feb-2011 10:47

Hello,

About two years ago I got the "free" Thomson TG585v7 from Telecom.
I lived in Wellington for a year and the download speed was close to the DSL sync speed which was around 16mbps.
Last year I moved to Auckland and the DSL sync was pretty low, around 6mbps and the download speed was obviously around that mark.
I have moved houses and I live very close to a cabinet having a connection speed between 20 and 21mbps with an attenuation of 4db (according to Telecom Wholesale I'm also in the VDSL2+ zone).
The download speed however is usually 6-7mbps and sometimes it gets up to 10-11mbps. This is from local sites, not international.
Speedtest.net (from WxC) gives the same throughput of 6 to 10mbps. Multiple threads don't make a difference.

What could be the problem here considering that the same modem worked just fine in Wellington?
I've tried this on various times of day and week (since two weeks ago) with similar results.

Thanks.

powerforce

162 posts

Master Geek

#439232 14-Feb-2011 13:02

I find speed tests dont really mean alot.
e.g my line syncs at around 20mpbs.
speedtest.net gives me a download speeds of 16.5 to 17mbps.
and i can downloads torrents at around 2.6MB/s

I think a better test is to check your attainable line rate, and load up as many things downloading as you can and see what the max through put really is.

I may be way off the mark here (please tell me if this is not the case!) - but i thought you can only download as fast as the site at the other end is capable of supplying the info? (assuming its not cached)
e.g. not all download sites are capable of sending you info as fast as your capable of downloading it.

kyhwana2

2572 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 233

#439233 14-Feb-2011 13:06

Probably backhaul/handoff congestion. Nothing you can do about, unless you can get onto an ISPs ULL gear.

Ragnor

8279 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 585

Trusted

#439235 14-Feb-2011 13:10

Your Line > Cabinet/Exchange > Backhaul > Handover Link > ISP Network > ISP's domestic/international transit, peering, routes.

Since you're on Telecom, what do you get from this speedtest which is on a server connected to Telecom's core network
http://zeus.jetstream.co.nz/

The idea being if this test is fast and the Auckland speedtest,net is slow (hosted by Xnet) it's probably interconnection between Xnet and Telecom that's congested or the Xnet speedtest server's link is saturated.

However if this test is also slow it's most likely congestion on the backhaul or handover links.

tcpdump

311 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 3

#439324 14-Feb-2011 16:25

Hi,

zeus.jetstream.co.nz reported 11Mbps
I also did a test with ubuntu desktop via bit torrent and the speed varied between 700-900KBps (from 60 seeders).

So, looks like the backhaul might be the problem and likely nothing I can do.

Thanks for your replies.