Ok, had a good long chat with HD about why CityLink traffic is coming in from LA.
The clear message I got from the phone call is that if I want it fixed I have to take the issue up with CityLinks host to find out why they're sending the traffic to LA for TC to pickup.
The guy I talked to at TC was a top geek and clearly knew his stuff, while also doing his best to represent his company in an even handed way - I was actually quite impressed with the guy.
I really suggest that TC customers just call the HD and complain. If you've got a cordless with a headset and can just sit on hold and then just keep the guys talking, so that they've got the amo to go back to management to get back round the table and get this crap sorted.
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Just called again, that's three calls and three emails now with no one getting back to me. I was told the issue has been put to "complex faults" and to wait another two or three days. If I don't have resolution by then it will be two weeks since this fault appeared (in fairness it will be 10 days from the time I notified TC).
I'm getting a little tired of this. Does anyone have any recommendations of alternative providers?
ramboky: Does anyone have any recommendations of alternative providers?
Depends where you are and what you want. We really need more information to provide an informed suggestion.
Personally I'm looking for a tail to CIX so I can then just pick up and drop off providers at a peering point rather than put up with this sort of crap - but it seems that tail costs are fairly high, so I need to figure out how the hell to pay for that?
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Sorry, my comment was in frustration and lacked any useful detail.
I do a fair bit of work on US based servers, connecting via RDP for the most part with a bit of SSH here and there. Download (direct, not p2p) around 40 - 50GB per month. Upload (CrashPlan backup and transferring files to servers) about 10Gb per month. I also do some light gaming, not hugely important to me though.
Aside from that, just the usual - YouTube and general browsing.
I don't really care too much about cost (currently paying $200 per month for 120GB), I just want reliable internet from a company who manages their own service and occasionally returns helpdesk calls.
TC Complex Faults Specialist have 6 faults in the queue on this issue at present.
They were unaware of the traffic hitting LA that should be joining the network in WGTN.
They were actually ringing me back about a fault I lodged with the l1hd on the 2/5 which I got t.au to help sort on 3/5.
6 faults isn't much for them to go on, and as one of them was my syd.au fault from almost 2 weeks back?! Seems a that either everyone is just whinging here on gz and not even bothering calling the hd at all, or it's only a very small number of us affected or I don't know what...
Interestingly the CL traffic on my wgtn connection is now hitting me at 200ms... so who knows what's going on?!
...and just as I typed that it cleared back to 14ms.
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Just got a call from Ruth at the complex faults team (looks like they tried to call earlier too). She seemed onto it and made the same comment, not a lot of reports to go on. They made the effort though and I've never had a problem with TC before though so I'm going to work through it. If it doesn't turn out so well I'll take you up on that offer, thanks.
Unfortunately I live in Vogeltown in the (radio) shadow of a hill. Nothing that travels by air get's through here!
ramboky: Just got a call from Ruth at the complex faults team (looks like they tried to call earlier too). She seemed onto it and made the same comment, not a lot of reports to go on. They made the effort though and I've never had a problem with TC before though so I'm going to work through it. If it doesn't turn out so well I'll take you up on that offer, thanks.
Unfortunately I live in Vogeltown in the (radio) shadow of a hill. Nothing that travels by air get's through here!
Ya, she might have rung sooner, but we were having a little chat about this stupid traffic heading off to LA. BGP clearly isn't her thing and was on the edge of her knowledge. I confess I know SFA about it as well other than some very basic concept level stuff.
As for your hill shadow... pffft.... never let that scare you ;) I have a little site tucked right up a vally that we're planning on hitting shortly... we'll just take it in two hops - ~1ms, but given that we hit WIX at about 7ms, it's really a non issue. :)
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Telstraclear to Citylink, hasn't that always gone internationally since Telstraclear de-peered from APE/WIX years ago.
Pretty sure it's an old peering dispute.
TCL don't "openly" peer at APE/WIX/CIX and CityLink don't purchase interconnection from Telstraclear or Telecom. Either would solve the problem for users with some valid arguments both ways.
Generally speaking open peering is better for everyone in the long run but the short run it's a business decision by bean counters to not openly peer and use market power to charge for interconnection.
You've probably only noticed issues again recently because of international speed issues on TCL?
Ragnor: Telstraclear to Citylink, hasn't that always gone internationally since Telstraclear de-peered from APE/WIX years ago.
Pretty sure it's an old peering dispute.
TCL don't "openly" peer at APE/WIX/CIX and CityLink don't purchase interconnection from Telstraclear or Telecom. Either would solve the problem for users with some valid arguments both ways.
Well it's Monday and there has been no change in my international speeds, at least not for the better. This evening speeds are so bad I had to VPN through my work just to send an email via Gmail.
I've provided two sets of packet captures to TC to help identify the issue. So far they have suggested that packet fragmentation on my LAN due to MTU settings may be part of the problem, which makes little sense to me as the problem is only with international traffic and only at specific times of the day. Testing with two different laptops connected directly to the cable modem shows the same issue on both. Android devices connected via WiFi also display the problem. I'm certainly no expert but I would think my circumstances strongly suggest an external problem.
I've asked them to send someone around as I cant help but feel I'm spending my time diagnosing an issue with their network, which I'm paying to use.
The complex faults team got in touch with me today and suggested "a link that is specific to the cable ip address range that you are on appears may have contributed to what you are experiencing" and to test again this evening (so I assume they have changed something).
I'm pleased to say the speed has increased dramatically. The US servers I was previously getting less than 0.3Mbps on have been putting through between 3 and 7 Mbps over the course of the evening.
The people I've dealt with have been great but I have to say the process is a little frustrating and time consuming.
@shylo - Pinging google.com resolves to 203.97.30.147
Hopefully this will be my last post here. Thanks for the help guys.
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