Slow speeds, driving me nuts

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xpd

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#129511 8-May-2008 21:30

Update : See my blog on my site....

Start here : http://www.xpd.co.nz/blog/?p=41 (Warning - some dodgy language :) )
Then here : http://www.xpd.co.nz/blog/?p=43

I await Telecoms response....

Gavin / xpd / FastRaccoon / Geek of Coastguard New Zealand

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OldGeek

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#129605 9-May-2008 09:31

Hi XPD,

Some years ago I had problems similar to yours. In addition to Port switches at the exchange there is also the option of pair-switching. I am no expert on these matters but the following is the situation as described to me by a Downer tech:

From your house the telephone line will go to your local exchange - but not usually directly - roadside cabinets are used to aggregate cables through to the exchange. Your line may go through more than one cabinet to get to the exchange and at each such cabinet there is a connection - and every connection is an opportunity for a problem. The cable carrying your line from one connection to another is referred to as a 'pair'. The pair from your house to the first roadside cabinet is dedicated, but the pairs from there on are swappable - another onward pair can be used. Swapping these pairs can resolve unseen cable junction issues and eliminate any problems on the ongoing pair being 'swapped out' - but equally the exact opposite can occur. Pair swapping is, naturally, dependent on spare pairs being available and VERY labour intensive.

The problem I had was frequent session drops - a connection would last no more than a few minutes and the fact that each new session resulted in an IP address change played havoc with the VPN client I used all the time working from home. The first solution was to install a dedicated splitter in my home - no change. The second solution was an exchange port swap - improved but still not good enough. The third solution was pair swapping back to the exchanged - fixed the problem completely and doubled my connection speed.

Dont worry too much about the $81 charge - in genuine cases (as yours appears to be) and where you treat the techs reasonably it will never happen. I would suggest you get a pair-swap done.

xpd

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#129622 9-May-2008 11:30

Cheers for that, Ill be sure to mention it.

Gavin / xpd / FastRaccoon / Geek of Coastguard New Zealand

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xpd

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#134152 29-May-2008 13:37

Interesting.....

Ive swapped to Xnet for my broadband now.... and guess what ?

After Telecom and IHUG claiming Ill never get anything over 3mb, Ive been sitting on 5.2mbps for about 18 hours so far.
Ill be sure to pass it onto IHUG and see what their repsonse is....

Gavin / xpd / FastRaccoon / Geek of Coastguard New Zealand

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stu28

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#134187 29-May-2008 15:37

xpd: Ive been sitting on 5.2mbps for about 18 hours so far.

xpd

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#134552 31-May-2008 08:43

Well, after approx 36hrs @ 5.2mbps, it finally dropped back down to 2.8mbps. Buggar.
But still proves my line is capable of getting over 4mbps unlike Telecoms claims of "never see anything over 3".

Gavin / xpd / FastRaccoon / Geek of Coastguard New Zealand

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xpd

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#136862 10-Jun-2008 08:30

Final Update : (I hope)

After months of stuffing around, my line issue may finally be fixed (again).

I got a friend to contact Telecom for me (internally) and get some tests etc done - turns out I am EXACTLY 2km from the exchange as the cable lies, so therefore me getting only 2.4mbps is pretty poor.

They tweaked the line and then I was getting 5mbps - that last approx 18hrs then it dropped again.
More tests run... comes back saying "Network Analyser shows 80.92% missing POTS splitter" - now, not entirely sure what thats indicating, the splitter at my end or at Telecoms end (my friend wasnt sure)..... anyway he arranged for a tech visit.

Last Friday a Telecom tech turned up at home and ran some tests - was getting 5.6mbps at all points etc - he rung me and said "Whats your problem then ?" (obviously he wasnt given background).
So went through it with him....... his final answer was "Get a Dlink router, theyre the best" - my repsonse was "No, I hate Dlink gear, I have used 4 different branded routers now INCLUDING Dlink and they all do the same"
I also mentioned to him about the splitter.
He just kept repeating himself about its my router at fault and I shold buy a Dlink - I was fuming and politely told him to get the *&%&(*% out if he wasnt going to help or listen to me. (And my wife can verify that the tech was ignoring me)

After that episode, I borrowed yet another 3 router (1 Dlink, 2 Dynalink) and stuffed around again... the Dlink did give slightly better results for a while Ill admit, but then the line dropped to 1.3mbps.

So after chatting with my friend, I contacted my ISP and they said that the Telecom tech had not updated his notes which he should have done. They advised Monday would be best to follow it up.

Yesterday morning the tech still had not updated his notes, so my ISP got hold of Telecom and chased it up.
The notes ended up saying "Found fault at exchange, repaired" - OMFG... why couldnt the guy ring me to say that ?? He probably though Id rip his head off over the phone after his damn lazy and ignorant, Dlink salesman routine.

So far so good... line has held around 5mbps and traffic appears to be flowing smoothly.

Fingers crossed thats the last of it.

Gavin / xpd / FastRaccoon / Geek of Coastguard New Zealand

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#137858 13-Jun-2008 18:11

we have several connections running off a roadside cabinet, cab is no more than 60m, brand new copper in between. This has always meant slow speeds (1-1.5Mbs) as the dslams in the cabinets, share a single fibre core over 28 adsl conencts.

Lately, these speeds are taking a hammering and at peak times, reduce down to a crawl (100-500kbs). Ping times to the isp are down to 300ms, usually 40ms.

I cant get a straight answer out of the ISP or telecom, on the timetable to converting this cabinet to adsl2, or whether its even done or not.

Does anyone else have experiences like this? Can i expect better performance from upgrading the modems (old Billion 7100S)?
Ranting to the ISP?

Peter

xpd

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#138284 16-Jun-2008 08:41

Well, Im now worse off than ever...........

Im lucky to even get 1mbps connection rate now.

Ive asked for Telecom to come back again and redo all the wiring and filter for the ADSL. Its funny, the techs change their story pretty quickly when talking to them.... latest one said " oh its your filter at fault" but then didnt touch it and blamed it on my wiring - which is actually Telecom's wiring because I didnt do it, I paid them $150 when I first moved in to get it done.

I should have kept my mouth shut when I was getting 2.3mbps

Gavin / xpd / FastRaccoon / Geek of Coastguard New Zealand

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xpd

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#138920 18-Jun-2008 10:14

Yet another update :

After approx 2 years, 3 ISP's, 5 routers and 4 different technicians looking at my ADSL issues and each one supposedly fixing it, the problem may now have been solved at long last.

Ive had different reasons for the problem from every tech but only this last one seems to have been on the ball and actually checked things a bit further than the others.

He said he tested my line from the little green box at the bottom of my drive approx 2pm yesterday and saw all sorts of errors (which the others never saw somehow). So he went to the local cabinet, found the same errors, back to the exchange and found some faulty wiring which he then replaced. He then proceeded to work his way back, cabinet showed ok, little green box showed ok, jackpoint in the hosue showed ok.

My router is now happily connected at a downstream of 6496 (Kbps.) and hasnt dropped once over night.

So... do I celebrate or keep a wary eye on it all for the week hehe.....

Gavin / xpd / FastRaccoon / Geek of Coastguard New Zealand

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BrettW

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#139074 18-Jun-2008 22:02

xpd: Final Update : (I hope)
...
He just kept repeating himself about its my router at fault and I shold buy a Dlink - I was fuming and politely told him to get the *&%&(*% out if he wasnt going to help or listen to me.
...

Don't be too hard on the Tech. He's just doing a job, and has to be wary of what he says outside the corperate line.
As for D-link, the bottom line is the software that drives the ADSL in NZ is matched to the D-link chipsets. A good example is a few months back when Telecom did a software upgrade and rendered any modem with the Broadcom chipset ineffective till the software issue was fixed. These people were w/o interent for some 12 hours.

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#139088 18-Jun-2008 23:06

glad to hear its finally been resolved :)

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