Orcon speed problems

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Persephone

9 posts

Wannabe Geek

#11153 5-Jan-2007 21:08

Hi,

I recently switched from the Xtra Go Large plan to the Orcon Max/Max 15gig broadband plan due to download speeds with xtra hovering around 5KB/sec on various sites. Internet speeds used to be fine on the old plans, but have dropped dramatically with the introduction of the new Xtra plans which a lot of people seem to be experiencing.

However download speeds with Orcon have been fluctuating from 218KB/sec down to under 1KB/sec depending on the time of day (higher speeds at early hours of the morning, extremely slow speeds during the day). A speed test on www.nzdsl.co.nz shows my download result as 1845kbps and upload result as 481kbps.

The modem is new, as well as all the cables for it and I got my pc checked to make sure everything was working as it should be and not interferring with the internet. I have called Orcon many times and the answer I have basically gotten is that the download speeds should be higher but it is dependant on the amount of people on the server and that there is nothing that can really be done. I understand that speeds will vary depending on the amount of people online, but 1KB-5KB/sec speeds for downloading doesn't seem acceptable for a broadband plan.

I also play a lot of games online, particularly MMO's and World of Warcraft has basically been unplayable with lag spikes and extremely high latencies which has been reported on the WoW forums by people who also belong to Orcon.

So I was wondering if anyone was experiencing similar occurances or if anyone could give some advice. I would change ISPs if it would make a difference, but I don't want to change again to just be stuck with the same issues.

Sorry for the long post, just a little unsure on what I should do :)

Thank-you for your time,
-Lilly

(Moderator edit (BG) - Edited title to something more suitable)

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460 posts

Ultimate Geek
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#57036 5-Jan-2007 21:49

Normally if you've got 1-5k download speeds I'd suggest that you were too far away from the phone exchange. But you've been able to get megabits speeds. I would wonder if you have something in your house interfeering with the phone line.

Do you have a splitter installed or are you using filters on your phones & fax machines? People can have alarm systems which hook into the phone line without them knowing, or there can be odd things going on. It might pay to check out the phone wiring in your house to make sure its all good.

A splitter basically cuts off the ADSL signal to everything in your house except a single jack-point where you plug in your router. It costs you a nasty $150 to get a splitter installed, however. Thats nasty & it may or may not help.

Persephone

9 posts

Wannabe Geek

#57038 5-Jan-2007 21:53

Hey,

Thank-you for your reply :) Telecom came and installed a splitter/filters on all the phones when I first joined Xtra for broadband so he checked all the wiring and such/tested the line speed at the house which was fine. I have no fax machines, do have an alarm but that never caused issues previously and is why I got telecom to install everything in the first place just to be sure.

cokemaster

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#57042 5-Jan-2007 22:14

Hello,

Before someone comes in and tries to suggest switching ISP's (as witnessed in another thread) without trying to isolate the cause, the best thing is to go through the ISP troubleshooting processs first. Remember that if its something is affects your line... changing ISP's won't help much.

Some basic things work taking note:

When does the speed drop down? Does it drop down at the same time roughly everyday? Does it affect national traffic as well(doing speed tests locally either at nzdsl or jetstreamgames is a good indicator)?

Does it happen with only one protocol (ie. bittorrent)?

What are your port speeds?

When the Telecom guy came around, did you have the chance to replicate the same issue? Perhaps testing another modem on your line might be useful, or taking your modem to someone elses place (even if its new).

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Persephone

9 posts

Wannabe Geek

#57044 5-Jan-2007 22:29

Thank-you also for your reply.

Answers to your questions

1. When does the speed drop down? Does it drop down at the same time roughly everyday? Does it affect national traffic as well(doing speed tests locally either at nzdsl or jetstreamgames is a good indicator)?
-The speed seems to drop down at times which most people would regard as peak times I guess usually from 9am-1am. Usually in the very early hours of the morning 1am onwards the speed seems to pick up, though not always. One observation I made on Wednesday morning was that at 1.36am I could d/l a file from filefront.com at 218KB/sec, at 2.36am the same file was d/ling at around 44KB/sec, at 3.19am d/ling at 26KB/sec and then around 11am 5 to 10KB/sec. The line speed on the nzdsl speed test seems to remain quite constant, but the speeds just change so dramatically.

2. Does it happen with only one protocol (ie. bittorrent)?
-When the d/ling speed slows down, everything appears to slow down (webpages, games etc).

3. What are your port speeds?

-Not to sure on this one :)

4. When the Telecom guy came around, did you have the chance to replicate the same issue?
-The telecom guy was earlier this year when speeds were working fine on the old xtra plan. I have tried two modems on this line with the same speed and d/ling results and the shop that checked my pc also had a look at the modem. When on Xtra Go Large I also tried a VPN to a friend in Australia which showed a big improvement in my d/l speeds, however it doesn't make any difference with Orcon.

cokemaster

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#57045 5-Jan-2007 22:38

So when you experience the slow speeds and do the speed test the speeds remain constant (ie. what you normally get)?

To check your port speeds you need to log into your modems administrations page. If you're using one of the Dlinks, the steps tend to be:

Open Firefox/Internet Explorer/Browser of choice and point the address to 10.1.1.1

When prompted the username and passware are both 'admin'

Click on the status tab

Click on the ADSL button on the left.

Your port speeds should be listed there.

There is a possiblity that it could be congestion issues either with your provider (*gasp& some users seem to think that only Xtra can have issues) or your local exchange...

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grant_k

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#57046 5-Jan-2007 22:41

Persephone:
Usually in the very early hours of the morning 1am onwards the speed seems to pick up, though not always. One observation I made on Wednesday morning was that at 1.36am I could d/l a file from filefront.com at 218KB/sec, at 2.36am the same file was d/ling at around 44KB/sec, at 3.19am d/ling at 26KB/sec and then around 11am 5 to 10KB/sec. The line speed on the nzdsl speed test seems to remain quite constant, but the speeds just change so dramatically.

This sounds very much like an International Connectivity issue.

Persephone:
2. Does it happen with only one protocol (ie. bittorrent)?
-When the d/ling speed slows down, everything appears to slow down (webpages, games etc).

This could also be explained by poor International Connectivity speed.

Persephone:
3. What are your port speeds?

-Not to sure on this one :)

Have a look at the status screen in your ADSL router. It should show you the Downstream and Upstream Connection speeds.

These are the same speeds which your port at the local exchange/roadside cabinet will be running at. They vary a lot depending on line quality, distance from exchange, crosstalk on line etc. so it would be worth checking them at the various times of the day when you have the worst/best download speeds to see if anything is changing on your line.

Your router will also show the Signal-to-Noise ratio and Attenuation for Downstream and Upstream. It would be worth making a note of them and checking to see if they change in the same way as I suggested for the Connection Speeds.

I hope that helps. Let us know your test results.

Cheers,
Grant.

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Persephone

9 posts

Wannabe Geek

#57050 5-Jan-2007 22:49

The speed test results seem to remain pretty constant yes, but I will continue to monitor the speed test at different times during the day.

I would have to agree I seem to be having international connectivity issues, would there be anything Orcon could do about that though? Or do you think it would be best to give it some time to see if anything improves.

Port Speeds

Item Downstream Upstream Unit
SNR Margin 12.5 12.0 dB
Line Attenuation 41.0 24.5 dB
Loss of Signal 0 0
CRC Errors 82 5
Data Rate 2208 576 Kbps
Latency Fast Fast

Also Orcon said a technician would check the connection and such ( I assume they would check the exchange to see if anythings wrong) but they didn't report anything unusal/needed to be fixed.

cokemaster

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#57052 5-Jan-2007 22:58

If its an solely an international bandwidth problem (ie. your national (NZL) connections are fine), then the problem could lie with Orcon or their provider (Asia netcom?) instead of your ADSL connection, however don't expect too much support from any ISP if you're not getting good international speeds (I've had a lot of problems chasing up some ISPs about this for issues to China)...

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Persephone

9 posts

Wannabe Geek

#57057 5-Jan-2007 23:13

Thanks Grant for your reply previously and all of your replies cokemaster :)

Yeah Asianet.com could be having issues. I guess I will call again tomorrow, but it is difficult like you said because they have said theres nothing that can really be done about it. =/ Was hoping to get a stable connection sorted for the Burning Crusade release heh :) We shall see I guess.

grant_k

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#57061 5-Jan-2007 23:20

Persephone: I would have to agree I seem to be having international connectivity issues, would there be anything Orcon could do about that though? Or do you think it would be best to give it some time to see if anything improves.

Your local line speeds look pretty good at the moment and so long as they stay that way throughout the day, I don't see that you have anything to worry about there.

The fact that your NZDSL SpeedTest results are consistent (and presumably good?) also eliminates the following areas as potential sources of your problem:

1) Local Line connection
2) DSLAM equipment at the exchange/roadside cabinet
3) Backhaul link from the DSLAM to your ISP

Therefore, the only area left is International Connectivity and your ISP is mostly responsible for this. They are also reliant on their upstream bandwidth provider(s) but Orcon is generally one of the better ISPs out there when it comes to International Connectivity.

Other ISPs (who I won't name) seem to have a policy of short-changing their customers by providing as little International Bandwidth as they can get away with. Their users suffer accordingly but I would be surprised if you experienced this situation with Orcon. Certainly if Brad's experience is anything to go by, Orcon are exemplary in this regard.

So, what could be the cause of the problem:

==> Possibly the particular Bit Torrents or web sites you are attempting to access.

Remember that the recent earthquake off the coast of Taiwan took out a large number of undersea cables so if you are accessing sites in Asia (or other sites which are routed through Asia), this could be one possible cause.

I would suggest doing some download speed tests on web sites which are known to be fast e.g. downloading large files from the various Microsoft Mirror Sites. Mauricio or Brad can probably suggest some good ones to use.

Repeat the download tests at various times of the day and let us know the results.

This is certainly an interesting problem and it would be good to finally nail down the cause for future reference.

Persephone

9 posts

Wannabe Geek

#57063 5-Jan-2007 23:28

Yes it's pretty strange :) I heard so many good reviews about Orcon, which is why I changed to them. I will locate some websites to try some speed tests on and post the results later tomorrow (if anyone can recommend any that would be great). Thank-you again for all the advice :)

-Lilly

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bonkiebonks

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Ultimate Geek
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#57079 6-Jan-2007 10:13

If you've only been getting this sort of crap speeds with Orcon, then my best guess would be interleaving. Because Xtra do not turn off interleaving, it makes their service less prone to this kind of problems. Orcon on the other hand, turn off interleaving by default.

I suggest you give Orcon a ring, and ask that they put interleaving back on for you. By the way, your line does look very bad, high attenuation, and low noise margin.

Hope this helps.

Persephone

9 posts

Wannabe Geek

#57090 6-Jan-2007 12:35

I was getting slow speeds with Xtra, but it seemed a lot of people were. I will give them a call today and ask about interleaving and the line again. Thanks for that :)

Persephone

9 posts

Wannabe Geek

#57091 6-Jan-2007 12:44

In response to Grants idea here are some d/l tests i've done so far.

Download: Windows Media Player 11 (Not the full download) from Microsoft.com.

1.53am

Item	Downstream	Upstream	Unit
SNR Margin	12.5	12.0	dB
Line Attenuation	41.0	24.5	dB
Loss of Signal	0	0
CRC Errors	122	7
Data Rate	2208	576	Kbps
Latency	Fast	Fast

Transfer Rate: Around 1.42KB/Sec

5.33am

Item	Downstream	Upstream	Unit
SNR Margin	12.5	12.0	dB
Line Attenuation	40.0	24.5	dB
Loss of Signal	0	0
CRC Errors	2	0
Data Rate	2240	576	Kbps
Latency	Fast	Fast

Transfer Rate: Around 240KB/Sec

12.30pm

Item	Downstream	Upstream	Unit
SNR Margin	12.5	12.0	dB
Line Attenuation	40.0	24.5	dB
Loss of Signal	0	0
CRC Errors	131	1
Data Rate	2240	576	Kbps
Latency	Fast	Fast

Transfer Rate: Around 9KB/Sec

9.48pm
Item
Downstream Upstream Unit
SNR Margin 12.5 12.0 dB
Line Attenuation 40.0 24.5 dB
Loss of Signal 0 0
CRC Errors 206 6
Data Rate 2240 576 Kbps
Latency Fast Fast
Transfer Rate: Around 5KB/Sec

grant_k

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#57267 8-Jan-2007 21:36

Those are interesting test figures for sure...

The thing that jumps out at me is the variation in CRC Errors:

==> When your download speed is good, the CRC Errors are only 2

==> When your download speed is bad, the CRC Errors are 100 - 200

That is a huge variation which would seem to indicate some sort of disturbance on your line. Whether 100 - 200 CRC errors is significant though, given the huge number of packets that would go through your router during a download of Media Player 11, I couldn't tell you. It depends on what period that number of CRC Errors are logged. If it happens in one second, obviously it's a big problem. But if it happens during one hour, then it probably isn't...

Bonkiebonks or anyone else who is familiar with ADSL down at the grassroots level, what are your opinions here?

1) Noise Bursts? (however the SNRs are almost constant)
2) Intermittent fault in modem?
3) Something else?

One further test that would have been helpful is to log the results as reported by NZDSL SpeedTest at each time you did the Media Player download. It would confirm for sure whether this problem is related solely to international traffic, or to your internet connection as a whole.

Excellent detective work so far, but please repeat the test with a Media Player download followed by NZDSL SpeedTest at each time interval.

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