Terrible connection quality (only for download)

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7969 posts

Uber Geek

#715498 11-Nov-2012 17:31

Incindre: Update:

It appears I was wrong, the cable from the road was twin pair phoneline copper. This cable terminates at the house and all jackpoints originate from this same point (not daisy chained).

OK, so can you connect the modem directly at this point, isolating the rest of the wiring (isolation test)?

MightyApe

You will find anything you want at MightyApe (affiliate link).

Incindre

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Master Geek

#715504 11-Nov-2012 17:51

@RunningMan/Sbiddle

Performing that sort of test is beyond my ability at the moment, I'm assuming Chorus technicians have the ability to suss out internal wiring with high levels of accuracy?

sbiddle

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#715505 11-Nov-2012 18:02

Incindre: @RunningMan/Sbiddle

Performing that sort of test is beyond my ability at the moment, I'm assuming Chorus technicians have the ability to suss out internal wiring with high levels of accuracy?

Yes. But they won't necessarily fix things for free as the wiring is your property, not theirs. A master filter costs around $199 to be installed by them if your internal wiring is at fault.

Incindre

117 posts

Master Geek

#715506 11-Nov-2012 18:11

Understood, I've got a fault ready to be logged with Chorus so hopefuly their tech can sort me out.

Lets all just suspend our suspicions about my internal wiring for the moment and imagine that it's perfect; does what I'm experiencing suggest a faulty external line, underpowered/malfunctioning external hardware, or brutal transmission methods courtesy of the ISP? (I know that many ISP's provide you with a high peak download for a few miliseconds followed by many lower rates which means that the average speed looks good, but quality/general speed rate is poor).

Also: What type of cable will the external line be? Because it sounds like that even if I replace everything with CAT6, I'll still be at the mercy of the (CAT3?) line which connects me to the as yet unidentified cabinet.

RunningMan

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Uber Geek

#715510 11-Nov-2012 18:59

If your internal wiring is OK, there's still several possibilities.

The interleaving off = reduced speed does indicate some sort high error rate on the line, and the high attenuation does suggest that physical line issues are a problem for you. In most cases this is within the customer premises, but can also be corroded joins or other faults with the roadside cables. It may be as simple as you being at the end of a very long cable, therefore the connection is less resilient to even minor problems (not much that can be done about that in the short term).

There could be backhaul or congestion from the exchange (in which case your neighbours would most likely have similar problems), or possibly traffic shaping by your ISP (although this is not very likely).

Based on looking at Finlayson Road in the Chorus SAT, it doesn't look like you are connected to a cabinet at all.

That's not to say there isn't more than one problem occurring at the same time - just to make life difficult!

Cat3 is generally fine for DSL, assuming it is in a good state of repair.

cyril7

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#715517 11-Nov-2012 19:48

The 2pair coming in off the street is better than the 25 or 50pair for 5km from the exchange. But star wired cat5 or cat5000 if wired in star is not going to help.

Cyril

Incindre

117 posts

Master Geek

#715519 11-Nov-2012 19:51

Thanks for all your help guys, the pieces of the puzzle are coming together and I really appreciate it.

@RunningMan, So how does that actually work? My understanding is that Whisper Cabinets have DSLAMS in them which make them mini-exhanges that a whole street would be connected to and that the exchange is a largish building somewhere which all the cabinets connect too.

There's a box at the end of my road (not a whisper) which I can't identify but expect that it simply acts as a splitter, that means that any internet service is coming direct from the exchange, would I be correct?

I'm trying hard to pin down what's what in regards to my local internet infrastructure and can provide pictures/ID codes of various cabinets that I have photographed in the area (still have no idea where the exchange itself would be).

RunningMan

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Uber Geek

#715522 11-Nov-2012 20:00

The chorus SAT tool linked above basically will tell you the areas that each exchange and cabinet covers. When you look at the area covered by an exchange, it will most likely be somewhere near the centre of the area - a large windowless building...

If you stick in a random address in suburban Auckland, you'll see the extra detail you get when in a cabinetised area.

You're correct about whisper cabinets - basically they are a mini exchange located closer, so the cables length to each house is shorter (so faster line speed).

If you post a photo of the cabinet, we can tell easily if it is a whisper cabinet, or just a passive junction.

EDIT: missed half the post.

sbiddle

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#715524 11-Nov-2012 20:10

If your line length if 4km it's highly doubtful you'll be connected to a cabinet. The vast majority of lines from cabinets are 2km or under. It's highly likely you're connected directly to an exchange, but the Chorus SAT map will confirm either way.

Incindre

117 posts

Master Geek

#715537 11-Nov-2012 20:43

Here's a picture of the cabinet at the end of Finlayson RD (property is exactly 2km away from it).
http://i442.photobucket.com/albums/qq145/Incindre/DSCF2035.jpg

Update: It's peak time now and my ping is fluctuating like crazy (sometimes normal, very next speed test its up to 1400ms (this is to Auckland by the way). I was gaming and using Teamspeak at the time but having shut down both programs the speeds continued to fluctuate between 0.80Mbps and 0.1Mbps.

Teamspeak quality ratio went from 75% to 27% also (don't know how acurate that is though).

Just trying to get my fault logged now, the technician I ended up with tonight suspects that by changing the 'profile' of how my service is provided this could lead to speeds in excess of 2.7Mbps and a better quality connection. If this doesn't work out I'll ring them back and get a tech to come out.

Does anyone know what the tech means by changing my profile?

Cheers!

Cbfd

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Ultimate Geek

#715565 11-Nov-2012 21:14

Ok - you are beung fed from ngahinapour exch whch is opp the school (white uax building) which is an asam - so guessing your speeds are bad at peak timea due to congestion

sbiddle

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#715569 11-Nov-2012 21:28

If you're on an a BUBA connection you'll no doubt be suffering from peak time handover congestion. A change of ISP's may help depending on where the congestion lies.

Incindre

117 posts

Master Geek

#715603 11-Nov-2012 22:31

@CBFD Cheers I can see it now.

A change of ISP's might fix it did you suggest Sbiddle? Slingshot have undone all my hours of phonecalls with one person ringing me back 5 mins after they supposedly logged the fault and told me there's nothing wrong, it's just the distance between me and the exchange (they kepts spouting that line even though I specifically said that it was STABILITY that was the problem, and having a slight reduction in speed during peak times I could live with).
It seems that they don't understand anything but average download speed.

Any ideas chaps?

DravidDavid

1907 posts

Uber Geek

#715618 12-Nov-2012 00:34

Incindre is on BUBA.

With 4KM of cable in between, I would say you would be lucky getting 2.2Mb/s. A master splitter will increase that based on the fact your wiring is 9 years old.

I believe coffeebaron covers Hamilton and does splitter installs for 150 rather than 200+

sbiddle

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#715625 12-Nov-2012 06:03

You have 2 possible issues. Fixing wiring may improve your sync rate, but being on BUBA means your ISP handover is artificially dimensioned at 46kbps per user to comply with Commerce Commission requirements for this wholesale product. ISP's who have higher usage customers suffer badly with BUBA.

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