Really sick of this, nothing's been done about it.

Forums › 2degrees (including Slingshot, Orcon, Flip, Stuff Fibre, MyRepublic, 2talk and Vocus) › Really sick of this, nothing's been done about it.

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1004 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Slingshot

#692090 27-Sep-2012 10:29

NZCrusader: Not happy either.

On AYCE and its slow. So slow that I cant even get a sixth of the speed I used to on this plan.

Whats worse is the price was hiked by $10 and I see no improvement.

^ This is not good enough.

I could tolerate it when it was dipping to around 1.5 Mbps, but 0.3 Mbps is just plain crap.

DSL Status: Showtime
DSL Modulation Mode: G.DMT
Downstream Rate: 8128 Kbps
Upstream Rate: 576 Kbps
Downstream Noise Margin: 15.1db
Upstream Noise Margin: 12.0db
Downstream Line Attenuation: 17.5
Upstream Line Attenuation: 9.0
Downstream Transmit Power: 19.7
Upstream Transmit Power: 11.9

7am. I am able to get around 6.4 Mbps easy.
Come this time of the day (9pm at night - and earlier) cant watch you tube, even trying to buffer a dam audio stream doesn't work.

I had been pretty happy with slingshot, AYCE was working best when it was $80 back a few months, but since then its turned to crap.

I am not sure if slingshot have failed in their promise to scale the bandwidth in accordance to the number of users, but I cant justify why the speed should be this low, when we used to get 4 Mbps+ all day , every day......

I hope slingshot can sort AYCE out, because too much more and Orcons new plan might be worth considering.

Hi,

What have you got running at the same time as that speed test? As you know, torrents will sap your bandwidth and affect results of speed tests, browsing and streaming, especially during peak times.

PM me your account number and I'll take a look into this for you.

Cheers,
Ben

www.slingshot.co.nz

www.twitter.com/SlingshotNZ

https://www.facebook.com/SlingshotNZ

PaulZA

314 posts

Ultimate Geek

#692104 27-Sep-2012 10:46

Ok guys been in touch with Slingshot staff, and they seem to have helped me sort the issue.

Internet connection's better then what it was.

Thanks Slingshot!

sapage

69 posts

Master Geek

Trusted

#692108 27-Sep-2012 10:54

Great stuff - thanks Paul. Thats good news.

For the benefit of others on this forum, there were two problems in this particular instance:

1. A faulty jackpoint (in-home wiring) which required us to send a tech out to fix
2. A Peer-to-Peer application was consuming a significantly amount of the upstream bandwidth for the connection, which therefore affects ping times and download performance - always a good idea to limit the upstream on your torrent client.

If you are having problems with your broadband, we are here to help you. I notice that Ben from Slingshot is also active on these forums and can assist.

As always, the first point of contact should ideally be our contact centre. That said, if you feel you are not getting the help you need, I welcome escalations directly (email below)

Regards

Scott Page
General Manager - Slingshot
scott.page@team.slingshot.co.nz

ScottP

DonGould

3892 posts

Uber Geek

#692113 27-Sep-2012 11:02

sapage: 2. A Peer-to-Peer application was consuming a significantly amount of the upstream bandwidth for the connection, which therefore affects ping times and download performance - always a good idea to limit the upstream on your torrent client.

Scott, how often do you guys find this is a problem?

What you've said wouldn't make any sense to my wife. From her point of view, it would not seem even a bit logical that my uploading would impact her downloading/web surfing.

If we look at this in terms of cars on a road (something most people can relate well to), it makes no sense that traffic flowing north would be slowed by traffic flowing south.

We keep seeing these really poor speed test results on lots of networks (not just your AYCE product) and I wonder just how much the lack of basic understanding of TCP coms is impacting the questions we're seeing from consumers?

Thoughts?

D

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helis

96 posts

Master Geek

#692131 27-Sep-2012 11:31

DonGould:
sapage: 2. A Peer-to-Peer application was consuming a significantly amount of the upstream bandwidth for the connection, which therefore affects ping times and download performance - always a good idea to limit the upstream on your torrent client.

Scott, how often do you guys find this is a problem?

What you've said wouldn't make any sense to my wife. From her point of view, it would not seem even a bit logical that my uploading would impact her downloading/web surfing.

If we look at this in terms of cars on a road (something most people can relate well to), it makes no sense that traffic flowing north would be slowed by traffic flowing south.

We keep seeing these really poor speed test results on lots of networks (not just your AYCE product) and I wonder just how much the lack of basic understanding of TCP coms is impacting the questions we're seeing from consumers?

Thoughts?

D

Its not a two way highway though. Its more like a one lane bridge and the direction with the right of way is the uploads. So if you have a steady flow of cars going over the bridge in the upload direction very few cars will make it over in the download direction.

Torrent or peer technology causes so many problems. Its not even a bandwidth issue some times. Just the sheer number of connections that a torrent causes can bottle neck the cheaper routers that are common in the home.

DonGould

3892 posts

Uber Geek

#692136 27-Sep-2012 11:38

helis:
Its not a two way highway though. Its more like a one lane bridge and the direction with the right of way is the uploads. So if you have a steady flow of cars going over the bridge in the upload direction very few cars will make it over in the download direction.

Oh God, I'm so sorry I mentioned cars now....

ADSL is not simplex.

helis:
Torrent or peer technology causes so many problems. Its not even a bandwidth issue some times. Just the sheer number of connections that a torrent causes can bottle neck the cheaper routers that are common in the home.

Yes this statement I totally agree with. I wonder how many consumers have any concept of understanding of what you've said?

I wonder how much more consumer education about how TCP works we need to do?

D

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helis

96 posts

Master Geek

#692152 27-Sep-2012 12:04

DonGould:
helis:
Its not a two way highway though. Its more like a one lane bridge and the direction with the right of way is the uploads. So if you have a steady flow of cars going over the bridge in the upload direction very few cars will make it over in the download direction.

Oh God, I'm so sorry I mentioned cars now....

ADSL is not simplex.

helis:
Torrent or peer technology causes so many problems. Its not even a bandwidth issue some times. Just the sheer number of connections that a torrent causes can bottle neck the cheaper routers that are common in the home.

Yes this statement I totally agree with. I wonder how many consumers have any concept of understanding of what you've said?

I wonder how much more consumer education about how TCP works we need to do?

D

ADSL is not simplex. But you put a bottleneck into the mix and it very much is. You can't download with out first sending the request via upload. So either hardware or max bandwidth will turn a nice two way technology into a one way traffic jam.

That being said even if I am uploading at max speed to say an FTP server my pings and downloads still look/work fine. So I think the biggest issue is the simultaneous connections flooding the router/modem. Teach users how to set this to a low number like 50 max connections and it would solve most problems of this type.

Sharesies

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DonGould

3892 posts

Uber Geek

#692162 27-Sep-2012 12:15

helis:
ADSL is not simplex. But you put a bottleneck into the mix and it very much is. You can't download with out first sending the request via upload. So either hardware or max bandwidth will turn a nice two way technology into a one way traffic jam.

But an HTTP request only sends on tiny bit of information at the start... doesn't it?

helis:
That being said even if I am uploading at max speed to say an FTP server my pings and downloads still look/work fine. So I think the biggest issue is the simultaneous connections flooding the router/modem. Teach users how to set this to a low number like 50 max connections and it would solve most problems of this type.

I confess I know very little about p2p protocols.

How many connections will a p2p app open up given half a chance?

Is the router the only limiting feature here?

What about the TCP stack in the users PC? How many active connections can that manage and is the machines CPU and memory a factor?

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helis

96 posts

Master Geek

#692168 27-Sep-2012 12:28

DonGould:
helis:
ADSL is not simplex. But you put a bottleneck into the mix and it very much is. You can't download with out first sending the request via upload. So either hardware or max bandwidth will turn a nice two way technology into a one way traffic jam.

But an HTTP request only sends on tiny bit of information at the start... doesn't it?

helis:
That being said even if I am uploading at max speed to say an FTP server my pings and downloads still look/work fine. So I think the biggest issue is the simultaneous connections flooding the router/modem. Teach users how to set this to a low number like 50 max connections and it would solve most problems of this type.

I confess I know very little about p2p protocols.

How many connections will a p2p app open up given half a chance?

Is the router the only limiting feature here?

What about the TCP stack in the users PC? How many active connections can that manage and is the machines CPU and memory a factor?

Default for Utorrent from memory is 200max and 75 or 100 max per torrent. so if they have 2 or 3 files sharing and it hits the 200max connections most home routers will struggle. Services like VoIP even with QoS will suffer. I've seen home routers struggle at 100 connections.

DonGould

3892 posts

Uber Geek

#692170 27-Sep-2012 12:33

helis: Default for Utorrent from memory is 200max and 75 or 100 max per torrent. so if they have 2 or 3 files sharing and it hits the 200max connections most home routers will struggle. Services like VoIP even with QoS will suffer. I've seen home routers struggle at 100 connections.

Hold on... you're saying my home router will fail phone calls when I'm only downloading 2 files?

That's just nuts isn't it?

Shouldn't the provider just put QoS in to protect my phone calls, like a set of traffic lights?

D

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helis

96 posts

Master Geek

#692194 27-Sep-2012 12:55

DonGould:
helis: Default for Utorrent from memory is 200max and 75 or 100 max per torrent. so if they have 2 or 3 files sharing and it hits the 200max connections most home routers will struggle. Services like VoIP even with QoS will suffer. I've seen home routers struggle at 100 connections.

Hold on... you're saying my home router will fail phone calls when I'm only downloading 2 files?

That's just nuts isn't it?

Shouldn't the provider just put QoS in to protect my phone calls, like a set of traffic lights?

D

If you are seeding 2 or 3 files via BT and the default settings allow for up to 200-300 connections than no low end router even one with QoS will save your calls from a very noticeable drop in quality. This is made so much worse when you have 2-3 people in the house and they are all running BT. Web sites will most likely just time out at this point.

1080p

1332 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#692201 27-Sep-2012 13:09

I haven't seen a router - cheap or not - unable to handle a few thousand HTTP connections for more than five years now.

sbiddle

30853 posts

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Retired Mod

Trusted

Biddle Corp

Lifetime subscriber

#692203 27-Sep-2012 13:10

sapage:
2. A Peer-to-Peer application was consuming a significantly amount of the upstream bandwidth for the connection, which therefore affects ping times and download performance - always a good idea to limit the upstream on your torrent client.

It also shows the issue with the OP's analysis of the problem. One would assume that it would be logical to ensure that no background tasks were running when performing a test, but it certainly isn't the first and won't be the last time that this happens, as another posts on here in the past week from somebody else complaining about high latency discovered the wireless was being saturated by another device.

DonGould

3892 posts

Uber Geek

#692206 27-Sep-2012 13:12

All this talk about TCP connections... what does p2p do if it's just not downloading anything at the time?

Is it holding connections open even if traffic isn't flowing over these connections?

Can users actually find out what connections their router is holding up?

D

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helis

96 posts

Master Geek

#692212 27-Sep-2012 13:19

1080p: I haven't seen a router - cheap or not - unable to handle a few thousand HTTP connections for more than five years now.

Few thousand concurrent connections? I can tell you now I've seen a number of Netcomms, Billions and Dlinks that struggle with 250+ concurrent connections. What situation would you find yourself in where a home router would be dealing with 2,000-3,000 HTTP connections at any given time?

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