The truth about advertised fibre speeds

Forums › 2degrees (including Slingshot, Orcon, Flip, Stuff Fibre, MyRepublic, 2talk and Vocus) › The truth about advertised fibre speeds

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toaster

62 posts

Master Geek

#916103 16-Oct-2013 15:12

Sounddude:
toaster:

It's in the Netherlands, the world's centre of telecommunication connections.

LA servers are the same low speed, even Australia. I only get 20mbps+ within NZ.

Depends on your definition of center. Most people see USA as the center.

You should be able to get 20mbit+ from Aussie easily.

I would discuss with the helpdesk around packet loss problems, as a small amount of packet loss (like on Wifi etc) could result in OK national speeds and slow international. This is due to the way TCP retransmissions work.

Looking at your Usage (1TB+) I would recommend making sure when you do these speedtests that nothing else is running (bittorrent etc). As these will cause overseas speedtests to look low.

London-Paris-Rotterdam industrial triangle is the centre. :-)

And no worries, Iknow how toperform a fair speedtest, and I don't even use P2P, just html and ftp.

danfaulknor

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Prodigi

#916107 16-Oct-2013 15:16

Seeing as the internet is made up of many networks interconnected via different paths of different lengths I don't really think there is a centre.

If all of the countries linked back to one point, that would be the centre, but that just isn't how the internet works.

Fact of the matter is NZ is a long way away from most points on the internet, and the latency we get shows that.

they/them

Prodigi - Optimised IT Solutions
WebOps/DevOps, Managed IT, Hosting and Internet/WAN.

toaster

62 posts

Master Geek

#916109 16-Oct-2013 15:19

Inphinity:
toaster:
Brilliant answer, thanks for explaining.

So I have to assume I had full speeds in the first month because Orcon hasn't yet oversold the connection.

Do you think upgrading to 100Mbps would increase overall speeds, or would they use same capacities for 100mbps users as well?

I must say, I doubt Orcon are *that* over subscribed that you are only getting 1- 2 Mbps to most international locations. I doubt upgrading to 100Mbps would make a difference, as it's unlikely to be your connection that's the bottleneck.

For interest's sake, can you try the Dreamhost speedtest.net server in LA and Internode in Sydney? I'd be interested to see the results of those ones. Also, could try this speed test.

Also, are you testing over wifi or ethernet? If wifi, try with an ethernet cable.

johnr:
You are paying for consumer grade internet! If you want better then pay for it, Get a internet connection will SLA

No offence, John, but "Pay more so we can tell you it's not our fault, it's our upstream provider" doesn't sound like a good solution.

I never use wifi, cat6 ethernet only.

I did a couple of random tests to AU and US during lunch and the speeds were just as low as Europe. Will do it again when I get home tonight.

The good thing is I'm moving house next month and will have a brand new fibre installation. If the same things happens again, it'll be easier to identify the issue I guess.

Your comment about SLA connection was my thoughts exactly. Been there, done that, and not worth the price increase.

kornflake

409 posts

Ultimate Geek

#916118 16-Oct-2013 15:20

UFB Colouring in department 1, Toaster 0.......

michaelmurfy

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#916121 16-Oct-2013 15:22

You're also on an unlimited plan - these kind of plans have traffic shaping, this is consumer based internet which does not have any SLA, or any speed guarantees.

Try downloading [this file] to see what you get, this comes from one of my servers in Fremont with a 1gbit connection. Speedtests are never a good indication of real world speed.

Michael Murphy | https://murfy.nz
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Sounddude

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#916124 16-Oct-2013 15:22

toaster:
I never use wifi, cat6 ethernet only.

I did a couple of random tests to AU and US during lunch and the speeds were just as low as Europe. Will do it again when I get home tonight.

The good thing is I'm moving house next month and will have a brand new fibre installation. If the same things happens again, it'll be easier to identify the issue I guess.

Your comment about SLA connection was my thoughts exactly. Been there, done that, and not worth the price increase.

That's good information. Our peak times are 7pm -> midnight. So anytime outside of that we have plenty of bandwidth. (We have plenty of bandwidth at peak times too).

So I don't think the issue is related to anything Orcon is doing.

FireEngine

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#916125 16-Oct-2013 15:22

toaster:
Sounddude:
johnr:

You are paying for consumer grade internet! If you want better then pay for it, Get a internet connection will SLA

Thanks John, but we like to see our product performing better than what he is experiencing.

Exactly. Especially when it worked flawlessly at 30/10 on a single ftp connection to Europe for entire month at the start of service in May.

Just taken a look at your account, given your usage rate I'd seriously consider whether the site(s) you are accessing are rate-limiting you, we aren't but others maybe.

Regards FireEngine

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Sounddude

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#916126 16-Oct-2013 15:23

michaelmurfy: You're also on an unlimited plan - these kind of plans have traffic shaping, this is consumer based internet which does not have any SLA, or any speed guarantees.

We only shape P2P.

SpoonNZ

21 posts

Geek

#916149 16-Oct-2013 15:40

To provide some balance to this thread, here's the results of a speed test to the US just now, on Orcon UFB.

And one to Australia

I can get these speeds pretty consistently. I'm not on an unlimited plan, but those speeds are pretty substantially better than your single-digit speeds. The one to the US could be a bit better (especially the upstream), but not too shabby really.

Edit: One to Paris for you too. Still a pretty reasonable 50mbit/s

toaster

62 posts

Master Geek

#916151 16-Oct-2013 15:49

FireEngine:
toaster:
Sounddude:
johnr:

You are paying for consumer grade internet! If you want better then pay for it, Get a internet connection will SLA

Thanks John, but we like to see our product performing better than what he is experiencing.

Exactly. Especially when it worked flawlessly at 30/10 on a single ftp connection to Europe for entire month at the start of service in May.

Just taken a look at your account, given your usage rate I'd seriously consider whether the site(s) you are accessing are rate-limiting you, we aren't but others maybe.

They're not. And upload speeds are just as bad and inconsistent. Besides, that wouldn't explain why random speedtests are slow. Unless Speedtest site is rate limiting me :-) Maybe they like my constantly high pings. :-)

Could it be a major packet loss problem, or a router problem? Could location (Dunedin) have anything to do with it? I guess it'll be interesting to see if this happens again in the new house.

FireEngine

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#916196 16-Oct-2013 17:22

toaster:
FireEngine:
toaster:
Sounddude:
johnr:

You are paying for consumer grade internet! If you want better then pay for it, Get a internet connection will SLA

Thanks John, but we like to see our product performing better than what he is experiencing.

Exactly. Especially when it worked flawlessly at 30/10 on a single ftp connection to Europe for entire month at the start of service in May.

Just taken a look at your account, given your usage rate I'd seriously consider whether the site(s) you are accessing are rate-limiting you, we aren't but others maybe.

They're not. And upload speeds are just as bad and inconsistent. Besides, that wouldn't explain why random speedtests are slow. Unless Speedtest site is rate limiting me :-) Maybe they like my constantly high pings. :-)

Could it be a major packet loss problem, or a router problem? Could location (Dunedin) have anything to do with it? I guess it'll be interesting to see if this happens again in the new house.

With respect, how would you know, we aren't the only organisation with a Fair Usage policy - not that we have taken any action under ours. Speedtest sites off the Orcon network will be subject to variations too so without further detail hard to comment. At this time I can't see anything erroring on your connection. Out of interest what happens to your aggregate speed if you have multiple connections running, do you get the same aggregate or better than a single connection?

Regards FireEngine

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