I am getting 7mbits with orcon, neighbour getting 14mbps with xtra, after cabinet upgrade

Forums › 2degrees (including Slingshot, Orcon, Flip, Stuff Fibre, MyRepublic, 2talk and Vocus) › I am getting 7mbits with orcon, neighbour getting 14mbps with xtra, after cabinet upgrade

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#283015 16-Dec-2009 08:24

Gareth you're suggesting has an issue with his sync rate -- yet he's already getting 14922kbps according to post #281572. The 7.3mbps he reports seems to be his speedtest.net result -- which is his end-to-end throughput despite his line being capable of ~13mbps at least.

I do agree it's an ISP issue -- an Orcon issue in this case that affects Orcon customers on full/128k plans. I suspect the 128k upload throttles the download speed due to TCP ACK issues.

- James

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#283016 16-Dec-2009 08:24

KiwiSurfer: That's normal for an Orcon connection on a Telecom cabinet. I'm on a Telecom cabinet attached to the Ponsonby Exchange here and get only 5mbits throughput despite a line speed of 14mbits to the cabinet. Would transfer to Telecom except flatmate prefers Orcon due to their no contracts policy. :(

- James

5mbit to where?

More details please.

KiwiSurfer

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#283022 16-Dec-2009 08:41

Sure, these are off-peak results from just now -- seems to be better than usual I should add.

Speedtest.net Auckland WXC -- 6.22/0.14
Speedtest.net Wellington Citylink -- 7.37/0.14
Speedtest.net Christchurch Snap -- 9.13/0.14
Speedtest.net Napier Airnet -- 4.63/0.13
Vodafone NZ -- 6.34/0.13
Xnet -- 6.08/0.13
Comsumer Speed Test -- 7.01/0.14

Orcon Modem details:-

Downstream rate: 12330 kbps
Upstream rate: 164 kbps

Line mode: ADSL2+
Maximum line rate: 14372 kbps (downstream) / 997 kbps (upstream)
Noise margin: 15.2 dB (downstream) / 40.6 dB (upstream)
Line attenuation: 8.8 dB (downstream) / 2.8 dB (upstream)
Output power: 18.6 dBm (downstream) / 11.7 dBm (upstream)

- James

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#283465 17-Dec-2009 15:26

KiwiSurfer: Sure, these are off-peak results from just now -- seems to be better than usual I should add.

Speedtest.net Auckland WXC -- 6.22/0.14
Speedtest.net Wellington Citylink -- 7.37/0.14
Speedtest.net Christchurch Snap -- 9.13/0.14
Speedtest.net Napier Airnet -- 4.63/0.13
Vodafone NZ -- 6.34/0.13
Xnet -- 6.08/0.13
Comsumer Speed Test -- 7.01/0.14

Orcon Modem details:-

Downstream rate: 12330 kbps
Upstream rate: 164 kbps

Line mode: ADSL2+
Maximum line rate: 14372 kbps (downstream) / 997 kbps (upstream)
Noise margin: 15.2 dB (downstream) / 40.6 dB (upstream)
Line attenuation: 8.8 dB (downstream) / 2.8 dB (upstream)
Output power: 18.6 dBm (downstream) / 11.7 dBm (upstream)

- James

Given your actual upstream rate, these are all perfectly reasonable numbers.

You'll need to upgrade plans to get a max/max adsl profile to see any further improvement.

If you see slower speeds than these during peak hours, then it's likely to be your ISP experiencing congestion somewhere.

Cheers - N

Please note all comments are from my own brain and don't necessarily represent the position or opinions of my employer, previous employers, colleagues, friends or pets.

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#283469 17-Dec-2009 15:49

TalkieT tells the truth :)

With a 128k upload plan, you won't get much faster than 6mbit, even though your downstream is much higher

Upgrade to a max/max plan, and you should be able to pull your full 12mbit from local sites.

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#289857 14-Jan-2010 07:31

You guys sure about that? I thought you are having the same issue as me. Orcon just hasn't put their stuff in the cabinet yet so you are getting slower speeds. Those are telecoms cabinets so they already have adsl2+ speeds.

cyril7

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#289881 14-Jan-2010 08:55

Hi KraserK dont know what you mean, Kiwisurfer stated that he was connected to a cabinet on a Telecom wholesale connection (see his earlier post) so issues relating to mid span injection problems dont apply, his 128k upload however does.

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#290083 14-Jan-2010 18:40

cyril7: Hi KraserK dont know what you mean, Kiwisurfer stated that he was connected to a cabinet on a Telecom wholesale connection (see his earlier post) so issues relating to mid span injection problems dont apply, his 128k upload however does.

Correct. My beef is with Orcon limiting upload to 128k on full/128k plans knowing full well that it's never possible to achieve 'full' download speed and yet still advertising it as a full/128k plan. They should at the very least include a fine print saying that in reality 128k upload speed forces an effective download rate of around 5mbps even if the line is capable of better download speeds.

Telecom has stopped selling plans with 128k upload limits presumedly for this reason -- I think it's time that all other ISPs (including Orcon) followed suit.

Ironically Orcon doesn't cap upload on their own network but they do on Telecom wholesaled connections. Why the double standards I wonder. Possibly they want to make Telecom look bad even though it's their own network that is causing the speed issues and not Telecom's.

Oh well I'll be moving in a few weeks to a new flat which is on a Telecom full/full plan connected to a Telecom cabinet which gets ~14mbits download to a wide range of networks. Telecom has made massive improvements over the last few years -- one of them is recognising the fact there isn't any good reason anymore to cap upload to 128k...

- James

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#290131 14-Jan-2010 22:39

James

Orcon do offer full/full plans also on Telecom Wholesale.

richms

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#290138 14-Jan-2010 23:05

You can easily hit line speed downstream on a 128k up if you are using UDP such as streaming video.

If you are going to limit yourself to http based speed tests, then yeah, you will be hard pressed to see reliably reproducable figures much over 5-6 without doing stupid things to your tcp/ip settings.

Richard rich.ms

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#290198 15-Jan-2010 09:07

Sounddude: James

Orcon do offer full/full plans also on Telecom Wholesale.

At prices which are more expensive than almost every other ISP on the market for the same speed/data. And that still doesn't explain why Orcon only offers full/full on Orcon+ but offers the option between poor/good performance on Telecom Wholesale. Surely if Orcon wants their customers to have the best experience they would phase out 128k upload for all.

richms: You can easily hit line speed downstream on a 128k up if you are using UDP such as streaming video.

If you are going to limit yourself to http based speed tests, then yeah, you will be hard pressed to see reliably reproducable figures much over 5-6 without doing stupid things to your tcp/ip settings.

Unfortunately sites like YouTube et al use TCP (I presume as Flash downloads the FLV file via HTTP) so the upload issue still remains. YouTube is is just acceptable (a few buffers every now and then on every video) on a Telecom Wholesale connection with Orcon 128k upload plans -- whereas on all Telecom plans you'll download it at full line speed so YouTube never buffers at all.

Sorry, Orcon, don't see the point in paying an extra $10 for something Telecom includes by default on all plans.

- James

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#290253 15-Jan-2010 10:40

Yeah. You are talking about money? They're very dodgy like that. Try having no internet for 2 and a half weeks and having no phone for 1 week just because of a minor wirring issue and of course being charged full price for the month still too :) how nice of orcon

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#290287 15-Jan-2010 12:30

KiwiSurfer:

At prices which are more expensive than almost every other ISP on the market for the same speed/data. And that still doesn't explain why Orcon only offers full/full on Orcon+ but offers the option between poor/good performance on Telecom Wholesale. Surely if Orcon wants their customers to have the best experience they would phase out 128k upload for all.

For the non + plans provided over Telecom wholesale equipment Orcon has to pay more to Telecom wholesale for the FS/FS wholesale service than FS/128kbit service.

The reality is all ISP's still offering 128kbit end up pricing it $10-20 cheaper than FS up.

If you want FS/FS and you are not happy with Orcon's pricing for that on non + then yes you should look at cheaper alternatives.

richms:

YouTube

Youtuve HD only requires about 1Mbit/s to not buffer, so 128kbit upload limiting your download to ~5Mbit wouldn't have an affect on that.

The reality is residential internet is a shared service, best effort no gaurantee of performance or reliability. Hence you may not be able to get 1Mbit/s sustained to overseas servers in peak time. That's life... Consumers can afford real dedicated bandwidth as it runs in the hundreds an thousands per month.

Besides didn't Orcon implement a caching solution that has largely resolved youtube performance issues?

KiwiSurfer

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#290322 15-Jan-2010 14:06

For the non + plans provided over Telecom wholesale equipment Orcon has to pay more to Telecom wholesale for the FS/FS wholesale service than FS/128kbit service.

The reality is all ISP's still offering 128kbit end up pricing it $10-20 cheaper than FS up.

If you want FS/FS and you are not happy with Orcon's pricing for that on non + then yes you should look at cheaper alternatives.

To put this in context, these are the prices for 10GB full/full on several ISPs:-
Orcon $101.95
Vodafone $100 ($1.95 cheaper)
Telecom $91.95 ($10 cheaper)
Slingshot $79.95 ($21.99 cheaper)
World-Net $74.95 ($27 cheaper)
Xnet $75.07 ($26.88 cheaper)
Maxnet $75 ($26.95 cheaper)

You claim that other ISPs price FS/128k service at $10-20 cheaper than FS. Funny how most ISPs manage to price FS/FS at $10-20 cheaper than Orcon prices FS/128k. Also you've used the "Orcon has to pay Telecom more" argument -- despite the fact all the other providers have to do so and they still manage to price the same service with the same speed and bandwidth caps up to $27 cheaper than Orcon.

I did mention before I'm moving to a new place and that place is already hooked up with Telecom. They're not the cheapest but they got a free modem so it is probably somewhat competitive with the others if you amortise the cost over the 12month contract term compared with buying a modem outright.

Youtuve HD only requires about 1Mbit/s to not buffer, so 128kbit upload limiting your download to ~5Mbit wouldn't have an affect on that.

The reality is residential internet is a shared service, best effort no gaurantee of performance or reliability. Hence you may not be able to get 1Mbit/s sustained to overseas servers in peak time. That's life... Consumers can afford real dedicated bandwidth as it runs in the hundreds an thousands per month.

Besides didn't Orcon implement a caching solution that has largely resolved youtube performance issues?

Haven't seen much difference since Orcon doesn't cache all YouTube content -- they just cache the popular stuff I presume. However the YouTube caching (for obvious reasons) doesn't help independent sites with their own streaming content -- which is still an issue on Orcon.

For example I watch a lot of video from the British Sign Langauge Broadcasting Trust in the UK -- many of which are 30mins long. On Telecom it usually downloads the whole 30mins video within 10-15mins meaning I don't have to buffer after the first minute or so. Orcon? Buffer, buffer, buffer, buffer, buffer right throughout the video. Last one I watched was a ~30min video that took 40~45mins to play with the buffering time included.

- James

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#290388 15-Jan-2010 18:01

You should definitely go for the ISP with the best mix of price/performance that suits your usage.

I'm not saying Orcon isn't more expensive than other ISP's pricing, it probably is as Orcon raised their prices and other ISP's lowered their prices.

You need to remember Telecom gave the proverbial finger to ISP's that rolled out LLU gear with wholesale "loyalty" pricing to ISP's that didn't. I'm not sure if that is still in effect now, maybe someone else here knows?

Also if you make toll calls (national, international) you need to factor in those rates too, how many minutes to where on average per month?

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