Need advice on whether my speed problem is normal

Forums › Vocus (including Slingshot, Orcon, Flip, Stuff Fibre and CallPlus) › Need advice on whether my speed problem is normal - Half Moon Bay

epoxer

9 posts

Wannabe Geek

#27117 15-Oct-2008 00:30

I live in Half Moon Bay, Auckland and I've just moved to the Orcon+ network hoping to get some improved speeds. Right now I'm barely getting 0.9Mb downstream and 0.8Mb upstream. I've spent countless hours on the phone with Orcon's support staff to no avail. I understand that I'm quite far from the exchange but after comparing my line specs to other people with similar specs they are all getting at least 2Mb.

My specs:
Downstream rate: 902 kbps
Upstream rate: 835 kbps
PPPoE pass-through: Disabled
ADSL Line

Status: Cable connected
Line mode: ADSL2+
Maximum line rate 868 kbps (upstream)
Noise margin: 5.6 dB (upstream)
Line attenuation: 49.6 dB (upstream)
Output power: 14.5 dBm (upstream)

I had a tech come and visit my place and they say that this is the best they can do (the above speeds are actually a bit slower than the original speeds I got when I was first connected about a month ago, upstream was around 1Mb and downstream about 0.95Mb). They said that theres a fibre connected cabinet about 100m away from my place but I can't be connected to it because Orcon doesn't have its equipment installed. Should I switch Xtra's ADSL plan in the hopes of improving my speeds? I spoke to a friend who works for Telecom's data management department and he said that his dad was connected to this same cabinet and was getting 4.5Mb downstream?

I am very disillusioned with the speeds I am currently getting and just wonder (or rather hope) if I should be getting something slightly better given my specs?

I should also mention that I have a dedicated ADSL jack installed and only 1 phone connected.

Ragnor

8035 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#171199 15-Oct-2008 01:38

If you're >4km from the exchange then yes you probably won't get much better speeds unless you get on the cabinet.

You would be on the Howick or Pakuranga exchange and both according to this coverage map have Orcon equipment installed.

"Sub-loop unbundling regulation" is required for you to be on the cabinet and using Orcon+ LLU equipment at the exchange. As far as I know that part of the law hasn't been sorted out yet. (I could be wrong here)

Sadly for you (in terms of sync speed) you would be better off on any ISP providing dsl service over Telecom UBS/UBA as you would go via the cabinet and get much better sync speed. Basically any ISP other than Vodafone or Orcon.

Lets recap what sync speed means in theoretical aproximate download speed...

1 Megabit = 1024 Kilobits = 128 Kilobytes = 0.125 Megabyte
2 Megabit = 2048 Kilobits = 256 Kilobytes = 0.25 Megabyte
4 Megabit = 4096 Kilobits = 512 Kilobytes = 0.5 Megabyte

So in terms of aproximate download time for a 10mb file we are theoretically talking about:

1Mbit = 80 seconds
2Mbit = 40 seconds
4Mbit = 20 seconds

At the end of the day sync speed doesn't mean a lot as you will most certainly be constrained by your bandwidth from your ISP to the rest of the internet especially internationally.

Bandwidth is limited and the capacity is shared accoss all customers using it at the ISP level.

epoxer

9 posts

Wannabe Geek

#171432 16-Oct-2008 09:41

What kind of speeds are other people around this area getting? Considering switching back to Xtra if that's the only way I can get connected to the cabinet and improve speeds... Don't really want to do this but I guess I'll have to if it's the only option.