Broadband Speed

[mcdhu]

Bb speeds are much in the news today so I thought I'd run a few checks!

Infrastructure:

AOL Bb up to 8Mbps
Dell Dimension PC
Win Xp Home
Netgear DG 834DGv3 - latest firmware

Results:

Router - 7136Dn, 448Up VPI 0, VCI 38

Namesco - 2.6Dn, 358Up

Speedtest.net - 3.01Dn, .35Up

Think Bb - 3.1Dn, 340Up

I have had results up to 5.2Dn, but the ones above were all taken around 1400L UK time today.

The average speed used to be around 2.5DN; I removed the bellwire which improved things towards 5, but things are not so good today.

My question is, if the router shows 7Mbps or so today, why are the results from the various tests so much poorer. Presumably, if the speed at the router is ok - which it is, then I can't blame AOL - or can I?

Any input/advive gratefully received - and, yes, I am aware of AOL's reputation, but the hassle of changing ISP haunts me!

Regards
mcdhu

[Saab Dastard]

You need to be certain about what these statistics are measuring, when they are measuring it, and over what time period.

The online speedtests are providing a snapshot at a particular point in time, but it is not clear what information your router is providing - is it current peak? daily max? daily average? average since last reboot?

If it is also user-initiated, is it measuring data transfer rate in the same way as the online tests? And to / from where?

The external tests agree so much more closely that they are probably more representative of the real-world situation than what your router reports.

Without more detail about what your router test is actually reporting, it isn't possible to do more than conjecture.

SD

[mcdhu]

SD - Here's a cut and paste from the modem notes:

Modem: The current Modem status and settings are shown in this section.

ADSL Firmware Version - This is the version number of the low-level ADSL firmware. This is contained within the Router Firmware.
Modem Status - the current state of the ADSL connection to your phone company.
DownStream Connection Speed - the connection speed of the ADSL connection from the phone company to your Router.
UpStream Connection Speed - the connection speed of the ADSL connection from your Router to the phone company.
VPI - the VPI setting entered on the ADSL Settings page.
VCI - the VCI setting entered on the ADSL Settings page.

mcdhu

[Saab Dastard]

Again, it doesn't really tell you anything, does it?

SD

[jimtherev]

... but I'm getting a consistent 6.7 Megathingies and about 330k up from an 8Mb connection.

Now then, I've a second connection to the house on BeUnlimited (don't ask). The line comes from the same 'box in the road' and I'm getting round about 13 Mb down and 700 - 1000 up. This from an 'up to' 20Mb package. Interestingly, this can vary between 12 and 16.something Mb. up, while, as I say, the AOL doesn't change more than a few Kb. Latency, maybe on this second line?

I think the answer for the good AOL result is that I could almost spit to the exchange, which has had a refurb in the last 12 - 18 months... forget when, but I read it sometime, somewhere.

So usual question - how far are you from the exchange, and could your variable results come from the usage of others in the area?

Jim

[Saab Dastard]

mcdhu,

If the extra info you provided is to be taken at face value, and the other speed tests are correct, then DownStream Connection Speed - the connection speed of the ADSL connection from the phone company to your Router
indicates that the connection from AOL to the rest of the internet is threfore a massive bottleneck, throttling the connection upstream by 1/2 - 2/3!!! This would, presumably be the same for ALL AOL users - which isn't supported by Jim's experience.

jim, mcdhu's problem doesn't seem to be related to exchange distance, as the reported download speed from the ISP to the router is so high.

Which is why I repeat "You need to be certain about what these statistics are measuring, when they are measuring it, and over what time period".

SD

[jimtherev]

mcdhu,


jim, mcdhu's problem doesn't seem to be related to exchange distance, as the reported download speed from the ISP to the router is so high.


SD

Oh yes, of course :O.
Jim goes off to drink coffee to kickstart the thinking process & see if the fridge contains any fish to help the brain.

[mcdhu]

Ok, thanks chaps. I'll continue my research, but, as SD says, the key perhaps lies with the router figure and what exactly it represents. Maybe I'll have a chat with Netgear - in Madras!!

mcdhu

[amanoffewwords]

Are you sure the two ADSL lines are going to the same ""box in the street" and from there the same exchange? I used to have two BT lines, one went to Wimbledon, one to Kingston - no way to tell until one failed and the engineer that was sent out pointed it out to me.

BE what's their name used a lower contention rate to achieve the higher bandwidth IIRC.

It might also have something to do with ADSL2 as opposed to ADSL.

As for AOL :yuk:

I wouldn't trust the online tests either - too many variables to distort the figure. All you need is their server to be doing a backup or sumethink.

[Saab Dastard]

I wouldn't trust the online tests either - too many variables to distort the figure.

I agree that there are several variables - however, the reported figures actually agree sufficiently closely to give reasonable confidence of the actual line speed at that time.

Namesco - 2.6Dn, 358Up

Speedtest.net - 3.01Dn, .35Up

Think Bb - 3.1Dn, 340Up

Doing one test in isolation gives little confidence in its accuracy, but doing several and finding them broadly in agreement increases that confidence.

SD

[Skyfan]

All I can really talk about is my own experience but it may be of some use, not sure. Some time ago I was having similar problems with an 'up to' ISP. The contract stated 'up to 8mb/s' the reality was 1 or less for much of the time, including extended 'outages'. After several months of an eighteen month contract and many pointless phone calls to said ISP, I started to ask around and do some homework.

The upshot of this was something called SNR (Signal/Noise ratio). It essentially measures the quality of the line on an ADSL connection. Most routers can/do monitor this as part of their standard ops. It's affected by distance from the exchange but also by other interference factors (too many to mention here)

It has two components - an upstream and a downstream, looking at it you will see figures such as 20/5 or 30/10 etc etc. If either of those are outside a reasonable level (available on google but you'll need to judge it for yourself based on circumstance) you can make a good case for it being the ISP's problem (you can't get the JCB out and fix the line yourself, presumably :)).

My own stats were way outside an acceptable level as you could clearly see the router desperately trying to hang on to the connection for 90% of the time, and the contract was terminated with no arguement.

[Mike-Bracknell]

The router sync rate has no bearing upon the ability (or otherwise) to reach certain arbitrary sites upon the internet - and this is as far as these speed test sites are, since they're just measuring your bandwidth between their server (which could be anywhere on t'internet) and your PC.

Router synching on BT Wholesale ADSLMax (e.g. up to 8Mb) and resold products thereof will not sync at anything better than 7mbit/s due to their traffic shaping (and yes, that's a whole can of worms for the ASA to deliberate over).

Your varying bandwidth reports are more likely to do with a combination of the following factors:

1) Your local exchange equipment
2) Your local exchange's bandwidth to the colossus network
3) Whether your exchange has been converted to 21CN or not
4) Your ISP's trunk to colossus
5) Your ISP's trunks to other internet peers
6) The time of the day
7) How many other people are downloading illegal films at the same time as you ;)
8) Whether your PC is running a lot of network-related items in the background
9) Your network contention ratio

(and several other spurious reasons).

HTH.
Mike.

[rickity]

I ran a speed test a while back and was not pleased with the result showing 4mb on a 10mb cable connection, I then took the wireless connection out of the equation by directly connecting with wire to the router and lo and behold 10mb was actually available, all the problems were down to the wireless connection albeit supposed to be capable of 54mb. upgradeing to a 104mb capable router helps but still sufferes slightly from contention with quite a few other wireless routers around the locality, changing channels helped a bit more and on a good day I get the full wack. but a bad day is not very bad these days may be as low as 6mb, but at least its down to the wireless not the isp (for a change)

Rickity

[NRU74]

Has anyone experienced any significant gains in speed using the BT I-Plate or by disconnecting the Bell Wire ?

[mustpost]

using the BT I-Plate or by disconnecting the Bell Wire
No, did before and after checks, nothing significant,
:8

[Keef]

I'm 3km from the exchange as the wire runs. My previous ISP occasionally managed to deliver close to 2 meg, but often it was down in the 160k region. They blamed the line length, the modem, connections and filters, me, and much else.

I bought a Draytek router (about as good as I reckoned I could get), and things didn't improve. Draytek send me some "poor signal quality" firmware to load into it. Things didn't improve.

I changed ISP. I now get consistently between 1.9 and 2.2 meg down (380k or so up) on any of the three tests SD mentions.

[B Fraser]

Has anyone experienced any significant gains in speed using the BT I-Plate or by disconnecting the Bell Wire ?

Yes to both. Also, ensure that your wireless router is connected directly to the primary socket (i.e. to the i-plate) and you have no other internal house wiring, not even a "proper" telephone extension cable bought in a PC shop. I took out some dodgy wiring installed by the previous owner and got a 2Mb boost after 48 hrs when the exchange equipment re-adjusted the line characteristics.

[hottwink]

Cool there,
You can update your connection speed using free internet boosters available on net. You can also get to know about your internet speed here IP Details.com : Internet Speed test (http://www.ip-details.com/internet-speed-test/) . Its as easy as you enter your IP address that you get to know the speed of your connection.
Cheers!