Discussion:
Terrible international speeds
Nathan Legg
2005-08-15 03:50:33 UTC
Permalink
I have been dealing with ihug for the past few months trying to find out
why my international downloads are so slow. At one point I had received
a small credit on my account, but get told later on that it was done
purely as a good will guesture. I wont be getting any more refunds. I've
spoken to the helpdesk an insane number of times and I'm just not
getting anywhere. You name it, I've tried it.

Basically on my supposed 2mbit plan, internationally I get between 256k
and 1mbit downloads. Nationally I get up to 1.8mbit. This is supposed to
be acceptable. They tell me I'm 4km from the exchange. Yet if that's an
issue why can I get up to 1.8 mbit nationally, or 2mbit prior to
changing to bliink? They then blab on about it's because the traffic is
coming internationally and that "there are so many variables..."

Prior to moving to bliink with ihug, I was on a 2mbit plan (ihug
jetstream) which was flawless. Change to bliink and the speeds drop.

The helpdesk seem to either be very incompent/diss-interested or they're
just trying to flick me off which leads me to suspect they do know about
the issue but wont admit to it. I've spoken to all the ranks over the
issue - from the helpdesk to supervisors to management. I had sent them
a bunch of tracerts and download speeds tests. Subsequent calls to the
helpdesk and I get asked to do those tests again. I have to keep
refering them to previous call logs to get anywhere. One tracert I sent
got back the responce "There seems to be an obvious problem looking at
your trace routs…those milliseconds shouldn’t be getting above a 100. I
have passed this on to our network team so they can investigate." Of
course nothing actually gets done untill I chase up the issue.

What bugs me is that I've requested a telecom tech to come out each time
I had called them months and months ago, yet no tech has come. The fact
that they're not sending one out, even after multiple requests and
promises back from them, further suggests that they know what the issue is.

I could change isp but for all I know it wont fix the problem.
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Steve Barr
2005-08-15 05:25:58 UTC
Permalink
I'm afraid having a Telecom tech visit you definitely won't solve the
problem. If your national traffic is ok, then you don't have a line problem
- the line doesn't know or care whether the traffic is national or
international.

Steve
-----Original Message-----
Behalf Of Nathan Legg
Sent: Monday, 15 August 2005 3:51 p.m.
Subject: Terrible international speeds
I have been dealing with ihug for the past few months trying to find out
why my international downloads are so slow. At one point I had received
a small credit on my account, but get told later on that it was done
purely as a good will guesture. I wont be getting any more refunds. I've
spoken to the helpdesk an insane number of times and I'm just not
getting anywhere. You name it, I've tried it.
Basically on my supposed 2mbit plan, internationally I get between 256k
and 1mbit downloads. Nationally I get up to 1.8mbit. This is supposed to
be acceptable. They tell me I'm 4km from the exchange. Yet if that's an
issue why can I get up to 1.8 mbit nationally, or 2mbit prior to
changing to bliink? They then blab on about it's because the traffic is
coming internationally and that "there are so many variables..."
Prior to moving to bliink with ihug, I was on a 2mbit plan (ihug
jetstream) which was flawless. Change to bliink and the speeds drop.
The helpdesk seem to either be very incompent/diss-interested or they're
just trying to flick me off which leads me to suspect they do know about
the issue but wont admit to it. I've spoken to all the ranks over the
issue - from the helpdesk to supervisors to management. I had sent them
a bunch of tracerts and download speeds tests. Subsequent calls to the
helpdesk and I get asked to do those tests again. I have to keep
refering them to previous call logs to get anywhere. One tracert I sent
got back the responce "There seems to be an obvious problem looking at
your trace routs.those milliseconds shouldn't be getting above a 100. I
have passed this on to our network team so they can investigate." Of
course nothing actually gets done untill I chase up the issue.
What bugs me is that I've requested a telecom tech to come out each time
I had called them months and months ago, yet no tech has come. The fact
that they're not sending one out, even after multiple requests and
promises back from them, further suggests that they know what the issue is.
I could change isp but for all I know it wont fix the problem.
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Matt Riddell
2005-08-15 08:36:19 UTC
Permalink
Post by Nathan Legg
I have been dealing with ihug for the past few months trying to find out
why my international downloads are so slow. At one point I had received
a small credit on my account, but get told later on that it was done
purely as a good will guesture. I wont be getting any more refunds. I've
spoken to the helpdesk an insane number of times and I'm just not
getting anywhere. You name it, I've tried it.
Basically on my supposed 2mbit plan, internationally I get between 256k
and 1mbit downloads. Nationally I get up to 1.8mbit. This is supposed to
be acceptable. They tell me I'm 4km from the exchange. Yet if that's an
issue why can I get up to 1.8 mbit nationally, or 2mbit prior to
changing to bliink? They then blab on about it's because the traffic is
coming internationally and that "there are so many variables..."
LOL I'm seeing the same thing on 2Mbit Xtra.

At times it drops to 56K and Real Player adjusts my settings. I've
tried international speed test sites in various countries around these
periods and they all report 56K-256K (these are worst case numbers).

If I go to the jetstream games speed test site though, it constantly
returns around 1.8mbit. It used to be 2048 or something and I was
actually thinking about calling. The reason I haven't is that I figure
that their agreement probably allows for 2 seconds of latency and a
minimum of 2 bits per hour download speed.
--
Cheers,

Matt Riddell
_______________________________________________

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Matt Riddell
2005-08-15 09:22:27 UTC
Permalink
Here's my traceroute to internode.com.au (the Australian provider who's server I play
Counter Strike on):

traceroute to internode.com.au (203.16.214.17), 30 hops max, 38 byte packets
1 * * *
2 222-153-16-1.jetstream.xtra.co.nz (222.153.16.1) 49.738 ms 49.842 ms 50.386 ms
3 222.152.41.237 (222.152.41.237) 49.301 ms 49.090 ms 50.456 ms
4 fid-int.tkbr4.global-gateway.net.nz (202.50.245.198) 64.555 ms 64.848 ms 64.951 ms
5 vlan-283.tkbr4.global-gateway.net.nz (202.50.245.197) 68.047 ms 67.639 ms 66.525 ms
6 210.55.202.65 (210.55.202.65) 66.816 ms 66.316 ms 66.484 ms
7 p0-2-1-0.labr3.global-gateway.net.nz (202.50.116.186) 194.908 ms 195.453 ms 197.670ms
8 so2-0-0-0.labr4.global-gateway.net.nz (203.96.120.102) 192.395 ms 193.479 ms 193.348ms
9 sl-st20-la-6-2.sprintlink.net (144.232.154.209) 197.402 ms 197.520 ms 196.343ms
10 sl-bb21-ana-13-0.sprintlink.net (144.232.20.66) 195.457 ms 194.522 ms 194.601ms
11 144.232.9.202 (144.232.9.202) 197.722 ms 200.854 ms 196.106ms
12 p16-1-1-2.r21.mlpsca01.us.bb.verio.net (129.250.5.97) 202.612 ms * 203.570ms
MPLS Label=305393 CoS=5 TTL=1 S=0
13 p64-1-3-0.r20.snjsca04.us.bb.verio.net (129.250.3.43) 202.478 ms 203.030 ms 203.305ms
MPLS Label=572576 CoS=5 TTL=1 S=0
14 p16-2-0-0.r01.snjsca04.us.bb.verio.net (129.250.2.119) 202.885 ms 204.593 ms 204.800ms
15 gig0-2.bdr1.sjc2.internode.on.net (129.250.11.98) 230.247 ms 239.994 ms 308.183ms
16 pos1-1.bdr1.syd7.agile.on.net (203.16.213.22) 230.577 ms 231.729 ms 229.411ms
17 pos2-0.bdr2.adl2.agile.on.net (203.16.212.34) 259.709 ms 258.526 ms 258.942ms
18 gi0-1.cor2.adl2.internode.on.net (203.16.212.152) 254.976 ms 287.921 ms 257.486ms
19 corp.internode.on.net (203.16.214.17) 258.324 ms 256.984 ms 259.213ms


On the way to Italy it's much the same, except that .65 takes even longer to figure out
where to send it...

1 * * *
2 222-153-16-1.jetstream.xtra.co.nz (222.153.16.1) 50.479 ms 50.668 ms 50.180 ms
3 222.152.41.237 (222.152.41.237) 48.336 ms 48.474 ms 49.904 ms
4 fid-int.tkbr4.global-gateway.net.nz (202.50.245.198) 64.145 ms 65.682 ms 64.424 ms
5 vlan-283.tkbr4.global-gateway.net.nz (202.50.245.197) 71.220 ms 73.619 ms 73.372 ms
6 210.55.202.65 (210.55.202.65) 68.607 ms 68.209 ms 66.245 ms
7 203.96.120.197 (203.96.120.197) 485.180 ms 466.902 ms 451.556ms
8 p0-3-0-0.pabr3.global-gateway.net.nz (202.37.246.201) 494.764 ms 499.513 ms 518.860ms
9 sl-st20-pa-6-3.sprintlink.net (144.223.243.17) 448.129 ms 432.738 ms 421.798ms

Anyone care to post some thoughts for me?
--
Cheers,

Matt Riddell
_______________________________________________

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Craig Humphrey
2005-08-15 21:37:11 UTC
Permalink
Hi Matt,

I think you've hit a different problem.

Telecom in it's infinite wisdom is not routing you straight to Aussie, it's
going via the USA... If this was a recent change, then that might explain
why it's worse. (That or the Aussies are doing some interesting routing
announcements). BTW I get 180ms to corp.internode.on.net, but 59ms to
www.telstra.com.au (you should see the messed up routing for that one!)

As for Italy, 1) I think you only posted part of the traceroute right? 2)
that 400+ms to the USA is way out, it should be only an additional ~130ms.

Can you repeat that traceroute and post it in full.

But this is all getting a little off topic so I'm moving it over to ADSL
Chat.

Thanks
Craig
-----Original Message-----
Sent: Monday, August 15, 2005 9:22 PM
To: Matt Riddell
Subject: Re: Terrible international speeds
Here's my traceroute to internode.com.au (the Australian
traceroute to internode.com.au (203.16.214.17), 30 hops max,
38 byte packets
[snip snip]
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racepics
2005-08-15 04:49:39 UTC
Permalink
I have Telstraclear's version of JS+ ( I suspect it *IS* still JS+, just
rebranded as Highspeed4 Flatout ) and the results are similar but not
quite as bad as Nathan's.
International ( tested at http://www.bandwidthplace.com/speedtest/ is
593.3 Kbits/s ( 74KBytes/s )
National ( tested at http://www.jetstreamgames.co.nz/speed/ is
1987.3Kbit/s (248KBytes/s )
So the problem is not just with ihug.........

Chris.
Post by Nathan Legg
I have been dealing with ihug for the past few months trying to find
out why my international downloads are so slow. At one point I had
received a small credit on my account, but get told later on that it
was done purely as a good will guesture. I wont be getting any more
refunds. I've spoken to the helpdesk an insane number of times and I'm
just not getting anywhere. You name it, I've tried it.
Basically on my supposed 2mbit plan, internationally I get between
256k and 1mbit downloads. Nationally I get up to 1.8mbit. This is
supposed to be acceptable. They tell me I'm 4km from the exchange. Yet
if that's an issue why can I get up to 1.8 mbit nationally, or 2mbit
prior to changing to bliink? They then blab on about it's because the
traffic is coming internationally and that "there are so many
variables..."
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Biff
2005-08-15 12:19:50 UTC
Permalink
Chris,
I'm on the standard JetStart upgrade(?) running off the Burwood exchange in
ChCh 3.2k from the exchange.
Alcatel speed touch pro router and XP Pro.
I went to the bandwidth place and here are my results.
Communications 942.9 kilobits per second
Storage 115.1 kilobytes per second
1MB file download 8.9 seconds
Subjective rating Good

Mind you it was 12.12am.
And from JS games
Your line speed is approximately 1852 Kbps or 227 K bytes/sec
Test2 & 3 done about 20min later was the same.

Hope this helps,
Biff


-----Original Message-----
From: owner-***@unixathome.org [mailto:owner-***@unixathome.org] On Behalf
Of racepics
Sent: Monday, 15 August 2005 4:50 p.m.
Cc: ***@lists.unixathome.org
Subject: Re: Terrible international speeds

I have Telstraclear's version of JS+ ( I suspect it *IS* still JS+, just
rebranded as Highspeed4 Flatout ) and the results are similar but not
quite as bad as Nathan's.
International ( tested at http://www.bandwidthplace.com/speedtest/ is
593.3 Kbits/s ( 74KBytes/s )
National ( tested at http://www.jetstreamgames.co.nz/speed/ is
1987.3Kbit/s (248KBytes/s )
So the problem is not just with ihug.........

Chris.
Post by Nathan Legg
I have been dealing with ihug for the past few months trying to find
out why my international downloads are so slow. At one point I had
received a small credit on my account, but get told later on that it
was done purely as a good will guesture. I wont be getting any more
refunds. I've spoken to the helpdesk an insane number of times and I'm
just not getting anywhere. You name it, I've tried it.
Basically on my supposed 2mbit plan, internationally I get between
256k and 1mbit downloads. Nationally I get up to 1.8mbit. This is
supposed to be acceptable. They tell me I'm 4km from the exchange. Yet
if that's an issue why can I get up to 1.8 mbit nationally, or 2mbit
prior to changing to bliink? They then blab on about it's because the
traffic is coming internationally and that "there are so many
variables..."
--
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Matt Riddell
2005-08-15 14:16:20 UTC
Permalink
Post by Biff
I went to the bandwidth place and here are my results.
Communications 942.9 kilobits per second
Storage 115.1 kilobytes per second
1MB file download 8.9 seconds
Subjective rating Good
Over subscription?

In all of New Zealand?

Or has Telecom decided that 2Mb connections are actually specifying the maximum you could
get in New Zealand and have nothing to do with international connections.

I for one congratulate Telecom on selling us a 942.9kb plan disguised as a 2000kb connection
without anybody noticing...

And what do you do about it? Nothing. There's nothing you can do. Except maybe get lots
of PSTN lines and a modem bank....hmmm that 56k's looking pretty sexy right about now LOL!
--
Cheers,

Matt Riddell
_______________________________________________

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Steve Phillips
2005-08-15 18:27:01 UTC
Permalink
[lots of ranting about random bandwidth tests]

I am unsure how all you lot moaning about how little you understand the
intarwebnet and how it works has anything to do with ADSL or Broadband
services in New Zealand.

Please dont be a chrissyr and start claiming that because you use xyz
service (or are testing xyz isp), which is supplied via DSL, your idiocy
suddenly becomes relevant to the DSL mailing list.

Thanks,
--
Steve.
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Biff
2005-08-15 23:18:09 UTC
Permalink
Heck Matt I hope English isn't your first language.


-----Original Message-----
From: owner-***@unixathome.org [mailto:owner-***@unixathome.org] On Behalf
Of Steve Phillips
Sent: Tuesday, 16 August 2005 6:27 a.m.
To: ***@lists.unixathome.org
Subject: Re: Terrible international speeds
[lots of ranting about random bandwidth tests]

I am unsure how all you lot moaning about how little you understand the
intarwebnet and how it works has anything to do with ADSL or Broadband
services in New Zealand.

Please dont be a chrissyr and start claiming that because you use xyz
service (or are testing xyz isp), which is supplied via DSL, your idiocy
suddenly becomes relevant to the DSL mailing list.

Thanks,
--
Steve.
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Matt Riddell
2005-08-16 01:44:30 UTC
Permalink
Post by Biff
Heck Matt I hope English isn't your first language.
Why, was it bad?! I write a daily news site in English and would hope that I
had at least some knowledge of the crappy language with which we make these
communications.

BTW, I don't see how my english skills have anything whatsoever to do with ADSL.
--
Cheers,

Matt Riddell
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Biff
2005-08-15 23:00:26 UTC
Permalink
It's the old story - best effort - no QOS etc.
Give everyone 2Mb connections then stuff them all into a half Gig pipe, then
into a 256Mb international gateway and that's it.
But hey, if you live a K away from the exchange, and nobody else is on the
network, you might get the specified through put?
Who me a cynic?
Cheers
B


-----Original Message-----
From: Matt Riddell [mailto:***@sineapps.com]
Sent: Tuesday, 16 August 2005 2:16 a.m.
To: ***@paradise.net.nz
Cc: 'racepics'; ***@lists.unixathome.org
Subject: Re: Terrible international speeds
Post by Biff
I went to the bandwidth place and here are my results.
Communications 942.9 kilobits per second
Storage 115.1 kilobytes per second
1MB file download 8.9 seconds
Subjective rating Good
Over subscription?

In all of New Zealand?

Or has Telecom decided that 2Mb connections are actually specifying the
maximum you could
get in New Zealand and have nothing to do with international connections.

I for one congratulate Telecom on selling us a 942.9kb plan disguised as a
2000kb connection
without anybody noticing...

And what do you do about it? Nothing. There's nothing you can do. Except
maybe get lots
of PSTN lines and a modem bank....hmmm that 56k's looking pretty sexy right
about now LOL!
--
Cheers,

Matt Riddell
_______________________________________________

http://www.sineapps.com/news.php (Daily Asterisk News - html)
http://www.sineapps.com/rssfeed.php (Daily Asterisk News - rss)
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Craig Humphrey
2005-08-15 21:26:38 UTC
Permalink
Hi All,

All this really has very little to do with ADSL, since that's only the last
mile.

I just used BandwidthPlace from our corporate connection (100Mbit/s straight
to Global Gateway, aka NZ's International gateway), and got a score of
~600Kbit/s.

Then I stopped using our corporate proxy and got 1.1Mbit/s.

Then I switched from IE6 to Mozilla Firefox (1.0.4) and got 1.5Mbit/s, no
proxy.
Then Firefox with proxy got ~540Kbit/s.

All of which proves very little :)

I've been on the internet for quite some time and if there's one thing I've
learned, it's that as soon as traffic goes overseas (or over high latency
links), the bandwidth at your end means very little. Most protocols are
latency sensitive to some extent or another, HTTP usually does a pretty good
job and TCP is pretty smart at adjusting things, but the 100+ms latency
(round trip mind you) is enough to skew things a bit. FTP does a slightly
better job and no doubt some of the P2P protocols are further optimized to
handle varying latencies... (BTW anyone ever tried NetBIOS/SMB over a
lagged link, it's atrocious, because it was designed for LAN situations with
low latencies.)

OK that's just my 2c.

BTW over our 100Mbit/s link I've had up to about 8MByte/s (~80Mbit/s) to
some NZ locations [usually Microsoft/Akamai/JSGames class] and occasionally
I've managed to get 1MByte/s [~10Mbit/s) from overseas, but that's rare,
usually I'm happy if I get 200-300KByte/s from the States, Europe is worse
100-200KByte/s. Oh and uploading is generally much worse (no idea why).

Later'ish
Craig
-----Original Message-----
Sent: Monday, August 15, 2005 4:50 PM
Subject: Re: Terrible international speeds
I have Telstraclear's version of JS+ ( I suspect it *IS*
still JS+, just rebranded as Highspeed4 Flatout ) and the
results are similar but not quite as bad as Nathan's.
International ( tested at http://www.bandwidthplace.com/speedtest/ is
593.3 Kbits/s ( 74KBytes/s )
National ( tested at http://www.jetstreamgames.co.nz/speed/
is 1987.3Kbit/s (248KBytes/s ) So the problem is not just
with ihug.........
Chris.
--
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