Sync speed query

[fibretyke]

Hi there, I'm new to the forum and DR.

Recently got connected to Origin inferno 40/10 and whilst I've found the service to be excellent, I've been slightly frustrated by failing to get close to the full 40Mb download speed. Prior to moving house I had a BT provided FTTC service which delivered a genuine 40Mb D/L speed despite being on a longer line, hence the reason I'm a little bit disappointed.

Origin have been very helpful in getting this investigated for me and their findings were that the line is only syncing at 36/11. They've tried applying tweaks to give me as much of that 36 as possible, but they haven't worked and I'm still limited to 33Mb of usable speed just the same as it's been since the connection day.

Now I'm a bit surprised at this for two reasons; (1) The line length to the cabinet by road is under 450m (200m as the crow flies), verified by pacing and by scaling off the map. The only way it could be longer is if it went completely the opposite way and doubled back. (2) I had a visit from the BT engineer last week after fixing a POTS fault. He told me he had tested my line down from the cabinet and that it gave good results with no quality issues whatsoever.

So that's left me wondering why the line seems to be punching below it's weight in terms of sync speed and whether there's anything I can do to influence it or not? I've already replaced the plug in microfilter with a filter faceplate donated by the nice BT guy - no effect. Tried a direct PPPoE connection from PC to cellpipe modem - no effect. Definitely no internal wiring having any influence as I'm in a brand new house with no extensions.

Which leads me to the two questions I'd like to ask:

1) Does the line sync speed adapt like it does on ADSL or is this fixed at the initial handshake stage?

2) Does powering the cellpipe down have the same effect as doing a paperclip reset?

As I'm sure you can guess, I'm trying to ascertain whether there's any potential gain to be had by resetting the cellpipe or not, as it seems this is the only avenue I have left to explore, other than shut up moaning about the slight lack of speed and enjoy the good service!

Thanks for your patience. Grateful for any answers/suggestions.

Stu

[Ray_Von]

Quote:Now I'm a bit surprised at this for two reasons; (1) The line length to the cabinet by road is under 450m (200m as the crow flies), verified by pacing and by scaling off the map.

@fibretyke.........first of all welcome to the DR forum

It doesn't always seem to work like that,my own house is around 200 metres(walking distance) from the DR street cabinet but Thales reckon the copper cable from the cabinet to my house is 861metres..

They reckon the only way to tell accurately is when you are actually connected..

[jody-ASK4]

How are you testing your speed? Most web based speed testers don't take in to account lower layer overhead (Ethernet headers etc.) so you'll only see about 90% of the actual data transfer rate on the wire.

[fibretyke]

(25-05-2012 02:35 PM)Ray_Von Wrote:  @fibretyke.........first of all welcome to the DR forum

It doesn't always seem to work like that,my own house is around 200 metres(walking distance) from the DR street cabinet but Thales reckon the copper cable from the cabinet to my house is 861metres..

They reckon the only way to tell accurately is when you are actually connected..

Thanks for the welcome

TBH my experience is similar and I've been given 700m as an estimate. The only way it can be this is if it goes the opposite way for some distance and doubles back.

So if I assume 700m is the true line distance, this connection still doesn't compare favourably to my old BT one, because if I measure that one out from house to cabinet I get over 750m! Comparing line quality, my old place was crap; 0.5Mbps was the best speed I could consistently maintain over the 7 years I had ADSL there. Here, with a similar distance from the exchange in Barnsley, I got ADSL put on for a few weeks to tide me over and it ran at 6Mbps!

So in light of the above facts I've struggled a little to come to terms with it. One thought that occurs to me is that BT's equipment is doing a better job of maximising the speeds the technology supports compared to the DR kit. I was given an estimated speed of approx 30Mbps before my BT connection went live, so I was delighted to be able to use the full 40Mb. I like that approach - keep your promises modest and outdeliver to avoid disappointment. It seems that DR haven't learnt this tactic yet and are going the opposite way.

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(25-05-2012 04:03 PM)jody-ASK4 Wrote:  How are you testing your speed? Most web based speed testers don't take in to account lower layer overhead (Ethernet headers etc.) so you'll only see about 90% of the actual data transfer rate on the wire.

I have a PAYG usenet account with astraweb that supports 50 connections. Using sabnzbd as a download manager, I could always download files at 4.5-4.7MB/s at my old house (or at least when I paid the add-on to bypass ISP traffic shaping). If you work it out properly, that's true 40meg.

Using the same service and equipment on my DR connection, I'm now downloading at 4.0MB/s or 33Mbps. My speedtest.net results concur with this but only after I've repeated the test 2 or 3 times to really get it moving - the first test is always 25-27. Obviously, I can never hope to equal or exceed 36meg here unless the sync rate can be improved, hence my original questions.

Already tried the basics like test socket and replacing wireless LAN with wired etc, even tried direct PPPoE connection to the modem. None of this made a bit of difference, which came as no surprise since I've already established by experience that my wireless kit is capable of exploiting higher speeds.

Thanks for the suggestion.

[KarlAustin]

The only thing I can think of is if you were only just hitting the 40Mbit on your BT FTTC - because there's up to an additional 15-16m of wiring (plus some punch downs which will have insertion loss) between the BT PCP and the DR PCP. So if you were only just hitting 40Mbit/s before, then you're bound to see slightly less on DR.

[fibretyke]

(28-05-2012 12:39 PM)KarlAustin Wrote:  The only thing I can think of is if you were only just hitting the 40Mbit on your BT FTTC - because there's up to an additional 15-16m of wiring (plus some punch downs which will have insertion loss) between the BT PCP and the DR PCP. So if you were only just hitting 40Mbit/s before, then you're bound to see slightly less on DR.

No, I didn't switch providers whilst still living at the same address, I moved house then went with DR via Origin instead of BT. By moving house I gained a shorter line and I also have reason to believe the quality is better, so it's just not making sense that this service syncs slower than BTs. AFAIK the sync rate is automatic and cannot be influenced so I'll have to live with it.

[LeJimster]

I understand your frustration, but theres nothing that can be done if your new line is longer than your old line. Not really DR's fault.. And the speed estimates are always just that based on the data they have at hand.

You might be able to squeeze a little bit more out of your connection with a better RJ11 cable. One of the users on here swears by using a CAT5/6 RJ11 cable to improve sync rate. I have a feeling it depends on the amount of electrical noise you have going on in your house as to whether it benefits you.

I found somebody who makes/sells them on ebay if you're interested in grabbing one.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?V...0567534164

let us know if it makes any difference if you do decide to grab one. As I've been thinking about buying one too for my ADSL.

BTW, I just did a check and for your line length 850M you should be getting between 35-38Mb sync at best. So it does appear your line is doing about as well as it can. I presume you are on 17a profile which is what it falls in line with on the white paper graphs. I doubt you're on the 8b profile, but if you are that would be holding you back in terms of download rate. It's a shame the cellpipe is locked down, would be nice to see some line stats. Unfortunately the only way you can get them is by obtaining your own VDSL2+ hardware.

[fibretyke]

(28-05-2012 12:39 PM)KarlAustin Wrote:  The only thing I can think of is if you were only just hitting the 40Mbit on your BT FTTC - because there's up to an additional 15-16m of wiring (plus some punch downs which will have insertion loss) between the BT PCP and the DR PCP. So if you were only just hitting 40Mbit/s before, then you're bound to see slightly less on DR.

No, I didn't switch providers whilst still living at the same address, I moved house then went with DR via Origin instead of BT. By moving house I gained a shorter line and I also have reason to believe the quality is better, so it's just not making sense that this service syncs slower than BTs. AFAIK the sync rate is automatic and cannot be influenced so I'll have to live with it.

[LeJimster]

@fibretyke no offense, but you have no idea how long your line truly is yet you're suggesting your line is shorter than it was at your old place. Without the line stats from both lines you can't make that assumption. It sucks that you've gone from a faster line to a slower. But at least you know their is no traffic shaping etc.
Look at this way.. There is a user (aceado) on here who is 400m from their cab. But they've been told their line is actually 1.2km as a result they can only get 18Mb. So it could be worse! Look on the bright side .

[fibretyke]

(30-05-2012 12:41 AM)LeJimster Wrote:  @fibretyke no offense, but you have no idea how long your line truly is yet you're suggesting your line is shorter than it was at your old place. Without the line stats from both lines you can't make that assumption. It sucks that you've gone from a faster line to a slower. But at least you know their is no traffic shaping etc.
Look at this way.. There is a user (aceado) on here who is 400m from their cab. But they've been told their line is actually 1.2km as a result they can only get 18Mb. So it could be worse! Look on the bright side .

The line length I've been told (not what I measured) is 700m so it's definitely longer than my old one, which was 750m by road so had to be at least that long if not longer. Quality wise, this line does far better speeds over ADSL with a similar exchange distance, so the wiring to cabinet can't be that dodgy. Maybe the alcatel equipment that Thales installed just isn't as good as the ECI kit used by BT in this area?

In general I'm very happy with the service just surprised it can't maximise the 40Mbps. I only posted to ask if the sync rate is adaptive and therefore subject to change but nobody has been able to answer that so far. In any case, I doubt it will get any faster because the connection stability isn't all that good - I've yet to see more than a couple of days uptime on the router stats.