IBB speed issues

Blaster99

Fellow IBB users, have you noticed any speed problems the last few days? It started getting pretty bad for me from Friday evening onwards. Right now if I download something from pretty much anywhere on the 'net I get about 20K/s, from heanet.ie I get about 50-60K/s, from mon.irishbroadband.ie I get about 10K/s. I'm on 1024/1024 5.8Ghz in Bray. I used to get pretty solid 110K/s until this started happening. I've tested the same download locations with ADSL and it flies along.

Given the difference in speeds from various sources, I'm guessing the problem isn't necessarily at my end. I've tried downloading things at pretty odd times when contention shouldn't be an issue and it's still crap. Pings are as good as ever.

Mutant_Fruit

Theres no problems on the Tallaght tower, full speeds up and down. It could be that the Bray tower is either overloaded, or they are conducting upgrades/repairs on it and have turned off some of the servers, funnelling everyone through a few of em.

Let us know if it continues.

Blaster99

I've run a few more tests with varied results. It looks to me as if IBB connects to a few different backbones and some are fine, others are not. I just tested against Microsoft and I get about 60-70K from there. In my experience, Microsoft isn't a good test site because they tend to suffer from bandwidth issues themselves due to the windowsupdate thing and other download services, so 60-70K may well be as good as it gets from there. Heanet is now about 90K. My original test case, ftp.linksys.com, is about 20-25K as before. I can get 54K with my 512/128 ADSL from linksys, but I presume Eircom uses a different route to get there or has a bigger pipe to that network.

I also tried uploading something yesterday and I got solid 110K, so I think that indicates that there's nothing wrong with my connection to the tower.

Another observation is that the speeds with IBB vary quite a lot even to the same location. They clearly have a lot less spare bandwidth than Eircom, where I get rock solid 54K all day long. When I run these IBB tests, against heanet for instance, the speed bounces between 80 to 110K.

gsand

Its true speed does vary at times-but you have to weigh the benefits of no capping or limiting and a relatively good price against variable speeds. Let us know if it continues though...

Blaster99

I'm a little surprised/concerned if I'm the only one seeing what I'm seeing, as it seems to me the problem lies at the edge of the IBB's network and I presume we all go through the same pipe at the end of the day.

If you guys get a chance, could you try to download this file:

ftp://ftp.linksys.com/pub/network/wrt54gv2_2.04.4_US_code.zip

I'm getting about 20-25K/s when downloading that file.

Tracing route to ftp.linksys.com [66.161.11.30]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 2 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.1.1
2 3 ms 3 ms 2 ms bray-vl-vlan-1.irishbroadband.ie [62.231.50.193]

3 6 ms 10 ms 10 ms 62.231.32.238
4 13 ms 10 ms 14 ms 62.231.52.26
5 17 ms 21 ms 14 ms rte-et-2-7.irishbroadband.ie [62.231.32.182]
6 28 ms 31 ms 115 ms ix-et-1-1.irishbroadband.ie [195.26.12.61]
7 20 ms 12 ms 12 ms se5-1-yar1.DUB.cw.net [208.175.247.81]
8 24 ms 16 ms 32 ms ge-2-1-0-ycr2.dub.cw.net [208.175.245.130]
9 20 ms 23 ms 31 ms so-2-0-0-bcr2.tsd.cw.net [166.63.209.197]
10 103 ms 88 ms 117 ms dcr1.nyk.cw.net [195.2.1.3]
11 95 ms 96 ms 111 ms so-0-0-0-ecr1.nyk.cw.net [195.2.3.14]
12 120 ms 113 ms 114 ms bb1-g1-0.pxnyny.sbcglobal.net [198.32.118.7]

etc

Moriarty

You know that that site is over in New York, right?

Just incase you think you're pinging poorly to it or anything..

Mutant_Fruit

Heres' my traceroute:
Tracing route to ftp.linksys.com [66.161.11.32]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 7 ms 3 ms 15 ms tallaght-vl-vlan-1.irishbroadband.ie [62.231.34.
113]
2 3 ms 3 ms 2 ms 3rock-et-2-4.irishbroadband.ie [62.231.32.149]
3 3 ms 5 ms 8 ms rte-et-2-7.irishbroadband.ie [62.231.32.182]
4 4 ms 5 ms 5 ms ix-et-1-1.irishbroadband.ie [195.26.12.61]
5 9 ms 8 ms 7 ms se5-1-yar1.DUB.cw.net [208.175.247.81]
6 7 ms 7 ms 9 ms ge-2-1-0-ycr2.dub.cw.net [208.175.245.130]
7 18 ms 16 ms 16 ms so-2-0-0-bcr2.tsd.cw.net [166.63.209.197]


etc etc.

Here my speeds in the screenshots. Screenshot one is when i downloaded your linked file. Speeds weren't great. I have no problem maxing out at 120KiB/sec with other files.

Blaster99

It has now started working again. IBB claims to have done nothing, I haven't done anything, so God knows. I hope I won't see a repeat of this, because last night I was getting speeds in the region of 10K/s. Hardly broadband.

Blaster99

Just in case anyone cares, that speed improvement was temporary. I've stopped using the connection now and have switched back to ADSL until IBB fixes the problem. Thankfully Eircom can be trusted to provide an excellent connection at all times.

Mutant_Fruit

Just out of interest...

Is it a case of you downloading non-stop for a period of time, then noticing your connection is uber-slow (going down to 10KiB/sec), and only if you stop downloading for a period of time that it gets fast again?

Blaster99

No, it's consistently slow, particularly in the evenings and at night time. Me thinks not enough bandwidth in the backbone.

RekcaH

hmmm... i'm ibb to... get terrible speeds a lot of the time...
but i am on a lan with a total of 3 cpu's (including mine)
so the bandwidth is split.. presume it is that...
i always wonder about the wireless part... as in, does the weather have an effect on the connection etc.. if not merely by the wind vibrating the satelitte/tower i am pointed at...

i have had great pings some times.. but mostly not the best.. i always blame the other guys on the lan though ...or atleast i did..

keep me posted...

BArra

weather has zero effect on my connection, ive only ever lost connection due to a thunder cloud passing over my house

the only other adverse weather that may effect your connection is snow, hail, and really hot weather

gsand

Has anyone else been getting poor speeds last two days? I've been at 20k or less everytime i've tried. Switched it off for a good bit of yesterday and all last night to see if erm a rest would help but same again this morning

Blaster99

You folks might find my traffic stats page of use. I will only keep it up for another day or so I'd say. I'm downloading a 2mb file from mon.irishbroadband.ie every five minutes to see how the line is performing. IBB kindly put me on the 8:1 service this afternoon so that's why the performance is suddenly 110+KB/s. I'm thinking of upgrading to that service as I'm getting those speeds practically anywhere I try. The other service is too patchy for me to use.

http://62.231.50.233/listdays.php

IBB put in a good effort to deal with my speed issues and it seems contention is the problem.

I've also considered the 2Mb/s 20:1 service (€99), but given how my 1Mb/s 20:1 service operates, the 1Mb/s 8:1 (€70) is better value.