DigiWeb or BTIreland Broadband?

DC5_ITR

Hi

I'm currently with DigiWeb - have been using them with well over a year for home broadband. 2MB down / 256KB up. From time to time, the connection was quite dodgy, but for the most part, the quality was good. With the past week however, at 9pm the connection essentially dies. The router reconnects (eventually) but the connection only stays alive for a random short few minutes. The connection is fine from the morning until the evening, but as said, 9pm on to late it's unusable now practically.

So anyway, somebody was suggesting the "Deluxe" broadband package from BTIreland as it has a lower contention ratio and higher dl / ul speeds. He tells me the lower contention ratio may reduce the chance of these 'peak time' disconnections I've been getting lately.

Anyone care to offer any further comments or opinions?

Thanks

paulm17781

Is it Digiweb DSL or wireless?

Sponge Bob

its dsl

could be

1. dodgy modem, maybe ask digiweb to swap it , but first !!!!
2. line degradation off premises, what are your line stats ??
3. Line degradation inside, what happens to line stats when everything in the house is plugged out totally and you plug modem in ( with no filter in use, straight in )

As it is you face the exact same issues with another DSL carrier so stay put for the moment .

DC5_ITR

Well I bought a new Netgear RangeMax router about 2 months ago because it had been suggested connection problems I was having back then may have been router related and also I since use a laptop and another desktop wirelessly to get a connection now. The RangeMax was suggested and it seems to be quite good, but I'm no router guru by any means.

I did the speedtest thing and when connected was getting 1.7MB dl and 215kb ul on average. I'm not at home atm so will run that line test thing you linked later - thanks.

I have microfilters on every phone point in the house, including the one the Sky Plus box uses. I'll perform those tests later and post results.

Eircom insist that there are no faults with my line, but I'll just have to wait and see I guess.

Will post results later this evening, thanks for the input.

Sponge Bob

Item 1 is now test with sky box in and with sky box out, they are notorious for interference.

watty

Since it is DSL, there is no point in changing. A friend of mine went through 3 operators on DSL getting the same bad service till he accepted that it was the line. He has a Fixed Wireless alternative now.

eircom needs to sort out the line.

If you have a PROPER DSL /phone splitter a Sky box can't hurt your BB. But the "micro" phone socket plug in ones have about half the filtering of some master ones in a box.

DC5_ITR

Ok, but the service is actually fine from early morning until the evening. It only get's so bad from 9pm until after midnight. Going on this, can it really still be the line and/or hardware in use?

I am using the microfilters that were supplied with the original Zyxel (I think that's the name of it) router I got from DigiWeb quite a while ago. If these are not up to the job, can you suggest a make/model of 'proper' filter and where in the Dublin area might be a good place to purchase one?

Thanks.

Sponge Bob

Could be the sky box phones home around then , could also be crosstalk


We need line stats at the different times, before and during grief periods .

filters from Dabs

and maybe change the main socket to one of these

http://www.reci.ie/technicalinfo/eircominterface.pdf

and note

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=280577

But first get the line stats and tell you the length of your line .

If over 3 miles long it would be the oul laws of phsyics vs the 2 mbit line scenario , only a downgrade to 1mbit will stabilise it .

DC5_ITR

Ok, I got some shots of the summary screen from the router, but dunno if they say much? I took them at different times.

In typical Murphy's Law fashion, the connection seems to be pretty much fine over the weekend and last night. One or two random disconnections but connectivity came back and stayed stable. Whatever was going on, seems to have been rectified at the weekend - wether it was Eircom, DigiWeb or whatever.








Thanks for all info, suggestions and help anyway.

Sponge Bob

Attenuation and noise margin are consistent with being about 1km from your exchange on a good line. They are not changing much at all .

Were the noise margin to drop below 10 ( usually 22) all of a sudden there is interference from somewhere , I'm afraid those stats are perfect for that distance

DC5_ITR

Yep, the local exchange is actually about 400 meters from my house in fact.

These problems happened me before, but not quite so severe. It is established that the hardware and phone line are fine so that basically leaves DigiWeb. But they told me there were no problems etc - hence why I was enquiring about switching to BTIreland.

I have been quite happy with DigiWeb though I must say - they've always been helpful to deal with over e-mail or the phone and the service has been pretty good until of course these random days of totally appalling quality of connection.

I dunno, maybe it's a fact of life in Ireland at least that there is no such thing as a perfect DSL service and each ISP is as good ( or not so good ) as the next. :rolleyes:

Sponge Bob

The problem has to be on the eircom line or with the eircom dsl gear in the exchange OR with the digiweb supplied modem , grab the line stats when this happens next and we will see whats going on .

Them stats should be a bit better (lower attenuation sub 20 and higher margin around 20 ) at 400m , in my opinion anyway . Bit like the upstream stats.

DC5_ITR

Did we take two steps backwards here?

I have a relatively span new ADSL router so it's not the hardware. The line stats you said were fine from the screenshots, but yes I couldn't get one when the connection was scuppered - I will the next time it happens though now that I know what specifics are needed.

By the way - I'm no guru in these things obviously, but if I'm to interpret correctly, you're saying that it is completely impossible that this could be a recurring problem on DigiWeb's side?

Sponge Bob

digiweb could slow down and be crap but digiweb cannot actually disconnect you , only eircom own the gear that can , apart from your modem .

DC5_ITR

Ah I see, ok - good to know! Thanks for all your replys.

watty

Sounds like a line or exchange fault. i.e. eircom.

jjjjfitzy

DC5_ITR wrote: »

Ok, I got some shots of the summary screen from the router, but dunno if they say much? I took them at different times.

In typical Murphy's Law fashion, the connection seems to be pretty much fine over the weekend and last night. One or two random disconnections but connectivity came back and stayed stable. Whatever was going on, seems to have been rectified at the weekend - wether it was Eircom, DigiWeb or whatever.








Thanks for all info, suggestions and help anyway.

i had a installer from digiweb in last week, he told me you need 28+ noise margin to get digiweb metro i was getting 24 he said that was not enough is this true??

watty

Approximately yes.
Metro SNR levels have no relationship to DSL noise levels. DSL is OFDM type multicarrier on copper wires connecting to only one modem. The SNR doesn't usually change much.

Metro is quite different system connecting to several modems with the same signal, because the system is up to 50Mbps rather than 3Mbps you need much better SNR . At 24 you might lose the connection with rain. It only creates problems if sell something unreliable.

jjjjfitzy

thanks man.he was back today and i got [29] tank [EMAIL="f@@k"]f@@k[/EMAIL].

pjproby

Watty,
have digiweb any plans to increase speeds on their metro product?

watty

You can get upto 10Mbps.

They have other Business wireless products that have much faster speeds and possibley 1:1 contention, like for replacing leased lines or self hosting (though it's cheaper to use the Data Center than Host yourself.)