Anyone else having very slow smart telecom speeds?

falinx

Hey everyone, I signed up with smart at the beginning of the month and I do like their download policy but I do not like their speed at all. I had only heard good things about their speeds, and even though I'm going through their eircom repackaged product I'm getting a max 400kbps. Btw I'm on the 7mbps so you can see why I'm not so happy

Here, amusingly, is the irish isp test result and smart's own entirely too optimistic bb results:

smart results.JPG

irish isp results.JPG

And in reality I couldn't say for certain which is correct but when I am browsing the internet or playing games I know which one is correct . Normally I have to start a youtube clip (standard definition one) and pause it for 10 seconds to let it buffer so I can then watch it otherwise I'm going through it with the old stop/start routine. I actually ran the irish ISP test on my 3g and got waaaay quicker speeds (like 1.2mbps down and 600kbps up), not sure about you guys but when a wireless connection is beating a wired connection for speed, that's just embarassing . I have run these tests repeatedly, even once at 4 in the morning when I was awake but to no avail. The exchange I'm on is the brand new rushbrook exchange so the chance that 47 other connections are on my panel are highly unlikely and the speed is consistenly low, not intermittently so I know it's not a contention ratio issue. I have tried different computers and different lan cables, and none of these seem to be a factor.

When I did phone up smart I went through the tests and they said everything seems to be fine I guess we could raise an issue with eircom. Which in computer support speak means we are going to do nothing about this and you just have to live with it. I will definitely be cancelling my service at the end of a single month (shame on smart for not taking the problem seriously), but I was wondering if anyone who was with smart may have had a similair issue and got it resolved? I tried to go sign up on their forums but it won't accept my details either so that was a dead end.

Guess I'm just ranting because I was expecting more. Hate to admit it but I think I'm going to be just another return customer eircom statistic ha ha.

dub45

What are your line stats?

falinx

Uptime: 1 day, 1:19:02
DSL Type: G.992.1 annex A
Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]: 384 / 7,168
Data Transferred (Sent/Received) [kB/kB]: 0.00 / 0.00
Output Power (Up/Down) [dBm]: 0.0 / -2.4294967291
Line Attenuation (Up/Down) [dB]: 2.5 / 3.0
SN Margin (Up/Down) [dB]: 17.0 / 10.0
Vendor ID (Local/Remote): TMMB / BDCM
Loss of Framing (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Signal (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Power (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Link (Remote): 0
Error Seconds (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
FEC Errors (Up/Down): 0 / 59,951
CRC Errors (Up/Down): 0 / 27
HEC Errors (Up/Down): 0 / 26

falinx

LOL, I just got off with a very polite lady at smart telecom after explaining the problem. To my surprise "apparently" the issue was raised with eircom by themselves and it's a contention ratio issue. I explained why that couldn't be the case and the suggestion was to cancel the service with them and sign up with eircom. And that was the legitimate suggestion, as I say we were perfectly civil, no heated debates or anything. It would seem then that Eircom seems to have such a stranglehold they can just pass off rubbish to their redistributors and not get into any sort of trouble Oh well, I guess they are my only option if this is their mafia tactics. I'm actually shocked. Wonder if the head of eircom has been quizzed on matt cooper's show yet?

In conclusion it's either stick with o2, or sign up with eircom and harass them to get a decent connection. Darn.

chriss745

I have exactly the same problem with SMART. I got the line connected at 22nd of December, max speed is 20-30K/sec. Your solution was to cancel the service? Why they can't solve the problem? I called them and they told me the same bullsh** that connection ratio. They found the right person, I am an IT Engineer. I told them I can try anytime on the day, the same result, in addition my neighbour is with eircom, in the same time he can download with 7mbit, so the line is not overloaded (I am almost sure he is on the same DSLAM than me). And how to cacnel the service? I thougth new customers sign for minimum 12 months. Did they allow to leave them?

MunsterCycling

chriss745 wrote: »

I have exactly the same problem with SMART. I got the line connected at 22nd of December, max speed is 20-30K/sec. Your solution was to cancel the service? Why they can't solve the problem? I called them and they told me the same bullsh** that connection ratio. They found the right person, I am an IT Engineer. I told them I can try anytime on the day, the same result, in addition my neighbour is with eircom, in the same time he can download with 7mbit, so the line is not overloaded (I am almost sure he is on the same DSLAM than me). And how to cacnel the service? I thougth new customers sign for minimum 12 months. Did they allow to leave them?

Bitstream customers are not on the same DSLAMs as eircon ones.

Kensington

falinx wrote: »

Uptime: 1 day, 1:19:02
DSL Type: G.992.1 annex A
Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]: 384 / 7,168
Data Transferred (Sent/Received) [kB/kB]: 0.00 / 0.00
Output Power (Up/Down) [dBm]: 0.0 / -2.4294967291
Line Attenuation (Up/Down) [dB]: 2.5 / 3.0
SN Margin (Up/Down) [dB]: 17.0 / 10.0
Vendor ID (Local/Remote): TMMB / BDCM
Loss of Framing (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Signal (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Power (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Link (Remote): 0
Error Seconds (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
FEC Errors (Up/Down): 0 / 59,951
CRC Errors (Up/Down): 0 / 27
HEC Errors (Up/Down): 0 / 26

There's your problem (in bold). Your SNR margin shows your connection is borderline unstable. Anything below 13dB and you're going into run into problems, like the high error rate on your line (underlined). Errors mean packets don't get through, have to be resent, and this eats into your effective download speed (end result to you is your internet is slower, as you mention in your post). Your "Line Attenuation" is also showing a very odd reading, it's oddly low for such a low SNR reading (generally, a low value for line attenuation gives a high value for SNR, and a high value for line attenuation naturally gives rise to a lower reading for SNR).

Things to check:
If you pick up the phone, or the phone rings, does the internet drop momentarily?
Are you using filters on EVERY device connected to the phoneline (phones, cordless, fax machine, sky digibox, monitored alarm etc.)? Are they connected to the correct ports on the filters? (Everything, except the modem, should be connected to a "PHONE" filter port)
If you disconnect EVERYTHING from your internal phoneline and then connect ONLY the modem to the phoneline, preferably where it enters the house, do things improve?

chriss745

MunsterCycling wrote: »

Bitstream customers are not on the same DSLAMs as eircon ones.

Ahh, I didn't know it. So what do you think, is it possible that the DSLAM is overloaded in 24/7? I tried it from 8am to 3am in every hours for more days and always the same result. SMART speed test show around 1000kbit. If I start to download something via one thread, it comes with about 20-30K/sec. If I use more threaded download, for example DownThemAll with 10 threads, I can reach the 300K/sec. If I use torrent with 50-60 peers, I can reach maximum 7mbit. But it is horrible, if I am under gentoo and downloading something via wget. It is only one thread, so it is useless with this speed.

My modem details are:

Uptime: 0 days, 8:11:25
DSL Type: G.992.1 annex A
Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]: 384 / 7,168
Data Transferred (Sent/Received) [kB/kB]: 0.00 / 0.00
Output Power (Up/Down) [dBm]: 0.0 / 10.0
Line Attenuation (Up/Down) [dB]: 14.5 / 26.0
SN Margin (Up/Down) [dB]: 12.0 / 14.5
Vendor ID (Local/Remote):
TMMB / BDCM Loss of Framing (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Signal (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Power (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Link (Remote): 0
Error Seconds (Local/Remote): 2 / 0
FEC Errors (Up/Down): 0 / 58,455
CRC Errors (Up/Down): 0 / 361
HEC Errors (Up/Down): 0 / 345

Maybe the same line noise problem for me as well? SN Margin seems on the border. If the line is so noisy, why can I download fine with more threads? In this case line should be dropped I think, or no?. For me it seems if we would have some kind of QOS.

What do you think?

EDIT:

I moved my splitter and modem to the main socket on the wall, I got the following result:

Uptime: 0 days, 0:01:46
DSL Type: G.992.1 annex A
Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]: 384 / 7,168
Data Transferred (Sent/Received) [kB/kB]: 0.00 / 0.00
Output Power (Up/Down) [dBm]: 0.0 / 10.0
Line Attenuation (Up/Down) [dB]: 14.5 / 26.0
SN Margin (Up/Down) [dB]: 13.0 / 14.5
Vendor ID (Local/Remote): TMMB / BDCM
Loss of Framing (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Signal (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Power (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Link (Remote): 0
Error Seconds (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
FEC Errors (Up/Down): 0 / 0
CRC Errors (Up/Down): 0 / 0
HEC Errors (Up/Down): 0 / 0

SN Margin did not change. I started to download something from ftp.ie.debian.org, it came down with 20-30K/sec again without any errors on the modem page.

Now I really don't know what is the problem.

regisss

Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]: 384 / 7.168
Data Transferred (Sent/Received) [kB/kB]: 0,00 / 0,00
Output Power (Up/Down) [dBm]: 0,0 / 11,5
Line Attenuation (Up/Down) [dB]: 14,0 / 26,0
SN Margin (Up/Down) [dB]: 18,0 / 13,0
Vendor ID (Local/Remote): TMMB / BCM
Loss of Framing (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Signal (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Power (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Link (Remote): 0
Error Seconds (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
FEC Errors (Up/Down): 0 / 250
CRC Errors (Up/Down): 0 / 0
HEC Errors (Up/Down): 0 / 0


Same here, same package, same provider.

Moving the modem around the house did not change anything

I am being throttled ALL DAY LONG to 1Mb while paying for 7...
Well well, anyway to improve / correct / cancel the service?

c_o_ck p_i_ss chillage

It's usually very good, we're on an 8mb package but today our service is near non-existant.

:-(