Free upgrade is worse than what I had!

gtg60

Here's the story, been with various landline and broadband suppliers for years, about ~2 years ago I switched to Perlico and have had an excellent service up til very recently, as far as I can tell it's all since they have been taken over by Vodafone.
As a background, I use my broadband all the time for various things, XBox live, downloading large files and a home automation server that I use dyndns to update the IP with, all these work well and reliably. I have have the 3MB connection since the beginning and (through a loophole) unlimited downloads although I rarely go over the 36GB limit.
Firstly I noticed that my IP address was changed every 24 hours, usually just after midnight which got me chucked out of many an XBox live game, I tried resetting the router so that the 24 hours wouldn't happen during my gameplay. This seemed to work for a while.

So, in the last week I notice that I'm getting kicked out of more and more games and my downloading was either fantastic or totally rubbish, so I logged into my router yesterday to be pleasantly surprised to see I've been upgraded to 8MB, however I have been running speedtest.net and getting brutal inconsistancies, my d/l speed varies from 7.4MB to less than 1MB, sometimes within a few minutes of each other, I'm quite close to the exchange and here is some info from my router:
8128 kbps / 512 kbps
noise margin upstream: 22 db
output power downstream: 19 db
attenuation upstream: 13 db
noise margin downstream: 14 db
output power upstream: 12 db
attenuation downstream: 21 db

Here are some speedtests I did a short while ago




Now I was under the impression that this new NGB or enhanced broadband was contention free, so what's going on here then? My previous 3MB was a constant and rock solid 2.7MB, I'll be ringing them in the morning but I'd like to know what's going wrong technically first. Also, as Vodafone and Perlico are just Eircom resellers I assume I'll see the same issues no matter who I change to?

Cryos

NGB or any flavor of it is purely a marketing gimic.

You are probably running over the limits of your line which is causing it to drop (probably due to CRC's) frequently.

Your best option is to call vodafone, explain the situation; They might have to re-profile your line to a slower speed.

Technically your SN Margin is probably too low on your Downstream (sub 8.0 or 9.0) and id imagine your Downstream Attenuation is probably 48+

gtg60

Thanks for the reply, familiar with the NGB hype but I did still think it was contention free, is that true?

Right, so my line can't handle the full 7MB's and is defaulting to lower settings, so what I need them to do is test what the line can handle then get them to limit my line to that speed (disappointing but makes sense). Also, has this anything to do with why my IP changes up to 6 times a day even though it's nailed up?

Also I heard that if you use XBL it's worth ringing them to get them to change some other setting, is that true? And what is that setting?

gtg60

Anybody else able to throw light on my situation?

shinzon

WHy not talk to Eircom themselves here

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=1293

See what they say about it, apologies if youve already done this

Shin

Cryos

gtg60 wrote: »

Also I heard that if you use XBL it's worth ringing them to get them to change some other setting, is that true? And what is that setting?

Sorry for delayed reply, what your talking about is the Datapath (interleaving vs. FAST) afaik.

It may be worth talking to eircom about it (ive not done it on mine and xbl is perfectly fine).

gtg60

Cryos wrote: »

Sorry for delayed reply, what your talking about is the Datapath (interleaving vs. FAST) afaik.

It may be worth talking to eircom about it (ive not done it on mine and xbl is perfectly fine).

Ah, good stuff, so ideally I would want FAST but (for you anyway) it's not critical. Where in my router's settings/information would I be able to find out what I have now?

Thanks for your help!

coolpix23

The speed upgrades cause the problem because the line simply isn't capable of the new speed.

Do speed tests at various times to work out when you have the worst speed.

Get on to Tech Support when you HAVE the worst speed,

they'll want you to connect using the Ethernet cable and turn off the wireless and only have one PC connected using the cable. Wireless off to confirm no one is steeling your WiFi, it isn't a radio interference problem and just one computer so they know no other computer is using up the network.

they'll want you to turn off any non essential start up programs, after a very short time you end up with Skype, media players and so much other **** starting at start up and using the network.

they'll want you to turn off any Anti Virus software, a recent automatic update could be causing a problem or if you're running two AV's it really causes speed problems.

if you restart the computer in "Safe Mode with Networking" it eliminates the second two but for the first one you'll need the cable and you'll need to turn off the wireless.

I worked for an ISP and if a client followed those steps we could usually have an engineer look at the line. In you're case they'll probably just turn down the speed to what worked before.

Tech support have to change the speed on the line, it's a setting in the exchange that corresponds to your line. Any changes you make won't change that.

===========

With the IP, it seems the IP that the ISP gives you is getting changed at the same time each day, just at the time you DON'T want it up-dated!

Be very careful with this, if you "RESET" the router/modem you'll have to re-do all that ****e to get the games working again and all that other ****e with WEP/WAP etc... so be careful.

I'm not going to go into, I can see you're tech-savy but someone else could get into problems. Basically you need find out how to manually restart your connection.

This is what I think is happening. The server at the ISP gives out new IP addresses every x HOURS +/- random SECONDS, it's often every 12 or 24 hours +/- 10ish minutes which is landing in the middle of your game time!

This might work, every time you make a new connection it gives you a new IP, it should last for the same approx time so MANUALLY restart the connection at say 6pm and it should stay the same for 12 or 24 hours?