Can someone explain FTTH congestion to me please

WLad

Hi,


I recently moved from Vodafone FTTH 150/30 to Sky 500/50 because they offered me a crazy deal. Basically added broadband to my TV package and I'm paying less overall for a year with no TV contract. On Vodafone we pretty much always got 150 down consistently. Apart from a block of about 3 weeks where it would drop in the evening but they fixed that and said there was a fault in the cabinet.

Since we moved to Sky I get consistent 460/50 all day. However, as soon as 4 pm comes it drops to 260-300. By 8 o'clock its 100 and by half 9 or 10 its barely 50 - often dropping below 20. I've obviously been on to Sky and got the usual run around. "It must be a router problem. Theres no congestion on the line, its your line directly from your house and nobody else is on it. We've tested the line and its perfect. We have no throttling in place." Bla bla bla.


I have done all the tests on a wired connection directly in the back of the router with not a single other device on the network, wired, wireless or otherwise.


I was always under the impression that I actually shouldn't have congestion on my line with FTTH, but I can't see any other reasonable explanation? I'm not sure what to do, its a noticeable drop in the evening with multiple devices streaming.

MrMusician18

WLad wrote: »

Hi,


I recently moved from Vodafone FTTH 150/30 to Sky 500/50 because they offered me a crazy deal. Basically added broadband to my TV package and I'm paying less overall for a year with no TV contract. On Vodafone we pretty much always got 150 down consistently. Apart from a block of about 3 weeks where it would drop in the evening but they fixed that and said there was a fault in the cabinet.

Since we moved to Sky I get consistent 460/50 all day. However, as soon as 4 pm comes it drops to 260-300. By 8 o'clock its 100 and by half 9 or 10 its barely 50 - often dropping below 20. I've obviously been on to Sky and got the usual run around. "It must be a router problem. Theres no congestion on the line, its your line directly from your house and nobody else is on it. We've tested the line and its perfect. We have no throttling in place." Bla bla bla.


I have done all the tests on a wired connection directly in the back of the router with not a single other device on the network, wired, wireless or otherwise.


I was always under the impression that I actually shouldn't have congestion on my line with FTTH, but I can't see any other reasonable explanation? I'm not sure what to do, its a noticeable drop in the evening with multiple devices streaming.

FTTH is not a contention free product sadly.
See this excellent post on the topic
https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=114282040&postcount=1051

kaizersoze

I'd be pointing the finger at Sky's own network/backhaul capacity. Not the first time we've heard it. I know several users on their FTTC products reporting similar stories. They're cheap for a reason I suppose.

babelfish1990

WLad wrote: »

I was always under the impression that I actually shouldn't have congestion on my line with FTTH, but I can't see any other reasonable explanation? I'm not sure what to do, its a noticeable drop in the evening with multiple devices streaming.

The current GPON FTTH used by Eir has a downstream capacity of 2.5Gbps per fibre. Although this is shared by a number of premises, you are not likely to experience congestion on the FTTH drop to your home. However, there are many reports of both Vodafone & Sky having congestion at their peering points into the internet. Pick a different ISP who doesnt have congestion.

WLad

That's good to know. Thanks for the link to that post MrMusician, very informative. I suppose I'll have to just wait until they inevitably hike my prices and then move, I can't say no to the offer I have at the moment. The pandemic probably isn't helping the amount of contention on the lines either.

WLad

So an update in case anyone ever comes across this again.

I'm getting absolutely no joy from Sky. Its degraded to the point its unusable in the evenings. Knowing what I know now its still weird that I'm getting less than 10Mbps in the evenings, even with congestion. Sky keep restating over and over that there should be absolutely no congestion on their line because its ftth.

They keep closing my fault as well because they can't find any issue. I'm sick of it at this point and I'm ready to give up. They won't leave me out of my contract either and I just don't have the energy to fight them on it.

Guess I'm stuck with a 500Mbps line that delivers 10 sometimes for the next year.

TheDriver

WLad wrote: »

So an update in case anyone ever comes across this again.

I'm getting absolutely no joy from Sky. Its degraded to the point its unusable in the evenings. Knowing what I know now its still weird that I'm getting less than 10Mbps in the evenings, even with congestion. Sky keep restating over and over that there should be absolutely no congestion on their line because its ftth.

They keep closing my fault as well because they can't find any issue. I'm sick of it at this point and I'm ready to give up. They won't leave me out of my contract either and I just don't have the energy to fight them on it.

Guess I'm stuck with a 500Mbps line that delivers 10 sometimes for the next year.

The only avenue open to you would be to lodge a formal complaint with sky and then wait 10 days for them to do the expected nothing and go to comreg. They may be able to get you out of the contract when you have such a big pile of data and showing they are not able to provide you with any form of usable product.

These threads have made me realise that the bulk sellers at cheaper price may not be a good idea. I have a BT backhaul siro and it's always full speed (lots of tests conducted), all my neighbours are on VF or SKY because they want the TV part. I'd be slow to move to either provider.

WLad

TheDriver wrote: »

The only avenue open to you would be to lodge a formal complaint with sky and then wait 10 days for them to do the expected nothing and go to comreg. They may be able to get you out of the contract when you have such a big pile of data and showing they are not able to provide you with any form of usable product.

These threads have made me realise that the bulk sellers at cheaper price may not be a good idea. I have a BT backhaul siro and it's always full speed (lots of tests conducted), all my neighbours are on VF or SKY because they want the TV part. I'd be slow to move to either provider.

OK I've done that. Thanks for the advice.


If I swap to another provider like Pure or Digiweb will I definitely be on "different" infrastructure at some stage of my fibre line? In other words, are they really selling me a different product or am I likely to see the same issue regardless of who I go with?

kaizersoze

WLad wrote: »

OK I've done that. Thanks for the advice.


If I swap to another provider like Pure or Digiweb will I definitely be on "different" infrastructure at some stage of my fibre line? In other words, are they really selling me a different product or am I likely to see the same issue regardless of who I go with?

Dear God not Pure!

Contact the Digiweb rep here on boards and go through the options. If nothing else they're contactable, helpful & Irish.

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2058083563

Belfunk

kaizersoze wrote: »

Dear God not Pure!

Contact the Digiweb rep here on boards and go through the options. If nothing else they're contactable, helpful & Irish.

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2058083563

What’s wrong with Pure?

TheDriver

kaizersoze wrote: »

Dear God not Pure!

Contact the Digiweb rep here on boards and go through the options. If nothing else they're contactable, helpful & Irish.

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2058083563

Same, what's wrong with Pure? My siro is rock solid near max speeds at peak. No billing issues.
On backhaul, I think BT or enet do all the small suppliers, VF and SKY do their own processing. If I do a speed test, it identifies my connection as BT Ireland.

WLad

TheDriver wrote: »

Same, what's wrong with Pure? My siro is rock solid near max speeds at peak. No billing issues.
On backhaul, I think BT or enet do all the small suppliers, VF and SKY do their own processing. If I do a speed test, it identifies my connection as BT Ireland.

What does back haul mean in this context? Heard it mentioned a few times but don't get it. Is it the point at which each supplier does their own network management at cabinets or whatever?

degsie

WLad wrote: »

What does back haul mean in this context? Heard it mentioned a few times but don't get it. Is it the point at which each supplier does their own network management at cabinets or whatever?

Your premises connection along with others all go to an aggregation point where they are multiplexed into a 'high' speed link that go to further aggregation points towards an internet exchange point. This is where the 'backhaul' is.

TheDriver

Think of it like the passport or security queues at airports. Vodafone or sky customers are in the regular queue which can be quick but also can be busy as there's a lot more customers needing to use this avenue.
Then think of the crew lane, theres never anyone in it, waiting times are as you expect. That's a different lane. Think of this as maybe the BT providers
Yet everyone must get into the airport using the big roads and everyone must leave the airport. Its the processing bottle neck can be make or break.
TO be fair, it also depends on location. Sky/VF might have no capacity issues in certain locations and yet they might at others.
Likewise the BT providers might have the same. But the TV bundling will always make sky and vodafone a more popular choice for customers.

WLad

TheDriver wrote: »

Think of it like the passport or security queues at airports. Vodafone or sky customers are in the regular queue which can be quick but also can be busy as there's a lot more customers needing to use this avenue.
Then think of the crew lane, theres never anyone in it, waiting times are as you expect. That's a different lane. Think of this as maybe the BT providers
Yet everyone must get into the airport using the big roads and everyone must leave the airport. Its the processing bottle neck can be make or break.
TO be fair, it also depends on location. Sky/VF might have no capacity issues in certain locations and yet they might at others.
Likewise the BT providers might have the same. But the TV bundling will always make sky and vodafone a more popular choice for customers.

That makes sense. So really it's a similar infrastructure except the sky and Vodafone lines are always going to be bigger because they offer bundled TV which appeals to people. Good to know.

NeuralNetwork

Sky’s always been like that. I moved from Sky to Digiweb on FTTC for that reason.

People assume that every ISP resells eir or that all Siro ISPs are the same. That simply isn’t the case. A lot depends on the strength of their national networks (backhaul), how well peered they are (direct connections to other networks and high volume services like Netflix, Amazon hosting, Google etc) and their international connectivity.

The traffic is handed off the access network to your ISP at major aggregation nodes (exchanges) and from there if there are bottle necks, you’ll notice them.

Of the ISPs, Eir and Digiweb have been the fastest I’ve used. I know a Eir attracts bad comments because of customer care and about their legacy DSL services, but their fibre networks are excellent and they’ve huge amounts of national infrastructure.

I’ve found Digiweb fantastic too and their Fritzbox router has been extremely good, particular when I added a couple of mesh access points.

I haven’t tried Vodafone recently, but they own a lot of national and international fibre, so I’m assuming they can’t be too bad an option.

When it comes to ISPs the headline speed between your house and the edge of their network is only one part of the story

Yeh I don’t have any problems with VF. I had major problems in the past with Sky and Eir (dsl)

bewareofthedog

Have had zero problems with pure, been with them the last year. Connection is always full speed, I believe they're using Eir's backhaul, they show up as Eir on speed test anyway.

NeuralNetwork

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Yeh I don’t have any problems with VF. I had major problems in the past with Sky and Eir (dsl)

With Eir I wouldn’t really equate experience on DSL to anything contemporary. The old DSL lines suffered mostly from simply being too long to be able to carry data at speed to houses.

DSL speeds drop off quite steeply the further you get from the card in the exchange and due to Ireland’s development patterns, it means there’s often a long run of copper between you and the exchange.

None of that applies to FTTH and even FTTC solved most of it several years ago.

From an Irish point of view FTTH changes everything, as it’s not distant dependent and the length of the lines no longer has any baring on speed. ADSL generally was a hack to get data services onto old phone networks that were never designed to carry it and it always came with huge comprises anywhere it was used, but Ireland is would tend to have a lot of long lines as many of us don’t live in dense clusters, so the tech was always inappropriate.

ED E

NeuralNetwork wrote: »

With Eir I wouldn’t really equate experience on DSL to anything contemporary. The old DSL lines suffered mostly from simply being too long to be able to carry data at speed to houses.

While thats right, it misses out on the poor people on subtended exchanges.

NeuralNetwork

ED E wrote: »

While thats right, it misses out on the poor people on subtended exchanges.

There were a few exchanges that were never upgraded beyond ADSL - most of them seem to have FTTC or FTTH now though.

A lot of the 'exchanges' that never got upgraded were just tiny remote units not much larger in capacity than a single FTTC cabinet themselves anyway. There are over a thousand RSU (Remote Subscriber Units) in the Eir network, some of them are large some of them are a single rack in a hut or a street cabinet.

All I'm saying is just because you had some lousy ADSL connection 10 years ago doesn't mean that the same applies to FTTC or FTTH, if that's what's now available at your address.

They're simply not the same networks or technology.

Gooser14

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058153848/can-someone-explain-ftth-congestion-to-me-please

Did you get this problem sorted & if you did what was the resolution? The reason I ask is that I'm having a similar problem with Vodafone.

KeRbDoG

If folks hit this problem, defo don't move to Pure (they resell BT Internet) as they have a lot of peering congestion just like Sky had which the OP noted.

pizzahead77

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121795530#Comment_121795530

I'm on Pure for FTTH on the OpenEir network and it seems to be the Eir network they are using including eir IP addresses (at least here in Dublin)

_John C

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121803069#Comment_121803069

Same here in South Tipperary. Never had a problem with Pure Telecom.

Glaceon

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121795530#Comment_121795530

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121803069#Comment_121803069

It seems to be region-specific. They use Eir in some areas and BT in others.