Huge problems with Smart BB

romperstomper

Hi all,

Just relating to everyone the uber frustration I've had in dealing with Smart BB.
The installation took about 2 weeks of blackout from when I switched from eircom's 2Mb BB service which I had for 10 months and no hiccups (i only changed to save money). How I rue the day. After an initial period of things going well, my pings jumped and my download speeds plunged.

I get 1Mb/s from irishisptest.com and Smart say its beacuse they don't peer with them.
My pings on the counterstrike server I run went from 40 to 120.
Smart say its beacuse they don't peer with them.
Every other server is the same.
Smart say its beacuse they don't peer with them.

All Smart say is that "such and such a service doesn't peer with us, nothing we can do". Result? Using tracert and visualtrace my packets go from dublin to london via washington. Meanwhile 20 plus phone calls & emails to Smart later all they do is shrug. Unfortunatley Garfield (the only one in Smart that i have any confidence in) is on holidays.
Any advice or help from boards?
Lastly i recently received my first bill from Smart. If they think im paying it they can get phucked.

Snaga

What kind of speeds do you get from a large linux ISO download from ftp.heanet.ie?

irishisptest.com is hosted on a COLT ip address - according to the INEX information COLT and Smart do not peer with each other (http://www.inex.ie/peering.php) - this makes irishisptest.com an inaccurate test as traffic to COLT will most likely route off to the uk and back to Ireland via COLT's network - so what you were told is accurate.

According to the above graph COLT also dont peer with a few of the other ISP's at Inex, in fact - most of the newer ISP's. irishisptest.com will be inaccurate for all of these aswell I would imagine.

dub45

romperstomper wrote:

Hi all,

Just relating to everyone the uber frustration I've had in dealing with Smart BB.
The installation took about 2 weeks of blackout from when I switched from eircom's 2Mb BB service which I had for 10 months and no hiccups (i only changed to save money). How I rue the day. After an initial period of things going well, my pings jumped and my download speeds plunged.

I get 1Mb/s from irishisptest.com and Smart say its beacuse they don't peer with them.
My pings on the counterstrike server I run went from 40 to 120.
Smart say its beacuse they don't peer with them.
Every other server is the same.
Smart say its beacuse they don't peer with them.

All Smart say is that "such and such a service doesn't peer with us, nothing we can do". Result? Using tracert and visualtrace my packets go from dublin to london via washington. Meanwhile 20 plus phone calls & emails to Smart later all they do is shrug. Unfortunatley Garfield (the only one in Smart that i have any confidence in) is on holidays.
Any advice or help from boards?
Lastly i recently received my first bill from Smart. If they think im paying it they can get phucked.

What exchange are you on? Have you asked to speak to a supervisor when you have been on?

romperstomper

I am on clontarf exchange. I am quite sure this is not a physical (cable) problem as i was on Eircom for 10 months np. I have spoken to a senior member of there faults team after I escalted the problem.

A typical download speed from the heanet is 100KB/s

Other team members for instance live in the same area and are on the same exchange and are experiencing perfectly acceptable ping

Blaster99

I have both Eircom ADSL and IBB's "service", and the quality of the Eircom transit connections is far superior to that of IBB, never mind the underlying reliability of the connection. So I'm not sure if an ISP can take the view "oh well, we're not peering with them" because it seems Eircom can deliver consistent speeds from much anywhere. You get what you pay for, perhaps.

dub45

romperstomper wrote:

I am on clontarf exchange. I am quite sure this is not a physical (cable) problem as i was on Eircom for 10 months np. I have spoken to a senior member of there faults team after I escalted the problem.

It seems strange that initially things went well and then disimproved. That would suggest that there was some sort of physical change and that better results are possible. What did the 'senior' member say? do they have any procedure for investigating faults? I have had a few problems myself (am on Crown Alley that was why I asked which exchange you were on) and wasnt overly impressed when I rang their support.

In fairness to Garfield he has been excellent in the help he seems to have given to most people so far but Smart cannot be reliant on him totally there must surely be a mr or ms support in there somewhere.

romperstomper

These were taken within a day of each other recently:

Tracing route to 212.187.247.3 over a maximum of 30 hops

1 2 ms 2 ms 2 ms 192.168.2.1
2 3 ms 2 ms 3 ms AolynkDslRouter.local.lan [192.168.1.1]
3 23 ms 21 ms 23 ms 84-203-0-1.mysmart.ie [84.203.0.1]
4 24 ms 22 ms 23 ms 84.203.130.117
5 31 ms 32 ms 34 ms pos2-0.ar04.ldn01.pccwbtn.net [63.218.52.1]
6 114 ms 33 ms 42 ms ge2-1.br02.ldn01.pccwbtn.net [63.218.12.58]
7 32 ms 32 ms 34 ms bcr1-so-3-2-0.Londonlnx.savvis.net [206.24.169.9]
8 38 ms 35 ms 33 ms so-8-2.core2.London1.Level3.net [206.24.169.30]
9 35 ms 35 ms 33 ms ge-11-0.ipcolo2.London1.Level3.net [212.187.131.40]
10 34 ms 34 ms 33 ms 212.187.247.3

Tracing route to 212.187.247.3 over a maximum of 30 hops

1 7 ms 2 ms 2 ms 192.168.2.1
2 2 ms 6 ms 2 ms AolynkDslRouter.local.lan [192.168.1.1]
3 23 ms 19 ms 21 ms 84-203-0-1.mysmart.ie [84.203.0.1]
4 23 ms 22 ms 23 ms 84.203.130.113
5 101 ms 99 ms 99 ms fe7-5.cr01.nyc02.pccwbtn.net [63.216.4.141]
6 103 ms 104 ms 111 ms pos4-2.cr03.ash01.pccwbtn.net [63.218.44.122]
7 109 ms 106 ms 103 ms pos5-3.cr01.ash01.pccwbtn.net [63.218.94.2]
8 107 ms 107 ms 108 ms ge-6-19.car4.Washington1.Level3.net [4.68.127.245]
9 109 ms 108 ms 106 ms ae-1-55.bbr1.Washington1.Level3.net [4.68.121.129]
10 154 ms 111 ms 109 ms ae-1-0.bbr2.London1.Level3.net [212.187.128.57]
11 107 ms 108 ms 108 ms ge-11-0.ipcolo2.London1.Level3.net [212.187.131.40]
12 107 ms 108 ms 108 ms 212.187.247.3

the first is fine. the second is dublin to london via washington!!

their "procedure" for fault-finding was for me to ping their server and as that was ok, then all else must must be ok too. Nevermind that pinging google.ie and other major servers is a whooping 150ms. again it seems to be down to route. they have acknowledged this problem by saying "it cost too much and there is not enough customer demand for such a server blah blah"

Uber frustration

bk

romperstomper wrote:

Nevermind that pinging google.ie and other major servers is a whooping 150ms.

Well for some strange reason it seems google.ie is actually in San Jose, USA. This has nothing to do with Smart, I noticed the same in the past from Netsource DSL and NTL cable BB.

BTW for some strange reason google.co.uk seems to be in the UK!

romperstomper wrote:

again it seems to be down to route. they have acknowledged this problem by saying "it cost too much and there is not enough customer demand for such a server blah blah"

Well if they have that sort of attitude then there not going to have *ANY* customer demand to worry about.

chabsey

romperstomper wrote:

I am on clontarf exchange. ...

Crap. I'm literally sending off my application to Smart today and am on the Clontarf exchange too.

Thing is though, in terms of pricing and hassle, all the competition either seem to charge too much for a similar offering or they are equally as crap (IBB etc seem to be annoying lots of people).

Damn...wonder should I cancel my application.

You mention you got a bill, I thought direct debit was the only way to pay. I'd much prefer to pay via billing, but they claimed it wasn't possible. Any ideas?

romperstomper

when i originally signed up (online) i gave them my DD details and i assumed that they would process those when the time comes. Obviously this is a case of one dept. not talking to another and so they have lost my DD details. A happy occurence for me cos as i say there is no way i am paying until they get the service right.

dub45

chabsey wrote:

Crap. I'm literally sending off my application to Smart today and am on the Clontarf exchange too.

Thing is though, in terms of pricing and hassle, all the competition either seem to charge too much for a similar offering or they are equally as crap (IBB etc seem to be annoying lots of people).

Damn...wonder should I cancel my application.

You mention you got a bill, I thought direct debit was the only way to pay. I'd much prefer to pay via billing, but they claimed it wasn't possible. Any ideas?

A bill and a direct debit are not imcompatible! Details of what you are being charged for and a date for the debit is all thats involved.

Lets not be too hasty in condemning Smart. In fairness to Gafield he has been pretty frank with us so far but is not around for the next week or so to comment on what that Smart rep said and clarify what exactly Smart polciy is. He certainly gave the impression in early threads that Smart were going to provide a full and very professional service and there is no better place than boards.ie to keep Smart to that.

It seems to me that Smart have some people who while not exactly unhelpful are pretty vague or bland to say the least. They certainly need to address this issue and act on certain things such as a proper 'fault's procedure/process.

Praetorian

I'm sure these are only teething problems with Smart. I had similar problems with Netsource for the first while, but I've been happy for the last year or so. Perfectly reliable now. Speak to Garfield when he gets back!

romperstomper

Its a bit ridiculous that if i wasnt a boards user, and aware of Garfield's service, that i wouldn't be able to solve this problem

Praetorian

Are you positive there isn't a virus / adware / spyware using your connection to slow everything down? Might not be a bad idea to check that out! I'm sure you will get the problem solved sooner rather than later! GL!

romperstomper

it is definitely a routing problem. they have done a lot of ping & tracert tests and its still the same. also i have recently reinstalled and my bios firmware/antivirus/spyware/firewall are always up to date. I have dozens of tracert routes that show the problem is that my packets are being routed from dublin to london via washington.

lizanne83

Hello,
I have been keeping a watchfull eye on these threads!
I am 100% sure about the smart broadband service. Yes there have been and still are teething probs, however, when the customer becomes 'Live' it is just such an excellent, fast, reliable and cheap service for what your getting.
Once the customer is connected to a Live exchange and smart have their correct forms (Direct Debit and Customer Authorisation form - with all correct details on it) there is rarely a delay. In fact some customers are going live within a week of registering, as long as everything is in order.
To be honest, from past experience, you will def have more probs with eircom, BT and UTV BB etc. These service providers are rediculous (and more costly)
At the end of the day whats the most important thing? It's the product you are receiving. The smart product/broadband service is very reliable. The only complaints customers may have is the initial order process as there can be confusion with what they need to have (eg) clear, active eircom line etc, the correct details and forms etc. Customers orders can be rejected and delayed due to already having a previous dsl signal on the line from previous providers also. Its those previous providers who dont remove that signal, that cause delays for both smart and the customer.

I just know this from a few people who have the service and very happy with smart ;-)

steve-o

romperstomper wrote:

it is definitely a routing problem.

I agree. My download/upload speed is fine, but the pings have definitely gone up exactly as you described. There's definitely something arsed on their network. I'm on Dolphin's Barn.

eth0_

Blaster99 wrote:

I have both Eircom ADSL and IBB's "service", and the quality of the Eircom transit connections is far superior to that of IBB, never mind the underlying reliability of the connection. So I'm not sure if an ISP can take the view "oh well, we're not peering with them" because it seems Eircom can deliver consistent speeds from much anywhere. You get what you pay for, perhaps.

Of course they can. Eircom have much wider peering agreements than a little company like IBB or Smart.

I would hope Smart and the other new ISP's (like Clearwire, ahem!) get more peering agreements in place soon.

It would seem you don't know what peering is, i'd suggest you have a look at this page which will explain all: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peering_agreement

JNive

the change of routing may not be caused by Smart, yes they dont peer with Level3 in INEX perhaps, however there btnaccess peering is what it goes through, and it is them who are switching between savvis and level3 at LINX. btnaccess dont seem to peer with Level3 in LINX either, so either goes to LINX through savvis, or washington via Level3. It can be rather complex, but it can be due to any number or problems.

btnaccess peering coverage -> http://www.pccwbtn.com/emmea/products/global/mpls/

access points
http://www.pccwbtn.com/emmea/network/pdfs/map_europe_africa.pdf

so smart access btnaccess through the dublin access point, the rest of the routing is decided via btnaccess, dont directly put the blame on smart. This sort of behavious happens all over the place.


so according to http://www.inex.ie/peering.php
eircom peer with them all, next best is heanet, and then BT. Clearwire have very few in comparison, as they are a very new provider

There is obviously plenty of bandwidth available through INEX
http://www.inex.ie/stats/

simp

I have had huge problems trying to get a clear line from eircom, having cancelled my BB on Monday. Everyone there tells me that the line *is* clear of a DSL signal, but Smart tell me that it is still on the line, and they'll have to wait a week before trying to set me up again... Grrr...

But I must say that Smart have been very helpful about the whole thing, with emails and phone calls to inform of progress - while eircom have been extremely unhelpful...

So I hope that I'm not making a mistake transferring to Smart, after all this hassle! But the impression I've gotten from this forum has been that, barring occasional teething problems, Smart are worth switching to.

Does anyone have any other warnings about Smart, while I'm waiting to be transferred..? I assume that I can still go back during my 'cooling-off period'...

kin9pin

lizanne83 wrote:

To be honest, from past experience, you will def have more probs with eircom, BT and UTV BB etc. These service providers are rediculous (and more costly)

Don't work for Smart by any chance do you? That's a pretty bold statement to make.

dub45

simp wrote:

I have had huge problems trying to get a clear line from eircom, having cancelled my BB on Monday. Everyone there tells me that the line *is* clear of a DSL signal, but Smart tell me that it is still on the line, and they'll have to wait a week before trying to set me up again... Grrr...

But I must say that Smart have been very helpful about the whole thing, with emails and phone calls to inform of progress - while eircom have been extremely unhelpful...

So I hope that I'm not making a mistake transferring to Smart, after all this hassle! But the impression I've gotten from this forum has been that, barring occasional teething problems, Smart are worth switching to.

Does anyone have any other warnings about Smart, while I'm waiting to be transferred..? I assume that I can still go back during my 'cooling-off period'...

Simp I had terrible problems trying to get the DSL signal off my line - it had nothing to with Smart - Eircom will do all iin their power to delay you transferring - if you do not receive any satisfaction email phil.nolan@eircom.ie threatening Comreg on them etc etc. Bear in mind though that if you only cancelled on Monday they probably have a right to a month's notice from you - have you gone through that with them?

dub45

lizanne83 wrote:

Hello,
I have been keeping a watchfull eye on these threads!
..............................

To be honest, from past experience, you will def have more probs with eircom, BT and UTV BB etc. These service providers are rediculous (and more costly)
remove that signal, that cause delays for both smart and the customer...............

I just know this from a few people who have the service and very happy with smart ;-)

Have you been with all of these providers? If not can you say what past experience you have then?

I think if you are a Smart employee you should identify yourself as such.

steve-o

dub45 wrote:

I think if you are a Smart employee you should identify yourself as such.

... and perhaps be really nice and offer to get the ping problem investigated?

romperstomper

I dont think this really addresses the huge frustration that i am feeling after 6 weeks and 20 plus emails and phone calls to smart. They have shrugged and said "maybe if more customer want it, but until then sorry".

This is pure rubbish. It is not just level3 server that I cannot get decent pings from and i'll post more here when i get the chance. My packets are consistently routed via the US when going to European servers even though my teammates (some of whom are on the same exchange) are going direct. If Eircom, Esat & Digiweb can do it what excuse can smart really have??

Blaster99

JNive wrote:

eircom peer with them all, next best is heanet, and then BT. Clearwire have very few in comparison, as they are a very new provider

No sign of Digiweb, though?

JNive

eircom have there own international transit connections, hence slightly cheaper to peer at international peering points, and more versatile also.

Again, the routing problems are down to just bad luck with the groups that Smart is peered with, and as said before, hopefully they will be able to secure more agreements for peering, and a priority would be some way to peer directly at LINX, if even possible, or one that would benefit every Irish customer, getting SAVVIS to peer at INEX lol.

crawler

Blaster99 wrote:

No sign of Digiweb, though?

Digiweb peer at INEX and also user tier 1 tranist providers such as Level(3) as a direct connection at Telecity.

http://www.inex.ie/

johncorleone

JNive wrote:

the change of routing may not be caused by Smart, yes they dont peer with Level3 in INEX perhaps,

Level3 aren't at INEX.

JNive wrote:

however there btnaccess peering is what it goes through, and it is them who are switching between savvis and level3 at LINX. btnaccess dont seem to peer with Level3 in LINX either, so either goes to LINX through savvis, or washington via Level3. It can be rather complex, but it can be due to any number or problems.

btnaccess peering coverage -> http://www.pccwbtn.com/emmea/products/global/mpls/

access points
http://www.pccwbtn.com/emmea/network/pdfs/map_europe_africa.pdf

so smart access btnaccess through the dublin access point, the rest of the routing is decided via btnaccess, dont directly put the blame on smart. This sort of behavious happens all over the place.

ISP's make their own decisions on who they peer with, if there is a problem with their transit provider then it is up to the ISP involved to make sure it is resolved. If they can't resolve it then they need to look for a new transit provider.

JNive wrote:

so according to http://www.inex.ie/peering.php
eircom peer with them all, next best is heanet, and then BT. Clearwire have very few in comparison, as they are a very new provider

You're reading that table incorrectly. It currently lists 5 ISPs at INEX who peer with everyone except for 1 INEX member and even then it may still be inaccurate. As the matrix is only based on published RIPE routing policy there may be members who peer with each other but have not updated their published routing policy. This will show up as an X in the grid even though peering has been established.

fatmander

I am using netsource for year and a half now, 3 Mb/256, approx €105 per month(incl vat). no complaints, good service and support(real people on the other end of the phone, not the 'I'm sorry' eircom answering machine.

Smart offer 4Mb/512 for approx €145 per month(incl vat)
and you get a free, yes thats free phone line.
(I will be switching when they come to naas)


We are constantly being ripped off for Broadband, eircom charging €35 for 48 to 1 contention on a 128k upload is the best example.
Not to mention most expensive call rate in the country, and line rental...and the answering machine dude

Add in a 2 GB weekly cap, and you are not really experiencing broadband.

Good pings though??? Damn right they will give you the best bloody connection, you are paying through the nose for it ffs.

In sweden you would probably get a 10 meg SDSL(10 meg up and down) line for the same money, how can you defend the biggest rip off this country offers you.

Smart are coming in at half the price and !!!they dont peer with colt!! omg,so what, colt don't own the world.
As was said before, they are a 'new' company and as they get bigger colt will probably peer with them.
Free phone line people, get it ...free
How can you complain about free


Smart gets my vote.

You guys sure half of you dont work for Eircom?

A little information is a dangerous thing

JNive

points 1, 2 and 3 are exactly what i was saying, you just agreed esentially.
They need to go through other to get to Level3.
Its the behaviour of who they peer with, and not Smart
X means they do not peer directly, although have a consistent routing poilcy, again what i was saying, based on that chart.