Via. The verdict.

ando

Originally posted by STaN
where did you get the stats from?

its on the router web interface:



netsource are saying that even though I got a link, I cant make the connection work without the microfilter, so I gota wait till I get the thing in the post

Dustaz

Er, maybe i missed it but i assume you have installed the latest drivers for your modem/router?

Have you tried a different form of PPoE? Are you using WinXP's version or something else like RASPPOE?

Did VIA tech support confirm they have different setups for the modem dependant on radsl or adsl?

Sloth

I'll post a full update on my problems from install date until now tomorrow going through exactly what you can expect if you get similar problems.

Sloth

Friday the 2nd
I had the service installed on Friday the 2nd by Via's engineer. It was quite clear then that the service did not work from his graph that showed it connecting at an awful 60kps and downloading at about 10k per sec. Sites stopped loading half way through (still a massive problem) while the connection seeminly sat there doing nothing. Disconnections were constant, usually every 4 or 5 minutes. The engineer claimed it was a temporary fault before leaving. I had to wait until Tuesday before I could contact Via again.

Tuesday.
I rang tech support up and told them of my problems. I was told that the line seemed perfect (something I've been told ever since even though it blatantly isn't) and that the engineer would be dispatched again tomorrow to try and fix the problem

Wednesday.
The engineer arrived and had a look at the line from the access point downstairs. He saw the fault again and cleaned up the lines to remove oxyginisation which helped by getting the connection into roughly the 128 range of speed. Disconnections remained pretty much the same and totally random. Downloads were now at about 15k usually although around 25k could be reached on Via's website. The connection was still totally unsatisfactory but the engineer claimed there was nothing more he could do.

Friday.
I rang tech support up again and was told that there seemed to be nothing more that could be done and I should pretty much take what I got. I was now desperatly seeking help so I posted this thread on the IOFFL forum asking for help. This thread gave me a lot of information that I suggested to tech support including noise tests, verfication of the provided service configuration and line replacement. They said that they would follow these through.

Tuesday (today)
I had a full line test done today with all other items removed from the line such as the 2 phones we have on the same line and the results were exactly the same with no noticeable increase in speed. I rang again later in the evening to follow up the suggestion that I should get an eircom engineer out to fix the problem for a rather high fee of €100 and no guarantee that anything would change but I plan to follow it through and see if it helps. I was told I'd be rung back to arrange a date but I wasn't so I can only presume the engineer will come tomorrow or Friday.

Summary of connection problems:
Disconnections. Terrible download speeds (normally between 7-15k anywhere but www.netsource.ie where it's still only a paltry 25-30k). Terrible pings in the 70-150 region. Dead connection time where nothing happens. Websites load up incredibly slowly. High levels of packet loss and lag in online games.

SkepticOne

On the face of it, it looks like your line isn't up to the job for the ADSL service. The line test should have spotted this. You should not be getting significant packet loss on ADSL. I've go a feeling that Netsource are reading from the line test database which might be out of date for your line.

If you opt for a new line from Eircom, make sure you are not put on a splitter - you could end up with two 'lines' sharing the one copper pair, neither of which is capable of DSL at all and will not connect at greater than 28k on dial up.

Your current line might be OK on RADSL. This is an option either with Netsource or another company. If you switch to another company, make sure you get all your money back from Netsource.

Sloth

They definitly did a proper line test today as they did one with the phones plugged in and then plugged out to see if it made a difference, which it didn't.
If I switch down to radsl surely then I'd only reach 256k speeds and then via could just laugh in my face because they only guarantee 256k?
I doubt the engineer would put a splitter on the line since it's via who contacted him so he knows it's in relation to bb but with the way things are atm I'll make sure to mention it. Basically the main point of the line replacement is to get rid of the old wiring that could possibly be the cause of the problem with new fresh ones and route it through here so it's as close to the pc as possible.
If things haven't changed after I get the new wiring installed I'll ask them to switch me down to radsl for testing purposes.

flav0rflav

If they did a line test and it said everything was ok, then it's not the line, now is it?

Have you got a similar window as ando with the signal properties?

Sloth

Well I was told that the line was fine before the via engineer replaced a few wires and the splitter. This marginally increased performance so I can only presume replacing all the wiring should fix the problem.
What exactly do you mean by signal properties? If anyone could show me a pic of all the settings for their LAN and BB connections in network connections I could check if there was some sort of configuration problem at this pc although I doubt there is since the engineer's pc and the xbox both have the same problem.

Sloth

This is something I've found a bit odd today. When I stream audio off windows media player from phantom fm the sound never seems to drop or need to stop for rebuffering (within a ten minute testing timeframe i did today) yet when I go to a website it stops loading about half way through every single time and then sits idle (i tried this while streaming phantom and while phantom wasn't interuppted the website stopped half-way). It's also odd that the only place I can reach speeds in the 25k region is on kazaa yet any web-based site such as ign.com gives speeds of about 5-15k a sec.
Why is it that http based stuff loads really slowly but stuff like kazaa and streaming radio seems to be at a much better speed for the most part?

Mr. Fancypants

Could you try and download something from www.microsoft.com say..... http://download.microsoft.com/download/5/4/f/54f8bcf8-bb4d-4613-8ee7-db69d01735ed/xpsp1a_en_x86.exe

you dont have to download the whole thing, just see what sort of average download rate you get. On the RADSL service i am getting 55.8KB a second fairly steadily.

Sloth

About 10-15k. Theres still a massive amount of time where the connection just sits there doing nothing, atm it seems to happen every 20 seconds and seems to last for about 5-6 seconds.

MagicBusDriver

Have you tried a different modem? I have a alcatel ethernet modem sitting in the corner of my room I could lend you.

Sloth

At this stage yeah I'd try anything. Thanks for the help Driver PM me with the contact details if you can. I might wait until line replacement before I test it though as theres no tech support on anything but the official modem.

MrB

Check out the attached pings and tracerts :eek: ,
please tell me this is just a glitch in the system, things where fine (not good, just fine) yesterday!

carbsy

Originally posted by MrB
Check out the attached pings and tracerts :eek: ,
please tell me this is just a glitch in the system, things where fine (not good, just fine) yesterday!

Looks like the 1st hop is HUGE which could mean a router/hardware problem on your end and not the fault of netsource but I could be wrong.

carb.

Mr. Fancypants

Seems to be some problems with their network this evening. Hope its a once off...

Sample ping to netsource from me :

Pinging www.netsource.ie [212.17.32.48] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 212.17.32.48: bytes=32 time=156ms TTL=125
Reply from 212.17.32.48: bytes=32 time=33ms TTL=125
Reply from 212.17.32.48: bytes=32 time=52ms TTL=125
Reply from 212.17.32.48: bytes=32 time=173ms TTL=125
Reply from 212.17.32.48: bytes=32 time=22ms TTL=125
Reply from 212.17.32.48: bytes=32 time=26ms TTL=125
Reply from 212.17.32.48: bytes=32 time=133ms TTL=125
Reply from 212.17.32.48: bytes=32 time=19ms TTL=125
Reply from 212.17.32.48: bytes=32 time=74ms TTL=125
Reply from 212.17.32.48: bytes=32 time=108ms TTL=125
Reply from 212.17.32.48: bytes=32 time=24ms TTL=125
Reply from 212.17.32.48: bytes=32 time=110ms TTL=125
Reply from 212.17.32.48: bytes=32 time=34ms TTL=125
Reply from 212.17.32.48: bytes=32 time=23ms TTL=125
Reply from 212.17.32.48: bytes=32 time=105ms TTL=125
Reply from 212.17.32.48: bytes=32 time=38ms TTL=125
Reply from 212.17.32.48: bytes=32 time=35ms TTL=125
Reply from 212.17.32.48: bytes=32 time=238ms TTL=125

Ping statistics for 212.17.32.48:
Packets: Sent = 18, Received = 18, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 19ms, Maximum = 238ms, Average = 77ms


Seems a little over the place. Hope its a glitch and not a sign of things to come.

Sloth

What were your download speeds like with the current network conditions?

Mr. Fancypants

My downloads are fine at the mo' running at about 54-55KB a sec.
Just a bit of extra latency i noticed. Nowhere near as bad as MrB tho'

ando

hmm, could the first 'bandwidth hogs' be getting onto the system ?

fatguy

Kazaa and streaming media use compression on their data streams, whereas http doesn't. For example I can download easily-compressable stuff at 17k/s with my 56k modem.

Usually half-life demo files, btw.

I sent off my order form two weeks ago today, and still haven't heard a peep from them. I'm gonna get a balance statement tomorrow and see if they've charged me for any of this stuff. I just emailed them to see if they got the thing (gg An Post), and if so what the delay is.

Sloth

Major Update:
Apparantly theres a fault on the Blanchardstown exchange, according to the person from Via who rang me earlier a lot of people in the area have been having similar problems. I'm not sure if it's been fixed yet totally but downloads seem slighlty more stable but I won't know for sure unless I do more testing.
i'm to ring them back in 20 minutes with the results of numerous tests. If the other users have been fixed by tweaks at the exchange then it's still a line problem but if not it's a problem at the exchange end of things.

Sloth

Packet loss is down a huge amount and pages seem to be loading a lot faster. Pings seem to be within specs for an interleaved connection (about 60-90ms for boards, jolt and netsource sites) but download speeds are still only about 15k a sec. I've been told the problem has been logged with Eircom and they're doing additional tests in the morning to try and find the fault. Here's hoping.

CutterIE

Well I got my Netsource self install kit today, still not had my line enabled yet, along with the splitter\filters were my account detail and a planned installation date of May 20th, does anyone know if Netsource stick to their planned dates, or am I dreaming if I think that I'm gonna get ADSL this side of June.

Cheers
Will

ando

Originally posted by CutterIE
Well I got my Netsource self install kit today, still not had my line enabled yet,

my line has been activated since Monday but still no sign of the kit :mad: grrrrr

hopefully tommorow, if not, I'm going to their offices and collecting it there

MadsL

/me Does happy dance...

Connected on NetSource today!!!

I was hooked up yesterday but managed to blow up my E-tech modem/router! Very odd, but after much arguing at Maplins got my mullah back and legged it up to Marx..155 squids

Rang NS as I keep failing the ATM loopback test, all very odd.. tried rebooting modem in Auto detect Authorisation. Kerbamm...online at 512...

Very friendly support - thanks Joan..

I'm as Happy as Happy the Happy-Happy Chap!!

aodh_rua

Madsl - when did you order? I've been waiting since April 25 and still no sign of anything. I've tried contacting Netsource but they seem pretty bad at getting back.

Obo

I ordered on the 30th. The line was set up this Wednesday (9 working days since ordered), jumped for joy when the wan light on my Netgear DG824M finally blinked on, and I got the self install pack yesterday.
Everything up and running fine, with download speeds of about 46-50 KB/sec (368 - 400 Kbps) yesterday evening from US servers.

I didn't get a chance to properly look at pings yet (spent the evening patching programs and updating drivers), but they were average 40(ish)ms to jolt, with the odd 150-200ms popping in.

After seven years of watching the clock and trying not to tie up phone lines, it feels.... strange.

Bye-bye stone age!

CutterIE

Obo, What was the planned installation date on your SoHo welcome pack,

Cheers
Will

Obo

It says the 15th (the page was printed on the 14th).
I noticed the line was enabled at about 7pm on the 14th.

STaN

Originally posted by Obo
I didn't get a chance to properly look at pings yet (spent the evening patching programs and updating drivers), but they were average 40(ish)ms to jolt, with the odd 150-200ms popping in.

Ive noticed this too. It's not something i would have expected with the service only up and running a month. Have netsource had anything to say on the subject?