Free purpose-built broadband measurement device

wicklow_hills · 08-05-2014 5:45pm #1

guys

everyone has not signed up with samknows.ie

there's still 2000 whiteboxes sitting in a warehouse in the UK, instead of here measuring broadband performance in Irish homes and businesses

it's free...it gives you actual data on your broadband speed and quality of service
what are you waiting for ? sign up now

we need this data if we're to improve connectivity, particularly in rural areas

signup now

yomamasflavour · 08-05-2014 6:30pm

It depends on the internet connection that you have, but they only give out 10/100 tp links so it kind of sucks if you have a home network.

watty · 08-05-2014 6:59pm

yomamasflavour wrote: »

It depends on the internet connection that you have, but they only give out 10/100 tp links so it kind of sucks if you have a home network.

You need to explain this better.

It's not for testing Fibre or High Speed Hybrid Fibre Cable. It's also not for 3G or 4G/LTE as neither of those are Always on or actually Broadband.

A 1Gbps switch costs very little and is rarely in an ordinary Router. My home system

Modem --100Mbps port -- Router (a / b / g /turbo g(108 Mbps) dual band WiFi) -- 100Mbps port -- [ 1G bps multiport switch for all wired devices ]

My Broadband is 8Mbps max, 7Mbps worst minimum (1Mbps up, 0.8M worst), better than about 60% of homes. My LAN or Internet speed would be unaffected by Samknows box.

However "self selected" testing is of little statistical value.

wicklow_hills · 08-05-2014 7:02pm

not getting you there, i'd guess most of the boxes will be going into people with home networks
should have no impact on your local performance, unless i'm missing something

wicklow_hills · 08-05-2014 7:05pm

understood Watty

but the alt stats will potentially be of even less statistical value

having 2000 samknows boxes in rural Ireland will keep everyone honest ;-)

ItHurtsWhenIP · 08-05-2014 7:11pm

I have Fixed Wireless Access - I guess I'm outta luck?

wicklow_hills · 08-05-2014 7:45pm

not sure fixed wireless access would rule ya out
apply as normal
if for any reason it does, then maybe you know others in the area that are on eircom etc

for me the key is that we have a national picture, so when the govt (in Sept.) provide mapping based on ISP data, there's a benchmark from samknows

i'm not a techie, and i'm sure it's not going to give a perfect picture, but i'm certainly keen to know the size of the hole - and for myself, see what I'm getting vs what I'm paying for

yomamasflavour · 08-05-2014 7:46pm

Sorry, maybe I should have explained better. When I signed up to it a year or so ago, they were only interested in fixed line connections dsl/upc etc.

They send you a tp link router with a special firmware installed on it.
If you were on a up to 24Mb dsl package they gave out a wr741nd which only has 10/100 ports.
If you were on a faster package they gave you a wr1043nd which has gigabit ports but is only capable of 100Mb lan speeds.

The device is intended to be connected between your modem and your router. Which is fine if that is the setup that you have but if you have a modem/router combo then it doesn't work quite so well.

*Edit: apologies was having a brain fart. yes it's between lan and router, not modem and router.

As Watty said most basic routers wouldn't have an issue anyway or you could just buy a cheap switch.

However if you have a high speed connection it limits your internet speed, also I'd imagine anyone signing up to this scheme already has a interest/understanding of networking and are likely using third party modem/routers etc. Not the basic ones.

I must clarify though that I'm not against the scheme in anyway. I'm all for it. I'd just rather they'd given devices without bottlenecks.

watty · 08-05-2014 8:38pm

No, it supposed to be between your router and rest of LAN. According to Website.

If you are better than 50bps Broadband why would you sign up, never mind why if you had 100Mbps WAN or better?

Only FIXED line (Certain Wireless, DSL or Cable) is Broadband. There is no nomadic (i.e. Imagine) or mobile service that is Broadband, thus there is no point in measuring it as part of Broadband statistics. Satellite isn't Broadband either.

Their device isn't a bottleneck on anything that's useful to measure. Anything that isn't real broadband is outside the remit and true ultra fast Broadband (More than 50Mbps really, certainly 100Mbps or more) is outside the remit too.

Do note that if you are on say a 22Mbps Domestic DSL package you are NOT paying for 22Mbps. You are paying for connection to a contented (shared) service with no guaranteed performance at all unless Comreg changes the rules. Often a "Cap" exists to ensure that some people can't use more than a fair share, resulting in higher average speed than if there was no cap.

wicklow_hills · 08-05-2014 9:08pm

that makes sense

drop down on the samknows.ie signup gives you idea, it's regular fixed ISPs
i.e. digiweb, eircom, magnet, sky, upc, utv, vodaphone

my understanding is, if you have high or very high speed connection, you can still sign up
in fact, I'm planning to do just that on a connection in Dublin
project is to create a map, and only one element of that mapping is to draw out information on the rural/urban divide

e.g. connection can be fast but unreliable

yomamasflavour · 08-05-2014 10:10pm

Anyone with a fixed line is eligible to sign up, and as far as I remember from the previous boards threads on SamKnows, the main incentive for people to sign up was the fact that they got to keep the routers after two years.

Also why wouldn't you sign up?
Just because you have a 50/100/200Mb package does not mean you have a good internet connection, and as a participant you get a lot of info on how your line is actually performing.

bk · 12-05-2014 9:33am

This would seem to slow your connection if you had a UPC 120 or 200mb/s service, limiting you to 100mb/s. That seems very silly.

ItHurtsWhenIP · 12-05-2014 5:43pm

wicklow_hills wrote: »

not sure fixed wireless access would rule ya out
apply as normal
if for any reason it does, then maybe you know others in the area that are on eircom etc

I got in touch with them and got the following reply:

I'm afraid at this time we are only looking towards measuring fixed line broadband services in Ireland, we are not including mobile or wireless providers in this study.

As our exchange is not DSL enabled, there is nobody else in my locality that could benefit from the device, so I'll leave it for somebody more deserving.

watty · 14-05-2014 1:18pm

They do supply it for "Real" fixed Wireless Broadband. Just not nomadic or mobile. Which isn't ever Broadband.

watty · 19-05-2014 2:13pm

Update.

One arrived today. The Switch is Gbit. It simply plugs into existing router and whatever was plugged into that plugs into the 4 port switch.

Seems to have no effect on WAN or LAN performance (8/1 Mbit Digiweb Metro WAN and 1Gb LAN).

Be interesting in a few days to see what it says. The speedtest.net tests are very variable depending on server used to test with.

wicklow_hills · 19-05-2014 2:24pm

have been measuring using a samknows box for one week

get 5mb on 8mb line
after 5pm this falls to 1mb, and remains between 1mb and 2b until 10pm
looks like some sort of exchange capacity issue on Eircom exchange in Ashford

god's toy · 24-05-2014 11:50am

Using it for a week myself and the tests are showing my line is a lot more stable then I thought it was.

getting 6mb out of 24mb... but at least its stable

Wonder where the servers they use to test line stats are located. ?

watty · 25-05-2014 10:46am

7 to 7.7 on 8Mbps Down
0.89 to 1.01 on 1Mbps Up
Under 20ms Latency
Zero RTP packet loss and downstream jitter under 1ms, upstream jitter about 5 to 6ms (to be expected as DS is DVB-C MPEG-2TS encapsulated and upstream is TDMA.)

DSL wasn't available here when I got this in Nov/Dec 2005. It is now, but more expensive (Line Rental / DSL is too expensive in Ireland) and would be about 1/3rd speed on upload. I upload a lot too.

Digiweb Metro Wireless

Only been really good & representative last 4 days as we had a damaged cable.

Free purpose-built broadband measurement device

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