Netsource shíte again

Praetorian

I'm truly fed up with this crowd. I cannot now receive anymore than 14k/b per second from a single source. I've tried the fastest Irish sites like Heanet and ftp.esat.net. I have to download about 10 things to get ~40k/b per second. I'm not capped according to Netsource. I haven't even begun to give out about the return of the crap pings.

Has anyone else experienced this kind of shíte? I'm going to give them an ultimatum tomorrow.

Supercell

I'm the same, started during the weekend, assumed its because of the throttling.

Using my old eircom username and nick (just to test), on the same phone line everything was blazing fast..so is definately a problem/throttling at netsources end.

adnans

also... my friend was going to order netsource today and was told that they aren't taking on any new residential SOHO customers. they didn't say untill when or why though?!?

adnans

Supercell

So the question is..are ALL residential customers now being deliberately given substandard service in order to force them off an essentially DELIBERATELY below par service?

Hmm, this seems like a very questionable business practice if thats the case.

Ripwave

Originally posted by Longfield
I'm the same, started during the weekend, assumed its because of the throttling.

Using my old eircom username and nick (just to test), on the same phone line everything was blazing fast..so is definately a problem/throttling at netsources end.

Praetorian said that he can get 40KB/s if he opens multiple threads - therefore he obviously isn't being throttled. He's seeing the entirely predictable effects of 48:1 contention on an uncapped service, which is in comptetition with signifcantly cheaper capped services.

Do the maths. 30 days x 24 hours x 60 minutes x 60 seconds x 512Kbits = ~130GBytes per month. Share that between 48 customers, and you get an average of 2.7G per person. The only way you're going to get more than that is if someone else doesn't use up "their allocation".

How many of Netsources customers are paying €15-€20 more for the uncapped Netsource service, rather than UTVIP, for example, and planning to download less that "their fair share"? (that's simply a descriptive phrase, not a moral judgement, so don't take umbrage, ok?)

UTV, IOL and Eircom don't have this problem at least in part because significant numbers of their customers are downloading a lot less that 3 or 4 gig a month.

Ripwave

Originally posted by Longfield
So the question is..are ALL residential customers now being deliberately given substandard service in order to force them off an essentially DELIBERATELY below par service?

Hmm, this seems like a very questionable business practice if thats the case.

It would be a questionable business practice IF it was the case. But there is absolutely no evidence that it is the case. Everything that has been described here is the perfectly predictable outcome of selling an uncapped service with a 48:1 contention ratio. The very fact that Praetorian can get 40K if he opens multiple downloads demonstrates that he isn't being throttled, he's just contending for bandwidth with other users.

adnans

i was going to start a whole new thread but this one will be alright. since most people gawk at ping results in DOS, i've captured a week in a life of a netsource gamer in handy little graph pictures. from tuesday 30th september to monday 6th october.

the legend:
green means 0 - 100 pings
yellow means 100 - 200 pings
red means anything from 200+

(i've missed saturday which really doesnt matter really )













anyone see a pettern?

adnans

Supercell

Ripwave, yep you make valid points, however i would question your logic a bit here.

You are making certain assumptions here. While it is correct to say what you do...one would surely expect this situation to happen gradually..ie every single user slows the connection down a bit more..on average.

However , this isnt the case, it SUDDENLY happened, ie literally overnight went from steady ~52k downloads, to wildly fluctuating downloads...in terms of speed..and late at night..i can also still get high speeds..IF i use enough threads.

IMHO , it makes logical sense to assume that the type of throttling utilised by netsourse is actually putting MANY ppl on the ONE very heavily contended line..in essence perhaps 100: 1 as a wild example..thus..yes...high speeds are possible..but only in the lowest peak hours..or with a rediculous amount of treads open at the same time.

I do accept your points, however i dont accept that my line (or anyone elses) suddenly in one weekend day..became oversubscribed by heavy downloaders..and this happened in all exchanges..

jimmeh

Ripwave = netsource employee!


I've canceled my service have to wait facking 2 months now thought or pay for 2 months rental, i cant be bothered to argue over the terms and conditions but they arent providing a high speed internet access thats for sure.

po0k

*cough* Esat Nolimits *cough*

History repeating itself.

mewso

Cancelled today. The pings are the main reason but when they disconnected me for non-payment I hit the roof. I made an honest attempt to pay them and when it didnt get sorted because of their mistake I pay the price:-

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=118237

For a while I was half thinking about going up to SME but to give them more money for treating me like pure muck would be madness.

I'm not a huge downloader. I like my gaming and I thought it would be worry free on an uncapped service. There has been so much debate about why Netsource has crap pings but to be honest today I decided who gives a sh|te - move to a better ISP and whatever Netsources problems are becomes meaningless.

I have 60 days to suss out the best alternative now so I'll try and get it right this time.

Ripwave

Originally posted by jimmeh
Ripwave = netsource employee!

That's two down. I'm sure I can be accused of being an eircom employee and a UTV employee by the end of the week if I try hard enough.

machalla

I'm sure you could be accused of far worse
so why worry, eh?

I wonder can netsource actually afford to lose all their SOHO customers? Its a handy source of revenue that didn't cost them a whole lot it seems to me. So why would they be deliberately pushing people off of it?

MrPinK

One of the guys from UTV, Martin I think, made a very good post (can't find it now) in IOFFL about what exactly all the costs involved in running a RADSL service amount to. There is actually very little profit in it. Add to that the added bandwidth that netsource have needed and their small market segment, I can't see them making a lot of money with it.

bk

The trouble with the theory that ns is trying to get rid of customers is that it would cost them a fortune.

Eircom wholesale charge ne, e75 to disconnect a RADSL customer (make sure you get this done if you want to sign up with another company).

Plus according to Martin from UTV in hispost about the cost of RADSL for them, he said that much of their costs (such as installation) are calculated based on customers staying with the seervice for 2 years. So if people jump before then, that is a lot of lost money.

BTW by my calculations, themargins on the business ADSL products aren't much better for ns.

MarcusGarvey

Netsource may be barely breaking even or might be operating at a slight loss, however if they have a good strong customer base that they are alienating they are going to damage themselves in the long run.

Maybe they're still learning but they should look at the lessons learned from those dipshíts in Esat SNL who angered lots of people.

Right now the market for DSL is just starting and those that are there first and who are looking after their customers even if they are not making much from them are those that will probably be able to stick it out for the long term and benefit from increased margins as wholesale costs (should) come down. Saying that isn't that what No Limits thought ?

UTV are doing well right now and enlarging their customer base and keeping attrition low. They are in this for the long term and are playing it with that in mind.

When you have ordinary posters quote Martin from UTV who does not come across as a marketer or sales man but "our mate Martin from UTV" you get something quite unusual - praise from a customer. As is well known praise is really really hard to get, generally customers only complain.

So we have netsource who promised the world and throttled people and there are dozens of threads on people moaning about them and saying they are going to leave the service.

The counter to this is UTV who were transparent and said "guys this is the reality and this is what we make from you and so this is what we can offer, its not uncapped but it keeps us both happy"

UTV is new enough to the ISP business but they seem to have brought a fresh and positive attitude to the industry and will no doubt be rewarded for it.

Netsource should take notes. Maybe they should start interacting here too like UTV.

ando

Originally posted by bk
Eircom wholesale charge ne, e75 to disconnect a RADSL customer (make sure you get this done if you want to sign up with another company).

I cancelled my account on the 25th sep, I havent payed that e75 yet but my NS line is now dead. Is it me or ns that have to pay the 75?

Tazzle

keyword 'wholesale', netsource would have to pay this.

valen

I was talking to some people in Netsource, and they are aware of the poor capacity, especially after business hours, due to contention on the backhaul, as Eircom won't upgrade the 2mbit line.

And it's going to get a whole lot worse; Eircom have lauched their big marketing push. It looks like it'll be dropping to well below dialup speeds until Eircom upgrade the backhaul, and they have no plans to do this.

As to why they are out of the residential market ? Too many people not willing to buy a proper product, then bitching about it; so they didn't want to sully their brand name. Granted, they didn't know just how bad it was going to be contended, so weren't selling RADSL as the 10kbit/sec service it is, so they do have to take some of the blame.

You think it's bad now ? It's about to get a lot worse.

John

machalla

What exactly would qualify as a proper product though? And at what price?

They already charge approx €20 more than anyone else. How can the other BB providers be making any sort of return if thats the case?

Its a bit late for sullying brandnames at this point though. A little bit more honesty with people would have helped.

Eircom can't be blamed for eveything in this case. Its quite a shame as they had a potentially very worthy product.

Lets hope lessons will be learned.

MarcusGarvey

Originally posted by valen
I was talking to some people in Netsource, and they are aware of the poor capacity, especially after business hours, due to contention on the backhaul, as Eircom won't upgrade the 2mbit line .... It looks like it'll be dropping to well below dialup speeds until Eircom upgrade the backhaul

I don't quite understand how this is an Eircom issue ? Surely if its the backhaul then Eircom, IOL BB and UTV Clicksilver would be having the exact same issues ?

Praetorian

The real kick in the face is that I'm probably going to be without any sort of net connection for a number of weeks. In reality I know I just need an Eircom or Esat name and password, but they aren't going to make it that easy are they

PrecariousNuts

Ripwave, they are throttling me, there is no question about that. I'm downloading anytime of any day at no more than 5kb/s. Now I can download fine at 56kb/s with a few minor changes to some settings which should not be possible if it was contention only.

MarcusGarvey

Oh and this just in from a netsource employee:

We are aware that our SOHO service is suffering from packet loss and
slow downloads at peak times and while there should be a slight improvement this week, we do not forsee any significant improvements over the course of the next two weeks.

We are always working on trying to improve the service.

Transparency please Netsource !

mr_angry

I was getting 51kbps continuously from www.myrealbox.com yesterday afternoon at 5.

Maybe its only Dublin exchanges at peak times? I'm in Dundalk.

machalla

I don't know all the details but if I understand it at all it seems Netsource (unlike the other BB providers) is connected to Eircom through a pretty small link (to be really simple about it). This link is probably more to do with Netsource RADSL problems than anything else it seems.

I think the other BB providers have a much larger backed connection to Eircom and therefore do not suffer the above problem.

Perhaps Valen/John could explain it to us in the proper detail as he is the nearest networking expert I know of.

dahamsta

Originally posted by valen
I was talking to some people in Netsource, and they are aware of the poor capacity, especially after business hours, due to contention on the backhaul, as Eircom won't upgrade the 2mbit line.

Not to put too fine a point on it: Bollocks.

adam

bk

Originally posted by valen
I was talking to some people in Netsource, and they are aware of the poor capacity, especially after business hours, due to contention on the backhaul, as Eircom won't upgrade the 2mbit line.

Where have you gotten this from?

NS must have at least a 45M pipe as they resell Eircom ADSL and if they are using the Eircom BitStream Connection product (which I assume they are using), then 45M is the smallest pipe they can purchase.

RADSL customers are then provisioned on 2M Virtual paths (VP) on this existing 45M pipe. So it should be very easy for NS/Eircom to Increase the pipe size for RADSL customers.

And it's going to get a whole lot worse; Eircom have lauched their big marketing push. It looks like it'll be dropping to well below dialup speeds until Eircom upgrade the backhaul, and they have no plans to do this.

What? Why would Eircom launching a marketing campaign have anything to do with NS.

Eircom's customers dont have any impact on any other companies customers except for using up ports on the DSLAM in the exchange.

MarcusGarvey

I am in no way defending Eircom here but its the usual excuse for other companies that are performing badly:

Blame the monopoly that usually gets blamed.

Esat have been doing it long enough. People will just accept the Eircom excuse.

"Oh well yeah Eircom, those bastards are always up to no good, so it must be their fault that that my isp are incompetent. "

Just because Eircom are bastards doesn't mean all the others are going to be angels.

The trouble is Netsource (and I know you are reading this) .. you have to try and get this F.U.D. past the bullshít detector of the boards massive and so you are pretty much NOT going to succeed.

Ripwave

Originally posted by PrecariousNuts
Ripwave, they are throttling me, there is no question about that. I'm downloading anytime of any day at no more than 5kb/s. Now I can download fine at 56kb/s with a few minor changes to some settings which should not be possible if it was contention only.

And if you were being "throttled", how would your tweaks manage to bypass the throttle?

The Brigadier

I can think of how to do it along with I am sure other people on here...

However If it is made public....Ripwave sorry I mean Netsource may not be too happy...

Ripwave

Originally posted by James Melody
I can think of how to do it along with I am sure other people on here...

However If it is made public....Ripwave sorry I mean Netsource may not be too happy...

And of course, your only interest is to make Netsource happy.

If you can get 50KB/s with or without "tweaks", then you're not being "throttled".

bk

Originally posted by James Melody
I can think of how to do it along with I am sure other people on here...

However If it is made public....Ripwave sorry I mean Netsource may not be too happy...

That is BS mate, if you can get 50k by any means at all, this means that you are not being throttled.

Creating multiple download threads or using a program like DAP won't help if you are really being throttled.

jimmeh

Netsource hire the port at the exchange from eircom. Once this is freed up there is no problem to change over, this is my understanding from talking to 1800 503 303.

Bubonic

So if you are leaving Netsource, where are you going.

I was thinking of UTV, but what are the pings and speeds like?

Any problems to report?

The Brigadier

Originally posted by bk
That is BS mate, if you can get 50k by any means at all, this means that you are not being throttled.

Creating multiple download threads or using a program like DAP won't help if you are really being throttled.

I disagree, a friend of mine is currently under throttle at Netsource, and has been told this by their Customer Care department. He is still downloading at full tilt.

You have to look at how Netsource throttle customers....

The Brigadier

Oh, and that is without opening multiple download threads, or any other method described here....

chill

Although I confirm that the pings are not great I am having no download problems here in south dublin. While I'm reading and contributing to this thread I have MusicMatch playing terrific CD quality music and it's downloading at between 450 and 510.

I may not stay with them much past Xmas because I am sure that prices will start dropping around then. So if NS don't reduce theirs I'm off because I'm not going to pay 20 euros extra indefinitely.

thomasb

Originally posted by dahamsta
Not to put too fine a point on it: Bollocks.

adam

Nope - Valen is in fact entirely correct.

If you read the Eircom product descripton - the RADSL traffic is delivered to the non Eircom ISP over a 45 MB bear which is made up of 2MB VPs. Eircom provide 1 VP per 192 customers (in fact the size of the VP is dependent on the customer numbers). Netsource have been told that the VP size can't be increased until they have the additional customers signed up.

Ste-

Originally posted by thomasb
Netsource have been told that the VP size can't be increased until they have the additional customers signed up.

So why have they (Netsource) stopped taking on customers ?

PrecariousNuts

Because they want to increase the VP size before they do... heh

Ripwave

Originally posted by thomasb
If you read the Eircom product descripton - the RADSL traffic is delivered to the non Eircom ISP over a 45 MB bear which is made up of 2MB VPs. Eircom provide 1 VP per 192 customers (in fact the size of the VP is dependent on the customer numbers). Netsource have been told that the VP size can't be increased until they have the additional customers signed up.

Is the phrase "non-Eircom ISP" yours or theirs, Thomas? Cos if Eircom.net don't have to pay the full economic cost that other ISPs have to bear, that sounds like a cross-subsidy issue to me.

Is "Eircom telecoms" allowed to subsidise "eircom.net", or does nobody on the regulatory side (telecoms or competition regulators) give a toss?

bk

Originally posted by thomasb
Netsource have been told that the VP size can't be increased until they have the additional customers signed up.

Hmm, I've read the Eircom Bitstream docs and I it said that you are supposed to order a new VP before you reach the 192 users per VP limit.

How many customers do Eircom require to be on a VP before you can order a new one?

Ripwave

Originally posted by bk
Hmm, I've read the Eircom Bitstream docs and I it said that you are supposed to order a new VP before you reach the 192 users per VP limit.

How many customers do Eircom require to be on a VP before you can order a new one?

Of course you have to order it before you reach the 192 users limit. But will eircom deliver it before you reach the limit?

"Will we get a receipt for this?"