Broadband the same speed after upgrade to Imagine

TheGreatOne

We upgraded from UTV's old half meg service to imagine's 2Mb broadband during the week and I've noticed that when running a speed test on speedtest.net, our speed hasn't increased at all.

Here's a quick before and after




As you guys can see the speeds are virtually identical.

I've searched everywhere for an explanation to this and I've also been on to imagine themselves who could not explain to me why this was the case as they confirmed we were set up for their 2Mb service. The customer service guy said he'd log a fault and hopefully get something done about it.

I know I've got my router set up correctly, which is a D-Link G/604t, and the wiring in the house is fairly new, about two or three years old, so there's no reason why I should be getting results as bad as this.

Does anyone have any idea's or insight or has this happened to any other imagine customers when switching over to them.

Any feedback is greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Gary

smellslikeshoes

Whats your line stats like? Could be that is all its capable of.

jor el

Are you sure you were on a 512k service? eircom removed this speed (and all the re-sellers lost it too) about 3 years ago. Also, the upload speed with that was 128k, as far as I remember, but your UTV speed test shows 211k (implying 256k upload) which would be the upload for 2M download.

If you were in fact on UTV 2M, and now on Imagine 2M, then it looks like your line is excessively crap, and you just won't get any more than what you have.

edit: Also log into the router and check the line sync rate. Is it saying 2M/256k?

TheGreatOne

I see your point regarding the 256k upload speed, but when I log into the router the DSL speed reads as 256 Kbps Upstream, 512 Kbps Downstream, which doesn't match up with what the service should be.

I was wondering if the problem lay with the router and if this speed was all it was capable of, but the manual says it should be capable of up to 8Mbit download speeds, and I have the latest firmware installed.

Regarding a line test, the router shows the following in the DSL Status page:

DSL Status
Connection Status Connected
Upstream Rate (Kbps) 256
Downstream Rate (Kbps) 512
US Margin 19
DS Margin 13
Modulation GDMT
LOS Errors 0
DS Line Attenuation 48
US Line Attenuation 56
Path Mode Fast Path

DSL Statistics
Near End F4 Loop Back Count 0
Near End F5 Loop Back Count 0

Here are some results form Irish ISP Test:

Speed test statistics

---

Download speed: 437864 bps
Upload speed: 218592 bps
Quality of service: 99 %
Download test type: socket
Upload test type: socket
Maximum download pause: 37 ms
Average download pause: 24 ms
Minimum round trip time to server: 32 ms
Average round trip time to server: 36 ms

VoIP test statistics

---

Jitter: you --> server: 1.3 ms
Jitter: server --> you: off
Packet loss: you --> server: 1.2 %
Packet loss: server --> you: off
Packet discards: 0.0 %
Packets out of order: 0.0 %
Number of supported VoIP lines: 3
Estimated MOS score: 3.8

To be honest I'm not too sure what some of the above information means, if any of you guys can tell me if this indicates a crappy line then I guess I'm screwed as far as getting speeds anywhere near 2 megs.

Thanks again.

jor el

TheGreatOne wrote: »

I see your point regarding the 256k upload speed, but when I log into the router the DSL speed reads as 256 Kbps Upstream, 512 Kbps Downstream, which doesn't match up with what the service should be.

Connection Status Connected
Upstream Rate (Kbps) 256
Downstream Rate (Kbps) 512
US Margin 19
DS Margin 13
DS Line Attenuation 48
US Line Attenuation 56

I'm no expert on this, but I think these are the important ones. The sync speed is 512k down, so that there is a definite problem. Only the ISP can set this, so obviously (regardless of what they're telling you), it's set wrong.

I think the noise margin and attenuation should be fine. Mine are US Margin 12dB, down 18dB. Attenuation US 12dB and 21dB down. Your's are all better, and I'm at 7Mbps.

Get on to Imagine again, they have to be able to do something about this. Did you contact tech or customer support? Tech should be better as they ought to have more of an idea of what should be there. Customer support will only be reading from a screen.

TheGreatOne

Yeah, I think I'll get back onto them and tell the guys in tech support that my sync rate is clearly incorrectly set up, i just hope this isn't something that will take days to correct.

Thanks for your help and advice.

watty

DS S/N margin is poor (US is OK, hence good Upload speed).

Attenutation is highish.

The Download and Upload use separate frequency bands. It may be your line is poor.

Margin figures: Bigger = better
Attenuation figures: Bigger = worse

TheGreatOne

But shouldn't the sync rate indicated in the router diagnostics say 2048kb/s?

I can see that the line doesn't seem to be that great, did a bit of googling on it, but these speeds are pathetic.

watty

It will sync at:
a) Attempt at speed you sold and no higher
b) lower if line not good enough
c) lower if they made a mistake.

I think b is likely. Ring them.

TheGreatOne

watty wrote: »

It will sync at:
a) Attempt at speed you sold and no higher
b) lower if line not good enough
c) lower if they made a mistake.

I think b is likely. Ring them.

Ah, that would explain it, didn't know it would sync at a lower speed with a possible bad line. Thanks for your help.

Bohrio

TheGreatOne wrote: »

Ah, that would explain it, didn't know it would sync at a lower speed with a possible bad line. Thanks for your help.

They havent sold you the wrong package, mostly because there is no such profile (512/256kbps), mid band services comprehend a range of 512-256 and 160 download and 128 upload)

I will say that there is a 60% of chance its internal.

Before calling make sure you check the following:

- You have done the test from the main socket
- You have disconnected all equipment from the phone socket(s) no extensions
- You have filtered the alarm (if you have one)
- You have filtered Sky (if you have it)
- You have reset the router
- You have tested it with another router

If all this has been done ask them to check your line.

If a problem exists then it will most likely be with your telephone line. By booking a fault they will first check the NMS settings at the DSLAM and second run a PSTN line test.

Then, based on those tests they will determine if a problem exists, if not, then it will be internal, if it does, they will attempt to fix it.

That's if you are not on an amber line.

When a router syncs at the wrong speeds the Noise Margin and attenuation cant be trusted. Those 12 dB you are seeing are not real. You will see that once your line goes back to normal those stats will change.

99% of the time, when this happens the reason is because you forgot to filter either a phone, alarm or sky. Triple check this. Remember to filter everything!!!

TheGreatOne

This is slightly embarassing, tried another router and guess what?


I definitley rest the other router correctly, maybe its knackered.

watty

Certain line conditions upset a particular chipset (AR7) used by a range of routers. It's not impossible that the "bad" router is fine on someone else's line.

Google
Adsl AR7 chipset problem

Syncing at wrong speed or repeated drop out due to resync is a symptom. BUT only on certain line/ exchange DSLAM combinations!

TheGreatOne

Managed to isolate the problem in the end and it turned out to by Sky all along, Imagine were correct in saying my line was fine and I was on the correct bandwidth so fair play.

Thanks for all your help everyone.

watty

Faxes, Digiboxes, analogue modems, alarm systems all need DSL phone filters.