Eircom and interleaving?

Dcully

Since the upgrade from 3mb to 7mb my pings have doubled.
A friend across the road has better pings than ever.
Upon looking at his settings i notice he had interleaving off but mine is turned on.
I really dont want to be talking to someone at the call center that hasnt got a clue what im talking about.
How can i go about getting interleaving off as im guessing this is affecting my pings?

Hank Scorpio

Hi

Anyone on the 7.6 mb package upgrade got put on high interleaving hence your terrible pings! I doubt your friend is on the 7.6 package but the 3 MB one?

Neways iv rang them numerous times about it but they never got around to turning it off for me! I sent a email too to the press office asking them about interleaving and got a reply saying once all the upgrades are done there gona working on a plan to reduce overall latency, if you want my opinion the 7.6 connection will stay on that level of interleaving as it stabilises the connection, the only downfall is the increase in pingtimes!

Just to clarify , your friend isnt on the 7.6 meg package is he?

Baneblade

you cant have interleaving off, just high or low.

anyone who has been upgraded > 3mb is on high
3mb or lower are lower.

mine jumped to 100ish but have not had any noticable problems yet

i cant see them ever giving a different option for people on the 7.6 since it is close to the max allowable

Hank Scorpio

Baneblade wrote: »

you cant have interleaving off, just high or low.

anyone who has been upgraded > 3mb is on high
3mb or lower are lower.

mine jumped to 100ish but have not had any noticable problems yet

i cant see them ever giving a different option for people on the 7.6 since it is close to the max allowable

wrong, you can have fastpath turned on, which gives the lowest pings possible

Baneblade

my friend works in eircom and he can change the interleaving on someones line between high and low but has never heard of fastpath

challengemaster

Baneblade wrote: »

my friend works in eircom and he can change the interleaving on someones line between high and low but has never heard of fastpath

Yup, deffo sounds like he's working for eircom so.

Hank Scorpio

hey cm:D

ye he deffo sounds like a eircom employee

Dustaz

This has also happened to me. My ping has shot up and my interleaving was on low for the last 4 years. I assume its on high now.

Whats the best phone number/email address to get this sorted without having to spend 2 hours on the phone to Bangalore while they tell me to reset my router?

Dcully

Just to clarify , your friend isnt on the 7.6 meg package is he?

Correct,hes on the 3meg right now.

Kur4mA

Dcully wrote: »

Correct,hes on the 3meg right now.

I'm on BT here and had the same problem. If you guys look at the main upgrade thread you'll see its happening to everybody pretty much. Any idea if BT as my ISP can do anything about this?

Snaga

The problem here is that when your line is synced at its highest speed (essentially leaving a low SNR margin) - you will see errors - possibly a lot of them.

Interleaving can reduce the effects of these errors but causes ping times to increase, but generally leaves you with better throughput - its a trade off. In most cases people prefer throughput to latency (just see the speed test threads for confirmation ).

watty

Though in reality, for web browsing, games, VOIP you want lower latency. Throughput with high latency only helps streaming and file transfer. If you are doing non-UDP transfer, very high latency offsets gain in speed. This is why Satellite 2-way can outperform HSDPA, because it doesn't actually use real TCP/IP over the link, but it's own protocol.

Pansy Potter

Is there a way to increase Noise Margin. Since the upgrade mine is averaging about 7db, but I've seen it as low as 2db. Should I be concerned about this, as I haven't encountered any problems (yet)?

Snaga

The latency is still down around 50-60ms - its still very possible to web browse, game and use voip over it - its no 600ms-800ms sat link

I agree that it'd be nice to have the choice - but I would imagine that there will be a lot more people ringing up the support lines asking where there X Mb of throughput is rather than why their latency is at 60ms...

Hank Scorpio

Snaga wrote: »

The latency is still down around 50-60ms - its still very possible to web browse, game and use voip over it - its no 600ms-800ms sat link

I agree that it'd be nice to have the choice - but I would imagine that there will be a lot more people ringing up the support lines asking where there X Mb of throughput is rather than why their latency is at 60ms...

50-60 is very poor tho, you should be expecting 10-15 ms ping times to irish servers, 20-25 to uk servers, 30-35 on dutch servers and 40-45 on german servers! This is with low interleaving on , such as a standard 3mb package, however on fastpath expected these ping times to be alot lower, possibly up to 15 ms lower!

Skittle

Before I got upgraded to 7.6Mb I had "Fastpath" enabled (verified using DMT tool). Now I have interleaving set to high. To be honest, Eircom better get this sorted ASAP as it was the only reason I was staying with them. I can have a better ping than I have now and 20Mb broadband by switching to UPC/NTL.

Seifer

So what's the best thing to do? Is there a point in ringing them to ask to switch your interleaving? Or is swapping down to 3mb the only way to go? (assuming swapping providers is not an option)

Snaga

nuxxx wrote:

50-60 is very poor tho, you should be expecting 10-15 ms ping times to irish servers, 20-25 to uk servers, 30-35 on dutch servers and 40-45 on german servers! This is with low interleaving on , such as a standard 3mb package, however on fastpath expected these ping times to be alot lower, possibly up to 15 ms lower!

Yes fastpath would improve things on certain lines, but on a line with a low SNR margin you will get lots of errors causing lost frames, making throughput poor and causing bad gaming and voip performance (UDP packets do not get resent when lost).

With ADSL, if your SNR margin is regularily dropping lower than 9db (likely with ADSL1 now with the increased speed) then your gonna have a bad time without interleaving.

Id much prefer a stable 60ms line than an error-filled-low-latency-but-high packetloss one.

challengemaster

Currently pings are 60ms inside ireland, 100+ outside. It's just stupid trying to play fps games with that ping.

Hank Scorpio

Snaga wrote: »

Id much prefer a stable 60ms line than an error-filled-low-latency-but-high packetloss one.

Ye your right it stabilises the line, and if your not a "serious" gaming it wont affect, judging from your comments your not. But for people who use for net for basically gaming and abit of downloading this is a massive problem, neways heres a email i sent about the problem

Dear ****

Thank you for your email and apologies for the delay in responding.

Broadband speed upgrades on eircom's 2Mb and 3Mb broadband products took place in the **** exchange over the weekend of 26th July. Our network designers are currently working on a solution to reduce overall latency and I would be happy to contact you again when an implementation date for this solution is finalised.

Best Regards

*****
Press Officer

---

From: **********
Sent: 24 July 2008 10:18
To: Press_Office
Subject: DSL Upgrades


Hi,

I currently have the 2 MB home package from eircom in the ***
exchange.
Are the upgrades going ahead this weekend? And if so,
will everyone going to 3mb be put on fastpath as interleaving causes high latency and ping times.

For people going to 7.6 meg(which my line can easily handle) will increased interleaving be placed on the line?

Regards,
****

Snaga

challengemaster wrote: »

Currently pings are 60ms inside ireland, 100+ outside. It's just stupid trying to play fps games with that ping.

Then ring them up and see if they will lower the interleaving rate or turn it off for you. Your line may well be able to handle fastpath, if it doesnt work out you can always get them to put it back on or see if they will lower your sync speed.

At least then you get to make an informed decision based on your lines capability.

@nuxx : That looks promising - hopefully they will drop the level of interleaving to a more acceptable level. (Though expect the number of threads on here about unstable lines to increase! )

pedro ferio-vti

Posts in this thread should be trimmed and the thread itself stickied imo. Going to be contacting BT on Weds / Thursday regarding interleaving. If they aren't willing to change it for me i'm going with NTL, simple as. Getting double the latency after a supposed upgrade is a joke and trying to game like this is an even bigger joke.

Sonderval

Agreed - its impossible to play FPS games now.

Im glad to see others are in a similar situation to me. Not everyone wants such a massive throughput of bandwidth unannounced with the associated latency issues.

Seifer

For anyone that's not following my thread on the Games forum:
So I rang Eircom, asked what they were at. Didn't really get anywhere useful as he told me to ping their DNS server (was about 39ms) and he said they don't address issues unless its above 75ms.
So I said surely he knows the upgrades are causing problems. Told him I wanted it fixed for gaming. Mentioned interleaving. And he said he has changed it and to check in about 20 minutes.
So I wait with baited breath :eek:

pedro ferio-vti

Cool, let us know if it works.

Seifer

So that's what my stats are like now. It seems to me like he's put me on the 3mb(which was the 2mb) package. While I was ranting at them at some point I did say I just want it back the way it was so that's what he seems to have done. Or would turning down interleaving lower my speeds? Do to my unique situation of my Dad's company paying for the broadband I don't care, I have my ping back

Champ

Well if it only takes <= 20 minutes to get 'downgraded' then it would seem to be a viable solution for those of us that require better latency and not so much bandwidth.:)

PogMoThoin

Champ wrote: »

Well if it only takes <= 20 minutes to get 'downgraded' then it would seem to be a viable solution for those of us that require better latency and not so much bandwidth.:)

Downgrading moves you from the 24:1 contention ratio on the 7.6mbit package to 48:1 on the 3mbit package. It will slow down more in the evenings.

zugvogel

Snaga wrote: »

...(UDP packets do not get resent when lost).
...
Id much prefer a stable 60ms line than an error-filled-low-latency-but-high packetloss one.

Me too. Unlike TCP, UDP is a connectionless protocol - whats the use in having low latency if a significant number of packets aren't getting to the destination!

Seifer

PogMoThoin wrote:

Downgrading moves you from the 24:1 contention ratio on the 7.6mbit package to 48:1 on the 3mbit package.

Contention ratios here. The 3mb eircom home plus has a ratio of 24:1.

zugvogel

PogMoThoin wrote: »

Downgrading moves you from the 24:1 contention ratio on the 7.6mbit package to 48:1 on the 3mbit package. It will slow down more in the evenings.

I thought that only the 1Mb basic package had contention of 48:1 - all the rest e.g. pre-upgrade 2Mb, 3Mb were at 24:1. I pretty sure this is the case as I remember checking it when I ordered my 2Mbit (now 3Mbit) Eircom bundle.

Hank Scorpio

i see alot of people here saying they would prefer higher latency than unstable packets and packet loss, and the others saying they want low pings and dont care about there bandwidth, well fact is we shouldnt be in this position in the first place.

Eircoms infrastructure is pathetic and theyve really messed these upgrades up bigtime imo. There not gona move 7.6mb down to fastpath or low interleaving imho because that will cause massive problems and create unstability to a big degree on there "network".

Im staying on my 3MB until they sort out this mess, simply because its the only "decent" service out here atm, and i dont expect them to fix these problems in the near future! I was lied to on the phone sayin i was being placed of fastpath when the upgrades happen, still on interleaving, how a company in a shambles like eircom control the main infrastructure is really just beyond me.

[/rant]

Calebmcd

How do you know what package you are on though?

I should be on 7.6 package, seen as westport should have been upgraded on the 9th.

If i'm on the 7.6 and drop to the 3mb will my pings get better?
My modems(tried 2) dont so the interleaving option.

Also it seems the pings get lower the further away you go. Dublin gives me 125+ms but look at this!

Hank Scorpio

Calebmcd wrote: »

How do you know what package you are on though?

I should be on 7.6 package, seen as westport should have been upgraded on the 9th.

If i'm on the 7.6 and drop to the 3mb will my pings get better?
My modems(tried 2) dont so the interleaving option.

Also it seems the pings get lower the further away you go. Dublin gives me 125+ms but look at this!

Use a dos prompt to check pings , speedtest isnt anywhere near accurate..

WinXP/2000/98 -> start -> run -> type cmd -> ping www.boards.ie

Vista -> start -> all programs -> accessories -> windows command prompt -> ping www.boards.ie

By the looks of your stats your still on 3 mb

Dcully

Im not sure what to do.
My pings have increased ingame but if im honest i see no difference to the actual gameplay.
Ive gone from 20-30ms to 60-ish ms on my clans DODS server but i see no difference apart from the ping the game is reporting.

If i drop back down to the 3 meg package will it take long to change down,can i forsee hassle based on past crappy experience with eircom?

Then again should i wait and see if they sort the latency issue? not that im expecting them to.

Hank Scorpio

1

St0n3d wrote: »

Off the phone with Eircom Tech support.

Seems every package from Pro upwards has high interleaving with no option to change to low.

So only the home starter and plus has the option for low.

Agent let it slip, that if Eircom get enough requests to turn it low, they will put the option in for the pro packages..

I think its only fair we have the option, the facts of packet loss, stability arent an issue, its lack of choice !

Please people, if you want the choice to have lower pings, ring tech support 1890260260 and request it.

Seifer

It took a 10 minute phone call and then 20 minutes after I was dropped down. Now I didn't swap plans or anything because I don't care, I just said fix it. So maybe if there are contracts and stuff it might be complicated.
You can always swap back if they fix the latency at the higher level but that could take awhile.
In all honesty why bother to swap if you don't see any problem?

bk

Seifer wrote: »

Contention ratios here. The 3mb eircom home plus has a ratio of 24:1.

The new 3mb product has a contention ratio of 48:1.

You can find the details at www.eircomwholesale.ie (look in the BitStream PDFs) the 3mb product is called Bitstream Expand IP.

Seifer

Why is that relevant to me? I didn't order anything from there or with those names so what makes you think I have it?

Hank Scorpio

*double post*

Hank Scorpio

Seifer wrote: »

Why is that relevant to me? I didn't order anything from there or with those names so what makes you think I have it?

A: Hes correcting your mistake

B: I didnt no that the contention ratio had increased to thanks for that, your not the only one watching thread seifer..

Seifer

nuxxx wrote:

A: Hes correcting your mistake

B: I didnt no that the contention ratio had increased to thanks for that, your not the only one watching thread seifer..

He quoted me so I'll take it he's talking to me.
What mistake? I linked clearly to where it shows the current contention ratios for Eircom's products. He linked to the front page of some eircom division that is "exclusively devoted to serving Ireland's telecommunications community." and told me to go find some reference in a pdf somewhere?

Hank Scorpio

Originally Posted by Seifer
Contention ratios here. The 3mb eircom home plus has a ratio of 24:1.

---

Wrong , new 3mb product has 48:1 Contention, like the old 2mb product had.
Hence why u were corrected and why you shouldnt be having a hissy fit.

Seifer

I can only assume this is the pdf he meant as there are loads but pages 6 and 8. One shows before July 18th and the other after. Both show the Bitstream expand IP product as having a ratio of 48:1. So that document shows nothing as changing anyway.
On Eircom's site if you search for "contention" and click on the only result then it shows the 3mb home plus as having 24:1 contention ratio.
So at best you have two conflicting links.

nuxxx wrote:

I didnt no that the contention ratio had increased to thanks for that,

nuxxx wrote:

Wrong , new 3mb product has 48:1 Contention, like the old 2mb product had.

Which is it my contradictory friend?

Hank Scorpio

what?
the contention increased from 24/1 -> 48/1
I told the guy who corrected you i didnt no that and thanks.
Dont get your point.

Seifer

Lol on a roll.

nuxxx wrote:

I didnt no that the contention ratio had increased

nuxxx wrote:

Wrong , new 3mb product has 48:1 Contention, like the old 2mb product had.

nuxxx wrote:

the contention increased from 24/1 -> 48/1

Did it increase or stay the same?

Hank Scorpio

I have said 3 times it has increased.

Please dont make silly comments , relise you made a mistake deal with it. I just rang the technical department and they have confirmed on 3MB its 48/1 contention.

Seifer

naxxx wrote:

I have said 3 times it has increased.

This kind of getting embarassing but I'll give it one last go. Look at the middle quote from the last post. You say "like the old 2mb product had.". This statement implies they were the same.
The second point, if you are citing bk's pdfs as evidence. They too state that there was no increase as the Bitstream expand IP product had the same ratio before and after July 18th as can you can see on pages 6 and 8 of the pdf I linked.

naxxx wrote:

I just rang the technical department and they have confirmed on 3MB its 48/1 contention.

And I'm willing to accept your word on that but the fact remains that on eircoms site it says 24:1.

Hank Scorpio

before the upgrades 2MB had a contention ratio of 48/1 and 3MB had a 24/1 contention ratio.
After the upgrades the 3MB package now has a contention ratio of 48/1 which is the same as the OLD 2mb package

Neways goodbye, no point continuing this silly discussion. Lets just hope they fix the interleaving problems.

zugvogel

nuxxx wrote: »

before the upgrades 2MB had a contention ratio of 48/1 and 3MB had a 24/1 contention ratio.
After the upgrades the 3MB package now has a contention ratio of 48/1 which is the same as the OLD 2mb package

...

Nuxx I think you're wrong on this. Before the upgrade the 2Mbit package had 24/1 contention ratio same as the 3Mbit package. It was only the 1Mbit packages that had contention of 48/1. I remember checking this at the time I ordered my bband as I was ordering it for tele-working and remote access to work!

Hank Scorpio

business packages for remote access such as vpn clients and ipassconnect may differ. Anyways if im wrong im wrong, i dont mind no point dwelling on it. Im just hoping they solve the latency issues, as my line is capable of 12mb ADSL yet im a massive gamer.
Puts me in a difficult position. Never had contention problems since i left digiweb dsl.