Airwire

TerrorFirmer

Hi,

Live a house where there was no phone line, wanted to get a landline/1mb deal from either BT or Eircom, but my housemate insisted on Airwire and eventually we got it. Worth mentioning at the time, gaming was a priority but I was told that Airwire is great this, great that.

It's utter rubbish, games are unplayable online because of next millennium pings. Even downloading is patchy, grand some days and other days at a crawl despite it apparently being a 2mb line.

Has anyone found Airwire decent at all, or was it just a mistake from the beginning like I think it was?

bigpaddy2004

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

Hi,

Live a house where there was no phone line, wanted to get a landline/1mb deal from either BT or Eircom, but my housemate insisted on Airwire and eventually we got it. Worth mentioning at the time, gaming was a priority but I was told that Airwire is great this, great that.

It's utter rubbish, games are unplayable online because of next millennium pings. Even downloading is patchy, grand some days and other days at a crawl despite it apparently being a 2mb line.

Has anyone found Airwire decent at all, or was it just a mistake from the beginning like I think it was?

Silly question it maybe but did you inform Airwire of your problems before you posted here?

TerrorFirmer

My housemate who ordered it has been onto them a few times. At the time I said on several occasions I wasn't too keen on a wireless provider for gaming because of latency, but I was told Airwire are apparently brilliant...

Just did a speedtest there, apparently our download is 0.78Mb/s, upload is 0.10Mb/s...absolutely atrocious, considering its supposed to be a 2/2. It doesn't matter what we tell them, one day it's fine, the next its dire, sometimes for longer or shorter intervals, infinite pattern. I wouldn't even care about the download being less than spectacular, but an upload that pathetic means gaming online is an impossibility.

Airwire: Martin

As you haven't stated who you are, where you are and what your ping times are and what games you are referring to, it's very difficult to estimate, where your problem is.

Fact is, that a lot of people on our network are gaming, so it shouldn't be an issue.

Please contact support@airwire.ie with a speedtest.net result, preferable the Galway server, because that tells us, what speed you are getting and what ping times.

Also, did you connect your computer directly ? Or are you using a wireless router. 90% of the cases, it's the wireless router that causes the issues. Also make sure, no background downloads are running while doing the speedtest. It will not be able to account for the bandwidth they are using.

Kind regards,
Martin List-Petersen
Airwire

TerrorFirmer

Hi Martin,

Thanks for the quick response, very impressive. It's a mixture of laptops and desktops; some are wired, others are wireless, but the results are the same on all. It's not inherently a problem with the router, as some days we have perfectly good speeds, but mostly they're poor. The speeds I posted above are taken from speedtest.net, ping time varies, last time I tried it was 228ms. Nothing active in the background, the games vary from Xbox Live to Left4Dead on the PC, so again, it's not tied to any particular program or product. It's the upload that's killing us, we could live with poor download, but a decent upload is essential for games...we're based in Oranmore, 12 miles outside Galway city.

I'll contact that email address anyway with the issue. Thanks again.

Airwire: Martin

It's not the wireless or wired, that makes the difference.

It's unplugging the wireless router and connect 1 (one) computer to the connection supplied from us.

First of all, a lot of wireless routers are hugely underpowered. The speed drops when the CPU gets a lot to do, and that can cause issues like this.

The other thing, if let's say one computer has torrents running, that'll affect every other computer and you'll clearly get crap results. The same scenario, if one computer is virus infected and loads the connection up with spam. Things a lot of people don't are aware of, notice or bother to check.

Anyhow, dump support an email and we'll look into it. We currently only have one area that has contention in the evening times and that's due a faster link, which unfortunatly is delayed because of the various external factors (I won't point fingers).

Kind regards,
Martin List-Petersen

Falconire

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

Hi,

Live a house where there was no phone line, wanted to get a landline/1mb deal from either BT or Eircom, but my housemate insisted on Airwire and eventually we got it. Worth mentioning at the time, gaming was a priority but I was told that Airwire is great this, great that.

It's utter rubbish, games are unplayable online because of next millennium pings. Even downloading is patchy, grand some days and other days at a crawl despite it apparently being a 2mb line.

Has anyone found Airwire decent at all, or was it just a mistake from the beginning like I think it was?

I have airwire 3m meg broadband and use it for gaming and find it great, I always get the full speed

TerrorFirmer

Housemate was onto Airwire today. Drastically improved tonight, 1.8 down and 1.22 up - more then sufficient for games. We'll see if it lasts.

Just to add at times of testing, we always stop any running downloads or torrents, machines are all very clean too. We do have a wireless router, though thats not the problem as we've had that from day 1, and initially we had no problems at all with airwire, it's only lately in particular that speeds are intolerably slow at night time.

TerrorFirmer

Agh...as the night goes on, it's just getting slower and slower. Games still completely unplayable, the best ping I can get is about 450....

Speedtest, as of now, says 0.83 down and 0.63 up for a 2.0/2.0 line, with a ping of 190ms. But it literally changes every minute. If I run speedtest twice in 5 minutes, the results are drastically different. Did a second test there and its reporting 0.19 upload.

TerrorFirmer

Just wondering if anyone could answer a query for me...

Whenever I play a game that uses matchmaking, it keeps dumping me into US servers. If I manually use server browsers, like in Left4Dead, I can see European servers with low pings, but it won't let me join them. When I go to auto join any game, I end up in an American/other side of the world server where my ping is rocket high. My ping is atrocious in Euro servers as it is, but as you can imagine in US ones with pings of 500 it's unbearable..

Any ideas why this is happening?

DECEiFER

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

Just wondering if anyone could answer a query for me...

Whenever I play a game that uses matchmaking, it keeps dumping me into US servers. If I manually use server browsers, like in Left4Dead, I can see European servers with low pings, but it won't let me join them. When I go to auto join any game, I end up in an American/other side of the world server where my ping is rocket high. My ping is atrocious in Euro servers as it is, but as you can imagine in US ones with pings of 500 it's unbearable..

Any ideas why this is happening?

Maybe your IP is not routed domestically? Other than that, I have no idea.

jor el

Have you more than one person connected when you're gaming, or are more than one gaming at the same time?

TerrorFirmer

Nope, with the shifts we work, it's really only ever one of us using the net at the same time. Not that it should make much difference really, as there should be plenty bandwidth for more then one client. On my old 1MB BT line I've had up to 4 clients online at the same time without any problems. But yeah, it just so happens that we don't tend to be using the net at the same time. My housemate would just be coming home when I'm heading off to bed. We only run torrents between about 2am and 10am, the rest of the day it's free. Download rates are never 2mb, but they're usually respectable enough (1-1.2mb) that I wouldn't bother complaining really. It's the upload/ping that's brutal because it means neither of us can play xbox live/pc games online because of lag.

Airwire: Martin

First of all, you've only contacted Airwire support email today. With an intermittent problem like that, you need to give support to have a chance to have a look at the issue in the first place.

As for internet usage within your home, even if you are the only one at home, that doesn't tell, if somebody else left their computer on and it's downloading etc. Also background downloads like Windows Update, Antivirus updates etc. use bandwidth !!

As for routing (as what DECEiFER was mentioning). Airwire is domestically routed with direct connection on INEX and PacketExchange eXpress and upstream via Cogent, Smart, KPN and Level(3). All our IP's are our own and classified as located in Ireland. If you have issues not being able to connect to EU servers, try to contact the matchmaking service/game provider and see, if they can tell you, why you are send to US servers. Nobody else will be able to tell you that.

Kind regards,
Martin List-Petersen
Airwire

TerrorFirmer

My housemates contacted you a few times before, today was the first day that I personally contacted you. Sorry for the confusion about that.

As for usage, we live together so it only takes me 1 second to check my housemates room to see that his machine is turned off. We're friends, so it's not like his machine is inaccessible. We both run clean and fairly tight installs of xp, there's pretty much no bandwith taken up by any other third part apps.

Thanks again. You understand I don't wish to come across as annoying or aggressive in my problems but we have contacted airwire several times - again, today was just the first time I did so personally- and on BT and Eircom before there were no problems at all.

I'm as clueless about the server issue as you are, but when I go to a friends house with my laptop left4dead works perfectly fine on his connection, its exclusively with my home connection that i'm unable to join euro servers or hold a ping below 300-ish at best.

MunsterCycling

TBH TerrorFirmer all you have gotten from Airwire is excuses and little action, your suspisions were correct to begin with.

TerrorFirmer

MunsterCycling wrote: »

TBH TerrorFirmer all you have gotten from Airwire is excuses and little action, your suspisions were correct to begin with.

To be fair my housemate rang a few times before about it but maybe he wasn't following it up very enthusiastically, as he doesn't really play games online remotely as much as I would, just the very odd game of xbox live where I enjoy an hour or two every second night or so. I'll see what comes out of it after I sent the email, give them a chance to see what's up for a week or two - perhaps its something simple, or easily rectifiable!

TerrorFirmer

this evenings test:



that was done directly, without the router. It was actually fine this morning about 11am, ping was relatively decent, 90-120, in games - so it seems pretty clear its a contention issue. something we were told would not be an issue with airwire...

Ricky91t

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

this evenings test:



that was done directly, without the router. It was actually fine this morning about 11am, ping was relatively decent, 90-120, in games - so it seems pretty clear its a contention issue. something we were told would not be an issue with airwire...

Wow,I'm on a wireless ISP in Kerry and I thought my pings got bad,But at their worst they are still 1/4 of that!

The fact you're getting good speeds during the day it can't be down to anything equipment wise and just contention,I'm pretty sure they could move you over to a less contented node(might not be called that!!) and that should help,I had issues with VoIP and after getting moved over to a new node the issues were no longer a problem!

Some_Person

It's nearly always contention, WISPs are nearly always using 802.11B nodes for a ton of customers which is rediculous...and so you get the 300ms pings when others start using it.

bigpaddy2004

Some_Person wrote: »

It's always contention, WISPs are nearly always using 802.11B nodes for a ton of customers which is rediculous...and so you get the 300ms pings when others start using it.

Years ago perhaps yes wisps did use 802.11b as it was the only solution out there then....now-a-days any reliable and knowledgeable ISP uses 3.6, 5.8 or 10.5.

I think it unfair of you to come up with a cause for the OP problem when you dont even know if this customer is being server by 802.11b technology or not...it could even be a complete different cause all together.

tinofapples

Out of curiosity I said I'd run a speedtest myself:



:mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:


That's from the 2MB package, running wirelessly from my laptop off the router upstairs. No other machine pulling from the connection and no downloads taking place.

TerrorFirmer

No contention with Airwire, indeed...:rolleyes:

Some_Person

bigpaddy2004 wrote: »

Years ago perhaps yes wisps did use 802.11b as it was the only solution out there then....now-a-days any reliable and knowledgeable ISP uses 3.6, 5.8 or 10.5.

I think it unfair of you to come up with a cause for the OP problem when you dont even know if this customer is being server by 802.11b technology or not...it could even be a complete different cause all together.

Not years ago, it's still very widely used today, alot more than 5.8GHz, mostly since it has higher range since it has lower rates.
I'd say it's very likely what's happening or similar to what's happening to TerrorFirmer (contention/oversubscription).

PogMoThoin

bigpaddy2004 wrote: »

Years ago perhaps yes wisps did use 802.11b as it was the only solution out there then....now-a-days any reliable and knowledgeable ISP uses 3.6, 5.8 or 10.5.

Yeah, and there's just no shortage of spectrum, and its managed and allocated properly............................... WISP's use whatever is available to them, Comreg are part of the problem

TerrorFirmer

This mornings. Improved download/upload but check out the ping.

tinofapples

What exactly is the "Ping" ?



This is the worst speeds I have achieved since I signed up with Airwire but they are terrible speeds. I'm assuming (Perhaps naive) that they are experiencing some problems.

Will monitor for the weekend.

tinofapples

koHd

tinofapples wrote: »

What exactly is the "Ping" ?

I'm not an expert on it. But the way I describe ping is;

Imagine broadband was a messenger pigeon.

Ping is it's speed. And bandwidth is as much as the pigeon can carry.

So if the pigeons ping is 100ms and it can only carry 1Mb maximum. It would have to make ten trips to complete a 10Mb transfer. With a total time of 1000ms if everything goes according to plan.

Then if the ping is 1000ms and download speed is 10Mb it would still take the exact same time to transfer the 10Mb. Although it would only have to make one trip, that one trip took the same amount of time for the slower pigeon as it did for the fast pigeon to complete 10 trips.

So dependng on ping, a 10Mb and 1Mb connection might be the same "speed".

I haven't checked any of this, just gone by common sense so i could be totally wrong heh

TerrorFirmer

Well not really, you could have a high speed with decent downloading but very poor latency. I know Airwire covers themselves for the the latter in their terms and services but there's really no excuse for speeds this poor. A solid 1MB connection with good latency for example would be much more suitable for games then a solid 2mb line with poor latency, even if downloads would be faster on the 2mb line. But in this case I'm irate over a combination of terrible latency and terrible download/upload rates which makes the connection pretty much worthless for any purpose.

PogMoThoin

koHd wrote: »

I'm not an expert on it. But the way I describe ping is;

Imagine broadband was a messenger pigeon.

Ping is it's speed. And bandwidth is as much as the pigeon can carry.

So if the pigeons ping is 100ms and it can only carry 1Mb maximum. It would have to make ten trips to complete a 10Mb transfer. With a total time of 1000ms if everything goes according to plan.

Then if the ping is 1000ms and download speed is 10Mb it would still take the exact same time to transfer the 10Mb. Although it would only have to make one trip, that one trip took the same amount of time for the slower pigeon as it did for the fast pigeon to complete 10 trips.

So dependng on ping, a 10Mb and 1Mb connection might be the same "speed".

I haven't checked any of this, just gone by common sense so i could be totally wrong heh

Whoa, not quite right.

Ping is the length of time it takes to get to a certain server and back to Your pc. A milisecond is one thousandth of a second. Wiki.

Megabit is a unit of speed, it refers to 1million bits. Wiki

koHd

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

Well not really, you could have a high speed with decent downloading but very poor latency. I know Airwire covers themselves for the the latter in their terms and services but there's really no excuse for speeds this poor. A solid 1MB connection with good latency for example would be much more suitable for games then a solid 2mb line with poor latency, even if downloads would be faster on the 2mb line. But in this case I'm irate over a combination of terrible latency and terrible download/upload rates which makes the connection pretty much worthless for any purpose.

Yea that's what I was getting at. A 10Mb connection might not actually be better than a 1Mb connection depending on the latency of both.

But my example was purely in terms of data transfer like downloading. Where the person wouldn't really notice the latency difference between the two in the example.

But of course with high pings, gaming is out of the question. And the 1Mb connection is far superior to the 10Mb in the example.

koHd

PogMoThoin wrote: »

Whoa, nonsence.

Ping is the length of time it takes to get to a certain server and back to Your pc. [/URL].

i[/URL]

Hmm isn't that what I said?

I might have muddled it up. But that's what I was trying to explain.

Ping is how fast the connection goes from one point to another. And bandwidht is as much data it can take with it on any one trip.

PogMoThoin

koHd wrote: »

Hmm isn't that what I said?

I might have muddled it up. But that's what I was trying to explain.

Ping is how fast the connection goes from one point to another. And bandwidht is as much data it can take with it on any one trip.

Yes, but Your pigeon analogy is totally wrong, You don't add pings. Ping is usually an average

koHd

PogMoThoin wrote: »

Yes, but Your pigeon analogy is totally wrong, the 1000ms ping connection would take 1000ms longer.

Would it? It takes 1000ms to get to the end point. But can carry 10Mb with it. So to me that's one trip.

Maybe I shouldn't have used bits.

But you get what I'm saying anyways.

I think I'll switch my analogy to pizza deliver guy and number of pizza's! heh

PogMoThoin

koHd wrote: »

Would it? It takes 1000ms to get to the end point. But can carry 10Mb with it. So to me that's one trip.

Maybe I shouldn't have used bits.

But you get what I'm saying anyways.

I think I'll switch my analogy to pizza deliver guy and number of pizza's! heh

You're not understanding this, a standard Windows ping is 32 bytes. It doesn't carry anything with it, its the length of time it takes to get to a certain place and back otherwise known as latency. Read the wiki's.

Open command prompt by typing "cmd" in the run box, type "ping www.boards.ie", this will tell You Your ping to boards.ie, it will run 4 pings and give You an average.
BTW, ping times on speedtest.net aren't very accurate, You should always run a few pings from command prompt to places like www.inex.ie, www.heanet.ie or www.boards.ie to test Your ping. Using wireless inside Your home will also affect Your ping time, plug straight into the router/modem/poe to test speeds or ping

TerrorFirmer

Connected directly, average 742ms pinging boards.

PogMoThoin

Run a traceroute, "tracert www.boards.ie" in command prompt, some routers etc will set not to respond though for security reasons

TerrorFirmer

Still just as horrendous..:pac:

Some_Person

Yes run a trace route. Start>run and type in cmd click ok then then type in tracert www.heanet.ie and hit enter. Copy and paste the results here, I'd bet the latency problem is at the AP.

PogMoThoin

Ap more than likely wont respond to icmp

bushy...

http://tracetcp.sourceforge.net/

koHd

PogMoThoin wrote: »

You're not understanding this, a standard Windows ping is 32 bytes. It doesn't carry anything with it, its the length of time it takes to get to a certain place and back otherwise known as latency. Read the wiki's.

I think we have our wires crossed.

I'm not trying to explain it in technical terms with real measurements.

I was trying to get the basic idea of that ping is the speed of getting from A to B. While bandwidth is as much that can be carried from A to B on each journey.

Is this right?

Some_Person

Latency is speed, bandwidth is capacity. eg 2 megabits per second.

winit

hi, I'm also with airwire and this morning, the broadband has been great, alas, i need the broadband for mainly multimedia, video and radio and for the past few weeks I haven't been able to stream any video with comfort and with any consistancy.
It is the most frustrating thing when you watching something and it just stops. gets going and then stops again. ~Will keep in touch. Hopefully, the broadband will keep as good as it has been for the last hour or so anyway.

tinofapples

Mine is also improved today but it doesn't make up for the disappointing speeds at the weekend.

TerrorFirmer

Much improved here as well, don't particularly care about the poor-ish upload, if it was like this all the time reliable I'd be 100% content.

winit

I'm not too happy this evening with my broadband..



Last week I was informed that there is to be upgrades within 2 to 3 weeks so hopefully things will improve. (Kilchreest area) I cannot cope with the service as is at present. Too frustrating. So if any Airwire people are out there, please improve things around here asap.. I started streaming a 9.59 minute video over half an hour and its only half loaded as yet. so very frustrating.... I'm using XP with a 3gb ram. connected directly to airwire with nothing else running.

PogMoThoin

winit wrote: »

I'm not too happy this evening with my broadband..

:rolleyes: 1Mbit down, half up, 70ms ping aint too much wrong with that at this hour. I've seen worse 3Mbit dsl connections

Nonoperational

Ive never really seen a wisp that doesnt have contention issues. Lucky to be on smart myself and its mighty! Its ike this 100% of the time.



Not very helpfull I know sorry!

TerrorFirmer

@Pog

I agree there's nothing wrong with those results either. The problem is, getting those results is extremely rare with Airwire, at least here. If I got 0.80/050 with ping >=100 constant and reliably I would be happy, as it would suffice. But it's the fact that 90% of the time the ping is ridiculous, download is slow, and upload is absolutely atrocious.

Take a look at this for example, done a few minutes ago.



I would never, being realistic, expect the 2/2 speeds they offer. But a line that rivals 56K most nights is completely unacceptable. The only time it generally becomes usable is either 3am or first thing in the morning until about 11 or midday. The exact times I'd never be gaming or using the net full stop.