Can Anyone Explain this

Yook

I'm with this wireless provider out here in Co. Meath called Icecomms (our equivalent of IBB). I have been recently upgraded to a 2 meg/512k service, when i go to the onspeed site and do the speed test i get 1700k-2100k down, which is the site they told me to check. But when i go to irish ISP test i get about 700-1000k down and about 250-320k up.

But heres the problem, even though i've been upgraded i can still only download at a max of about 100k/s, which is the max i'd ever get on the 1 meg service.

Can anyone explain the difference in the results from Onspeed and IrishISPTest. Also, why if i'm getting a 2 meg line can i only download at 100k/s. Or could anyone suggest a site that I could download a large enough file (say 10 megs or so) to test my download, just incase its the sites i'm downloading from do not have sufficient bandwidth (mozilla.org).

deckie27

Try realplayer.com
I always find it maxes connections


Dec

deckie27

for €60 a month u would want to be getting full speed

Why not try downloading from a few sites at the same time?

juliuspret

irishisptest is the preferred choice by people who frequent boards.ie and I must say it is a relativately true judge of you connection as long as you test with IE as it goes a little haywire if you test with Opera8 in my experience anyway.

To do a correct test on your connection from a fast connection then go to heanet.ie and download part of a linux distro's iso through http using firefox as the download browser as it gives more valis info than IE.

A possible link to download would be:
http://ftp.heanet.ie/pub/mandrake/Mandrakelinux/official/iso/10.2/i586/Mandriva-Linux-2005-Limited-Edition-XBOX-boot.xbox.iso
Its 8.7MB so leave it all download to get a good speed indication.

I just download that 8.7MB file and got 210-220KBytes/s.
If you want a more accurate speed test then download a portion of a ISO ISO at:
http://ftp.heanet.ie/pub/mandrake/Mandrakelinux/official/iso/10.2/i586/
Download 50MB and you will then know what your connection is capable of.

secret_squirrel

Could the onspeed site be cached fairly locally?

Whats the contention rate on your product?

deckie27

as a marker I downloaded that 8.7 mb iso in exactly 1 min
i'm on 1 meg line

Dec

juliuspret

I suggest you drop to 1M/256k if the speed tests show you are not getting your 2Mbit connection and save yourself €22 a month!!

http://www.icecomms.net/prod1.htm

Their 2Mbit is the most expensive I have seen in a while.

juliuspret

deckie27 wrote:

as a marker I downloaded that 8.7 mb iso in exactly 1 min
i'm on 1 meg line

Dec

1min = 60seconds
8904KByte file

8904/60 = 148KBytes/s
If your on a 2Mbit connection then thats slow for a single download!

It took me exactly 40 seconds according to Firefox!!!

Yook

secret_squirrel wrote:

Could the onspeed site be cached fairly locally?

Whats the contention rate on your product?

It 20:1, but i've never seen a download over the 100k/s.

Snaga

This is to do with who an ISP peers with.

For example irishisptest.com is hosted by Blacknight who get their Internet connection from Colt Telecom.

Onspeed.com appear to be hosted in London.

If your ISP does not peer with Colt at Inex then you have to use its upstream provider which may route this traffic via the US before it gets to irishisptest.com. This seriously impacts the tests results.

Do a traceroute to www.irishisptest.com and www.onspeed.com and paste them here.

deckie27

juliuspret wrote:

1min = 60seconds
8904KByte file

8904/60 = 148KBytes/s
If your on a 2Mbit connection then thats slow for a single download!

It took me exactly 40 seconds according to Firefox!!!

Cool my 1 meg line is working well good then

Dec

Yook

Snaga wrote:

This is to do with who an ISP peers with.

For example irishisptest.com is hosted by Blacknight who get their Internet connection from Colt Telecom.

Onspeed.com appear to be hosted in London.

If your ISP does not peer with Colt at Inex then you have to use its upstream provider which may route this traffic via the US before it gets to irishisptest.com. This seriously impacts the tests results.

Do a traceroute to www.irishisptest.com and www.onspeed.com and paste them here.

Tracing route to www.irishisptest.com [217.114.173.16]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.1.1
2 41 ms 12 ms 13 ms router.icecomms.net [213.168.233.1]
3 13 ms 47 ms 15 ms sl-gw1-dub-6-0-0.sprintlink.net [80.93.1.97]
4 14 ms 15 ms 13 ms sl-bb20-dub-0-0.sprintlink.net [80.93.0.65]
5 28 ms 71 ms 46 ms sl-bb20-lon-2-2.sprintlink.net [213.206.129.120]

6 68 ms 32 ms 26 ms sl-gw10-lon-14-0.sprintlink.net [213.206.128.42]

7 24 ms 25 ms 25 ms sle-btglo1-2-0.sprintlink.net [213.206.159.46]
8 27 ms 26 ms 25 ms t2c1-p8-0.uk-lon2.eu.bt.net [166.49.195.122]
9 71 ms 46 ms 50 ms t2c1-p4-0.ie-dub2.eu.bt.net [166.49.195.42]
10 305 ms 226 ms 202 ms t2a1-ge8-0-0.ie-dub2.eu.bt.net [166.49.158.49]
11 40 ms 41 ms 42 ms 166-49-198-14.eu.bt.net [166.49.198.14]
12 37 ms 53 ms 54 ms 217.114.160.43
13 52 ms 41 ms 40 ms 217.114.173.16

Trace complete.


Tracing route to www.onspeed.com [212.100.251.153]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.1.1
2 14 ms 11 ms 14 ms router.icecomms.net [213.168.233.1]
3 16 ms 13 ms 35 ms sl-gw1-dub-6-0-0.sprintlink.net [80.93.1.97]
4 32 ms 18 ms 40 ms sl-bb20-dub-0-0.sprintlink.net [80.93.0.65]
5 67 ms 28 ms 31 ms sl-bb20-lon-2-2.sprintlink.net [213.206.129.120]

6 26 ms 67 ms 36 ms sl-gw10-lon-14-0.sprintlink.net [213.206.128.42]

7 50 ms 26 ms 24 ms sle-rack-1-0.sprintlink.net [213.206.159.146]
8 46 ms 29 ms 26 ms 83.138.138.35
9 50 ms 32 ms 30 ms 83.138.138.73
10 30 ms 28 ms 28 ms dc1.onspeed.com [83.138.135.196]
11 121 ms 40 ms 56 ms onspeed.com [212.100.251.153]

Trace complete.

juliuspret

Traceroute command is "tracert".

On my BT connection it would appear as:

irishisptest.com

Tracing route to www.irishisptest.com [217.114.173.16]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.1.1
2 25 ms 25 ms 26 ms bas001.bmt.esat.net [193.95.142.242]
3 28 ms 26 ms 25 ms vlan101.rt001.bmt.esat.net [193.95.141.1]
4 27 ms 25 ms 26 ms ge0-0.core001.bmt.esat.net [193.95.140.1]
5 26 ms 24 ms 26 ms pos3-0.core001.cwt.esat.net [193.95.131.41]
6 26 ms 29 ms 28 ms ge1-0.core002.cwt.esat.net [193.95.129.2]
7 26 ms 26 ms 26 ms pos2-0.br001.inex.esat.net [193.95.131.6]
8 26 ms 28 ms 27 ms fa1-0-pr1.DUB.router.colt.net [193.242.111.25]
9 29 ms 26 ms 29 ms 217.173.97.118
10 27 ms 28 ms 27 ms 217.173.97.170
11 34 ms 35 ms 33 ms 217.114.160.11
12 34 ms 36 ms 37 ms 217.114.173.16

Trace complete.

onspeed.com

Tracing route to www.onspeed.com [212.100.251.153]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.1.1
2 27 ms 27 ms 24 ms bas001.bmt.esat.net [193.95.142.242]
3 27 ms 26 ms 27 ms vlan101.rt001.bmt.esat.net [193.95.141.1]
4 26 ms 28 ms 25 ms ge0-0.core001.bmt.esat.net [193.95.140.1]
5 25 ms 26 ms 25 ms pos3-0.core001.cwt.esat.net [193.95.131.41]
6 37 ms 39 ms 39 ms pos2-0.br001.ldn.esat.net [193.95.131.14]
7 39 ms 40 ms 38 ms g3-15.edge3.lon.rackspace.net [195.66.224.116]
8 39 ms 40 ms 38 ms 83.138.138.35
9 38 ms 41 ms 37 ms 83.138.138.73
10 38 ms 39 ms 39 ms dc1.onspeed.com [83.138.135.196]
11 38 ms 42 ms 40 ms onspeed.com [212.100.251.153]

Trace complete.

What provider are you using deckie27???
Your download could also have ben buffered as some browsers begin downloading even before you had selected a save point...Opera8 works that way.

deckie27

digiweb
I know about the caching so maybe it took me 5-10 secs before I clicked save
It did start in the 200k's but level 2 about 138

Dec

Yook

Could this be that the test from Onspeed is a test using their compression software, and that im not getting a 2 meg line at all. Cause i can still only download at 100k/s and IRISHISPTEST is showing that im about 750k-800k (which is 93.5k/s-100k/s).

Am i being Conned!!!!
Thanks for the help in advance!

juliuspret

If you are located in Ireland and irishisptest is saying you are getting around 1Mb tests and downloading those files from heanet.ie gives you around 1Mb/s then yes you are being conned.

Ask them about downgradeing you to 1Mb as thats all your getting now!!!

Snaga

Not necessarily Juliuspret.

His ISP's upstream internet connectivity is provided by Sprint. Neither IceComms nor Sprint peer with any other Irish ISP directly.

Therefore all of his traffic destined for other Irish ISP's travel over to the UK and back again. In this situation he can not use irishisptest.com or ftp.heanet.ie as a valid test for his connection to his ISP as the traffic has to go all over the place before reaching its destination.

Yook - Get onto your ISP, tell them you want to verify your connection speeds and ask them to provide a large file for you to download from an FTP server based in their Irish network, that will give you the closest idea of what your actually getting.

secret_squirrel

That raises an interesting point - should an ISP market a product at say 2Mbs if they know full well there is a 1Mbs chokepoint further upstream?

Its atleast dodgy marketing.

juliuspret

Snaga wrote:

Not necessarily Juliuspret.

His ISP's upstream internet connectivity is provided by Sprint. Neither IceComms nor Sprint peer with any other Irish ISP directly.

Therefore all of his traffic destined for other Irish ISP's travel over to the UK and back again. In this situation he can not use irishisptest.com or ftp.heanet.ie as a valid test for his connection to his ISP as the traffic has to go all over the place before reaching its destination.

Yook - Get onto your ISP, tell them you want to verify your connection speeds and ask them to provide a large file for you to download from an FTP server based in their Irish network, that will give you the closest idea of what your actually getting.

heanet .ie will max out a 2Mbit connection whether you live in Ireland, UK or even the US!!!
I download files at 210K on a regular baisis from lesser hosts than heanet.ie.

Your point would be valid if we had access to 20Mbit connections...but 2Mbit is the baby of BB these days.

In college I got 20Mbit connections to US/Russian based servers no prioblem...so I really dont get your point about where a FAST server is based in relation to download's from a relativately slow connection.

For ping times your argument holds...but not for Download speeds.

secret_squirrel

juliuspret wrote:

heanet .ie will max out a 2Mbit connection whether you live in Ireland, UK or even the US!!!
I download files at 210K on a regular baisis from lesser hosts than heanet.ie.

Your point would be valid if we had access to 20Mbit connections...but 2Mbit is the baby of BB these days.

In college I got 20Mbit connections to US/Russian based servers no prioblem...so I really dont get your point about where a FAST server is based in relation to download's from a relativately slow connection.

For ping times your argument holds...but not for Download speeds.

Rubbish - of course it holds if there is a bandwidth chokepoint between the OP and 99% of sites

juliuspret

secret_squirrel wrote:

Rubbish - of course it holds if there is a bandwidth chokepoint between the OP and 99% of sites

Dont Rubbish my comment!!!
What I had said is perfectly valid...just read it...moron!!!

Snaga

Its valid if all ISP's and all transit links were created equal, unfortunately thats not the case.

The fact is you are at the whim of your ISP's upstream provider as to how your traffic gets routed to its destination and you have no way of knowing what level of traffic congestion lies further down the line.

If your ISP peers directly with your target (and in this case they dont), great! Chances are theres a nice fat dedicated pipe which your traffic will sail across. If not it could get routed through a more circuitous route, via several providers, any part of which may be congested..

The best way he can test his broadband connection - (Which should be 2Mbit access to his ISP's network - not 2Mbit to every site on the internet!!) - is to try and download a large file from within his ISP's network.

Yook

Thank you very much Snaga, I'll ask them to do that first thing in the morning! It's probably the best idea.

juliuspret

Snaga wrote:

The best way he can test his broadband connection - (Which should be 2Mbit access to his ISP's network - not 2Mbit to every site on the internet!!) - is to try and download a large file from within his ISP's network.

Mabye I'm just an ignorant bast@rd or something but what on earth is the point in having a connection of 2Mb to internal componetns of your ISP...when you payed for a 2Mbit connection to the internet?.

heanet.ie is a valid test for internet speed...whatever test his ISp gives him is bull as he intends to use resources outside his ISP's network....Y/N???

I connect at 100Mbit to my router through my internal network...but I dont go around saying I have a 100Mbit connection!

Would someone please help me out here as I must be the most stupid fool on boards.ie.

Snaga

Your ISP's network is part of "the internet", ergo in the case above you do get a 2Mb connection to "the internet". That does not mean your guaranteed to get 2Mb downloads from every part of "the internet" - for the reasons I stated above.

Yook

I'm really sick of these cowboys, they said that my equiptment is on 2meg therefore i'm on 2meg. THIS IS COMPLETE BULL****!!!! I was doing the www.onspeed.com speedtest with Firefox and was getting 2Mbit, but when i decided to give it a try in IE it came up 1Mbit which is what im getting download wise!

Here is a pic of my download rate through DU meter:
http://netsoc.tcd.ie/~lyonsee/web/DUmeter.bmp

Look at how erratic the download is, this is a download from heanet.

I cant do Voip, stream even 700k video because my data rate is so erratic (about 145k for 1 second then like 30k then next and so on...). My ping is terrible:

Pinging jolt.co.uk [82.133.85.65] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 82.133.85.65: bytes=32 time=198ms TTL=56
Reply from 82.133.85.65: bytes=32 time=195ms TTL=56
Reply from 82.133.85.65: bytes=32 time=219ms TTL=56
Reply from 82.133.85.65: bytes=32 time=364ms TTL=56

Ping statistics for 82.133.85.65:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 195ms, Maximum = 364ms, Average = 244ms

I'm getting a nothing service for €60 a month, who should i talk to about this. Is there a government authority? I have a year contract, which i have about 9 months left, is there anything i can do to get out of it?

Someone pleeeeeeaaaaassse help me!
I recently passed for eircom broadband aswell, so there is an alternative for me.

Thanks to everyone in advance.

juliuspret

According to Snaga you are getting a 2Mbit connection and I was in dreamland...you must be in dreamland also Yook.

Yook

juliuspret wrote:

According to Snaga you are getting a 2Mbit connection and I was in dreamland...you must be in dreamland also Yook.

Is there anything you suggest i do?

Snaga

juliuspret wrote:

According to Snaga you are getting a 2Mbit connection and I was in dreamland...you must be in dreamland also Yook.

Excuse me Juliuspret , I said no such thing. (Yes I can use Bold too )

I simply explained why your example test was not an ideal test of bandwidth for this particular ISP due to their upstream provider being in the UK. I then suggested an alternative which would give Yook better test results.

Yook - That looks pretty shoddy allright.

juliuspret

Yook

Have you tried this yet:
http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=3004715&postcount=4
It should max out your connection...post your results after downloading mabye 20MB of the larger file.

Snaga
I am in awe of your mastery of html.
All praise Snaga!!!

Yook

juliuspret wrote:

Yook

Have you tried this yet:
http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=3004715&postcount=4
It should max out your connection...post your results after downloading mabye 20MB of the larger file.

Snaga
I am in awe of your mastery of html.
All praise Snaga!!!

It took exactly 70 seconds to download the 8.7meg file.
And to download 20 megs of the big files:
Mandriva-Linux-2005-Limited-Edition-Download-CD3.i586.iso
took exactly 2 mins 20 seconds

juliuspret

Yook wrote:

It took exactly 70 seconds to download the 8.7meg file.
And to download 20 megs of the big files:
Mandriva-Linux-2005-Limited-Edition-Download-CD3.i586.iso
took exactly 2 mins 20 seconds

Your getting around 125-145KBye/s on those.
What was your max sustained speed???

Have you talked to others in your area with 2/1Mbit connections...and what type of speeds they get???
Honestly though...wireless is not the best medium for internet connections...take a look st some of the IBB threads for proof.

If you can get DSL/Cable...then go for it as you will get a sustained 210K connection with 2Mbit DSL.

Yook

juliuspret wrote:

Your getting around 125-145KBye/s on those.
What was your max sustained speed???

Have you talked to others in your area with 2/1Mbit connections...and what type of speeds they get???
Honestly though...wireless is not the best medium for internet connections...take a look st some of the IBB threads for proof.

If you can get DSL/Cable...then go for it as you will get a sustained 210K connection with 2Mbit DSL.

There is no sustained speed, it constantly hops from 140k to 40k to 180k to 90k to 80k yo 120k etc etc...

Would you say they are in breach of contract, they advertise being able to stream video, and Voip etc.

gsand

unless you have your own dedicated line with just you on then they will always have an excuse for wavering and fluctuating speeds in the nice ready made contention and in addition they really never specify how much of a pipe your bunch of users got in the first place and if you read the contract this sort of thing is said in much posher language!

patriotIE

Yook wrote:

There is no sustained speed, it constantly hops from 140k to 40k to 180k to 90k to 80k yo 120k etc etc...

Would you say they are in breach of contract, they advertise being able to stream video, and Voip etc.

Welcome to wireless. You'll just have to live with it I'm afraid. If you can get dsl in your area you should. I remember I had wireless and i was in the same boat as you. Soon as i got dsl it was a different story altogether.

Moriarty

juliuspret, you can either cop on or get banned. Your choice. No more warnings.