My fibre speed has gone from 38mb to 31mb is it the weather?

swoofer · 15-02-2014 03:29PM #1

When I got fibre broadband last may from VF it has been ace, a steady 38mb down and 8.5mb up and this was from 5.5mb down so I was well impressed. However, there were initial problems and I was without bb for a few days. Anyway, recently the speed has changed to 31mb down, 8.5mb up is the same. Pings have got lower from 44 to 35/37. The line is set up for 40mb down and 10mb up but I am over 800m from cabinet.

We had a big power outage here last wednesday and it caused a few problems with other kit I have. Is it possible that affected the BB as well and the cabinet downgraded my line? And in time it will ramp back up?

Or is it a foreruner to vectoring because I recall back when fibre was due my line was profiled downwards to 5mb even though it was capable of 7mb. What I mean is vectoing should double line speed so say 40mb profile should now be 80mb and 38mb should be 76mb and that would be nice but maybe VF or eircom are playing safe and reducing speeds so 31mb is now 62mb ie more stable. Or worse if they cut to 25mb and I get 50mb. I know I should not complain but I would like to get best possible spped line can take and not be restricted by VF or eircom who want a quite life.

I could be wrong but I was pleased with my steady 38mb and I am a slight bit concerned if it is now going to be slowly downgraded to less than 30 and so on in readiness for vectoring.

I dread ringing VF tech support as they are more likely to make it even slower.

White Heart Loon · 15-02-2014 03:37PM

I suspect it's that the attenuation on your line will change slightly at different temperatures. What does it matter as long as you have a good connection that works?

crawler · 15-02-2014 05:52PM

GBCULLEN wrote: »

When I got fibre broadband last may from VF it has been ace, a steady 38mb down and 8.5mb up and this was from 5.5mb down so I was well impressed. However, there were initial problems and I was without bb for a few days. Anyway, recently the speed has changed to 31mb down, 8.5mb up is the same. Pings have got lower from 44 to 35/37. The line is set up for 40mb down and 10mb up but I am over 800m from cabinet.

We had a big power outage here last wednesday and it caused a few problems with other kit I have. Is it possible that affected the BB as well and the cabinet downgraded my line? And in time it will ramp back up?

Or is it a foreruner to vectoring because I recall back when fibre was due my line was profiled downwards to 5mb even though it was capable of 7mb. What I mean is vectoing should double line speed so say 40mb profile should now be 80mb and 38mb should be 76mb and that would be nice but maybe VF or eircom are playing safe and reducing speeds so 31mb is now 62mb ie more stable. Or worse if they cut to 25mb and I get 50mb. I know I should not complain but I would like to get best possible spped line can take and not be restricted by VF or eircom who want a quite life.

I could be wrong but I was pleased with my steady 38mb and I am a slight bit concerned if it is now going to be slowly downgraded to less than 30 and so on in readiness for vectoring.

I dread ringing VF tech support as they are more likely to make it even slower.

Could also be more VDSL customers in the feeder cables = more noise.

Vectoring should help with noise cancellation.

What are the stats on the line?

crawler · 15-02-2014 05:59PM

By the way vectoring will add about 20% on average to most lines - it will not double speeds.

Vectoring is ok but it's not a perfect technology and in fact in some instances can even make things worse!

Copper will never be fibre and all forms of Dynamic Spectrum Management (Vectoring, Phantoming etc) are only way of making things a bit better at the end of it all copper is very open to interference, water ingress, rusting, interference, external forces etc etc etc....In general with copper things always get worse!

swoofer · 15-02-2014 07:56PM

i'll do stats in a little while, don't say "make things worse" as just my luck I'll be the one that gets the bad option.

You raise an interesting point re the 20% gain, all the blurb keeps impyling 100% gain but on reflection eircom do say up to 100mb so if cabinet says 70mb now then 100mb that is in line with 20%.

Say my line is wonky with vectoring can I request vectoring to be turned off or will I be lumbered and will have the dreaded profiling again ie downgrading speed until line is stable?

and more cables equals noise, my understanding was the vdsl cabinet is fibre to exchange and my line is copper to vdsl from old analogue and then copper to house. where does the noise intrude and I thought the noise only restricts higher sppeds but once profile is set that is it. ie profile 40mb and get 39mb constant. If new lines meant speed drops what would happen when the cabinet was full ie no more capacity? Is that not factored in. I can see where bad weather may affect things but not extra lines.

I am no expert but maybe you can explain.

GB==

dxhound2005 · 16-02-2014 01:48AM

crawler wrote: »

By the way vectoring will add about 20% on average to most lines - it will not double speeds.

Vectoring is ok but it's not a perfect technology and in fact in some instances can even make things worse!

Copper will never be fibre and all forms of Dynamic Spectrum Management (Vectoring, Phantoming etc) are only way of making things a bit better at the end of it all copper is very open to interference, water ingress, rusting, interference, external forces etc etc etc....In general with copper things always get worse!

When you say it will add 20% on average to most lines does that mean it could add say 30% one day and 10% another day to particular lines? Or do you mean the average for all fibre enabled lines in the country will be around 20%?

In what instances could vectoring make things worse? The only way things could be worse is if it lowered the existing speed?

I never saw any claim that it would double speeds. The only information source that I know of is the Eircom press release which says it will increase the maximum possible download speed from 70 to 100, about 40%.

How is your 20% figure arrived at? Is part of the vectoring technology that it could achieve a 40% increase for someone living on top of the cabinet but not be able to achieve that 40% for someone say 1 km from the cabinet who is obviously on a speed well below the maximum? How would that calculation affect me? I am obviously close to the cabinet without knowing the actual distance but Eircom were only offering 50/15 when I was connected.

crawler · 17-02-2014 10:06AM

Good questions and lots of them would require a long explanation but I will try to keep it simple.

On the question of more VDSL reducing speeds. The answer to this is that VDSL in itself is a signal generated and in itself is a form of wanted "noise". As the cable leaving the cabinet has many pairs feeding the local estate or building, the more VDSL the more potential for interference from one pair to another. Generally as the cable fills with VDSL speeds can (not always) drop.

On the question of vectoring and performace. You need to remember that Vectoring is most effective on short loops and really does not work on long loops at all. Typically vectoring works best on loops shorter than 400m but can work on longer loops too but is less effective.

Why 20% - again this is a factor of copper gauge and loop length. Some people will get better results and some will get smaller gains. A good expectation would be 20% on average. See attached for some typical gains on loops up to 350m. Some lines could in theory get up to 40% extra but people shouldn't expect it.

On the question of rate adaption and vectoring. Vectoring shouldnt impact rate adaptive profiles and once you get a vectored speed, it should remain relatively stable (unless there is a fault or new intereference or water ingress etc) - remember if getting a constant speed is really important to you ask for a stable profile as opposed to a rate adapted one - BUT the stable profile is LOWER than the rate adapted one in all cases but it is stable and wont rate adapt (this is the profile used if you have an IPTV service from your ISP)

Also remember that is someone plugs in a non vectoring complaint modem they buy on ebay it can mess up vectoring for everyone on that cabinet (aliens

) - hence all ISPs insist on using their (extensively tested!!) modem.

Loads of stuff on google for those who want more technical stuff (FEXT and NEXT cancellation, aliens etc etc)

In short - it's copper, therefore will always have limitations. Vectoring is a welcome addition and a good thing but copper will NEVER EVER be fibre.

Nonoperational · 17-02-2014 03:40PM

It will never be fibre, but I must say it's quite impressive. I'm about 800m from the cabinet and get rock solid 50/20 sync. It speed tests at 47Mbit and the ping is 23, all the time. No problem with 3 people streaming super HD netflix and browsing the web etc. It will be quite a while before I need more bandwidth then this. The priority now should be getting solid 10+ Mbit speeds to 100% of the country. I've come from 10Mbit and in reality the difference in day to day use is pretty small.

crawler · 17-02-2014 11:11PM

Nonoperational wrote: »

It will never be fibre, but I must say it's quite impressive. I'm about 800m from the cabinet and get rock solid 50/20 sync. It speed tests at 47Mbit and the ping is 23, all the time. No problem with 3 people streaming super HD netflix and browsing the web etc. It will be quite a while before I need more bandwidth then this. The priority now should be getting solid 10+ Mbit speeds to 100% of the country. I've come from 10Mbit and in reality the difference in day to day use is pretty small.

Delighted you're happy

Always nice to hear the good news stories too!

I guess new technology drives new demands....Look at the TV evolution...B&W analogue, Colour Analogue, Colour Digital, HD Digital, 3D digital, Ultra HD Digital, 4K, 8K etc etc...then devices follow......

Technology never stops evolving so we need a future proof network - I personally like VDSL but I dislike copper mainly because of physics - it rusts, it gets wet, it is a baseband carrier & therefore attracts (and causes interference), it gets worse with distance, it is expensive and complex to replace and repair, it gets stolen, It's heavy..I could go on (and bore you!)

fibre is the best delviery medium there is today for fixed networks. We need fibre. Copper will have it's day and even the FCC in the US are testing LTE and fibre in a true "copper obsolete" world http://www.lightreading.com/broadband/dsl-vectoring/fcc-tests-copper-obsolescence-in-an-ip-world/d/d-id/707502

LTE & fibre will kill copper ultimately but as a "today" technology VDSL & Vectoring and in some places G.fast is cool & groovy

(I am not convinved on the economics of G.fast generally and in Ireland I am REALLY not convinced)

dxhound2005 · 18-02-2014 12:43AM

crawler wrote: »

Delighted you're happy Always nice to hear the good news stories too!

I guess new technology drives new demands....Look at the TV evolution...B&W analogue, Colour Analogue, Colour Digital, HD Digital, 3D digital, Ultra HD Digital, 4K, 8K etc etc...then devices follow......

Technology never stops evolving so we need a future proof network - I personally like VDSL but I dislike copper mainly because of physics - it rusts, it gets wet, it is a baseband carrier & therefore attracts (and causes interference), it gets worse with distance, it is expensive and complex to replace and repair, it gets stolen, It's heavy..I could go on (and bore you!)

fibre is the best delviery medium there is today for fixed networks. We need fibre. Copper will have it's day and even the FCC in the US are testing LTE and fibre in a true "copper obsolete" world http://www.lightreading.com/broadband/dsl-vectoring/fcc-tests-copper-obsolescence-in-an-ip-world/d/d-id/707502

LTE & fibre will kill copper ultimately but as a "today" technology VDSL & Vectoring and in some places G.fast is cool & groovy

(I am not convinved on the economics of G.fast generally and in Ireland I am REALLY not convinced)

Just on the TV evolution. 3D is not a step between HD and Ultra HD. It looks like 3D is a very niche market and might not have much of a future. There are only a few channels anywhere, only one in Korea for instance.

http://www.lyngsat.com/3d/index.html

Hard to know with Ultra HD. A look at what has happened in music might be instructive. Everything is now produced in CD quality but a lot of people listen to it on equipment which could never do it justice, like MP3 players with earbuds. Or another example might be Blue Ray versus DVD, I don't think it has ever really taken off.

I don't think many broadcasters will produce much in the way of Ultra HD if the trend is for viewers to watch TV on PC or laptop screens. Broadcasters have to find enough material to fill their 24 hour schedules and people are used to seeing all sorts of stuff including camera phone and skype footage on the news.

Ultra HD might turn out to be for the equivalent of the Hi-Fi enthusiast who does do justice to the music by spending a lot of money and providing the proper space for the equipment required. But shooting enough Ultra HD hours, and having the choice of channels to encourage consumers to buy the gear might be difficult, sort of a chicken and egg situation.

Maybe fibre will be the solution down the line but it does involve all the physical infrastructure having to be provided. Replacing all the nasty copper here and all round the world. Not like buying a Blue Ray in a shop or tuning in a satellite signal.

My fibre speed has gone from 38mb to 31mb is it the weather?

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