UPC

MyPerfectCousin · 19-02-2014 1:18pm

They seem to be making progress on the fix, but I hope they aren't finished yet...

doccy · 19-02-2014 1:22pm

Yeah I would check the speeds at peak time. I checked the speed monday morning around 7 and got 20mb .. ran it last night around 8, got barely 2mb

Charlie-Bravo · 19-02-2014 4:23pm

And it's not windy at the moment either. It's been up and down today - got 11Mb down earlier but now it has dropped off loads.

Jimjay · 19-02-2014 7:37pm

astrofluff wrote: »

And it's not windy at the moment either. It's been up and down today - got 11Mb down earlier but now it has dropped off loads.

Astrofluff, have you considered changing to fibre? i am a few houses from you and this is my speed test at 1830 (a busy time for broadband)

LEIN · 19-02-2014 7:44pm

Drweavil · 19-02-2014 7:47pm

The network is demonstrably better today, however, the extended network is still riddled with dropped packets and we still have problems on the local gateway.

The traffic route has changed too which suggests some activity by the now infamous NOC team, but I'm still not happy. Ping times to the local gateway exceeding 1951m/s says that streaming is still broken and the underlying problem is yet to be fixed. I look forward to testing this again when I get the TxT from UPC telling me that the issue has been fixed.

Fair warning UPC: I have all the tools I need to prove to otherwise should you choose to prematurely announce an ending to this problem.

Charlie-Bravo · 19-02-2014 8:51pm

@JimJay, I'm on a reduced rate contract at the moment so cannot break away for a while. When March comes, and HD too, I'll re-think but I believe, and have faith in UPC, to fix this and provide a better service in coming months. What's the TV offering like with eircom or have you split BB/TV packages?

LEIN · 19-02-2014 9:50pm

astrofluff wrote: »

@JimJay, I'm on a reduced rate contract at the moment so cannot break away for a while. When March comes, and HD too, I'll re-think but I believe, and have faith in UPC, to fix this and provide a better service in coming months. What's the TV offering like with eircom or have you split BB/TV packages?

I hope so Astro as since the duct was laid, there has been very little else happening and I pass all of the new duct twice a day at various times.

lakeroad · 19-02-2014 10:05pm

I'm in Charlesland with UPC and only getting 2.5mb down and 3mb up while connected directly to router...Just off the phone to UPC Tech support and after 15mins they eventually agreed there's a problem. There's a technician booked to come out next week.

I mentioned that I had read recently that we would be connected to UPC network by fibre in March. He responded that as far as he was aware UPC have no plans to connect Charlesland with a fibre connection. I asked could he check his information so he contacted a member of UPC Infrastructure and they confirmed the same.

I'm hoping that they are both wrong but I wouldn't hold my breath. Maybe UPC are using this March date so people will be outside there 30 day contract break with the new price increases. Hurry up Eircom please!

LEIN · 19-02-2014 10:11pm

lakeroad wrote: »

I'm in Charlesland with UPC and only getting 2.5mb down and 3mb up while connected directly to router...Just off the phone to UPC Tech support and after 15mins they eventually agreed there's a problem. There's a technician booked to come out next week.

I mentioned that I had read recently that we would be connected to UPC network by fibre in March. He responded that as far as he was aware UPC have no plans to connect Charlesland with a fibre connection. I asked could he check his information so he contacted a member of UPC Infrastructure and they confirmed the same.

I'm hoping that they are both wrong but I wouldn't hold my breath. Maybe UPC are using this March date so people will be outside there 30 day contract break with the new price increases. Hurry up Eircom please!

It has crossed my mind. That would be some kick in the teeth as the fibre upgrade is the only reason I stopped talking to Sky and other BB providers.

Who is starting the "Charlesland Upgrade" thread over on the talk to UPC forum?? I started the last two....

Drweavil · 19-02-2014 10:46pm

I spoke too soon....

doccy · 19-02-2014 10:47pm

lakeroad wrote: »

I'm hoping that they are both wrong but I wouldn't hold my breath. Maybe UPC are using this March date so people will be outside there 30 day contract break with the new price increases. Hurry up Eircom please!

I doubt they can enforce a contract where they charge for 30mb download speeds, and only provide 2mb...

matt-dublin · 19-02-2014 11:32pm

Drweavil wrote: »

The network is demonstrably better today, however, the extended network is still riddled with dropped packets and we still have problems on the local gateway.

The traffic route has changed too which suggests some activity by the now infamous NOC team, but I'm still not happy. Ping times to the local gateway exceeding 1951m/s says that streaming is still broken and the underlying problem is yet to be fixed. I look forward to testing this again when I get the TxT from UPC telling me that the issue has been fixed.

Fair warning UPC: I have all the tools I need to prove to otherwise should you choose to prematurely announce an ending to this problem.

Are you performing your ping tests over wireless?

It you're getting 1900ms to your router there's something wrong with your router, computer and wireless channel is over subscribed.

Ask for a Thompson router from UPC or bridge a nertgear onto it.

Drweavil · 19-02-2014 11:32pm

Sigh....

matt-dublin · 19-02-2014 11:37pm

Drweavil wrote: »

Sigh....

Ping times are good though!!

Drweavil · 19-02-2014 11:41pm

matt-dublin wrote: »

Are you performing your ping tests over wireless?

It you're getting 1900ms to your router there's something wrong with your router, computer and wireless channel is over subscribed.

Ask for a Thompson router from UPC or bridge a nertgear onto it.

I use a standard Cat 5, RJ45 cable to connect to the switch in the router, I don't use Wifi for my main computer at all precisely because it can have channel issues from time to time.

I've checked the router out and it's fine, when reading the ping plot I can clearly see that any failings in my house router are immediately preceded by large packet loss further up the network, the timeline shows these up as red lines with pings exceeding 500ms. My local router can't help but fail when the error count is so high.

Swapping out the router is not going to solve the problem, I have many friends who are also on UPC and are suffering from the same issue.

Drweavil · 19-02-2014 11:42pm

matt-dublin wrote: »

Ping times are good though!!

Yep, they should not be affected by packet loss unless they run into a dropped node or a !X !H rule violation.

matt-dublin · 19-02-2014 11:51pm

Drweavil wrote: »

Yep, they should not be affected by packet loss unless they run into a dropped node or a !X !H rule violation.

Packet loss would cause timeouts? The times shown below says your latency is good alright but suggest a bandwidth issue or a faulty router along the way

Drweavil · 20-02-2014 12:00am

matt-dublin wrote: »

Packet loss would cause timeouts? The times shown below says your latency is good alright but suggest a bandwidth issue or a faulty router along the way

Yep, Ping can be affected by packet loss but realistically, considering the ICMP packet in a ping is only 32bytes, it would require a very high rate of packet loss to affect it. This is why Ping is a reliable tool to ascertain connectivity, but doesn't tell you anything about network or route quality.

I find Pingplotter a great tool for resolving quality issues as it not only provides a trace and ping, it counts the errors too. It's why I use it to diagnose problems. Many companies and ISP's use it for their customers, encouraging everyone to help them ensure that they're doing the best they can. It's a shame that UPC don't operate in a similarly enlightened vein.

doccy · 20-02-2014 7:55am

30mb download this morning, 1 mb last night at 9.

LEIN · 20-02-2014 2:36pm

Anyone else having a complete outage?

JanneG · 20-02-2014 2:40pm

LEIN wrote: »

Anyone else having a complete outage?

Will be home in the next 30 mins or so. Will check then...

matt-dublin · 20-02-2014 3:17pm

Drweavil wrote: »

Yep, Ping can be affected by packet loss but realistically, considering the ICMP packet in a ping is only 32bytes, it would require a very high rate of packet loss to affect it. This is why Ping is a reliable tool to ascertain connectivity, but doesn't tell you anything about network or route quality.

I find Pingplotter a great tool for resolving quality issues as it not only provides a trace and ping, it counts the errors too. It's why I use it to diagnose problems. Many companies and ISP's use it for their customers, encouraging everyone to help them ensure that they're doing the best they can. It's a shame that UPC don't operate in a similarly enlightened vein.

had a play around with this today, id be quite concerned with your local packet loss and latency. The fact your getting packet loss to your router alone suggests issues with your router, cabling or computer. before troubleshooting any further you should get these addressed.

I would expect 0 packet loss and 1-2ms latency on your first two hops.

you've bigger problems than WAN issues and i suspect when they fix the core network issues you will still experience problems.

Charlie-Bravo · 20-02-2014 3:56pm

Completely unusable at the moment. Resorting to 3G for internet connection.

JanneG · 20-02-2014 4:01pm

Down indeed

doccy · 20-02-2014 4:09pm

JanneG wrote: »

Down indeed

Hopefully that is a sign they are working on it at the moment. It would be better for the whole network to go down, so they actually have to fix the problem.

Gargamello · 20-02-2014 4:19pm

doccy wrote: »

Hopefully that is a sign they are working on it at the moment. It would be better for the whole network to go down, so they actually have to fix the problem.

Hopefully.
I opened an online tech support ticket with them (again). Hopefully everyone else having the issue is too as otherwise they won't know or care.

Gargamello · 20-02-2014 4:23pm

Gargamello wrote: »

Hopefully.
I opened an online tech support ticket with them (again). Hopefully everyone else having the issue is too as otherwise they won't know or care.

Looks like there's a full outage of all services in the area.

LEIN · 20-02-2014 4:23pm

I'm on 3G too. Painfully slow......

Techy_1 · 20-02-2014 5:12pm

Was on the phone to them 5 minutes ago and yes there is an outage for Charlesland.

Techy_1 · 20-02-2014 5:23pm

seems to be back up now

Charlie-Bravo · 20-02-2014 5:24pm

Yep, back up and getting this:

LEIN · 20-02-2014 5:30pm

Still not near full speed though.

markest · 20-02-2014 5:31pm

LEIN · 20-02-2014 5:33pm

Several tests on different sites and I'm averaging 15Mb.

Astro will you do another test to see if you got a fluke?

Charlie-Bravo · 20-02-2014 5:37pm

If you guys could just stop using the internet for a minute then maybe I'll get back the 4Mb extra speed:

LEIN · 20-02-2014 5:47pm

LEIN · 20-02-2014 5:47pm

I'll do a modem reset....

doccy · 20-02-2014 8:36pm

Has anyone noticed an improvement during peak time?

LEIN · 20-02-2014 8:41pm

This is head melt.

doccy · 20-02-2014 8:44pm

There were no improvements today. The BB is quick during off peak, I have 30mb early in the morning, 1-2 mbs at peak. What are they playing at?

Drweavil · 20-02-2014 9:09pm

matt-dublin wrote: »

had a play around with this today, id be quite concerned with your local packet loss and latency. The fact your getting packet loss to your router alone suggests issues with your router, cabling or computer. before troubleshooting any further you should get these addressed.

I would expect 0 packet loss and 1-2ms latency on your first two hops.

you've bigger problems than WAN issues and i suspect when they fix the core network issues you will still experience problems.

Improvements today and the packet loss is diminished. You can see from the attachment that both my inner and outer ports on my router have completely calmed down now too.

This was always a problem that was going to be solved by investigating Layer 4 of the OSI model, the transport layer, that's where packet loss occurs and it explains the fact that ping was nearly always successful but Trace Routes showed a mess. I also explained the intermittent nature of the problem and explains why streaming (using Twitch.tv or BBC digital radio) was clipped and whole sentences were garbled with non-existent video for Twitch.

I don't agree that my router needs to be changed, I've never felt there was enough evidence, that wasn't negated by the larger picture, to suggest that I had a Layer 1 issue with my local router.

A definitive answer can only be given once the problem is fully fixed.

It's a shame that UPC don't feel that a simple overview of the OSI model and how it can be used by someone with very little training can be used by their first and second line support. They'd save themselves an absolute fortune and have a huge jump in customer satisfaction. Their behaviour is the essence of obtuse imo.

Drweavil · 20-02-2014 9:10pm

The issue is clearly still not fixed, but at the moment it is better for me at least. I'll do some further checks.

Rokyard · 20-02-2014 9:19pm

A couple of days before all the outages due to the storm started I did a simple test. From my laptop using a wireless connection I ran a speed test 5 times and got 17Mb connection consistently. I then connected the same laptop to the router through a cat5 Ethernet cable. And performed the same speed test 5 times. I consistently got 30Mb connection. Enough said. If you are using speed test.net over a wireless connection you are not guaranteed your full speed. (I appreciate that not all wireless connections are born equal. But in the main it holds true)

Just something to consider .......

Drweavil · 20-02-2014 9:27pm

Rokyard wrote: »

A couple of days before all the outages due to the storm started I did a simple test. From my laptop using a wireless connection I ran a speed test 5 times and got 17Mb connection consistently. I then connected the same laptop to the router through a cat5 Ethernet cable. And performed the same speed test 5 times. I consistently got 30Mb connection. Enough said. If you are using speed test.net over a wireless connection you are not guaranteed your full speed. (I appreciate that not all wireless connections are born equal. But in the main it holds true)

Just something to consider .......

If you're on a 50mb line you need to have a wifi router that is designed for 802.11g or 802.11n to get the full whack so .... yeah I guess, if you're not careful, you can get caught out.

So if you have the same router for a few years now, it could be something to look at as an older router could be responsible throttling your Wifi.

doccy · 20-02-2014 9:43pm

Well I got the new Thomson router, have both Wifi and wired, off peak is 20+, peak is 1-2 Mb and all since that storm. Looking at the UPC facebook page there seems to be a fair few fault areas around Dublin.

Its not acceptable to up prices, not fix a service over a week after a fault, not communicate this fault to your customers except on an internet forum with some vague assurances.

Drweavil · 20-02-2014 9:49pm

doccy wrote: »

Well I got the new Thomson router, .

Ahh ya should be grand then.

matt-dublin · 20-02-2014 10:15pm

Drweavil wrote: »

If you're on a 50mb line you need to have a wifi router that is designed for 802.11g or 802.11n to get the full whack so .... yeah I guess, if you're not careful, you can get caught out.

So if you have the same router for a few years now, it could be something to look at as an older router could be responsible throttling your Wifi.

Also depends on your distance to the router and what else is going on in the channel you're using. You may have 124mb wifi but might only being connected at 1-2mb

Generally they just fail, they don't get progressively slower unless they overheat (cisco box is prone to overheating). A reboot fixes that fairly quick.

matt-dublin · 20-02-2014 10:19pm

Drweavil wrote: »

Improvements today and the packet loss is diminished. You can see from the attachment that both my inner and outer ports on my router have completely calmed down now too.

This was always a problem that was going to be solved by investigating Layer 4 of the OSI model, the transport layer, that's where packet loss occurs and it explains the fact that ping was nearly always successful but Trace Routes showed a mess. I also explained the intermittent nature of the problem and explains why streaming (using Twitch.tv or BBC digital radio) was clipped and whole sentences were garbled with non-existent video for Twitch.

I don't agree that my router needs to be changed, I've never felt there was enough evidence, that wasn't negated by the larger picture, to suggest that I had a Layer 1 issue with my local router.

A definitive answer can only be given once the problem is fully fixed.

It's a shame that UPC don't feel that a simple overview of the OSI model and how it can be used by someone with very little training can be used by their first and second line support. They'd save themselves an absolute fortune and have a huge jump in customer satisfaction. Their behaviour is the essence of obtuse imo.

You're still losing a massive amount of of
Packets on your second hop. Is be at them for a replacement router IMO. Doesn't matter how much you spout on about layer 4 traffic issues across their network when they're beginning at your router. You've been having issues prior to the major outage which points at something localised.

No doubt there's wide scale problems at the moment but I still think you've a local problem.

Don't forget your layer 4 problems are likely being caused by something on layer 1 or 2.

Charlie-Bravo · 20-02-2014 11:07pm

Doesn't look great at this time of day on wifi...

UPC

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