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Having worked for an ISP, when you call to report slow internet the CSR is first going to ask you where you ran your speed test from. Their next comment is going to be that if the speed test was ran from an "off network" site, there can be network issues that can cause the slowness.
For example, I have Charter here. I run a speed test from a site on AT&T's network, but I have to cross Verizon's network to get to the speed test site. Verizon is having latency on their network which is affecting my speed test results. Charter's network is running ok (which never really happens, I'm just using them for example).
If you ISP has their own site to test from and you are not getting your speeds, then they have an issue on their network.
With that said, do run your tests from multiple sites all over the world so when you call your ISP you have that ammo.
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Thanks mate
-Ken
The Martial Arts: The more you sweat in practice, the less you bleed in battle.
Tell the ISP you want access to the router as you need to set up some counting on it. Then set up MRTG (or use PRTG as its easier to configure) and fire SNMP to a workstation & run an upload/download test nightly (robocopy some files to and from a server hosted offsite)
If the ISP won't give you access to the external interface of the router (they probably won't) then just use the internal interface and collect stats from there. It won't be as reliable as running it from the external interface, but is certainly much more reliable and likely to carry more weight than speed tests run from public servers.
One more thing - are you sure its not a 4/10 line? By that I mean 4Mb of bandwidth bursting up to 10Mb when necessary - this may account for the speeds you're getting.
Whichever your ISP, if you are on some flavour of dsl in England, than essentially you are dependent on the same BT-Wholesale infrastructure as everyone else. So the best speedtest to use is theirs: http://www.speedtester.bt.com
Follow the instructions on the site. It's probably the only test your ISP will pay much attention to - I'd be surprised if they measured the speed themselves. Make sure you have nothing but one PC/laptop connected to the router, and the router is not on a long extension cable to the wall socket. Oh, and if it is sdsl, obviously make sure you aren't using any dsl filters.
If you're concerned about the financial cost of downtime you should talk to your ISP (or another one) about installing an sdsl line and a backup (MUCH cheaper) adsl line to which it could temporarily failover. Nothing is up 100%, so it's belt and braces time.
Having said that, are those really the results of an sdsl circuit you paid £12,500 for? It looks more like £125 adsl MAX performance!
Whichever your ISP, if you are on some flavour of dsl in England, than essentially you are dependent on the same BT-Wholesale infrastructure as everyone else.
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Er - this isn't quite true. There are now several providers who have 'unbundled' from BT to a greater or lesser extent. None of them have LLU in the whole country, but many cover more than 50% of the population.
Now how they manage their backhaul is another matter....
If you're concerned about the financial cost of downtime you should talk to your ISP (or another one) about installing an sdsl line and a backup (MUCH cheaper) adsl line to which it could temporarily failover. Nothing is up 100%, so it's belt and braces time.
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That would be fine if the ISP puts your connections in different cards in the dslam but if the whole dslam goes it wouldn't help. Having diffferent ISP's is one option but if the whole exchange goes down you would still lose the lot.
That would be fine if the ISP puts your connections in different cards in the dslam but if the whole dslam goes it wouldn't help. Having diffferent ISP's is one option but if the whole exchange goes down you would still lose the lot.
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If one line was sdsl and the other adsl, surely they would be on different cards? Use two different ISPs and they would be on different DSLAMs. Nothing is foolproof - if you have a power cut, you lose the lot. More to ponder: One router with 2 cards; or a sdsl and a separate adsl router? You have to balance cost of the system to the cost of downtime - given the scenario Ken has given, I'll stick with my recommendation.
And to answer Harry's points - LLU unbundling doesn't make you fully independent of BT - and if the copper PSTN line to the customer's premises is crap, it's probably BT your ISP will be going to, to get it fixed. I said 'essentially' not 'entirely' and my point still stands - use the bt speedtest in preference to any speed site on the internet - unless, as another poster has said, your ISP specifies their own recommended site.
27-Mar-2008, 08:24 AM
Linear Mode
