Is internet becoming slower (xtra)

[ratkin]

Last year i subscribed to mlb.com to watch all basebalkl games live on the net . Generally it worked fine with little lag . Trying to watch a spring training game today and the lag is shocking.

Im not sure if the broadband has slowed down (xtra in chch ) or if there is more traffic on the mlb site.

I just ran a test at http://www.speedtest.net/ and it came down at between 10 and 11 mbps with a ping of 11
Is this any good ? can any chch people run this test and tell me how they did as im concerned it could be my computer or modem , or is 11mbps good?

[Yankiwi]

I just ran a test at http://www.speedtest.net/ and it came down at between 10 and 11 mbps with a ping of 11
Is this any good ? can any chch people run this test and tell me how they did as im concerned it could be my computer or modem , or is 11mbps good?

Good on ya Ratkin for watching the all American sport! :D

Go Redsox :t_up:

I've just ran the same test in the third world city I'm from, Rotorua. My download was just over 3mbps with a ping of 197 testing via Auckland. The same test from here via Chch was again just over 3 mbps with a ping of 119.

The higher the mbps is the faster the connection is. The lower the ping number the faster and cleaner the signal is.

[CJ]

I just ran a test at http://www.speedtest.net/ and it came down at between 10 and 11 mbps with a ping of 11That is fast. However, you were probably testing speed to a christchurch site. The problem could be MLB site but I doubt it. My guess is the bandwidth between Chch and the US site is most likely the problem.

If this is the case, it is a telecom issue but not specific to your connection. If it was hosted on NZ servers, you would have no problem but bandwidth out of NZ is constrained.

That is one of the problems with Nationals bandwidth plan. It is fine having fast internet within NZ but probably 80% of content we use is from overseas.

[neopoleII]

we have 1.15 mbps ...... slow...... and can see the sky tower standing on the roof.
last year we were on dial up getting only about 24k.

we are rural though...... sort of.
whats funny is....... very poor suburbs like otara and manurewa have massively fast speed.

[ratkin]

Another problem is the faster the connection gets the slower websites become to load due to them adding lots more content.
Fifteen years ago when on 14speed dial up web pages loaded just as fast because they were simple.
Now sites covered in ads and video etc so that they seem to take just as long to load even though speeds are much quicker.

Looks like that cable linking us with the states is whats needed

[peat]

there are a lot of variables of course...
I have allways used Telecom (Xtra) as my ISP for broadband and I have always used their unlimited data plans. Nowadays , there is some risk in using these plans as Telecom do what they call 'traffic shaping' which means they control or limit the speed you experience (so to prevent people using massive amounts of data) Thats fair enough in some ways and as a principle I dont have a problem with it. If I had unlimited speed and unlimited data I could use a lot of bandwidth if I was to torrent (acquire and share) movies.

But , and I'm not a conspiracy theorist usually, a few weeks ago I was called up out fo the blue by someone from Telecom and commended for being a long term customer yada yada yad and would I like to choose one of three prizes with the only proviso being that I would be committing to staying with Telecom for one year with penalty of a $199 break fee. Normally I wouldnt bother but one of the prizes was a little bit tempting so I (stupidly) succumbed to this offer.

Ever since then my internet connection has been absolute ****e. But not slow - get this, if I do a speed test its fine... 7 MBS 50ms ping so on the face of it thats a reasonable connection... But both my trading applications keep disconnecting all the time!!! I checked with other guys on this forum who use (Oanda FXTrade) the application and most of them say its fine for them. So I dont think its the broker in fact I've proved its not the broker as I used my mobile broadband connection and it worked fine (but of course data is too expensive to use all the time from home)

I've logged a call with Telecom and folllowed up on this but all I get is Filipino's asking me to check my cabling etc... which of course it isnt because NZ websites work fine... its just the international ones but particularly my trading application still time out a lot....

Its been like this for over a week now. FXTrade is un-useable at times with constant disconnections and Market Maker is similar tho not as bad.

So needless to say I'm totally angry about this and if things dont change soon I will try another ISP and they can shove that break fee where the Southern cross cable never goes.

[minimoke]

Im not sure if the broadband has slowed down (xtra in chch ) or if there is more traffic on the mlb site.

I'm with xtra in ChCh and get a speed of 12.02mbps and a ping of 536ms. The speed is good and v good for NZ - though I have ADSL2.

Saying that though I find streaming to be very slow with lots of buffering - so slow I'm pretty much not watching any more video because of the pauses / delays. Like you I'm wondering if its the router but haven't got around to looking at it yet. Perhasp its just my "unlimited" plan which allows Telecom to choke during peak periods.

[CJ]

From what others have said, it appears telecom does traffic shaping in relation to international content.

Ratkin - which plan are you on? are you on the unlimited plan which allows them to traffic shape.

[peat]

I'm with xtra in ChCh and get a speed of 12.02mbps and a ping of 536ms. The speed is good and v good for NZ - though I have ADSL2.

Saying that though I find streaming to be very slow with lots of buffering - so slow I'm pretty much not watching any more video because of the pauses / delays. Like you I'm wondering if its the router but haven't got around to looking at it yet. Perhasp its just my "unlimited" plan which allows Telecom to choke during peak periods.

what I want to know is whats the point of these speed tests if we cant watch a bit of youtube every now and then... no fricken point thats what. So I dont care what my speedtest is if I cant use the internet in a normal fashion. eg run client/server apps or stream vid.

[neopoleII]

peat,
maybe your problem is your browser?
i used to use explorer, but was getting bogged down alot, then went to mozzilla and it was fine, then that bogged down as well.
i did a bit of searching, and found that firefox can be tweaked here and there, and there are lots of add ons as well.
so after a day of mucking around my web experience is now great........ albite a slowish connection.

[Cannibal]

What plan are you on? I am Telecom Big Time. Unlimited downloading but they throttle it at peak times.

Actually they throttle the hell out of it all the time. So Youtube or any streaming video is a nightmare but torrents are ok and that is what I do most of.

[CJ]

what I want to know is whats the point of these speed tests if we cant watch a bit of youtube every now and then... no fricken point thats what. So I dont care what my speedtest is if I cant use the internet in a normal fashion. eg run client/server apps or stream vid.Youtube actualy has a page (not sure how to find it as was given a link and am at work so cant check) that tells you what your average speed is, the average for your area, your country and everyone.

[peat]

peat,
maybe your problem is your browser?
i used to use explorer, but was getting bogged down alot, then went to mozzilla and it was fine, then that bogged down as well.
i did a bit of searching, and found that firefox can be tweaked here and there, and there are lots of add ons as well.
so after a day of mucking around my web experience is now great........ albite a slowish connection.

nope because when I go onto my T-Stick mobile broadband it works fine... and also its not actually the browser that is the primary issue its the client/server applications timing out... (not torrenting apps but trading apps)

[peat]

ok so it seems we have an explanation which applies only to those on Telecoms unlimited 'Big Time' plan
Here is what they sent me today

We are currently seeing increased latency on one of the two International paths, caused by the Traffic Management device used for the Big Time plan.
This means that some customers maybe experiencing slower speeds when uploading and downloading from international sources.

We are making configuration changes to alleviate this and are working closely with the vendor to identify the route cause.

So it would appear that they are inadvertantly screwing us over even more than they intend to
The latency factor also explains why applications are timing out and yet in general bandwidth is plentiful.
Hopefully this will be fully resolved pretty soon, though it is already better from my perspective.

[ratkin]

How can they be so incompetent? Unbelievable really

[ratkin]

Im on the pro plan , this gives 40gigs per month and there is supposedly no restriction on speed.