Topic: Excessively long ping times

[edb]

EDB,

thx for suggestion on photobucket.

At the start you said you're with Shaw Cable and somewhere else that 60 kbps is all upspeed they can get you. Just curious is this due to location or is Shaw messed up. It seems curious that Bell has something that Shaw doesn't

Yes, it is an inherent disadvantage of Cable with the useless upload speeds but some areas have much better upload capacity.
In our particular area this is the restriction that they have in place and I really didn't even know it until just this week.
Most of their customer base is the "home user" rather than Business customers which is why it is all designed for download capacity rather than upload.

With a Bell T1 line it is a dedicated 1.544Mb up & down with a Service Level Agreement and in business this can be important as we have had a time where Shaw had been down for two days and they also like to change your static IPs 2-3 times per year.

Also, with cable you can get 3200Kbps download one minute and then 386Kbps the next because the bandwidth is shared with all subscribers in that area. I just tested mine again and I got Download speed: 450 kilobits per second from PCPitstop.com and at 6:00pm if I try it I would get 3-4000Kbps.

If I can get Bell to tie my T1s directly into their backbone it would make cable look sick. 

edb

[imcintyre]

If I were you I would go directly to 3 up and down.

We don't have anything near as complicated as your set up. We were with Bell 1.5 up and down and had issues with uploading getting saturated and slow speed. We went on a witch hunt and found one torrent user, still had issues and replaced our router twice. We ended up going to 3 up/down and don't have any noticeable issues.

Good luck.

[edb]

If I were you I would go directly to 3 up and down.

We don't have anything near as complicated as your set up. We were with Bell 1.5 up and down and had issues with uploading getting saturated and slow speed. We went on a witch hunt and found one torrent user, still had issues and replaced our router twice. We ended up going to 3 up/down and don't have any noticeable issues.

Good luck.

Thanks imcintyre ... that is exactly what I will be doing and it is great to hear that you have no more issues now.
It will likely take at least 3 weeks or so before I actually get it though because Bell is slow to act.

Nice to know someone else that is using a Bonded T1 

[edb]

imcintyre

Are you on Bell's ProConnect service or standard T1?
The ProConnect service can “prioritize” traffic into classes and runs about $350/month on an MPLS service arrangement so it is substantially cheaper than standard T1 or bonded T1 also.
The MPLS service runs on a fibre connection, and can provide much higher amounts of internet b/w in increments of 1 Mbps to 10 Mbps.
The Bell engeneers I've been speaking with say that all more bandwidth will do is speed up the time it takes to do the download but while the download is occurring my POS systems will still suffer but for a much shorter time because the download will complete sooner. He is probably right so with the their new ProConnect service I could maybe get away with a 2Mb connection instead of a 3Mb due to the “prioritize” traffic ability.

I'm glad I asked a lot of questions because this certainly sounds like the way to go considering my issue was that my VPN point-of-sale systems bogged when a customer was downloading a 12MB pdf document off of our webserver.

Makes sense to me ...

edb

[raem]

edb

The Bell engeneers I've been speaking with say that all more bandwidth will do is speed up the time it takes to do the download but while the download is occurring my POS systems will still suffer but for a much shorter time because the download will complete sooner. He is probably right so with the their new ProConnect service I could maybe get away with a 2Mb connection instead of a 3Mb due to the “prioritize” traffic ability.
I'm glad I asked a lot of questions because this certainly sounds like the way to go considering my issue was that my VPN point-of-sale systems bogged when a customer was downloading a 12MB pdf document off of our webserver.

Whatever amount of bandwidth you have, it can still be saturated by too much activity.
That's why some form of bandwidth control/qos/prioritisation is required, particularly on business networks  that have multiple users doing multiple "unknown" things.
You would probably find that even 1Mbps upload would still be adequate as long as you use outgoing traffic shaping eg the Wondershaper solution previously mentioned or similar.

[electroman00]

edb

Have you disconnected everything except for one client to the modem and run an MTU ping.

If your mtu ping changes from 1500 then it's upstream.

The modem could be loaded with the wrong bin cap file or it's corrupt.

Also did you poke at the modem 192.168.100.1 to check signals?

Code: [Select]

Name
WebSTAR DPC2100R2

Hardware Version
2.1

Software Version
v2.0.2r1256-060303

Receive Power Level
14.3 dBmV

Transmit Power Level
46.5 dBmV

Cable Modem Status
Operational
If the receive level is 0dbmv or less then your problem is, your at or near the end of the line
and they need to boost it up or find the problem.

My d/l is 7mbit and up 6.5-7kb with those sig levels.
Your modem may be capped for less  b/w or your paying for the slower service.
You have to make sure they load the right bin cap file to the modem.

BTW what did they say the flap were on the modem, if they said what is flaps
then you need to get more qualified folks out there to check things out.

The guys they send to you are bottom of the barrel techs, surely you'll never
see a 60k eng come out to visit.

You need to find out three things.....

Receive sig level
Modem flaps
MTU ping with only one pc client on the modem.

A low sig will cause flaps and erratic mtu pings.

Cable mtu ping should be rock solid 1500 else you have a problem Houston.

If mtu is erratic then your just going to chase your tail..........

10-4 

[edb]

edb

Whatever amount of bandwidth you have, it can still be saturated by too much activity.
That's why some form of bandwidth control/qos/prioritisation is required, particularly on business networks  that have multiple users doing multiple "unknown" things.
You would probably find that even 1Mbps upload would still be adequate as long as you use outgoing traffic shaping eg the Wondershaper solution previously mentioned or similar.

Ray

I understand that traffic shaping is necessary in any case when you have a busy server. My Sonicwall 2040 has bandwidth allocation as well as Class Base Queuing (CBQ) on Ingress & Egress which I have tried but in my present state of only 60K up it doesn't really help.

My upload pipe is just too small right now.

However, when I get a reasonable upload capacity of 300-400K the Sonicwall BWM (Bandwidth Management) maybe all that is required to fine tune things. If I were to stop all email/web activity going through my current pipe I wouldn't have an issue at all with my VPN connections and my POS systems would hum. It's only when a download or large email is sent that it brings my VPN connections to a stand-still.

I think whether I go with Bell's Managed ProConnect service or the standard T1 either one would resolve my issue that I'm currently experiencing. There is a ballance that is necessary between available bandwidth and traffic shaping when it comes to latency such as what I'm currently faced with. Like you said before 60K is barely enough for one user never mind 50-100 and a busy website.

edb

[edb]

Also did you poke at the modem 192.168.100.1 to check signals?

How were you able to check the stats of your cable modem?

I call them and had them check my modem levels and they said everything looks perfect, no flaps at all and receive levels were optimum but they told me that my issue was likely due to the 60K limitation on the upload side and there was nothing they could do about that until they update their network which wouldn't be for six months or so. After all the talk and reading I don't think Cable is the answer for Business no matter what they do to improve their network but it is awesome for a very small office or home type setup. They have a who cares attitude at best and make no guarantees on their service what so ever. This may improve over time but I'll be taking myself off of their list of Business customers right shortly. Anyways, I was tired of them changing my static IPs every time I turned around.

Thanks for your comments though ...

edb

[electroman00]

Type that in your browser 192.168.100.1

Not sure what modem you have but most respond to that IP.

Google your modem model # and get the admin IP address.

60k up on cable is ridiculous, thats not even dial up.

You need to speak to the right people, they obviously are like so many dumb ass support
folks they don't realize what they say and if you accept that then oh well.

The bandwidth provided is in your contract, the paper you received when you signed up.

What's on their website now and your contract may be two diff things.

Your contract is the one to go by.

Any cable company offering 60k up these days should shut it's doors and go home.

What ISP is it?

My ISP is a small town (population 3,000) phone Co. that writes their own rules.

They better start writting some new rules before they go out of business....!!!

Have you checked your mtu ping and what is the result.

Sounds like they don't have many folks that know whats up.

If mtu ping is anything other then 1500 then it doesn't matter what speed they offer
you won't get what's advertised and that is b/c they have a system problem.

I would call the office president and speak with him, sure he would like to
know what problems exist on his system.

I had to do that here several times to get the right people motivated to
fix things.

60k their joking...right!!

Like I said you need to check things for yourself and verify eveything and stop taking peoples word
as gospel.

If someone wants to piss me off all they have to say is

"Well sir the problem appears to be at your end, we don't have any other people complaining"

98% of the people on the internet don't know they even have a problem more or less complain
about it.

Get the answers to the three things in my previous post and then you will know for sure if 60k is real.

MTU rock solid 1500
Flaps count <100/week
Modem Receive level >5dbmv

Like I said connect one pc to the modem and verify.

It's the only way to rule out everything else on your side of the fence.

BTW no flaps at all.....yea right, somebody is blowing smoke.

Every modem will flap even as much as 10 a week....so no flaps = smoke.
Anything more then that can be considered suspect.

Also if you think dsl will be any better, well I would suggest not turning off your cable to quick.

I think they are currently serving from around 12mbs of paired ds3/t1s.

You would have to know how many connections they have avail in order to support 3000 base.

You have a support web page for your isp?

hth




 

[edb]

electroman00

Your quotes are not from anything I have written but rather one of the replies I received from mercyh I beleive.

I will try connecting to the Terayon to have a peek, I didn't realize you could do that.
Always learning something new but what are the chances that they don't have a default setup on these modems since it would be public knowledge I wouldn't think that would be very smart on their part.

edb

[imcintyre]

edb

Don't know but I will check into it, I'm not the IT guy.

[electroman00]

electroman00
Your quotes are not from anything I have written but rather one of the replies I received from mercyh I beleive.

Sorry about that.....anyway this might help ya....

http://www.hwkb.com/Uwe/Forum.aspx/network-cable-modem/542/IP-Address-for-Terayon-Modem-Needed

You might also need the password.

Depends on how your ISP sets up the modem as to what info you get.

Always learning something new but what are the chances that they don't have a default setup on these modems since it would be public knowledge I wouldn't think that would be very smart on their part.

You can't set anything up, but you can get very relevant info i.e. rec signal level which is enough to diagnose most problems.

i.e. MTU problems.

hth

[edb]

Well I tried connecting to the Terayon modem through 192.168.100.1 but it's a no go on my system.
Maybe ISPs where you are have things setup differently. I really couldn't see that being possible becuse what if I was a customer and wanted to make my network 192.168.100.0 and give my router the address of 192.168.100.1 which would be the normal procedure. This would cause a conflict giving it the same IP as the modem but the customer doesn't know that the address is already taken by the modem.

Bottom line is that accessing the modem doesn't work here anyway and I assume the ISP has the pages blocked if nothing else.

edb

[edb]

edb

Don't know but I will check into it, I'm not the IT guy.

Thanks imcintyre