Cwmbwrla UBR.

[John S]

Im on the Swansea Cwmbwrla UBR still on 2 meg with 70 ping and paying £2 extra a month since May.
Its been getting steadily worse since yes youve guessed it May.
Has anyone any information on the status of the Cwmbrla UBR.

[Welshchris]

John ive also noticed that the pings from cwmbwrla are getting worse. Mine have doubled in the past weeks on 20mb.

[John S]

Hi Chris,
Yes pings today in the 60,s peaking at 70 make the service a nightmare. I cant bear to look at the screen waiting for something to happen. "Waiting" "Connecting with Website" is almost a permanent feature here.
Its down to 50 at the mo so I think its an oversubscribed UBR and would really like to know whats going on. I live in Cockett over a mile from Cwmbwrla and would like to be on the Sketty UBR which Im sure is closer.

John.

[Ignitionnet]

You have any traceroutes for this guys?

You aren't going to be on the same CMTS by the way. As Chris posted elsewhere he complained his way back onto the DOCSIS 3 CMTS ;)

[BarFly]

Trace route from Sketty UBR to Google for you to compare...

Tracing route to www.l.google.com [209.85.229.103]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.1.1
2 25 ms 19 ms 30 ms 10.217.XXX.1
3 10 ms 14 ms 13 ms swan-cam-1a-v105.network.virginmedia.net
54.21]
4 24 ms 21 ms 26 ms swan-t3core-1a-ge-011-0.network.virginmed
[195.182.176.5]
5 34 ms 23 ms 17 ms bir-bb-a-ge-130-0.network.virginmedia.net
3.162.105]
6 18 ms 32 ms 21 ms man-bb-b-so-510-0.network.virginmedia.net
3.185.134]
7 22 ms 22 ms 17 ms man-bb-a-ae0-0.network.virginmedia.net [6
87.177]
8 24 ms 21 ms 31 ms bre-bb-b-ae1-0.network.virginmedia.net [2
63.86]
9 54 ms 49 ms 52 ms telc-ic-1-as0-0.network.virginmedia.net [
185.74]
10 30 ms 36 ms 42 ms 212.43.163.174
11 19 ms 20 ms 30 ms 209.85.255.76
12 38 ms 37 ms 43 ms 72.14.232.134
13 41 ms 48 ms 40 ms 216.239.49.45
14 53 ms 50 ms 46 ms 209.85.243.85
15 34 ms 46 ms 47 ms ww-in-f103.google.com [209.85.229.103]

[John S]

Hi Broadbandings,

Its improved slowly tonight but this is about as good as it gets.

Tracing route to bbc.co.uk
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 13 ms 6 ms 7 ms 10.217.168.1
2 6 ms 23 ms 19 ms swan-cam-1a-v113.network.virginmedia.net [80.0.2
54.77]
3 6 ms 7 ms 6 ms swan-t3core-1a-ge-010-0.network.virginmedia.net
[195.182.176.1]
4 14 ms 11 ms 14 ms bir-bb-a-ge-130-0.network.virginmedia.net [212.4
3.162.105]
5 17 ms 28 ms 17 ms nth-bb-b-ae2-0.network.virginmedia.net [62.253.1
85.85]
6 19 ms 19 ms 20 ms tele-ic-1-as0-0.network.virginmedia.net [62.253.
184.2]
7 48 ms 198 ms 22 ms pos6-1.rt0.thdo.bbc.co.uk [212.58.239.237]
8 19 ms 23 ms 29 ms 212.58.238.153
9 30 ms 19 ms 36 ms virtual-vip.thdo.bbc.co.uk [212.58.224.138]

Trace complete.

[Chris]

You appear to be connected via a proxy. We don't see too many of those on Virgin's network these days but they used to cause hell for users and were the subject of mant forum threads. I wonder whether a sluggish proxy is the source of your problem?

[John S]

Hi Chris,
I tried Proxy,s years ago and the last one was Dublin and Im pretty sure Im not on that now. They made no difference as a few days later everything was back to square one.
My pings are 78 down to 66 with Speedio is this normal.

John.

[Chris]

If VM are still using transparent proxies on your part of the network, your traffic will all go through it whether you specify one in your connection settings or not. Trust me, I know you are indeed being routed through a proxy, the forum admins can see your connection details attached to each post you make.

It's a sad irony that if you are suffering from a dodgy transparent proxy, the only way to get past it is to manually specify a different one. You don't have the option not to use a proxy at all.

[John S]

Hi Chris,
Thanks for that.
You say they can cause hell for users so why do I get lumbered with one.
Why cant they leave me alone on a 2meg connection with low pings and latency. Im not in the least interested in 50 20 even 10 meg Bandwidth as I just browse 99% of the time as do most of the people I work with.
John.

[Welshchris]

John to be honest with u i think a lot of my issues are local in the green box outside.

Its been found open many times and manytimes the lock has had to be replaced and repairs have had to be done on there after being found open and this is where my last problems was traced back to and resolved also.

[John S]

Hi Chris,
If you mean the green 2x1x.5 ft box bottom flap opening box Ive just had a look at mine and its still ajar since before May when the upgrades started, That was when things got interesting but are now disappointing to say the least.

John.

[Welshchris]

i dont know the exact measurements as ive never felt the urge to take a measuring tape to one but if its a Virgin media one and ajar then report it on either the newsgroups or telephone support.

[die5el]

Im on the Swansea Cwmbwrla UBR still on 2 meg with 70 ping . I think you have answered your own question you are on 2 meg broadband m8 them pings are not too bad for 2 meg only way to get better pings (may be lol) is to get a faster broadband connection this is Tracing route to bbc.co.uk
over a maximum of 30 hops: btw im on 50 meg

Microsoft Windows XP [Version 5.1.2600]
(C) Copyright 1985-2001 Microsoft Corp.

C:\Documents and Settings\John>tracert bbc.co.uk

Tracing route to bbc.co.uk [212.58.224.138]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms xxx.xxx.xxx
2 7 ms 7 ms 7 ms cwma-cmts-07-lback-20.network.virginmedia.net [8
6.5.128.1]
3 6 ms 7 ms 7 ms swan-t3core-1a-ge-300-1860.network.virginmedia.n
et [213.105.225.41]
4 10 ms 11 ms 11 ms bir-bb-a-ge-130-0.network.virginmedia.net [212.4
3.162.105]
5 27 ms 18 ms 15 ms nth-bb-b-ae2-0.network.virginmedia.net [62.253.1
85.85]
6 17 ms 19 ms 19 ms tele-ic-1-as0-0.network.virginmedia.net [62.253.
184.2]
7 20 ms 19 ms 19 ms pos6-1.rt0.thdo.bbc.co.uk [212.58.239.237]
8 20 ms 19 ms 19 ms 212.58.238.153
9 18 ms 19 ms 19 ms virtual-vip.thdo.bbc.co.uk [212.58.224.138]

Trace complete.

[Ignitionnet]

I think you have answered your own question you are on 2 meg broadband m8 them pings are not too bad for 2 meg only way to get better pings (may be lol) is to get a faster broadband connection this is Tracing route to bbc.co.uk
over a maximum of 30 hops: btw im on 50 meg

The speed of the connection is nothing to do with the pings. Pings should be no lower on 50M than on the other tiers and if you purchased the service purely for lower latency you got stitched :)

---------- Post added at 10:35 ---------- Previous post was at 10:32 ----------

Hi Broadbandings,

Its improved slowly tonight but this is about as good as it gets.

Hi,

You're on cwma-cmts-04.

Does it get worse at certain times of the day, say after 4pm, then improve at say 9pm or later?

What are you still doing on 2Mbit too, you should be on 10M now, sure you aren't on the 'S' tier? With its' rubbish STM limits if you're on the 2M 'S' tier you only have to sneeze near your PC to break the limits and be throttled down.

---------- Post added at 10:39 ---------- Previous post was at 10:35 ----------

John ive also noticed that the pings from cwmbwrla are getting worse. Mine have doubled in the past weeks on 20mb.

As per other thread any chance of a traceroute. You are not on the same CMTS as OP given you jumped up and down until you were put back onto one of the Cwmbwrla BSRs and he's still on a legacy VXR.

[die5el]

@ broadbandings (The speed of the connection is nothing to do with the pings) if you say so but i think you may be wrong on that one. My ping to a unreal tournament server was roughly say 90 and now i am on the 50 meg my ping is now 35. My ping is a lot lower on games now than it used to be btw not having a go at you broadbandings . :wavey: when i was on a 56k modem my pings were in the 300 - 400 mark on the same server so i think speed of connection does help

[BarFly]

@ broadbandings (The speed of the connection is nothing to do with the pings) if you say so but i think you may be wrong on that one. My ping to a unreal tournament server was roughly say 90 and now i am on the 50 meg my ping is now 35. My ping is a lot lower on games now than it used to be btw not having a go at you broadbandings . :wavey: when i was on a 56k modem my pings were in the 300 - 400 mark on the same server so i think speed of connection does help

Without doing the full explanation, a packet of information is so small the speed of Broadband does'nt play such a important role in ping response.

The route the packet takes & how busy the routers are on each hop play a lot more important role..

[Ignitionnet]

@ broadbandings (The speed of the connection is nothing to do with the pings) if you say so but i think you may be wrong on that one. My ping to a unreal tournament server was roughly say 90 and now i am on the 50 meg my ping is now 35. My ping is a lot lower on games now than it used to be btw not having a go at you broadbandings . :wavey: when i was on a 56k modem my pings were in the 300 - 400 mark on the same server so i think speed of connection does help

No offense taken.

I was going to take some time to explain but this does it for me:

http://www.dslreports.com/faq/694

Bandwidth and latency are connected. If the bandwidth is saturated then congestion occurs and latency is increased. However, if the bandwidth of a circuit is not at peak, the latency will not decrease. Bandwidth can always be increased but latency cannot be decreased. Latency is the function of the electrical characteristics of the circuit.

Extra bandwidth only drops pings when you don't have enough and are saturating your circuit, until then it's not an issue. John pinging websites isn't going to saturate his 2Mbit.

Chances are your pings dropped thanks to being on a less congested CMTS when you upgraded. UT sucked on dialup due to dialup sucking and its' 33.6kbps upstream not being enough for UT so hitting the congestion alluded to above. In addition the 'electrical characteristics' of dialup and an HSI service are quite different to say the least. Simples!

EDIT: That said I should have added the caveat about potential congestion, but certainly unless using all upstream or downstream bandwidth you could be on 40Gbit and it wouldn't give better latency than 2Mbit so long as both used the same underlying technology and took the same path to the destination.

[die5el]

cheers for the link broadbandings much appreciated we learn more things each day

[John S]

Chris there are 2 cases in my road the bottom one is OK but the top one is opposite the park and gets beer cans etc on top so I think it needs a stronger lock. A stronger case with a Yale lock could be made for about 50 quid. We use the best locks and chains on street equipment now and have had nothing pinched after losing £!000s of equipment.
Broadbandings yesterday my bad pings started when I got home at 1740 not the best time of day for sure. Today it was at 1830 but nor so bad but still unuseable for 5 minute bursts.
Thanks for the link. I think your brave posting that as I wanted to post "Speed Its not the Bandwidth its the Latency" link but lacking your expertise I bottled it. This is kept very quiet by ISP. s I wonder why.
But they do say that the lowest Latency is with Fibre go figure.
I also read that with higher Bandwidth with higher costs it is in the interests of the ISP.s to provide the optimum route via the best servers whereas for 2megs like me it uses whatever is available.
Im on the M tier according to my bill If I go for the 10 meg upgrade will I be tied to a new 12 month contract on a different platform.

John.

[Ignitionnet]

They're dead right, the lowest latency is with fibre however VM aren't fibre all the way through ;)

How's the pings this morning?

[John S]

Ive been away this morning but this afternoon its 56 but there there is nothing like the lag there is in the week.
Im wondering if its the Metropolitan campus half a mile away which had its usual influx of students last week. I think Sketty has a big surge when the UNI is back.
Do ISP.s see full UBR subscription as money in the bank depending on everyone not being online at the same time which happens on TV online promotions and voting crashing the servers.
I dunno whats going on its confusing which I dont like one bit.

[Ignitionnet]

Ive been away this morning but this afternoon its 56 but there there is nothing like the lag there is in the week.
Im wondering if its the Metropolitan campus half a mile away which had its usual influx of students last week. I think Sketty has a big surge when the UNI is back.
Do ISP.s see full UBR subscription as money in the bank depending on everyone not being online at the same time which happens on TV online promotions and voting crashing the servers.
I dunno whats going on its confusing which I dont like one bit.

Hi John,

All ISPs without exception oversell the bandwidth a lot, hoping that customers won't all be online downloading full whack at the same time.

It does sound a lot like students coming back has done the damage.

I'm not offering any excuses but it happens to cable companies all over the world, and yes it's a pain in the backside.

Sorry I couldn't offer any more advice or words of wisdom, but yes you are dead right about the oversubscription, it's why a 20Mbit service costs a few pounds a month instead of hundreds or thousands, but when students come back to play it does throw things off as they aren't the lightest users generally, especially with 4, 5 or 6 of them to each cable modem in shared housing.

:(

There is an upgrade program running to catch up on any shortages of capacity since the uplift from 2 to 10Mbit on the legacy VM network, I can only recommend you get in touch with VM to try and get confirmation of the congestion along with a date when relief work will be carried out.

[John S]

Hi Broadbandings,
Thanks Ill do that next week.