BT 'turn based' browsing continued...

So I'm getting a bit fed up of it now - so thought I'd start putting some harder facts together on my experience with BT... I'll update this as I go along.

At this point I can't rule out some misconfiguration on my part but its something I hope to discover if it is the case.

I'm using the following IPs as DNS servers:

194.73.73.172
194.72.6.57
208.67.222.222 (open DNS fallback)

I've also tried a number of other BT and non BT name servers with little change - my router needs them hand configured if its acting as a DNS server/relay to local clients and BT don't make it easy to work out which you should be using.

First up is loading the bbc.co.uk website - I'm using firefox with the fasterfox extension to time the page loads - times are in seconds.

Direct connection:

24.781 (no cache)
20.188
12.469
35.310

Proxy via VPN (SSH tunnel).

2.875 (no cache)
2.796
3.343
2.594

Peak time speed test is hardly inspiring either:

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/results/id/1...

And neither is the BT speed test:

Test1 comprises of Best Effort Test: -provides background information.
Your DSL connection rate: 4448 kbps(DOWN-STREAM), 896 kbps(UP-STREAM)
IP profile for your line is - 3500 kbps
Actual IP throughput achieved during the test was - 862 kbps

Tracing route to bbc.co.uk [212.58.254.252]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms local.gateway [192.168.1.1]
2 10 ms 8 ms 9 ms 217.32.147.97
3 9 ms 8 ms 9 ms 217.32.147.126
4 11 ms 13 ms 13 ms 213.120.177.82
5 35 ms 36 ms 35 ms 213.120.176.13
6 * 33 ms 34 ms 213.120.176.178
7 * 38 ms 37 ms 213.120.176.113
8 39 ms 35 ms 37 ms core1-ge1-0-0.faraday.ukcore.bt.net [194.72.4.17
7]
9 38 ms 37 ms 40 ms core1-pos0-1-1-0.ilford.ukcore.bt.net [62.6.204.
73]
10 40 ms 36 ms 33 ms core1-pos9-1.telehouse.ukcore.bt.net [194.74.65.
114]
11 38 ms 36 ms 37 ms 194.74.65.42
12 36 ms 36 ms 36 ms 212.58.238.129
13 37 ms 36 ms 35 ms rdirslb0.thdo.bbc.co.uk [212.58.224.136]
14 37 ms 41 ms 39 ms virtual3.rbsov.bbc.co.uk [212.58.254.252]

Trace complete.

Exchange is showing green on status checks.

The above info does suggest that the connection is both traffic managed and there is extreme congestion within the BT network (even ~1-2 months ago I'd ping bbc.co.uk ay 7-8ms in peak times) - but neither of those would explain directly why HTTP traffic over the BT network is 10x slower than HTTP traffic via an encrypted stream - which suggests they are parsing such traffic in some manner either via phorm or some kind of proxy or DPI - with a system thats completely incapable of handling the load.

Edited by deleted (Thu 18-Jun-09 22:27:21)

Now off peak time (Getting around 3.2Mbit downstream on a 3.5mbit profile):

Direct:

11.469 (no cache)
5.780
5.250
4.125

Tunnel:
2.937 (no cache)
1.156
1.219
1.531

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

Tracing route to bbc.co.uk [212.58.254.252]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms local.gateway [192.168.1.1]
2 12 ms 8 ms 10 ms 217.32.147.97
3 11 ms 8 ms 8 ms 217.32.147.126
4 12 ms 13 ms 13 ms 213.120.177.82
5 33 ms 25 ms 24 ms 213.120.176.13
6 * * * Request timed out.
7 29 ms 24 ms 25 ms 213.120.176.113
8 38 ms 32 ms 35 ms core1-ge1-0-0.faraday.ukcore.bt.net [194.72.4.17
7]
9 33 ms 34 ms 38 ms core1-pos0-1-1-0.ilford.ukcore.bt.net [62.6.204.
73]
10 32 ms 30 ms 37 ms core1-pos9-1.telehouse.ukcore.bt.net [194.74.65.
114]
11 57 ms 34 ms 37 ms 194.74.65.42
12 38 ms 38 ms 37 ms 212.58.238.129
13 36 ms 36 ms 35 ms rdirslb0.thdo.bbc.co.uk [212.58.224.136]
14 34 ms 29 ms 29 ms virtual3.rbsov.bbc.co.uk [212.58.254.252]

Still looking like theres some issues within the network... tho less traffic seems to have eased things up a bit.

Still getting web pages stalling quite often tho (after entering the URL it goes to a loading page status but nothing happens - but hitting enter again in the URL bar will the load the page...) also getting the odd page time out when not tunnelled.

Edited by deleted (Fri 19-Jun-09 00:32:14)

Running some tests at 6:30pm

14.188
13.860
8.532
20.470

http://www.speedtest.net/result/499455003.png
http://www.speedtest.net/result/499457879.png

2.110
1.547
1.641
2.344

http://www.speedtest.net/result/499455826.png
http://www.speedtest.net/result/499456575.png

Ran twice to show that the tunnel is even more bandwidth
limited/congested (by BT) than a direct HTTP link and is still
10-20x faster loading web pages.

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/results/id/1...

28.470
25.578
13.625
14.265

2.610
2.969
4.421
3.140

Won't be long now til it come to a halt:

Test1 comprises of Best Effort Test: -provides background information.
Your DSL connection rate: 4160 kbps(DOWN-STREAM), 928 kbps(UP-STREAM)
IP profile for your line is - 3500 kbps
Actual IP throughput achieved during the test was - 267 kbps

This test was not conclusive and further testing is required.

Please wait whilst you are redirected to undertake a second test.

You now have two choices-

If you wish to carry out further tests and you are competent to make changes to your ADSL system configuration, then please click on 'Continue' button.

If not, please close the window using 'Exit' button and contact your ISP for further assistance with these results.

EDIT: Can't do the 2nd part of the test coz my router (A) Won't accept a blank PPPoA password for some reason (B) needs hand configured DNS servers and I don't know which ones BT uses for test domains.

Tracing route to bbc.co.uk [212.58.254.252]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms local.gateway [192.168.1.1]
2 10 ms 11 ms 12 ms 217.32.147.97
3 12 ms 9 ms 10 ms 217.32.147.126
4 17 ms 14 ms 13 ms 213.120.177.82
5 37 ms 35 ms * 213.120.176.13
6 * 38 ms * 213.120.176.178
7 36 ms 37 ms 38 ms 213.120.176.113
8 35 ms 36 ms 37 ms core1-ge1-0-0.faraday.ukcore.bt.net [194.72.4.17
7]
9 41 ms 37 ms 40 ms core1-pos0-1-1-0.ilford.ukcore.bt.net [62.6.204.
73]
10 36 ms 38 ms 40 ms core1-pos9-1.telehouse.ukcore.bt.net [194.74.65.
114]
11 * 36 ms 38 ms 194.74.65.42
12 39 ms 37 ms * 212.58.238.129
13 35 ms 34 ms 40 ms rdirslb0.thdo.bbc.co.uk [212.58.224.136]
14 36 ms 40 ms 42 ms virtual3.rbsov.bbc.co.uk [212.58.254.252]

Trace complete.

Incase anyone thinks this is coz of traffic originating inside my network - tracert clearly shows pings are low until it hits the core BT network...

And heres a path ping:

1 1ms 0/ 100 = 0% 0/ 100 = 0% local.gateway [192.168.1.1]
2 11ms 0/ 100 = 0% 0/ 100 = 0% 217.32.147.97
3 11ms 0/ 100 = 0% 0/ 100 = 0% 217.32.147.126
4 38ms 9/ 100 = 9% 6/ 100 = 6% 213.120.177.82
5 38ms 6/ 100 = 6% 3/ 100 = 3% 213.120.176.13
6 38ms 8/ 100 = 8% 5/ 100 = 5% 213.120.176.178
7 40ms 3/ 100 = 3% 0/ 100 = 0% 213.120.176.113
8 38ms 4/ 100 = 4% 0/ 100 = 0% core1-ge1-0-0.faraday.ukcore.bt.net [194.72.4.177]
9 40ms 7/ 100 = 7% 0/ 100 = 0% 62.172.103.29
10 40ms 11/ 100 = 11% 1/ 100 = 1% core1-pos1-0-0.telehouse.ukcore.bt
.net [62.6.201.82]
11 79ms 10/ 100 = 10% 0/ 100 = 0% ge0-1.linx.lon.rapidswitch.com [19
5.66.224.207]

Edited by deleted (Mon 22-Jun-09 19:47:32)

You called BT with that speedtest result, thats below the BT Wholesale threshold for a slow speed connection, I'd get on the phone and demand they fix it straight away. Wholesale will investigate it without many questions being asked, I would say no questions but this is Wholesale we're talking about.

At least BTR cant say oh well Wholesale never done anything because it's below the agreed service levels.

Thing is - its not stuck at that level - its bouncing around at anything from that to 1mbit - and whenever I get on the phone and they get me to do a speedtest it mirculously always seems to hit around 1mbit that time.

Just call them refuse to do anymore speedtests, that one is low enough to get wholesale to investigate the cause anyway, provided you weren't doing another download at the time and slowing it down externally.

Things have been looking a bit happier the last 2 days... tho who knows how long it will last...

2-3 seconds load times on the bbc.co.uk webpage during peak times and not seen speeds under 3.5Mbit/s - mostly hitting 4mbit which is acceptable enough for the price.

Not holding my breath tho.