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I was moved to a less congested SVLAN about 5 weeks ago and that solved the previous congestion problems, until now that is ... here we go again.
Speed tests are showing a normally 74Mb connection doing about 4Mb again.
Really frustrating to be paying a premium for a business broadband tariff with a SLA and "guaranteed" throughput and have to put up with this. In the 10 weeks it has only actually performed as it should do for half of that.
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the problem here is the cheap way out when there is congestion is to shuffle users about without doing upgrades, this is always only a short term solution assuming is growth of the userbase and traffic.
The proper way is of course is to actually provide a physical upgrade to capacity, although I wonder if the svlan is just an excuse, as I dont think svlan's been congested is as common as is been made out but rather congestion issues are either isp side or MSIL side.
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Unbelievable.
I've been patiently waiting for an Exchange back haul upgrade for about 6 weeks now.
It was supposed to be fixed today.
Now I'm told that there is a problem with the BT Wholesale ethernet edge switch and the next scheduled repair is not for another two weeks.
I mean, if its a known problem affecting users (A normal throughput of 74Mb drops to 2Mb at peak times) then why is that a scheduled repair.
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Register (or login) on our website and you will not see this ad.
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Well they certainly seem to be taking the heat off Plusnet lol
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I'm really close to telling Zen to RAM IT.
They have failed miserably to deliver what they promised and all they do it blame BT Wholesale.
If I could confirm that a switch to a Talk Talk Business ISP wouldnt be affected by same issue I'd drop Zen like a stone.
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Well if the problem is Zen or BT backhaul at peak times, you should avoid it via LLU TTB if your exchange is enabled.
Edited by professor973 (Mon 29-Feb-16 18:06:40)
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I'm really close to telling Zen to RAM IT.
They have failed miserably to deliver what they promised and all they do it blame BT Wholesale.
If I could confirm that a switch to a Talk Talk Business ISP wouldnt be affected by same issue I'd drop Zen like a stone.
I'm pretty sure you have had this confirmed. If you go to Sky or TTB, as long as your exchange is unbundled, you'll avoid the BT backhaul.
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TalkTalk Business is completely separate from BT, I am on that for Fibre [resold] while my BTW line is dying a slow painful death at Zen.
I said this last year & this year, they have NOT allowed for enough bandwidth at the exchanges to cope with all the interconnected household appliances that are now in use today.
At home you have ipads,iphones,TV's, Sky HD, kindles.... hell even fridges connected to the tintetnet....
It's just going to get worse before it's gonna get better.
Some of the fibre cabinet are on a waiting list now locally for connections so people are having to wait for someone to give up their broadband before they can get fibre...eh ...DOH!!!!
Only bad thing for you is a contract is still liable for payment with Zen and I imagine they will have covered their bases for low throughput.
Fibre Line 1 BQM
ZeN Line 2 BQM
BT Backhaul sucks
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Only bad thing for you is a contract is still liable for payment with Zen and I imagine they will have covered their bases for low throughput.
I took Zens unlimited Fibre Office package that came with a service level agreement of 60Mbps guaranteed throughput. I'm thinking that because this line has been problematic since day 1 that I've got good grounds to get out of the contract.
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Yes ... thanks.
A Talk Talk Business reselling ISP is looking like one solution to the problem.
Pulse8 has cropped up in discussion a few times.
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are you ready to tell us yet which TTB ISP you switched to recently?
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Only bad thing for you is a contract is still liable for payment with Zen and I imagine they will have covered their bases for low throughput.
I am not in contract, but if I were I'd be pursuing everything up to taking it to CISAS. In my own case I've seen a massive change in the way my connection works and I'd consider it to be worthy of getting out of contract, regardless of the lack of guarantees. An approx. 90% reduction in peak time speeds (single threaded) simply isn't normal or reasonable, especially when it worked fine for over a year prior
If it's the office service then they'd have even less of an excuse, given that there is an SLA, guaranteed time to fix, and throughput guarantees
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just done a test on mine
burst 79.8 averaged at 76.8 upload burst 19.3 avg 18.1 Sky in Rochdale which just happens to be Zens home Town
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Don't You Know?
Edited by professor973 (Mon 29-Feb-16 19:49:38)
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Just did a test on mine, for the 5th evening in a row my FTTC line which syncs at max 80/20 is giving performance worse than my backup 7.5km long ADSL line.
download burst 2.48 Mbps, average of 1.97 Mbps
upload burst 16.97 Mbps, average of 14.74 Mbps
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You mentioned you had switched from Pulse8 to another TTB ISP but didnt say which?
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91.199.78.226
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Another name that keeps popping up 
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Didn't you say it was limited to 100 GB or something?
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Took the 100gb for now as unmetered 8.00pm - 8.00am and all weekends, though unlimited only about 90p more.
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I would be interested in seeing a BQM for 91.199.78.226 if anyone has one?
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Don't You Know?
Web site says BTW for fibre, and for some reason they can't provide it on my line.
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website does suggest they use Talk Talk for ADSL and BTW for FTTC
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They are the same as Pulse8, in that it's resold TTB for FTTC and ADSL2+ if your exchange is unbundled, and both delivered via resold BTW if not. If you are with someone else and already unbundled, their site will show only Talk & surf (resold TTB) available to you. If you are with someone on BTW, their site will show SOHO (Small Office Home Office) available to you. They supply both, but the checker depends on what you are already on.
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They supply both, but the checker depends on what you are already on.
Zen provide my Fibre (Zen POP) and Phone (via BTW, I guess). Their checker shows
We're currently not able to offer you this service
Your exchange or cabinet is not currently enabled for the service.
You have a new phone line - please wait a few days and try again.
You have a service on your phone line that prevents us from checking it.
You have a non-BT compatible phone line such as from Sky or Virgin.
The BT Wholesale checker works for my phone number
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Im on the same boat, and same error showing up when Im trying to check whats available. It work everywhere else but not on Uno. Been in touch with them but they said same so I cant find out.
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I downgraded to ADSL2+ from FTTC before switching to avoid TTB problems with FTTC switch.
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Possibly the LLU FTTC is still not up and running yet, I was under the impression it was by now, as told when I downgraded to ADSL2+ from FTTC prior to switch, that I could then upgrade to FTTC again as they were soon implementing LLU FTTC, or at least that is what I understood, so if no LLU FTTC there soon should be.
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Probably no use doing that against our site IP.
Here is my connection at home though..
Matt
Edited by uno (Tue 01-Mar-16 00:36:54)
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Mine is only ADSL2+ at the moment and latency best I have had for a year. You can see it working hard with downloads, updates and Skype running most of the day.
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/ping/share/6cb7f903c68...
Have the same on my control page which sometimes showing lower than the TBB one.
http://postimg.org/image/lwpa33aij/
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91.199.78.226
why you scared to say xilo?
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Probably no use doing that against our site IP.
Here is my connection at home though..
Matt
What backhaul is that using?
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I. I'm not.
2. I'm not with Xilo.
3. Why are you playing the man again?
Edited by professor973 (Tue 01-Mar-16 20:07:24)
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Nice.
Got your PM by the way but couldnt reply as you have receipt of PM's disabled.
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No idea how messages got set like that , fixed now.
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why did you paste an xilo ip then? this is one of the weirdest things I have seen on a forum, hiding your isp yet telling people to move to this secret isp.
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I decided it was like an IQ test.
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I Posted a Uno IP - Click the link - A DIFFERENT company! - I have already stated that I would be posting little about my new ISP, specifically to avoid the abuse I endured when joining Pulse8. I and them were accused of being liars, not really reselling TTB and not being affiliated to this or that, to name just a few - Simply because it was me posting. And Lo! - the anoraks are sniping again, calling me "scared" and playing the man with the childishness I expect.
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Clever boy BatBoy - When I said "Don't You Know' I am sure you picked up Uno. Plenty of decent folks here are fully aware of my ISP. I am simply trying to avoid the usual personal abuse I attract, which you know I will not stand and there is no need for. But if it comes along, I am not "Scared" of a ban either!
Edited by professor973 (Wed 02-Mar-16 12:58:04)
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He didn't , it is Uno.net.
http://www.tcpiputils.com/browse/ip-address/91.199.7...
Well done - A gold star in your company folder and a bonus point for not joining the snipers Lol
Edited by professor973 (Wed 02-Mar-16 12:59:07)
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did you even read the page you posted?
organisation: ORG-XCL4-RIPE
org-name: XILO Communications Ltd.
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Just [censored] off sniper!
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wow you get ratty very easily, no wonder you paranoid about been criticised.
Its clear when I said xilo I also meant uno, as the uno isp is what used to be xilo broadband services..
Not to mention on speedtest.net etc. they still labeled as xilo.
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Get it into your head, they are DIFFERENT companies - They may be sister companies, but DIFFERENT companies. Do you call Plusnet B.T.?
Check their history. Whatever has gone before and whoever ran it, I joined Uno.
Speedtest - bit wobbly as running Skype. http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/results.html...
https://www.uno.net.uk/about-us/
Edited by professor973 (Wed 02-Mar-16 16:30:00)
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Did you order uno "Business Pro" TTB? If so it looks the same as my xilo/uno "Pro" TTB ADSL2+ account. If they are the same (?) then it's an excellent choice for reliability and consistently very good throughput speed
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Get it into your head, they are DIFFERENT companies - They may be sister companies, but DIFFERENT companies. Do you call Plusnet B.T.?
Check their history. Whatever has gone before and whoever ran it, I joined Uno.
Plusnet and BT actually are separate companies, though - one owning the other. They run different IP networks, have separate staff, etc. Look up a Plusnet IP address and it will probably be owned by Plusnet, not by BT.
Not quite the same with Xilo and Uno - certainly when I was a customer I got billed by Xilo for my broadband service. Not that it really matters. Either way, there's no point being secretive about it, Uno aren't some tiny ISP that runs as a secret club that few people are allowed to know about.
Can we get back on topic now?
Edited by deleted (Wed 02-Mar-16 18:14:46)
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Did not order Business, just that Talk & Surf which is resold TTB. Should be exactly the same as I was on with Pulse8, but for some reason latency is lower which is unexpected, and not sure why. I would have thought the product is resold as is relying on TTB available bandwidth, unless routing is different. Still using the same DNS servers that I was with Pulse8, so a mystery, but glad to not be continually sat out at online poker like I was, which isn't exactly high end gaming, but latency wise was beyond what I had. Had to downgrade from FTTC to ADSL2+ prior to changeover as I was on TT LLU, as TTB LLU is not up and running yet on Uno as far as I know, but was in the pipeline.
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No, I think any comparison between uno soho (BTW) or uno TTB and Zen BTW is relevant to this thread.
BTW. I have Zen line rental only (xilo "pro" TTB BB) and have just been informed that off-peak call charges to landline numbers will be increased from 1.02 ppm to 4 ppm 
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Still using the same DNS servers that I was with Pulse8
Unless you're using ones you've set yourself, you shouldn't be
The IPs we give out in your welcome email (as well as automatically) for recursive DNS don't allow other people (not with us) to use them.
Matt
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That's interesting - I've just done an availability check on uno business pro TTB from my landline number and apparently it is available. However I do seem to currently have a xilo "pro" TTB account (I log-in via the xilo site and can not log-in via the "sister" uno site.)
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Plusnet and BT actually are separate companies, though - one owning the other. They run different IP networks, have separate staff, etc. Look up a Plusnet IP address and it will probably be owned by Plusnet, not by BT.
Maybe in the past but not so much now.
RIPE block 81.140.128.0/19 down as BT-Infra but with PN and ARIN block 143.159.0.0/16, BT generic block (via their Infonet/BTGS side) with PN. Likely due to IP shortage on the PN side.
Also, BT Wholesale shunt off lots of connections to Plusnets side.
The lines between those two are very blurred now.
Matt
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I missed FTTC from the above post by mistake. It should have read Unbundled FTTC not available, as they were doing FTTC via BTW. I think that is still the case with LLU FTTC not on stream yet, so on ADSL2+ for a while. As for your log in, that just shows as running as seperate companies I expect.
Edited by professor973 (Wed 02-Mar-16 19:08:00)
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Yes Matt, servers I set myself to try and help latency Have not tried Uno servers from the welcome letter yet as things running well - not fixing what ain't broke as they say lol
Edited by professor973 (Wed 02-Mar-16 19:18:51)
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They'll be open for all no doubt hence why they still work
Matt
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Yes I get BTW also for FTTC from the uno site - also from the xilo site I'm re-directed to the uno site for BB packages.
BTW. 10.5 Mbps ADSL2+ throughput is more than adequate for my needs - also I have interleaving applied so that bumps up my latency to 30ms but that's OK
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Just to put a spanner in the works, a look into my router shows I AM using Uno DNS which may explain my better latency, with router firmware update seeming to have switched things back to auto - Just shows what I know Lol
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Going quiet on this thread diversion as I expect the forum police have finished their milk
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My long standing problem with congestion now finally appears to have been resolved by an increase in back haul capacity at the exchange by BT Openreach. I'm hoping thats the end of it and that BT Wholesale dont just load the SVLANs up to bursting point again over time.
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My long standing problem with congestion now finally appears to have been resolved by an increase in back haul capacity at the exchange by BT Openreach. I'm hoping thats the end of it and that BT Wholesale dont just load the SVLANs up to bursting point again over time.
Way back in the days of IPstream, 8Mbit ADSL and VPs I found that they did just that.
It was an uphill struggle to get BT Wholesale to add more capacity, even when you have a competent ISP who is willing to battle BT's "not our fault guv" culture of blaming everything and everyone except themselves. Within a year or so you'd have to do it again.
Fortunately for me, I haven't had any problems with congestion since moving to FTTC/21CN
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My long standing problem with congestion now finally appears to have been resolved by an increase in back haul capacity at the exchange by BT Openreach. I'm hoping thats the end of it and that BT Wholesale dont just load the SVLANs up to bursting point again over time.
Not a bladdy chance! I had 3 congestion problems with my exchange last year [confirmed by BT, not making it up] and one that's still in play right now.
Same as yourself I think its a bit short-sighted to NOT future proof their backhaul instead of running around patching things up.
Why wont they do that?
Saying that ....... I think it's now more down to the ISP .........
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After nearly six weeks there is still no sign of Zen resolving my single thread degradation during the working day and evening.
It is even dramatically slow on a Sunday evening, whilst remaining rock solid from Midnight to 08:00hrs.
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/results.html...
Originally reported to Zen on 4th February: Quality of Service [7684350:5583151]
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Im in the same position but for months. In my thread zen representative said they working on it but honestly why it takes months to fix. Luckily my contract ends next month so I'm going to wait until end of April and see if they can fix it by then
Edited by deleted (Mon 14-Mar-16 13:05:09)
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I had originally decided to order a new telephone line and purchase a parallel 80-20 VDSL service from Andrews and Arnold but this was thwarted when I discovered that Openreach were unable to offer a new telephone line.
I was pleasantly surprised to find that I can now order a second telephone line today.
It might be a costly solution, but can I really put up with another eight months of this fiasco.
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Just to add my input I've been a Zen Business FTTC customer for 3 years. Up until 2 months ago the connection has been 100% faultless. I can't remember having a single outage.
We run our VOIP over this connection and over the last 2 months we've noticed quality issues. I've setup a BQM graph which shows some small amount of packet loss during the day which happens periodically throughout the day and night. My Broadband Ping
Like you guys I'm getting fobbed off by their support suggesting I do some testing with a laptop plugged directly in to the BTOR modem which I will struggle to do as I'm operating a business on the connection and it's an intermittent problem anyway!
I've got a spare router the same make and model so that's my next course of action.
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Well ... My Zen/BT Wholesale connection only managed about 6 weeks and now its back to congestion! A line normally providing 74Mb throughput down is back to performing in single digits.
This whole SVLAN shuffling seems to be nothing but a short term fix until BTW load them back up to bursting point. So frustrating.
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Well ... My Zen/BT Wholesale connection only managed about 6 weeks and now its back to congestion! A line normally providing 74Mb throughput down is back to performing in single digits.
This whole SVLAN shuffling seems to be nothing but a short term fix until BTW load them back up to bursting point. So frustrating.
Speedtest slighly impacted
My throughput may not be severely impacted but my ping monitor shows a JITTER FEST and im SICK of it Zen maybe need to buy more capacity because this lack of QOS across their network is unacceptable for the premium price we pay them
And i don't care who's fault it happens to be BTW or Zen's It's being ongoing far too long
Zen WBMC JITTER FEST
Edited by tommy45 (Wed 27-Apr-16 20:49:14)
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I agree, I'm paying around £80 for an unlimited business connection. I dont mind paying for a decent service if that is what I receive but I am not.
Latest speed test:-
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/results.html...
Current BQM snapshot:-
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/ping/share/903e2403f2d...
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I agree, I'm paying around £80 for an unlimited business connection. I dont mind paying for a decent service if that is what I receive but I am not.
That's both sad and hilarious (sorry!), I thought the entire point of paying £80 was for minimum performance guarantees and such - more than 6Mbps anyway.
I think I'd be blowing a gasket with Zen (or Openreach) if I was paying that much (though even the residential pricing is hardly cheap)
Edited by deleted (Thu 28-Apr-16 12:21:31)
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https://support.zen.co.uk/kb/Knowledgebase/Fibre-Opt...
Specifically "What speeds should I expect on my Fibre Broadband service?"
Zen Fibre - Office and Office Plus - 60 Mbps (or 80% of connection speed, if that is below this threshold)
Seems the OP speeds are way below what the line should be doing (74 Mbps?) so he should consider moving to an alternative provider because, quite frankly, @ £80/month, that is a joke.
A&A springs to mind, with their new SoHo::1 2TB/month package running across the TalkTalk backhaul network. £84+VAT per month, so slightly more expensive, but given that £80/month is being paid anyway, hardly breaks the bank.
Edited by deleted (Thu 28-Apr-16 12:51:46)
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Not quite sure how the op is paying £80 per month for 1 fttc connection and phone line , assuming they are the only services they are supplied by Zen
But their TBBQM To me shows a connection heavily used or contended, If the underlying reason is down to BTW and their overloaded Svlan's ect then even if they switched to AAISP they would likely see the same problem, (If no TT llu presence in their exchange )same with and other provider using BTW WMBC shared ,
However following some maintenance which was scheduled for earlier today there hasn't so far been the Jitter fest yet today, and throughput has been more or less showing the max rate both single threaded and multi, Have they fixed the problem?
Or do i also have a issue on BTW network affecting things? hard to say at the moment, time will tell
Edited by tommy45 (Thu 28-Apr-16 20:04:23)
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The A&A Soho::1 uses TalkTalk backhaul, not BT. I find it highly likely that switching to this service would alleviate all the issues the OP is experiencing, also taking into account the fact A&A themselves are in the process off (probably close to completing) capacity upgrades to their own core network meaning they could quite easily provide the level of service that Zen apparently are supposed to be providing (per their own FAQ) but are currently failing to provide.
I'm now no longer experiencing speed issues, but there are evidently some who still are, and that is disappointing. But I'm sure people will walk if that doesn't improve soon - I know that is what I would do if speed and throughput was hindering my broadband happiness.
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Not quite sure how the op is paying £80 per month for 1 fttc connection and phone line , assuming they are the only services they are supplied by Zen
Zen Business Talk Phone line - £13.49
Zen Unlimited Fibre Office - £59.00
Net Total - £72.49
VAT - £14.50
Total £86.99
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My exchange does have Talk Talk LLU so I am seriously considering forcing an early exit on the Zen contract and going with a Talk Talk Business ISP in an effort to get a better service than Zen via BT Wholesale are currently providing.
Zen have only provided an acceptable level of service for 6 weeks out of 18 weeks and its been a constant battle to get them to raise complaints of congestion with BTW. Even when it does get raised, an SVLAN switch brings relief for a few weeks and BTW (or Zen) load that SVLAN up to bursting point again and the cylcle starts all over again. What a way to run a network!
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Not quite sure how the op is paying £80 per month for 1 fttc connection and phone line , assuming they are the only services they are supplied by Zen
Zen Business Talk Phone line - £13.49
Zen Unlimited Fibre Office - £59.00
Net Total - £72.49
VAT - £14.50
Total £86.99
FTTC + Critical care ? as their current pricing is £59.00 per month when taken with £17.00 monthly line rental the 80/20 FTTC without critical care is only £25.00 pm +vat
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Yeah, I wanted a business service with a service level agreement but to date the SLA hasnt been worth having. I wont be renewing this contract with Zen.
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Yeah, I wanted a business service with a service level agreement but to date the SLA hasnt been worth having. I wont be renewing this contract with Zen. can't say i blame you,Have things improved today for you?
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Yeah, I wanted a business service with a service level agreement but to date the SLA hasnt been worth having. I wont be renewing this contract with Zen.
If it was me I'd be demanding to be let out of contract with no penalty as Zen clearly aren't meeting expectations for a residential service, let alone your business grade one. Including going to the ombudsman if they won't budge
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Nah, still rubbish and Openreach refusing to look further into it without another engineer visit. How hard can it be to look at utiliisation/throuput at peak periods and confirm or deny that is the problem. Any ISP using BT Wholesale seems powerless, they are selling a service they have no control over whatsoever. Never thought I would say it but it will be a talk talk business ISP for me next, anything to try and get away from BT Wholesale based service.
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Nah, still rubbish and Openreach refusing to look further into it without another engineer visit. How hard can it be to look at utiliisation/throuput at peak periods and confirm or deny that is the problem. Any ISP using BT Wholesale seems powerless, they are selling a service they have no control over whatsoever. Never thought I would say it but it will be a talk talk business ISP for me next, anything to try and get away from BT Wholesale based service. If they present it correctly to BTW then they have to foward it to the correct department, BT openreach engineers visiting your home & checking your copper d side pair isn't going to fix a overloaded Svlan or other part of BTW's network topology , I'm surprised Zen let BTW get that one past them for an engineer visit,lol
If you have TAP3 tests and other evidence of the problem that show impacted throughput levels they have to do something, this send an engineer is the default BTW bs, that the isp have to get past and it escalated to the correct person in BTW
Thing with Svlans there's sadly no guarantee that the one you are moved to wont become as over utilized, that could occurs within a month or two, or it maybe 6-8mths, BTW obviously like to run things hot
Edited by tommy45 (Fri 29-Apr-16 21:59:20)
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If they present it correctly to BTW then they have to foward it to the correct department, BT openreach engineers visiting your home & checking your copper d side pair isn't going to fix a overloaded Svlan or other part of BTW's network topology , I'm surprised Zen let BTW get that one past them for an engineer visit,lol
I've collated all my BQMs, speed tests and data usage plots into a single document organise by day for a week before the connection became problematic and for the last week which it has been problematic. Hopefully that will help get it resolved.
I understand BTOR would want to run things "hot" but that shouldnt be hot to the point throughput drops by 90% at peak times. Either they dont have the tools available to them to monitor and adapt to these issues or they blatantly ignore the problems and wait for users to complain. Either way, the whole SVLAN hopping nonsense only works short term as you say as BT will just keep lumping folk onto it until it cant cope again. What a way to run a network eh!
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A&A are definitely on the list but only since they increased data allowances, I could have never survived on their old packages as we are using about 500GB / month easily every month.
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I understand BTOR would want to run things "hot" but that shouldnt be hot to the point throughput drops by 90% at peak times. Either they dont have the tools available to them to monitor and adapt to these issues or they blatantly ignore the problems and wait for users to complain.
Not sure it is a want but when they see capacity issues they just take too long to fix it by getting more capacity to where it needs to be.
Some Aberdeen areas were affected very bad end of last year/start of this and we're seeing an increase in the amount of SVLANs being congested. We have one open case currently where one is sat at 117% utilised and the other 99% (according to BT) and the fix date they've given was end of June and now that has brought forward to end of May - although an improvement, still unacceptable given this was first raised at the start of this month.
BT put providers in very awkward positions. They offer a product with assurances rates but then don't put measures in place to safeguard those assurances. When we point this out they repeat the same "unexpected demand" but whilst compensation can be claimed with difficulty it really does not help when the connection itself is unusable.
Matt
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Thanks Matt, very interesting to get another take on it.
Citing "unexpected demand" sounds like a convenient loop hole in the contractual agreement/regulations to me
The really annoying part is that BT/OR continue to bring new users online to a system that is clearly already overloaded which just makes the problem worse for everybody. If the system is running so hot, BT/OR shouldn't be allowed by regulation to sell more connections until that capacity has been increased. I bet it wouldnt take BT/OR quite so many months to increase capacity if they were not allowed to bring any more users online until that was done.
I'd also put money on it that BT Wholesale favour BT retail connections over other ISPs in this SVLAN shuffling they do in attempt to pacify customers receiving a sub standard service.
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I understand BTOR would want to run things "hot" but that shouldnt be hot to the point throughput drops by 90% at peak times. Either they dont have the tools available to them to monitor and adapt to these issues or they blatantly ignore the problems and wait for users to complain. Either way, the whole SVLAN hopping nonsense only works short term as you say as BT will just keep lumping folk onto it until it cant cope again. What a way to run a network eh!
It's not Openreach, it's BT Wholesale.
It's funny how other providers are ok though, BT Consumer for example. It's down to Zen to order enough the correct product from BTW so that this doesn't happen.
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I'd also put money on it that BT Wholesale favour BT retail connections over other ISPs in this SVLAN shuffling they do in attempt to pacify customers receiving a sub standard service.
We've not seen any evidence of this and hear from people that do see congestion that their friends on another provider get worse/better throughput.. but are likely then on a different SVLAN with different loads.
Cabinets are sometimes closed for orders due to actual bandwidth capacity (BT also do this on the exchange level for 21CN ADSL) as well as port capacity but as to what threshold that is applied at I don't know.
Matt
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Cabinets are sometimes closed for orders due to actual bandwidth capacity (BT also do this on the exchange level for 21CN ADSL) as well as port capacity but as to what threshold that is applied at I don't know.
Matt
Interesting. Never heard of that before.
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I understand BTOR would want to run things "hot" but that shouldnt be hot to the point throughput drops by 90% at peak times. Either they dont have the tools available to them to monitor and adapt to these issues or they blatantly ignore the problems and wait for users to complain. Either way, the whole SVLAN hopping nonsense only works short term as you say as BT will just keep lumping folk onto it until it cant cope again. What a way to run a network eh!
It's not Openreach, it's BT Wholesale.
It's funny how other providers are ok though, BT Consumer for example. It's down to Zen to order enough the correct product from BTW so that this doesn't happen.
Zen like most smaller ISP buy BT WMBC shared , and unless they have somewhere near the amount of customers that Plusnet had , that product should work fine, BTW overload their Svlans , it is down to BTW to actually be more proactive and actually supply what isp's are paying them for 24/7 unless there is a fibre break or similar one off incident
It surprises me that they even admit that their Svlans are overloaded they obviously think that this is acceptable that sucks, Back in the day the likes of easynet never would overload their network hence why in the 3+yrs i was a UKonline customer i never saw any signs of peak congestion or congestion when there was any big events taking place, which is why i refuse to accept such as valid excuses, they are no more than cop outs
More customers should equal more ££££'s therefore more investment into their core networking capacity ??? if not why not??
Edited by tommy45 (Sun 01-May-16 20:17:10)
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Line performing far better again now.
Cause of problem again confirmed as an overloaded VLAN which BT Wholesale took best part of 3 weeks to acknowledge and fix. I hope I get more than 6 weeks of it running like it should this time around ...
Many thanks to TBB for providing their excellent BQM, it really helps in documenting and building the case to get ISPs and BT Wholesale to take such complaints seriously albeit that it still takes them far too long to acknowledge and fix.
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No posts on this thread for a while. Have speeds improved for others, or have you all migrated!
https://www.dropbox.com/s/vw32zkwejkc67b1/Zen.tiff?dl=0
Simon.
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The upgrade to Zen's London hub has certainly improved their ability to meet the present capacity requirements during the working day and evening for me in sunny Tavistock, for now!
http://i1070.photobucket.com/albums/u489/3MbBik/VDSL...
At its best I can achieve;
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/results.html...
This morning;
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/results.html...
Tracing route to zen.net.uk [212.23.8.3]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
1 2 ms 1 ms 1 ms dsldevice.lan [192.168.1.254]
2 16 ms 16 ms 15 ms losubs.subs.bng1.th-lon.zen.net.uk [62.3.80.17]
3 16 ms 16 ms 16 ms ae1-177.cr2.th-lon.zen.net.uk [62.3.80.38]
4 24 ms 23 ms 23 ms xe-2-0-0-173.dr2.lr-slo.zen.net.uk [62.3.80.106]
5 25 ms 23 ms 23 ms xe-2-0-2-41.dr1.lr-slo.zen.net.uk [212.23.8.3]
Broadband Connection
2.1 Type VDSL
2.2 Status Up
2.3 Uptime 23 days 1 hours 1 mins 51 secs
2.4 Line Rate (Down / Up) 79987 kbps / 20000 kbps
2.5 Noise Margin (Down / Up) 7.1 dB / 9.3 dB
2.6 Attenuation (Down / Up) 11.3 dB / 7.2 dB
2.7 Power (Down / Up) 13.6 dBm / 5.6 dBm
But, I still remember the time it took Zen to respond when the performance of my 80-20 VDSL service was so slow it was making simple video downloads judder, whilst a weak BTFon Wi-Fi service from my next door neighbour provided a slow but stable download ability.
Godfrey.
Edited by deleted (Tue 19-Jul-16 12:43:07)
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No improvements for me. I have not decided where should I move
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Line performing far better again now.
Cause of problem again confirmed as an overloaded VLAN which BT Wholesale took best part of 3 weeks to acknowledge and fix. I hope I get more than 6 weeks of it running like it should this time around ...
Many thanks to TBB for providing their excellent BQM, it really helps in documenting and building the case to get ISPs and BT Wholesale to take such complaints seriously albeit that it still takes them far too long to acknowledge and fix.
That's great to hear, though still a little disappointing that Zen weren't able to push the issue with BT directly and more quickly, thats one of the primary reasons I've always stuck with smaller independent ISPs despite slightly higher cost, for their customer service and ability to deal with issues quickly.
If you do ever consider switching to a different FTTC ISP, try Cloudscape Connect, they've been excellent for me so far and connections been rock solid 80/20.
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I had been quite happy whilst on bng1 with a recent modest reduction of both single and multiple threads suggesting it was once again approaching its capacity during the working day and evening whilst the speed from midnight to 08:00hrs remained at full speed.
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/results.html...
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/results.html...
Alas, I had decided to paint the wall behind my master socket so it meant that I had to unplug the VDSL for around 30 minutes.
My router quickly established a connection via bng2
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/results.html...
Turning the power off for 30 minutes, I was relieved to be connected via dsl5
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/results.html...
Fingers crossed that it will stay on one of Zen's circuits that is not still suffering from dramatic single thread speed degradation.
2.1 Type VDSL
2.2 Status Up
2.3 Uptime 0 days 0 hours 24 mins 37 secs
2.4 Line Rate (Down / Up) 79987 kbps / 20000 kbps
2.5 Noise Margin (Down / Up) 7.1 dB / 9.5 dB
2.6 Attenuation (Down / Up) 11.3 dB / 5.2 dB
2.7 Power (Down / Up) 13.6 dBm / 5.9 dBm
Godfrey
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Been ok for the past month or more for me, even the daytime jitter has disappeared
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I got fed up with Zen's inability to fix this problem. Support say it's a problem in configuration of the Openreach switch between their PoP and the line to my cab & affecting 'thousands' of customers from all ISPs. Unable to give a timescale for a fix.
They also claimed moving to another ISP might not fix the problem, and because of this I spoke to AAISP support (who had never come across this issue) and my migration completed last week.
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/results.html...
I was especially disappointed about the lack of communication from Zen, and it took some pushing for them to even acknowledge the problem, let alone offer an explanation of the fault.
Edited by bet_here (Tue 16-Aug-16 23:29:32)
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My Zen connection has been running fine for ~12 weeks or so now.
i.e. Performing as it should
Fingers crossed it continues and posting this hasn't jinxed it!
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Well I was happy whilst being routed via bng1, but after painting the wall which necessitated breaking that connection my first reconnection via bng2 exhibited dramatic single thread degradation, changing to dsl5 was OK yesterday evening but this morning it had deteriorated to;
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/results.html...
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/results.html...
So it looks as if I will have to power down again for yet another attempt at the ZEN Lottery!
After over ten very happy years with Zen, I am now reluctantly counting down the days to when my initial 12 months 80-20 VDSL contract is up on 26th November.
Godfrey.
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Well, at least I have finally been routed via bng1 once again this time, off peak it provided me with a very stable service, for example;
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/results.html...
Today, during the working day the achievable speed on bng1 is once again showing the strain, but it might well be the best route that Zen can presently offer their customers based in Tavistock.
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/results.html...
Godfrey
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I've seen some latency artefacts whilst connected to bng1 over Zen's backhaul network. These were visible for most of yesterday, but stopped at around 10pm even though my PPP session remained connected. The problems have stayed away today.
The same artefacts appeared on IPv6; it was not an IPv4 only issue.
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