Exetel customer help forum

Hi guys,
for 2 weeks after getting new plan (from 1.5 to 8 ) my maximum speed was 3,5 Mbs.
Yesterday i can't even reach 1 Mbs.
That's what I've got yesterday evening

Broadband Speed Test Results

Test run on 13/10/2010 @ 08:13 PM

Mirror: Exetel
Data: 3 MB
Test Time: 29.01 secs

Your line speed is 844 kbps (0.84 Mbps).
Your download speed is 106 KB/s (0.1 MB/s).

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.1.254
2 * * * Request timed out.
3 133 ms 144 ms 147 ms 65.2.96.58.static.exetel.com.au [58.96.2.65]
4 * 142 ms 117 ms 98.2.96.58.static.exetel.com.au [58.96.2.98]
5 62 ms 176 ms 389 ms 5.ge-4-0-0.GW3.MEL1.ALTER.NET [203.166.42.77]
6 87 ms 59 ms 94 ms 0.so-2-2-0.XL2.MEL1.ALTER.NET [210.80.34.221]
7 85 ms 198 ms 181 ms 0.ge-7-1-0.XT4.SYD2.Alter.Net [210.80.34.62]
8 144 ms 315 ms 85 ms Ge-3-0-0.BR1.SYD6.ALTER.NET [210.80.32.218]
9 202 ms 78 ms 173 ms GigabitEthernet3-21.chw51.Sydney.telstra.net [139.130.43.97]
10 85 ms 255 ms 254 ms TenGigE0-1-0-0.chw-core2.Sydney.telstra.net [203.50.20.129]
11 393 ms 295 ms 294 ms Bundle-Ether1.chw48.Sydney.telstra.net [203.50.6.154]
12 378 ms 211 ms 317 ms 74.125.50.1
13 118 ms 79 ms 284 ms 66.249.95.224
14 138 ms 155 ms 77 ms 64.233.174.242
15 135 ms 106 ms 88 ms syd01s01-in-f104.1e100.net [66.102.11.104]

Modem is Billion 7800NL ( Netgear 834 gives same results), isolation test done, no filter in line, only 1 PC online.

Modem parameters:
Line Coding (Trellis) On On
SNR Margin (0.1 dB) 196 60
Attenuation (0.1 dB) 80 70
Output Power (0.1 dBm) 158 61
Attainable Rate (Kbps) 12096 480
Rate (Kbps) 8160 384
K (number of bytes in DMT frame) 256 13
R (number of check bytes in RS code word) 14 0
S (RS code word size in DMT frame) 0.50 0.50
D (interleaver depth) 64 1
Delay (msec) 8.00 0.25
INP (DMT symbol) 1.58 0.00

Speedtest this morning:


I can understand that 8 Mbs is pretty much theoretical speed, but mentioned above speed is unacceptable.
Please advise.

The line status looks as though your line can carry full speed (and a good deal more under ADSL2). The latency time to Exetel looks high though. Could you run some pings to http://www.exetel.com.au, and possibly run http://www.pingtest.net/? You might also look in the status to see if there are many uncorrectable modem errors, which require file segments to be re-sent.

If you have a downloader (preferably multi-thread), try any file from microsoft.com. If not, try three simultaneous downloads from microsoft.com and apple.com (these very fast servers are co-located with Exetel, so nearby on the net, and should be able to flood your connection).

Dazzled wrote:The line status looks as though your line can carry full speed (and a good deal more under ADSL2). The latency time to Exetel looks high though. Could you run some pings to http://www.exetel.com.au, and possibly run http://www.pingtest.net/? You might also look in the status to see if there are many uncorrectable modem errors, which require file segments to be re-sent.

If you have a downloader (preferably multi-thread), try any file from microsoft.com. If not, try three simultaneous downloads from microsoft.com and apple.com (these very fast servers are co-located with Exetel, so nearby on the net, and should be able to flood your connection).

If my line can carry full speed (ADSL2 application was rejected by Exetel without any reasons given) why it's 2,5 times slower than should be?
I'll quote results today after work, but as i said, maximum download speed (no matter is that http or p2p) was 3,5 Mbs.

SergWV wrote:If my line can carry full speed (ADSL2 application was rejected by Exetel without any reasons given) why it's 2,5 times slower than should be?

Possibly the latency, as Dazzled said. Also possibly that something along the way is limiting individual connection speeds so if you download multiple files at once you might see the full 8Mbps speed, also as Dazzled already said.

The other likely possibility is that your exchange is throttling you. See viewtopic.php?p=275334#p275334 that says how Telstra often throttle 8Mbps connections to 3Mbps to alleviate congestion. There is nothing that can be done about this unfortunately except wait for Telstra to upgrade the capacity and remove the throttling

CoreyPlover wrote:Possibly the latency, as Dazzled said. Also possibly that something along the way is limiting individual connection speeds so if you download multiple files at once you might see the full 8Mbps speed, also as Dazzled already said.

Of course that was a single file download.

CoreyPlover wrote: The other likely possibility is that your exchange is throttling you. See viewtopic.php?p=275334#p275334 that says how Telstra often throttle 8Mbps connections to 3Mbps to alleviate congestion. There is nothing that can be done about this unfortunately except wait for Telstra to upgrade the capacity and remove the throttling

How can i confirm this? I mean shaping from Telstra at my DSLAM which is WERE-DA149.

The first information you need is the result of flooding the line and DSLAM connection with multiple simultaneous transmissions from known very fast servers, as above. This bypasses other potential hassles, which we can come back to if the line doesn't perform. If there is a backhaul problem, or speed limiting, it will show.

OK, I'll quote ping tests tonight, thanks for response guys!

SergWV wrote:

CoreyPlover wrote: The other likely possibility is that your exchange is throttling you. See viewtopic.php?p=275334#p275334 that says how Telstra often throttle 8Mbps connections to 3Mbps to alleviate congestion. There is nothing that can be done about this unfortunately except wait for Telstra to upgrade the capacity and remove the throttling

How can i confirm this? I mean shaping from Telstra at my DSLAM which is WERE-DA149.

You can email residentialsupport@exetel.com.au, saying that you suspect Telstra might be throttling you and asking Exetel if they can confirm this. They have done so for some other similarly affected users in the past

CoreyPlover wrote: You can email residentialsupport@exetel.com.au, saying that you suspect Telstra might be throttling you and asking Exetel if they can confirm this. They have done so for some other similarly affected users in the past

Thanks, emailed!

As promised, results at 6-20 pm




Pinging http://www.exetel.com.au [220.233.0.9] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 220.233.0.9: bytes=32 time=66ms TTL=50
Reply from 220.233.0.9: bytes=32 time=66ms TTL=50
Reply from 220.233.0.9: bytes=32 time=96ms TTL=50
Reply from 220.233.0.9: bytes=32 time=54ms TTL=50

Ping statistics for 220.233.0.9:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 54ms, Maximum = 96ms, Average = 70ms

Best transfer rate from apple.com is 126 Kbs (downloading ITunes)

The latency has improved, although jitter (packet delay variation) isn't particularly low. If latency has a time-of-day correlation we might suspect local congestion.

The single apple download won't flood you, though it isn't promising. Try something like http://www.apple.com/au/safari/download/ and simultaneously take two files from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/default.aspx. Choose files that are about 3-5 MB minimum each. You don't have to complete the downloads, but when the speed stabilises, add up the combined rate.

Alternatively point a multi-thread downloader with say 4 connections at a very large microsoft file, and see what speed it settles at before you kill it. You are trying to see what results when the line is at capacity, without having to concern yourself with any limit on a single connection.

Even P2P can act as a flood test if the torrent is well enough supported - http://releases.ubuntu.com/10.04.1/ubun ... so.torrent for example, which can connect to a very large number of peers, though the uploads detract a bit from the download total speed.

It will be interesting to hear what comes back from your email to Support.

Downloading 2 files from Microsoft shows same speed as speedtest, about 1.3 Mbs
Same for torrent with large number of seeds (more than 100).
At this stage support team asked me to prove my details only.

Tests result later on:

Pinging http://www.exetel.com.au [220.233.0.9] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 220.233.0.9: bytes=32 time=217ms TTL=50
Reply from 220.233.0.9: bytes=32 time=157ms TTL=50
Reply from 220.233.0.9: bytes=32 time=144ms TTL=50
Reply from 220.233.0.9: bytes=32 time=421ms TTL=50

Ping statistics for 220.233.0.9:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 144ms, Maximum = 421ms, Average = 234ms




Downstream Upstream
Line Coding (Trellis) On On
SNR Margin (0.1 dB) 204 60
Attenuation (0.1 dB) 80 70
Output Power (0.1 dBm) 158 61
Attainable Rate (Kbps) 12096 480
Rate (Kbps) 8160 384

Just awesome.
I'm not going to pay for service like this, it's become even slower than my previous 1,5.

Latency is back again. It is starting to look like exchange/backhaul congestion, and that comes down to your local Telstra facility. You may be capped, or more probably, your packets are just "queuing up", but either way your file rate slows down. Exetel Support may be aware of an exchange upgrade if you ask, but these are completely a matter for Telstra.

See if these bad pings and high jitter correlate to peak usage periods; I am guessing they will. There have been similar problems in Victoria reported here lately, and a forum search may show if you are on an affected exchange. Some are known to be on an upgrade list.

What's the SLA for tickets? No response....