New Customer Diagnostic 'Tools'

[ForumAdmin]

If you go to the Exetel User Facilities you will see a new 'hot link':

Please Ensure Your Contact Details Are Correct

* Contact Email: user@exemail.com.au
* Main Contact (Mobile): 0800777555 Secondary Contact (Land Line):0299998888

Network/Connection Problems?

* Before opening a ticket use this facility to check your service status click here
* To log a New Fault Ticket please click here.
* To check on the progress of a fault ticket you have lodged please click here.
* To see a diagram of Exetel’s network please click here.
* To see if there are any known issues with the Exetel controlled parts of the network please click here.

Currently there are 8 'blocks' of data which will be added to over time.

This tool is designed to let a user who is experiencing speed or drop out problems (or a blocked connection) see what Exetel sees on his/her connection when a fault is logged.

Any comments or suggestions will, as always, be welcomed.

[mattski]

I think this is an excellent addition to the user facilities.

I have a question about the "Speed Test Results" section: Where do these results come from?
I look after a number of accounts (ADSL1 and 2), and I see that for one of them there are a handful of result on 2 days - 1 in February and the other in April, but for the other accounts/connections there are no results listed.

Edit: I found the answer. I had done a speed test here: http://www.exetel.com.au/speed/.
After a quick search around - looking just a little further than the end of my nose - I found a link to the Exetel speed test on CoreyP's sticky thread at the top of the "ADSL1 Speed Issues" forums.
Maybe an explanation and a link to the speed test page could be added to 'Tools' page in that section to help explain why there maybe no results listed yet.

Cheers,
Matt.

[Munka]

I agree this is a wonderful tool set, especially in my case as although I am no longer on an Exetel connection, I do admin/support a couple of non tech people, and having to describe how to run a tracert and ping tests, and then cut and paste results is a pain, so now I can check their user pages for issues.

May I suggest that each function/result have a one line description of what it is, just a beginners guide to ping-trace route etc.,
But meanwhile well done with this new feature.

[austdata]

Excellent addition to the Exetel line-up. I like it very much.

Bit of a problem for Ping:
..... stripped out others ........
ICMP Time exceeded in transit from 233.0.233.220.exetel.com.au (220.233.0.233)
for udp from radb.optus.net.au (202.139.83.166) to nnn.117.233.220.exetel.com.au (220.233.117.nnn) port 33457

----220.233.117.nnn PING Statistics----
10 packets transmitted, 0 packets received, 100% packet loss

Similar issue with Traceroute:
Performing trace to 220.233.117.nnn...

1 FastEth8-1-0.sb2.optus.net.au (192.168.34.3) 148.638 ms 7.456 ms 58.733 ms
2 61.88.221.7 (61.88.221.7) 6.963 ms 5.317 ms 5.371 ms
3 202.139.39.250 (202.139.39.250) 5.329 ms 4.951 ms 8.507 ms
4 0.ge-6-2-0.XT4.SYD2.Alter.Net (210.80.34.53) 4.909 ms 4.885 ms 5.235 ms
5 0.so-6-0-0.GW8.SYD2.ALTER.NET (210.80.33.194) 3.658 ms 3.989 ms 3.461 ms
6 exetel-syd-gw.aspac.customer.alter.net (221.133.215.78) 4.229 ms 4.675 ms 4.181 ms
7 1.4.96.58.exetel.com.au (58.96.4.1) 4.490 ms 6.951 ms 7.634 ms
8 233.0.233.220.exetel.com.au (220.233.0.233) 6.921 ms 5.470 ms 6.200 ms
9 * * *
10 * * *


I'm a bit tired today, so I may have missed something.

Cheers,

Mike

[fester]

i think the

Code: Select all

Network/Connection Problems?

    * Before opening a ticket use this facility to check your service statusclick here.
    * To log a New Fault Ticket please click here.
    * To check on the progress of a fault ticket you have lodged please click here.
    * To see a diagram of Exetel’s network please click here.
    * To see if there are any known issues with the Exetel controlled parts of the network please click here.

section blends into the site to much and could be easily missed if you dont know its there
Maybe it needs a bigger heading or to be broken up from the rest of the page a bit more .

The session details are always helpful when trying to work out whats going on with drop outs (had this with my former isp)

also it might be a good idea to have a "run speed test" link next to the speed test results.

[peteru]

Thumbs up for making this facility available. Obviously there are still some teething problems, but I am sure they will get ironed out over time.

Here are some of my observations:

1) The "blocks" that hold the individual test results are too small for their contents. This is particularly noticeable with the two graphs, but the text based results could also go in larger frames (or use smaller font).

2) The upload and download figures in the graph seem to be completely off the mark. In my case, I have download rates of 110 MB and upload rates over 2.7 MB. Incidentally, the units are not labelled correctly - MB is Mega Byte and being a rate it should be on a "per time interval" basis. I suggest that for clarity the vertical axis is labelled as Mbit/s.

3) As already reported by others, I get 100% packet loss on ping test and the traceroute also seems to fail. I don't know the details of Exetel network design, but I thought I was on a Powertel DSLAM and I should therefore be seeing the first lot of traffic going through the AAPT network, not Optus. Perhaps that's an incorrect assumption.

4) There is no data for radius logins.

5) The page is very slow to load. Minutes. I suspect that the delay is mainly caused by the failing ping/tracoute tests. It's not a big problem, since the individual "blocks" seem to load asynchronously, but it does affect the menu on the left hand side. It causes all entries to remain expanded. I actually prefer that, since I can see all the options at once.

[peterbell]

Nice to have the facility available, and I look forward to the next batch of features.

The Ping facility may need the user to enable a response to the PING packet, the NB6 modem defaults this off.
The Traceroute command does seem to get lost in the exetel routers and systems, ending up with a system that does not respond to pings.
The Radius logins seems to only show the last few days. One ADLS connect I look after showed a login two days ago. Perhaps the storing of these was only started recently.

It would be nice to be able to see the sync status and ADSL counters from the DSLAMs.

Peter.

[James D]

Edit: I found the answer. I had done a speed test here: http://www.exetel.com.au/speed/.
After a quick search around - looking just a little further than the end of my nose - I found a link to the Exetel speed test on CoreyP's sticky thread at the top of the "ADSL1 Speed Issues" forums.
Maybe an explanation and a link to the speed test page could be added to 'Tools' page in that section to help explain why there maybe no results listed yet.

also it might be a good idea to have a "run speed test" link next to the speed test results.

One of the issues is that we can not build the speed test into the faults screen as you may not be connecting from an Exetel connection at the time of running this script, but we will add wording to the page to tell users where the speed test is located.

[James D]

Bit of a problem for Ping:
..... stripped out others ........
ICMP Time exceeded in transit from 233.0.233.220.exetel.com.au (220.233.0.233)
for udp from radb.optus.net.au (202.139.83.166) to nnn.117.233.220.exetel.com.au (220.233.117.nnn) port 33457

----220.233.117.nnn PING Statistics----
10 packets transmitted, 0 packets received, 100% packet loss

This is because your modem dose not have ping enabled. If you enable Ping replies on your modem you will be able to see the replies.

[James D]

1) The "blocks" that hold the individual test results are too small for their contents. This is particularly noticeable with the two graphs, but the text based results could also go in larger frames (or use smaller font).

I will see what we can do.

2) The upload and download figures in the graph seem to be completely off the mark. In my case, I have download rates of 110 MB and upload rates over 2.7 MB. Incidentally, the units are not labelled correctly - MB is Mega Byte and being a rate it should be on a "per time interval" basis. I suggest that for clarity the vertical axis is labelled as Mbit/s.

I believe it is usage based not speed based. But I will have it checked to see what it is capable of.

3) As already reported by others, I get 100% packet loss on ping test and the traceroute also seems to fail. I don't know the details of Exetel network design, but I thought I was on a Powertel DSLAM and I should therefore be seeing the first lot of traffic going through the AAPT network, not Optus. Perhaps that's an incorrect assumption.

Please enable ping replies on your modem. then this will work for you.

4) There is no data for radius logins.

This means that your service has not re-connected in the last 3 - 4 days.

5) The page is very slow to load. Minutes. I suspect that the delay is mainly caused by the failing ping/tracoute tests. It's not a big problem, since the individual "blocks" seem to load asynchronously, but it does affect the menu on the left hand side. It causes all entries to remain expanded. I actually prefer that, since I can see all the options at once.

I will see what can be done there.

[austdata]

Bit of a problem for Ping:
..... stripped out others ........
ICMP Time exceeded in transit from 233.0.233.220.exetel.com.au (220.233.0.233)
for udp from radb.optus.net.au (202.139.83.166) to nnn.117.233.220.exetel.com.au (220.233.117.nnn) port 33457

----220.233.117.nnn PING Statistics----
10 packets transmitted, 0 packets received, 100% packet loss

This is because your modem dose not have ping enabled. If you enable Ping replies on your modem you will be able to see the replies.

Oops, thought I'd done that. I'll "fix" the problem and try again. Thanks James.

Cheers,

Mike

[ericb]

I agree with others that this info will be helpful.

Could the link also display the current user "profile" (ie configured maximum upload and download rates, and ADSL protocol) if these have been reduced from the theoretical ADSL2+ limits by Exetel to prevent drop-outs etc.

Thanks.

[trev]

1) The "blocks" that hold the individual test results are too small for their contents. This is particularly noticeable with the two graphs, but the text based results could also go in larger frames (or use smaller font).

Yes, the width is too small or the font is too big for the text areas.

2) The upload and download figures in the graph seem to be completely off the mark.

Yep, mine too. My connection was down this morning from 3:33am, as in "no sync", yet the graphs showed peaking traffic!

3) As already reported by others, I get 100% packet loss on ping test and the traceroute also seems to fail. I don't know the details of Exetel network design, but I thought I was on a Powertel DSLAM and I should therefore be seeing the first lot of traffic going through the AAPT network, not Optus. Perhaps that's an incorrect assumption.

Me too, but probably because my router firewall is configured to deny these connections, which might explain why the page never finishes loading...

5) The page is very slow to load. Minutes. I suspect that the delay is mainly caused by the failing ping/traceroute tests. It's not a big problem, since the individual "blocks" seem to load asynchronously, but it does affect the menu on the left hand side. It causes all entries to remain expanded. I actually prefer that, since I can see all the options at once.

An alternative approach which would allow for the timeout issues in (3) above and also resolve the loading time in (5) above would be to allow the customer to run each test/retrieve the data for each graph individually on request, say a button.

BTW, thanks "peteru" for your OP of which I've made substantial use above.

And to Exetel, great idea.

[ForumAdmin]

I've asked for these issues to be fixed.

[James D]

Thanks for the suggestions,

I will work on getting the noted items changed and update you when we get them done.