Be Pro speed issues

Rainmaker · 9 Oct 2009 at 23:44

Does anyone suffer from highly variable speeds on Be Pro? I was with UK Online for almost 2 years on their legacy 24/1 meg package, and extremely happy with them. I got 22 meg sync and 18.5 or so megs throughput rock solid, 24/7/365.

Since moving to Be, I've noticed that in the evenings my speeds from Usenet vary wildly. They literally dance up and down between 12 and 18.5 Mbps, like a rollercoaster. Some nights, like tonight, they are as bad as 7 to 18.5Mbps.

At first I thought Astraweb was to blame, but they disavowed responsibility. I tried a free trial from another excellent provider, and the speed was identical. I find now that instead of 5 connections/threads (as required on UK Online), I need 15 to 20 connections to maintain my full speed.

Fair enough, I could just stick to high numbers of connections. But I'm not the only person in the house using the service through the router, and my using that many connections basically leaves next to none spare for my partner who then suffers appalling speed.

Since this didn't happen on UKO, and now happens across more than one NSP, I'm guessing Be are to blame? Doesn't the fact higher numbers of connections increases speed point to congestion? My line appears faultless and my stats are great (3dB snrm, fastpath). I'm not a happy bunny.

daz · 10 Oct 2009 at 10:27

Are you using the BeBox? I use the BeBox as the router but plug a linksys wireless access point in and get much better speeds that way.

Azuse05 · 10 Oct 2009 at 11:07

More info

Quick solution would simply be a router capable of dealing with more connections, I added a tomato wrt54gl to my line weeks back and the difference it makes is really unbelievable. I'll never reach 4-8k connections but I can saturate the line with torrents/usenet and have lag free games - best 20 quid I've ever spent. Secondly the BeBox is a pants router, go to the Be forum (rotuer section) and flash the beta firmware, set it to bridged and it's a rock solid modem. It's got better speeds and non of the drops the dg834gt it replaced a month back and that's one of the best for long lines. Catch is it's a two part solution, but it's the most effective solution that doesn't require a large su of cash.

How sure are you that it's not the line? Just because isp one was better does not mean sip 2 is to blame, things do break at random. What' your modem/router? What are the line stats? Paste them Have you tried doing this and watching the results over 24 hours (could be exchange saturation)

Perhaps more simple, why have you started a thread here? The Be forum is actually a very good place to get help, if only because the moderators can access you line details while they're reading.

danny_mac · 10 Oct 2009 at 13:45

The only issue iv had with speed is that every couple of weeks i needs to re-boot my netgear router as my noise margin goes to telephone numbers.

Rainmaker · 10 Oct 2009 at 23:02

Sorry for the delayed response chaps. I already run a 3rd party router, since the BeBox is... substandard. I've used this router for years on UKO at 22 megs and never had an issue before.

DMT tells me that my line now has a huge gap between tones 476 and 499, whereas for the last four years my line has had no gaps and excellent quality. I'm 400 metres from the exchange btw.

Previously (on UKO and on Be) I had fastpath, 3dB SNR. I've just changed to fastpath with 6dB SNR and my throughput is now 17 megs solid, with a 20 meg sync. It's lower than I'm used to but it's stable again.

I'm wondering if the £30 hard wired extension from the "ex BT engineer" out of the paper has gone wrong. Seems plausible?

tolien · 11 Oct 2009 at 00:28

A broken extension should at least be fairly easy to eliminate, though if there's a gap it might be worth looking for anything else that could be generating interference.

Rainmaker · 11 Oct 2009 at 00:35

tolien said:
A broken extension should at least be fairly easy to eliminate, though if there's a gap it might be worth looking for anything else that could be generating interference.

The only things I can think might generate interference (only because I know very little about these things) is the huge massive great satellite dish the new Polish household has erected on the side of their building recently. It's literally about 4 feet in diameter and points at my house lol Apart from that I don't know.

One curious thing I noticed, is that the "ex BT engineer" who did my phone extension did something weird. Basically I had an extension run from the master socket in our living room, up the exterior wall and into my bedroom. This meant the router could be in my bedroom and still allow my PC to connect by ethernet, at minimal cost. Running ethernet through the ceiling etc wasn't practical as this is a rented house.

The weird part is that I get a 22.5Mbps sync on the extension, but only 17Mbps using the test socket behind the master socket's lower faceplate. Surely that's not right? He did remove the ring wires on both sockets btw, in case that's relevant. It was installed a year or two ago now, but it seems to be getting worse.

marmalade · 11 Oct 2009 at 11:04

If the Polish Sat dish was pointed at your house it would not work it must have a line of uninterupted sight to the Satellites at which it is aimed. So no death rays there!! Unless it aint a sat dish but a parabolic microhone and pointed at your house - perhaps trying to learn English?The prob could well be with your internal wireing I would suggest that you check this our religiously yourself or get someone to undertake this task.. I would have a filtered master socket and an RJ45 run to the router - if necessary up the outside wall!

Azuse05 · 11 Oct 2009 at 11:25

Shielded rj45 (belkin) + xte-2005 faceplate is te best way to wire in adsl. Incidentally those faceplates filter extensions as well, so you only need the one filter.

You shouldn't connect adsl over home extensions, most of them use cheap, untwisted, cable which just acts as an ariel for every bit of radio interference in or near your house.