Router advice I can't evaluate - is it real or nonsense?

Angilion

Angilion

Angilion

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5 Dec 2003
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My ISP (TalkTalk) sent me an email saying how they were improving their already super-wonderful service. The usual stuff. One bit caught my eye:

"For the best service from your router turn it on and leave on. Switching routers off at night or when you're out of the house will slow down the service you get when you turn them back on."

Is that true to any significant extent? It sounds unlikely to me, but I don't know enough to have an informed opinion. Maybe 30s for the router to set up when turned on, yes, but a slower service afterwards? Why would that be true?
 
It's true!

Most internet connections have DLM (Dynamic Line Management) running on them.

DLM tries to keep the line speed as high as possible. It also expects the connection to be up 100% of the time. There's a chance that the DLM will see the switching on/off as a fault and ramp the speed down to compensate.

There's no reason to be switching routers off, the power used is minimal.
 
Exactly that. Put simply: think of the speed as a constant "compromise" by the machines at both ends. If your end (the modem/router) is switched off, the machine at the other end (TalkTalk) can't tell if it's off or just not able to cope with the speed, so it'll reduce the speed to try and repair the connection. Do it too often or for too long and you can get switched to settings that can give you poor speeds until they manually reset the connection.
 
In theory line management should be using some form of "blip logic" to differentiate between problems and one off events including powering the route on and off manually however it seems easily confused and it is quite possible with frequent turning on and off of a modem/route to fool the hardware at the other end into seeing a fault condition. Normally if its like once in 24 hours it shouldn't cause slowdowns but it is entirely possible.
 
Turning it off serves no useful purpose, my AC56U uses 5w/hr at idle and circa 10w at load, the cost savings are minimal over a year - things like the cooker and microwave use similar idle wattage.
 
I've been turning my VM Superhub off overnight for years with no issues at all.

Until this week when I've had to call them up twice to get some action from it after having left it turned off overnight.

Windows networks diagnostic says either no proxy settings detected or no DNS available.

VM customer service say something about a constant signal being needed to maximise performance which I guess means they're now using some of this DLM.

I out as Asus NT-R56-U in line as well a few weeks ago and at first I thought that had something to do with it and I've been faffing about taking it out of line and putting it back in,re-setting etc,what a pita.

So,if I leave the Superhub on overnight from now on can I turn the Asus off overnight for my green genes?
 
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