19 June 2012

TPG - Internet service provider

| VanH
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I live in Canberras south and currently use TPG as my internet service provider. I have been with TPG since 2005 and have found them to be a great provider as far as speeds/quotas/pricing is concerned. My gripe is that over the past 6 or so months my ADSL2+ speeds have dramatically been slowing down and now are not much faster than dial up speeds……I am on an unlimitted download/upload plan so there is no shaping issues. I know of a another person who is on TPG who infact has even slower than dial up speeds. Is there anyone else out there that is experiencing this issue with their ISP’s or are with TPG?

I have contacted them on numerous occasions only to be told that they are looking into it and that the issue has been escalated????

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thatsnotme said :

VanH said :

I checked my distance from the exchange to my house and it is 1.5km direct line of sight with an estimated cable length of 2.2km and an estimated speed of 12mbps.

Downstream:
Data rate (kbps) = 6228
Noise margin (db) = 6.0
Attenuation (db) = 39.9
Output power (dbm) = 20.4

How do Ii check for Cyclic Redundency Check Errors?

Sorry, I forgot to mention that they’re often referred to CRC Errors through the router. It’s possible that your router mightn’t show them – not all do. They could also be called something like unrecoverable errors.

Are you getting frequent dropouts of your service? Does your router show you how long you’ve been connected?

There have been plenty of times that it has dropped out and on a few occasions I haven’t been able to re-connect for hours…..

I think my router does record the time you have been connected etc…..and you can save the logs too.

VanH said :

I checked my distance from the exchange to my house and it is 1.5km direct line of sight with an estimated cable length of 2.2km and an estimated speed of 12mbps.

Downstream:
Data rate (kbps) = 6228
Noise margin (db) = 6.0
Attenuation (db) = 39.9
Output power (dbm) = 20.4

How do Ii check for Cyclic Redundency Check Errors?

Sorry, I forgot to mention that they’re often referred to CRC Errors through the router. It’s possible that your router mightn’t show them – not all do. They could also be called something like unrecoverable errors.

Are you getting frequent dropouts of your service? Does your router show you how long you’ve been connected?

thatsnotme said :

VanH said :

Disinformation said :

Having been involved in the provisioning, support and faultfinding of various different types of network technologies for the last twelve years or more, nobody can convince me that ADSL’s biggest problem causing issues aren’t overwhelmingly between the exchange and the customer premises equipment.
Many ISP’s are oversubscribed, but when speeds vary regularly with other than the obvious peak usage times based on geological locations, one gets very suspicious. When ADSL became available, I ditched DoV ISDN and went with it, swapping ISP’s at least four times since. Each ISP swap provided identical performance and stability with standard ADSL modulation, even while changing and testing routers. (ADSL2 provided some modest variations). So while I encourage investigation of the ISP’s regional behavior reports to give you an idea of their reliability, I would encourage you to investigate your individual connections to the exchange as much as you possibly can.

So I guess to investigate my connection to the exchange, I will need a technician of some sort to do this? I also assume that this would be done by TPG….

Possibly. There are a number of things that, depending on which router you’re using and what information it provides you, you could check to try to determine where the issue lies.

Re your drop in speed after TPG ‘reset your settings’, it sounds like they may well have put you on a different line profile from the exchange. They can adjust your settings, to make your connection more or less aggressive – ie, if you’re on a good quality line, they can use a profile that would cause errors on a dodgy line, that would generally increase speed. They may have changed you to a more conservative profile, which will reduce errors and disconnects, while also reducing your speed.

Some things you can check yourself:

1. Go to http://www.adsl2exchanges.com.au and enter your address in there. You’ll get an approximate distance from you to the exchange you’re connected to, with an estimate of what speeds you could potentially reach. Those numbers are by no means gospel – phone lines don’t follow straight lines, and any problems with the line will reduce your maximum speeds. But if, for example, your estimated speed was 15,000kb/sec and you were only getting 5,000, then you’d know that something’s seriously wrong somewhere along the way…

2. Check the stats from your router. See if you can see a number for Signal to Noise Ratio (sometimes called SNR). The lower the number (under 10 or so is getting low) the more flaky your connection can be. Line Attenuation is another measure. It’s a measure of energy loss, and a lower number is better. Mine sits at 48 receiving, on a 5.5Mbit connection – that’s fairly high. Lastly, Cyclic Redundency Check Errors. This is a measure of how many errors you’re receiving in the data that you receive. If an error is encountered, then that data needs to be resent – so if you’re getting a lot of errors, you need to have a lot of data resent, which slows everything down.

3. Hopefully TPG already got you to do some of this stuff, but make sure you try using different ADSL filters, and remove all other telephones from your line to reduce any interference from other stuff.

However, if your sync speed remains high, but your actual download speed is still poor, in the absence of lots of errors when you download, you may be looking at TPG having inadequate bandwidth from your exchange…so once a lot of people get on, you end up with a choke point. If that’s the case, TPG buying more capacity is the only thing that will fix it – or changing provider.

I checked my distance from the exchange to my house and it is 1.5km direct line of sight with an estimated cable length of 2.2km and an estimated speed of 12mbps.

Downstream:
Data rate (kbps) = 6228
Noise margin (db) = 6.0
Attenuation (db) = 39.9
Output power (dbm) = 20.4

How do Ii check for Cyclic Redundency Check Errors?

VanH said :

Disinformation said :

Having been involved in the provisioning, support and faultfinding of various different types of network technologies for the last twelve years or more, nobody can convince me that ADSL’s biggest problem causing issues aren’t overwhelmingly between the exchange and the customer premises equipment.
Many ISP’s are oversubscribed, but when speeds vary regularly with other than the obvious peak usage times based on geological locations, one gets very suspicious. When ADSL became available, I ditched DoV ISDN and went with it, swapping ISP’s at least four times since. Each ISP swap provided identical performance and stability with standard ADSL modulation, even while changing and testing routers. (ADSL2 provided some modest variations). So while I encourage investigation of the ISP’s regional behavior reports to give you an idea of their reliability, I would encourage you to investigate your individual connections to the exchange as much as you possibly can.

So I guess to investigate my connection to the exchange, I will need a technician of some sort to do this? I also assume that this would be done by TPG….

Possibly. There are a number of things that, depending on which router you’re using and what information it provides you, you could check to try to determine where the issue lies.

Re your drop in speed after TPG ‘reset your settings’, it sounds like they may well have put you on a different line profile from the exchange. They can adjust your settings, to make your connection more or less aggressive – ie, if you’re on a good quality line, they can use a profile that would cause errors on a dodgy line, that would generally increase speed. They may have changed you to a more conservative profile, which will reduce errors and disconnects, while also reducing your speed.

Some things you can check yourself:

1. Go to http://www.adsl2exchanges.com.au and enter your address in there. You’ll get an approximate distance from you to the exchange you’re connected to, with an estimate of what speeds you could potentially reach. Those numbers are by no means gospel – phone lines don’t follow straight lines, and any problems with the line will reduce your maximum speeds. But if, for example, your estimated speed was 15,000kb/sec and you were only getting 5,000, then you’d know that something’s seriously wrong somewhere along the way…

2. Check the stats from your router. See if you can see a number for Signal to Noise Ratio (sometimes called SNR). The lower the number (under 10 or so is getting low) the more flaky your connection can be. Line Attenuation is another measure. It’s a measure of energy loss, and a lower number is better. Mine sits at 48 receiving, on a 5.5Mbit connection – that’s fairly high. Lastly, Cyclic Redundency Check Errors. This is a measure of how many errors you’re receiving in the data that you receive. If an error is encountered, then that data needs to be resent – so if you’re getting a lot of errors, you need to have a lot of data resent, which slows everything down.

3. Hopefully TPG already got you to do some of this stuff, but make sure you try using different ADSL filters, and remove all other telephones from your line to reduce any interference from other stuff.

However, if your sync speed remains high, but your actual download speed is still poor, in the absence of lots of errors when you download, you may be looking at TPG having inadequate bandwidth from your exchange…so once a lot of people get on, you end up with a choke point. If that’s the case, TPG buying more capacity is the only thing that will fix it – or changing provider.

Luckily, you are not with DoDo, there is no customer service from the bloody bird at all!

Disinformation said :

Having been involved in the provisioning, support and faultfinding of various different types of network technologies for the last twelve years or more, nobody can convince me that ADSL’s biggest problem causing issues aren’t overwhelmingly between the exchange and the customer premises equipment.
Many ISP’s are oversubscribed, but when speeds vary regularly with other than the obvious peak usage times based on geological locations, one gets very suspicious. When ADSL became available, I ditched DoV ISDN and went with it, swapping ISP’s at least four times since. Each ISP swap provided identical performance and stability with standard ADSL modulation, even while changing and testing routers. (ADSL2 provided some modest variations). So while I encourage investigation of the ISP’s regional behavior reports to give you an idea of their reliability, I would encourage you to investigate your individual connections to the exchange as much as you possibly can.

So I guess to investigate my connection to the exchange, I will need a technician of some sort to do this? I also assume that this would be done by TPG….

Disinformation9:14 am 21 Jun 12

Having been involved in the provisioning, support and faultfinding of various different types of network technologies for the last twelve years or more, nobody can convince me that ADSL’s biggest problem causing issues aren’t overwhelmingly between the exchange and the customer premises equipment.
Many ISP’s are oversubscribed, but when speeds vary regularly with other than the obvious peak usage times based on geological locations, one gets very suspicious. When ADSL became available, I ditched DoV ISDN and went with it, swapping ISP’s at least four times since. Each ISP swap provided identical performance and stability with standard ADSL modulation, even while changing and testing routers. (ADSL2 provided some modest variations). So while I encourage investigation of the ISP’s regional behavior reports to give you an idea of their reliability, I would encourage you to investigate your individual connections to the exchange as much as you possibly can.

I’m in Belco with TPG and don’t have any problems with speed. I use a Netgear router I supplied myself and I am also across the road from my local exchange, which helps too.

Only problem is when i need to talk to them, getting my message across is difficult. But I don’t mind putting up with that once every year or two when I can save a couple of hundred a year.

Remember to check their homepage regularly and reset your plan to the latest cheaper one.

Tool said :

Had similar issues with TPG and they were actually quite good, I was surprised at how efficient their service was despite being run out of the Phillipines.

Ah. taht explains why they use that weird voice changing hardware that makes it hard to understand them soetimes. Fair enough, that stops the racisit in Australia say they only want to speak to Aussies if there is no detectable accent.

We just changed over to TPG from Virgin and are still astonded by how fast they are. When we were with Virgin it was so slow that in the end if we had to do anything on the internet we ended up doing either at work or on our phones and stopped using the computer altogether.

Now we are with TPG it is a breeze. But we live in the inner city. Not knowing anything about this stuff does that make a difference?

VanH said :

fnaah said :

My understanding is that TPG are massively oversubscribed. Have you tried speed tests during off-peak hours?

Also relevant: what metric are you using to measure “speed”? Line sync? A download speed test (such as speedtest.net)? How long it takes to grab an episode of Game of Thrones from dodgytorrentz-r-us.com?

My line sync speed is 5300kb but was at 6500kb (still slow) before I rang TPG. When I rang them, they did there usual tests and apparantly reset my settings which caused my sync speed to drop by 1200kb???

I have performed all the speed tests (TPG/ZDNet..etc) and can only manage a DL speed of 45-50kb/s. General web browsing is very slow (my iphone is faster).

I have used various modems and all have the same result……….

I called TPG on Saturday and they told me that an engineer will look at my problem and get back to me within 48 hours……..60 hours later, I rang them to see why I did not receive a call and TPG said that an engineer will contact me within 48 hours???? So now I have to wait an extra 48 hours!!!!

Hell’s bells, that would get your blood up. It would be like watching those pics appear line by line back in the 28kbs days.

My speedtest on vanilla ADSL is 14mbs but I find that hard to believe sometimes

fnaah said :

My understanding is that TPG are massively oversubscribed. Have you tried speed tests during off-peak hours?

Also relevant: what metric are you using to measure “speed”? Line sync? A download speed test (such as speedtest.net)? How long it takes to grab an episode of Game of Thrones from dodgytorrentz-r-us.com?

My line sync speed is 5300kb but was at 6500kb (still slow) before I rang TPG. When I rang them, they did there usual tests and apparantly reset my settings which caused my sync speed to drop by 1200kb???

I have performed all the speed tests (TPG/ZDNet..etc) and can only manage a DL speed of 45-50kb/s. General web browsing is very slow (my iphone is faster).

I have used various modems and all have the same result……….

I called TPG on Saturday and they told me that an engineer will look at my problem and get back to me within 48 hours……..60 hours later, I rang them to see why I did not receive a call and TPG said that an engineer will contact me within 48 hours???? So now I have to wait an extra 48 hours!!!!

p996911turbo10:11 pm 19 Jun 12

All good on TPG in Phillip. My line sync and actual download speed have been the same since I moved here. Reliability is surprisingly good too.

Since got new modem tpg very reliable and fast in Spence. No issues for last five years.

I was in Chisholm and had issues with my TGP ADSL dropping out every time it rained, I noticed CRC errors on my router and the line speed was getting worse and worse. I emailed TPG (less painful than calling them) and did the isolation tests, sometimes they would reset something and it would be fine for a few days then be the same as before. My speeds were getting progressively worst then I noticed static on the phone line.

I waited until it rained and the line was really bad and then rang Telstra to log a fault. I was surprised my call was answered by an Aussie who could hear the static on the line, they ran some tests and called me back about 15 minutes later and said they would send some out to check the line. The next day I came home from work and saw a very unhappy looking ActewAGL contractor at the end of my street. It turn out the pit was full of water, they moved me onto a different pair and I never had a problem.

I moved to Spence and signed up with TPG and never had a problem, I am not using a TPG supplied router either.

not a problem in Gunners especially since I got a modem that works properly

I’m on TPG 1.5km from the Kambah exchange, been with them for more than 2 years now and no performance issues. I’ve previously had ADSL2+ from Optus and Internode (as well as TransCrap for 12 months) and TPG is the fastest and most stable ISP I’ve had.

Had similar issues with TPG and they were actually quite good, I was surprised at how efficient their service was despite being run out of the Phillipines.. We had a technician come outrand do a line check (sth Canb), turned out the line was screwed but fell within the ‘acceptable’ category for their service. Keep at them and they should send someone out to you, alternately have you checked your modem, had one of them die too and that caused massive reduction in speed.

I’m with TPG in the inner north. My dad’s with them in Tuggeranong. Neither of us have had any problems. Weird.

So you haven’t checked the line sync that your modem is getting? If your phone line is “going bad” then that would cause sync speed to drop.

Go to Whirlpool forums and do some reading – dozens of people ask this same question every day. The answers are the same, and your problem is almost certainly unrelated to your geographical location.

Felix the Cat4:17 pm 19 Jun 12

I’m in north Canb and with TPG and my internet drops out all the time, especially around 6 -7pm at night. Never used to, it seems to have started doing it ever since there was a problem with TransACT a while back. Might just be a coincidence.

It might be worth checking out Whirlpool’s TPG forum.

Yep same, my speeds started off at 12-13Mbs around 4yrs ago, now i’m down to around 8… But for the price, I scan’t be stuffed changing, yet.

My understanding is that TPG are massively oversubscribed. Have you tried speed tests during off-peak hours?

Also relevant: what metric are you using to measure “speed”? Line sync? A download speed test (such as speedtest.net)? How long it takes to grab an episode of Game of Thrones from dodgytorrentz-r-us.com?

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