Speakeasy → Pingplotter

I just started using Pingplotter last night to check my Speak Easy dsl line...to see how often it drops out.

I don't know how to read the graph real well yet, but in a 6 hour period I had about 15 drop outs it looks like.

Does anyone know if I can monitor more then one IP address at once with Pingplotter? I'm still trying to figure how to use it.

You can open the program several times to plot different IPs. I don't think the free version will allow you to see multiple items on the same page. As for drop outs it depends on the down time. Sometimes things get busy and the ping times out for one cycle (I don't think that's big deal - maybe). On the other hand, if the drop out last several ping cycles you may have a problem - is something rebooting by itself (ie. dsl modem, router, AP, cpe)?

I hope this helps,

Pat

What IP address were You using?. Do reverse lookup for Yahoo's IP and see how often it goes down.
Here: Yahoo IP is 216.109.117.109
Try that and see what happens?

I have some more advanced tools than ping plotter, so I'm not sure if there is a setting to define how many missed pings qualify as an outage.

15 missed pings in 6 hours isn't bad but 15 2 second periods where you get no response to ping is bad.

The guys who make pingplotter also make MultiPing which graphs several ping plots at once.

I think it has a 30 day trial as well.

PingPlotter pro also has a trial and it will tell you when routes change and MOS scores etc. Kinda cool.

Hi everybody:

I opened the program several times and I can do multi pings that way. It's interesting to see when I have a dropout on just one IP or several. To see if the times coincide.

Hi Tim: I'll put in the IP address you gave and see how it does.

I was pinging the gateway IP of SE (really Covad), which is 66.92.238.1. I guess that gateway is at my local CO. I assume the two dns servers are also at my local CO?

It's getting closer to the time that I usually get dsl drop outs (about 7 PM to 9 PM). I did see longer drop outs as it got around 6 PM. Most of my drop outs earlier in the day were only about 5 seconds.

Hi cmaenginsb: I can't wait til I can understand the more complicated tools like you have...lol. I'm just lucky to get Pingplotter working...lol. It actually turns on an audio alarm when dsl goes off. I can hear it downstairs. So I don't have to keep my eyes glued to the computer to know when an alarm occures.

Hi ILC: I'll take a look at MultiPing. Thanks.

The DNS servers are not usually located near you they can be anywhere but the gateway will be located near you.

Hi Airplace777 -

Speakeasy actually runs its own private network, and only uses Covad for last mile connectivity from the CO to your customer premises.

All that's housed at your CO is our last mile provider's DSLAM equipment, and trunking to an upstream BPX. The BPX aggregates all ATM traffic, to hand off to Speakeasy on our backhaul.

More information is available at »www.speakeasy.net/network if you're interested in inter-POP latency, and white papers published by Speakeasy.

The IP address, 66.92.238.1 is the Juniper ERX housed at Speakeasy's NYC POP. This definitely wouldn't be the right IP to use for testing purposes, as the Juniper's will prioritize ICMP as the lowest possible, as actual data traffic deserves a higher QoS.

It's best to use your DNS server, 216.254.95.2 for testing purposes, as the Juniper will treat packets destined for end points beyond it with priority.

If you are in fact experiencing intermittent drop outs, and it's related to the last mile connectivity, training starts would also increment on an ADSL circuit, and may be the best statistic for determining if an issue is occuring with the physical loop, or if the problem is further down the line.

Thanks,
Adam

Thank you so much for your post.Hi adamA:

I used the 66.92.238.1 IP address since the SE support guy on the phone last night told me it was at my local CO. But after looking at several drop outs today, I wondered why I didn't see a drop out on that IP address (that I thought was local) coincide with drop outs on some other IP addresses. So what you say makes sense, that my SE gateway is not really at my local CO.

Is there any equipment at my local CO that I can ping just for my local loop?What do you mean when you say "training starts".

How do I see these "training starts"? Isn't there any kind of IP I could ping at my local CO to help me measure just the local loop?

Thanks

There isn't any layer 3 equipment at the CO itself you could use for ping testing alone. All of it is ATM level. As far as your IP experience goes, your first hop (our gateway) traverses from your machine, is converted to an ATM cell by the DSL CPE, and remains an ATM cell all the way to the backhaul handoff at our Juniper.

The Juniper (our gateway) then converts the cell back to IP packets, and routes it to your destination.

Training starts are incremented on the DSLAM anytime the connection loses sync and the DSL CPE attempts to retrain.

Speakeasy has visibility into the number of training starts on your circuit-- this information is easily accessible, and can be provided to you by us on request, either by phone or an online ticket.

Some users on the forums here have posted instructions on how to log in to DSL modems to see training starts incrementing, are you using a Broadxent 8012?

Thanks,

H all:

It is now 7:34 PM. I have to be honest, and say that I haven't had any long drop outs today. I had only a few short ones, not lasting longer then 5 seconds. But nothing long enough to be a real pain, like I have experienced several day earlier and also a week ago. Well real early this morning, I did have a bunch of drop outs. But nothing like that now.

I just want to be able to use Pingplotter, so that I can help SE find the problem if it comes up again.

If I can get to 9 PM tonight without any major dropouts, then things just may go pretty good dropout-wise tonight...lol.

Thanks Adam for your post.

I checked Yahoo like you said and wow, there are hardly any peaks on there. Only time I saw much of anything when pinging Yahoo was when my dsl line went out.

But when I ping the SE dns server, I see all kinds of peaks in my graph. That seems to say there are all kinds of issues going on with SE equipment after my SE gateway.

The pinging times for Yahoo are very good, but not so for the SE dns servers.

I also pinged Google. And got the same good ping times.

I do notice a bunch of long time peaks and real quick dropouts of about 5 seconds throughout the day when I ping my SE gateway. But I guess 5 seconds isn't too bad? So...

How come I see long quick sporatic ping times on my gateway, but not when I ping Yahoo or Google (since the pings to Yahoo and Google have to all go through my gateway)?

When using my Ping Plotter, I simultaneously ping the SE gateway and Yahoo. I noticed that my gateway has more long duration ping times then when I ping Yahoo.

That doesnt' make sense, since I have to go through the SE gateway to get to Yahoo. I would think that at a minimum I should see the same long duration ping time peaks on my Ping Plotter for Yahoo that I see on the SE gateway (since my pings have to always go through the SE gateway. But I don't.

Anyone have any idea why?

As stated by Adam: The IP address, 66.92.238.1 is the Juniper ERX housed at Speakeasy's NYC POP. This definitely wouldn't be the right IP to use for testing purposes, as the Juniper's will prioritize ICMP as the lowest possible, as actual data traffic deserves a higher QoS.

It's best to use your DNS server, 216.254.95.2 for testing purposes, as the Juniper will treat packets destined for end points beyond it with priority

Update...

In the short time since I have been using Ping Plotter, I don't seem to be having as bad of a time with my dsl LED going out on my dsl modem.

My dsl line seems to only go down now in the early morning hours...several times. I don't know what is causing that, but at least it isn't as bad as it was before.

line noise?

My ISP told me I had good enough signal to noise ratio.