bigburd
join:2009-09-14
Butte, MT
 ·Bresnan Online
| Massive Slowdowns?
For the last week or so I have been experiencing super slow speeds. As I sit here right now my current speakeasy test to Seattle shows:
Last night I was getting ~700 kbps DOWN
Early this morning: full speed
Today at lunch: full speed
Right now:Last Result:
Download Speed: 2685 kbps (335.6 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 734 kbps (91.8 KB/sec transfer rate)
Am I the only one experiencing this? I'm paying for the faster connection as well, full speed is 10 mb |
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geonerds
join:2006-03-19
Helena, MT
| I've talked to many people in Helena experiencing the same problem. Customer service has been unhelpful, to say the least, basically just going through the rote "shutdown/restart", "it must be you" routine. Reading through the forums here it seems a systemic problem on their end. Peak evening hours do seem the worst, with high latency values, timeouts, etc.
Anyone have a more tech savvy explanation of what may be going on? |
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jodokast82
join:2007-10-26
Great Falls, MT
| reply to bigburd
I as well am getting these issues as well. I have the standard speed package and am experiencing similar massive slowdowns between 5pm and 2am. It is a capacity problem. Bresnan will deny it wholeheartedly but that is the only explanation. I am actually in talks with some of their tier 2.5 and networking techs trying to show them it is happening but they always use the "its out of our network" or " its your system/network and we don't have to help with that".
Run trace routes often when stuff goes south. Call or contact them when it is happening and get an email address to mail it to. show them its happening. If all else fails, threaten to drop their service or get others to as well. That usually works. If THAT doesn't work, ask for a manager or a supervisor. other than that I don't know what to tell you |
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jodokast82
join:2007-10-26
Great Falls, MT | reply to bigburd
Also bigburd, make sure to use the Bresnan speedtest, or they will stick their fingers in their ears and pretend not to hear you. speedtest.bresnan.net |
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citizenkain
join:2009-09-17
Helena, MT
1 edit | reply to bigburd
Its been slow for me as well the last few days. Using a speedtest.net server in Helena, latency is around 50ms, and down speed is a bit over 1.25mbps. Up is less then .40mbps.
Also, webpages are slow, I get a lot of latency and drops in WoW going to 206.16.235.15.
When I use the Bresnan speedtest shows that everything is fantastic and I'm getting my full speed. Too bad the entire internet isn't condensed into one rack in Missoula. |
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nate2073
join:2007-09-05
Helena, MT
·Bresnan Online
2 edits | reply to bigburd
Hmm, maybe this is why this morning my DNS server is experiencing a tremendous number of timeouts. My logs are filling up with the below. Also websites are taking longer to load in Firefox. We will see if this is a temporary thing or chronic.
named: too many timeouts resolving 'ns-1.ch3.sourceforge.com/AAAA' (in 'sourceforge.com'?): disabling EDNS |
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InHelena
| reply to bigburd
There is severe funkiness going on. I ran a newsgroup download test with one server connection. I max out with about 750Kbps. If I open 15 connections I can hit 9Mbps. |
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bigburd
join:2009-09-14
Butte, MT
·Bresnan Online
| reply to bigburd
Last Result:
Download Speed: 3711 kbps (463.9 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 586 kbps (73.3 KB/sec transfer rate)
it's not as bad but still terrible.. once again this morning it was full speed ahead at 10mb down. I'm not bothering with tech support, read my post titled "Bresnan Hijacks Your Browser" from a few days ago and you'll see why I'm not calling them, pointless and aggravating. Dialing that number is setting yourself up for disappointment and anger. |
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bigburd
join:2009-09-14
Butte, MT | reply to nate2073
I used to get these on my caching nameserver but I have a qwest DSL line as well so I sent my DNS server out the qwest line. |
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soadlink
join:2002-11-17
Kalispell, MT
| reply to bigburd
When they say "it's not in our network, not our problem" it makes me furious. That is such terrible customer service, and a cop out. I can understand a major jump down the line, but when it's one of their backbones to the internet they need to say "thank you for letting us know, we will speak with our engineers, and get in contact 360 networks to try and resolve the issue as soon as possible"... or whoever the backbone is.
I work at a hospital in IT..if our connection to the provider was suffering/out, and employees were complaining, and I said "not our network, not our problem" I would be in big trouble if this got out. OK it's not the exact same situation, but in general my point stands -- just say you will do your best to help fix the problem, even if you know it's going to be a difficult/lengthy one to solve. |
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bigburd
join:2009-09-14
Butte, MT | reply to jodokast82
tried the bresnan test and it came up ~7800 I'm paying for 15000 and still cant hit it on their own network. |
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bigburd
join:2009-09-14
Butte, MT
·Bresnan Online
| reply to soadlink
actually your situation is quite the same.. you by your employer, as is bresnan by us, are both being paid to provide a service which you contractually agreed to provide.. This would be like you clocking in for an 8 hour day and taking an 4 hour nap. At least if I'm only getting half my bandwidth. |
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squirrel83
cheers
join:2005-05-02
Missoula, MT | reply to bigburd
latley I have been having alot of drops but in the past days maybe they are done
»www.speedtest.net/result/568804542.png |
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bigburd
join:2009-09-14
Butte, MT | I got my full 15mb tonight on the bresnan server lets see if it stays this way |
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jodokast82
join:2007-10-26
Great Falls, MT
1 edit | Congrats on the evening speed up. Was it about 10pm-ish? Or closer to midnight? The reason we are all getting bad performance is that Bresnan got greedy and over-subscribed their bandwidth. They are planning a few new connections to Seattle and Denver to relieve some of the congestion but that's about it as far as I know. I mean, we are Montana. We aren't high on the "must-add-backbones" list. I finally got a response from our friendly tier 2 tech support. Don't get me wrong, this is a good support agent and does her job well. Being in the remote support and phone support business I understand how hard it can be to do that job, but being in that line of work I can also tell when I am being relayed info thru a 3rd party that isn't quite sure what the info means. E-mail reads as follows.
"I managed to get a quick response to your slow speed issues during peak times. Our Network Engineers are aware of the issue now and have it scheduled to be repaired in the near future. I just wanted to let you know that we are attending to the matter as best as we can. It may be a couple of weeks until results are realized. I know that the time frame is never "soon enough" but I hope knowing that it will be resolved soon will help. Your ticket will be attached to the parent issue for resolution."
So basically you can read this 2 ways. The lumbering beast that is Bresnan is actually going to fix the issue, whether it be before or after the supposed network expansion. Or they are just sick of me complaining and are telling me what they think I want to hear. I personally hope for the former, not the latter. This comes after the phone support basically told me "I do feel that the problem is, sadly, off network therefore out of our hands". I sent them some line tests from DSLreports that showed upwards of 10 to 15% packet loss on a number of servers in the network during peak and then got that E-mail the next day |
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bigburd
join:2009-09-14
Butte, MT
·Bresnan Online
| reply to bigburd
Re: Massive Slowdowns?
just an fyi today my connection is super super slow. This time I checked with bresnan speed test and got my full 15 but checking with speakeasy shows me at less than 1mb. Every site is slow, no use calling them as they will tell me it's not them I'm sure. |
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bigburd
join:2009-09-14
Butte, MT
·Bresnan Online
| reply to bigburd
Speakeasy test tonight:
Last Result:
Download Speed: 1118 kbps (139.8 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 910 kbps (113.8 KB/sec transfer rate)
Bresnan says I'm going full speed ahead. I sent tech support a nasty email today and got the same ol story of how I should disconnect my router from the modem and how I should traceroute and send results and how they cant be responsible for the speeds outside of their network and all I can say is BS! The traceroute is gonna look fine because at 1mb I will still get reasonable response times. They'll come back saying everything looks great from what they see. It's all a setup like loaded dice. This is a joke I'm paying extra money to go faster and my DSL connection blows this thing away right now and thats with TONS of web server traffic running on the connection all the time... You know if they were straight up to begin with and just tell me they were having troubles and trying to sort it out and they would credit my account half of the monthly bill each month or soemthing until it was fixed I would be fine with that. But I'm paying good money for this connection and all I am getting is a bunch of manipulative apes with their thumbs up their derier. |
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bigburd
join:2009-09-14
Butte, MT
·Bresnan Online
| reply to bigburd
Speakeasy test at 7am
Last Result:
Download Speed: 15754 kbps (1969.3 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 964 kbps (120.5 KB/sec transfer rate)
DOnt trust them outside speed tests though they could be inaccurate.. Bresnan sucks so bad right now. I guess I do get what I pay for as long as I'm willing to stay up through the night to use it. Who needs sleep? |
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AnonInsider
@bresnan.net
| reply to bigburd
Inside info on this issue.
The problem is not, as speculated, a bandwidth or over-subscription problem. The issue is/was related to issues with how a major peer provider handles their BGP route announcements.
Despite what some have claimed, traceroutes are very important to have ready when contacting tech support. They might not directly show the slowdown but they do provide valuable data for engineering groups to isolate the problem routes/paths.
Using the bresnan speedtest is valuable because it will help isolate if the issue is local to your connection or more a matter of getting out of the network. If your tests to the internal test servers show full (or close to full) speeds then it's not a local issue at your house. So don't call and ask for a tech because he/she won't be able to do anything at your house.
As far as I'm aware 360 fixed their BGP announcement problems so if you're still having issues you need to report it to the phone support people.
You can run traceroutes from the command line- windows, mac, and linux all have the command-line traceroute utility. (mac users, it's called 'terminal' in your applications folder).
Bigburd, you say your DSL works great. Well guess what smart guy, Bresnan uses the same peer link that Qwest does, and if that peer runs into a bandwidth crunch, which company's traffic you think they are going to give first priority to? A small local ISP or a huge national company that they have to peer with all over the US? You do the math. |
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