US Telco Support > FairPoint > [speed/latency] Speeds slow on 30/15 connection NH/ME

reply to exeter

Re: [speed/latency] Speeds slow on 30/15 connection NH/ME

The 72.71 and 64.222 IPs are registered to FairPoint. So at least you know problem is not back haul within the FairPoint network.

Problem occurs at hop 4, which is registered to Verizon. So problem is probably peering between FairPoint and Alter.net. Interesting I'm also routed through Alter.net but must be a different physical circuit as I coming in on a different router.

quote:

---

NetRange: 208.192.0.0 - 208.255.255.255
CIDR: 208.192.0.0/10
OriginAS:
NetName: UUNET1996B
NetHandle: NET-208-192-0-0-1
Parent: NET-208-0-0-0-0
NetType: Direct Allocation
Comment: ADDRESSES WITHIN THIS BLOCK ARE NON-PORTABLE
RegDate: 1996-05-08
Updated: 2006-12-14
Ref: »whois.arin.net/rest/net/NET-208-192-0-0-1

OrgName: MCI Communications Services, Inc. d/b/a Verizon Business
OrgId: MCICS
Address: 22001 Loudoun County Pkwy
City: Ashburn
StateProv: VA
PostalCode: 20147
Country: US
RegDate: 2006-05-30
Updated: 2011-11-30
Ref: »whois.arin.net/rest/org/MCICS

---

reply to tschmidt
Well i have GWI for my ISP i used to have Verizon/Fairpoint in Belfast ME. I switched to GWI because of the supposed upgrade in speed. With Fairpoint i had the 3mb dl and recieved about 1.5 not sure what my ping was but wish i knew right now. GWI is so inconsistant i pay for the 10/1 plan and this is what im getting »www.speedtest.net/result/1711814023.png
I too play COD MW3 and the lag is so irritating, how do they reroute your traffic? would that give me a better ping? i just want to be somewhere in the 20-40ms range i could really care less about the raw speeds dl/ul at this point.

reply to exeter
Tschmidt- It seems pretty clear that the issue is with Fairpoint's peering to Alternet at this point. It is consistently shown in the traceroutes that the congestion hits leaving Fairpoint and hitting Alternet. The scary part is that we seem to have an issue on GW3, GW4 and GW1.

When I 'upgraded' to the 30/15 for a significant lower price per month, I asked what the catch was. Well, this seems to be the catch and we're in for 2 years :/

-Gatsby

reply to JGatsby
I just wanted to ring in here. Thanks for this thread! It's good to know I'm not the only one...unfortunately.

I also "upgraded" to 30/15 when the offer was made by Fairpoint. When I started having issues with Amazon Instant Video, Netflix, and Hulu Plus on my Roku box I thought it was here in my house - a LAN issue or something. After doing speed tests more frequently, I see now how much the speed is changing throughout the day - especially in the evening.

Last Thursday through Saturday I was stuck around 2-3 down and 4-6 up the whole time. I called Fairpoint and they created a ticket. On Sunday the speed was back up and on Monday, when the tech showed up, it was back up to around 32/14 with a 15ms ping. This seems to be normal for daytime with reading all over the place at night.

My most recent readings tonight at 8pm were 28/9 with an 85ms ping. That was significantly better than 10 minutes before at 22/7 and 105 ms ping. Is there an answer to this? Are we just at their mercy?! The price is great, I hope the service gets better!

reply to exeter
Well it just keeps getting more and more fun! My latest speed test at 9:30pm here in Portsmouth shows 3.11/2.56 and 180ms ping. This can't continue!

reply to exeter
UGH!!! I AM DYING HERE!!! I am paying for stuff that is not working.
9:40pm 1/17/12 Ping to www.google.com
29 packets transmitted, 29 packets received, 0.0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 208.342/254.408/428.345/41.018 ms

This just sucks.

reply to JGatsby

reply to exeter
This has to be a service level agreement with Fairpoint and Verizon. I believe that someone guessed this earlier... but I think that it is correct. No way will Fairpoint give this information out. One can only guess at this time that... Fairpoint a) have not paid their bill and the service level went down because of it b) There is this issue with Verizon and Fairpoint, where Fairpoint thinks that they got the shaft when they bought three states worth of customers and don't feel that they have to pay till this gets sorted out (Fairpoint Fiber customers are totally screwed if this is the case). c) Verizon raised the price and they are in the process of dealing with negotiating a cost.

In any case, Fiber customers are not getting what they paid for (especially during peek hours).

Remember, when they quote speeds, it's 'Up To' XYZ speed with no guarantees.

I would bet they'd let you out of the contract regardless at this point, they certainly know they've got huge, huge issues and they'd likely rather shy away from a fight than have more light brought on them for a residential customer.
Does anyone know the standing of the corporation today? I believe they are out of bankruptcy officially as of last year but it's hard to track further. I'm thinking we may have to start making calls to the PUC and see if they have anything to say or if they even care about us pathetic non-corporations.

-Gatsby

reply to exeter
David Brooks of the Nashua Telegraph has in the past expressed interest on how FairPoint is doing; perhaps those who are experiencing these issues might wish to contact Mr. Brooks and share their concerns. David's e-mail address can be found under the "Contact" section of the Telegraph's Web site: »www.nashuatelegraph.com/contact

Shoot off an e-mail to wecanhelp@fairpoint.com with details of the issues you are having, and ask when the issue will be resolved. Or you can try Facebook or Twitter if you use those sites. Someone from FairPoint named "Dani" seems to frequent those haunts, and suggests use of that e-mail address.

I'm also going to try the PUC route when I get home; since Internet service is an "unregulated service" it's probably not going to produce fruit, but the more pressure on FairPoint the better.

In central VT I seem to be leaving the Fairpoint network via Above.net

Trace Route via DSL line in Central VT:

Tracing route to vnsc-bak.sys.gtei.net [4.2.2.2]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 4 ms 3 ms 5 ms 10.242.42.1
2 31 ms 30 ms 29 ms 10.19.5.1
3 32 ms 30 ms 30 ms burl-lnk-70-109-168-101.ngn.east.myfairpoint.net
[70.109.168.101]
4 30 ms 30 ms 28 ms burl-lnk-70-109-168-17.ngn.east.myfairpoint.net
[70.109.168.17]
5 132 ms 376 ms 37 ms burl-lnk-70-109-168-15.ngn.east.myfairpoint.net
[70.109.168.15]
6 481 ms 37 ms 429 ms xe-0-2-0.mpr4.bos2.us.above.net [64.124.202.29]

7 462 ms 67 ms 49 ms xe-5-2-0.cr2.dca2.us.above.net [64.125.24.114]
8 173 ms 239 ms 49 ms xe-1-3-1.er2.iad10.us.above.net [64.125.29.78]
9 313 ms 128 ms 693 ms above-level3.iad10.us.above.net [64.125.13.234]

10 1112 ms 50 ms 48 ms ge-5-0-60.hsa1.Washington2.Level3.net [4.69.149.
51]
11 286 ms 51 ms 75 ms vnsc-bak.sys.gtei.net [4.2.2.2]

Trace complete.

Trace Route via T-1 Line - same location:

Tracing route to google-public-dns-a.google.com [8.8.8.8]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 3 ms 3 ms 2 ms 10.242.42.1
2 13 ms 15 ms 14 ms static-burl-mse-71-161-***-***.ngn.east.myfairpo
int.net [71.161.***.***]
3 14 ms 14 ms 14 ms burl-lnk-70-109-168-33.ngn.east.myfairpoint.net
[70.109.168.33]
4 21 ms 21 ms 21 ms burl-lnk-70-109-168-15.ngn.east.myfairpoint.net
[70.109.168.15]
5 23 ms 23 ms 20 ms xe-0-2-0.mpr4.bos2.us.above.net [64.124.202.29]

6 36 ms 35 ms 35 ms xe-5-2-0.cr2.dca2.us.above.net [64.125.24.114]
7 69 ms 123 ms 459 ms xe-0-0-0.cr1.dca2.us.above.net [64.125.28.241]
8 208 ms 562 ms 35 ms xe-1-0-1.er1.iad10.us.above.net [64.125.26.238]

9 197 ms 473 ms 35 ms above-google.iad10.us.above.net [64.125.12.82]
10 321 ms 199 ms 912 ms 209.85.252.80
11 163 ms 37 ms 37 ms 64.233.175.219
12 699 ms 332 ms 1102 ms 72.14.232.25
13 52 ms 510 ms 38 ms google-public-dns-a.google.com [8.8.8.8]

reply to exeter
I spent a generally unsatisfying hour or so on the telephone with FairPoint today. I would suggest that anyone who is experiencing FAST performance issues during evening contact FairPoint customer service to get a trouble ticket opened, and then ask for - insistently - a credit for your FAST service because they are not providing a usable Internet connection during the evening.

I spoke with a tech support supervisor who acknowledged that FairPoint is aware that there is an issue with throughput and response between their network and Alter.net, and that their engineering group is also aware of the issue; they threw the term "network upgrade" around a few times, but it seems odd that something that was previously working very well now needs to be upgraded. Have they really added so many FAST customers that the network is overloaded to the point of needing an upgrade? I'm starting to wonder if the rumblings in this thread of financial difficulties are the underlying issue.

I was unable to get any estimate of when the problem will actually be fixed; the best they could say is something along the lines of "you'll know when it's fixed." It will be interesting to see if and how the routing changes once the issue is resolved.

My opinion of FairPoint? In a single word, pathetic.

reply to exeter
Thanks for keeping this thread alive. I will be continuing to test my speed as much as possibly. The past two evenings I have noticed somewhat better speeds, especially ping times, but its probably just a fluke. I'll test more tonight. I will be calling FairPoint again soon if there is any slow down.

I'm having the same latency issues at night, it's been going on for at least 2 weeks, maybe longer.

reply to exeter
I am also having problems with inconsistent speed with my internet connection at night in Nashua. I have Fairpoint 30/15, but have periods where it just freezes, which is *great* when watching Netflix. Just did a few ping tests - on one of them I had 38% packet loss, the other 4 0%, though I never got better than a B rating. There is definitely an issue in the Nashua area with Fairpoint at night. If this isn't straightened out soon, I am going to look into breaking my contract.

reply to exeter

Fairpoint FAST collection at one location

Does that mean that we can expect a change over to the "new Fairpoint Internet backbone" sometime soon and evening slowdowns will get better?

I had a couple of nights recently where my speeds and ping times were almost acceptable, but tonight I'm back to download times around 3Mbps, uploads around 4 or 5, and ping times of at least 60ms. These numbers tend to fluctuate, so streaming video constantly changes resolution and often freezes, and online gaming is nearly impossible. Still, I have ping times of 15ms or less and 31/14 consistently during the day.

We need a fix!

In a grand conspiracy theory kind of way, that rumor about FairPoint letting things slide with the Verizon backbone while they are in the process of migrating to their own backbone does make sense. I'm going to ping David Brooks at The Telegraph again and see if that theory might interest him. I think I'm also going to give the NH Public Utilities Commission a call; even though Internet is an "unregulated" service, if FairPoint is playing games with the customer base I think the PUC might be interested ...