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fred999
join:2012-02-09
Scarborough, ON

fred999

Member

[Internet] Bell throttling?

Hi all,
I'm on Primus DSL, 6Mb. I've had no complaints for quite a few years. Usually I get almost full speed.

These last few weeks, suddenly my download speeds have gone way down, but only between around 9pm to around 11pm. It's still ok for browsing, but my downloads stall out.

I was wondering if Bell is still doing throttling? I thought I had read a while ago that CRTC had disallowed that?

Any opinions?
Bellmtl
join:2006-11-01

Bellmtl

Member

Bell's definitely not throttling... maybe Primus is throttling on their end?
kovy7
join:2009-03-26

kovy7 to fred999

Member

to fred999
What speed do you get ?
fred999
join:2012-02-09
Scarborough, ON

fred999

Member

If I use the Primus or Speakeasy tests, I get around 5Mb.

If I use Speedtest.net, it goes down to around 1Mb or less... sometimes it even stalls out. I'm guessing Speedtest has a longer test, and it just can't finish.

Mind you, this is just between 9pm and 11pm - give or take 30 minutes each side. Rest of the time, I can pretty well max out.

xsbell
join:2008-12-22
Canada

xsbell to Bellmtl

Member

to Bellmtl
said by Bellmtl:

Bell's definitely not throttling... maybe Primus is throttling on their end?

I've never seen any throttling in my seven years with Primus. I take it the OP is using GAS, in which case it could be the AHSSPI link from Primus back to Bell causing the slowdown (you can try reconnecting a couple times), the link from Bell's BAS to an ATM switch (if he's still on their legacy ATM network), or the link from that switch to his DSLAM (more than likely that's his problem.)

@OP, does your latency also go up?
fred999
join:2012-02-09
Scarborough, ON

fred999

Member

@OP, does your latency also go up?

Not exactly sure what latency is.. if you mean ping, it goes from around 25 outside the 9-11pm time range, to 36 between 9-11pm, using the Primus or Speakeasy tests, and from 32 outside the 9-11pm range, to 40 using the Speedtest test.

I'm also wondering why Speedtest is consistently worse than the other two tests?

Which are more accurate?

xsbell
join:2008-12-22
Canada

xsbell

Member

said by fred999:

@OP, does your latency also go up?

Not exactly sure what latency is.. if you mean ping, it goes from around 25 outside the 9-11pm time range, to 36 between 9-11pm, using the Primus or Speakeasy tests, and from 32 outside the 9-11pm range, to 40 using the Speedtest test.

I'm also wondering why Speedtest is consistently worse than the other two tests?

Which are more accurate?

Your latency seems fine then. Have you tried reconnecting during the slowdown? (it may take a couple tries before you see an improvement.)

I mainly just use Primus' speedtest, which seems to be more accurate.
resa1983
Premium Member
join:2008-03-10
North York, ON

resa1983

Premium Member

Bad routing, or congestion.
Expand your moderator at work
lightbeam
join:2012-10-27
x1x-1x1

lightbeam

Member

Re: [Internet] Bell throttling?

an no bell does no throtlle.. if for you it does then better rethink your passway on the internet buddy

meaning that its simple if you have to many AMPS downstream (download) ... i could actually hurt the copper... EXP.
..

torrent
donwload a file but its sent from a bunch a servers to you... it can so much saturate your line it can actually burn it... it's called over flow of packets.... this will burn your modem and will affedct performance. imagine 1000 servers sending you packets over size... i just wont affect you it will affect the gateway buddy....
fred999
join:2012-02-09
Scarborough, ON

fred999

Member

Well, thanks to all...

@lightbeam, no torrents, just single file downloads...and theyare from various servers, so it's not just one server slowing down, it's all of them

@usuckbell by reconnecting, you mean reboot the modem?

It's hard to understand though - why only between 9 and 11pm... wonder if they're doing maintenance or something. I guess it's time to call up Primus and ask them. Pretty sure I'll get nowhere.

xsbell
join:2008-12-22
Canada

xsbell

Member

No need to reboot the modem, just log into your router and reconnect that way. (look under WAN settings)

If you're connected directly to the modem, disconnect the PPPoE connection in your OS. It may take several attempts.

Hopefully Bell hurries up with their 10GigE AHSSPI plans.
fred999
join:2012-02-09
Scarborough, ON

fred999

Member

Just for my understanding, is it true to say that using DSL there will be no competition from neighbours? I know using cable, you can have congestion in your neigborhood, but not with DSL right?

But what about the larger picture? Can Primus have congestion on their part of the Bell network, or is it all Bell?
resa1983
Premium Member
join:2008-03-10
North York, ON

resa1983

Premium Member

said by fred999:

Just for my understanding, is it true to say that using DSL there will be no competition from neighbours? I know using cable, you can have congestion in your neigborhood, but not with DSL right?

But what about the larger picture? Can Primus have congestion on their part of the Bell network, or is it all Bell?

If Bell's back-end is congested, everyone will have problems; same with if they have congested links to a peering partner (which was seen in 2010 & 2011 when peering to AT&T's network). If Bell hasn't provided enough capacity to a DSLAM, you'll also experience congestion (and so will your neighbours).

Bell's currently seeing DSLAM congestion for several areas right now, as upgrades are planned, but won't be followed through until other upgrades are done first as they don't want to have to do upgrades to a DSLAM more than once.

xsbell
join:2008-12-22
Canada

xsbell to fred999

Member

to fred999
said by fred999:

Just for my understanding, is it true to say that using DSL there will be no competition from neighbours? I know using cable, you can have congestion in your neigborhood, but not with DSL right?

But what about the larger picture? Can Primus have congestion on their part of the Bell network, or is it all Bell?

It is not true. Every customer on your DSLAM will be sharing the same uplink.

I don't see Primus having the problem. With xDSL being a fat tree topology, the bottleneck will always be near the last mile (DSLAM uplinks). Another bottleneck would be Bell's AHSSPI. After that though, everything should be running at 10GigE or 40GigE.

fred999
join:2012-02-09
Scarborough, ON

fred999

Member

Oh, well, in that case... maybe I suddenly have a new neighbor who is also doing downloads in the evening between 9 and 11pm...
Expand your moderator at work

Fibe2510
@bell.ca

Fibe2510

Anon

Re: [Internet] Bell throttling? -> Yes for bit torrent

Bell most certainly does throttle my bit torrent up load traffic after 4pm every day (not sure when it gets un throttled again but it is fine every morning by 9am ). My uploads drop from as high as 750 kbps to between 40 and 60.... every day at the same time.
fred999
join:2012-02-09
Scarborough, ON

fred999

Member

Re: [Internet] Bell throttling?

Well, just an update...
Primus got me to bypass the router, and attach the modem directly to the pc. After a bit of an argument from my side, because I couldn't see why the router would only have problems between 9-11pm, I did it.

I should say, first I turned off and on both router and modem, thinking maybe that would reset both in case there was any problem, but no change - Speednet still said around .5Mbs.

Anyway, after I connected the modem directly to the pc, everything was good! Then after an hour I put the router back in, and still good! I haven't seen full speed like that for a long time.

So, anyone with experience can explain what that was about? Is the router failing, and after a few hours work, it slows down to a crawl?

Thanks for any ideas.
HeadSpinning
MNSi Internet
join:2005-05-29
Windsor, ON

HeadSpinning

Member

Many consumer grade routers do wonky things when they run low on available memory.

nat
@bell.ca

nat to fred999

Anon

to fred999
Routers need to maintain what's called a NAT table as it translates your private IP address on your LAN (e.g. 192.168.2.10) to the Internet routable IP address belonging to your PPPoE session.

When you start something like a bittorrent client, it opens up many connections per torrent: so if you have 3 active torrents you could have 900 open connections if you have the maximum connections per torrent set to 300.

Most routers balk at that level of traffic but custom firmware such as Tomato and DD-WRT, Open-WRT, support many more connections than the default firmware (DD-WRT supports 4096 connections out of the box).

Buy yourself a router that supports custom DD-WRT or Tomato, and you'll notice a difference... plus, you'll be able to manage congestion and use QoS to prioritize your traffic so that your Skype traffic has priority over your http or bittorrent traffic thereby helping minimize freezing and distortion.
fred999
join:2012-02-09
Scarborough, ON

fred999 to HeadSpinning

Member

to HeadSpinning
@HeadSpinning, Ok, so that means the router needs to be restarted once in a while. It hadn't been turned off for many months.

But on Monday I did restart both the router and the modem, and didn't seem to have any effect. It was only after I removed the router and then put it back in service that there was any change in speed.

But good to know, next time I'll have something to test.

@Nat, No torrents here, but definitely will follow your suggestion to get a better one next time. Currently it's just a plain WRT54g. It's been solid for 5-6 years now, but heavily used.... maybe its time has come.

Thanks.

Primus Guy
@primus.ca

Primus Guy to fred999

Anon

to fred999
Remember the squeals that used to be heard from a 56k modem (eeeee EEEEEE shh shh boing boing)? That is called training, the modem doing various modulation schemes to get max speeds going. Your DSL modem does the same wo/speaker. Storms, noisy phone lines etc can cause your DSL to drop in speed. The power cycle (off/on) is what brought the speed back. The router has nothing to do with it. Bell throttles all non Bell customers. We had about 5MB, they dropped it to 1.5MB. But for that we have true unlimited w/Primus.