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UncleA
@204.117.x.x

UncleA

Anon

POP vs. NAP? (change in Denver, CO POP)

I got an email recently from SpeakEasy, and went something like this:

In preparation for our national network upgrades, we are
redesigning our POP & Network Access Point (NAP) architecture,
converting our Denver POP into a NAP that will be routed via
private circuit to Los Angeles. This alteration will have a
minimal impact on your broadband services and requires no changes
to your TCP/IP or DNS information.



OK, so, I've been with SpeakEasy for 4+ years. If I recall correctly, I used to access speakeasy via a NAP, which routed me back to their POP in Seattle. ~3 years ago, I think, they deployed a full POP in Denver (yay). Now they are taking away the POP, and re-replacing it with a NAP? That seems to be what they are saying...


I am assuming that a POP routes all your net traffic onto various ILEC and CLEC backbones from that location; a NAP simply bundles your traffic onto a dedicate link (ATM likely) to a different POP, and from there onto a backbone. Do I have this right? If so, its going to kinda stink for me to have the most expensive net connection, with the highest latency, to game against my friends here in Denver...going from a 100ms ping. (havn't had it that bad since Doom2/dialup, or the Seattle/NAP setup)



UA

CylonRed
MVM
join:2000-07-06
Bloom County

CylonRed

MVM

Your ping should have minimal increase - I go from southwest Ohio to Chicago (viaz a NAP)and have EXELLENT pings.
KatOak
join:2001-09-10
Seattle, WA

KatOak to UncleA

Member

to UncleA
We used to route you directly to the Seattle POP - no NAP involved - but will now be turning our Denver POP into a NAP. Instead of jumping out onto the 'net directly from Denver, your traffic will be routed via a private circuit to the LAX POP and then hit the 'net. This change is anticipated to add less than 5ms to your present latency.

UncleA
@204.117.x.x

UncleA

Anon

OK, thanks for the answer!

I'll still have to find some new west-coast-based gaming servers to migrate to; thats 5ms dedicated, non-routed to LA, then a few more (guessing 10-30 depending, since its now routed) back to Denver, and then my normal ping from here to the east coast...and, yes, that much latency does make a difference


This leads me to another question: Is there a DSL-centric book or guide that will describe the architecture and design-decision processes that go on? It seems that SE spent $$$ to place the POP in Denver, and it will cost $$$ more to convert it back to a NAP (of course, saving $$$ in trunk lines and reduced rackspace in the Denver POP CO)...


Thanks a lot Kat! These guys don't lie: you do rule. Tell your boss that I said you should get a raise (or better yet, send me his email addy and I'll tell him what a rock star you are: UncleAlbert@dracaena.net).


UA
LloydDobler
join:2002-01-03
Littleton, CO

LloydDobler

Member

So is this a permanent change? or just temporary until they get everyone's speed upgraded?

I suspect that while my latency to the POP won't increase much, I do all my gaming on east coast servers, and routing from Denver to LA then to NY is going to suck big time. I already have problems with certain servers that only talk to SE through San Francisco, I can't imagine how much worse it'll be when ALL east coast servers behave that way. (min ping 150 or so).

I'd rather be backhauled to Chicago or NY. One of the main reasons I signed up for speakeasy in the first place was because they had a Denver POP. If it's temporary, I'll ride it out.

If not, Comcast just installed fiber in my neighborhood. If speakeasy is gonna lower my performance this may finally be the push that sends me over to cable.

AuroraMike
Time To Blow Some Bubbles
Premium Member
join:2002-01-06
Aurora, CO

1 edit

AuroraMike

Premium Member


My Comcast Line Quality
Well, having just come over from Comcast, I would have killed for only 150ms ping times.

Nothing like being on an oversold node to keep that latency up, or just wait till the kid down the block starts downloading mp3's 24/7.

.
AuroraMike

4 edits

AuroraMike to UncleA

Premium Member

to UncleA
Looks like the Denver POP was converted to a NAP this am.

Initial results show a 25 ms first hop latency increase, and a 40 ms increase to the east coast. My speed tests don't show much of a change though. Overall the connection seems pretty responsive. I just hope tweaking on their end will reduce latency a little. I've e-mailed Kat to see if this is what were to expect going forward.

Old Line Quality - Denver POP
»/quali ··· /1232622

New Line Quality - Denver NAP
»/quali ··· /1237113

New Speed Test
»/speed ··· 71071554

What is everyone else in Denver seeing?
.

Maxxxt
Peculiar Mental Twist
Premium Member
join:2001-06-12
Anchorage, AK

1 edit

Maxxxt to UncleA

Premium Member

to UncleA
» ··· /1223065 BEFORE

» ··· /1237535 AFTER

OK I'm PISSED OFF. Why do they do this? They added 50ms to my average ping. NOW routes From East coast to LAX to Denver...just plain stupid. Quit messing with stuff..unless it makes it faster OK.
Matt7
join:2001-01-02
Columbus, OH

Matt7 to UncleA

Member

to UncleA

Looks like they did this to save costs. I am sure backhauling over a private ATM link to LAX is cheaper than having a POP in Denver.. At least that's what I assume..

scooby
Premium Member
join:2001-05-01
Schaumburg, IL

scooby to UncleA

Premium Member

to UncleA
Typical rule of thumb is 2ms roundtrip for every 100 miles. Denver to LAX is 1050 miles driving or 845 miles 'as the crow flies'. So that would add 17ms-22ms just to hit your gateway.

CylonRed
MVM
join:2000-07-06
Bloom County
·Metronet

CylonRed to UncleA

MVM

to UncleA
I play AA - I can go from 90 ms ping to 300 ms. I now average about 175-220 (SCI servers have more ping than HomeLan) and have zero problems playing with 175-220 average. In fact I never even noticed when I had a 300 ms ping - I happened to glance at the ping on the score board.

I did online racing when I averaged 120-170 ms to the gateway (from Ohio to San Jose - the ISP I had lied when they said they had a POP in Chicago) and did not notice a ny problems...
LloydDobler
join:2002-01-03
Littleton, CO

LloydDobler

Member

Well, it looks like my first hop is now 45ms when it used to be 20. I'm extremely disappointed.

I used to ping 45 to servers in texas and 90 to servers in jersey. Now I ping 75 to my favorite tex servers and 140-150 to east coast servers.

I'm still waiting for an answer to whether or not this is permanent or temporary. I'm scheduled for the speed upgrade in march, if the POP is coming back at that time then I'll stay.

I thought the reason I paid a premium price was for premium service. If the company to which I pay a premium price is going to cut my performance back to save money, it's the exact opposite of what they need to do to keep my business.

I play first person shooters. Ping time is absolutely critical for a good gaming experience. Anything over 100 is pretty much unplayable (unless you're accustomed to it and like hovering around the bottom of the scoreboard). Adding to my ping time will lose me as a customer.

CylonRed
MVM
join:2000-07-06
Bloom County

CylonRed

MVM

They do not change POP's to NAP's then back again on whims and AA is a FPS and a ping over 100-170 is easily playable. The affect is being overstated in my opinion....

Maxxxt
Peculiar Mental Twist
Premium Member
join:2001-06-12
Anchorage, AK

Maxxxt to UncleA

Premium Member

to UncleA
CylonRed See Profile I dont play AA very much, howerver I do play other games where ping under 75ms is crucial. What if Speakeasy were to Yank Chicago and route you to NYC and tell me how you would feel about that?

A note I just E-mailed to KAT about this.
Hi KAT,

I really need to tell you(and the big bosses at Speakeasy) I am very upset over the recent decision to change the Denver POP to a NAP. My latency has gone up over 50ms from east coast locations. My speed has dropped over 300kbps to east coast locations. When I signed up with Speakeasy the SINGLE LARGEST consideration for me was the local Denver POP. I was NOT notified about these changes and I feel betrayed. The truth is I expected thing to get better here. The talk of improving equipment in all the POP's, my participation in the Gaming trail was supposed to be an effort to keep the gaming community in mind and to make our connections faster. The price reductions were nice...as a matter of fact, necessary for me to afford this service. However I am not willing to pay a premium(DSL GAMER package) for service that is no longer, in my opinion Premium. I am an online gamer, I play Battlefield 1942, Desert combat, and game with friends(that live here in Denver)on my connection here in Denver, this decision has ruined the fast ping times and speed. I hope the powers that be understand what the hell they have done and reconsider this change. I know that my next door neighbor is getting 25-50ms ping anywhere in the country 3000/256 with Comcast broadband right now for less than I pay now. I hope you can use some of your "magic" powers that get most problems resolved. I am asking you to please speak to the appropriate persons in charge of this.

Thank you for your time and consideration in this matter,

CylonRed
MVM
join:2000-07-06
Bloom County
·Metronet

CylonRed

MVM

I have been routed from Dayton, Ohio to San Jose (where the POP for me was located) with another ISP before (and raced online with a 180-250 MS ping to that gateway with all servers on the EAST coast)... Been there, done that, had no real problems. AA is probably the most demanding FPS out - in terms of info sent and raw horsepower needed.

AuroraMike
Time To Blow Some Bubbles
Premium Member
join:2002-01-06
Aurora, CO

AuroraMike to Maxxxt

Premium Member

to Maxxxt

I agree. While I'm satisfied with the stability of my connection, I don't believe a 100+ east coast ping is worth $90 a month. Looks like I'll be looking for an alternative soon. Fortunately lots of alternatives in Denver.

I would like to know what happened to the "less than 5ms increase in ping time" as referenced by Kat above.


CylonRed
MVM
join:2000-07-06
Bloom County

1 edit

CylonRed

MVM

Covad might be able to reprovision the line to see if it better... You have her quote wrong as well... you forgot 'anticipated" - she guaranteed nothing as you seemed to imply.

AuroraMike
Time To Blow Some Bubbles
Premium Member
join:2002-01-06
Aurora, CO

2 edits

AuroraMike

Premium Member

I did not imply anything other than the fact that I will not pay $90 a month for 100+ ping times. My exact comment was she referenced an increase less than 5 ms. Did she not reference that?

I don't see anything in my post about a guaranty so please don't try to read my mind!

Additionally, if you read the posts, everyone in Denver is getting 35ms+ additional east coast latency as a result of the NAP (choosing my words carefully so I don't imply anything)

Shouldn't a company like Speakeasy know what the impact of changing from a POP to a Nap will be. If Scooby2 in his post above knows what the impact will be shouldn't Speakeasy?

BTW - I like Speakeasy and have been very satisfied with their service, but this has been very disappointing.

borborpa
Slipping Slowly Into Oblivion
Premium Member
join:2002-02-20
New Cumberland, PA

borborpa

Premium Member

said by AuroraMike:
My exact comment was she referenced an increase less than 5 ms. Did she not reference that?
I believe what she said was accurate, but not clear. It adds 5ms to got from Denver to LA. Then from LA, you'll get the same ping times as those from LA, so East Coast will ping higher than before, because you're going west, then east.
LloydDobler
join:2002-01-03
Littleton, CO

LloydDobler

Member

The change was 'anticipated' to add 5ms to the first hop. we are all seeing first hop ping times with at least 25 ms added. This in itself isn't horrible, but definitely not world class. However, add the time it takes to go from LA to NY instead of Denver to NY, it becomes unacceptable.

Does AA have antilag in it or something? Because while 150 ms ping times may be acceptable in that particular game, Every other FPS i've played, which includes Quake, Quake 2, Quake 3, all quake 3 mods (such as threewave), Unreal, Unreal tournament, etc. do NOT have antilag.

Therefore ping time adds directly to your reflex time. It is a big deal. If this were $30 a month Earthlink DSL I'd expect this kind of service. It's not. It's $65 a month Speakeasy, the gamer's ISP.

Sure, you can learn to predict 150 ms ahead, but when playing against someone with 50 ping, they have a full tenth of a second to react to you before you see them. It turns into a huge disadvantage.

Nowhere did I suggest this was being done on a whim, I was suggesting that they may be doing significant hardware upgrades and was asking if the POP would be restored after those upgrades are done. Considering my speed upgrade isn't scheduled until March, it makes sense to me that they are doing a truckload of work here.

And regardless of whether or not you think I'm overstating the importance of sub 100 ping, every dsl junkie knows that a 50 ms gateway ping is not a high performance connection. They also know that routing from the center of the country to one coast in order to get to the other coast cuts the end user's quality and benefits nobody but the provider.

I pay more than anyone I hang with online for my internet service and I have always had the slowest dl/upload speeds. I used to justify it with the low pings and high reliability. Now I have the highest pings around and only average dl speeds.

This feature list is not worth a premium price anymore.
KatOak
join:2001-09-10
Seattle, WA

KatOak to UncleA

Member

to UncleA
I apologize for the delay in my response - I was out ill for much of last week.

I will escalate this to determine if we can improve the gateway latency for all customers on this NAP. The decision to change the POP to a NAP was a financial one, as previously mentioned; we don't have enough customers in the Denver region to balance the cost of a local POP. This would also answer UncleA's question regarding the method behind the madness of our POP/NAP architecture - most of these decisions are made because of cost and contractual concerns.

If you have not already provided me with traceroutes, please do so via email and I will include your information in my escalation. I have a few from some of you already, but the more the better.

Unfortunately, we will not be reverting this NAP to a POP any time soon, so the best outcome of my escalation would be to decrease the gateway latency as much as possible. In the absence of that, however, I'm absolutely available to work with any affected customers to resolve their service concerns.
willjr
join:2000-06-22
Waltham, MA

willjr to UncleA

Member

to UncleA

Re: POP vs. NAP? (change in BOSTON, MA POP)

I have just got this POP to NAP news too. My speed has already suffered since I joined speakeasy December 9th. Now it's going to be slower? Might just call my credit card company to dispute my charges. Since speakeasy is no help. I am paying for premium Adsl service for a reason.
I am very disappointed.

CylonRed
MVM
join:2000-07-06
Bloom County

CylonRed

MVM

POP to NAP should not affect any speeds...
GHz9
join:2002-01-02
Needham, MA

GHz9 to willjr

Member

to willjr
I just got notification of the change from POP to NAP for Boston-area customers. I used to be connected directly to the NY POP, and when I was switched to the BOS POP, I hardly noticed a difference. However, my contract will be over soon, and if this transition adds more than a few ms to my gateway pings, I will definitely look elsewhere.

Speakeasy, I have relied on your excellent service for a few years now (with 2 different connections), I hope you won't dissappoint us!
Sunburn
join:2000-10-05
Denver, CO

2 edits

Sunburn

Member

How can Speakeasy do this? They market themselves as a high performance service and make people pay expensive $$$$ premiums to match. The only reason I have a $160/mo SDSL connection is for the great pings! Now they morph themselves in to a service that Qwest could provide @ 1/4th the cost??? WTF kind of sense does that make? Way to trash your brand and ditch your loyal niche customers. Speakeasy kinda reminds me of the CABLE PIG.

I use to ping servers in Denver @ 10-25ms. Now my packet has to bounce from Denver to SFO and back to Denver again. That is 40ms each way for a total of 80ms. 5ms difference is not even close.

I use to be able to ping WC 40ms and EC 40ms now it is at WC 40ms and EC 90ms. You know my Comcast line is at 4200/386 and I am sorry to say the pings are way better than SE from Parker.

lakino
Premium Member
join:2003-04-03
Campbell, CA

lakino

Premium Member

Speakeasy is not just doing it to "piss" you gamers off. As been officially explained to you, it's due to financial reasons that they are closing the Denver POP. Get more people in Denver to sign up with them and then they can add the POP back in. Otherwise, move to another city. It's not as if Speakeasy is bringing up ping times for everyone. People on both coasts are still receiving low ping times to their first hop.

For those wishing to move to Comcast, I'd say go right ahead. Once you've tried Comcast, you'll be begging to get back to adsl technology. Low ping times with cable doesn't happen often. But you'll never believe it until you've tried it for yourselves, so go right ahead and switch to Comcast. See for yourselves.

AuroraMike
Time To Blow Some Bubbles
Premium Member
join:2002-01-06
Aurora, CO

2 edits

AuroraMike

Premium Member

I totally agree with you as it relates to Comcast, having experienced their service directly. BUT, Its clear that Speakeasy is cutting back POP's across the country besides just Denver.

The issue is not just adsl vs cable. For those markets where Speakeasy is cutting back there are other DSL alternatives. In Denver there is Qwest, Covad, Megapath, TransEdge, etc. Many of these ISP's have Denver POP's as well as lower costs.

Speakeasy has marketed themselves as "Internet For The Most Demanding Customers". (Quote for the Website!)

I believe the customers in the affected POP's and those experiencing high latency and other problems have a right to challenge these actions as they were led to believe Speakeasy was a NATIONAL Premium service. (We are after all, the most demanding customers!)

Perhaps it should change to "Internet for the Most Demanding Customers on the East and West Coast"
jxsi
join:2003-12-04
Tempe, AZ

jxsi

Member

What would you have them do then? Keep the POPs until they run out of money and file for bankruptcy?

AuroraMike
Time To Blow Some Bubbles
Premium Member
join:2002-01-06
Aurora, CO

AuroraMike

Premium Member

quote:
What would you have them do then? Keep the POPs until they run out of money and file for bankruptcy?
I didn't know that Speakeasy was in such a precarious financial position, and that the closing of 3 POP's would stave off a potential bankruptcy.

I stand corrected!

borborpa
Slipping Slowly Into Oblivion
Premium Member
join:2002-02-20
New Cumberland, PA

borborpa

Premium Member

said by AuroraMike:
quote:
What would you have them do then? Keep the POPs until they run out of money and file for bankruptcy?
I didn't know that Speakeasy was in such a precarious financial position, and that the closing of 3 POP's would stave off a potential bankruptcy.

I stand corrected!

Ummm...not that it would force them into bankruptcy, but obviously the POP's are not operating at a profit, so they needed to find a way to reduce the cost. It's called business, and even though it may not be the best thing for a few customers, it helps the majority of the customers by freeing up capital. I for one don't want SE to throw money away in a POP in Denver if it's not performing!!!