Truitt
@softcom.net
| [Fixed] Help with my new WISP I need some help in making my new WISP connection as best as it can be. Ive had cable for years and we just moved to a new house but its not able to get DSL/CABLE  . I tried IDSL from covad and it was terrible not to mention I had to wait a month and a ½ for the install.
Well I have never been a fan of wireless but I saw that a local ISP that's been in town for years offers wireless broadband. I said #uck it and signed up, there isn't anything else I can get. 49.95 per month for 3/2 Mb speeds and no contract, I looked on their site and it looks like the tower is about 2 miles from where I live. I came on here and read some other wireless users stats and it looked promising.
I just got hooked up Friday and when I got home I hopped on and it wasn't bad, I was really happy. In WoW I was pinging solid under 200 which is playable by me. Speed test was about 1400 down and 500k up which was ok with me. Around 6pm it got absolutely terrible 500+ pings everywhere, huge spikes and speed tests resulted in 200 down and 150ish up.
I don't know what to troubleshoot on this since I've never had wireless internet before. I ran Ping Plotter for over a day and the results weren't that good when it showed how much packetloss I got and you can see the increased latency during prime times.
Here is the ping plot
»img244.imageshack.us/img244/3269···1an8.jpg
I know nothing about the equipment either, I signed up for 2 different accounts cause my dad is a huge bandwidth hog and did not want to share a connection with him. Here is a pic of the 2 antennas they installed for 2 diff accounts mine is the bottom one. I believe the equipment the ISP uses is Bel Air networks.
»img257.imageshack.us/img257/9129···0of6.jpg
»img100.imageshack.us/img100/6061···2ff9.jpg
They run a cord to each PC through the wall from the antenna. What I want to know is what is the device on the end of this that plug in to the pc/router?
»img171.imageshack.us/img171/4431···5da8.jpg
Is there anything I can change on my end to improve performance for this? Like buying a better antenna running shorter cable etc..?? Could it just be over subscription on the ISP's end causing the reason for the slowdown. Any help would be appreciated. | |
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AMD Phreak
Premium
join:2003-12-14
3 edits | Re: [Fixed] Help with my new WISP Your equipment is Motorola canopy operating in the 900MHz band. It looks like they are maybe using M2 yagi antennas. I'd guess the antennas are 5 feet in length, maybe 13dBi of gain although its hard to tell. I do see that the connector where the radio is connected to the antenna itself is not sealed up which will possibly allow water to enter the connection, shorting the connection out and interrupting service until the connector dries out. Even if the connector dries out after being wet the coax is usually filled up with water thus destroying it anyway. I'm not one to judge but thats shotty workmanship, not sealing the cable up.
The device on the end of the cable that jumps the cable into the router is the power injector for the outdoor radio. The canopy system is powered from 24VDC supplies (the black box with the green light that is labeled "Motorola" that plugs into the wall outlet). The side that has the open RJ45 jack is for the connection to the outside. If you have to move things around be sure you arent plugging PC's or routers into the jack (if it becomes unplugged) as it will send 24VDC into your NIC. Only plug the flat black cord into devices.
The canopy system is best troubleshot by your WISP. There are so many variables that the subscribers (customers) that have no experience with the system cannot possibly repair it.
In looking at your ping plots (which is very hard to really look at in detail) I see high times far off of your ISP's network and on their carriers network (Sprint). This may be due to a router on the Sprint network putting ICMP traffic through the router on a lower priority, or a busy router.
If you are seeing poor throughputs it can be one of the following:
AP is overloaded (too many customers on the AP)
The point-to-point link that feeds the site where the AP is, is overloaded (too much traffic coming to/leaving the site).
The core of the network is overloaded
Their connection to the internet is saturated and far oversubscribed beyond what it should be.
--
"No job is so important, and no service is so urgent that we cannot take the time to do it safely."
-- AT&T
--Safety One Tower Rescue Certified
--LLigetfa:"Wimax is like teenage sex. Everyone talks about doing it." | |
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LLigetfa
join:2006-05-15
Fort Frances, ON
1 edit | From what I can see both antennas point to the same tower. Unless there are multiple APs on that tower, they would both be fighting for the same bandwidth so the second SM won't give you any much more. If you dad is a bandwidth hog, he is still stealing bandwidth from you if you are both on the same AP.
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Strange as it seems, no amount of learning can cure stupidity, and formal education positively fortifies it. -- Stephen Vizinczey | |
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 | milbrath
join:2006-03-27
Dresden, TN | Re: [Fixed] Help with my new WISP Those are 17db M2 Yagi's. Must be a difficult shot. I'd be curious as to what your RSSI & Jitter Levels are. Ofcourse you'd have to ask your Wisp that.
BM | |
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AMD Phreak
Premium
join:2003-12-14
| Re: [Fixed] Help with my new WISP said by milbrath  :Those are 17db M2 Yagi's. Must be a difficult shot. I'd be curious as to what your RSSI & Jitter Levels are. Ofcourse you'd have to ask your Wisp that. BM Indeed. OP can you maybe have the WISP provide you with power level (dB) and jitter of your links? RSSI on the Canopy system is nice, but I have found that it is a value that is less important compared to the dB levels.
--
"No job is so important, and no service is so urgent that we cannot take the time to do it safely."
-- AT&T
--Safety One Tower Rescue Certified
--LLigetfa:"Wimax is like teenage sex. Everyone talks about doing it." | |
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| | | milbrath
join:2006-03-27
Dresden, TN
| Re: [Fixed] Help with my new WISP Well I posted that bit of info before I looked at his ping plotter results, looks like it's 900 Canopy Software Scheduling(30ms to first hop? hardware would be ~14ms or so). As was stated it appears they use sprint for their backbone and looks like the problem is on sprints side as ping plotter looks pretty good until a few hops within the sprint network.
And yes I said RSSI, but I meant DB. RSSI levels on canopy are completely WORTHLESS. No consistency whatsoever in relation to raw signal strength.
BM | |
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AMD Phreak
Premium
join:2003-12-14 | Re: [Fixed] Help with my new WISP Depends on where the first hop is.
True there is lower latency with HW scheduling vs SW, the 30ms could still be HW scheduling with the added latency of a BHM-BHS setup. | |
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| | LLigetfa
join:2006-05-15
Fort Frances, ON
| said by milbrath :Ofcourse you'd have to ask your Wisp that. If they didn't lock the R/O access to the SM, it may be available via IP 169.254.1.1.
--
Strange as it seems, no amount of learning can cure stupidity, and formal education positively fortifies it. -- Stephen Vizinczey | |
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seagreen
Premium,Mod
join:2001-05-14
out there
 ·Rock Island Commun..
Host:
CenturyTel
Wireless Service P..
Southern California
HughesNet Satellite
WildBlue Satellite
| Take your .pp2 file from ping plotter and show the graphs from the first few hops. When looking at issues with your ISP the last hop is actually the least important one to graph.
For ease of reading, change your graph display settings so that the warning color is 100 ms and the warning color is 250 ms.
Upload the screenshots in your post - the one on image shack is very difficult to read.
I really don't see "prime time" issues with your trace. Your highest ping times were ~10 PM to midnight, early AM and late morning - none of which are really "prime time". Your only prime time is a small bump in ping time at around 7 pm. I also don't see "terrible 500+ pings everywhere" which is not to say it wasn't happening - only that ping plotter did document it during this tracing period. | |
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Truitt
@softcom.net
| Re: [Fixed] Help with my new WISP Like this? | |
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seagreen
Premium,Mod
join:2001-05-14
out there
·Rock Island Commun..
Host:
CenturyTel
Wireless Service P..
Southern California
HughesNet Satellite
WildBlue Satellite
| Re: [Fixed] Help with my new WISP said by Truitt :
Like this?
Perfect!
Your ISP is responsible for two (maybe three) of those hops (assuming that the first hop is either your router or your radio) and, yes, the higher ping episodes and some of the packet losses do appear to be coming from within your ISP's network but they really don't appear that bad on this tracing.
Wireless is not mediocre technology but some networks could be better managed. | |
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Truitt
@softcom.net
| Thanks for the info so far everyone. I don't know much about wireless hence my questions.
Does anyone here on a WISP actually game and get decent pings? Right now I went on and loaded up some local CS servers and they're all 600+. If I ping or tracert anything the results are so unstable and different every single time. Is this just a mediocre technology and I am asking to much? | |
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| MatthewAlan
join:2007-09-01
united state | Re: [Fixed] Help with my new WISP Im currently having trouble with my WISP, but when its working correctly(the prob just started Thurs.), I get real good game pings. Usally never higher then 90ms... | |
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LLigetfa
join:2006-05-15
Fort Frances, ON
| The ping times to your first hop is often the entire wireless portion of the entire trip. Some WISPs will route between towers but even so, if you do PPPoE you are tunneling through most of it. If your first hop ping times are good, then don't blame wireless technology.
At my home in the country, the internet comes to me wirelessly and my ping times are better than my dedicated business DSL that I have in town. You cannot make a blanket statement that wireless is worse.
You have to realize though that you share bandwidth with your neighbors so choose your neighbors carefully.
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Strange as it seems, no amount of learning can cure stupidity, and formal education positively fortifies it. -- Stephen Vizinczey | |
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AMD Phreak
Premium
join:2003-12-14
| Can you pick some speed tests from speedtest.net that are close to you and see what they return?
I'd suggest asking your wisp to look at it. I know when my customers that are games ask for help I try and do my best to help them as I am a gamer myself. | |
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MatthewAlan
join:2007-09-01
united state
| quote:
You have to realize though that you share bandwidth with your neighbors so choose your neighbors carefully.
haha, don't worry if your neighbors are rude, just don't let bandwidth abusers move in! lmao, I found the quoted statement funny.
Sorry, for off topic post, just couldn't help it. | |
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zeddlar
join:2007-04-09
Jay, OK
| This is a bit of a gray area for me but I believe the amount of people on the game servers will have an impact on your pings as well. From 6 to 10pm I get pretty high pings on EverQuest of around 1000 to 1100 usually on the game but I can ping any regular website like this one or yahoo and I am still pinging under 800 and almost always still under 750 which is what mt Satt connection always gets and is very good for Hughes.
If you notice your game pings coming down later in the evening and the game getting proggressivly less crowded at the same time I would say this is what you are experiancing but then again that would not affect your speed tests either of course.
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HughesNet small buissness $99 package / AMC9,83west/990Mhz./.98 dish/2 watt radio/HN7000s modem/ 4 computers on a linksy's wired network | |
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AMD Phreak
Premium
join:2003-12-14
| Glad to see you registered.
I'd call them and explain to them everything you have told us.
See if they will check the link, and any other points in the network between you and their edge. Please report back what they say and we can let you know if it is in line with standard diagnostics procedures.
--
"No job is so important, and no service is so urgent that we cannot take the time to do it safely."
-- AT&T
--Safety One Tower Rescue Certified
--LLigetfa:"Wimax is like teenage sex. Everyone talks about doing it." | |
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annimossity
join:2008-01-21
Galt, CA
 ·Comcast
 ·Softcom Wireless
| I couldn't get ahold of a technician yesterday they said he would be calling me back. I sent them an email also containing my pingplotter graph, and alot of other questions I had including the questions users on here told me to ask. I will forward the response I get back from them. | |
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AMD Phreak
Premium
join:2003-12-14 | Re: [Fixed] Help with my new WISP Rain is not usually an issue unless the link is bad to begin with.
Frost, on the other hand is bad. | |
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LLigetfa
join:2006-05-15
Fort Frances, ON
| Rain can take down a link if shooting through trees. LOS should be no trouble for freespace loss.
Rain on 900MHz yagi antennas can have a negative effect. Rain (or any moisture) in the coax connectors can also cause problems.
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Strange as it seems, no amount of learning can cure stupidity, and formal education positively fortifies it. -- Stephen Vizinczey | |
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AMD Phreak
Premium
join:2003-12-14
| Re: [Fixed] Help with my new WISP Yeah I know that much. 
If the OP was shooting through trees and it was questionable to begin with, the rain on the antenna would detune it and wipe it off the air. Same situation with frost. Water entering the cables (because originally the OPs photo showed NO weather sealant on the cable) could be a possibility. Even if the cable dries out, water will still be in the connector and shorting it out.
--
"No job is so important, and no service is so urgent that we cannot take the time to do it safely."
-- AT&T
--Safety One Tower Rescue Certified
--LLigetfa:"Wimax is like teenage sex. Everyone talks about doing it." | |
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| | LLigetfa
join:2006-05-15
Fort Frances, ON
| Re: [Fixed] Help with my new WISP said by AMD Phreak :Yeah I know that much. Ja, I know you know... hence my replying to Truitt.
When shooting through trees, rain on foliage will also diminish the signal. How much, depends on the species of trees and how well they shed water. Some of it has to do with resonant elements such as the long leafed pine needles. I hear they are the toughest to shoot through.
Given the stated distance from the tower and the size of the yagi, I can only infer that it is a tough shot through lots of trees. It would be interesting to know what the RSSI (in dB) is at its worse.
I think we can both agree that on a proper LOS install (sealed connectors) using M2 yagi, rain would have very little effect. Some other brands of yagi are less tolerant.
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Strange as it seems, no amount of learning can cure stupidity, and formal education positively fortifies it. -- Stephen Vizinczey | |
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| | | milbrath
join:2006-03-27
Dresden, TN
| Re: [Fixed] Help with my new WISP Yeah the newer M2 yagi's don't seem to have a problem with rain. I've seen them drop about 1-2 db during heavy rain(have not seen what freezing rain does to them yet). They used to detune rather badly when it rained. That being said perhaps his link cannot handle the 2 db swing during the rain?
BM | |
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| LLigetfa
join:2006-05-15
Fort Frances, ON
| Re: [Fixed] Help with my new WISP A scrawny tree that light can shine through would have no effect on the signal. Beyond that, it looks like flatlander territory. I'm confused why that antenna was needed for such a short shot.
It would be good to know what the RSSI is. Can you connect to the SM at 169.254.1.1 without a password?
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Strange as it seems, no amount of learning can cure stupidity, and formal education positively fortifies it. -- Stephen Vizinczey | |
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| | annimossity
join:2008-01-21
Galt, CA
·Comcast
·Softcom Wireless
1 edit | Re: [Fixed] Help with my new WISP Nope it wont let me. There really isnt a whole lot of trees beyond those in the picture and I think the antennas shoot over them. | |
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| | | LLigetfa
join:2006-05-15
Fort Frances, ON
| Re: [Fixed] Help with my new WISP DO you have a router between the PC and the SM? Most routers won't let you connect to the SM that way. You would have to plug the SM directly to the PC and let the OS default to an APIPA.
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Strange as it seems, no amount of learning can cure stupidity, and formal education positively fortifies it. -- Stephen Vizinczey | |
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AMD Phreak
Premium
join:2003-12-14 | Agreed! Those trees up close are nothing. The ones further out may be an issue but I'd doubt it. I do shots through trees like that at 3 miles and have no issues. | |
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AMD Phreak
Premium
join:2003-12-14 | What is your IP address right now, Annimosity? | |
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| annimossity
join:2008-01-21
Galt, CA | Re: [Fixed] Help with my new WISP My IP is 204.213.72.66
Yea I do have a router hooked up I will DC it and try it again.
Thanks, | |
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AMD Phreak
Premium
join:2003-12-14 | what bout the ip on the PC? | |
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annimossity
join:2008-01-21
Galt, CA
·Comcast
·Softcom Wireless
| Here we go, it let me connect to the IP and brought up a page with alot of options I took some shots of a few of them. In short
RSSI 1634
Power Level -68 dBm
Jitter 2
Air Delay 113 approximately 3.15 miles (16611 feet)
Once again thank you guys for your help. | |
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milbrath
join:2006-03-27
Dresden, TN | Nothing wrong at all with your signal levels, I'm always happy when I get a link into the -60dbm region.
BM | |
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superdog
I Need A Drink
Premium,MVM
join:2001-07-13
Lebanon, PA
| Re: [Fixed] Help with my new WISP I have been reading this thread for a day or two, and I still haven't figured out why there are 2 subscriber units and 2 yagis on the roof?. Was it mentioned before and I just over looked it?. 
I am amazed that the WISP does not have the access blocked to the units, but then again, without this forum, the OP would not really know how to get in, so I guess it is a mute point.
I am also sorry to hear about this WISP's answers so far to the OP's questions. It really does sound like a classic case of the "We don't really know what the issue is?" scenario.
From an operators stand point, when problems like this occur, this is always a way to fix it, but as we all know, the fix may cost a few $$, and most WISP's do not have an overflowing bucket filled with cash.
Since I do not use Canopy, I really can not comment about any of the #'s posted in the screen shots, but from a general point of view, they all seem good?.
Both AMD Phreak and milbrath are much more qualified to answer questions about Canopy radios, and hats off to both of you for taking the time to help.
Since you mentioned that speeds and pings go to hell after 5PM or so, it leads me to believe that this is a classic case of an over subscribed access point.
I have an access point that filled up after 5 months with users, and I refuse to add any more to it. I even have people begging me for service, and I won't do it. I guess sometimes the $$ signs are more important than a good customer experience. And then again, maybe this issue has nothing to do with over subscription, and I am talking thru my a$$, LOL! 
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»www.wavecrazy.net Join WISPA today! »www.wispa.org/ | |
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| | LLigetfa
join:2006-05-15
Fort Frances, ON
| Re: [Fixed] Help with my new WISP Ja, the two SMs were explained early in the thread. THe father is a heavy user so they both wanted their own to get double the capacity. They probably both hit the same AP, so as Dr. Phil would say, "How's that working out for you?".
As for my giving away the secret about their gaining access to the read/only stats, I do believe the customer has a right to know link quality stats. They cannot change settings with R/O so what is the harm in having an informed consumer?
As for overloading the AP, I see Azureus on the OP's screenshots and if the both of them are running torrents at the same time, dispite Canopy having a polling MAC, I doubt it can sustain that sort of abuse. It would depend on how well the WISP manages P2P. Sounds like they may not be arbitrating bandwith well enough or there just isn't enough to go around.
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Strange as it seems, no amount of learning can cure stupidity, and formal education positively fortifies it. -- Stephen Vizinczey | |
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