Is my broadband working well?

Peterjones

Hi,

I've seen people post these stats and the experts on here comment on what they mean. I have no idea if my line works as well as it should, so I'm hoping someone could have a quick look and let me know if all is ok?

I never seem to get this 15.3m that the router says is the maximum below. I'm getting around 12.


Uptime: 2 days, 20:24:46

DSL Type: G.992.5 annex A

Maximum Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]: 1,239 / 15,320

Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]: 1,243 / 14,393

Data Transferred (Sent/Received) [kB/kB]: 0.00 / 0.00

Output Power (Up/Down) [dBm]: 12.0 / 19.0

Line Attenuation (Up/Down) [dB]: 19.0 / 33.5

SN Margin (Up/Down) [dB]: 6.5 / 6.5

Vendor ID (Local/Remote): TMMB / BDCM

Loss of Framing (Local/Remote): 0 / 0

Loss of Signal (Local/Remote): 0 / 0

Loss of Power (Local/Remote): 0 / 0

Loss of Link (Remote): 0

Error Seconds (Local/Remote): 0 / 0

FEC Errors (Up/Down): 117 / 441,831

CRC Errors (Up/Down): 117 / 337

HEC Errors (Up/Down): 160,327 / 244
Pick a task

TadleyBaggie

You will always get an effective bandwidth less than the sync speed due to overheads. However you do seem to seem to be getting alot of FEC errors, is your line noisy? The need to do extra error correcting could result in a lower actual speed.

Gordon_Hose

Sync speed is different to download speed. Have a read here: http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/speeds2.htm

Peterjones

Not that I know of. What could cause noise on the line?

kwikbreaks

You are pretty much spot on according to the old Be Speedtouch stats analyser http://be.nfshost.com/ other than the upstream HEC errors which like the FEC errors may just be a reporting error as your speeds seem to be pretty much correct. There's little you can do about upstream issues as it won't be local noise causing them.

Expected download speed at your current sync rate: 1.50 MB per second (or 12249 kbit)

Expected upload speed at your current sync rate: 132.23 KB per second (or 1058 kbit)

Upstream sync speed is within 5 per cent of the average for your attenuation (19dB).

Whoooo! Your downstream sync speed is 124 percent of the average speed for your attenuation.

Problem: High frequency of HEC Up errors (0.65/sec).

Problem: There are some FEC Up errors. FEC errors are *corrected* errors, so these are probably nothing to worry about. Speedtouch routers have a habit of misreporting FEC errors anyway.

bod1467

Are you with BE/O2? (The stats would suggest so). Per http://kitz.co.uk/adsl/max_speed_calc.php you are doing better than estimated/calculated.

If you're not "feeling" any issues with the connection then don't be concerned about the FEC Down errors. The FEC Up errors are a bug in the router firmware. And the HEC Up errors are historical and are accumulated since the last port reset in the exchange, thus bear no relation to the router uptime - you can ignore these (unless they are actually INCREASING at a noticeable rate).

eldar_2

Going by your line attenuation and SNR margin your line is running well.

Peterjones

Yes I'm an o2 customer.

It seems fine just worried what all those errors at the bottom were, as they seemed high in that one section.

Thanks for taking a look for me.

kwikbreaks

Speedtouch routers have always reported huge numbers of FEC errors - quite possibly erroneously as the BE page mentions. They don't matter anyway as they are corrected without requiring data retransmission so don't slow anything down. If you had opted for FAST path instead of INTERLEAVE (which some ISPs will allow) you wouldn't see any but may well see more CRC errors which do involve a retransmit of the packet with the error.

Peterjones

What is the difference between those then? Is one faster? Do o2 offer both methods?

kwikbreaks

INTERLEAVE introduces a slight delay because chunks of data get sent out of sequence and have to be reassembled. This is done because the error recovery routines will then stand a better chance of correcting an error caused by a short burst of noise - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interleaving

FAST path doesn't send the data out of sequence so it doesn't need reassembling and that means the latency (ping) is a tad less but there is a lot more risk of uncorrected errors which means re-transmits or packet loss if it's UDP.

The delay is not noticeable for normal use and has no impact at all on download speed. It's mostly gamers that want FAST to reduce their ping which is their Holy Grail. For most users INTERLEAVE gives better throughput. It's what gets set as default. I think BE used to offer the option to choose but doubt that O2 ever did.

Years back when I was on ADSL I was with UKOnline who are now defunct and tried FAST. For me it was an outright disaster and I had it swapped back PDQ.