Quicksilver Hot News 27/04/06 Broadband Speed Issues Quicksilver's Helpdesk is currently fielding a number of complaints regarding Broadband speed issues.
We'd like to apologise for any inconvenience, and take this opportunity to assure our customers that we are doing everything possible to improve this situation. Recent tests carried out by Quicksilver and other industry players have shown the current major speed constraint lies in the Telecom DSL backhaul network, and the ratios at which Telecom provisions the ATM pipe to the ISP (24kbps per user). This is affecting the whole industry. There are additionally some network upgrades in progress internally at Quicksilver, to meet forecasted demand for the new broadband plans. This includes additional international bandwidth being added in the next few days, new L2TP Network Server (LNS) infrastructure, to allow loadsharing and future scalability, and a request to Telecom to increase the PVC link. Currently Telecom allocate an average 24kbps per customer (this applies to all ISPs except Xtra), and this is creating congestion on many ISP networks, including Quicksilver's. We must stress to customers experiencing problems, that while we are performing network upgrades, this may not resolve the speed problems for all customers. We are continuing to lobby Telecom to improve the contention ratios, and increase the backhaul bandwidth above the current 24kbps per customer. We are currently receiving reports from our own users, as well as those on other wholesale Broadband ISP networks, that actual download speeds are variable from exchange to exchange. Our current understanding is that Telecom have removed the previous 50:1 contention ration (subscriber ratio) on DSL exchanges, and now will not commit to a contention ratio. A recent figure given by Telecom was that across the country, there is an 'average' ratio of 33:1. This leads us to believe that there are many Telecom DSL exchanges which are currently at much higher contention ratios, leading to a degradation of service for many broadband users on popular exchanges. Quicksilver is working with a number of other wholesale Broadband ISP's, through the ISPANZ group, to lobby Telecom and the Government for further action to improve the Broadband situation. Again, we ask for your understanding as we upgrade our network, and work with Telecom and ISPANZ to improve the current broadband situation in NZ. -----Original Message----- From: Craig FALCONER [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, 17 May 2006 2:05 p.m. To: [email protected] Subject: RE: 10 Mbit Cable erratic True - but I don't really care about speeds at 0300. I care about speeds from 0800 to 1600. It was just a "hey what do other cable users see" Mind you, 73% of 10 Mbit is still better than 39% of 2 Mbit :) YAY for telecom -----Original Message----- From: David Mann [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, 17 May 2006 2:01 p.m. To: [email protected] Subject: Re: 10 Mbit Cable erratic On May 17, 2006, at 1:12 PM, Craig FALCONER wrote: > We get 90% of our upload speed, and anything from 18% to 74% of our > download. Going by the times shown in your listing, other people are likely to be using the cable at the same time (unless you're a BOFH), which may interfere with the test. Conditions on the wider internet might affect it as well, depending on the path between you and the nzdsl site. What happens if you run two tests from different sites at the same time? I just ran the test and got 770/119kbps on an "up to" 2M/128k DSL line, which is actually a little slower than my previous attempts. In my case the limit is probably due to the length and condition of copper between here and the exchange. I guess there'd be little point in me buying a faster connection! I'm not really sure why all those ISPs want access to the local loop in that state ;) - Dave
