Experience with Chorus/Cablenet/NTL NAAS 6 MB Yes or No

[prosperous]

Hello All,

I have been using the internet for years now, originally using a dial up modem that delivered a massive 14000 bps, i.e. 14k.

However times are changing, in most of Europe it is possible to get massive broadband speeds at a fraction of the cost that is available in Ireland.

I had actually thought there might be some light in the tunnell when I noted Chorus offering 6MB BB on their cable network in Naas for a miserly 29.99 pm for six months and rising to 39.99 after the six months. A good deal if I could get it I thought.

On a Friday afternoon I rang the number for sales, a lo call number, it was answered quickly and I was put through to the Sales, they took the personal details, confirmed that I was in an area that could get the Cable Broadband. (I live in a house that had Standard Cable TV installed by a previous owner but I use the Satellite instead ). Then amazinly she asked when I would like to get this installed, well I said as soon as possible would be great, me thinking that it would be weeks. She asked would Monday be OK with me, I spluttered an oustanded YES.

On MOnday, a competent engineer (which had broken English) arrived on Monday, put a splitter on to the TV connection near my PC, ran a coaxial Cable from the new Splitter to the Motorola Cable Modem (RJ45 and USB compatible), then Installed the Wireless WAN Netgear Router(WAN Connection Port and 4 Switch LAN Ports) and connected the LAN Cable from my own LAN 1GB switch to the WAN router.

I believe that all tested ok and he left.

Things seemed a bit faster then the 1mb DSL line from BTIRELAND, Now me being the incitefull git, I log in to the Net and searched for a good IP test website, and of course I found one . I noted a couple of things.

1. I am getting the same public IP address as the one I got when I got my CBB (Cable BroadBand) over a week ago. I do not know if I can use this permanently, but Chorus appear to have assigned this to my Cable Moden Mac Address.
2. Upload Speed is coming in at 500kbps constantly, no matter what time of the day.
3. Download, I under stand that there is 17 to 1 contention ratio supposed to be on the line, however that is not supposed to be always saturated. The d/l Speed I am getting is a pathetic 300kbps to 650 kbps.

I am now registered and am currently logging the tests with the Lovely people in Blacknight and will provide Detailed TEsts results in another week or so.

Now I thought that Chorus made a mistake, so I ran a few more tests and got similiar results. So I waited untill the next morning before I had to go to work and found that I could get speeds when tested of 5.5 mbps, a massive 18 fold increase. That basically ruled out the equipment or physical line.

So after a couple more days of testing I logged a call with Chorus and got through to support fairly rapidly, about 4 minutes waiting. I explained about the line bandwitdh and was transferred straight to an technician. He confirmed that the account and line was set for 6mb. That the contention on the package was set to a maximum of 17:1, and that he was going to look at this further.

So just before I started this novel about Chours in Naas I emailed Chorus support on Wed at 9:30pm, let's see how quick they get back to me. !!!

Please feel free to share your Chorus/NTL Experience

[prosperous]

All,

Well I have received a number of telephone calls and email from Chorus support, one of their engineers made me go in to Windows Safe Mode and try a number of speed tests. "www.speedtest.net". He wanted to try and run a non Java version to see if my hardware was at issue. This showed faster download rate then similiar tests with the Java Speed tests, but only marginally. The test with the engineer was done in the evening and the best that he could get was 1024 kbps download speed with a consistent upload ot 500 kbps.

Now I have run several Tests, the best I got was 5749 kbps at 5.00am, this proves that the hardware is AOK and that the problem is simply the contention ratio with Chorus.

They have offerred me a credit which I have gladly accepted, but noting is been done about the contention ratio though.

Here are the results from the two tests:

Speedtest.net

TEST_DATE DOWNLOAD_SPEED UPLOAD_SPEED LATENCY SERVER_NAME DISTANCE
10/2/2007 6:50 PM GMT 1086 kb/s 482 kb/s 72 ms Dublin < 50 mi
10/2/2007 6:50 PM GMT 1118 kb/s 486 kb/s 65 ms London ~ 300 mi
10/2/2007 6:40 PM GMT 1132 kb/s 484 kb/s 76 ms Dublin < 50 mi
10/2/2007 6:41 PM GMT 606 kb/s 469 kb/s 40 ms London ~ 300 mi
10/2/2007 6:42 PM GMT 1243 kb/s 483 kb/s 71 ms Dublin < 50 mi
10/2/2007 6:43 PM GMT 1088 kb/s 360 kb/s 68 ms Dublin < 50 mi
10/2/2007 6:44 PM GMT 993 kb/s 486 kb/s 33 ms Galway ~ 100 mi
10/2/2007 71 PM GMT 1339 kb/s 486 kb/s 61 ms Dublin < 50 mi
10/9/2007 4:24 AM GMT 5749 kb/s 487 kb/s 55 ms Dublin < 50 mi

Irishiptest.com

Date Download Speed Upload Speed Qos RTT Maxpause
09/10/2007 05:37 5210 kbps (636 KB/s) 496 kbps (61 KB/s) 85 %/51 ms/87 ms
09/10/2007 05:23 4804 kbps (587 KB/s) 497 kbps (61 KB/s) 77 % 50 ms 90 ms
09/10/2007 05:20 5277 kbps (645 KB/s) 496 kbps (61 KB/s) 75 % 49 ms 107 ms
08/10/2007 20:13 537 kbps (66 KB/s) 479 kbps (59 KB/s) 29 % 56 ms 871 ms
05/10/2007 130 2162 kbps (264 KB/s) 496 kbps (61 KB/s) 34 % 56 ms 150 ms
05/10/2007 00:25 3363 kbps (411 KB/s) 489 kbps (60 KB/s) 29 % 57 ms 155 ms
04/10/2007 20:42 1271 kbps (156 KB/s) 496 kbps (61 KB/s) 35 % 56 ms 204 ms
02/10/2007 19:48 1662 kbps (203 KB/s) 497 kbps (61 KB/s) 22 % 55 ms 173 ms
02/10/2007 19:39 660 kbps (81 KB/s) 493 kbps (61 KB/s) 70 % 54 ms 304 ms
02/10/2007 19:31 606 kbps (74 KB/s) 498 kbps (61 KB/s) 55 % 55 ms 356 ms
Total Averages:
2555 kbps (312 KB/s) 494kbps (61KB/s) 52 % 54 ms 250 ms

[keltoy]

Hi,
I just had 6Mb installed yesterday. I was with Digiweb 3Mb 2 days ago and I noticed that the same files were taking way longer to download than previously.
I ran a few speedcheck from different websites found on the web and all were giving me 0.9 to 1.2 Mb results.
I rang Chorus/NTL, waited 20mns on the phone and then I was told that the speed was correct. Told me to try "speedtest.net" and the result was 6Mb. I was told there must be a problem with my computer. I told her I didnt add or remove any software/hardware since the previous day when it was working perfectly with Digiweb... She told me I was signing for a speed up to 6Mb and the top speed wasn't always reached. To what i replied that my bill should then reflect this, if the speed was 1Mb someday, 3Mb, the next day and so on, I shouldn't pay full price at the end of the month.
I am just wondering if Chorus/NTL is having a laugh??

[eirejam]

I moved to Naas in October 2006 and I needed Broadband installed straight away. I was tempted by the 6mb chorus line as I didn't want to pay for line rental on top of a broadband package. The first few months were hell. Trying to get someone to listen to me was near impossible. It got to a stage where they were going to refund me and cancel the service. All I wanted was a decent service. Eventually an engineer came out and had a look at the service. The local line was bad and one of the top engineers had to come out. They fixed the problem and I was getting acceptable speeds. The only problem then was damn ping issues. It was impossible to play games online. Download speeds were okay but online gaming was out of the question. I had all but given up. Then about eight months ago for some reason that I have no idea of, the ping time fell to an acceptable level. Ever sine then I have been more than happy with chorus. Using a progam called "internet download manager" I can get download speeds of up to 740 kbps I even got a deal on a house phone off them last week. 4 quid a month line rental and unlimited land line called at any time for €10. I spent months looking for a new ISP in my early days with chorus, now I wouldn't part with them.

[Kalis]

I'm having the issue of stupidly high pings in games. IN fact my internet just slows down to unusable speeds during the hours of 6pm and 12am. I'm in Cork, anyone else getting this problem?