Understanding broadband speeds on fixed networks
Filed under: ADSL, broadband, networks, technology
It’s fair to say that many of us would find it difficult to live without broadband connections nowadays.
As a network engineer I have seen internet technology evolve in leaps and bounds over the past years. While networks get smarter and faster, there are some factors that may influence the general customer experience that are useful to know and I’d like to share them with you.
Fixed, or wireline, networks operate over copper or fibre cables that are either laid underground or aerially across telegraph poles in some areas.
In all cases, on the ADSL, ADSL2+ or BigPond Cable broadband networks, the customer’s equipment is a key factor affecting the speeds they will experience with their service.
- The specifications and configuration of a customer’s PC and modem will affect connection speeds.
The customer’s location is also a key factor in the speeds that they will experience in all cases.
- With a terrestrial technology such as ADSL, the speeds will vary based on the customer’s distance from the exchange, the type and length of the copper cable connecting the customer to the exchange, and prevailing line noise (signal interference) conditions at the time.
- For the ADSL2+ product, availability also depends on whether the customer’s exchange is enabled with ADSL2+ technology.
- BigPond Cable capability is only available in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Gold Coast and Perth, and the service speeds may vary between cities based on Telstra’s roll-out plans.
- For example, the BigPond Cable Extreme® product can provide maximum download speeds up to 17Mbps in Brisbane, Adelaide, Gold Coast and Perth, and maximum download speeds up to 30Mbps in Sydney and Melbourne only.
There are a number of other factors that affect speed:
- The number of people using a network at the one time and what they are doing on the network and the source of their content, especially when it is content sourced beyond Telstra’s network. For example, downloading movies will use more bandwidth than sending emails.
- Factors outside the Telstra network, such as content server delays.
- The source of the data being downloaded can also affect download speeds. For example, data being downloaded from international websites must travel a lot further and through many more network elements than data being downloaded from websites in Australia.
Note: ‘Mbps’ means megabits per second.
Next week, my Telstra Wireless colleague will write about the factors that affect our wireless networks, such as the Next G™ network. In the meantime, I’d like to hear your views and opinion on this story, or feel free to delve into some of the content at Whirlpool’s network forum.
Yes it is a pain trying to live in a world without broadband these days. I live in an area within 1.5 kms of an adsl2 + enabled exchange, and used to live 500m down the road with a decent adsl2+ broadband service. I move and Telstra put me on a pair gain without even the option of a transposition to inferior ADSL, and charge me for the privilege of denying me any wired broadband service options right in the middle of Sydney.
My equipment is just dandy thanks, Telstra’s archaic pair gain technology is the problem.
Do I sound bitter? You betcha.Thanks Telstra, you’ll never have me as a customer again.
How do I ‘unlike’ Michael? My equipment is just fine (brand new), my home is just fine (brand new), your company’s commitment to supplying basic infrastructure is at fault.
How could I ever have expected to buy a brand new home 11km from the CBD and end up yet another victim of pair gain?
Back to the late 20th century for me, thanks a lot. Or are Telstra just holding off for the NBN to arrive..?
Agree nick telstra’s lack of investment shows.I live 27k’s out of town and syuffer pair gain as well.We have adsl2 avaialbe at our exchange,but no thanks to mr lack of money spending on new ifrastructure, i suffer the same problem as you.Suppose i hold my breath for NBN otherwise you and i will have to move suburbs!
Hi,
I upgraded just recently from a 1.5Mbps limited plan to ADSL2+, both with Bigpond. However the download speed I get is still around 1.5Mbps on just about all the sites I use. When I use the OZ Broadband Speed Test I get around 1.5Mbps downloading 9MB from the Tesltra Bigpond Mirror in NSW but get 5 to 6Mbps when I download 9MB from the local iiNet server here in Perth. In fact in all instances I can get reasonable speed from local servers but no speed improvement when I download from out of state. Do others have a similar experience or is it just something I am experiencing? Any suggestions about how I can get the ADSL2+ speed I was promised in the advertsing? Thanks for any help. Cheers.
@Lovely Banks
Right on!
After trying to appease me with credit and other pointless solutions that were put to me by supposedly technical people on contracts from India who haven’t even worked for the company for any great length of time, the end result was the same – nothing.
Still getting crap speeds at peak times coz of all the other customers leeching the bandwidth. Telstra said that something would happen in the near future to fix the problem but that won’t happen now coz they were only biding their time while they waited for the NBN to get finalised in the hope they wouldn’t have to throw any money at it. And now that Telstra is going to hand everything over to NBN Co. it will conveniently become someone elses problem.
Thanks for nothing Telstra and when my contract is up expect me to jump ship to someone who at least gives a tincus cuss.
This article neglects to mention ‘Telstra is cheap and not interested in providing anyone with a decent service’ as a key factor. Sadly am yet another victim of the insidious ‘pair gain’ practice of Telstra. While I can understand the commercial realities involved, the frustration is amplified by Telstra’s extremely poor customer service involving:
-Extreme difficulty in getting someone who will admit/explain what the problem is
-Constant transfer of calls to different consultants, who are usually from the wrong area to be helpful
- Inability/unwillingness of consultants to provide any idea of what customers can do to obtain a decent internet service if they are on a pair gain system
-Extended phone waiting times and calls never returned as promised
It is indeed difficult to live without broadband, especially given the knowlege that it could have been supplied but for the greed and ineptness of Telstra.
I have persued getting adequate speed out of my Bigpond ADSL 2+ plan in Metro Perth to no avial. BigPond ADSL 2+ is slow with the max I am getting is 1.8 Mbps via the Telstra network. Bigpoonds advertising is deceptive if you live in a high rise appartment in downtown Perth.
I suggest if you are looking at an ADSL 2+ plan try iiNet. Oz Broadband Speed Test site gives me a speed of 5.58 Mbps using them.
Unfortunately I am now on a 24 month plan with the slow BigPond plan but will register my dissatisfaction which being tricked into paying for low speed broadband service by Telstra/BigPond in due course.
Hi Brett. Have you had a look at http://servicestatus.bigpond.com/ ? Have a look and then call 13 7663 and see if you can get some adive on your particular set up. I hope this helps. Let me know how you go. Brendan
Hi Brendan,
Had a look at the service status thanks but nothing showing for my area of Perth. I have tried the Phillipine helpdesk endlessly but they always refer to my set-up when I can clearly get high speed downloads through other non-Telstra tests. I checked just now and the OZ Broadband speed test via Telstra donwloaded 9MB at 1.3Mbps. The iiNet test was 3.8Mbps and the Speedtest.net test to its recommeded server ( clearly not a Bigpond one) gives 5.17 Mbps. My line and computer are fine.
My perception is that Telstra does not provide enough capacity out of its local exchange or perhaps even this Sate to meet the committments it makes for this service. I signed up for 2 years of high speed ADSL2+ and Bigpond sold me $1200 worth of services at an internet speed no different from the 1.5Mbps plan I was on. Now I can’t find anyone at Telstra who will address the issue.
Anyway I have lodged a complaint with the Telecommunications Ombudsman about the deceptive advertising for what good that will do. All my wife and I actually wanted to do was watch the movie trailers without them stopping all the time as we are movie buffs. Didn’t seem a big ask at the time.
Our incident number is 101009-003142 if you want to have a squizz.
Anyway a small matter in the overall scheme of things and more importantly I wish you and your family a very Merry Christmas and a prosperous and happy New Year Brendan.
Merry Xmas,
Brett
Thanks for the Christmas Wishes Brett. I hope you and yours have a wonderful new year also. Can you forward your account details and a contact # so I can have someone call you.
Brendan
Sorry for a restart of this but I’m on a RIM and my service is now unusable.
I was considering changing my ISP to Bigpond so I can shout directly but it would appear that they treat their direct customers with the same contempt as others.
To add insult to injury I’ve just noticed that the scheduled date for the backhaul upgrade has moved from June to December.
Roll on the NBN…
Reading the above comments I see many people mention pair gain issues.
My first thought here is “how are these people determining their issues are the result of pair gain”!
Although I’m by no means a Data Comms guru I do have a reasonable comprehension of the technology and work in this field for a living.
I don’t have any mechanism to determine what is the precise cause of my Telstra ADSL 2+ performance issues.
Currently I’m working through the extremely frustrating Testra Bigpond support HelpDesk. (coming direct to you from the Philippines). It’s a slow process which involves many long phone calls, talking in my case with Technical staff who clearly don’t understand the technology.
They do however have some cheat sheets they are following but unfortunately an inability to document the case history.
With each phone call we literally go over the same things again and again.
In this case the hardware is functioning fine and being only 2.5 KM from the exchange on the wire everything should be fine.
In my tainted opinion the high packet error rates, CRC errors and SNR are a clear indication of a line quality issue.
Unfortunately the Techo’s (there have been many) on the other end phone are not easily convinced.
Telstra BigPond and I have performed isolation tests etc. and have now applied a stability profile. All good and well as this has improved line stability and reduced the error rates but it has also decreased the performance to a meagre 2.5Mb down and .6Mb up. (negotiated ADSL Modem speed). This in fact equates to a speedtest.net performance of .8Mb/s down and .54Mb/s up.
I have now been working on this issue for 2 weeks, of which Telstra BigPond has been involved for one week. I’ve spoken with them daily.
A question for Telstra BigPond. Regardless of the time I have invested in this issue from your perspective consider the labour cost to at this point having achieved nothing.
It’s almost like the people on the other end of the phone have a vested interest in not resolving the issue as this will result in me either calling back and therefore justifying their job role or possibly they hope they can wear me down and I’ll just give up. I don’t know which but this is an exceptionally poor situation. This is a business service but does not appear to be managed as one.
This morning I was informed by the Techo the case is being escalated to someone on the ground who will be performing further tests and looking at the line quality. I don’t know if this means someone will be on site, this was not made clear.
Like many, I’m quite willing to pay for a quality service. Telstra you are not supplying it. You can’t be surprised when people and companies look for alternatives.
Credit where credit is due.
If I’m prepared to complain I feel it very important to also give praise.
Today I was pleasantly surprised to receive an email from Brendan at Telstra offering to assist with this issue.
Here is my response to Brendan.
Hi Brendan
I must say I was greatly surprised to have a response from someone at Telstra. This simple act bolsters my confidence in what I see as our National Carrier.
As this case has progressed a Tech was on site today.
Being on the ground was precisely what was required, he has identified an unknown and unfiltered back to base alarm which was connected to the phone line in question, he has therefore moved it to another line and resolved the issue.
Excellent work.
My issue is the hours I have utilized to get someone on site to look at this. The fault being within the premises and therefore the associated cost is fine, we just needed it resolved.
I have to be honest, I can not commend the staff in the Philippines for their technical expertise. It’s possible they did all they could but I needed to utilize less of Telstra’s resources and less of mine to resolve this.
Cheap labour is not always going to save money.
If you would like to look further at the overall process that was followed the case number is xxxxxxxxxx
Once again thank you Brendan.
Regards
Mark Sherwin