Category Archives: Broadband

DSL switching – improve your gaming

Posted by on March 14, 2009 1 comment

Network response and ping-time are the most important factors when it comes to gaming. In South Africa (and perhaps other countries) the so called “unshaped ADSL access” is extremely expensive (twice as much as normal, shaped access).

Axxess DSL has now introduced the 6-2-6 unshaped ADSL access which provides on a prepaid basis unshaped ADSL access on weekdays between 18:00 and 06:00 and full unshaped access over weekends.

Is unshaped access really worth it? Hell Yes! Pinging Google on Telkom Internet takes about 300-320ms. Doing the same on unshaped (only tested on Axxess) it is about 200ms, and 100ms makes a huge difference in gaming.

I haven now signed up for an Axxess prepaid account which gives me the luxury of traffic rolling over if I happen not to use it. The first irritation was to switch back and forth between accounts, as the Axxess 6-2-6 access does not give you any Internet access outside the above mentioned times.

My rudimentary Perl-scripting-knowledge (it can’t get anymore dangerous) came to the rescue and I have written the below script, which (once included as a crontab) will do the following:
- Allows the configuration of “shaped” and “unshaped” access times
- This can be configured per day
- The script will check the day of week and whether it should switch to “shaped” or “unshaped” access
- The script fully automates the reconfiguration of the Netgear DG834 (others with telnet access will also work) and the reconnection.

Requirements:
- A PC or NAS (such as my beautiful Synology DS107+)
- A DSL modem which allows Telnet-access (if you use the DG834xx, then get the DGTeam firmware to enable this and more)
- A shaped and unshaped account
- The script linked below (you need to make the necessary adjustments within the script)

History:
2009-03-14: Release 1.00 of script
2009-03-15: Release 1.01 – minor adjustments and bug-fix (Sunday was interpreted wrongly)
2009-03-16: Release 1.02 – minor bug, switch statement for shaped did not work


Download the DSL switch script
Note: I provide the script for free and if you screw up your DSL modem (which requires quite some ingenuity on your part), don’t come crying to me. Also if you find that I could have done things better please let me know (I am aware that my time-period checking in the script is horrendous, but since it only took 30 minutes to write, I forgive myself)



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Belkin – life-time warranty

Posted by on February 28, 2009 1 comment

My trusty gigabit Belkin N1 Vision router decided to croak two days ago.

At the time of purchase (Aug’ 08) this was one of the first N-draft gigabit routers on the market and accordingly came in at a hefty price of R 2,700. I am not sure if the sudden death was related to the firmware I installed in November, or if the router didn’t want to shuffle gigabytes around anymore.

Lightning was certainly not the cause, since any electrical surge has to travel past an APC surge arrestor and then through an APC Back-UPS C350. Somehow it appears that the router’s firmware got corrupted as it kept rebooting itself and even a hard-reset did not convince the Belkin to reset to factory defaults.

The one thing you might not know is, that every Belkin router has a life-time warranty and as long as lightning does not blow up your equipment, Belkin will repair it or replace it.

Even more surprising was, that when I went to Incredible Connection today to send the router in, they went and gave me a brand new one over the counter. I didn’t even have to provide the packaging and I walked out with a brand new and shrink-wrapped model.

So don’t be tempted as I was and chuck the router in the dustbin, go to the place where you bought it and ask for a replacement, as it has a lifetime warranty. (If you struggle, let me know, I have a few contacts to get you sorted)

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The Jesus-firmware for your ADSL modem

Posted by on February 20, 2009 4 comments

Well, not quite, but close enough. If you happen to have a Netgear DG834XX ADSL modem router, I strongly suggest that you have a look at the DGTeam custom firmware:

All the features are listed after the break, but to wet your RSS-appetite, you should get excited about wake-on-LAN, TCP/IP tuning features, advanced ADSL tuning (including lockdown of SNR) and improved firewall modules. With the firmware comes native telnet-support, which has made my ADSL traffic statistics a lot more reliable.

The firmware can be flashed the same way you will flash any other Netgear firmware via the routers admin-console and after a few minutes you will have a more stable and feature rich firmware having features such as:
Continue reading “The Jesus-firmware for your ADSL modem” »

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iBurst shutting down?

Posted by on December 11, 2008 No comments

If you follow the happenings in Australia, you will notice that iBurst in Australia is facing tough times. Dating back as far as October, rumors started spreading that iBurst Australia will close down.

The Australian stock-exchange-listed company Commander which provided iBurst services in Australia collapsed in August, with $300 million of debts on its books. As of writing, the company is stripped of it’s assets – there is however talks that a new bidder might reintroduce iBurst services in Australia.

This is very indicative to the market position of iBurst in South Africa and one would have to ask the question if the iBurst product still provides a value-proposition in the South African market. 3G mobile broadband has caught up with iBurst speeds, Neotel is offering more bandwidth at a lower cost is improving coverage monthly. Telkom has started to improve the fixed-line installation turnaround time and is now also offering wireless (3G / WiMAX) broadband services which offer newer (and faster) broadband access than iBurst.

The writing is on the wall, with 3G offerings from Telkom and the various WiMAX players in the South African market already offering improved speed and lower costs, will eventually force iBurst to rethink their current business-model.

It will be difficult for this company to rebrand/reposition itself, considering it’s reputation in the market.

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Telkom: Superior service

Posted by on November 30, 2008 No comments

Despite the bad wrap, Telkom seems to get from the ADSL-user base, I must say, that I have been wowed with the consistency of service delivered. My stats-monitoring application has been a good “invention” as it allows me to track service levels:

Over the last 4 weeks, SNR/attenuation have been consistent and without a drop of dB’s, I have been able to get a consistent 4Mb/sec service. Surprisingly there has even been a case where my line delivered a max 600KB/sec – not sure how this is possible. I also don’t believe that the stats are skewed, as those figures are taken straight off the modem-routers WAN-port.

If you want to use the scripts, donate below (you require a running version of Perl with Net::Telnet and Net::Ping, rrdtool — the scripts will run on the Synology out of the box).

 

 

 

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Belkin N1 Vision – new firmware

Posted by on November 18, 2008 1 comment

My Belkin N1 Vision (F5D8232uk4) gigabit router has served me well in the past, and although I would next time rather go with a Netgear or Linksys, the choice was made due to it’s gigabit ports (at the time of purchase there was no wireless router available with those features).

Over the weekend I updated my F5D8232uk4-version 1 router to the latest pre-release firmware (v1.00.16) which resolves the following issues:
- General improvements in performance and stability
- Fix for a problem where the router would drop some connections on 2-hour intervals
- Updated driver for the Wireless Network card

Unlike other users, I must have been lucky, since I have not experienced any issues and would not be able to tell a difference after applying the latest firmware.

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ADSL router statistics

Posted by on November 16, 2008 1 comment

In a previous post I explained how to gather statistics for your Netgear DG834 DSL modem router. Thanks for all the donations!! I have made some subtle changes in the router.cgi to display SNR/attenuation in one chart and display the latest values:

The scripts don’t just run on a Synology DiskStation. I have received reports that people integrated the scripts with their Linux boxes, QNAPs and others. In some instances, people modified the scripts (the code is easy enough to modify even for a Linux newbie) to make them work with other routers.

Again, please note, that out of the box, the scripts will work with any modem router supporting telnet and “adslctl” on the router. I would love to make SNMP or HTTP-polling functionality available, but have not got any router supporting this at the moment.

If you want to use the scripts, donate below (you require a running version of Perl with Net::Telnet and Net::Ping, rrdtool — the scripts will run on the Synology out of the box).

 

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NAS: Netgear ADSL statistics

Posted by on October 19, 2008 3 comments

In a previous post I explained the significance of SNR and attenuation for ADSL lines.

I have spent now a significant amount of time to write scripts to retrieve the ADSL-statistics for my Netgear DG834v4 ADSL router. The script will equally work on any Broadcom based modem-router which allows access to telnet and supports the command “adslctl”.

The solution is really simple and consists of one perl-script collating the information and a CGI-script which then produces the stats in real time from your webserver:

I have deployed the solution on my Synology DiskStation DS107+ (FW722) and had the solution running now for a day. If you want to run this on the Synology, you will need to install rrdtool via ipkg. If you want to run it on another Linux-based environment, ensure that you have access to the command-line version of rrdtool and rrdcgi (which comes bundled with rrdtool).

My current setup produces stats every 15 minutes and reports on the following stats:

  • Ping statistics. Currently against my local ISP – saix.net, but scripts are easy to modify to include your own pings
  • ADSL signal to noise ratio (up / down)
  • ADSL attenuation (up / down)
  • Power output (up / down)
  • Maximum ADSL data rate (up / down)
  • ADSL sync speed (up / down)

All stats are reported per hour, day, week and month. In the future I want to enhance the scripts to provide additional useful reports for the Netgear DG834.

By now you are probably asking “Where is the download-link?” — well here is the thing, my hosting and the popularity of this site is starting to cost me a bundle. So I am introducing donation-ware. It is up to you to decide if you want to donate USD 1,00 or a million (yeah baby) using PayPal via the donation-button below. The donation is absolutely save and you will receive the download-link automatically via email (link is valid for 24 hours). Further, I will email you any updates to the scripts and will look at implementing any recommendations you have.

I think this sounds like a fair deal, especially since it took me in access of 60 hours just getting those scripts done (don’t get a fright though – the scripts are simple – that’s the beauty of the solution).

If you want to use the scripts, donate below (you require a running version of Perl with Net::Telnet and Net::Ping, rrdtool — the scripts will run on the Synology out of the box).

 

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Bye Bye iBurst – whoop whoop Telkom

Posted by on October 14, 2008 No comments

Finally my frustrations are over – although iBurst has tried the best the possibly could, it was too little too late. Amazingly, I ordered a 4MB ADSL line on 29th September and within two weeks line was installed and working. A BIG WOW to Telkom – superior service and this does not seem to be an isolated case either – many people mention the same turnaround times.

The ADSL line has perfect attenuation 17db (down) and 8.5db (up) and an excellent SNR – 28.4db (down) / 14db (up) — so it is no surprise that the line syncs perfectly all the time.

The download speeds are amazing: International ping to New York is 327ms (vs 2 seconds on iBurst), download speed is 1800kpbs (vs 285kbps on iBurst).

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iBurst: Almost wowed me…

Posted by on October 6, 2008 No comments

After putting enough pressure on iBurst, the company decided to provide me with a free installation of a directional antenna. Installation team arrived last week Friday and install went smooth (bar the fact that for whatever unexplainable reason, they chose the longest route for the cabling – I assume its related to charging for extra cabling).

Although I had an omnidirectional antenna before and used to get 600-750kbps, I do now notice a huge improvement on direct iBurst-speed (speedtests come close to 1Mbps). However (and there always is one) – just because I now have perfect line-speed, this does not solve the lack of international speed. Service is not consistent – some international downloads come in at about 500-700kbps, while others still average at about 350kbps. Other customers at the MyAdsl-forum say, that 350-500kbps is as much as you can expect.

Truly amazing (if only iBurst would cache downloads / websites) is the after picture:

2008-09-26 (Omnidirectional):
iBurst speedtest: Download 464kpbs / Upload 138kpbs
Speedtest – Johannesburg: Download 509kpbs / Upload 253kpbs
Speedtest – Capetown: Download 362kpbs / Upload 123kpbs
Speedtest – NY: Download 272kpbs / Upload 92kpbs

2008-10-03 (with the directional antenna)
iBurst speedtest: Download 979kpbs / Upload 204kpbs
Speedtest – Johannesburg: Download 991kpbs / Upload 286kpbs / ping 170ms
Speedtest – Capetown: Download 350kpbs / Upload 138kpbs / ping 870ms
Speedtest – NY: Download 251kpbs / Upload 75kpbs / ping 999ms

Personally I don’t notice much of a difference as it appears that international backhaul capacity (or oversubscription on the towers) is the issue.

Not sure where to go from here (other than to wait for ADSL installation on 13th October). For customers experiencing similar issues, I learnt:

  • iBurst helpdesk take for ever to assist
  • They will initially brush you off with excuses such as MTU or other things
  • They will initially show no responsibility or customer service and even want you to pay for a site-visit
  • The sad part is, that if you shout loud enough (such as in my case), they will conduct the site-visit for free, reimburse you for lost bandwidth and even pay for the installation of a directional antenna.
  • If that level of service would be available to all customers without having to escalate to the CEO, that would be grand service. Unfortunately such treatment is only offered to “difficult” customers such as myself. I pity people who don’t have the perseverance to follow through – truly amazing is that people pay quite a bit of money and then fail to push companies for better service. Unfortunately it is not just about complaining, a customer and a company should find an acceptable agreement.
  • I must say – iBurst well done, you have tried very hard to assist in resolving my problems, try and apply the same level of service to your complete customer base and your company will really excel.
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