Full Fibre 500 slow, tech support not great

[fpaul]

Do any of the full fibre team lurk here?

So, my FF 500 connection is currently managing 90mbps so I'm not all that impressed.

However the FF support can't help - the reason being that I don't use the supplied EERO router so we've run up against an impasse in that the support team can't run whatever diagnostics it supports.

Now, I checked before I ordered the service that 3rd party routers (it's actually a Linux box) were allowed, so there should be a way round this - fortunately I *have* the EERO, but it is most definitely not "handy" (as in some days to lay my hands on it).

Any suggestions?

[fpaul]

> I'm sorry to hear that

It was "one of those things" in the end. The Kelly team were non-local and, I think, time pressured to get the job done as a result. In fact the guy said that he'd been expressly forbidden from hanging around to get customers install working and to point them at TT customer support if there were any problems; as far as they were concerned "green = go", and they did.

> please let us know if you need any assistance.

Thanks, I think I have this one sorted - ferguson got the right bits to fall into place in my head, so I know where the problem is.

[Michelle-TalkTalk]

Morning,

I'm sorry to hear that and please let us know if you need any assistance.

Thanks

[fpaul]

Hi Michelle, thanks for talking the time to reply.

> Was this set up by the engineer or did you change the set up after the install?

Well, thereby hangs a tale - Kelly did the install to the point of getting green lights on the ONT and then disappeared, took some time to get a working Internet because of a provisioning issue which was down to CF and then some miscommunication between TT and CF - but got there eventually.

So, technically the engineers didn't actually "set up" my connection.

I don't use the EERO because it doesn't really meet my needs and I have a certain view of devices that are locked down with dumbed-down user interfaces.

However, as above, my understanding was that TT doesn't *require* use of the EERO, so there ought to be a way forward for users who don't have one in their network, even if we're a minority 🙂

Anyway - at the moment it turns out to be a fault on my side of the ONT, the TT connection is actually fine. I just need to spend some time pulling faceplates off wall mounted Ethernet sockets to track down the loose connection.

[Michelle-TalkTalk]

Hello,

Was this set up by the engineer or did you change the set up after the install?

Thanks

[fpaul]

Your hunch about it being close to 100Mbps was on the money - looking at the port status on the downstairs VLAN switch it is showing 100M on the link upstairs - hopefully just a dodgy punch down on one end or a dodgy patch cable. If the cable between the two sockets   is damaged that's a major pain as it's literally buried in a wall.

I guess I was slightly blind to it being a cable problem as it had been working previously and cables (or layer 2 switches) don't tend to suddenly half stop working.

[fpaul]

> Just to be clear,

Just to be clear I'm sufficiently IT literate to understand what you mean.

Well, that was ... interesting

Back to full speed, but still 90Mbps at the router - which does rather suggest it's something at my end.

It's not the firewall, I temporarily disabled it it and no change

Of course just because the Ethernet has negotiated 1Gbps at the router doesn't mean it's not got a problem somewhere else - there isn't a direct connection downstairs but it goes through a couple of switches.

Further investigation needed. The link downstairs would be most suspect, wonder if one of the Ethernet pairs is not making good contact in a socket somewhere.

Thanks, always useful to get another head involved.

[ferguson]

Just to be clear, it would be a direct connection from the LAN port on the ONT to an ethernet port on the laptop, not via any router. 

[fpaul]

I could reconfigure the VLANs to do that, though it might be easier just to take the laptop downstairs.

Not sure what difference it would make - it's still Linux 🙂

I guess seeing a different MAC address would force a new IP, though I'm not sure whether that will change anything.

[ferguson]

OK, one last thing: can you temporarily connect your desktop PC directly to the ONT?

[fpaul]

> does it have gigabit ethernet ports?

It does yes and it will route and firewall at 1Gbps no problem, I was getting a steady 525 up/down on the router previously and typically > 500mbps on a speed test on my desktop PC which is connected via Ethernet.

I'm not sure exactly when my link slowed down, surfing, watching TV etc work fine but I happened to be doing some software updates yesterday which report download speed and was puzzled to notice that they were only going at about 8MBps instead of the usual 50.

I see your point though given that it's so close to 100Mbps, hang on...

Yep, Ethernet running 1Gbps full duplex.

# ethtool enp4s0
Settings for enp4s0:
	Supported ports: [ TP ]
	Supported link modes:   10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full 
	                        100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full 
	                        1000baseT/Full 
	Supported pause frame use: Symmetric
	Supports auto-negotiation: Yes
	Supported FEC modes: Not reported
	Advertised link modes:  10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full 
	                        100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full 
	                        1000baseT/Full 
	Advertised pause frame use: Symmetric
	Advertised auto-negotiation: Yes
	Advertised FEC modes: Not reported
	Speed: 1000Mb/s
	Duplex: Full
	Port: Twisted Pair
	PHYAD: 1
	Transceiver: internal
	Auto-negotiation: on
	MDI-X: off (auto)
	Supports Wake-on: pumbg
	Wake-on: g
	Current message level: 0x00000007 (7)
			       drv probe link
	Link detected: yes

[ferguson]

OK, just a thought: does it have gigabit ethernet ports?

[fpaul]

Yes, as I said I've basically got a small, general purpose computer running Linux connected permanently to the ONT LAN port - which means I can run network performance tests right on the router with nothing else in the way.

E.g.

# iperf3 -c speedtest.serverius.net -p 5002
Connecting to host speedtest.serverius.net, port 5002
[ 4] local 92.23.181.252 port 57516 connected to 178.21.16.76 port 5002
[ ID] Interval Transfer Bandwidth Retr Cwnd
[ 4] 0.00-1.00 sec 12.2 MBytes 102 Mbits/sec 45 269 KBytes
[ 4] 1.00-2.00 sec 11.0 MBytes 92.3 Mbits/sec 1 214 KBytes
[ 4] 2.00-3.00 sec 10.9 MBytes 91.7 Mbits/sec 0 250 KBytes
[ 4] 3.00-4.00 sec 10.9 MBytes 91.8 Mbits/sec 0 283 KBytes
[ 4] 4.00-5.00 sec 11.1 MBytes 93.3 Mbits/sec 2 235 KBytes
[ 4] 5.00-6.00 sec 11.6 MBytes 97.5 Mbits/sec 0 266 KBytes
[ 4] 6.00-7.00 sec 10.9 MBytes 91.7 Mbits/sec 1 214 KBytes
[ 4] 7.00-8.00 sec 10.9 MBytes 91.7 Mbits/sec 0 249 KBytes
[ 4] 8.00-9.00 sec 10.9 MBytes 91.7 Mbits/sec 0 280 KBytes
[ 4] 9.00-10.00 sec 11.6 MBytes 97.5 Mbits/sec 1 232 KBytes
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
[ ID] Interval Transfer Bandwidth Retr
[ 4] 0.00-10.00 sec 112 MBytes 94.2 Mbits/sec 50 sender
[ 4] 0.00-10.00 sec 111 MBytes 92.7 Mbits/sec receiver

iperf Done.
# iperf3 -c paris.testdebit.info -p 9210
Connecting to host paris.testdebit.info, port 9210
[ 4] local 92.23.181.252 port 49116 connected to 89.84.1.194 port 9210
[ ID] Interval Transfer Bandwidth Retr Cwnd
[ 4] 0.00-1.00 sec 11.6 MBytes 97.3 Mbits/sec 59 284 KBytes
[ 4] 1.00-2.00 sec 10.9 MBytes 91.7 Mbits/sec 0 317 KBytes
[ 4] 2.00-3.00 sec 11.7 MBytes 98.5 Mbits/sec 0 335 KBytes
[ 4] 3.00-4.00 sec 10.2 MBytes 85.5 Mbits/sec 1 264 KBytes
[ 4] 4.00-5.00 sec 11.1 MBytes 93.3 Mbits/sec 0 294 KBytes
[ 4] 5.00-6.00 sec 11.1 MBytes 92.8 Mbits/sec 0 322 KBytes
[ 4] 6.00-7.00 sec 11.0 MBytes 92.3 Mbits/sec 3 259 KBytes
[ 4] 7.00-8.00 sec 11.2 MBytes 93.8 Mbits/sec 0 297 KBytes
[ 4] 8.00-9.00 sec 11.0 MBytes 92.3 Mbits/sec 0 320 KBytes
[ 4] 9.00-10.00 sec 11.6 MBytes 97.0 Mbits/sec 1 235 KBytes
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
[ ID] Interval Transfer Bandwidth Retr
[ 4] 0.00-10.00 sec 111 MBytes 93.4 Mbits/sec 64 sender
[ 4] 0.00-10.00 sec 110 MBytes 92.1 Mbits/sec receiver

iperf Done.

I've also checked that there's nothing else hogging bandwidth and confusing the issue.

[ferguson]

No worries. But I was thinking do you have a computer/laptop which you can connect directly by ethernet cable to the ONT, bypassing any router, just to check if the service itself is actually live?

[fpaul]

Thanks for taking the time to reply

> make sure that your personal details including TalkTalk phone number

> and/or account number are complete on your community profile

OK, what I hope are the right details entered.

> Do you have a device you can test the connection with directly at the LAN port on the ONT?

Well, that's basically the normal situation as it's connected to an SBC running CentOS which acts as the router/firewall.

The connection itself is fine - IP address allocated, I can flood ping the gateway address with no packet loss, most latencies are in the order of 3-6ms  but some higher, up to 70-80ms and traffic passes - just s..l....o........w............l................y

I probably shouldn't complain when there's another poster getting sub 1mbps speeds out of his Future Fibre 500 link, but I can't help thinking 90mbps is still a lot slower than I should be getting.

[ferguson]

Do you have a device you can test the connection with directly at the LAN port on the ONT?

Subject to that, If you would like the support team here to look into this for you make sure that your personal details including TalkTalk phone number and/or account number are complete on your community profile (click here) so that they can link your forum identity with your account and then wait for them to respond.