Strange speed problem on 999 unlimited plan.

[on_da_high]

Hey guys, have this weird speed issue on my MTNL dsl connection. Landed on this forum while googling, and seems there quite a knowledgeable bunch here. So hoping you'll can help figure my thing out.

I am using the 999 unlimited plan. While the speeds are up to the mark most of the time, every now and then, almost 40% of the time I have severe trouble even buffering 240p or 360p videos.

when the connection is messed up
Speedtest on a mumbai or delhi server will indicate 0.9-1 Mbps.

Speedtest on a South East Asian server will be appx 0.45Mbps.

Speedtest on any US, European, Russian, Australian server will be no more than 0.18-0.2 Mbps

When the connection is fine all international servers test in at 0.8-0.9 Mbps.

Initially thought maybe MTNL is having temporary trouble with its international bandwidth. But once had called up a friend in Andheri (am in south mumbai). While my international server speeds were miserable as above, he was getting full 1mbps speeds as per his plan on all servers.

Cant quite figure out problem and have no clue of how to complain to Mtnl, and say what my problem is. As far as they are concerned they are providing 1mbps to the closest isp node. I guess that's all their obligation is.

Any clue as what I can do here?


An example of my problem. I just ran these as i finished writing the post.

https://www.speedtest.net

https://www.speedtest.net

 

[emptymt]

well now that you brought it up, it sort of explains the inconsistent speeds on my connection too. So many time I get horrible download speeds while a speedtest on my recommended server shows the speeds are as per my plan. Tried new servers around the world and well, got same results as you. Full speeds on mum based speedtest, but below broadband threshold on international servers. Shouldn't mtnl be liable somehow for providing below broadband speeds (

 

[mgcarley]

Hey guys, have this weird speed issue on my MTNL dsl connection. Landed on this forum while googling, and seems there quite a knowledgeable bunch here. So hoping you'll can help figure my thing out.

I am using the 999 unlimited plan. While the speeds are up to the mark most of the time, every now and then, almost 40% of the time I have severe trouble even buffering 240p or 360p videos.

when the connection is messed up
Speedtest on a mumbai or delhi server will indicate 0.9-1 Mbps.

Speedtest on a South East Asian server will be appx 0.45Mbps.

Speedtest on any US, European, Russian, Australian server will be no more than 0.18-0.2 Mbps

When the connection is fine all international servers test in at 0.8-0.9 Mbps.

Initially thought maybe MTNL is having temporary trouble with its international bandwidth. But once had called up a friend in Andheri (am in south mumbai). While my international server speeds were miserable as above, he was getting full 1mbps speeds as per his plan on all servers.

Cant quite figure out problem and have no clue of how to complain to Mtnl, and say what my problem is. As far as they are concerned they are providing 1mbps to the closest isp node. I guess that's all their obligation is.

Any clue as what I can do here?


An example of my problem. I just ran these as i finished writing the post.

https://www.speedtest.net

https://www.speedtest.net

I'm wondering if this isn't a simple issue of bad timing for you - this test was taken about midnight to 1am Pacific time, but this also means at this hour you'd be competing head on with traffic from East Asia during peak hours.

What about your speeds to, say, Europe or Singapore at the same time of the day? What about Delhi? Maybe HNS'es mini speedtest? Is it consistently slow at certain times of the day or just randomly? Maybe also try San Jose instead of San Francisco because that's where most of the Trans-Pacific cables land, and from where I'm currently sitting (New Zealand), my pings and speedtest.net times are usually significantly better from here to San Jose than to SFO.

Part of what you may be experiencing is MTNL's lack of good caching for sites like Youtube. Caching is fundamental to a good user experience and many Indian ISPs just don't do it as much as they could or should. Conversely, ISPs in NZ cache the hell out of everything and peering is dirt cheap compared to India, but even with an average of 30-50,000 customers and only a few gigabits of International bandwidth each, they seem to do alright most of the time - I never have problems with Youtube even at 720p when I'm here.

Shouldn't mtnl be liable somehow for providing below broadband speeds (

 

[on_da_high]

I'm wondering if this isn't a simple issue of bad timing for you - this test was taken about midnight to 1am Pacific time, but this also means at this hour you'd be competing head on with traffic from East Asia during peak hours.



I initially too thought it might just be because of some form of traffic congestion. But then its started occurring too frequently and randomly. Cant pinpoint it to any time frame either. More importantly at the very same time I had this problem, a friend, also on MTNL, albeit 30kms away from me and on a different exchange, had his connection working as normal. All servers tested normally for him. I can understand differences in local speeds due to line or exchange issues. But same local speeds and different international speeds . . .that I dont get. And its not a one off freak issue. Become too frequent and close to consistent now.

Also havent read any such issues as such on this forum, and judging by the lack of comments, guess I am the only one experiencing it.

 

[mgcarley]

Also havent read any such issues as such on this forum, and judging by the lack of comments, guess I am the only one experiencing it.

I can assure you that plenty of people have talked about similar problems with MTNL on this forum (in other threads). Unfortunately, the quality of an MTNL connection is up to little more than the luck of the draw, really - it's great in some places and sucks in others. As such, it could even be some issue (congestion or otherwise) that's limited to users on your exchange due to the way that ADSL is usually provisioned.

I would hope that MTNL's FTTH project also comes with upgrades to it's ADSL network in the form of more FTTN/FTTC/K (neighbourhood or curb/kerb, take your pick) like what's going on in NZ and Australia so that speeds and quality of service are more consistent and the copper loops are shorter (so potentially higher speeds can be had).

 

[on_da_high]

Unfortunately, the quality of an MTNL connection is up to little more than the luck of the draw, really - it's great in some places and sucks in others. As such, it could even be some issue (congestion or otherwise) that's limited to users on your exchange due to the way that ADSL is usually provisioned.



yea, true. agree with you. what peeves me off is, earlier if speeds were bad, they'd be bad on all servers and i'd have a leg to stand on when i complained. Now with local servers always testing at or above plan speeds irrespective of how useless the connection is for actual usage, there is little I can do to put up a fight with mtnl.

 

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[rohaan]

Even I'm on 999 UL but I'm able to watch 720p videos on YouTube without any hiccups. But the line attenuation on my line is very severe 35 and SNR margin is mere 10. God help MTNL.

 

[on_da_high]

Even I'm on 999 UL but I'm able to watch 720p videos on YouTube without any hiccups. But the line attenuation on my line is very severe 35 and SNR margin is mere 10. God help MTNL.

ur lucky dude . . thank your gods and lucky stars. Enjoy!

Its a good day for me when 360p streams seamlessly.
So i guess then its an exchange issue. I think its the colaba cooperage exchange which is messing things up.

 

[wikedmonk]

Even I'm on 999 UL but I'm able to watch 720p videos on YouTube without any hiccups. But the line attenuation on my line is very severe 35 and SNR margin is mere 10. God help MTNL.
call 198 and tell them ur line is faulty. either its the line or the switch where ur line is connected. get the line replaced if that doesn't work u will have to get the line shifted to another switch. meeting the DGM/GM shud do the job if replacing the line doesn't work.

 

[on_da_high]

Yup been through the hoops. I have been doing further RnD on this issue. Turns out the same problem exists on other connections in my area as well (asked 3-4 acquaintances to run speedtest on diff servers). Seems to be a colaba specific problem. I checked with a couple of users in cuffe parade and their connections were fine.Called 1504, the gave me the number to the cooperage dgm, who in turn gave me another call center no. When I called those guys up it turned out to be a prabadevi number and was only meant for mtnl technicians. They refused to speak to customers and asked me to call 1504 again. So i seem to be stuck in an infinite loop.