Hemel Hempstead area - random disconnections

[SuperCow]

Hi all

In the last couple of months I've experienced what seems to be random disconnections on my NTL 10Mbit service. When those happen I actually witness the "cable" light of my Terayon TJ210 light going off. It either comes back on its own, or switching the modem off and on bring it back again.
It looks like those often occur during multiplayer games, which is of course incredibly frustrating as I'm sure those of you have experienced :). Sometimes I also get "Excess flood" error messages in those multiplayer games (often getting kicked as a result) even though the cable light stays on. It's not about multiplayer games only though. I've lost large direct downloads due to disconnection issues, and I've also noticed I'm rarely getting ~10Mbit download these days (it's more like 5-6).

I must stress that this only happened in the past few weeks and before that I didn't have any of those problems. I haven't changed anything in my software configuration either.

I've read other threads talking about network rebalancing and the change to QAM256 which apparently may not be fully supported on TJ210 modems... It looks like a likely culprit but what I'd like to know is the following: how can I convince tech support to upgrade my modem (which I've had for the past 5 years)? I just called them but somehow they couldn't access my details as their software was down. I will call them again so I'd appreciate any tips to convince them to upgrade my modem. Either that or any comments on this situation would be appreciated :).

[Rik]

Hi all

In the last couple of months I've experienced what seems to be random disconnections on my NTL 10Mbit service. When those happen I actually witness the "cable" light of my Terayon TJ210 light going off. It either comes back on its own, or switching the modem off and on bring it back again.
It looks like those often occur during multiplayer games, which is of course incredibly frustrating as I'm sure those of you have experienced :). Sometimes I also get "Excess flood" error messages in those multiplayer games (often getting kicked as a result) even though the cable light stays on. It's not about multiplayer games only though. I've lost large direct downloads due to disconnection issues, and I've also noticed I'm rarely getting ~10Mbit download these days (it's more like 5-6).

I must stress that this only happened in the past few weeks and before that I didn't have any of those problems. I haven't changed anything in my software configuration either.

I've read other threads talking about network rebalancing and the change to QAM256 which apparently may not be fully supported on TJ210 modems... It looks like a likely culprit but what I'd like to know is the following: how can I convince tech support to upgrade my modem (which I've had for the past 5 years)? I just called them but somehow they couldn't access my details as their software was down. I will call them again so I'd appreciate any tips to convince them to upgrade my modem. Either that or any comments on this situation would be appreciated :).

Hi there im in Hemel Hempstead as well, and have a NTL 250 Modem, when using no proxy and going through the transparent "Luton" ones, robin walker speed test never goes over around 4Meg (only on certain Luton proxies, not all of them).

If I change my proxy to certain others, then the speedtest comes in at full 10meg :).

I have a problem with bit torrent at moment, sometimes my connection just dies when i have a lot of torrents on the go, modem lights stay on all looks normal, but theres not connectivity, a reboot of Router fixes this, maybe a router issue with the number of connections??? I Dont know, but im sure its the modem causing the disconnects tbh.

A couple of days ago my connection was extremely slow for a brief time around 11pm this was, i tried nearly EVERY proxy i could find and the connection was still pants, maybe they are testing out traffic shaping :( if so they had cocked it right up, maybe they are preparing for upgrading to 20meg???? Who knows???

---------- Post added at 00:18 ---------- Previous post was at 00:03 ----------

Heres my speedtest results for instance using no proxy settings in IE Connection tab (using transparent proxy)

Wed, 29 Nov 2006 00:15:01 UTC
1st 128K took 141 ms = 929589 Bytes/sec = approx 7734 kbits/sec
2nd 128K took 140 ms = 936229 Bytes/sec = approx 7789 kbits/sec
3rd 128K took 157 ms = 834854 Bytes/sec = approx 6946 kbits/sec
4th 128K took 140 ms = 936229 Bytes/sec = approx 7789 kbits/sec

And now I change to a proxy elsewhere added to IE connections tab and here are the results, astounding what a difference,

Wed, 29 Nov 2006 00:17:05 UTC
1st 128K took 109 ms = 1202495 Bytes/sec = approx 10005 kbits/sec
2nd 128K took 94 ms = 1394383 Bytes/sec = approx 11601 kbits/sec
3rd 128K took 110 ms = 1191564 Bytes/sec = approx 9914 kbits/sec
4th 128K took 109 ms = 1202495 Bytes/sec = approx 10005 kbits/sec

If you want the proxy I use I can send, I wont post here to avoid everyone saturating it.

Is traffic shaping done via proxies or at UBRs for instance?
Looks like some of the Luton proxies are restricted.

[SuperCow]

On your advice I tried changing proxy settings and testing my connection speed. I am astonished to see that repeating the speed tests multiple times in a row (with or without changing proxy in-between) can cause the CABLE signal to go off!!! So it does look like the modem is not able to cope with the transfer speed it's asked for... eventhough it worked in the past without problems?