changing plan

[wicko]

I am on an NBN50 plan. My download and upload speeds are almost always below 25 MB/s. (Speeds are particularly low in the mornings when I use the internet most.) If I change my plan to NBN25, will the speeds reduce at times when I currently get below 25 MB/s on my NBN50 plan? i.e. When you are getting speeds well below the typical evening speed of your plan, will you get even lower speeds if you change to a lower speed plan?

[david64]

Hi @wicko . What type of NBN connection do you have?

Use an ethernet computer and speed test on TPG's support page to get the best indication of speed.

Wifi devices are generally a bit slower and can be affected by interference.

[wicko]

Thanks for the quick response. I have Hybrid Fibre Coaxial (HFC). I have tried direct connection and it doesn't change the speed from what I can get from WiFi. I know it is not because of WiFi because one day when I had temporary upgrade to the the high speed, I was able to get speeds of up to 500 MB/s. But even on that plan, I was still usually below 25 MB/s.

[david64]

@wicko . What model router do you have?

Is Bandwidth Control/QoS enabled on your router and are there any values?

[wicko]

Thanks david64.

I have an Archer VR1600v (Ver 2.0).

Bandwidth Control is enabled. It has 19800 Kbps set for the Total Upstream Bandwidth and nothing set for Total Downstream Bandwidth.

[david64]

@wicko . The normal value for upload bandwidth is 19500 Kbps on NBN50.

On your ethernet computer, when you run the speed test on TPG's support page, does each graph proceed smoothly from start to finish or stop and start a bit? What are ping time, down and up speeds?

Can you do these commands on your ethernet computer:

ping -n 10 192.168.1.1

ping -n 10 www.tpg.com.au

tracert -d www.tpg.com.au

Response time to router should be 1 ms; time to TPG should be < 10 ms.

[wicko]

Thanks @david64

Sorry for the slow response. Here are the results from those tests this morning when connected via ethernet:

TPG Speed Test: Ping 27 ms; Download 32.4 Mb/s; Upload 17.7 Mb/s (Note that speeds do vary a bit from test to test.)

This morning the graphs proceeded smoothly but I have had stops at other times.

ping -n 10 192.168.1.1:

Pinging 192.168.1.1 with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time=15ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time=5ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64

Ping statistics for 192.168.1.1:
Packets: Sent = 10, Received = 10, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 0ms, Maximum = 15ms, Average = 2ms

ping -n 10 www.tpg.com.au:

Ping statistics for:
Packets: Sent = 10, Received = 10, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 26ms, Maximum = 46ms, Average = 29ms

tracert -d www.tpg.com.au:

Tracing route to www.tpg.com.au.cdn.cloudflare.net
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 12 ms 8 ms 10 ms 130.102.71.36
2 9 ms 8 ms 9 ms 130.102.71.70
3 9 ms 9 ms 25 ms 172.16.163.225
4 46 ms 14 ms 14 ms 172.16.1.56
5 26 ms 28 ms 10 ms 172.16.0.34
6 23 ms 25 ms 31 ms 172.16.0.36
7 9 ms 9 ms 9 ms 172.16.0.53
8 21 ms 23 ms 14 ms 172.16.0.56
9 9 ms 9 ms 10 ms 130.102.159.62
10 12 ms 11 ms 10 ms 130.102.0.198
11 11 ms 9 ms 10 ms 130.102.0.194
12 30 ms 30 ms 30 ms 138.44.129.157
13 46 ms 33 ms 33 ms 113.197.15.16
14 45 ms 29 ms 30 ms 113.197.15.109
15 29 ms 34 ms 34 ms 218.100.52.11
16 30 ms 37 ms 75 ms 104.18.10.61

It seems the averages are slower than you suggested they should be?

[david64]

@wicko . If you get occasional stops on the speed test, reduce the bandwidth control down to 19500.

The ping to router had 2 long responses. Redo that test with count of 50. Something happens to cause long response.

The ping to TPG is way too long. And the tracert has way too many hops. And the first address should be the router and second should be the router's default gateway. Can you login to router and check its gateway address on initial status page.

Do you know anyone who has a HFC connection? If they could do tracert to their provider. The addresses will be different but see how many hops they take.

(I'm basing my comments on my FTTC NBN25 connection. 7 hops to TPG, 10 ms.)

[wicko]

Thanks @david64

This morning I tried without going through my VPN (which I was doing yesterday) and the speeds are better. The TPG speed test shows a ping of 20 ms, download near the 50 Mb/s and upload 18 Mb/s. Yesterday I was going through a VPN so that may have slowed things and accounts for the many hops in tracert. Today's first tests are without and then with going through the VPN.

No VPN:

The ping to 192.168.1.1 with 50 tries gives:

Packets: Sent = 50, Received = 50, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 0ms, Maximum = 3ms, Average = 0ms

The ping to TPG gives: (Is this still slower than expected?)

Packets: Sent = 10, Received = 10, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 19ms, Maximum = 21ms, Average = 20ms

The tracert gives just seven hops (number 2 is the gateway on my router):

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.1.1
2 8 ms 8 ms 7 ms 10.20.22.145
3 21 ms 20 ms 20 ms 60.240.241.65
4 19 ms 22 ms 22 ms 203.219.107.74
5 20 ms 21 ms 20 ms 203.29.134.82
6 20 ms 20 ms 21 ms 108.162.247.12
7 20 ms 20 ms 20 ms 104.18.10.61

========================

I then connect through the VPN and the TPG speed test gives similar results to yesterday: ping 28 ms, download 31 Mb/s and upload 18 Mb/s.

ping to 192.168.1.1:

Ping statistics for 192.168.1.1:
Packets: Sent = 50, Received = 50, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 0ms, Maximum = 2ms, Average = 0ms

The ping to TPG gives:

Ping statistics for 104.18.10.61:
Packets: Sent = 10, Received = 10, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 26ms, Maximum = 58ms, Average = 32ms

The tracert test has 16 hops.

What do you think? And going back to my original question, do you think if I changed to a 25 Mb/s plan that my download speeds would drop well below 25 Mb/s or would they cap at 25?

[david64]

@wicko .

Your times to TPG without VPN are still slow. (My ping and tracert times to both TPG addresses is < 10 ms.)

Your tracert has 2 extra addresses, #3 and #4, which I don't get. And a big jump between #2 and #3.

But I don't know why that is in terms of network.

Maybe the fact that you still get proper download speed means that these points don't matter.

The point of using VPN is anonymity. It must reduce throughput due to longer path through network.

The NBN50 plan doesn't give 50,000,000 bits per second on your computer. If you get near 50Mbps, that might be as good as it gets. There's also the busy evening peak time. You might try the speed test later at night on different servers. 

I can't say what you will get if you change to NBN25; it might be near 25, or slightly over if there is spare capacity in the network. Whether you should depends on how many people there are and the type of usage. Your download speed via VPN might degrade less because your data is still carried at normal speed in the (non NBN) internet but slows down for the last pass through NBN.