Anyone use Westvic Broadband?

Hey ppls, i was wondering how satisfied the users are of Westvic broadband?

I live in Koroit, and have had their 512/128K service for about 3 months now & am pretty dissapointed with intermittent problems with performance.

Was wondering if anyone else out there was having same problems as me?

For example, I rarely will get a ping of under 100 for any game servers, get packet loss & retransmission (eg. "warping" whilst gaming. Proved by using packet sniffers). I've tried serveral different connection methods (eg. windows built in pppoe, router on linux box) to no avail. I'm guna talk to westvic about it, but just wanted to see if I'm not the only one having problems.

The main thing I'd really like is ping times to domains from westvic broadband customers. Eg. open cmd> ping www.google.com or www.bigpond.com or www.westvic.com.au

For example, tonight Im having problems and average ping to www.westvic.com.au is 225ms, www.google.com. is >400ms, bigpond.com is >200ms. All of the GA game servers ping are >200ms.

Please note:
I don't wana slag these guys cause its awesome what there doing for us rural customers. I mite be the only person having problems with their service.

Manny, how far away are you from the POP? That *could* be a reason I guess, if maybe you were a little too far away from the POP. I think you're meant to be within something like 5-10kms for decent service, or something.

I don't know enough about Westvic Broadband. I should do a little research, considering that it's about the only option for me out here, besides 2-way Sat, which I've seen in action, and been pretty disappointed with.

Unfortunately, I'm still about 2 months away from getting Westvic Broadband out here, so I can't be much help I'm afraid.

Ask sks how it went at MorB, I believe that they had a connection courtesy of WestVic, he'd prolly know what kind of pings that they experienced.

distance away from the AP would have an effect on the quality of the connecting / packet loss - but i'm sure they would have tested that as there is a standard of acceptable levels they have to legaly provide before it becomes to far away.

other then that i would be checking which network they reside off - i'm not sure if its commonidco(sp) but it if is - thats 1/2 your worries right there. not many isps's that are fighting for that bandwidth have good gaming pings.

what are you download speeds @? if your download speeds are normal (around 50kbps) then you have to put it down to a shitty connection to other ISP networks - if your downloads are fine then its not the quality of YOUR network thats an issue.

try downloading off of a local server that westvic have - i'm sure they'll have some files to download off thier site or something - if the speeds are appropirate you need to look further then just your side of the connection.

punda- thanx 4 suggestion, but I'm a block (bout 50m) away from AP, so definately not the issue.

Damo -
Yeah I know comidico is having a lot of problems (umm aren't they in receivership at the moment?)

I know what average download speed of 512K connection is as I've used 1 through work for the last 4 years (around 50K on average as you say).

The problem is intermittent, but sum times I'l get download rates of 12K on websites I know I should be getting much more. It's not a traffic thing.

Interestingly I've tracked major latency down to a particular router via traceroute (202.142.142.130) that I also had problems with that address when I set up a 1600 cisco router for a client on Westvic but fixed it using the "ip tcp adjust-mss 1452" command on it's ethernet interface (similar but different to altering mtu). However I've got my own 1600 series router and it didn't make any difference to me.

Interestingly I've talked to their cabler dude who told me they have set Koroit up differently then everyone else, and this could cause hassles. (I know for a fact theres only 6 ppl using Westvic in Koroit, so it can't be a traffic thing either).

Thanks anyhows guys, but I'm not too worried bout suggestions for fixes, just wanted to if others are having probelms with westvic.

biggest prob for u is their main data feed is indeed comindico - regardless of whether comindico went into administration, that is one major flaw they have had, comindico sell bandwidth cheap, and from what i've heard in the past, they oversell it so as damo said, ISPs actually fight for bandwidth.

u want good pings, for starters u cant have a comindico isp :) not much of a choice when ur bound to wireless im afraid.
as to intermittency, i cant speak for it at all myself, but the net at morb stayed strong the entire weekend.

i have heard that u can actually be too close to the ap, ie. on the underbound of its vertical range. is the ap mounted high and are u literally 50m from it? (i wouldnt expect them to setup an almost connected client tho..)

i think another source of delay for them is their dns system which i think is a bit on the slow side from memory, try pinging/querying the dns servers mebbe they are even slower to respond

about that IP, that is actually an upstream provider it is interesting if alot of the congestion is occurring there, you should probably tell someone as it may be helpful information (i think this is also the cause of their dns speed issues)


netname: widebandnet
descr: Wideband Networks Pty Ltd, Broadband Internet Provider.
person: Phillip Britt
nic-hdl: PB12-AP
e-mail: phil@wideband.net.au
address: 3 Crinigan Road.
address: Morwell. VIC. 3840

maybe drop your MTU down a little - say 1300 - the mtu as been the cause of a lot of wireless issues esp on linksys gear.

Thanx Jarrod, I'll have to catch up with ur old man sumtime bout it.

I agree about slow DNS resolution, I've found that 2.

Thanx Damo, already tried it.

BTW did you know that you can use the ping command to find out you best MTU value?

Use ping -f -l <MTU SIZE> <destination address> and you can see wen the packet fragments & you get packet loss. By mucking around with values you can generally find the sweet spot for your connection.

Once you come up with a value from ping, your best mtu will be the ping value plus 28 (room for IP header and ICMP echo request header).

Just note that the max value you can use for the built in PPPoE client built into windows is 1492 tho.

Generally I've found smaller values to be better 2, but not 2 small.

Can make a noticable difference anyhows.

If your setting up routers for access to westvic you do need to set both the mtu and mss.

Interface plugged into Westvic
Set the MTU to 1492 (Required by pppoe or you'll get packet loss)

Interface to your LAN
Set the "ip tcp adjust-mss 1452" this sets the maximum tcp/ip segment which is negotiated with the client computers.

it shouldn't really mattter about mtu / mss unless they are 2 high - anything about the 1300 / 1400 mark is going to be ok.

pet: thanx man, I came up with the same conclusion on the 1st client I set up with westvic on their cisco router. The first time I set it up I had the MTU set at 1492 but frgot bout the MSS. It was weird coz sum sites worked and others didn't.

After sum stuffing rnd, u r spot on, the MSS needed to be adjusted (a well known problem with PPPOE on cisco routers apparently). The command was just as you said mate.

Your right about the maximum of 1492, I'm sorry man, I already knew this was the limit of windows XP, however I know that I'm getting packet fragmentation at this size through the ping test.

People seem to be missing the point with this post. I'm not asking for suggestions for a fix. I want to know if others using the westvic broadband are having problems, for I know I'm not the only one.

I;ve since talked to westvic and they've told me: 'Our service is not optimised for ping...." I'm sorry, wtf?

quote number 2:" We have sum really expensive switches that are over sensitive and causing us problems. They're just too good" I'm sorry I just can't help being sarcastic.

I then mentioned the 'comidico' word and the dude seemed to try to avoid the issue.

I don't want to dis these guys, pls don;t any1 let me. :?

btw did I mention I'm paying $80 a month for a 512/128 with a 2GB download limit and below average ping?

OK the winging stops, admittently the service seems to be getting slowly better the last few days.

Damo, I once attended a conference in Melbourne hosted by an ex US Navy Network Engineer (was really cool might I add). His opinion concurs with mine: the idea of sending data accross a network is being able to cram the maximum amount of data into a packet, (the data portion of the packet, albiet reliably), creating less traffic on your network, and not sending excessive amount of packet headers and footers, when u could be sending your data.

MTU is important. If your network can cope with a larger MTU, than you will notice performance differences.

all u can do is keep logging support calls with ur problems apparantly, since they have to provide support as part of hibis, so if u complain enough they have to fix it

from ur stories man if it were any other service i'd be bagging the hell outta it if i got support like that! but i have to hold judgement for obvious reasons :D

when u make support calls make sure u get the name of the person u spoke to and let me know ;) esp if they are giving u wierd answers

'Our service is not optimised for ping...."
i think what they r trying to say is that they are not optimising the network for low latency as much as they are purely makin it for speed/connectivity - they mite be missing the fact that speed does go fairly hand-in-hand with latency

Yep, I agree...any service is optimised for general traffic. The fact that you get fragmentation of pings when you approach 1492 as the size is just a reality of networking, you can't stuff any more into 1 packet. :shock:
The MTU is unfortunately, as you've said, Cisco's doing and no-one can do anything about it, messing with it in reality will just reduce the efficiency of your connection. (ie: the smaller you go the less data per packet with the overhead of the header etc)

If you've got some sites your having problems with I'd like to check em out, but testing to google.com is hardly reasonable given you go through 3 ISP's I can see and it's probably in the states.

i'm getting pings to google at around 330, i'd have 2 say if you can't get broadband over the phone line this is a good option but it is not fast at all.

I'm moving house shortly and i'm disconnecting my westvic service and i'm just going to cop the fee.

so manster / vipster...........are either of you's still experiencing slow speeds and / or crap pings? just wanting to know cos i *might* go for this and get it hooked up if things are working as they should be.