Tooway user in need of Counselling

Are you using KA or KU?

Well long as your alignment is ok the service you are receiving is unacceptable. I have heard that there has been reported hardware problems so I would follow this up with your provider. It would be good to know about other people's quality of service in Wales also. Have you contacted your provider with regard to troubleshooting the issue?

IanH-Powys wrote
Quote:



Hi Eric and other Tooway Ku users,

Skylogic reported last week problems at the Tooway hub in Turin with the Eurobird3A transponder (ku band only). There is a maintenance on the Tooway Ku HUB in Turin at the moment and modems can lose connection for a short period (RX solid but no internet). As soon everything is back to normal we will inform everybody (and I am sure also your provider) via this board and via our Twitter page. Hopefully the situation will improve after maintenance - lets all keep our fingers crossed!

Look also to our previous posting regarding maintenance.

Problems have been reported from users (Eurobird3 A spot beam) all over Europe.

In a normal situation when the tooway service is functioning correctly we would suggest that you always check your traffic-use first when the system slows down - (there is an hourly/daily/weekly and monthly limit). In most cases when the system slows down it is due to users passing their limit (an hour or daily limit can easily be passed). If this is not the case then it is necessary to contact your provider so they can look at any other possible causes of a slow-running system.

ps. In general, a small (60cm) dark dish is KA, a big white (100cm) is KU.

Our Twitter name : eurosat

we have a Ku system....

I have had more sensible input in the last two hours from this forum than 6 months talking to ISP. they get a phone call or email about once a week. and we get a response once a blue moon...

we have been complaining about poor performance since November.. and i am now told to expect an engineer this afternoon...BUT that i will have to pay if the system is not at fault... WTF ...shame as i have an independent network engineer coming to give our network the once over at 9am

we are now monitoring the connection with Ping plotter and that shows how the connection is performing and its not looking good..

how do you post images or .pdfs in posts?

Ian h

Hi,

If you read the post there is NO mention of FAP at all. We always advise users when a system slows down or performance is bad in general, to check usage FIRST (this can be done online 24/7) and then contact the agent/ISP for more information etc. this is the ONLY way to find out whats going on and to indicate and solve a problem.

Its better to rely on FACTS and not on FICTION. Mentioning hardware problems or QoS problems without the full facts is not going to help.

Besides problems due to the weather, most of the other problems are related to USAGE OR relating to routers, local network problems, wrong settings etc. etc.

Infact, user Tortella is a good example of this - all complaints from him in the past 12 months were ALWAYS related to exceeding usage limits - we still have a long file of complaints and proof of his user statistics which always show excess above limit.

So again we advise everyone to check their user limit FIRST and then if this proves not to be the case THEN contact provider who can go through other possible causes of system poor performance.

We also advise everyone to complain immediately (if system is slow - having first ruled out excess usage) to an agent or ISP and not days or weeks later because then it is impossible to trace the root of the problem.

Different providers use different graphical displays but they all should give you info about your usage per hour, day, week and month.

ps. This is it for this week because we have to install 8 new Tooway Ku systems in 2/3 days, hope we can make it We will post some install pictures on this board next week.

Frits Blomsma

I really don't think his problem is FAP. On analysis of his problem and sympthoms seen, FAP couldn't possibly been causing his issue.

Images added by forum admin from IanH-Powys

Thanks for posting that Eric.

what you can see is a chart generated by ping plotter. as recommended by a Senior Network engineer for US TV network i work with..

the red areas on the chart accurately represent our connection to the internet. RED no connection, Black line Connection.

My ISP based just on the other side of the border from wales, and currently promoting like mad in wales due to WAG funding for notspots. claimed that the 1st hop was to the Modem in my house... strange 1000ms for 10cm of cat5.

if any body has experience of such an intermittent service i would appreciate some advice.

I would point out that we are currently NOT being capped
and that some 20% of the time the service is stunning. and 60% of the time its OK its just currently Dire.

Ian

Just to be clear, our customers have been reporting intermittent issues with speed and connection over the past few months or so.  Some have been more severe than others, and yours seems to be one of the more severe.

If you dish is aligned properly and you are not FAP'd (when an install initially happens most people FAP as it's a novelty, however saying this we have users who regularly go over their limits and are not significantly slowed down) then the issue is likely to be service or in other cases hardware.  We have only ever had one modem go down and that was doing some crazy things!

In any case there has been Tooway maintenance on Spot A of the Ku band system this weekend and from what we can see service is better and more stable now.  Fingers crossed this will keep up.

So:  First check your FAP, if you aren't over your limits then contact your service provider immediately.  The sooner they know there is a problem the sooner they can hopefully solve it.

Hope things improve for you soon.

Am I understanding this correctly?  One and a half hours for your Tooway modem to lock on?  So the RX and TX lights flashed for all this time with no lock?  That's crazy - it should take no more than 20 minutes after initial activation, 45 at most.

When we activate new modems they normally take around 30-40 mins to lock on before activation can be done.  Once the modem has been activated then acquiring and having the RX light illuminated permanently should be fairly quick.  Our modem here (southern Portugal) locks very quickly, few seconds, max 2 mins.

Are you sure this is not a modem problem after all?

Thanks for all the interest.

Ok my home network is

On desktop running 24/7 email and skype and now ping plotter
Two laptops used as required

I used to have a Lynksys wrt54gl and a rvo42 but after isp said it could be my network at fault so I bought a belkinN+ wireless router.

Ok so my home network is now a router at 192.168.2.1 and devices at 2, 3 and 4

The home router receives an Ip from the Tooway box via dchp

During acquisition its 192.168.100.2 and if you access 192.168.100.1 you can read the event log of the Tooway modem.

Yes guys it does take 1,5 hours to log on….. I have attached a sample for you reading.

THU JAN 01 00:19:35 1970 RNG-RSP: 0 [ticks], 0 [Hz], 0.75 [dBm]
THU JAN 01 00:19:34 1970 RNG-RSP: 0 [ticks], 12421 [Hz], 0.00 [dBm]
THU JAN 01 00:19:09 1970 RNG-RSP: -1 [ticks], 25600 [Hz], 0.00 [dBm]
THU JAN 01 00:19:02 1970 RNG-RSP: 111887 [ticks], 0 [Hz], 0.00 [dBm]
THU JAN 01 00:18:57 1970 US Scan: 1015.329956 [MHz], Channel 10
THU JAN 01 00:18:53 1970 DS NAPA: Success
THU JAN 01 00:18:52 1970 DS Acquire: 1554.840942 [MHz], 25.00 [Msps], 10.00 [dB], MR
THU JAN 01 00:18:48 1970 DS Scan: 1554.840942 [MHz]
THU JAN 01 00:18:43 1970 DS Scan: 1554.750000 [MHz]
THU JAN 01 00:18:37 1970 DS Scan: 1240.000000 [MHz]
THU JAN 01 00:18:30 1970 DS Scan: 1230.000000 [MHz]
THU JAN 01 00:18:23 1970 DS Scan: 1220.000000 [MHz]
THU JAN 01 00:18:16 1970 DS Scan: 1210.000000 [MHz]
THU JAN 01 00:18:10 1970 DS Scan: 1200.000000 [MHz]
THU JAN 01 00:16:06 1970 RNG-RSP: 0 [ticks], 0 [Hz], 0.00 [dBm]
THU JAN 01 00:16:01 1970 RNG-RSP: 0 [ticks], -6584 [Hz], 0.00 [dBm]
THU JAN 01 00:15:51 1970 RNG-RSP: 111887 [ticks], 0 [Hz], 0.00 [dBm]
THU JAN 01 00:15:41 1970 US Scan: 1031.329956 [MHz], Channel 11
THU JAN 01 00:15:37 1970 DS NAPA: Success
THU JAN 01 00:15:36 1970 DS Acquire: 1554.840210 [MHz], 25.00 [Msps], 5.00 [dB], MR
THU JAN 01 00:15:32 1970 DS Scan: 1554.840210 [MHz]
THU JAN 01 00:15:27 1970 DS Scan: 1554.750000 [MHz]
THU JAN 01 00:15:21 1970 DS Scan: 1190.000000 [MHz]
THU JAN 01 00:15:14 1970 DS Scan: 1180.000000 [MHz]
THU JAN 01 00:15:07 1970 DS Scan: 1170.000000 [MHz]
THU JAN 01 00:15:00 1970 DS Scan: 1160.000000 [MHz]
THU JAN 01 00:14:54 1970 DS Scan: 1150.000000 [MHz]
THU JAN 01 00:12:47 1970 RNG-RSP: -1 [ticks], 0 [Hz], 0.00 [dBm]
THU JAN 01 00:12:41 1970 RNG-RSP: 1 [ticks], -25600 [Hz], 0.00 [dBm]
THU JAN 01 00:12:14 1970 RNG-RSP: 0 [ticks], -25600 [Hz], 0.00 [dBm]
THU JAN 01 00:12:01 1970 RNG-RSP: 111888 [ticks], 0 [Hz], 0.00 [dBm]
THU JAN 01 00:11:45 1970 US Scan: 1015.329956 [MHz], Channel 10
THU JAN 01 00:11:41 1970 DS NAPA: Success
THU JAN 01 00:11:40 1970 DS Acquire: 1554.839600 [MHz], 25.00 [Msps], 10.00 [dB], MR
THU JAN 01 00:11:35 1970 DS Scan: 1554.839600 [MHz]
THU JAN 01 00:11:31 1970 DS Scan: 1554.750000 [MHz]
THU JAN 01 00:11:25 1970 DS Scan: 1140.000000 [MHz]

Here I hope you will see a pattern

During all this process the downlink light flashs

You can see the down link is acquired rather quickly and then the modem sets about the uplink.

A two minute loop seems to happen and then if no success the whole process starts again.

I have 13 pages of this process logged….

Then when eventually (yes 1.5 hours) it connects the 192.168.100.1 IP goes away and the next IP available is….10.96.64.1 now this is supposed to be the tooway modem --- logical really

BUT if you ping it its 600+ms away…

Then we start the process as shown in the diagram earlier of having an on  off on off on off service changing every minuite…..its dire

But the Engineer is coming on Friday and if it takes 1.5 hours to log on he is in for a long day…..cause he aint leaving till I am happy…

Ian

I have been a Tooway user in Wales for nearly two years. It has been a torturous process from start to finish. I'm nearly bald with tearing my hair out. In my opinion, on the rare days when it works then it is a good system but personally I have found that the rest of the time is unreliable, slow and flaky. I've had a stream of mis-information from my service provider and what I see as a terrible level of customer service. In addition to this, personally I find the rules, regulations and general crap associated with the system impossible to work with. After two years of purgatory I am going to have to call it a day.
Sad because BOY did I try and get this to work. It could have been so good.

Thanks for all the assistance.

well i had a Engineer call on friday as promised

and he didn't leave until he had changed the Tx and Rx head assembly. and surprise we had a service that worked just like i would expect.......But after 3 days of painless internet on the Monday the Modem required a hard reset.. followed by a further 6 days perfect service.. but now we seem to have returned to a cycle of good days and bad days. I will post some charts later if anybody is interested

All i can say is install ping plotter on your network and start recording system performance in real time. very enlightening.

One thing... it rapidly became obvious that I now knew more than the engineer about the Network and how the modem connected to the bird...

I note comments from Welsh Barn and can only believe we are using the same ISP (pm me we have much to discuss) our location is exposed and we have experienced wind, snow and rain and i believe our performance in weather events is certainly better than others seem to report.

But the one thing i have learnt is

DO NOT TAKE AS GOSPEL ANYTHING THE ISP SAY - ALSO IF THE UISP SAY THE NOC CAN SEE NO FAULT ASK QUESTIONS.

IF IN DOUBT PM ME FOR MORE INFO OR ASK HERE

IAN H

Available for system installs in south and mid wales lol

I think he mentioned in a previous post that he wasn't capped.

Quote:

I dont read anything about his traffic usage, would be interesting to see figures (facts). A ping test does not show helpful information in this case (see also previous post).

I like to see a usage report not a ping test.

what the charts show....is when i can use my broadband and when i can not...simples...

this i can directly relate to each second of the day...

and if i use the log of my WAP you can see when it loses its ip from the Modem...

there is a direct correlation between crap ping and supply.

yes i try to engage,( spell chucker nearly corrected that to enrage- might be more apt) my isp in discussion on this.

but their response is we must raise a case with the NOC and the NOC reply no fault found.....8 Fking months... Fine so now we have a good service 80% of the time but there are still issues.

I am hoping to chart some other tooway users --- again a simple ping plot agains time to see if there is anything common in the charts of two locations on the same bird but with two isps..

So any volunteers please send a pm .. and hopefully we can enlighten a few...

ian

how does one acquire such a colorful chart?

we conducted a series of tests in blocks of three hour periods

laptop one (wired)
laptop two (wired)
desktop (wired)

and then re introduced the netgear router

and conducted the tests again

and the tested again with all machines on and using wireless

and the result ---- no difference --- system was just as crap each way --- and during all this testing the NOC via ISP reported no fault.

And then i went out and hired a Network engineer locally(my tame tech is in US) who also came and spent hours testing network and machines and found no fault

ian

speedtest.net

shows a downlink of 7.1mbs

shows a uplink of  0.26mbs

and a latency of 630ms

hopefully eric will post the stats from the isp that show we are UNDER our 6gb allowance... though i might have to buy a top up shortly... if i keep posting on ere....

I have tried to mail eric a chart for the previous 48 hours that shows second by second the status of our link

its a 2mb file i might upload it to our website later f anybody is interested.

Image below (Tooway FAP bar chart) inserted by forum admin:

I feel nervous posting anything now, being apparently the only satisfied user of Tooway (except for the cost), and self-installer at that.   Maybe it's that the alternative was a deteriorating dial-up, which could take up to 9 attempts before connecting.  Anyway, yere goes.

Loss of IP:
I find that if there has been rain-fade, or if the PC has been on standby, and certainly if the fade happened _whilst_ it was on standby, then I need to release the IP and refresh it.   The router still reckons it has one, but it is fibbing.  The alternative is rebooting the PC, wich is a niusance, but faster than rebooting the modem. 

A small niusance, but it takes just a moment.  My router has a web interface, so there is no need to use the command line ipconfig tool.  If I refresh IP during rain-fade, the router will try, and then give me it's own local IP as the WAN, not useful, and needs to be watched out for.  This could be peculiar to my brand of wireless router, a Pluscom (high signal power, works well).

Alternatively, Windows XP has a right-click 'repair' function available in the settings/network connections/Local Area connection<whatever>, which I find handy because XP loses the WLAN now and then (known problem).  Again, the actual IP has to be checked that it is Skylogic rather than the router's own IP if the link is down.

FAP:
B-W (them again) provides a link to view the current usage stats, as illustrated in replies above.  I find that is a little delayed, but comparing it with figures from BitMeter, accurate.  Hit the limit, you slow down.  Keep going, and you _really_ slow down.  Dial-up would be faster.

Transfer rate:
Not bothered, it's fast enough for me.  Like cable, the headline figure is a burst rate, not sustained.  I have seen over 3Mb/s for, ooh, seconds at a time.  I bought an extra 500MB for some very large downloads.  This was not FAPped, and downloads were smooth and untroubled, though not at 3.6 Mb/s.  As in other threads in this forum, the FAP seems to be the thing that causes a lot of the apparently odd behaviour.

I use an accelerator proxy, which preserves bandwidth enormously.  The penalty is another dozen hops in the path.  This adds to the latency, but doesn't actually make browsing much slower overall.  Only works with text and images, though.  The images are degraded slightly, to a selected level.  So Frits' huge snapshots are not so expensive to view. 

Weather:
We have been having heavy showers.  It gets iffy.  'Normal' rain does not seem to cause any problem, even with a build-up of droplets on the horn cover.  A very fine, vertical, heavy drizzle causes fade as much as the almighty downpour does.  An almighty-downpour cloud, not visibly dropping anything, can also give problems.  Falling snow has not been a problem itself, only the build-up on the feed horn.

I post this because the impression which is being created is that there is something fundamentally wrong with the service, which is not my experience.  YMMV, as is often said.

John

Very well said John and well balanced. But I guess the nature of a forum is people post when they have problems and not when they are happy with the service. Its nice to hear that things are working out for you and you made your points very well.

I find that if people post on a forum their problems it is mostly because they are exasperated by their provider in resolving their issues and are turning to others for help. It is not always a reflection of Tooway performance but more out of desperation for help and advice that their service provider should be providing for them. Please tell the forum if you have a good or bad service provider so future and present Tooway users can avail from your recommendation.

There are many satisfied customers of Tooway, us being one of them as we live/work off grid, have no phone line at all, mobiles only and the mobile dongle are s**t.  To make a phone call we even have to go outside.  Great in the summer to top up your tan but not so good in the winter when its pelting down with rain

In the testing of your system did you obtain the RX and TX signal graphs from your provider.  This will show you exactly what your modem is doing and if the levels are within prescribed limits.

We have several customers who for financial reasons stay on the Basic package but as is normal regularly FAP.  However their connection normally just slows down, the system does not physically throw them off as you are experiencing.  One lady we have was on 120% of her monthly allowance and 81% of her weekly and still online but working very slowly.  This is because your usage is logged on a 4 weekly sliding scale not that you have an allowance and you can use it all in 1 day for example - although I'm probably teaching you to suck eggs here - I apologise if I am.

Anyway I would not just get your usage stats but also get the RX and TX graphs from your provider.  This will show you if either are dropping out for some reason and could indicate a hardware issue.  I feel quite positive that its not your router or laptops.

There has been quite some issues on Ku band over the past few months, and more recently our modem was going on and off like a yo-yo.  However yesterday and today things look stable and I have my usual two laptops running (one with a VPN) with no issues at all.

I really hope you manage to get things sorted soon.

Stephanie
Broadband Algarve.