SatSig topic:

New KA-Sat (Tooway) - abnormally high latency

(Read 9283 times)

Jul 9^th, 2011 at 6:55pm

Hi,

I bought the new KA-Sat service from Toowaydirect (Avonline) for my mother, who lives in deepest Devon, a couple of weeks ago. The service hasn't lived up to my expectations to say the least, and I could do with a bit of advice.

In short: slow browsing, fast downloads. I know this is typical of satellite connections, and I completely understand that the satellite has to send tonnes of tiny TCP/IP packets from earth to space and back every second. But nevertheless, the level of service seems extremely poor.

For example, there are times when there's no throughput whatsoever. Nothing. Turning the modem off and back on does the trick - I've been visiting for about 24 hours and have cycled the power four times. This surely can't be right.

Connecting a laptop directly to the modem by ethernet doesn't work either. It doesn't want to give out an IP.

The main problem though is simply browsing. It can take 30 seconds or more for a page to load. I just tried hotukdeals.com (stop laughing!) and it sat there, waiting to load, for 35 seconds. Once it had done its DNS lookup, it came through quite quickly, but surely this can't be right?

Couple of traceroutes below. The second hop is always a major problem.

I'm also astonished that there is no way to login to the modem to check for signal status, or *any* diagnostic tools such as s/n ratios or even basic throughput stats.

// inserted by forum admin...
Please try typing 192.168.100.1 into the browser address bar to see modem status //

Can anyone tell me if this is how it's meant to be? I thought the KA-Sat was meant to reduce latency, not average 700ms per request!

Help much appreciated

Will

Traceroute has started…

traceroute to hotukdeals.com (80.64.63.70), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets
1 hukdlbwb01.hotukdeals.com (80.64.63.70) 1.321 ms 1.151 ms 1.902 ms
2 * * *
3 * 10.130.130.9 (10.130.130.9) 2121.109 ms 1227.738 ms
4 10.130.130.163 (10.130.130.163) 887.069 ms 1277.235 ms 1331.562 ms
5 88-202-127-98.ip.skylogicnet.com (88.202.127.98 ) 2763.363 ms 1961.073 ms *
6 10.130.2.17 (10.130.2.17) 713.684 ms 716.678 ms 659.353 ms
7 10.130.2.42 (10.130.2.42) 774.262 ms 716.158 ms 716.861 ms
8 10.130.2.50 (10.130.2.50) 718.947 ms 714.264 ms 715.877 ms
9 10.130.1.22 (10.130.1.22) 818.568 ms 819.023 ms 716.849 ms
10 ae0-201.fra20.ip4.tinet.net (77.67.90.29) 1199.307 ms 716.523 ms 863.755 ms
11 * xe-7-1-0.lon25.ip4.tinet.net (89.149.185.193) 1963.161 ms 770.830 ms
12 * control-circle-gw.ip4.tinet.net (213.200.78.218 ) 1349.120 ms 819.591 ms
13 80.64.48.70.controlcircle.com (80.64.48.70) 716.363 ms 716.197 ms 716.827 ms
14 hukdlbwb01.hotukdeals.com (80.64.63.70) 716.760 ms 715.713 ms 716.912 ms

Traceroute has started…

traceroute: Warning: google.com has multiple addresses; using 209.85.148.99
traceroute to google.com (209.85.148.99), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets
1 fra07s07-in-f99.1e100.net (209.85.148.99) 8.937 ms 0.995 ms 0.893 ms
2 * * *
3 10.130.130.9 (10.130.130.9) 781.844 ms 694.204 ms 653.258 ms
4 10.130.130.163 (10.130.130.163) 677.058 ms 701.541 ms 1038.637 ms
5 88-202-127-98.ip.skylogicnet.com (88.202.127.98 ) 816.733 ms 714.473 ms 717.199 ms
6 10.130.2.17 (10.130.2.17) 718.106 ms 738.563 ms 687.542 ms
7 10.130.1.10 (10.130.1.10) 811.502 ms 714.610 ms 718.070 ms
8 10.130.2.45 (10.130.2.45) 715.341 ms 702.510 ms 716.832 ms
9 10.130.1.18 (10.130.1.18 ) 717.305 ms 698.314 ms 736.758 ms
10 google.franceix.net (193.105.232.2) 698.664 ms 701.673 ms 796.692 ms
11 72.14.238.228 (72.14.238.228 ) 715.512 ms 974.332 ms 716.967 ms
12 209.85.248.95 (209.85.248.95) 709.333 ms 716.031 ms 714.409 ms
13 209.85.254.41 (209.85.254.41) 705.821 ms 692.762 ms
209.85.254.57 (209.85.254.57) 680.225 ms
14 fra07s07-in-f99.1e100.net (209.85.148.99) 712.699 ms 686.663 ms 679.853 ms

Jul 9^th, 2011 at 8:06pm

Copy all this to Avonline, saying you are dissatisfied. Tell them everything that may help. They will need to collate it with other customer reports and forward it all to Skylogic Italy and then chase them till it is resolved. It may take some time so you need to be determined and not give up. Remember it is a learning experience for them, even if they have been practicing with Ku band Tooway. Skylogic can't resolve problems if they don't know about them - so the more problem reports going all the way to them the better.

You should not need to reboot the modem 4 times a day.

Ask for explanation of the tracert.

The initial step is odd. I've never seen the final destination shown at step 1. The next steps *** look wrong also. Not sure of the cause but this could be your PC interface configuration. Are you using the DNS servers recommended by Skylogic ?

I wonder also why the routing starts in 10.x.x.x which is private address space, then goes to skylogic (italy) public address space and then back to private address space (4 hops) - bizarre.

This need sorting out. Please report here when resolved and give the new tracert.

Please would others with Tooway KA-SAT report on their tracert. Go to start, all programs, accessories, command prompt and type tracert hotukdeals.com in the black command prompt window. In the black window do right click, select all, return, and paste (control v) into this forum.

KA-SAT cannot reduce latency - the latency of satellite links is fixed by the distance divided by the speed of light. KA-SAT has however significantly reduced the cost of VSAT satellite service for a given bit rate/Mbytes downloaded.

The Tooway Surfbeam modem has in the past been severely deficient with regards to non-display of the download satellite carrier signal quality. All the information exists inside the modem and is regularly sent to the hub where graphical charts are accessible. Ask Avonline if they can get you this graphical output. e.g:

Best regards, Eric

Jul 9^th, 2011 at 9:22pm

Thanks for the reply, Eric. Valid points. I've mailed Avonline and will let you know the outcome. You're spot on about the private IP range, and the weird "loop" from remote site, back to skylogic and out again. Makes no sense.

Do those timings on the traceroute look poor to you? (1000ms, 600ms, etc)

Jul 10^th, 2011 at 9:32am

Timings look fairly normal to me.

When web browsing via satellite expect an initial two to three seconds delay followed by the web page loading. The time taken for total page load could be in the order of 10 to 20 seconds or more, depending on the complexity of the page such as the number and size of embedded image files etc.

Best regards, Eric.

Jul 14^th, 2011 at 9:27pm

Eric, I think I have some of the problems described but hey, I'm 67 years old and I don't know how to perform a traceroute, let alone make any sense of it when it's done. So I would have trouble taking the matter up with Skylogic. Aren't ordinary dumb chaps supposed to use satellite? It almost seems as if you need a degree to understand it. Is there help for the likes of me?
Regards, Colin

What a whinger! I'm only half as daft as I thought I was . I looked up tracert, used it and got this. Is it bad, if so, how bad?
Tracing route to eu-fp.wa1.b.yahoo.com [87.248.112.181]

over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 * * * Request timed out.
2 * * * Request timed out.
3 1730 ms 700 ms 698 ms 10.130.130.9
4 683 ms 680 ms 679 ms 10.130.130.163
5 678 ms 681 ms 677 ms 88-202-127-98.ip.skylogicnet.com [88.202.127.98]
6 676 ms 680 ms 679 ms 10.130.2.17
7 698 ms 718 ms 719 ms 10.130.1.10
8 717 ms 719 ms 720 ms 10.130.2.45
9 1838 ms 680 ms 679 ms 10.130.1.18
10 798 ms 709 ms 770 ms 195.81.51.225
11 687 ms 1114 ms 709 ms ae0-0.par-gar-score-1-re0.interoute.net [212.23.42.25]
12 708 ms 719 ms 719 ms ae1-0.lon-004-score-1-re0.interoute.net [212.23.42.22]
13 718 ms 720 ms 719 ms ge-1-1-0.pat1.the.yahoo.com [195.66.224.129]
14 727 ms 750 ms 729 ms so-0-0-0.pat1.irz.yahoo.com [66.196.65.33]
15 707 ms 717 ms 719 ms ae-1.msr1.ird.yahoo.com [66.196.67.231]
16 737 ms 710 ms 719 ms te-7-4.bas-b2.ird.yahoo.com [87.248.101.105]
17 736 ms 719 ms 720 ms ir1.fp.vip.ird.yahoo.com [87.248.112.181]

Trace complete.

Regards....

Jul 15^th, 2011 at 5:38pm

Best of luck with getting a fast response from Avonline - the problems with our KU band took almost 10 months to resolve ...

try Pingplotter

its a free (onemonth) package that will show path, and latency and plot it on a graph thats very easy to email.

Ian H

2 weeks now on KA band and very happy - though the latency has slightly increased 600ms to 700ms

Jul 17^th, 2011 at 7:06pm

The modem status is available using 192.168.100.1, once your PC or router has connected to it.

I have been using the new system since the start of July, self-installed. It replaced a system using the old Ka service. also self-installed, and in my opinion it works much better. It is hardly affected by rain at all. Link speeds are higher. Early on I did a 99MB download which averaged 750kBytes/second. Even without adding in the protocol overheads, that meets the advertised 6Mbps rate.

I have not noticed any increase in latency - and that includes going via a compression proxy somewhere else on the planet. But I haven't bothered to measure it.

In the last couple of days, the modem did show odd behaviour twice. Although the link was working fine, as shown on the modem status page, the internet was not there. At first I thought 'rain in Turin', but there was no rain there. A power cycle fixed it. I wonder if there was a firmware update, and this left it in limbo. It's working perfectly now, and we have some miserable weather at the moment.

I was happy with the old system, and had terrible buyer-regret when I got this one. I have no regrets now.

Regards, John

Jul 17^th, 2011 at 7:21pm

Eric,

My modem status page gives its IP as a 10.x.x.x address. It seems static. The first hop contains most of the outgoing delay, and Skylogic adds little.

Regards, John

Jul 18^th, 2011 at 11:54am

My website access is slow. This is a section of a trace route again:

Tracing route to eu-fp.wa1.b.yahoo.com [87.248.112.181]

over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 * * * Request timed out.
2 * * * Request timed out.
3 1730 ms 700 ms 698 ms 10.130.130.9
4 683 ms 680 ms 679 ms 10.130.130.163
5 678 ms 681 ms 677 ms 88-202-127-98.ip.skylogicnet.com [88.202.127.98]

...anyone? I always get the two time-outs at the start whichever site I trace, but I don't know their significance. While the tracert is running they each take about 10 seconds to time-out.
Colin

Jul 18^th, 2011 at 5:27pm

I think the two initial lines of timeouts are nothing to worry about. I guess that Skylogic/Viasat have set their equipment so that it does not give out ICMP error messages, which is what tracert needs to make tracert work. It would be nice if they fixed it, simply to make the customers happy, but it won't actually make any difference to the service.

Regarding further down the tracert I wonder why the routing leaves the private address space 10.130.xxx.xxx, goes to the public IP address 88-202-127-98.ip.skylogicnet.com and then back into the private address space 10.130.xxx.xxx before finally leaving into the public internet. I've never seen that before. Strange.

Best regards, Eric.

Jul 18^th, 2011 at 6:50pm

Thank you Eric. Ummm... you say "strange". I don't know enough to know that it is strange. Is there any further investigation I should do?
Colin

Jul 18^th, 2011 at 8:06pm

Colin, you say "My website access is slow.".

I would ignore the tracert for the moment and do some tests on speed.

Try some speed testers and tell us what results you get.
My speed tester is https://www.satsig.net/speed-test/speed-tester.htm

How long does it take to download a large pdf document ? Time it and calculate the speed.

It may well be that your download speeds are entirely normal and unremarkable.

If very slow then you may have been throttled due to excessive downloading recently. Ask your service provider for your FAP status.

If you have not been throttled and are still very slow then there must be something the matter. Don't suffer in silence but tell your service provider so that such reports can be put together and maybe solved.
wxw
Best regards, Eric.

Aug 21^st, 2011 at 7:34pm

Eric, I think that my problems with accessing websites may be to do with Firefox and Google pre-fetches. Is there a known problem with these combined with satellite latency? To this end I was looking for a search-engine without all that rubbish and I came across yours, which seems to work well. However, you don't seem to suggest that there is anything about it that bypasses problems with Google. Nevertheless, I am not getting all the "Server not founds" that had been happening, so I wondered if you'd written something in specifically to avoid hiccups? Regards, Colin