SatSig topic:

Tooway Speed issues (page 1 of 3)

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Jun 23^rd, 2013 at 1:00pm

Im still a new customer to Satellite so am not fully educated on what to expect.

I've got a speed issue though that I would like some opinions on.

I've got the 20mb down / 6mb up service. These speeds seem readily available but all of a sudden they drop to around 2mb. I've seen this behaviour a few times now and the only way to get them back up to 20mb is to reboot the modem. Is this expected behaviour?

Jun 25^th, 2013 at 10:49pm

no my friend. Is not expected. Maybe your antenna has been moved or bad luck.

Jun 26^th, 2013 at 12:28pm

I've arranged with my provider for them to reinstall the system. Something isnt right because my modem is rebooting on its own occasionally and the speed is fluctuating.

My rx SNR is around 12db.

Jun 27^th, 2013 at 7:18am

Ummmm ok. If not working ask for a modem change. How is working now?

Jun 28^th, 2013 at 3:57pm

An engineer is visiting my site tomorrow to go through the dish installation and swap out the modem. Hopefully that will resolve my disconnection and speed issues.

Jun 29^th, 2013 at 2:19pm

Engineer has been and gone. Dish has been removed from the wall and reinstalled level this time. Much neater job...

A replacement modem has been couriered over from Avonline and speed is consistent now. Looking good so far...

It'll be slower tonight once everyone is back home and surfing for the evening so I will perform another speed check then to see if all is good.

Fingers crossed...

Jul 2^nd, 2013 at 7:18am

My speed issues are still a problem.

Last night my internet connection was terrible. I also noted that my modem went out of sync once in the evening as well.

I believe there is contention issues with the service because the speed issues seem to mainly be a problem in the evenings when everyone is using the service.

Anyone have any tips on what I can do?

Jul 2^nd, 2013 at 11:01am

I have a very good signal, from 11 to 12.2 db...Is a good signal but sometimes, every two days aprox, the modem loose the sync and reconnect automatically, only one tome the modem never sync again and I turned off and on.... I it was fixed. I am learning about this modem and understanding it, but maybe is a "normal" function.

Jul 2^nd, 2013 at 2:31pm

Spoke to my provider over lunch today. It turns out that Tooway were performing maintenance on the spots in my area last night hency my terrible service...

It would have been good to know about this maintenance up front.

Ive been told things should be fine tonight... We will see.

Jul 2^nd, 2013 at 8:48pm

Unfortunately things are no better... My evenings speed test showed 1.65mb down and .3 up!!! Terrible.

This website for instance which is almost completely text loaded very slowly.

Something bad is up with the Tooway system at the moment.

Jul 2^nd, 2013 at 11:10pm

Some time ago I made a speed test download page:
https://www.satsig.net/speed-test/speed-tester.htm
You are welcome to try it. If the results speed up significantly after the first attempt to download the page, then there may be a caching or acceleration feature in the Tooway link.

I updated this satsig forum software (from YaBB 1.3.1 to YaBB 2.5.2) on 5th June 2013 hoping it would improve the speed of page downloads in the forum. Some features, such as "5 recent messages", work very much faster ( 1 second compared with 90 seconds ).

This satsig.net web site is on a cheap shared cloud server system where simple static pages take about 0.22 Seconds to download. (min 0.046 Seconds , max 7.2 Seconds, in last 24 hours, European test sites, using pingdom and page https://www.satsig.net/axiflat.htm ). I'm not sure if this is good, average or bad.

Best regards, Eric.

Jul 3^rd, 2013 at 2:20pm

Spoken to Avonline Broadband again and they said that they have been made aware of a number of Tooway users downloading over a terrabyte of data every month. they also said that Tooway were not controlling this via a FAP

Tooway are meant to be putting these users on a separate switch and rate limiting them.

With this in mind, it would seem that a number of Tooway users should be seeing this low speed problem that I am seeing every evening at the moment... Its meant to have been going on for two weeks!

Jul 3^rd, 2013 at 4:39pm

A downlink Tooway carrier is maybe 68 Mbit/s in clear sky conditions and this capacity is shared by many customers. If you download just one 1500 byte packet, sent via the satellite as one contiguous block, you may well get the full 68 Mbit/s for a moment. The problem is that during a longer period like a whole second, packets need to be send to the many active sites that may all have just clicked to download a web page, youtube video or whatever.

Tooway should manage this capacity and limit traffic bit rates according to tariff paid and rearrange customers to different carriers so that only a limited number of high useage (and high tariff) business customers are assigned to each carrier. Tariffs for shared useage vary from 24.50 for 10 GB per month to 564.50 for 175 GB per month, all "up to" 6/20 Mbit/s up/down. Tariffs are also available for dedicated capacity, both short and long term, such as for TV broadcast feeder links, where slow downs due to congestion must be avoided.

For shared service, it is all well and good selling "up to 20 Mbit/s down" and "up to 6 Mbit/s up", but they should make it clear what average bit rate is likely to be achieved, and what you might be limited to, over periods of time, like 1 minute, 10 minutes, 1 hour, 12 hours, 1 week, 1 month.
Simply expressing the tariff GBytes per month as an overall average kbit/s rate per month would help a lot psychologically.

In the early days of Tooway, there was endless discussion of fair access policies ( FAP ) and the merits of multiple sliding windows of various lengths, multiple traffic amount limits and slow down speeds. All that for each and every tariff. Clever stuff but hard to explain to anyone.

Best regards, Eric

Jul 3^rd, 2013 at 8:45pm

Ran your speed test Eric...

Results below along with some updated speed results from Tooway.

Jul 4^th, 2013 at 10:12am

I am having the same problem, unusable connection in the evening but it's better through the day.

I have logged a fault and awaiting a response.

Chris

Jul 4^th, 2013 at 12:55pm

Keep us posted chris. You are experiencing the same issues as myself and others on this forum but do keep us posted on what is said to you.

Paul.

Jul 4^th, 2013 at 2:32pm

So far I have been asked to connect my laptop directly to the modem and run three speed tests. I completed that last night and was getting consistent 3mb down and 0.21 up. Most webpages wouldn't load and trying to install a 16MB downloaded app on my iPhone took 45 minutes. I pay for 18 and 5.

I am waiting for a response to my support ticket and will let you know. Up until this point, Tooway has been awesome and very robust.

Chris

Jul 4^th, 2013 at 6:50pm

Its standard stuff being asked to bypass your router. Being a techy I personally would never do that because for that short moment your laptop is totally unprotected.

The reason for this test is to see if the router is faulty as can sometimes happen it could cause a slow connection.

Realistically though in this case i'd say they were probably stalling. They know there is an issue and thats that...

Spoke to Adam today and there are still no firm dates on "the fix" being applied.

Tonights speed is typically slow.

Jul 5^th, 2013 at 1:15pm

I have been experiencing the slowdown issues now for over 2 weeks, we are not over using the service but degradation between 4-12pm usually results in the system returning download speeds of 200-400kbps which is ridiculous and unusable.

So far I have been told that a 'fix' is being worked on but nothing has improved, £65 a month for an unlimited service that can't be used in the evenings is a joke.

Jul 5^th, 2013 at 1:19pm

Welcome to the club. Spoken to Avonline a while ago. The are contacting Tooway at the moment for an update and will be coming back to me shortly. I'll update this thread with the results.

Jul 5^th, 2013 at 1:52pm

I have received a response from Bentley Walker and it is far from satisfactory.

"We have checked the site and bandwidth is correctly assigned, but as with all networks, the customer could experience peak speed reduction, above all during peak hours."

"They have pushed down the latest revision of firmware down to your modem however, and would like you to try again. Looking at your tests yesterday it would appear as though the speeds had picked up."

It seemed ok last night after 6pm and was ok this morning when I left.

Mu next door neighbours is still 3 meg down and Bentley Walker has told him that 3 MB is acceptable in peak times. It is in the contract apparently.

Chris

Jul 5^th, 2013 at 1:55pm

Interesting... Can you confirm the revisions of the firmware that has been pushed down please? I will bring this up with my provider.

Jul 5^th, 2013 at 5:35pm

Here is the info, it's working better tonight but still maxing out at 10mb down

Software version UT.1.5.1.0.13

Jul 5^th, 2013 at 6:30pm

Avonline called me this afternoon. Basically there is no real news except that they have been on conference calls with Tooway. Tooway know this issue is affecting many users and are still working on a fix.

I attempted to contact Tooway directly today to ml have a moan but it got me nowhere.

I guess I have a weekend of poor internet access ahead of me.

Jul 6^th, 2013 at 9:22am

I'm in shock! I appear to have good working internet access this morning

Jul 6^th, 2013 at 9:44pm

Service has been up and down today. On the whole its a huge improvement.

This evening I have been seeing reasonable transfer rates which means web pages are loading OK. Not as good as mid day for example but atleast I am seeing data transfer this evening.

Dont think we have seen the end of the troubles yet though

Jul 8^th, 2013 at 12:51pm

Ive had confirmation from my provider that modem software version UT.1.5.1.0.13 is not specifically related to the congestion issues we have all been experiencing. Its actually related to a web browser issue where a given web page attempts multiple IP connections at the same time.

MY provider has agreed to apply it to my modem for test purposes so we will see.

Performance as of now is still up and down depending on time so the congestion issues are still outstanding. Skylogic have received my email complaint and have been in contact with Avonline over the weekend to discuss. At this time there is still no news on a fix though.

Jul 8^th, 2013 at 3:58pm

Modem firmware upgraded to UT_1.5.2.2.3

Will see how that goes...

Jul 9^th, 2013 at 9:33pm

The service is unusable tonight.

Tooway are not reacting quick enough to this ongoing issue.

Jul 10^th, 2013 at 5:48pm

I called Avonline today. Spoke to Adam, was told they would 'have it in writing' in 48 hours what 'the satellite operators' propose to do.

This is not £65 per month service obviously. It certainly looks like an ongoing problem, that will be ongoing for ??.

I am reluctant to give up a good 20mb service but right now quite happy to swap an intermittent 20mb / 0.5mb service for a consistent 3mb service from say BT.

Any cancellation in service would be for the whole installation cost say a proportion of the monthly speed - which at the times i wanted it has been dismal so most of that £65.

Why would anyone put up with this without a change?

One proposal is to take bt broadband at night when service is c**p and avonline at a reduced cost per month for days.

Jul 10^th, 2013 at 5:51pm

Latest speed test

Jul 10^th, 2013 at 7:40pm

I too am suffering over past few days. I have checked and realigned the dish but its made no difference. Tonights test enclosed.

I am on the 20/6/unlimited package but tonight I can't even stream from spotify whilst browsing this forum without it breaking up.

Jul 10^th, 2013 at 7:50pm

Its really bad tonight. I cant even get to the website with the speed probe on it...

Tooway. Anyone listening? Anyone reading this forum? You have a number of unhappy customers!

Jul 10^th, 2013 at 9:33pm

Finally got a speed probe to work. The results aren't good.

Jul 11^th, 2013 at 10:59am

Raised a call with Bentley Walker last night; their reply today;

"Thank you for the update. We are working with the NOC and once we get a reply from them regarding this, I will let you know.
I understand it may be disappointing to hear, but we are expecting the update later this week, or possibly the start of next week now."

Am going to talk to other ISPs about alternative solutions such as leased lines or multiple bonded ADSL lines (even they would be faster than the current situation).

Jul 11^th, 2013 at 1:37pm

Quote:

Raised a call with Bentley Walker last night; their reply today;

"Thank you for the update. We are working with the NOC and once we get a reply from them regarding this, I will let you know.
I understand it may be disappointing to hear, but we are expecting the update later this week, or possibly the start of next week now."

Am going to talk to other ISPs about alternative solutions such as leased lines or multiple bonded ADSL lines (even they would be faster than the current situation).

Maybe we can help you, Hylas a bit more expensive but ...... 100% working without any problem, guaranteed ! Not a single issue over the last 2 years !

The problem there is that a number of us, me included are only 1 month in to a 24 month contract. I also could not see any pricing on your website. Can you point me at a URL detailing this please?

Thanks

Jul 11^th, 2013 at 3:29pm

Quote:

Raised a call with Bentley Walker last night; their reply today;

"Thank you for the update. We are working with the NOC and once we get a reply from them regarding this, I will let you know.
I understand it may be disappointing to hear, but we are expecting the update later this week, or possibly the start of next week now."

Am going to talk to other ISPs about alternative solutions such as leased lines or multiple bonded ADSL lines (even they would be faster than the current situation).

Maybe we can help you, Hylas a bit more expensive but ...... 100% working without any problem, guaranteed ! Not a single issue over the last 2 years !

Thankfully I am out of my 2 year contract so please tell me more (or message me with a number to call you).

Jul 11^th, 2013 at 3:33pm

Quote:

Raised a call with Bentley Walker last night; their reply today;

"Thank you for the update. We are working with the NOC and once we get a reply from them regarding this, I will let you know.
I understand it may be disappointing to hear, but we are expecting the update later this week, or possibly the start of next week now."

Am going to talk to other ISPs about alternative solutions such as leased lines or multiple bonded ADSL lines (even they would be faster than the current situation).

Maybe we can help you, Hylas a bit more expensive but ...... 100% working without any problem, guaranteed ! Not a single issue over the last 2 years !

The problem there is that a number of us, me included are only 1 month in to a 24 month contract. I also could not see any pricing on your website. Can you point me at a URL detailing this please?

Thanks

Remember the sale of goods act - if things are not satisfactory you have the right to reject it. I nearly had to do that in the early days of Tooway when SSL/HTTPS didn't work but thankfully the hardware manufacturers fixed it just in time.

Tooway has worked very well and I have seen speeds of 16Mbps+ all the time, but not in the last 3-4 months alas.

Jul 11^th, 2013 at 4:02pm

Ive had some news from Avonline Broadband.

The issue is with the top 10% of users downloading over 2TB of data per month using peer 2 peer services. Tooway are about to block peer 2 peer traffic that will then resolve the issues we are currently seeing. This is unofficial news at this time so could A.be wrong and B. changed if they find another solution.

In the mean time I am looking in to running an Avanti Hylas installation along side my Tooway service until the issue is resolved.

Jul 11^th, 2013 at 4:11pm

Quote:

Ive had some news from Avonline Broadband.

The issue is with the top 10% of users downloading over 2TB of data per month using peer 2 peer services. Tooway are about to block peer 2 peer traffic that will then resolve the issues we are currently seeing. This is unofficial news at this time so could A.be wrong and B. changed if they find another solution.

In the mean time I am looking in to running an Avanti Hylas installation along side my Tooway service until the issue is resolved.

I've forwarded this to Bentley Walker to see if it agrees with what they hear....

Jul 12^th, 2013 at 8:33am

Either the fix is in place or everyone else was asleep this morning:

Test Date: Jul 12, 2013 7:03:37 am
Connection Type: Wifi
Server: Birmingham
Download: 20510 kbps
Upload: 6075 kbps
Ping: 818 ms

Jul 12^th, 2013 at 6:51pm

and tonight its back to 0.5 down and 0.3 up.

Jul 12^th, 2013 at 7:51pm

same for me too

ive arranged to have the Avanti Hylas system installed on Tuesday. its technically a lower speed system but will be a good comparrison next to Tooway.

fingers crossed its more stable.

Jul 12^th, 2013 at 8:22pm

It seems that the moderator Europe-Satellite is deleting their own posts so the text below is now irrelevant because it was in response to a their post that no longer exists...

The same moderator europe-satellite also had a question directed at them yesterday regarding pricing and they have not responded to that post yet they can post adverts....?

Original post text:-
Can you tell me anything about the service they offer. Speed. Package and so on? I understand the speed figures are technically a lot less than the Too way offering. In your experience how much slower is it?

Jul 12^th, 2013 at 9:19pm

I too tried to contact them for some prices etc but all I can get is emailed datasheets which don't really explain it very well. I was also told Hylas was a 'bit more expensive; but it seems it is considerably more expensive...

Jul 12^th, 2013 at 9:24pm

Ive managed to get some prices out of a few UK web sites WITHOUT giving out any personal info and from what I can see it is a very expensive option in comparison to Tooway. I guess that why everyone goes for Tooway.

It'll be an interesting experience playing with both on Tuesday evening. I will have two wifi routers so I can switch between them both and see whats what...

If I do ditch Tooway it will be a shame really because the 20mb speed is excellent when it works...

Jul 12^th, 2013 at 11:43pm

Either look at the Q Sat website or phone them,by the way what spot beam are you on as I have had no issues like this with Tooway on beam 1

Jul 15^th, 2013 at 11:29am

Latest from Bentley Walker, just received:-

"Bentley Walker have been alerted to behaviour affecting some Tooway customers accessing the service on Beams 23 and 34, where users are experiencing lower than expected performance.

As a reseller of the service Bentley Walker does not control manage or operate the network providing the Tooway service, however we have escalated this issue with Tooway network operators Skylogic-Eutelsat. We are informed that traffic calming measures are in place preventing heavy users from demanding a disproportionate amount of network resources and that works are on-going to address the matter. We are expecting an official communication from Tooway shortly, which will provide further insight and path to resolution.

Bentley Walker continues to monitor and progress the situation with Skylogic-Eutelsat and once updates are available customers will be provided with a further notice via email."

Chris

Jul 15^th, 2013 at 11:46am

im in beam 34 so the information provided appears to be accurate.

Jul 15^th, 2013 at 11:55am

34 for me too.

Jul 15^th, 2013 at 1:56pm

34 - Leicestershire/Derbyshire for me too

Jul 16^th, 2013 at 9:30am

Mornin all, just joined the forum after searching for answers as to why my broadband has been slower than BT ADSL for the past couple of weeks. I have just spoken to Avonline, who are not easy to get hold of when there are problems, they tell me Tooway have initiated measures to fix the problem and we should all see improvements in the 'not too distant future'. The guy would elaborate on what that means but said ring back in a week if nothing has improved. Not impressed with that for customer service. This morning my download speed was a measly 1.6Mb/sec. I can pay a fraction of the price and get that from BT !! will monitor with interest.

Jul 16^th, 2013 at 10:01am

Morning RogerB. Welcome to the club.

Basically, you probably know the score. Tooway have contention issues at the moment with a couple of their spot beams. This is not affecting all Tooway customers, only those inside these two beams.

Tooway are in the process of cutting down on Peer 2 Peer usage that has been the root cause of the problems. There are currently no actual dates on a fix BUT they are working on it right now.

Re Avonline Support... Ive had no issues what so ever when ive been calling them. 0800 1303131 option 2 will get you through to Stuart, Adam or Justin. All of these chaps know whats going on and whilst they will not be able to fix you up right now, they will keep you posted on whats happening.

Keep an eye on this forum thread...

Jul 16^th, 2013 at 10:08am

RogerB, depending on your location in sussex you may be able to see if Avonline will move you to spot beam 22. This beam is not affected.

Jul 16^th, 2013 at 10:49am

Thanks for the info, I am reasonably close to the beam 22 coverage I think, not far from Chichester. If the problem goes on for long I will try asking. I think my issue with Avonline has been caused by the high call rate they are probably experiencing. I don't think I have spoken to the actual support guys this week, who normally are most helpful. I think the call went through a number of 'call forwards' due to the length of time of no answer so I could have been speaking to anyone. The guy did sound stressed. Either way the issue needs to be resolved, I have just recommended the service to a friend who is about to have it installed. It will be embarrassing if the service is slow as BT.

Jul 16^th, 2013 at 10:51am

Thanks for the info, I am reasonably close to the beam 22 coverage I think, not far from Chichester. If the problem goes on for long I will try asking. I think my issue with Avonline has been caused by the high call rate they are probably experiencing. I don't think I have spoken to the actual support guys this week, who normally are most helpful. I think the call went through a number of 'call forwards' due to the length of time of no answer so I could have been speaking to anyone. The guy did sound stressed. Either way the issue needs to be resolved, I have just recommended the service to a friend who is about to have it installed. It will be embarrassing if the service is slow as BT. (Posting this via ADSL as satellite service not responding)

Jul 16^th, 2013 at 10:53am

i'm using the same spot as you are right now and I have service. What are you seeing if you navigate to Code:

https://192.168.100.1

Is your modem connected or is it scanning?

Jul 16^th, 2013 at 1:53pm

Thats interesting, thanks. EVerything looks good from there. I have just done another speediest using the Skylogic portal and I have a download speed of 2.12Mbps and 5.26Mbps upload. The FSNR is 10.6db and the RSNR is 10.5db, so it seems I am still affected by the problem. The better news for the friend I have recommended is he shouldn't be affected hopefully as he is up in Lincolnshire.

Jul 16^th, 2013 at 1:57pm

Actually my firend will be affected as Lincolnshire is in Spot Beam 34

Jul 16^th, 2013 at 1:59pm

Actually my friend will be affected. lincolnshire is under spot beam 34, which an earlier post said is affected. Do you know what has to be done if I want to change to the unaffected spot beam ?

Jul 16^th, 2013 at 2:48pm

Assuming its clear, 10.5 for the RxSnr is a bit low. Saying that, if you're on the edge of the beam its probably acceptable.

Your speed results are similar to mine today. Low down speed and high up speed...

Going back to my other posts re Avanti... I'm having the Avanti Hylas sat system installed right now so hopefully I'll have reasonable internet access tonight. Fingers crossed. This is a stop gap until Tooway are back up to speed.

Jul 16^th, 2013 at 5:56pm

Avanti installed and running.

Took the chap nearly 3 hours because there were issues with the modem. Dish is larger too. Looks like its 80+ cm.

Initial speed checks are OK but not lightening.

Ive got this system for a couple of weeks to see if Tooway resolves things. Fingers crossed.

I will keep this thread updated of any news regarding a resolution to the congestion issues...

Jul 16^th, 2013 at 8:25pm

Done a bit of surfing on the Avanti system and Im not impressed. Getting reasonable results from speed tests but the latency is often over 1000ms.

Typically, the Tooway connection this evening is working at good speed. Below are my evenings Tooway results.

Jul 16^th, 2013 at 8:25pm

Whilst its too early to be sure the problem is fixed, its certainly considerably better tonight. When I ran the speedtest earlier I was getting 26Mbps down and 5.6Mbps up. Later this eve I was getting 9d/5u.

Much more realistic and like the good old days.

Jul 16^th, 2013 at 10:10pm

I got one hour this evening of a better speed, but only up to 10Mbps. It is now back to sub 2Mbps so fed up, again !

Jul 16^th, 2013 at 10:37pm

Average Download Speed: 23911 kbps (2988.9 KB/sec transfer rate)
Average Upload Speed: 5521 kbps (690.1 KB/sec transfer rate)

Tuesday the 16th of July, 2013 22:34

Jul 17^th, 2013 at 12:30am

Really? Much better than me then ... 1194 and 2129 indicated by speedprobe, much less when using other tests

Jul 17^th, 2013 at 7:13am

Test Date: Jul 17, 2013 7:07:05 am
Connection Type: Wifi
Server: Birmingham
Download: 20.69 Mbps
Upload: 6.29 Mbps
Ping: 732 ms

Jul 17^th, 2013 at 8:20am

At last I have a proper speed test result, is anybody else seeing better results?

Jul 17^th, 2013 at 8:24am

Quote:

Test Date: Jul 17, 2013 7:07:05 am
Connection Type: Wifi
Server: Birmingham
Download: 20.69 Mbps
Upload: 6.29 Mbps
Ping: 732 ms

Don't test a system using a WiFi connection. Connect a computer DIRECT (Cable) to the modem.

You cant just say dont.. Ad some substance to it fella...

Jul 17^th, 2013 at 8:51am

Mine is good this morning (20.37 down, 5.42 up) but it was the same yesterday and soon started declining. I will keep an eye on it. I don't start the day well if I run a test and the download speed is sub 2Mbps, how sad is that ?

Jul 17^th, 2013 at 8:59am

Quote:

Test Date: Jul 17, 2013 7:07:05 am
Connection Type: Wifi
Server: Birmingham
Download: 20.69 Mbps
Upload: 6.29 Mbps
Ping: 732 ms

Don't test a system using a WiFi connection. Connect a computer DIRECT (Cable) to the modem.

Pardon?

Please elaborate...

I consider my network to be very robust and reliable so I see no reason why testing over wifi would cause false results. I use the industry standard Speedtest app on my Android cellphone (connected via a new 5GHz AP/router and a 5GHz repeater elsewhere in the house) for quick tests and these always agree with the throughput seen on my Mac Pro connected on a wired 1GBps connection or my Macbook pro via 5GHz wifi.

Furthermore the SNMP monitor on my router confirms the results seen via the Speedtest app and the Skylogic speedtest website. The only reason I don't use the Skylogic speed test website on my cellphone is it doesn't work.

I appreciate there may be some caching on my router which may skew repeated tests but all the tests so far have agreed with my experience when actually browsing, sending email or FTP etc. I have been running the skylogic speed tests as often as I can so that a database of results are recorded by Skylogic that my ISP can use to validate any claims of poor performance.

For those users who are not IT profficent then I can see the advantages of eliminating as much of the internal LAN as possible to avoid it introducing any latency/ bottlenecks, but in my case neither applies - I frequently see over 400-500Mpbs across my LAN between devices.

Furthermore, I think you need to add a VERY large warning whenever you/ISPs suggest people connect their PCs directly to their modems that they are connected directly to an unfiltered connection on a public/dirty IP. So unless they are running a robust software firewall with all the latest updates and really understand what they are doing, it present a significant risk to them.

If you know differently then I am always willing to learn please.

Regards

Simon

(btw, don't let my signature mislead you. Whilst I do have my own Wedding photography business, I am also a senior Windows Server and Virtualisation Specialist with 20+ years of experience of IT at a Server/ Enterprise level).

Jul 17^th, 2013 at 9:02am

I have been testing for days morning, noon and night, the speeds have been under 1 mbps so I am starting the day in a good mood today, crossing fingers legs and arms!

Will test throughout the day, I am on the Orange beam 2

Jul 17^th, 2013 at 3:08pm

News today, after waiting for 'should have a reply in 48 hours'.

I am on unlimited and as such, I am in the high user category, apparently managing to use 60gb in last 4 weeks despite not being able to use the service in the evenings. I think usage was 70gb? Thats between a family that watches catch up tv in standard definition in the evenings .... nothing else.

As a 'high user' i am put into a 'pipe' along with all the other high users and ooo the reduced (to unusable) speeds are reasonable because of that.

Advice - use less gb per month.

But I'm on unlimited? Guaranteed 90% of 20mb speeds?

But other users on capped limits are getting the same restriction?

So apparently i'm on severely limited, unlimited, with a guaranteed speed of 2% headline rate for the bargain sum of £65

Must tell my friends

Jul 17^th, 2013 at 3:34pm

Quote:

News today, after waiting for 'should have a reply in 48 hours'.

But I'm on unlimited? Guaranteed 90% of 20mb speeds?

90%of 20Mbps? Where did this come from please? I've not seen any guarantees on speeds (as I would expect) through Bentley Walker.

Simon

Jul 17^th, 2013 at 5:18pm

I signed up to a service since which have changed terms, the present terms are not those that I signed up for.

I subscribed to a service where the sales agent said 'we often achieve more than 20mb but we have to say we'll achieve 90% because of the legals'

I am often, like others, receiving less than 1mb, I can't use iplayer on this. I wanted a service that was better than my previous one through conventional broadband, I am receiving an inferior speed.

Fap? I have been told previously that 'you're on unlimited do you're alright' 'say 100gb, you're not a heavy user' 'it's all those people downloading a terabyte spooling it for the rest of you'

The terms have changed to suit the outcome. My usage hasn't changed, the excuses have.

I buy a car capable of 100mph, complain it only does 5mph and get told its ok because we said it does UP TO 100mph and you're a guy that does lots of miles so we're putting you in a car park with the other high mileage drivers

Jul 17^th, 2013 at 5:56pm

Since this web site started, in 1999, I have always asked anyone featuring their service to avoid the use of the word 'unlimited' unless the sharing ratio is 1:1 i.e. dedicated continuous information rate such as might be provided by a pair of SCPC carriers.
An example Ku band service was 800kbit/s down and 200kbit/s up, price $5000 per month.

With the advent of satellites with very small spot beams, and configured to provide a star network, it is claimed that the cost has come down significantly, assume $1000 per Mbit/s per month or $20,000 for 20 Mbit/s.

How does this match up with shared service on Tooway?.

Tooway limits the upper speed for downloads, per second, and advertises "up to 20 Mbit/s".

Also, it has limits for download amounts per 4 weeks, e.g. 10 Gbytes to 175 Gbytes, so the average download speed over 4 weeks is far less than 20 Mbit/s.
e.g.
!0 Gbytes = 33 kbit/s
100 Gbytes = 330 kbit/s

Pricing more or less proportional to amounts downloaded, approx £3.20 per Gbyte.

At the start of the Tooway service customers has multiple Mbyte quantity limits: per hour, 4 hours, 1 day, 7 days, 4 weeks. These sliding windows (5 min increments) were different for each tariff.

Image: A "difficult to understand" FAP status display of a Tooway site in 2008.

It made good sense engineering wise, but I suspect very few customers or reseller sales people understood. Customer experience was unexpected slow downs (due to excess useage) and they got annoyed, waiting for a sliding window to expire, which might be several days ahead. Providing the customers with on-line graphs, like above, didn't seem to help much.

In recent years the FAP system was simplified somewhat, and the amounts allowed greatly increased.

Well, we now have them offering "up to 20 Mbit/s". It will no doubt help to sell terminals but it needs to be qualified by a clear Fair Access Policy (FAP) so that customer expectations are not raised unduly.

Just one time window, a day, combined with a free-for all period from midnight till 6am, works well in Afghanistan (BW Hughes HN network).

In my opinion satellites should not be used for video streaming, catch up TV etc, on a per single end user basis. Satellites are fine for multidestination TV broadcast where the big cost is spread over all simultaneous receive sites.

Best regards, Eric.

Jul 17^th, 2013 at 6:54pm

Problem is though Eric, we're just using the service thats been sold to us by the resellers. On Avonlines website one of their Tooway related headline is Think iPlayer, online movies, music & Skype are out of reach? Think Again. Up to 20Mbps download speeds with UNLIMITED data downloads means more choice than ever before. Everywhere across the UK. NOW!

Ive also reportedly downloaded over 70gb in my first months use. This was mainly down to a load of computer updates spread across a families worth of computers so I guess next months figures will be lower.

Ive not had official word from Avonline yet and im using my free Avanti system for a while whilst the Tooway stuff is sorted out. The message I was given was that the tooway issues were down to some users downloading terabytes of data per month. I'm not sure how these people are able to get a fast enough service to do this though...

Jul 17^th, 2013 at 7:58pm

My speeds are back to normal, I rang Avonline and they assured me that I was not being throttled in anyway, so it seems that the problems with the tooway system are fixed, can anybody else confirm

Jul 17^th, 2013 at 8:01pm

What package are you on? Also you're meant to be throttled once you reach 50% of usage - be interesting to see how they define 50% of 'unlimited' as a policy should be applied equally across the board

Jul 17^th, 2013 at 8:04pm

I was told there is no throttling on the unlimited package.

Test Date: Jul 17, 2013 20:05
Download: 18.31 Mbps
Upload: 3.80 Mbps
Ping: 788 ms
Connection Type: Wi-Fi
Server: Milton Keynes

Jul 17^th, 2013 at 9:31pm

Was told by Adam today. This means that I am destined for crap speeds and by definition if all such 'high users' are in the same group / restriction then surely it gets worse than the experience so far?

Jul 17^th, 2013 at 10:12pm

Here's my synopsis of today: download speed has been great all day (circa 20Mbps). This evening it dropped to 4Mbps and has stayed there. I am a light but picky user. My usage doesn't even show on the Skylogic chart. At the speeds I have been getting lately there is not enough time in a month to become a heavy consumer of data. I might as well go back to ADSL, at least its cheaper.

Jul 18^th, 2013 at 12:01pm

Hi everyone, Im a new customer of avonline/tooway, we had our system installed yesterday. I live in a small village in north nottinghamshire which is probably never gonna get 'superfast broadband' from bt or any other terrestrial provider.

I just wanna say after reading these forums which did begin to put me off tooway as a satellite broadband provider because of all the problems you guys have been having with your systems i find the system works well, we chose the unlimited absolute package with 20mbps down and 6mbps up and since activation the speed has been very up and down. fluctuation between 12 and 20mpbs.

does the system take a day or two to level out and provide a more constant speed? or a more steady connection, i havnt suffered any modem disconnects but the speed stream does seem very unsettled. will rebooting the modem fix this problem?

Thanks, hope you guys can answer my questions.

Jul 18^th, 2013 at 12:14pm

Hi there.. Welcome to the club. Firstly, dont be put off by the recent speed related issues.. Every provider be it wireless, cabled, firbre or satellite suffers issues like this every so often.

Ive been speaking with Avonline today regarding the recent speed issues. Basically, Tooway have had to put in some restrictions on the service to keep things moving for everyone.

Users transferring 60gb of data in a 4 week period automatically have their service put on to a slightly limited port between the hours of 16:00 > 00:00. This keeps them separated from the other low users with the view that it'll keep the majority going.

I personally feel that 60gb within a 4 week period is a bit low and i have put this forward to Avonline in the hope that they will feed this back to Tooway.

If you are below the 60gb limit you will not see any issues. A speed fluctuation you mentioned is perfectly normal as the system loads up with users during peak times. Remember, the speeds mentioned by your provider are quoted as "UPTO"

I have asked Avonline for a web based portal where high users can keep an eye on their usage to see if they will get pushed in to the same port as other high end users. They said that this was not currently available but would see what they could do.

Interestingly, last night I was in the same port as the other high end users having downloaded 76gb in the last 4 weeks and my service was perfectly usable last night.

I have expressed concern that the terms of the unlimited package have obviously changed and that a 60gb limit is probably a bit low. I know its not the end of the world because this separate port does not necesserally mean we're off the grid for the evening.

Mixed bag.

Jul 18^th, 2013 at 12:30pm

ahh okay thats fine. i do agree that the UNLIMITED package should be as advertised and not have any usage limits this is false advertising and tooway should not be hiding this from new customers because all the information on all the tooway reseller websites do say that the absolute package is totally UNLIMITED and also on the tooway website themselves. i do not really notice the latency effect that some people seem to have a problem with and i understand that the system does and will slow down as the more users go online during the peak period. i wasnt sure how my system was performing as it is a new install. Thanks for giving me the info.

Jul 18^th, 2013 at 3:03pm

I agree re false advertising and its that advertising that's created these problems.

I do believe there should be some form of limit though. A stepped approach where if someone is on the top package, the first 50gb are at 100% of available speed. the next 50gb are at 50% of maximum speed and after that its reduced accordingly.

Thats just off the top of my head and little thought has gone in to it so don't flame me...

Jul 18^th, 2013 at 3:03pm

If anyone has suggestions for clearer wording, please email Avonline.

If this give a graphical result please copy the image, and upload it here or send it to me.

Munger. Your stepped idea is good and welcome. The trouble is that sales people have difficulty revealing that what they are selling has limitations. As indicated earlier I have almost banned the word 'unlimited' on this website (for more than 10 years) to avoid misleading new customers.
Any shared VSAT system does not provide an unlimited service. A shared service is limited by the fact that multiple users are sharing the same total capacity.

Best regards, Eric.

Jul 18^th, 2013 at 3:13pm

The status page just shows "default" on the absolute package and you don't get to see what you've downloaded at all. I have requested this be made available so that the end user can monitor.

Below is a .jpg of my portal. I've removed my mac address and current IP address.

Jul 18^th, 2013 at 9:42pm

Tonight the service is very poor for me. Portal speed tests indicate an acceptable transfer rate but real world surfing is failing. Im seeing DNS related time outs and a flash update my computer is trying to download is failing completely.

VERY unimpressed with the fix that has been put in place.

Jul 18^th, 2013 at 10:06pm

I'm having alot of problems with Dns time outs too I've had to restart my router twice and my modem once to correct the issue but browsing is very slow tonight

Jul 18^th, 2013 at 10:16pm

I know its not my pc. If I switch to the loan Avanti sat system all is fine.

Interestingly, Avanti is only offering me 5mb down, 1 up but its like that all of the time and appears to not be affected by load or the time of day...

Just wish I could afford to switch to Avanti permanently.

Jul 18^th, 2013 at 10:51pm

Just out of interest, I noted that their FAP has been updated in the last few days. See the Wayback Machine

(I can't post the link as this is my first post, but type 'Wayback Machine' in Google and then paste the Tooway FAP Url in the search box)

No mention of P2P in there then...

I have no particular love of P2P, but I think Avonline (not Skylogic, I didn't buy from them) would have a very hard time defending some of their claims under Consumer Law if it came to that.

But I am assuming it won't. All ISP's go through this kind of thing from time to time. I'm a 'normal' user paying for a premium service (Unlimited) that I use as designed and sold (streaming films, surfing the net, catch-up TV). I don't need 20MBs to do this, just something fit for purpose and I hope common sense & normality prevail in due course.

Jul 18^th, 2013 at 10:53pm

Or click this

Jul 20^th, 2013 at 2:24pm

Hi everyone I think you all should check out this page from ruralbroadband.co.uk which they posted on their blog yesterday.

I tried emailing Avonline to find out what they knew and how it effects us customers on the UNLIMITED package and they read the email but never replied typical eh? Well I will keep bombarding them with emails until I get an answer

Jul 20^th, 2013 at 2:47pm

Not surprised really. The last three weeks have demonstrated how an unlimited service offering can fail.

Will be interesting to see what our ISP's say. Keep us posted...

It's interesting to note that this site is openly offering status updates on the Tooway service whereas no information what so ever seems to come out of my provider unless you call them post issue...

Jul 20^th, 2013 at 4:10pm

Quote:

Not surprised really. The last three weeks have demonstrated how an unlimited service offering can fail.

Will be interesting to see what our ISP's say. Keep us posted...

They can not say anything, it is Skylogic who make the rules.

Don't blame any re-seller, this is pointless and a waist of time.

I'm not blaming my reseller at all. Avonline have been great for me through out all of the recent Tooway speed issues.

My comment above was in relation to how the contract for existing users on absolute as its know will work going forward and how Avonline may have to change the contract...

Jul 20^th, 2013 at 4:19pm

Quote:

They can not say anything, it is Skylogic who make the rules.

Don't blame any re-seller, this is pointless and a waist of time.

Ah, but my contract is with the re-seller, not Skylogic. If there is a breach, I pursue the re-seller not Skylogic. It is the duty of Avonline etc to protect themselves against anything their provider may or may not do. From a legal point of view Skylogic may as well not exist.

Jul 20^th, 2013 at 4:21pm

is anyone else having issues accessing websites using your tooway broadband, yet again it seems like there are DNS server issues. i have tried contacting avonline technical support and all im getting is voicemail, so i tired calling the sales line to try and speak to somebody and im getting an O2 Voicemail. im getting a bit sick of these issues ive only had my system installed since wednesday and and the dns has gone down twice. please can you guys report if you are having issues too?

Jul 21^st, 2013 at 12:33am

I have issues for sure! Slow all day for past two days.

Tonight two speedtests - their own says I am getting 20mb, bbc and real world results says I'm not.

Before any 'well bbc test isn't etc etc' .... Avonline told me to use bbc test

So you tell me how these can be so different.

As stated before, my contract is with Avonline, I have not been notified of any changes to policy or terms since I signed up. My contract was formed during a telephone call, it was stated that the speed was 20mb and the data package was unlimited, it has also been stated at a later date that i am not a high user.

This is a production line of excuses to fit the circumstances.

No matter what is said, we are still having problems.