Managed Network Advice

[Glen_I]

That's much simpler description thanks.

 

@corsechris Funny you mention Zoom/Team being busy. The first day when the kids were at home with online schooling my eldest daughter kept saying Teams isn't working properly but I did think they are probably overwhelmed and a quick Google search that morning did indeed highlight it was a nationwide issue and come about 11:00 that morning it was all stable and working again. 

 

Thanks again for the reply

[Blatman]

10 hours ago, a15cro said:

This may be the last installment for a while.

 

After my little win, I had a go at converting an old BT Hub6 to a wireless access point, which seems to work, and reinstated my Power line kit to give it another shot. I've ended up with a number of networks that pop up now. Can I rename them all the same with the same password?

 

 

 

Yes

[Blatman]

And with regards to speed tests etc, I find that whole thing a bit odd.

Customer does a speed test and the results are "slow", or at least slower than customer expectation.

Customer phones ISP and says so.

ISP says we don't trust the speed test sites to be accurate or they won't accept them as "evidence", and puts the customer through a whole battery of tests. Most of the time these tests don't really do very much other than waste time in the hope that the "fault" clears itself in the mean-time.

And yet there is the raised possibility that the ISP's are prioritising these speed test sites. Personally I doubt that very much. If they were prioritising them then surely they would be giving a better speed than if they weren't. If this was the case and a customer reports a "slow" speed then it really should be accepted as slow because if a prioritised site is slow, the rest of it could be even slower...

 

Then there is another process that rarely gets mentioned. Over and above the speed tests and the speeds that we are told our devices can achieve, there is something called TCP windowing. I won't bore you with the technicals. Suffice to say this can impact "internet speed" as well and unless one is monitoring the actual live traffic with Wireshark, TCP windowing goes completely un-noticed yet it can have an effect on the user experience.

 

Then there are the error messages like Chris mentions. Remember they are "simply" a piece of text written into the machne probramming that when a particualr set of circumstances is met, the error is displayed. But they are generally not to be trusted. However most folks, being non-technical, panic and start doing all the usual things which is not their fault, but frustrating when "we" turn up to fault find only to find it's an issue waaaaay outside of our control.

 

I really could (and have...) ramble on for hours. I used to teach networking a long time ago... Been a field engineer for the last 11 years though so I see customers with these problems every day.

[corsechris]

I admit I’m deeply cynical. Giving speed test sites a bit of a hand would deal with a very large number of issues folk have. Internet slow. Visit speed test site of choice, get a decent result, conclude it must just be something else and not the ISP, don’t bother the ISP, then, as these things often do, normal service is resumed as the bottleneck de jour clears.

 

Just a bit of headology rather than outright flimflam.

 

Just a feeling, no evidence.

[Rhett Turner - Black Country AO]

7 hours ago, Ian Kinder (Bagpuss) - Joint Peak District AO said:

Bandwidth is like comparing a 10 lane Yankee freeway with a narrow uk single track back lane 

and a single track back lane is quite adequete when you're the only one using it in an ordinary car, starts to get a bit problematic as your vehicle increase in size and even more problematics as more vehicles or different sizes use it traveling multiple directions.

Oh and the multi lane freeway does not have a barrier so driving on the left or right does not apply. Every one wants to drive quickly and it which ever lane they wish or multiple lanes when the vehicle is large enough. 

[Ian Kinder (Bagpuss) - Joint Peak District AO]

Further to the great advise above. I've just bought this and I'm well impressed! TP link Deco M4

 

The last time I looked at this sort of kit it was 3 times the price!

 

I was using my Virgin Superhub as the router and a wifi point with another two wireless access points around the house (all 3 with the same SSID). The family would regularly moan about poor wifi and didn't understand as you move around the house your phone doesn't automatically connect to the strongest signal etc. 

 

The Virgin Superhub is no longer the router or a wifi point (It's in Modem mode). I set the TP Link mesh to the same SSID and password as before (hence all devices remember their network settings from previously). The TP Link set-up software is great and it was all quickly configured.

 

I'm on a 100MB fibre to street connections and can hit 110MB on speedtests from my PC.

 

We can now hit 50-100MB with wifi on phones in most places around the house and the devices move from room to room with no drop in signal/performance etc.

 

 

 

 

[Glen_I]

53 minutes ago, Ian Kinder (Bagpuss) - Joint Peak District AO said:

Further to the great advise above. I've just bought this and I'm well impressed! TP link Deco M4

That is exactly what I got and same as you, I switched off the wireless function on the virgin hub, I then added a Deco M5 which is 60ft away in my garage and I can nearly get 30mb down there (plenty good enough to watch amazon and netflix on the tv in there!)

 

Had it for nearly a year and has been great and that's with 4 of us in the house working from home and home schooling.

 

Our house is 1930's with solid walls so I was a little dubious at first but really does work.

[Andy - a15cro]

I think I will look into this. So far since the other night when I set up the BT Hub as a wireless access point and the power lines again the family have been more stable..........lol sorry that should say WiFi!

 

ive managed to get the living room network cables in and now Sky Q has stabilised as well. 
 

the problem I’ve hit now is making some temporary cables last night and after all of my recent wins, I could only make one successful one out of 5 attempts, 10 connectors wasted and about 8m of cable for one 1m link.

 

Just couldn’t work out what the problem is. 

[corsechris]

Don't feel bad...a guy I used to work with lectured on networking and did practicals including fiber termination - he never could get one to work!  Other colleagues (not me!!) rather rudely reminded him whenever possible that I however had never had a failure....until one day I did a duff one. It cheered him up (a bit) when I told him about it 

 

And I did once bring down an entire site with a duff cat 3 cable. I'd ALWAYS tested any cables I made, and they had always been 100%....right up until that one - only cable I didn't test and the only duff one I ever made too. And I made a few over the years. I got back into the habit of testing every cable after that.

[Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Chairman]

“If it’s not tested, it doesn’t work!” A mantra drilled into me from the earliest days of making and testing cat cable runs, patch leads etc.

[corsechris]

It was a very long time ago and I don't recall why I picked that cable to be the first (and last) I didn't test.....I just recall how spectacular a cockup it was! Having found and fixed the problem, I spent the rest of the day going around the site apologising to everyone that had been affected......

 

 

[Glen_I]

2 hours ago, Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Secretary said:

“If it’s not tested, it doesn’t work!”

I like that saying, and it's very true.

 

[Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Chairman]

...it also seems to amuse colleagues that the wiring order for 568b RJ45 plugs seems to be burned in my brain permanently!

[Glen_I]

Isn't it amazing how things have changed and we want everything to happen instantly regarding Internet based services. The kids get stressed when youtube,  Netflix etc takes about 3 seconds to load up on a bad day.

When I was their age a treat for me was a video from Blockbuster which the lazy sod who had rented it before hadn't rewound it back (I can understand why as this was a 5min chore), or loading a game via a tape on my old Spectrum 48k, 10 mins off listening to an awfull screeching sound only to find it didn't load up at the end due to the dodgy tape recorder or lead, and god forbid but we only had 4 channels on TV....my 2 daughters refer to this as the olden days!!!

 

On a plus point regarding TV's, I can remember my parents having a remote control which was hardwired to the TV. Now with 2 kids in the house this would be bl**** brilliant as I'm fed up with searching for the remote when they have gone to bed!

 

I have a box of vhs videos still, mainly old rally videos but the youngest said whats this Dad as she was looking at one, my response was 'its a video you watch it', she says 'oh' and walks off, 5mins later she is back saying it's broke? I said is it? She says yes! At this point it dawned on me she was looking for a screen to view the film on it!!!🤣

[Andy - a15cro]

When we moved house 16 years ago I took a load of VHS and cassette tapes to the tip, only problem was the box also contained my wedding vid and our dolphin swim from one holiday in Mexico. I wasn’t popular.