Troubleshooting DirecWay

Well, it *is* wireless....
Kidding aside, I'm just casting my bread upon the waters to see what floats.
I really need some knowledgeable help with this.

As of today, I've been a new DW customer (the only option for anything
resembling broadband where I live) for about 5 days. And based on my googling,
the performance I'm getting is *not* what most DW users get.
Now, to be clear, I wasn't expecting stellar performance, just something
better than the 33.6 dialup that is the only alternative out here. Big latency
and modest speeds I was prepared for. Entire client functions that quit
working were not.

Service: DWay Consumer grade (the cheapest), with DW6000 router/modem.
Home WLAN on a Linksys WRT54G, feeding several XP (home and pro) and Linux
(Knoppix and Suse) machines.
Every problem I list below I have cross-checked by disconnecting the
machine from DW, dialing up, and trying the same page/download/client. In
every case, the problem goes away. Additionally, I've taken my laptop to
Kinko's and used their TMobile to repeat the tests. Again, the problems only
occur when I'm connecting through DW.
First, HTTP and FTP work pretty well, decently fast... most of the time.
But I'm getting weird intermittent problems with graphics not loading, and
downloads either not starting or stopping partway but *saying* they're complete
(as if DW was adding a bogus EOF marker partway through the file). Sites like
Download.com with the "download should start in X seconds" tend to never start,
just jump to a blank page. Webcomics, especially frame-based ones, don't show
their images about half the time.
Second: My POP/SMTP clients (Thunderbird and AOL Communicator) have a
*very* hard time getting a stable connection to a server. And when they *do*
connect (usually only after leaving them running for several hours), the
connection is often unstable.
Third: My antivirus (AVG) had to keep trying for *three days* before it was
able to connect and download update files. Norton, OTOH, seemed to have less
trouble.
Fourth: Streaming. I know DW is not good for streaming, but I expected
that low-bandwidth streams would still work in a limited fashion (like NPR, for
example). Instead, Realplayer and (yech!) Media Player 9 can't connect at all
to any server I tried.
Fifth: BitTorrent. Several torrent on several different trackers all display
the same behavior -- stuck at zero almost all the time, with occaisional short
spurts of 1-5kB/s. I know for certain FAP bandwidth throttling isn't in play,
because over the course of 72hrs of testing I only downloaded (between BT and
FTP) about 400MB total. Most discussions I've found via Google talk about
consistent downloads in the 20-30kB/s ranger, which would make me entirely
happy, but unfortunately all the hits I've found so far have been frustratingly
lacking in detail or tech specs.

I'm just about ready to bite the bullet and call DW support, but I'm not
hopeful -- their uslessness is darn near legendary. I'm toying with the idea
that upgrading to Professional service and a fixed IP (and control of DW NAT)
might help me, but I don't want to go to that extra expense w/o some input from
people who've been where I am now. I figure I've got about 20 days left to
make a decision...




SkyeFire

SkyeFire <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
> As of today, I've been a new DW customer (the only option for anything
> resembling broadband where I live) for about 5 days. And based on my googling,
> the performance I'm getting is *not* what most DW users get.

I would visit dslreports.com and look at their speed tests and tuning.
I would visit John Navas page, although I think it is kind of old.
http://cable-dsl.home.att.net/

---
Clarence A Dold - Hidden Valley (Lake County) CA USA 38.8,-122.5

SkyeFire wrote:
> Well, it *is* wireless....
> Kidding aside, I'm just casting my bread upon the waters to see what floats.
> I really need some knowledgeable help with this.
>
> As of today, I've been a new DW customer (the only option for anything
> resembling broadband where I live) for about 5 days. And based on my googling,
> the performance I'm getting is *not* what most DW users get.
> Now, to be clear, I wasn't expecting stellar performance, just something
> better than the 33.6 dialup that is the only alternative out here. Big latency
> and modest speeds I was prepared for. Entire client functions that quit
> working were not.
>
> Service: DWay Consumer grade (the cheapest), with DW6000 router/modem.
> Home WLAN on a Linksys WRT54G, feeding several XP (home and pro) and Linux
> (Knoppix and Suse) machines.
> Every problem I list below I have cross-checked by disconnecting the
> machine from DW, dialing up, and trying the same page/download/client. In
> every case, the problem goes away. Additionally, I've taken my laptop to
> Kinko's and used their TMobile to repeat the tests. Again, the problems only
> occur when I'm connecting through DW.
> First, HTTP and FTP work pretty well, decently fast... most of the time.
> But I'm getting weird intermittent problems with graphics not loading, and
> downloads either not starting or stopping partway but *saying* they're complete
> (as if DW was adding a bogus EOF marker partway through the file). Sites like
> Download.com with the "download should start in X seconds" tend to never start,
> just jump to a blank page. Webcomics, especially frame-based ones, don't show
> their images about half the time.
> Second: My POP/SMTP clients (Thunderbird and AOL Communicator) have a
> *very* hard time getting a stable connection to a server. And when they *do*
> connect (usually only after leaving them running for several hours), the
> connection is often unstable.
> Third: My antivirus (AVG) had to keep trying for *three days* before it was
> able to connect and download update files. Norton, OTOH, seemed to have less
> trouble.
> Fourth: Streaming. I know DW is not good for streaming, but I expected
> that low-bandwidth streams would still work in a limited fashion (like NPR, for
> example). Instead, Realplayer and (yech!) Media Player 9 can't connect at all
> to any server I tried.
> Fifth: BitTorrent. Several torrent on several different trackers all display
> the same behavior -- stuck at zero almost all the time, with occaisional short
> spurts of 1-5kB/s. I know for certain FAP bandwidth throttling isn't in play,
> because over the course of 72hrs of testing I only downloaded (between BT and
> FTP) about 400MB total. Most discussions I've found via Google talk about
> consistent downloads in the 20-30kB/s ranger, which would make me entirely
> happy, but unfortunately all the hits I've found so far have been frustratingly
> lacking in detail or tech specs.
>
> I'm just about ready to bite the bullet and call DW support, but I'm not
> hopeful -- their uslessness is darn near legendary. I'm toying with the idea
> that upgrading to Professional service and a fixed IP (and control of DW NAT)
> might help me, but I don't want to go to that extra expense w/o some input from
> people who've been where I am now. I figure I've got about 20 days left to
> make a decision...
>
>
I set up a wireless network at a RV park based on a DW6000 connection.
This is the Pro level of service. I have not experienced the problems
you describe all of the time but sometimes when there are several people
on at a time things bog down. Are you using the DW6000 modem?

Also you might want to look into the WRT54G as a possible bottleneck.
The one I use for the gateway from the wireless network was a problem
until I installed the latest firmware update from Linksys. I tried the
Sveasoft firmware but the DHCP gave me trouble when the IP leases needed
to be renewed. The Sveasoft works great for the WRT54G I use as the
wireless link to the AP spread around the park but the DHCP is turned off.

DirecWay has service issues sometimes and do not tell users. The park
was not getting connected for several days so they called DirecWay and
found out the DW6000's had an issue and they fixed it but only after the
phone call. Since then it has been better.
Rick

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