racoma.com.phJ. Angelo Racoma on technology, economics, writing, problogging, and getting things done

To continue my saga on trying out prepaid wireless landlines, I had recently activated Super Duo on my main Globe prepaid subscription. I was very pleased that I could easily call Bayantel lines (which we have at home), in stark contrast to my PLDT Wireless landline, which can rarely connect with my home residence.

But the big issue here is interconnectivity with several networks. For one, I can rarely connect to PLDT landline numbers. This can be very debilitating, since calling PLDT landlines was okay before activation of Super Duo (since this is billed as a regular call from one’s Globe number). But after activation, you effectively lose calling capability to PLDT landlines. Rare exceptions include midnight to the wee hours of the morning. Calling during daytime? Forget it.

Another small issue is calling from Bayantel phones. You get a busy tone, and you get connected after two to three tries. No big issue if you only expect personal calls, but to business users, this can be a deal breaker.

Now I’m not sure if this is only isolated to prepaid subscriptions. I hear that postpaid users are not as badly affected. Maybe that’s the premium one gets with a postpaid subscription. But with Globe heavily marketing their prepaid services such as Tattoo, SuperDuo and the like, they better be sure they have the capacity to service demand.

The bigger issue here is interconnection among the networks. I’m aware that telcos charge each other for each SMS or voice minute. But the charging framework has changed dramatically with the introduction of “unlimited” calling schemes, like the so-called “wireless landline” capability of mobile phones. If we’re going back to the dark ages of walled-garden communications, then we’re screwed. Remember the olden days when Smart subscribers could only text to Smart, and Globe within Globe?

Maybe this is just a honeymoon phase, and things will turn out better. I’m hoping that in the long run, interconnection among telcos would normalize. Things are getting cheaper and cheaper, anyway, and maybe they need to look for alternative business models (rather than charge interconnection fees), in line with the changing trends.

My Bayantel DSL connection has been slow lately, and I’ve been experiencing some intermittent connections. That would’ve been okay if my connection were just for personal use, but since I use it for work, then I can’t afford to be cut off just when timing is critical. I’ve had important chats, VoIP calls and upload cut off and it while it would usually take a few clicks to reconnect (via router) there are some cases when the connection would be down for five minutes or more.

One other thing, I can’t seem to download using bittorrent anymore. Files that used to take 30 minutes to 1 hour of download (like a 350+ MB Linux .ISO file) would now take days. This is disappointing.

I recently received a call from Globe telemarketers (I wonder where they get my contact info) telling me they have a package almost similar to my current Bayan DSL, but only faster. For PhP 1,295 I get a 1 MBPS connection, a landline subscription and some free gadgets like an inkjet printer, webcam and headset.

Personally, I don’t care for the gadgets. I already have an inkjet printer (which also serves as my scanner and copier), and most of my computers have built-in webcams and mics. What I have been looking for is a package that also gives free hours or minutes with local WiFi providers. Globe broadband does offer free one hour Globe WIZ access per month with the PhP 1,295 package. That’s not much, considering that only costs about PhP 100 or so prepad, and that I could connect using my HSDPA enabled mobile phone (thru bluetooth) for only PhP 20 per hour (P5/15 minutes x 4).

I’m not so sure about the reliability of Globe Broadband connection in my area (UP Village), so I would like to get inputs from those who do have experience with Globe. This might help me decide whether to stick to Bayantel or switch.

Just got word from Bayantel DSL customer service that they have increased speeds across the board. New plan speeds are as follows:

• Plan 899 (PhP 899 per month) – from 384 Kbps now 768 Kbps, burstable to 1280 Kbps during off-peak hours
• Plan 1699 (PhP 1,699 per month) – from 768 Kbps now 1280 Kbps, burstable to 1536 Kbps during off-peak hours
• Plan 1999 (PhP 1,999 per month; new plan!) – 2048 Kbps
• Plan 2560 (PhP 2,560 per month) – from 1536 Kbps now 2560 Kbps

Apparently new subscribers as of Nov 1st of this year are getting these packages already. Existing subscribers have to request for an upgrade, which I find very inconvenient and unfair (because we don’t get it automatically). Still, this is a good move on Bayantel’s part, especially considering that their competitors are also increasing speeds.

Here’s one of my latest speedtest results:

There are a lot of bandwidth checking tools around, but speakeasy.net/speedtest and speedtest.net are a few of my favorites because of their simplicity. Also, speedtest.net lets me compare the speed of my local connection to the speed of my actual connection to the world (see my previous post ranting about Sky’s speed problems of late).

I’ve been trying to do some speed testing just recently, when I noticed I couldn’t access both speedtest.net and speakeasy.net . I initially thought that either these two services were down or I was having problems connecting to the rest of the world (much like during the December Taiwan earthquake, where the country’s major pipes were severed).

But I tried accessing these sites from a remote server I had management access to, and I could connect fine (speed was really fast, actually). I asked friends on other ISPs and the sites were also okay from their end. So I got suspicious and did some more network testing. It seems that whenever I try to access either of these sites, I just keep going around in circles, and I don’t really get beyond the Bayantel / SkyDSL servers. I’m stuck between 7600-gw4.bti.net.ph and gatewaynet-v50-rsvt-7606.bti.net.ph, which I assume are both Bayantel’s servers because of the bti.net.ph domain.

See screenshots of traceroute operations below.

I’m wondering if this is a deliberate move by Sky to prevent users from testing their DSL vs. practical connection speeds.

There are still alternatives, of course. There is dslreports.com/stest and bandwidthplace.com/speedtest . Of coures, there’s ookla.com, but as of my last checking, that site isn’t accessible either! And guess what—I get the similar traceroute results.

Something’s fishy here, Bayantel. You know I often recommend you guys whenever someone asks me about broadband/DSL. Now I might point people elsewhere.

My DSL connection has been really slow for the past two weeks or so. Some colleagues of mine who also use SkyDSL are also reporting similar problems. Thing is, we people rely on the Internet to work, do business, and earn money.

Here’s an email I recently sent to SkyDSL customer service. If you have been experiencing slow speeds on your SkyDSL or Bayantel DSL (essentially the same) accounts, please don’t hesitate to call them up or send email. Their address is csdip@bayantel.com.ph .

Dear Bayantel/SkyDSL,

I’ve been having very slow speeds and unreliable connections on several of my SkyDSL accounts since about two weeks ago. I’ve been getting very high latency and low speeds, and this has badly affected my productivity (most of my work is Web related). I called up 411-2000 but the CSR I talked to said there were no outages or maintenance operations being done on the network. Still, I’ve been getting bad performance, regardless of machine (both PCs and Macs) I use, and on two locations.

Here are some details.

On both my apartments, I use Sky DSL bundled in with my telephone subscription. One 768kbps and one 384kbps.

768K – username (xxxxx). tel no (xxx-xxxx)
384K – username (xxxxx). tel no (xxx-xxxx)

Both of these are along Maginhawa St. in Teachers Village East Quezon City.

Here is a sample traceroute output (to gmail.google.com, one of the sites I find quite slow these days). I was asked by the CSR to send these over for your analysis.

Traceroute has started …

traceroute to gmail.l.google.com (209.85.139.107), 64 hops max, 40 byte packets

1. 192.168.2.1 (192.168.2.1) 7.345 ms 2.492 ms 2.396 ms
2. 202.78.96.116 (202.78.96.116) 32.113 ms 35.902 ms 34.489 ms
3. 202.78.97.157 (202.78.97.157) 28.060 ms 32.474 ms 22.195 ms
4. 210.4.2.195 (210.4.2.195) 24.580 ms 23.940 ms 22.066 ms
5. so-1/1/0.ig3.lax1.alter.net (63.114.59.105) 330.247 ms 334.106 ms 325.866 ms
6. 0.so-7-0-0.xl1.lax1.alter.net (152.63.112.250) 328.786 ms 392.810 ms *
7. 152.63.57.78 (152.63.57.78) 329.267 ms * 328.802 ms
8. 0.so-6-0-0.br1.lax7.alter.net (152.63.112.41) 327.186 ms 321.951 ms 327.682 ms
9. lap-brdr-01.inet.qwest.net (205.171.1.145) 206.683 ms 202.827 ms *
10. bur-core-02.inet.qwest.net (205.171.213.109) 203.963 ms 211.153 ms 205.584 ms
11. sea-core-01.inet.qwest.net (67.14.1.186) 216.476 ms * 218.024 ms
12. * sea-edge-08.inet.qwest.net (205.171.26.74) 222.415 ms 218.789 ms
13. * 65.121.106.86 (65.121.106.86) 242.668 ms 240.028 ms
14. 72.14.239.12 (72.14.239.12) 1467.341 ms 1513.570 ms 1480.514 ms
15. 72.14.233.37 (72.14.233.37) 1465.196 ms 1461.246 ms 1466.459 ms
16. 209.85.250.69 (209.85.250.69) 242.306 ms 209.85.250.65 (209.85.250.65) 1511.369 ms 209.85.250.69 (209.85.250.69) 241.461 ms
17. * 72.14.239.190 (72.14.239.190) 242.521 ms 72.14.239.194 (72.14.239.194) 1513.615 ms
18. * pr-in-f107.google.com (209.85.139.107) 1503.991 ms *

And here are some speedtest.net results.

The first one is using the Bayantel server in QC:

Download speed: 763 kbps
Upload speed: 701 kbps
Latency: 106 ms

The second one is using a Hong Kong server:

Download speed: 50 kbps
Upload speed: 41 kbps
Latency: 580 ms

This third one is using a San Jose, CA server:

Download speed: 132 kbps
Upload speed: 126 kbps
Latency: 243 ms

Notice the big speed difference. With this, I think we can perhaps initially rule out any problem from my end to your end (meaning between my computer/s and Bayantel) because connection from here to the Bayantel server (using speedtest) is fast. But connection to the rest of the world is slow.

I hope you can help out with resolving this problem. This is particularly unfortunate to people like myself who rely on the Internet to do work and business. And I have had several colleagues complaining of lost productivity due to slow speeds.

Regards,

Angelo Racoma