P.Ping Tom
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Tata Indicom exposed on CNN IBN
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Here's what Ajoy Eric Lal had to say when shown a link to this topic.
1. I have been back in India since February 2006 (I had set up the connection back then!). I just left for a short while, after which I returned again permanently in April 2006.
2. I have conducted over 200 tests and documented each one of them (Excel sheet and screen shots). Also, since I have a 'static IP address', many of these tests are documented on the www.speedtest.net server.
3. I have tested on many servers, including Bangkok, Singapore. Karachi, etc. These are the closest to India. Yes. it is correct that I have to correspond more with Europe and the USA, so I need good connections there. I have also noticed that latencies have been much lower to a US/ European server (300+ ms) than to Asian servers (500+ ms) just around the corner. With 200+ tests on various servers and on various websites (amongst others), I can truely say that I know what the average speed is. I am paying for an average speed of 256 kbps.
4. I have proof of many disruptive services on TATA-indicom's part, including their own hand-written "Customer Call Reports" (On location service reports!). Some of the tests go as low as 12 kbps. It's all there for anyone to see.
5. Total downtimes in certain months have been 60% (July 2007). I disregard any reasoning whatsoever for downtimes or drops in service levels on TATA-indicom's part because that is simply their business... not mine!
6. I complained to the TATA-indicom Management, TRAI Nodal Officers, TRAI Chairman and now even to the Chairman of the CIC. There is a lot of proof that has accumulated along the way. Does any 'person' on any 'forum' think that I would go this far without hard facts?!
7. BTW: I am a corporate, think like a corporate and hence act like one, too. They should not have played this game with me (or for that matter with anyone out there!). Like most letters sent to them from any person anywhere, they weren't reading mine closely enough from the very onset... and that in itself will 'fry' them.
8. I have no reason for letting TATA-indicom off the hook, neither does the media. Quite the contrary: We will all keep at them. That said, it would be good to have a few 'Groups against ISPs' emerge in all major cities, each coordinating their own battles.
9. Ideally, someone will/ must take on that central coordination role in India. This role will lead the strategic battle with TRAI and the DoT.
10. Policy decisions will rule in the end, such passed by the regulatory bodies.
We have a long way to go BUT it would be more effective if all these 'Mr. Know-it-alls' were to come out into the open and fight whilst being seen. That is the real test and that is most effective.
TATA-indicom doesn't really care about us on these discussion forums... we do need to emerge from behind those monitors and get rid of our pseudonyms!!
Cheers
1. I have been back in India since February 2006 (I had set up the connection back then!). I just left for a short while, after which I returned again permanently in April 2006.
2. I have conducted over 200 tests and documented each one of them (Excel sheet and screen shots). Also, since I have a 'static IP address', many of these tests are documented on the www.speedtest.net server.
3. I have tested on many servers, including Bangkok, Singapore. Karachi, etc. These are the closest to India. Yes. it is correct that I have to correspond more with Europe and the USA, so I need good connections there. I have also noticed that latencies have been much lower to a US/ European server (300+ ms) than to Asian servers (500+ ms) just around the corner. With 200+ tests on various servers and on various websites (amongst others), I can truely say that I know what the average speed is. I am paying for an average speed of 256 kbps.
4. I have proof of many disruptive services on TATA-indicom's part, including their own hand-written "Customer Call Reports" (On location service reports!). Some of the tests go as low as 12 kbps. It's all there for anyone to see.
5. Total downtimes in certain months have been 60% (July 2007). I disregard any reasoning whatsoever for downtimes or drops in service levels on TATA-indicom's part because that is simply their business... not mine!
6. I complained to the TATA-indicom Management, TRAI Nodal Officers, TRAI Chairman and now even to the Chairman of the CIC. There is a lot of proof that has accumulated along the way. Does any 'person' on any 'forum' think that I would go this far without hard facts?!
7. BTW: I am a corporate, think like a corporate and hence act like one, too. They should not have played this game with me (or for that matter with anyone out there!). Like most letters sent to them from any person anywhere, they weren't reading mine closely enough from the very onset... and that in itself will 'fry' them.
8. I have no reason for letting TATA-indicom off the hook, neither does the media. Quite the contrary: We will all keep at them. That said, it would be good to have a few 'Groups against ISPs' emerge in all major cities, each coordinating their own battles.
9. Ideally, someone will/ must take on that central coordination role in India. This role will lead the strategic battle with TRAI and the DoT.
10. Policy decisions will rule in the end, such passed by the regulatory bodies.
We have a long way to go BUT it would be more effective if all these 'Mr. Know-it-alls' were to come out into the open and fight whilst being seen. That is the real test and that is most effective.
TATA-indicom doesn't really care about us on these discussion forums... we do need to emerge from behind those monitors and get rid of our pseudonyms!!
Cheers
Well no one is disagreeing with his woes about the connection being down. What happened to him is indeed pretty sad and TATA must pay for the wrongdoings. I wish him the very best if he wishes to take the legal recourse.
What I don't agree to is his findings about speeds. All the results from these speed test sites must be taken with a pinch of salt. The only way to know if the connection is working fine and delivering full speed is to download a big file from a high bandwidth server using a segmented download manager. If one manages to get 30KB/s(+/- 2KB) or so on a 256kbps line, the connection is performing properly.
One must note that if a connection promises 256kbps, it does not mean your data rate will be exactly 32KB/s when browsing. No connection will ever offer that. There's always channel and transmission losses due to the way TCP/IP works. Another thing to note is that no home connection is guaranteed. Its always on a best effort basis. If one reads the contract carefully, there's no penal clause for downtimes on a home connection. If one wants something thats guaranteed 256kbps with 100% availability, one must pay 10-20 times of what a home connection costs.
Anyway since blr_p was looking for a longtime TATA customer, well here is one... I have a postpaid TATA connection since November 2005 (initially 256kbps and later upgraded to 512kbps). So far I've faced two major downtimes... once for 7 days and the other for 9 days. Both the times it was because the cable to my home got cut... once by a rival cable operator and the second time by a stupid overloaded lorry. Their customer support (call center) sucks bigtime and its basically a joke. Nothing really happens thru it. Its better to just call up the engineer and find out whats actually wrong and try getting it fixed.
I was not affected severely as I have a backup net connection for such situations. TATA did give me credit for those periods. However other than that, my experience has been excellent with speeds roughly averaging 60KB/s or more most of the time. What tata gives is a real 1:1 contention ratio with both 512kbps up and down with a static IP and no port blocking. No other home ISP comes remotely close to this in India.
I consider this to be a cheapshot at the forum... pseudonyms are there for a purpose and if anyone wishes to know mine or any other senior member's/mod's identity in the forum, a simple search will yield everything.
What I don't agree to is his findings about speeds. All the results from these speed test sites must be taken with a pinch of salt. The only way to know if the connection is working fine and delivering full speed is to download a big file from a high bandwidth server using a segmented download manager. If one manages to get 30KB/s(+/- 2KB) or so on a 256kbps line, the connection is performing properly.
One must note that if a connection promises 256kbps, it does not mean your data rate will be exactly 32KB/s when browsing. No connection will ever offer that. There's always channel and transmission losses due to the way TCP/IP works. Another thing to note is that no home connection is guaranteed. Its always on a best effort basis. If one reads the contract carefully, there's no penal clause for downtimes on a home connection. If one wants something thats guaranteed 256kbps with 100% availability, one must pay 10-20 times of what a home connection costs.
Anyway since blr_p was looking for a longtime TATA customer, well here is one... I have a postpaid TATA connection since November 2005 (initially 256kbps and later upgraded to 512kbps). So far I've faced two major downtimes... once for 7 days and the other for 9 days. Both the times it was because the cable to my home got cut... once by a rival cable operator and the second time by a stupid overloaded lorry. Their customer support (call center) sucks bigtime and its basically a joke. Nothing really happens thru it. Its better to just call up the engineer and find out whats actually wrong and try getting it fixed.
I was not affected severely as I have a backup net connection for such situations. TATA did give me credit for those periods. However other than that, my experience has been excellent with speeds roughly averaging 60KB/s or more most of the time. What tata gives is a real 1:1 contention ratio with both 512kbps up and down with a static IP and no port blocking. No other home ISP comes remotely close to this in India.
I consider this to be a cheapshot at the forum... pseudonyms are there for a purpose and if anyone wishes to know mine or any other senior member's/mod's identity in the forum, a simple search will yield everything.
^^ i completely agree with whatever chaos has said.
I dont want to play down the trouble/inconvinience that has to been caused to anyone.
What i want to say is that the whole programme was over hyped and it has dont any real harm to Tata Indicom.
Even though the concerned person has been affected by poor service by Tata Indicom i disagree with the speed testing and the slow speed issue.
The connection in question is 256k and how much are you gonna get out of it?
32KB/sec is the theorotical max and there are so many factors which affect this.
Sayin a connection is slow just on the basis of speedtest is pretty incorrect. This is exactly the sort of misinformation which should be avoided.
which is why we need consumer awareness which can be done thru support forums/groups.
I dont want to play down the trouble/inconvinience that has to been caused to anyone.
What i want to say is that the whole programme was over hyped and it has dont any real harm to Tata Indicom.
Even though the concerned person has been affected by poor service by Tata Indicom i disagree with the speed testing and the slow speed issue.
The connection in question is 256k and how much are you gonna get out of it?
32KB/sec is the theorotical max and there are so many factors which affect this.
Sayin a connection is slow just on the basis of speedtest is pretty incorrect. This is exactly the sort of misinformation which should be avoided.
which is why we need consumer awareness which can be done thru support forums/groups.
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OK, lets go to town with this speedtest then
its a momentary test, how long a small file takes to reach you and vice-versa from a designated server. For the purposes of web-browsing or email why is this not relevant ?
If he has done several of these momentary tests over a long period to get a feel i can't follow why it isn't a valid test to do for the apps mentioned. A speedtest is really a low requirements test and even there the performance isn't upto the mark.
i would certainly agree, in the case where large files are required then this is maybe too momentary a test to determine avg. speed over a period of time. The only way here is you download loads and then see the average speed. But that's not what he's complaining about or so i gathered. Personally i've always preferred extended ping tests as i get to see if any packets get dropped and it gives me some idea of the health of the connection.
The other point is what Chaos said about best efforts.
The usual disclaimer, but then you set up a strawman by saying you cannot expect 100% uptime. Of course not and most of us will accept this.
There is however now a spectrum of expectation levels isn't there. If not 90%, then 80%, 70% (?) where exactly do we stand ?
They won't put a figure in there so you can hold them to it. But at some point performance falls below expectations. And i think this would be reasonable grounds for a complaint, except those complaints went unanswered for an extended period. And then the big ppl stepped in and said what to do!
What would you think if i said your exemplary experience with TI was an aberration
..you are very lucky.
Most other ppl that say the same have a lot less experience with TI. Personally i wish there were much more ppl that said the same, if anything it would make the ISP market a bit more competitive than it actually is.
its a momentary test, how long a small file takes to reach you and vice-versa from a designated server. For the purposes of web-browsing or email why is this not relevant ?
If he has done several of these momentary tests over a long period to get a feel i can't follow why it isn't a valid test to do for the apps mentioned. A speedtest is really a low requirements test and even there the performance isn't upto the mark.
i would certainly agree, in the case where large files are required then this is maybe too momentary a test to determine avg. speed over a period of time. The only way here is you download loads and then see the average speed. But that's not what he's complaining about or so i gathered. Personally i've always preferred extended ping tests as i get to see if any packets get dropped and it gives me some idea of the health of the connection.
The other point is what Chaos said about best efforts.
The usual disclaimer, but then you set up a strawman by saying you cannot expect 100% uptime. Of course not and most of us will accept this.
There is however now a spectrum of expectation levels isn't there. If not 90%, then 80%, 70% (?) where exactly do we stand ?
They won't put a figure in there so you can hold them to it. But at some point performance falls below expectations. And i think this would be reasonable grounds for a complaint, except those complaints went unanswered for an extended period. And then the big ppl stepped in and said what to do!
What would you think if i said your exemplary experience with TI was an aberration
..you are very lucky.
Most other ppl that say the same have a lot less experience with TI. Personally i wish there were much more ppl that said the same, if anything it would make the ISP market a bit more competitive than it actually is.
Well the problem with a small file is the bursty nature of internet traffic. It may or may not yield the correct throughput. Thats my experience of using the internet since the days of 14.4kbps modems. The only way to judge a connection is to look at sustained speeds over a period of time.
Ping will not yield much information as to how much bandwidth is actually available. Infact accurately measuring availability and bandwidth is a huge research topic in itself. You can still find atleast half a dozen papers being published in SIGCOMM every year just trying to formulate more accurate ways of measuring bandwidth.
There's a simple way of finding out where the problem is incase of any ISP. Simply try pinging the gateway. If you can ping the gateway, it means that the last mile connectivity is fine and the problem is at the ISP's end. If you can't ping the gateway, it basically means your connection is borked at the last mile. I'm not sure if the person concerned did this. It'll atleast isolate the issue.
Ping will not yield much information as to how much bandwidth is actually available. Infact accurately measuring availability and bandwidth is a huge research topic in itself. You can still find atleast half a dozen papers being published in SIGCOMM every year just trying to formulate more accurate ways of measuring bandwidth.
There's a simple way of finding out where the problem is incase of any ISP. Simply try pinging the gateway. If you can ping the gateway, it means that the last mile connectivity is fine and the problem is at the ISP's end. If you can't ping the gateway, it basically means your connection is borked at the last mile. I'm not sure if the person concerned did this. It'll atleast isolate the issue.
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Sure and won't that bursty effect also apply to webpages, we're only talking a few 100k at most. Enough for your webpage to complete loading or stall half way (dropped packets). Browsing is a bursty, discrete app.
Maybe what you have been trying to say all along is that the speedtest is a test of the *whole* connection :
last mile + their back end + their upstream provider.
It's not granular enough.
pinging the gateway to test the last mile was exactly why i used it for. mY guess is with the extended relations he had with the support engineers, and you do get to be on first name terms due to the volume of calls
..that this would be the first test they would have done. More often than not, the last mile is defnitely to blame. So even if speedtest can't differentiate between last mile or back-end the result for the consumer is the same. You & me may be willing to go, notebook totting to ping test various hops of an ISP's network but it would be a bit much to expect a general non-tech oriented consumer to be aware of the same. One expects the ISP to sort this all out for which they are paid for.
You can't really put an absolute figure on what the speed should be but then you talk ranges. If you bought a 256k connection then one expects at least 80-90% of that most of the time. That's at least a 10-20% margin of error (pretty *LARGE*) on any speed test just there.
TRAI states 80% but seems that message has not gotten through or maybe can't be enforced yet.
He mentioned in a followup mail the foll.
TV [and Radio] stations have very tight schedules - everything is obviously timed to the second. This report was a part of their Show "All about the money" ... we got all of 9m50s and that is a lot. It ofcourse is very little time to say everything...
... the public did not hear about the Nodal Officers not responding, TRAI slacking off, the RTI application not being answered at all (until date) AND the CIC case that followed.
One could have gone on and on and on ...
Maybe what you have been trying to say all along is that the speedtest is a test of the *whole* connection :
last mile + their back end + their upstream provider.
It's not granular enough.
pinging the gateway to test the last mile was exactly why i used it for. mY guess is with the extended relations he had with the support engineers, and you do get to be on first name terms due to the volume of calls
..that this would be the first test they would have done. More often than not, the last mile is defnitely to blame. So even if speedtest can't differentiate between last mile or back-end the result for the consumer is the same. You & me may be willing to go, notebook totting to ping test various hops of an ISP's network but it would be a bit much to expect a general non-tech oriented consumer to be aware of the same. One expects the ISP to sort this all out for which they are paid for.
You can't really put an absolute figure on what the speed should be but then you talk ranges. If you bought a 256k connection then one expects at least 80-90% of that most of the time. That's at least a 10-20% margin of error (pretty *LARGE*) on any speed test just there.
TRAI states 80% but seems that message has not gotten through or maybe can't be enforced yet.
He mentioned in a followup mail the foll.
TV [and Radio] stations have very tight schedules - everything is obviously timed to the second. This report was a part of their Show "All about the money" ... we got all of 9m50s and that is a lot. It ofcourse is very little time to say everything...
... the public did not hear about the Nodal Officers not responding, TRAI slacking off, the RTI application not being answered at all (until date) AND the CIC case that followed.
One could have gone on and on and on ...
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Oracle
Wraith said:Here is proof of how unreliable the speedtesting sites can be...
this test server is based in mumbai
this one in singapore
margin of error is 25%,
so if you do a 100 random tests, will the margin be as large or smaller ?
i say that margin of error will drop to 10-20% of what your momentary true speed is.
Wraith said:
You can tell that just on basic feel, sites open within a certain time frame, downloads etc come across again within that 10-20% margin. And that's why you don't care what it tells you. You can *feel* that things are ok.
But what-if things were a lot slower say, you were getting 50kbs instead of 256. that's now a 80% difference to what you paid for.
Speedtest would show something in the range of 40kb - 60kbs. So again *even* with a 10-20% margin of error, you can tell something ain't right! Provided several tests have been carried out & documented, i fail to see why this isn't a valid indication of consistant speed problems.
(However..if you can show that speedtest would say 200kbs (or similar abnornal reading) instead, or close to 400% error, i think you would have a stronger case
)If you 2 feel so strongly about the validity of speedtests then why have you not as of yet endorsed this pov in another thread, that talks all about it.
One thing abt speed tests is that they'll never report speeds way above your actual connection speed however these speedtests are perfectly capable of reporting way below your actual connection speed.
On what basis can you come to that conlusion?
The margin of error will reduce only if the accuracy of the reporting increases.
And how can you be sure that each subsequent reporting will be more accurate than the previous?
The above would be possible only if the connection was capped at 50k
Considering a 256k connection if you get around 250k - 190k (considering the 25% margin of error on speedtest) on most sites but lower than 190k speeds on a few other sites , what would your conclusion be?
It might seem slow to someone who unfortunately acceses these sites which are 'slow' on his connection more often than other sites...
But it wouldnt be right to call the connection slow on the whole as a lot of factors are involved when downloading or browsing a website.
Also Dslreport.com always shows my connection as 1.5mbps or lower. And all their servers are located in the US.
So does it mean that my connection is capped at 1.5mbps?
No it isnt because i get arnd 2mbps from most sites.
This just goes to show you cant consider the various speed testing sites as a gold standard for your connection speed.
I never felt that speed testing was such a big issue until this thread came along
On what basis can you come to that conlusion?
The margin of error will reduce only if the accuracy of the reporting increases.
And how can you be sure that each subsequent reporting will be more accurate than the previous?
The above would be possible only if the connection was capped at 50k
Considering a 256k connection if you get around 250k - 190k (considering the 25% margin of error on speedtest) on most sites but lower than 190k speeds on a few other sites , what would your conclusion be?
It might seem slow to someone who unfortunately acceses these sites which are 'slow' on his connection more often than other sites...
But it wouldnt be right to call the connection slow on the whole as a lot of factors are involved when downloading or browsing a website.
Also Dslreport.com always shows my connection as 1.5mbps or lower. And all their servers are located in the US.
So does it mean that my connection is capped at 1.5mbps?
No it isnt because i get arnd 2mbps from most sites.
This just goes to show you cant consider the various speed testing sites as a gold standard for your connection speed.
I never felt that speed testing was such a big issue until this thread came along
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