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Choking?

I have a Westell 327W hooked up to three computers (Linux, Mac, Windows XP). I have noticed that when I upload any significant amount of data, even at the modest rate of 60kb/s, downloads from the Internet grind to a virtual halt. Pings which take 25 ms with nothing else running and 200 ms while a download is running take 9000 ms (nine seconds!) or more while an 60 kb/s upload is running. Now, I am supposed to be getting at least 128kb/s up and 700-something kb/s down. It is clear that some kind of choking is going on. Local experimentation shows that it is not the modem -- the modem can sustain much faster speeds locally in both directions simultaneously. So what's the story? 60 up OR 400 down, when 128 AND 700-1000 were advertised? (I have never observed a faster download from the Net than 420 kb/s, but I'll complain about that some other time.) If Verizon is deliberately choking their interfaces to discourage file-sharing or doing a Comcast-like packet-sniffing number, I'd like to know so I can make the appropriate trouble about it.

Comments

dslr595148

Post your modem status/stats from your router.

If you have no idea of what I mean.. Log-in to the router and show the first screen that you see.

gordonfitch

I see three panels. Sorry about the possibly weird formatting.

Third panel is links to, like, Westell etc. etc.

First panel:

Gateway Status
GO!

Your Gateway is Ready for Internet Access Broadband Connection Internet Status: Connected DSL link: Connected Speed (Down/Up): 3355 Kbits/sec by 863 Kbits/sec Connection Type: PPP Username: IP Address: 71.190.3.11

Unknown Name: Connection Type: Unknown

IP Address:s

-- second panel -

Computer Name: etaoin0
Connection Type: Ethernet IP Address: 192.168.1.47 Access Device

Computer Name: GORDON-FITCHS-P
Connection Type: Ethernet IP Address: 192.168.1.46

Unknown Name: Connection Type: Unknown IP Address:

192.168.1.38

dslr595148

Does that three panels, look something like this screen

a) http://www.portforward.com/english/routers/port_forwarding/Actiontec/MI-424-WR/1st_SMTP_Server.htm

If not, how about this screen

http://www.portforward.com/english/routers/port_forwarding/Actiontec/GT704-WGv2/1st_SMTP_Server.htm

gordonfitch

The second has the greatest resemblance.

dslr595148

#1 Ok, try System Monitoring -> Advanced Status -> Transciever Stats.

#2 Try Status -> Advanced Status -> Transciever Stats

#3 or Try Utilities ?

#4 In the router, go to Advanced Setup.

#5 In there, go to IP Address Distribution.

#6 What is the DHCP range?

#7 Back in Advanced Setup, go to UPnP.

#8 If this feature is on, turn that feature off.

gordonfitch

I am away from my modem right now. I will be back on Sept. 30, when I will revive this

thread, try the diagnostics that have been suggested, and perform some additional

experimentation. So far it seems clear that the modem can handle over 700 kbs

bidirectionally when communicating locally, but as soon as any upload traffic occurs

in the range of 60 kbs, down traffic slows to a crawl, so something's going on.

gordonfitch

In "IP Address Distribution" the Private LAN DHCP Settings are:

start: 192.168.1.15

end: 192.168.1.47

DHCP Lease Time: 1:0:0:0

I observe that addresses are assigned high to low.

UPnP appears to be turned off (box is unchecked).

dslr595148

In your router when forwarding you are forwarding to some IP Address where the last octet, as it called, is not 0, 1, any number from 15 to 47 OR any number above 255?

gordonfitch

Not sure what you're after here. As far as I know (in this universe) the highest possible

value for an octet is 255. I do not do any forwarding manually -- whatever takes place

is the business of the router-modem and whatever processes it's talking to in one of

my machines. On the local side of the router, I have never

observed an address outside of the range 192.168.1.40 - 192.168.1.47 and of course

192.168.1.1 which is the address through which I talk to the router itself.

For the reasons I gave before I doubt that the router is having a problem.

I suspect that the problem is with whatever it's talking to on the Verizon

side. Otherwise I would think local traffic would exhibit the same pattern

of apparent interference.

dslr595148

@gordonfitch wrote:

I do not do any forwarding manually -- whatever takes place

is the business of the router-modem and whatever processes it's talking to in one of
my machines.

Now, I am confused.

You said that you have UPnP turned off in the router, you are not forwarding manually, and you said in your first post that..

@gordonfitch wrote:

If Verizon is deliberately choking their interfaces to discourage file-sharing or doing a Comcast-like packet-sniffing number, I'd like to know so I can make the appropriate trouble about it.

Huh?

So if you are not manually forwarding or using UPnP, what are you doing?

As you said eariler, the screens of your router looks very close to this guide

http://www.portforward.com/english/routers/port_forwarding/Actiontec/GT704-WGv2/GT704-WGv2index.htm

gordonfitch

I am just reporting to you what I'm seeing. In the case of UPnP, the router

has a page with a check box. That box is not checked, which seems to mean

"off", although it doesn't say so. I do not myself do any sort of port forwarding,

although the programs I run may do it. I have looked at procedures for doing

it, but it seemed to be a solution without a problem.

Right now things are in an odd state here. I cannot get a web page from

any of the sites I normally connect to, including Google and the NOAA,

except this one, but I can ping other, nonlocal sites successfully. This is

true across all my machines, so it's not just the one I'm typing this on.

I hope the problem is temporary, whatever it is.

dslr595148

#1

@gordonfitch wrote:
I am just reporting to you what I'm seeing. In the case of UPnP, the router
has a page with a check box. That box is not checked, which seems to mean
"off", although it doesn't say so. I do not myself do any sort of port forwarding,
although the programs I run may do it. I have looked at procedures for doing
it, but it seemed to be a solution without a problem.

Can I see a screen shot what you saw in the router about UPnP?

#2 What program that you run, may do it?

@gordonfitch wrote:
Right now things are in an odd state here. I cannot get a web page from
any of the sites I normally connect to, including Google and the NOAA,
except this one, but I can ping other, nonlocal sites successfully. This is
true across all my machines, so it's not just the one I'm typing this on.
I hope the problem is temporary, whatever it is.

Perhaps this is what happened

http://forums.verizon.com/t5/Verizon-at-Home/Northeast-Router-Failure/ba-p/87001

gordonfitch

In regard to #1, I don't see a way to put images here, so I put them here:

http://www.etaoin.com/upnp_state1.jpg

http://www.etaoin.com/upnp_state2.jpg

State 1 is the state I found the check box in, and in which I

have left it. Looks like "off" to me, but you never know....

#2: I run a variety of browsers, and do a lot of uploading and

downloading, usually via scp, to web sites, from any of the three

machines I have here. I download movies to the Windows

machine (Netflix, usually). I have only a general idea of what

these programs are doing under the hood.

#3: Looks like that was the problem. It's odd, however, that

only HTTP was affected (as seen from my end).

I did some more testing with simple copying (scp) and once

again observed serious interference between the download

and upload side of my connection to the Net. While running

the system monitor program on the Linux box, I can see the

inbound traffic drop from 100 kbs to about 5 kbs during an

upload (scp of a large file). If I stop the upload the inbound

recovers after a few seconds and goes back to its former

level. It's almost as if I were on an old-time half-duplex

link.

dslr595148

http://www.etaoin.com/upnp_state1.jpg

It is turned off, you have it like that.

#2 Do you run any peer to peer programs?

For example uTorrent.

#3 Ok.

To use SCP better over the net, for forward the port that SCP uses to your computer.

#4 Does Netflix, require that you forward any ports?

gordonfitch

I've run one of the torrent programs from the Linux box. (It's called

"Transmission" which seems a bit generic.) However, it seems to

use up a lot of bandwidth and I leave it off unless someone

advertises a specific file they are publishing that way. I have run

gtk-gnutella, also from the Linux, but it doesn't seem to affect

transmission rates from other processes or machines. I don't

run any other P2P programs, and I do not run any P2P progams

on the non-Linux machines, partly because of obvious security

issues, especially with respect to the Windows machine.

In regard to scp, since I use it to copy locally (between the

different machines on my home network) and via the

Net, I am not sure how I would want to set up the

ports. Right now it is working pretty well (I think).

The Netflix movie viewer, which I run only on the Windows

machine, goes through a considerable procedure of testing

the line when it starts up. However, I don't have to forward

ports for it. Whatever it does, it does without my help.

I am going to do some more testing to see if I can isolate

the specific circumstances under which uploads interfere

with downloads. I might even go so far as to look at the

Westell manual.

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