Unacceptable T1 performance! Any advice...?

Well, my apartment community has found yet another way to show us how "much" they care about us...

When I signed the lease, they advertised T1 internet included in the rent. Wow...that's supposed to be about 1.5 Mbps right? HA...WRONG!!!

I'm downloading a copy of WindowBlinds right now...and I'm getting sustained speeds of about 16-80 Kbps. And to be honest those speeds are actually quite generous as they are usually lower. That's right about inline with DIAL-UP SERVICE! Talk about getting ripped off...

Anyway, back to the main question: is there anything I can do (tweak with my router, PC settings, etc) to free up even a little bit of bandwidth? I'm talking with the management tomorrow to complain about the speeds, but I'm sure that will get me no-where (as they are complete imbeciles who are incapable of understanding that our rent pays for services they don't provide)...

Ok...as you can guess I'm more than frustrated with my apartment (for more reasons than the one listed here). But can you guys help me at least make this important aspect of my life work a little faster?

 

Are you sure they aren't sharing a T1 connection among all the apartment residences? With little Billy next door downloading BitTorrent, and Mr. Hurley upstairs downloading porn, you're not gonna see the full T1 bandwidth.

 

That's what I thought too...except for the simple fact that about 1/2 of the apartment complex is NOT leased out. I'm sure it is a shared thing (since they even have their own server), but it shouldn't be this slow.

 

With your 80 kbps you're receiving 5.18% of the total T1 line. How many apartments in your complex?

 

I was just going to say...

80Kbps is about 5% of the speed...and when you only have about 10 units occupied in the building...and of those most don't use the internet constantly...???

Are there any services on my PC I can disable to increase my bandwidth? I've heard a few reserve a portion of your bandwidth but they never use it...

 

What do you get when you run Speed Test?

 

you have to compensate the fact that most sites wont push above 300k on uploads - on my previous t1 - DL speeds were around 150 - 250k and I had a full t1 to myself -
I wouldn't doubt that you are sharing your T1 with others around the apartment - depending on how many people are on varies your speed - Also they may be doing some bandwidth limiting (I would for security/bandwidth hogs) to each connection.

 

According to that utility I'm getting 96 kbps download and 349 kbps upload with pings to a Chicago server taking 202ms.

 

Usually, you will get higher download then upload so from that it seems that it is other neighbors downloading. My connection has max 300 down 100 up

 

Keep in mind, it'd only take one ambitious kid to take pretty well all your bandwidth.

 

Yeah, someone else is probably taking up all the bandwith.

They should implement some sort of one T1 line per ten aparnemts and put rate limiters on teh routers to 150kbps so one person cant use all the bandwith.

Or something like that...

Heck, I pay $30 a month for 1.5mbps DSL, and its always up to speed if not above it.

 

Well trying to get my apartment management to do anything is like trying to get a car to run without gas. It won't happen...River Walk Apartments in Lafayette, IN suck.

This problem isn't going to be a problem for much longer...I'm ordering a 3rd party cable internet. Screw River Walk's falsely advertised connections.

 

I'm suprised an apartment complex would even offer such a service, but either way, getting your own connection will fix the problems. I've got Qwest's 1536/896 dsl in my apartment and its easy to hit the max download and upload speeds and it is more or less a T1 except for the upload speed.

 

That's actually really strange. If in fact your complex had a dedicated T1, and shared it among all the residents you should still see the 1.5mb speeds. It takes A LOT to saturate a fat pipe like a T1. While the speeds may be slower than DSL/cable, it's the fact that you can have multiple downloads running at once, and see speeds of 1.5mb on each one. This is why companies pay for T1's over cable, because speeds shouldn't be affected by a several users. Now i'm no expert, but someone in the building would need to really be hogging bandwidth to slow down a dedicated T1 even if it were shared among ~10 average home users. I would either be led to believe they lied to you and you're in fact sharing a home DSL/cable line, or something is wrong with the network. In either case, you need to talk to the network admin at your complex...

 

sucka:

I was thinking the same thing. Is it possible the ad said get "1.5Mb (near T1) speed included" or something like that...a common and annoying ad gimmick. Still kinda stinks though...

The OP is better off with the cable setup for sure...

hmmmm...perhaps the speed is capped...at 80kb...awwwk!! what a thought!

 

Based on the information he's given, there's almost no way he's on a dedicated T1 line. The more likely explanation would be he was lied to, although being mislead is possible. Like i said, with a T1 you can have a whole bunch of people downloading different files, and all should see 1.5mb speeds. Skinny pipes like cable are affected by network traffic, so a 6mb connection split between 10 people could cause those types of speeds (if someone is hogging it) but on a T1, everyone should see the same 1.5mb connection. I don't know what it takes to saturate a T1, but it's more than ~10 home users, even if one person is running bittorrent or whatever else.

 

Sucka, where are you getting your information? I'm pretty sure a T1 is just 1.5~ mbits.

And, now that I read that a second time, 1,544,000 bits/sec would translate to around 188 kilobytes/second.

 

As far as i know (and again i don't claim to be a network guru) a dedicated T1 line can handle multiple connections at once while still maintaining it's rated 1.5mb (which you are right there). Meaning that if one person is downloading at 1.5mb, another simultaneous connection on the same network would not be affected the same way it would be if it were say a cable connection. This is why companies use dedicated lines, because they don't share bandwidth on nodes like a cable line.

Edit: Correct me if i'm wrong, i'm just basing this off the way i understood dedicated lines.

 

I guess it makes even less sense to me now why a company would pay $400+ for a dedicated line that will offer nothing better than my standard cable at $50 bucks. I guess i would be willing to trade the 500kBs upload for an extra $350 bucks (i have a 15/1 connection myself). If this is in fact the case, it would make even less sense for the average company to have a T1. Only companies doing consistent uploading would benefit from a dedicated line. It's even harder to saturate a cable line than a T1, go figure....

 

Well, after talking with the management here...they know something's wrong with the service but they aren't bothering to fix it. So I went ahead and got cable internet!



Thanks for the help guys...at least I'm browsing at decent speeds finally!

 

Thats some fast cable. Mine gets 384 for upload

 

This be a whatever lined shared by 17,000 people

 

Well, I think I have a final update for everyone regarding what happened at my apartment complex...

The have four parellel T1 lines serving the entire complex...all in all, at least 600 units splitting a ~6Mbps channel. Pathetic!

 

In UK T1 is way too expensive, my company usually sell dual, quad dsl lines and that way it is much cheaper and stable. So you don't just all depend on that 1 single line.

At home I'm using triple wan and it is just as good as a t1 if not better.

So if you guys are looking for T1 maybe you can also check out dual dsl which would save you quite a bit of money. Getting it from multiple isp is also an option which will save you from downtime.