Hawaiian Tel DSL Speed problem?

[Linkmeister]

Has anyone using this had slowness issues within the last couple of days? I'm having a devil of a time getting pictures from the web to show quickly. In addition, my wireless signal to the other room is much less reliable than it usually is.

I ran a speed test from SpeedIO and got the following:

Results from http://www.speed.io
(Copied on 2010-12-11 19:59:27)
Download: 51 Kbit/s
Upload : 395 kbit/s
Connects : 469 conn/min
Ping: 129 ms

which it describes as Excellent. I don't think so. 51Kbits seems slow to me, although I may be misremembering or maybe the unit of measurement I'm thinking of is different.

[anapuni808]

i'm on Hawaiian Tel and here is mine:

Results from http://www.speed.io
(Copied on 2010-12-11 20:17:50)
Download: 1499 Kbit/s
Upload : 130 kbit/s
Connects : 609 conn/min
Ping: 114 ms

[Linkmeister]

Huh. The Download speed is remarkably different, isn't it? I wonder if it's because I'm using a netbook with an Intel Atom N270 1.6GHz chip.

Tomorrow I get my Compaq back with a new motherboard ($250 diagnosis and replacement from ComputerGeeks.com). That's got a 2.6 GHz AMD Athlon X2 5000 Dual Core chip. We'll see if it clears up / speeds up when I get it home.

[salmoned]

[Linkmeister]

Speedtest's Honolulu results for me:



D/L 0.05mb/s
U/L 0.63mb/s

That's horrid. I hope to hell it's the netbook.

[helen]

Tomorrow I get my Compaq back with a new motherboard

So when you had the Compaq did it use the wired Ethernet or the wireless Ethernet?

Anyway my speedtest on my laptop via a wired connection:

Results from http://www.speed.io
(Copied on 2010-12-12 09:54:09)
Download: 2808 Kbit/s
Upload : 717 kbit/s
Connects : 1182 conn/min
Ping: 78 ms

As a suggestion you can do this. Turn off your DSL modem for a minute or so and then turn it back on. The reason for this is that sometimes devices that remains on all the time might get into a funky state once in a great while (maybe due to power surge) they are on but strange things happen.

As a caution if your DSL modem required some kind of setup before using you might want to review what those settings were or how it was done before turning it off.

[Linkmeister]

Wired. But I've got the Ethernet cable plugged into the netbook too, so that shouldn't be the issue.

There was a power outage out here for a couple of hours yesterday. Interesting idea.

I don't remember (but who would?) whether there was any special modem setup. It's a Westell B90-001215-04.

[Linkmeister]

Unplugged and replugged and got the following:



So a noticeable improvement in the download number. Good suggestion, thanks.

I'll try it again when I get back from ComputerGeeks on Kapiolani with the Compaq and see what happens then.

[Linkmeister]

Got the Compaq back and have reinstalled everything. Now:



So the same as after unplugging the modem and replugging it in. Still not as good as HawaiianTel claims.

The wireless signal to the other room is still spotty. It worked fine for about four months and now it's weak. I don't have an access point, but the MacBook out there didn't seem to need it, unlike the ASUS netbook which we'd tried out there. Hmm. That's still a problem.

[Linkmeister]

Checking to see what speed is now a month later.

Huh. Download has fallen off.

Right after I got the new motherboard something started accessing my hard drive constantly. I've run 3 different spyware programs and come up clean, but it's still doing it. High noise levels from the box.

Dang it, this shouldn't happen!

[helen]

3 different programs doing the same function, personally I don't think it is a good idea.

Try run the Windows Task Manager and see what kind processes your computer is running.

[Linkmeister]

I don't run them all at once. I downloaded them one after another to see if one of them might find something that was causing this. I've only got McAfee running all the time.

Task Manager doesn't show anything peculiar, but reading it has always been a pain no matter what version of Windows I've had, although the Description column is a big help. The two big memory hogs are Eudora email and Firefox.

[Palolo lolo]

it depends how far you are from the hub. After about 1.5 miles,it starts dropping off. I'm in back of Palolo and the hub is 9th and Harding

[anapuni808]

I live in upper Makiki. My hub is the Hawn Tel building down on Bishop St. The service is a lot faster with a "wired" as opposed to a wireless set-up. When I changed to wireless last year, my speed went way down. I demanded a refund for the speed overcharges for a whole year = $290. I just had to start paying my bill again this month. They told me I was too far away from the hub - but they didn't tell me that til I changed to a wireless modem, after a year in my new house! It still puzzles me

[craigwatanabe]

doesn't your wireless modem still have wired ports in the back? Or is it exclusively wireless?

[anapuni808]

the modem sits off to the side, connected to A/C and a phone line jack. the connections to my laptop, dvd player & kindle are wireless. i will soon be adding a wireless HP printer also.

[Linkmeister]

This is kind of interesting. Got a two-months free offer from Roadrunner so we switched. I just ran a test:


Huh.

[pzarquon]

Thanks for the update. Alas I have a personal bias against Oceanic, so wouldn't switch, even if I could.

Random story: The reason I dislike RoadRunner is because I had such awful service from them, even in Mililani, almost their backyard. I switched to Hawaiian Tel DSL and never looked back. But my wife missed digital cable, and in a moment of weakness, called to ask about it. Turns out that digital cable and RoadRunner are both no longer available for our townhome complex... even though we had it before. I guess they'd rather not deliver any service than poor service? That's the charitable explanation, at least.

In any case, here's a SpeedTest.net result over Hawaiian Tel DSL (over 802.11n wireless), I think their middle (3MBps) service level:


3.45Mbps Down/0.67Mbps Up

I'm about to upgrade to either 7MBps or 11Mbps, though, since our house is now consuming streaming video by the truckload, and I do upload a fair amount of video (which takes forever at 0.6Mbps). Alas, the upstream on even their top home plan is "up to 1Mbps" -- why aren't there any high-upstream service plans for content creators?

Anyway, I'll be sure to run and post another test when I upgrade.

P.S. Just got back from Seoul, Korea. Home fiber downloads are 100Mbps, uploads are 60Mbps. Screaming fast! Even their $15/mo. Mi-Fi type mobile hotspot gives you 6Mbps up/3Mbps down. Drool...

[Linkmeister]

P.S. Just got back from Seoul, Korea. Home fiber downloads are 100Mbps, uploads are 60Mbps. Screaming fast! Even their $15/mo. Mi-Fi type mobile hotspot gives you 6Mbps up/3Mbps down. Drool...

Jeepers! So that's what the Prez meant when he mentioned it in the SOTU address last night.

[Palolo lolo]

Jeepers! So that's what the Prez meant when he mentioned it in the SOTU address last night.

yet another indication how 'Third World' we are....:

[craigwatanabe]

Try living out here in the boonies on the Big Island. For me broadband is a whopping 500Kbs per second on a good night, 28kbs on a typical night. Really sucks sometimes...no all the time

[pzarquon]

Upgraded to the 7Mbps plan and got a new Motorola modem with built-in Wi-Fi (was using an old Westell brick modem for years).



Over 6Mbps, albeit to a local server. No improvement at all uploading, which I guess was expected.

Generally happy, but Hawaiian Telcom's "Just go to hawaiiantel.com/hsiconnect to finish up!" instructions was incredibly maddening false advertising. Terms of service popup, "master account login" prompt, and... I simply got stuck. And I thought I knew my "master account login" and am pretty savvy. Asking an average user to go through this gauntlet is madness.

The irony is, if they'd just sent the basic configuration instructions for the modem, I'd be able to login locally and change my configuration as needed like any good geek. If you're going to inject an "idiot proof" step between a user and a system, better make sure that "idiot proof" step isn't worse than the straight-up system.

[Palolo lolo]

Try living out here in the boonies on the Big Island. For me broadband is a whopping 500Kbs per second on a good night, 28kbs on a typical night. Really sucks sometimes...no all the time

Satellite DSL available?

[GeckoGeek]

My DSL speeds had fallen off some time back. I checked the wiring, even replaced my interior wiring. Still bad. Turned out my modem was failing (a white "Wirespeed"). New DSL modem (Black with built-in WiFi) and I was screaming away.

Then a few months ago, HawTel upgraded my service. I'm getting 7Mbit service for the price of 3. Just wish my upload speed would increase. I'll need it when I finally sign up for a on-line backup service.

[Linkmeister]

We switched to Roadrunner a month or two ago (2 months free!) and decided to keep it, so I called HawTel to cancel my DSL service. They checked and told me my DSL modem was so old they didn't want it back.