Network Problems at the U of C

If you’re trying to access any services on campus at the University of Calgary – it looks like our network connection took the Easter weekend off… All servers are up and running fine, but the pipe is plugged, so it’s slow going if you are trying to connect to anything on campus.

Which means I’ll have to put my tweaks to weblogs.ucalgary.ca on hold for a bit. Perhaps it’s a sign?

Hopefully it gets ironed out quickly, but everyone should be home eating chocolate bunny ears, so it may wait until Tuesday 🙂

Update: Sunday morning, and things appear to be more-or-less back in operation. At least weblogs.ucalgary.ca and the wiki are responding again…

If you’re trying to access any services on campus at the University of Calgary – it looks like our network connection took the Easter weekend off… All servers are up and running fine, but the pipe is plugged, so it’s slow going if you are trying to connect to anything on campus.

Which means I’ll have to put my tweaks to weblogs.ucalgary.ca on hold for a bit. Perhaps it’s a sign?

Hopefully it gets ironed out quickly, but everyone should be home eating chocolate bunny ears, so it may wait until Tuesday 🙂

Update: Sunday morning, and things appear to be more-or-less back in operation. At least weblogs.ucalgary.ca and the wiki are responding again…

Telus DSL “Broadband” – Not so much.

I’ve been using Telus DSL for my home internet connection for a few months, after being a Shaw cable internet subscriber since 1997. I’m growing increasingly frustrated by the unbelievably non-broadband performance of Telus DSL. I have run multiple bandwidth tests on various services, and typical throughput ranges from 11K/sec to a whopping 18K/sec. On a service that promises 1500 kilobits per second. I would get almost the same performance with a 56K modem!

I’ve sent several requests to Telus “support” to see if they can figure out what’s going on. They responded by accusing me of attempting to attack their DNS servers (which appear to be poorly configured or just plain underpowered since they take up to 30 seconds to respond).

telus bandwidth test small

I just ran the same test, from the same server, on my desktop machine on campus. The result? 3MB/Sec. It’s not the website that’s slow.

Anyone know of decent, fast, and inexpensive home broadband in Calgary? Oh, and so The Goog will find this later: TELUS SUCKS.

Update: It’s 2 days later, and a Telus tech just phoned me. We spent just over 20 minutes trying to figure out wtf was going on with my connection. He gave me some more DNS servers to use, and that appears to have solved the up to 30 second DNS lag. Also, bandwidth appears normal now (just tested using bandwidthplace.com again, and got 811 kilobits per second – slightly below average for DSL in Alberta – acceptable, but not great). The Telus guy was really trying hard, and was as frustrated as I am because this bandwidth problems appear to be so transient and intermittent. Oh, well. It appears to be working now…

I’ve been using Telus DSL for my home internet connection for a few months, after being a Shaw cable internet subscriber since 1997. I’m growing increasingly frustrated by the unbelievably non-broadband performance of Telus DSL. I have run multiple bandwidth tests on various services, and typical throughput ranges from 11K/sec to a whopping 18K/sec. On a service that promises 1500 kilobits per second. I would get almost the same performance with a 56K modem!

I’ve sent several requests to Telus “support” to see if they can figure out what’s going on. They responded by accusing me of attempting to attack their DNS servers (which appear to be poorly configured or just plain underpowered since they take up to 30 seconds to respond).

telus bandwidth test small

I just ran the same test, from the same server, on my desktop machine on campus. The result? 3MB/Sec. It’s not the website that’s slow.

Anyone know of decent, fast, and inexpensive home broadband in Calgary? Oh, and so The Goog will find this later: TELUS SUCKS.

Update: It’s 2 days later, and a Telus tech just phoned me. We spent just over 20 minutes trying to figure out wtf was going on with my connection. He gave me some more DNS servers to use, and that appears to have solved the up to 30 second DNS lag. Also, bandwidth appears normal now (just tested using bandwidthplace.com again, and got 811 kilobits per second – slightly below average for DSL in Alberta – acceptable, but not great). The Telus guy was really trying hard, and was as frustrated as I am because this bandwidth problems appear to be so transient and intermittent. Oh, well. It appears to be working now…