Your data sounds about right:
More and more people are making use of the Bonus period to do heavy lifting (sofware updates, etc.). The ones you see at 0230 are likely automated while people are sleeping, and the ones at 0630 are likely manual as people are getting up. I personally do all mine at 0500 to beat the 0630-0700 rush hour.
I'd be willing to bet the evening rise actually starts around 1630 and continues to ramp to a frenzy between 20-2100, then becomes normal again between 22-2300. That's always been the trend, and almost always when people are trying to stream something.
Streaming always puts the biggest load on the system because of the number and consistency of the packets, as well as the potential need for unecessary resends due to the delays in a streaming server getting an ack that a segment was received correctly, and in the proper sequence. It puts a tremendous load on system resources, which is not good when resources are limited.
In a situation where latency increases with congestion, all these people that say they keep getting buffering yet continue to let it keep loading, playing, and buffering just make it worse. It's like holding a mic to a 1,000w amp speaker and wondering why the feedback just keeps getting louder and more intense until it can't take anymore and it just clips. Repeated buffering is the system's way of telling them "this isn't working, you're killing me, please stop" but they don't get the hint because god forbid they miss their Netfilix show, so everyone on the beam and ultimately the gateway suffers. Then they blame the network for something they did (Modern entitlement problems). </soapbox>
As anyone that has followed the thread above may have noticed, there is a button to display the data behind the median and average shown. So you can review the individual test results and copy them to exclude the suspicious results created by miscreants, nefarious individuals, dirty birds, or friendly flounder that may have been engaged in salting the beam with wild scores for fun or profit.
Ah! Netflix time! Personally, I like buffering because birds are incontinent by nature and I can use the breaks, so prime time here I come! HD
Something I think I need to point out:
The testing done on TestMy will only show something particular to that beam when people using the same beam get like results at the same time, but those on other beams using the same gateway get something different. That would prove there's something that's specific to just that particular beam.
If all beams on a gateway have the same symptoms at the same time it might mean there is a problem with the gateway, but it's not definite. It could also mean there's a problem anywhere between the gateway and the TestMy server, since they'd all likely be using the same route.
A good example was the widespread outage that CenturyLink had a few weeks ago, which affected the San Diego gateway. Think you'll find this kind of thing is a lot more common than the gateway going down.
MrBuster wrote:So you can review the individual test results and copy them to exclude the suspicious results created by miscreants, nefarious individuals, dirty birds, or friendly flounder that may have been engaged in salting the beam with wild scores for fun or profit.
Or the more likely reason, which is a legitimately faulty test and result, which many HughesNet subscribers who use testmy.net on a regular basis will eventually see. I've had them myself, and when they happen I always delete them.
Good points all.
I was just looking for the case where all descent tests by all users associated with a city scored well, as that implies no problem within some recent time period.
Considering two threads (titles in bold below are the threads):
Slow speed
In looking at a city for the user, I could see that all test results were bad. Of course a huge number of the tests used a test size that was far too small, and thus would give a bad score because the latency "put a thumb" on the scale so to speak. Nothing here to say what the problem is, or if there really is a problem -- but it does not say it is good either. The engineers did something and performance improved for multiple customers.
Slow internet speed
In looking at a city for this user, I saw other users with good scores at the same time this user had low scores. Of course it could be a J1 beam vs J2 beam thing, but the results hinted that this is not an issue everyone is facing. In the end, it appears that the issue was that "multithreading" was turned on. In looking in the history, the users tests were good before this feature was turned on, so the multithreading test may have been the issue.
Perhaps a Big Chungus was lodged in the Level 3 pipes between one of the servers used for the multithread test and the gateway causing the whole test score to look bad. :-)
I've had this 'conspiracy theory' that whenever the beam takes a sharp decline in performance, there's possibly always one (or two) recently added people to the beam that's bringing it down for everyone. One possibility is the person doesn't realize they're causing their own problem and discontinues, so the beam frees up.
Another possibility is the person was new, in their initial 20-day period, and didn't realize they were consistently dragging it down until they finally hit the Fair Access Policy. Whatever was causing the problem for everyone was therefore relieved.
If the problem was consistent enough, it was likely something like a constantly running HD security camera - usually something that takes a lot of resources and the person wouldn't even think twice about until it finally no longer worked.
Of course this is all supposition on my part, but have seen it happen often enough. Performance comes and goes. To be honest, it's probably a lot simpler explanation like the network periodically adjusting the load.
To be honest, it's probably a lot simpler explanation like the network periodically adjusting the load.
Occam's razor.
Rebooting always pops you into a lesser used IPGW. It will also have the benefit of refreshing the DNS cache, which is always good. Sometimes that thing gets corrupted. I usually end up rebooting at least once a week, because my wife likes to work downstairs, away from the modem, which doesn't always have a good wifi signal. That's usually a good formula for a busted DNS cache.
The comment about suspicious results was related to the laugh we had about the idea of running a bunch of tests at 4am to "salt the beam" to make it look good, but the point of faulty test runs is a fair point. In looking at results, it seems that wrong test size is far more likely to be something to filter out.
Anyway, the idea is that it is possible to compare your test results with others in your area with the caveat that some users may be on J1, and so a different beam. In looking at the cities associated with my results, the majority are relatively close to the beam center, and so it promised little overlap with a J1 beam, but with the numbers that maratsade gave, it is obvious there is a high probability that users from J1 and J2 will be listed in the data of a single city.
On the good side, glancing around numerous cities along the east coast gives a demonstration that the majority of customers have good performance since the average score is often 25Mbps to 35Mbps even with the test result records with incorrect small test sizes included. This means the good test results I am seeing are not unusual.
Having a way to show objective evidence that other users in an area are having decent performance can help to rule out that the problem is at the gateway or with the beam. Poor scores in an area do not prove anything, but do not exclude anything either.
How often have you seen somebody proclaim that the problem is with beam or the gateway? As users without any inside information regarding the system there is no way to say. With the TestMy.net database, when a user has an issue and presents a TestMy.net record, it is possible to compare the results with other user's test results in the area potentially providing some demonstration of what the problem is NOT, and helping with the process of troubleshooting.
Do you not see any value in that?
"The comment about suspicious results was related to the laugh we had about the idea of running a bunch of tests at 4am to "salt the beam" to make it look good"
This task has been assigned to you, Agent B. How are you doing with this? ;)
