View Full Version : Fibertel vs Arnet
Thomaso276
09-29-08, 22:01
I have had Fibertel for several years, now at 3meg service. A couple of months ago I noticed a severe slowdown in speed (I should get 384 kbps but as I write this I am getting about 35 kbps on my slingbox, I have gotten as high as 350) Seems like early morning I get good speed (250 - 300) but by afternoon and into evening it just drags. I live downtown - it is not a residential area so I cannot imagine there are thousands online after wrok, like there would be in the residential areas. Spoke with Jackson about his setup and I was looking for any others who have either Fibertel or the Arnet DSL for their feedback.
Just finished the online chat with a rep for fibertel and he said there were no problems in my neighborhood and told me to call an 800 number for a complaint - 800 numbers down here are a waste of time. He offered no information. F*king Argies are worthless when it comes to repping their companies.
I am considering swithcing over to Arnet if it is reliable and better quality for speed.
Rock Harders
09-29-08, 22:48
Thomaso,
There are several factors at play here. First and most important is the upload speed that you are getting on the streaming video at the site where your slingbox is connected in the USA. The second important factor here is the download speed that you are getting here in Argentina. Try going to speedtest. Com, follow the simple instructions, and figure out exactly how fast your speeds are. The x factor in all this is whether your internet service provider is in fact limiting your available bandwidth during certain time periods, OR if they are limiting the amount of bandwidth available for streaming video (streaming video bogs non-dedicated systems down bigtime, cable internet is non-dedicated, meaning shared bandwidth)
For example, back at one of my slingbox sites in the NYC-area, the slingbox is hooked up with a non-dedicated fiberoptic internet service that gives up to 5mbps upload speed. This translates into my slingbox being able to stream video at 1.2mbps 640x480, (the best available) at near HD quality; however this works at this level at 4:30 AM Argentina time but not in the afternoon; somewhere along the way the video streaming is being limited, and allowing only 380-450 kbps.
The answer to this for me and you is to get dedicated internet connections on both ends, basically a T1 or similar setup. This will guarentee at all times somewhere around 1.2-1.5 mbps on both ends, and produce the 640x480 video stream that I can only get now in the middle of the night.
Suerte,
Rock Harders
Fibertel used to be the best service several years ago, today sucks. A client of one of my apartments requested a 10 mbps connection and it's usd 200
However, they manage the time in a way you will always lose, also, they require you send an email explaining for the reasons to degrade-cut off the service when for requesting it you don't need it. I have found Arnet to be a better provider lately.
Another option to keep the cost as low as possible it's move from one provider to another, even having a span of time with 2 providers, it's less expensive than keeping one provider for 6 months or more.
It's unlikely that anyone is actually proactively limiting your streaming speeds. A much more likely explanation is congestion on one of links in the route between the two end-points. Routes can change and multiple networks are involved, so your ability to take action to solve the problem is severely limited. However, changing your ISP could help because Arnet might have a less congested route between the two end-points.
If it's not too expensive or annoying to try, give it a go. But you might want to hang on to your Fibertel connection until you are certain that Arnet works better for Slingbox. For a Slingbox connection, the 2.5mb service should be sufficient.
Last time I checked it was just a 10Gbps (+100 Mbit fall back) for the whole country!
If that is still the case then that will definitely be the bottleneck.
A country like AR needs at least a couple of 10Gbps connections to several endpoints in the rest of the world, not just to the US of A. IIRC the 10Gbps was to the US of A direct, and the 100Mbps was via Chile to the rest of the world.
Since all the Argies get now the 2Mbit or more connections, well, that will congest the low bandwidth connections.
In which case, changing your ISP won't do dick for you. But the only way you are going to find out for sure is to try it.
Thomaso276
09-30-08, 10:39
Thanks, I thought about the speed from my slingbox in Fl. Being too slow. However, when the slingbox is slow, so are, for example, video feeds from NFL.com. I mean really slow. Watch a 3 minute highlight takes 15 minutes, with starts and stops of 4 seconds each.
I have done the speed tests and sometimes it shows a 3 meg speed, others.5 megs with no corresponding video speed. I thought it might be a problem with the video speed allowed by fibertel.
Thanks for the feedback. I will be trying Arnet as a backup.
I found Arnet to be spotty at times. I would personally have about 12-24 hours of down time every 30 days. With Fibertel, I have had about 2 hours of down time in the past 3 months.
As far as speed is concerned. This isn't even debatable. Cable and Fiber optics are ten's of times faster than DSL.
Regards,
BM.
I found Arnet to be spotty at times. I would personally have about 12-24 hours of down time every 30 days. With Fibertel, I have had about 2 hours of down time in the past 3 months.
As far as speed is concerned. This isn't even debatable. Cable and Fiber optics are ten's of times faster than DSL.
Regards,
BM.Reliability wise I had some (big) problems with fibertel recently. But also ARNet is not known for its stable network.
Speedwise, well there are somethings you have to keep in mind when comparing DSL and cable. An (A)DSL connection has guaranteed bandwidth up to the ISP. Then it depends on the infrastructure of the ISP if it will be capable to provide the same bandwidth. Normally (A)DSL connections are overbooked by 25-100x (depending on the provider, price of service etc)
Cable internet is always a shared connection. To give you an idea, in Recoleta (where I live) Fibertel uses a downstream channel which is ~42Mbit, and an upstream of ~5Mbit, of which you get (up to!) A certain part allocated depending on your service contract. But... These channels are shared between everybody who is on the same ring. Normally the cable company runs for each ring a separate (redundant?) Uplink to their concentration point. If they do not, then you are even more screwed since then you can even share in Recoleta the bandwidth with somebody out of Belgrano.
Depending on the whole infrastructure of the ISP (their backbone and their uplink to the rest of the world) cable and DSL can be comparable. However in a normal situation DSL should be faster because of the guaranteed bandwidth up to the provider. But then again, in Argentina you are being overcharged for a bad quality connection, combined with a way too low bandwidth to the rest of the world. I doubt if an average user will notice the difference.
Oh yes, the word "fiber" in FiberTel is misleading. I do not think they can actually provide you a fiber connection, even if you pay big bucks!
Just my 2c;)
I also have had problems with Fibertel, starting a couple of months ago. Up until then I regularly downloaded at 320kbps no problem. Now I'm lucky to get 36kbs during the day, and 200kbps even at 4:00am. I don't think it's necessarily the shared aspect of the cable system that's causing the problems.
My connect percentage is very good - I rarely actually go down. However, I VERY OFTEN have DNS problems, where I can't reach some websites, for example, unless I use an IP address.
I talked to my lead programmer Pablo just now, who has been having problems with his Fibertel as well. Indeed, all of my programmers have had problems.
Pablo tells me that Marcos, another programmer, moved over to Telecentro, which supposedly has a good reputation here. He's been connected for almost a month and has solid downloads at 360 kbps, never noticing any problems. Pablo has ordered their service and expects to be connected today or tomorrow.
He was going to use IPlan, who he says hands down has the best service in Buenos Aires. The problem for him was that they didn't already have a connection to his building and they were going to charge him a $1000 (pesos) to "throw a line" from a nearby building to his.
Tomaso, I would definitely look at something other than Arnet from everything I've ehard about their service.
Thomaso276
09-30-08, 15:12
Q: those are exactly my problems and they started a few months ago.
"But then again, in Argentina you are being overcharged for a bad quality connection, combined with a way too low bandwidth to the rest of the world"
Agree 100 percent. I beleive fibertel is overselling their service adding customers without upgrading their equipment. Somewhat like the chicas!
I just signed up for Arnet promotion and will keep both for a month or so to see which is better.
In all honesty, I have used both and I am having less problems with FiberTel at the moment.
But neither is 100% fool proof. They both have their pros and cons. I have a friend who had both, and in the same week, they both went out and he was stuck without internet access for a week. I think it has less to do with DSL or Cable and more to do with the fact that we are in Argentina and in Argentina, shit happens.
Regards,
BM.
Thomaso276
09-30-08, 18:19
Thanks for the info BM, I'll post some follow up after a month of service.
Thomaso276
10-01-08, 09:24
Turn on slingbox this morning at 830 am. 350 kbps. Last night aound 10 pm, 50, by midnight 110, yesterday most of the day 40. Undoubtably it will slow little by little until tonight.
Did some searches last night and translated pages to spanish. Apparently fibertel is accused of using p2p filters to slow speeds and something called transparent proxies. Fibertel denies both. Lots of complaints on different forums and blogs. Clarin group owns Fibertel and there are many complaints registered at the consumer protection office with little results.
Thomaso276
10-01-08, 12:57
12 noon Wed. Speed drops to around 210. Have lost 120 kbps in under 4 hours
Are you using this one?
http://www.speedtest.net/
Regards,
BM
Thomaso276
10-01-08, 16:42
I have. The speeds I am posting are from my slingbox from USA. Now at 330 pm speed is about 110. Lousy picture.
I think if they are using filters for p2p programs, this is affecting my slingbox, which I believe is a p2p based program.
Here is speed test result from the test page with no other programs running.
To miami 3000 kbps down 239 upld.
To telecentro here in BA: 3000 255
To brasil (Salto) 3100 245
Santiago chile 3000 258
Thomaso276
10-01-08, 17:27
Found this, listing providers who fu*k with p2p feeds.
http://www.azureuswiki.com/index.php/Bad_ISPs#Argentina
Are you doing the slingbox thing to get US tv programming?
Try this.
http://www.watchtvsitcoms.com/tvshows.php
Regards,
BM.
Guys,
These ISP speed tests are going to be of limited comparative value unless we all agree to utilize the same baseline parameters.
May I propose that we all use http://www.speedtest.net, testing speeds from the Miami server?
I would also suggest that we all configure the tests to calcualte the results in megabytes (MB) as this is the unit of measure that is utilized we are all "sold" by the ISP's.
To that end, today at 7pm I clocked the following results:
From my 5 MB Telecom / Arnet connection:
10/1/2008 9:48 PM GMT 190.30.15.39 0.19 MB / s 0.02 MB / s 332 ms.
10/1/2008 9:45 PM GMT 190.30.15.39 0.14 MB / s 0.02 MB / s 336 ms.
And then switching to.
From my MultiCanal / CableVision connection:
10/1/2008 10:06 PM GMT 190.190.182.166 0.06 MB / s 0.03 MB / s 411 ms.
10/1/2008 10:04 PM GMT 190.190.182.166 0.11 MB / s 0.03 MB / s 333 ms.
Thanks,
Jackson.
BTW, Thanks to Bad for the link to watchtvsitcoms. Com. Now I can finally watch episodes of "Penn and Teller's Bullshit" that I hadn't seen yet.
J
Thomaso276
10-01-08, 22:12
At 8 pm my slingbox dropped to 50-60 kbps. Same pattern as prior days. I am going to fibertel tommorrow to see if they have my address flagged.
Info on the net indicates they do this to slow down ARES, some program called MULE, or any other bittorrent programs cause Argies will download stuff 24 hours.
Thomaso276
10-01-08, 22:23
10/1/2008 6:42 PM GMT 24.232.76.173 2966 kb / s 232 kb / s 14 ms Buenos Aires.
Just about same results as Jackson, But slingbox is dragging.
Jackson, I think Tomaso is correct in using the default setting of kilobits per second, and not megabytes per second.
What they actually are selling you is 3 megabits per second. A bit is a binary portion of a byte. A byte consists of 8 bits. Another word for byte is "word" actually, as if the bits are spelling the bytes (haha - but true)
So if you are paying for 3,000,000 bits (3,000 kilobits, or 3 megabits) you are actually paying for 375 kilobytes (3,000 kilobits / 8) or.375 megabytes.
For example Jackson, your figures would translate thusly:
From Jacksons 5 MB Telecom / Arnet connection:
10/1/2008 9:48 PM GMT 190.30.15.39 1520 kbs / s 160 kbs / s 332 ms.
10/1/2008 9:45 PM GMT 190.30.15.39 1120 kbs / s 160 kbs / s 336 ms.
And then switching to.
From my MultiCanal / CableVision connection:
10/1/2008 10:06 PM GMT 190.190.182.166 480 kbs / s 240 kbs / s 411 ms.
10/1/2008 10:04 PM GMT 190.190.182.166 880 kbs / s 240 kbs / s 333 ms.
Your Cable Vision is doing much worse than mine and so is your Arnet (I'll post mine next) but your Arnet is doing better than your cable by far.
Here are some of my results with FiberTel from different places:
Miami.
10/2/2008 4:50 AM GMT 200.126.202.80 1787 kb / s 254 kb / s 324 ms
10/2/2008 4:13 AM GMT 200.126.202.80 2252 kb / s 257 kb / s 251 ms
10/2/2008 3:56 AM GMT 200.126.202.80 1630 kb / s 254 kb / s 363 ms
10/2/2008 3:51 AM GMT 200.126.202.80 1305 kb / s 251 kb / s 391 ms
10/2/2008 3:48 AM GMT 200.126.202.80 2135 kb / s 254 kb / s 250 ms
Austin.
10/2/2008 4:51 AM GMT 200.126.202.80 1456 kb / s 253 kb / s 383 ms
10/2/2008 4:28 AM GMT 200.126.202.80 1402 kb / s 254 kb / s 381 ms
10/2/2008 4:17 AM GMT 200.126.202.80 1339 kb / s 129 kb / s 1285 ms
Austin private FTP.
1:11 2752 kilobits per second download.
1:14 256 kilobytes per second upload.
Brasil - Caxias do Sol.
10/2/2008 4:39 AM GMT 200.126.202.80 398 kb / s 235 kb / s 635 ms.
10/2/2008 4:46 AM GMT 200.126.202.80 626 kb / s 234 kb / s 632 ms.
Brasil - Americana.
10/2/2008 4:47 AM GMT 200.126.202.80 1836 kb / s 254 kb / s 60 ms.
10/2/2008 4:53 AM GMT 200.126.202.80 1868 kb / s 257 kb / s 60 ms.
Santiago de Chile
10/2/2008 4:44 AM GMT 200.126.202.80 3032 kb / s 256 kb / s 63 ms.
10/2/2008 4:49 AM GMT 200.126.202.80 3028 kb / s 256 kb / s 62 ms.
So Miami for me is about 1/2 to 2/3 of the 3 megabits I am supposed to be capable of.
Austin is worse through speedtest. Net, but an FTP up and down to a private server I know of got the top US score (and second best overall) at 2752 kilobits / s. Not sure what that means as far as validity of testing.
Brasil has a terrible, awful server at Caxias do Sol, but the Americana server is comparable to Miami, but it's about 1/5 the distance and has a good ping of 60 miliseconds.
Santiago Chile takes the prize though and actually gives me, consistently tonight at least, my 3 megabits that I'm promised. It has the second best ping of 62 miliseconds.
Since speedtest doesn't have a server in Buenos Aires showing, I can't test closer.
I can say this for sure - my cable is rarely as good as it is tonight. I have had a lot of connectivity problems lately, as far as DNS errors and such. But tonight it's pretty nice.
I notice that the worst speeds are usually related to the tests that have the greatest ping (which is the time in miliseconds that it is taking packets of information to make the trip from beginning point to the end if I understand correctly) Ping is a function of distance and the number of times packets have to be routed due to traffic or downs in the system.
Miami seemed to vary significantly over time. I wonder if there's an infrastructure issue between here and there?
Via Cablevision.
10/2/2008 10:12 PM GMT 566 kb / s 223 kb / s 435 ms Miami, FL ~ 4350 mi.
10/2/2008 10:15 PM GMT 751 kb / s 219 kb / s 452 ms Miami, FL ~ 4350 mi
Damn Jackson, as bad as my Fibertel can be at times, I now know to not even think about Cablevision!
I was intending to post a another CableVision speed test, but as usual, my CableVision connection just stopped working in the middle of the day, in this case it was still down 2 hours later.
For those of you new to the thread, this happens with my Cablevision connection several times a week.
Anyway, I switched to my Telecom / Arnet 5 Meg DSL with the following results:
10/3/2008 8:21 PM GMT 450 kb / s 183 kb / s 448 ms Miami, FL.
10/3/2008 8:20 PM GMT 486 kb / s 182 kb / s 446 ms Miami, FL.
I don't know about you, but that doesn't look anywhere near 5 meg.
Thanks,
Jackson
Looks like you're getting about 9% of what you should be getting.
FiberTel to Miami
10/3/2008 8:54 PM GMT 845 kb / s 77 kb / s 330 ms Miami, FL ~ 4350 mi.
To Americana, Brasil
10/3/2008 9:02 PM GMT 1542 kb / s 257 kb / s 65 ms Americana ~ 1100 mi.
To Caxias do Sol Brasil
10/3/2008 9:01 PM GMT 466 kb / s 152 kb / s 725 ms Caxias do Sul ~ 550 mi.
To Santiago
10/3/2008 9:00 PM GMT 3011 kb / s 254 kb / s 90 ms Santiago ~ 700 mi.
It depends on where you want to go, it looks like. My Miami numbers are way down too, though not as low as Jackson's. Santiago is still up pretty high, though not all the way.
Thomaso276
10-03-08, 20:33
Got the Arnet modem 2 days after the phone call. Got the 5 meg service. Set it up only for my laptop / tv / slingbox setup. Consistent 350-400 kbps for the slingbox feed. Gives me a very good picture, not digital but very watchable for all shows, including sports.
Fiebertel continued starting out in the morning at 380 and then losing speed about every 2 hours. Right now, 730pm slingbox feed on fibertel is 110. Just watchable for news, tv programs, no sports. Below 100 it is almost unwatchable.
I will probably keep both for awhile to monitor their service.
I arrived this morning and started using a Fibertel connection. It was fine in the morning but started slowing in the afternoon until it got to the "barely usable" level at about 7pm. It has recovered a bit by now (8:15pm) but still at about 15% of the peak. Getting 10kBs download at the moment.
I did a tracert back to my home server and things went south as soon as the packets passed though the gateway (GW-62. Fibertel. Com. Ar) between Fibertel and the upstream Internet provider (Global Crossing) Lots and lots of timeouts at that point. So either Global Crossing has congestion problems on that link or there's a technical problem causing packet loss. Once it crossed the link to TenGigabitEthernet3-4. Ar3. Ez1. Gblx. Net, everything was fine.
Open a command line and do a tracert to your slingbox. Compare the routes taken when connected to Fibertel vs Arnet and see if anything jumps out as a strange. If it is an international issue, you'll see it in the first few hops.
I did a tracert back to my home server and things went south as soon as the packets passed though the gateway (GW-62. Fibertel. Com. Ar) between Fibertel and the upstream Internet provider (Global Crossing) Lots and lots of timeouts at that point. So either Global Crossing has congestion problems on that link or there's a technical problem causing packet loss. Once it crossed the link to TenGigabitEthernet3-4. Ar3. Ez1. Gblx. Net, everything was fine.If you want to measure packet loss you have to test end-to-end. Routers give a very low priority to ping requests so it looks like they are failing, while they are just busy doing the thing they need to do! If the router would drop packets then you would see that also with a ping through the router to the other end. But you indicate yourself that the pings to the other end were fine, so that means the router is not dropping packets, it is just ignoring ping requests. You normally see that with routers which are running over 50% of their capacity. Some routers are configured not to respond to ping requests.
A traceroute will tell some things to the experienced person, but will not tell that much to a regular user. If you have a linux / unix box to your disposal install MTR on the box and use that to trace. Then you can see how many links are actually in use between different routers and that way you can see what the capacity is of that particular link. Also a reverse traceroute can tell you a lot about the link. It is very well possible that a packet from your laptop / pc / whatever to the other end follows a different route than the packet from the other end to your laptop / pc / whatever. Sometimes it is not the upstream but the downstream.
In Argentina's case where the outside world bandwidth is limited you will see that the packet from you to the US is getting there fine, but the way back is congested due to Argies using P2P to download movies, MP3's etc.
That's all true but since I don't expect to even try to motivate Fibertel to do jack shit about anything I might find, I'm not going to do anything more in-depth than a few pings and tracerts for my own (perhaps misguided) amusement.
Throughput still sucks at 3am.
If I lived here, I'd definitely be looking at alternatives.
Thomaso276
10-04-08, 09:35
"but the way back is congested due to Argies using P2P to download movies, MP3's etc."
That I think is the big problem. Local boards say there is a filter to slow down these feed.
I ran across a couple or articles that people might find interesting. The first is mostly about why the sky is not falling as far as backbone Internet capacity. But what I found most interesting was the cost of interconnect in Latin America. It's only one data point, but interconnect is 7x more expensive in Sao Paulo than San Francisco and I bet it's even higher in BA. But it's still pretty cheap at 1Gbps for $70K / month in SP but that still might be above the budget for at least a few of us.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081007-plunging-costs-show-theres-plenty-of-backbone-bandwidth.html
The second is about the mechanism of pricing and carrying interconnect. If you have an interest in the details, it's a good place to start.
http://arstechnica.com/guides/other/peering-and-transit.ars
My file sync program (MS Foldershare) stopped working so I switched to an FTP-based solution and my throughput is up to 200KBps so either 1) there was a network problem that got fixed, 2) Foldershare is having a problem that effected throughput, or 3) Foldershare sucks on high latency networks. Since two out of the three possibilities involve Foldershare, I think I'll just find a replacement.
Thomaso276
10-30-08, 09:19
I have had Arnet DSL, 5 megs, for about one month. I consistently receive about 400 kbs for my slingbox (max would be 512) and the service goes down for about 3 seconds on occasion (meaning I have to restart the slingbox - no big deal) but has never been out for hours. Overall I am VERY happy with it.
Fibertel continues to have slow and inconsistent speeds and yesterday was off for over an hour. I have cut back from 3 meg to 2 meg service and will probably drop to 1 in the future to save more money (for personal reasons I want the DSL dedicated to my TV options and fibertel for another computer in the house that can be used for more mundane internet needs.
Recommendation: Arnet
Arnet is definitely better than Fibertel, and in my opinion the best ISP for the home user nowadays. I've had Arnet for over 6 years, and the only problems I've had were disconnections, but like once a year for a few hours. No biggie.
Rock Harders
10-30-08, 14:49
Monger,
About a month ago, I had one of my employees call fibertel to inquire about getting a dedicated T1 type line installed at my business. Apparently, they have a separate division that deals with dedicated lines, and you tell them the bandwidth you want, with prices in USD starting around $400 per month. However, my employee explained to the Fibertel representative why we wanted the additional dedicated bandwidth (for streaming video) and also explained to the representative that we knew they were limiting the video packets being received. Coincidence of not, the very next day, we began getting consistant 1200 KBS video streams (1.2 MBS) 24 hours a day. This combined with the 5 MBS upload speed I have in NJ from a fiberoptic line makes for a picture that is 95% as good as the satellite.
Suerte,
Rock Harders
I have used Arnet in the past and Fibertel recently.
Arnet's customer service sucks ass. Fibertel is slightly better.
Fibertel's internet connection and speed is just as good if not better that Arnet's IMHO. And I haven't " not " had internet the entire time since I signed up. So far Fibertel has met all expectations.
But then again, I don't employ a slingbox, so I wouldn't know about that.
I don't think there is a " best " and " worst ". I think it is mostly hit and miss. Their service is comparable overall. What makes the difference is customer service and tech support, when something does go wrong. My experience with Arnet was quite lackluster in this regard.
I was happy with Arnet for over 2 years until I had a problem, and then it took their tech support team more than a week to fix the problem and only after repeated calls from my part. So everything is usually roses until you have a problem. But this seems to be the case with everything in Argentina.
Regards,
BM.
I have Speedy Duo 3mbps which accuses 3.5 or 3.8 most of the time. This includes limitless local phone calls and I have a special pack that for 11 pesos allows me 40 minutes a month to the US.
I have had Speedy for a few years (since it came out) and only once was I left without connection for 3 days. The technician came twice and finally they discovered the problem in the local central station. I was given a discount for the three days. Another time lightening struck the central and I was without connection for a day (I was also given a discount for this)
I wish the other service providers (Multicanal or Edesur) gave half as good a service!
I have had Speedy for a few years.
I wish the other service providers (Multicanal or Edesur) gave half as good a service!Just to clarify: Speedy is only available as a DSL service when a Telefonica landline is present. Speedy is the DSL service for Telefonica, as Arnet is the DSL service for Telecom.
It's not possible to install a Telefonica landline in Barrio Norte, Palermo, Belgrano, since that's Telecom territory. I don;t know their exact distribution but I know that in San Telmo is only possible to install Telefonica, consequently, Speedy and Arnet is not available.
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