Broadband pricingMonthly Inc VAT. See VAT Exc.
| Up to: | 8Mb/s | 8Mb/s | 24Mb/s* |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tariff | Std | Prem | ADSL2+ |
| A | £18.99 | £31.00 | £16.99 |
| C | £26.99 | £39.00 | £26.00 |
| D | £34.99 | £47.00 | £32.00 |
| E | £46.99 | £59.00 | £38.00 |
Setup £59.99 Full tariff list The package Max *ADSL2+ trial Extra charges
Availability
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The FB6000 L2TP router provides us with Continuous Quality Monitoring (CQM). This allows us to track the quality of each and every connection in great detail. The router itself produces the graphs in real time, and can also provide csv files with accurate data for each graph.
Our router sends an LCP echo (like a ping) every second while a line is active. Your router replies. We track how long it takes for each reply to arrive, and how many are lost. These results are collated into 100 second samples and shown as a graph like the one on this page. The graph shows us lots of information about the line, and gives a history covering the last 24 hours.
Each column (pixel) represents 100 seconds of samples. The hour of day is shown at the bottom, and the day and date shown next to midnight in the graph. There is additional text superimposed on the graph such as a circuit ID. There are 8 pieces of data shown for each 100 second sample as follows:-
| Latency, scale in millseconds (ms) up to 500ms | |||
| Min | Blue | The minimum time for any LCP echo | |
| Ave | Cyan | The average time for all LCP echos | |
| Max | Green | The maximum time for any LCP echo | |
| LCP echos - scale of 100 | |||
| Sent | Yellow | The number of LCP echos sent (normally 100 if on line) | |
| Fail | Red | The number of LCP echos failed (not replied), comes down from top of graph | |
| Off | Purple | The number of LCP not sent because off line, comes down from top of graph | |
| Traffic, scale of bits/second, log from 8Kb/s to 8Mb/s | |||
| Down | Green | Downlink (from internet to end user) average | |
| Up | Red | Uplink (from end user to internet) average | |
The colours may vary and we even allow users to configure colours individually (useful for people with colour blindness, etc). It is also possible for us to show graphs with only some of the fields which can make some information clearer.
The example above show a line with occasional short uploads causing spikes in peak latency, and then a sustained upload starting at around 6pm and causing high latency (queue in the router). At 8pm there was more upload filling the link causing higher latency still and some loss (normal when the link is full).
Actually, each day, we archive the previous days graphs. This allows us to see a history of a line which is invaluable for intermittent faults or repeat faults.
We have to send LCP echos anyway to tell if a line goes off, so we may as well record the data. Sending one every second means we have very detailed information. When a fault does happen we have a full history already available, and this greatly speeds up the process of getting faults fixed. Another important point is that we can immediately see when a fault affects multiple lines as we are monitoring them already. We can even spot faults that our customers have not noticed yet.
We make the information available to customers to see their own lines, and dealers (e.g. IT consultants) to help their own clients. We also make the information available to BT in the event of a fault on a line to help them understand the nature of the fault. The graphs allow us to identify many types of faults immediately and so ensure they are fixed more quickly.
The usage based tariffs are metered based on IP traffic. They do not include LCP traffic at all, so these LCP echos are not costing you anything. They do use some of your bandwidth. One ATM cell (53 bytes) is sent each second. On an 8M line this is 0.005% of your downlink bandwidth. Even with limited uplink such as 250Kb/s, only a tiny fraction of a percent of the bandwidth is used for the monitoring.
LCP traffic is not firewalled, and does not go on to your network. Your modem/router must reply to the LCP echo. There are some unusual makes of router that are slow at replying and generate interesting latency graphs which do not reflect the actual delay on the line, but these are rare and easy for our engineers to recognise so as not to mistake for a fault.
The FireBrick FB6000 platform is designed to send and accurately time each LCP packet even when fully loaded. Each router is capable of handling 25,000 simultaneous CQM graphs with all 25,000 sessions on-line at the same time. So, yes, we can.
