Latency and connection discussion

[CrazyMobius]

Hi all, I'm a real noob when it comes to technical stuff but I was just having a discussion from a guy at Vodafone who mentioned two things which can affect latency or connection speed. The first was "interleaving" and the second was "port redirection".
I think people have discussed port redirection before on the board but I haven't come across any discussions on interleaving. The guy said that if you ask your service provider to turn off interleaving it can improve your connection. He said it may have a small charge of $5 or so but this is a small price to pay TBH.

I'm sure a lot of people here will have experience in this type of stuff so can anyone give any wise words on this interleaving business and if requesting to have it turned off improves your connection? Also are there any down-sides to doing this?

[Gino]

Turning off interleaving can help with your ping, but may result in an unstable connection. I think interleaving is a form of error correction that is used if you are too far away from your exchange.

[fluxcore]

I was going to explain it, but if you actually care, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interleaving

Basically, interleaving off = less latency, but worse for error correction. They have it on by default for quality of service.

Personally, I got mine turned off.

[zos'la]

Interleaving is an extra level of error correction.

It makes sure that all ATM packets that come from the DSLAM to you and from you to the DSLAM are not corrupted, and if any are, it forces a re-send.

Having Interleaving off may introduce packet loss depending upon how clean your line is. If it is a rather clean line, packet loss may be as low as 3%, but if it is a dirty line, packet loss may be as high as 50%.

Having Interleaving off does have its advantages though. It lowers your ping times for instance, and also makes playing in multiplayer games more enjoyable since multiplayer games don't require that all packets reach the destination.

[geneterror]

At my old place though I got it turned off and I kept getting disconnected from games all the time so I got it out back on. For the tiny reduction I got in ping it wasn't worth not being able to get over 5 games without being disconnected .
I might try it at the new place though as all the wiring is new/the lines are better.

[Rorooze]

I remember when you had to pay like 100+ dollars for a telecom tech to secretly remove interleaving off your lines, haha.

But yeah, turning it off is fine as long as your connection doesn't have much noise. You should be able to check the quality of your connection on your router by checking the connection status, the less noise (dB) the better. That said I go no idea what values are worthwhile, especially since ADSL2 hit.

I have no idea what ping times are like since ADSL2 came out, but back in the day having it off was a pretty beast improvement (about 40ms off your ping).

[geneterror]

I have actually changed my router back to ADSL instead of ADSL2 once again because of stabilty issues. I was getting faster downloads on ADSL2 but it sucked for gaming.
Not saying this is right or wrong just relaying my experiences and from memory me and Simon are on the same ISP and probably the same exchange as we obnly live a few blocks apart.

[CrazyMobius]

I have actually changed my router back to ADSL instead of ADSL2 once again because of stabilty issues. I was getting faster downloads on ADSL2 but it sucked for gaming.
Not saying this is right or wrong just relaying my experiences and from memory me and Simon are on the same ISP and probably the same exchange as we obnly live a few blocks apart.

What's the difference between ADSL and ADSL2? Is either of them default? The reason I'm asking all this is the last couple of days I have been booted from PSN and have had to reset my modem. Sometimes within the space of 10 minutes.

The reason I bring this up here is because I find it easier to talk to actual people than reading a wiki page. Sorry but I don't have a technical mindset. If people here don't want to answer then don't answer. But restrain yourself from rude redirections to other websites.

[geneterror]

ADSL vs ADSL2 is just a speed difference as far as I know, if you are on Vodafone in Centrals Aucks you will have ADSL2.
As for default it depends on your router, mine was set to ADSL2 by default but if you have an old router it may not even support ADSL2 at all. You will need to check your router settings. Like I said I was getting disconnections with ADSL2 on.
I've been having to reset my router a bit lately though so it might just be a Vodafone problem if you're getting a lot of disconnects.

[fluxcore]

LOL, you think that was rude? I was ONLY linking it for brevity - I assumed you didn't ACTUALLY want to know the sordid details so I spared you a wall of technobabble.

Then I gave you a summary and what I've done.

Shit, sorry for trying to help, I'll just ignore you if you prefer.

[CrazyMobius]

LOL, you think that was rude? I was ONLY linking it for brevity - I assumed you didn't ACTUALLY want to know the sordid details so I spared you a wall of technobabble.

Then I gave you a summary and what I've done.

Shit, sorry for trying to help, I'll just ignore you if you prefer.

I'm sorry my mistake I reacted too hastily I should have re-read your post properly.

[CrazyMobius]

ADSL vs ADSL2 is just a speed difference as far as I know, if you are on Vodafone in Centrals Aucks you will have ADSL2.
As for default it depends on your router, mine was set to ADSL2 by default but if you have an old router it may not even support ADSL2 at all. You will need to check your router settings. Like I said I was getting disconnections with ADSL2 on.
I've been having to reset my router a bit lately though so it might just be a Vodafone problem if you're getting a lot of disconnects.

I changed to Orcon because of Vodafone's latency issues. But now I've found it is no better and in some cases worse. I remember ages ago when I used to live in a different flat I almost never had to reset my modem and always got good fast connections on PSN. It's really becoming a big pain as I don't know if it is the provider, PSN, or my modem. Would the cable make a difference? Mine is about 10 years old.

[samurai black]

now you two should kiss and make up.

HOOK, GET THE CAMERA

[Rorooze]

It could be your cable, filter, router or isp, there are to many things in the equation to give you a definitive answer :/

Does it disconnect when the phone rings?

[CaptainHook]

now you two should kiss and make up.

HOOK, GET THE CAMERA

I'd need a better reason to move the camera out of Lenny's shower than that. Like, something
you WOULDN'T expect.