Slow internet speed on Airtel V-Fiber Broadband connecting to servers outside my city

[Deleted member 71633]

Hello people! I'm new to this forum. I'm using airtel broadband from past 8 years. Never faced such issue.

I live in Chennai and recently switched to Airtel V-Fiber as Airtel customer service suggested.

Whenever I download something from any website that does not have their servers in Chennai, my internet speed crawls down to 80KBps sometimes even 20KBps. And this is not just for one particular server, it is with all the servers outside my city. Google's services work fine because they have CDNs all over the world (One in Chennai too).

SpeedTest.net shows the same results. Can you guys please check this out on your airtel broadband connection? I've been reporting this issue to airtel from past 6 months but they don't understand this. I think they're cheating me. Here are my results from SpeedTest.net using different servers.

Location/Ping/Download/Upload - URL

Chennai/7ms/48.27Mbps/5.63Mbps - Speedtest by Ookla - The Global Broadband Speed Test
Bangalore/13ms/32.69Mbps/5.62Mbps - Speedtest by Ookla - The Global Broadband Speed Test
Delhi/31ms/9.94Mbps/5.56Mbps - Speedtest by Ookla - The Global Broadband Speed Test
Mumbai/13ms/7.33Mbps/5.56Mbps - Speedtest by Ookla - The Global Broadband Speed Test
Hyderabad/15ms/21.02Mbps/5.54Mbps - Speedtest by Ookla - The Global Broadband Speed Test
Washington,DC/269ms/1.98Mbps/4.21Mbps - Speedtest by Ookla - The Global Broadband Speed Test
New York City/234ms/1.66Mbps/4.82Mbps - Speedtest by Ookla - The Global Broadband Speed Test

For server selection on SpeedTest.net, I've selected Bharti Airtel network for speed test in India and for foreign countries I've used SpeedTest.net's own network.

 

[Deleted member 71633]

Guys please help me. I just want to know if someone else is facing this issue.

 

[Karan]

Highly unsual results, the upload is consistent but the download seems to drop dramatically the further away you go. Please let us know what is the modem you have for v-fiber, if you face total loss of connectivity or it just slows down to a crawl, if you have a phone, do you hear static or noise on it?

Please post a screenshot of the sync/line stats page of your modem.

When you say you have been complaining to airtel for 6 months, to whom? just the customer care or have to tried higher levels as well?

 

[Deleted member 71633]

First of all thank you Karan for taking time to reply.

I'm using Beetel 777VR1 modem which was provided by airtel after paying ₹1000/- for the upgrade from ADSL to VDSL. Connection is stable. Landline is working fine and I don't hear any noise in it.

Here's the screenshot of the stats page from my modem.

I've tried almost all of the higher level executives. Once I even got a call from airtel's Delhi office who told me that he's calling directly from the head office of airtel ("where Gopal Vittal sits" as he said) but to no avail.

I've raised complaints again and again, but my area service engineer is always rude and manges to force me to close the complaint explaining that speed depends on the server load. I know this and I own a server from a web hosting company in Bangalore.

Recently, 1 week ago, their team leader along with two other service engineer visited my place around 7:30pm and spent 2.5 hours to analyse the issue. But he explained me that they only check the from speedtest.net. Apart from that they check the download speed of a random video from Youtube and iTunes Setup from Apple.com.

I've explained them clearly that Google has CDNs all over the world (one in Chennai too). So, downloading anything from Google's server is fast.

Any idea what I can do to get them understand this situation?

 

[Karan]

Thanks for the detailed info. As per the screenshot, the line stats are good, so its not a physical line issue. It could be an issue with the modem too, their beetel modems have caused a lot of new users a lot of grief, have you asked them to swap it with another model like the Huawei or D-Link to test? Apart from that if it not the modem then it has to be an issue with airtel's end. I really don't know what else could possibly be done to rectify the issue if they themselves are being ignorant about it. Have you officially escalated it to their Nodal and Appellate officers?

 

[warpspeed]

@anon_airtel_user Hey, I'm from Chennai as well. Airtel is the only ISP that gives me advertised speeds to international servers so this is definitely unusual. I get an average of 45 Mbps to the US/EU and ~50 Mbps to SGP/HK servers. Like Karan suggested you must escalate it to Appellate Authority and request them to have a backend engineer look into the issue.

You can find their details here - Airtel.IN

​

 

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[Deleted member 71633]

Thanks for the detailed info. As per the screenshot, the line stats are good, so its not a physical line issue. It could be an issue with the modem too, their beetel modems have caused a lot of new users a lot of grief, have you asked them to swap it with another model like the Huawei or D-Link to test? Apart from that if it not the modem then it has to be an issue with airtel's end. I really don't know what else could possibly be done to rectify the issue if they themselves are being ignorant about it. Have you officially escalated it to their Nodal and Appellate officers?

They replaced my modem few weeks ago but with the same model (Beetel 777VR1).

I escalated to Nodal & Appellate officers thrice but the local team is the one that give them wrong information. They only check the speed by visiting speedtest.net and ONLY selecting Chennai's server. Requesting them to check from other places like Delhi, Mumbai, New York City, Washington etc they say that "We're only told to check from Speedtest.net using Chennai (where I live) server. Apart from that for your satisfication we can download and show you some random video from YouTube or check download speed from Apple's server by downloading iTunes Setup. We cannot guarantee speeds from other servers."

Recently, their team leader visited my place with two other engineers. After 2.5 hours of troubleshooting, the team leader called customer care to close the complaint stating that it was "prespective issue". Basically they mean to say that the customer (I) was taking wrong prespective to how speeds are available to the users.

Before that for 3 days my broadband & landline was disconnected. Customer care told that "The team was replacing the underground cable from distribution to the DB box near my house to solve your issue but after three days the team visited my place, when I asked them "Is the cable replaced?" the local service engineer told that no such thing happened.

Also, in my office I have airtel broadband with ADSL. The maximum speed available there is 8Mbps. I've no such problem in my office. I even took the one of the local service engineer to my office. He agreed that this was the issue but few days later started giving silly reasons. Now he says that "People with ADSL connections have stable speeds. Check anyone who has switched to V-Fiber he will also face the same issue."

I don't know what to do with such people. They just don't seem to get my issue. Please suggest how I can proceed further. I'm ready to share any information related to this issue if required.

 

[Deleted member 71633]

@anon_airtel_user Hey, I'm from Chennai as well. Airtel is the only ISP that gives me advertised speeds to international servers so this is definitely unusual. I get an average of 45 Mbps to the US/EU and ~50 Mbps to SGP/HK servers. Like Karan suggested you must escalate it to Appellate Authority and request them to have a backend engineer look into the issue.

You can find their details here - Airtel.IN

​

Hey @manojrk nice to hear that. Can you do me a favour? Can you record a video of speedtest.net performing testing from Chennai, Delhi, Mumbai, Washington DC & New York and share it here? Comparing your speeds and mine would probably make airtel's local team realize that this is a issue and chances to get the issue resolved would increase.

EDIT: Here's my traceroute from Google.com. Can you check if you have some similar output?

traceroute to google.com (172.217.26.174), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets
1  gateway (192.168.1.1)  0.894 ms  0.864 ms  0.842 ms
2  abts-tn-dynamic-1.64.65.182-airtelbroadband.in (182.65.64.1)  6.471 ms  6.455 ms  6.435 ms
3  * abts-tn-static-137.1.65.182-airtelbroadband.in (182.65.1.137)  6.859 ms *
4  125.17.109.53 (125.17.109.53)  6.766 ms abts-tn-static-145.1.65.182-airtelbroadband.in (182.65.1.145)  6.752 ms 125.17.109.53 (125.17.109.53)  6.728 ms
5  182.79.189.231 (182.79.189.231)  8.239 ms 125.17.109.53 (125.17.109.53)  6.961 ms  7.387 ms
6  72.14.242.178 (72.14.242.178)  8.169 ms 182.79.247.30 (182.79.247.30)  18.868 ms 72.14.242.178 (72.14.242.178)  7.336 ms
7  72.14.242.178 (72.14.242.178)  7.300 ms 66.249.94.73 (66.249.94.73)  8.966 ms 72.14.242.178 (72.14.242.178)  8.954 ms
8  * 66.249.94.73 (66.249.94.73)  8.915 ms *
9  * maa03s22-in-f14.1e100.net (172.217.26.174)  44.504 ms  8.840 ms

Line number 2 abts-tn-dynamic-1.64.65.182-airtelbroadband.in dynamic IP address?

 

[Karan]

Request them to change over the modem to something other than the beetel one, they provide Huawei and D-Link modems as well. When the slow down occurs is it time specific? Is it when the connection is under heavy load?
Also, you get the same slowing down on all devices? are they all wifi or do you have something hooked to the modem wired as well?

Also could you please run - Line quality test packet loss and latency | DSLReports, ISP Information

 

[Deleted member 71633]

Sure @Karan I'll email them to change my modem to see if it solves the problem.

Slow down doesn't occour at specific time. It's always there. And I've only 1 PC connected via LAN. Wi-Fi is switched ON but only 1 device is connected and that's my smartphone. Same issues in my smartphone too.

Downloads are fast from Play Store since Google has a CDN in Chennai. But same slow down everywhere else.

I've checked by turning off the Wi-Fi, connecting to the socket directly without splitter box but to no avail. Speed issue happens for every server that's not near my city. The lowest speed I ever got was 20KBps and the same thing at the same time was being downloading in my office with speeds up to 900-1000KBps. We've an 8Mbps ADSL connection in our office.

 

[KunjanPSD]

@anon_airtel_user I tried the same New York and Washington Servers you did and I am getting in the neighbourhood of 30 Mbps Down speed on both. But in the screenshot you are getting 60000+ Kbps, that is not possible if you are on 40 Mbps because that would higher than the attainable rate set by profile, or maybe just an error.
An Airtel engineer who after so many visits at my home is like a casual acquaintance of mine said himself that the Beetle Router they provide is sub par and Airtel has discontinued to provide Huawei ones because Bettle costs them ₹ 200. And he said that he can tell this to me only off record that Airtel might have blocked some NAT ports to throttle torrents. There is no point in raising requests because I have had the appelate authority at my house and all they do is show speed on Speedtest and Microsoft downloads.

 

[KunjanPSD]

@anon_airtel_user I did not have this problem on my ADSL 16 Mbps connection, for a month it did have problems but it was resolved on its own.So maybe this is due to V-Fiber being new and ports/routing has not been done properly yet. Anyways, I am planning on shifting to ACT now. My college server is P2P based and cannot work with this.
Is it necessary to enable UPnP in router for torrents? It is disabled by default, I know little about it.

 

[Karan]

@anon_airtel_user But in the screenshot you are getting 60000+ Kbps, that is not possible if you are on 40 Mbps because that would higher than the attainable rate set by profile, or maybe just an error.

60Mbps sync rate is very much possible and isn't that much of an issue here, his other parameters are well within acceptable limits. Airtel sets 40Mbps customers to ~60Mbps line rate. The thing with V/ADSL is the sync rate which is the line rate must be higher than the actual speed you are setup for on your plan or else you will get slower speeds.

 

[warpspeed]

@anon_airtel_user Sure thing!

I get similar traceroute to google.com and the latency is 8 ms average.

Speedtest to Chennai server -

Mumbai

Delhi

Washington DC

New York

This is beyond the local teams control I guess. Just specifically ask for a backend engineer to contact you and possibly he could understand your problem and do something about it. Threatening with disconnection usually works in this type of situation so you might as well try that if nothing seems to go your way.

 

[Karan]

Agreed, very much a backend issue as the speeds you get from local servers are quite normal. This requires the intervention of someone who actually knows what they are doing. The modem change is just a shot in the dark, you never know.