Speed issues with Usenet

[#1]

Been getting poor to non-existent connection speeds to my usenet provider - usenetmonster.  They are saying their end is OK, and have asked for a tracert.  Does this look OK to anyone?

Tracing route to bignews.usenetmonster.com [198.186.190.162]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
  1     *        *        *     Request timed out.
  2    40 ms    41 ms    42 ms  lo0-plusnet.pcl-ag03.plus.net [195.166.128.109]
  3    31 ms    32 ms    41 ms  gi1-6-703.pcl-gw01.plus.net [84.92.0.181]
  4   219 ms   210 ms   215 ms  te2-2.pte-gw1.plus.net [212.159.0.186]
  5    49 ms    43 ms    32 ms  ge2-2.fr1.lon.llnw.net [193.203.5.68]
  6    32 ms    42 ms    43 ms  ve5.fr3.lon.llnw.net [69.28.171.137]
  7    99 ms   119 ms   104 ms  tge7-2.fr3.lga.llnw.net [69.28.171.125]
  8   121 ms   106 ms   121 ms  tge2-4.fr3.iad.llnw.net [69.28.171.157]
  9   119 ms   118 ms   125 ms  208.111.133.123
 10     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 11     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 12  4007 ms  2906 ms     *     198.186.190.162
 13     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 14     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 15     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 16     *     4478 ms     *     198.186.190.162
 17     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 18     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 19     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 20     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 21     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 22     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 23     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 24     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 25     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 26     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 27     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 28     *        *     3389 ms  198.186.190.162
Trace complete.

Doesn't to me.  🙂  Same destination from web-based trace route tool looks like:

traceroute to bignews.usenetmonster.com (198.186.190.162), 128 hops max, 40 byte packets
 1  gw (192.168.1.1)  0.868 ms  1.060 ms  0.883 ms
 2  portorange-florida-rtr122-128.cfl.rr.com (10.122.128.1)  10.398 ms  12.120 ms  23.659 ms
 3  orlando-florida-rtr3.cfl.rr.com (24.95.230.236)  11.180 ms  12.597 ms  24.752 ms
 4  gig4-0-0.orldflaabv-rtr3.cfl.rr.com (24.95.228.189)  14.299 ms  13.189 ms  15.547 ms
 5  77.228.95.24.cfl.res.rr.com (24.95.228.77)  25.377 ms  17.085 ms  16.172 ms
 6  ge-1-3-0.cr1.atl20.tbone.rr.com (66.109.6.104)  28.340 ms  23.714 ms  28.192 ms
 7  ae-1-0.pr0.atl20.tbone.rr.com (66.109.6.177)  46.910 ms  24.711 ms  27.563 ms
 8  66.109.9.62 (66.109.9.62)  25.065 ms  27.225 ms  35.830 ms
 9  ve5.fr4.atl1.llnw.net (68.142.119.194)  27.040 ms  48.601 ms  27.092 ms
10  tge1-2.fr4.iad.llnw.net (69.28.172.34)  45.815 ms  51.956 ms  46.285 ms
11  208.111.133.115 (208.111.133.115)  65.002 ms  40.018 ms  45.345 ms
12  198.186.190.162 (198.186.190.162)  41.291 ms  41.109 ms  66.015 ms

The provider has a range of ports available, but changing ports hasn't made it any better.
I'm on premier, so I'd expect reasonable speeds this morning, and usually get them, but today, was hardly able to make any connections, and not able to download anything using them.
Is this fodder for a support ticket to Plusnet?  Anyone else use usenetmonster?
General browsing is OK, syncing at around 4Mb/s, getting around 400KB/s using http://www.thinkbroadband.com/download.html, so that's all fine.  Connected via pcl-ag03 and a Netgear DG834G v3.  At the start of a billing month, so well within any usage limits.  (Not likely to get anywhere near the limits with things as they are!)
thanks

[#2]

Have you only been getting the poor speeds since Saturday?

[#3]

Looks like a routing issue from there side.
Here is a tracert from me:-
traceroute to bignews.usenetmonster.com (198.186.190.162), 30 hops max, 40 byte packets
1  phoenix. (10.80.3.250)  0.280 ms  0.252 ms  0.231 ms
2  192.168.1.254 (192.168.1.254)  75.680 ms  75.371 ms  75.053 ms
3  lo0-plusnet.pcl-ag01.plus.net (195.166.128.27)  83.219 ms * *
4  * * *
5  * * *
6  * * *
7  * * *
8  tge7-2.fr3.lga.llnw.net (69.28.171.125)  156.267 ms  110.923 ms *
9  * * *
10  * * *
11  * * *
12  * * *
13  198.186.190.162 (198.186.190.162)  145.716 ms  146.574 ms *
Can you change the routing to you from their side? When I used Easynews they had a screen where you could check/change the route they took.

[#4]

Quote from: jelv

Have you only been getting the poor speeds since Saturday?

Hi Jelv.  Could be, yes.  Why, has something changed since then?

[#5]

Yes, there's been a major BT cable problem in East London - see the Service Status page.

[#6]

Much better this morning:

Tracing route to bignews.usenetmonster.com [198.186.190.162]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
  1     *        *        *     Request timed out.
  2    34 ms    31 ms    32 ms  lo0-plusnet.pcl-ag03.plus.net [195.166.128.109]
  3    32 ms    31 ms    31 ms  gi1-6-703.pcl-gw01.plus.net [84.92.0.181]
  4    32 ms    31 ms    30 ms  te2-2.pte-gw1.plus.net [212.159.0.186]
  5    33 ms    33 ms    40 ms  ge2-2.fr1.lon.llnw.net [193.203.5.68]
  6    31 ms    38 ms    31 ms  ve5.fr3.lon.llnw.net [69.28.171.137]
  7    98 ms    99 ms    99 ms  tge7-2.fr3.lga.llnw.net [69.28.171.125]
  8   103 ms   104 ms   104 ms  tge2-4.fr3.iad.llnw.net [69.28.171.157]
  9   293 ms   202 ms   202 ms  208.111.133.123
 10   105 ms   105 ms   105 ms  198.186.190.162
Trace complete.

Let's see how long it lasts...!  🙂

[#7]

Quote from: Anotherone

Yes, there's been a major BT cable problem in East London - see the Service Status page.

Ah yeah, read about that.  I'm in Cheshire, so hopefully out of reach of that particular issue.  🙂
Andy

[#8]

No, not so. PN's Gateway's along with many from other ISP's are all in Telehouses located in and around that part of London and are affected by the loss of the circuits. The loss of Gateways means that those that are still working are now congested and throughput will be down.

[#9]

Quote from: ahmahmahm

Quote from: Anotherone Yes, there's been a major BT cable problem in East London - see the Service Status page. Ah yeah, read about that.  I'm in Cheshire, so hopefully out of reach of that particular issue.  🙂

No chance of that I'm afraid Andy. Like @Anotherone says, it's taken down one of our 622Mbps central pipes. This is still down now which means we've 10% less capacity than normal and have had to put mush harsher rate limits and throttling on things during peak time. Take a look here.

[#10]

Anyone seeing slow speeds this morning on BBYW3 Astraweb tried ag1 was very slow now on ago3 which is slightly better but not much, should be line speed at this time of day so shouldn't be throttling

[#11]

Have a look here, might explain what you are seeing:
http://community.plus.net/forum/index.php/topic,75520.0.html

[#12]

Thanks for the quick response I knew about the cable problem but it went right out of my head, too early in the morning I think. Just hope it gets fixed soon although it seems like it's a big job 

[#13]

Yep, they've got to bring up cable from 32m underground and relay it from what I can tell.

[#14]

This is one of the better places for keeping up to date
http://noc.enta.net/2009/04/outage-framestream-leased-lines/comment-page-1/#comment-15785
i did read somewhere that it was a borer doing something for the Olympic site which did the damage 

[#15]

How come Entanet are able to post useful BT information when a Plusnet (part of the BT group) has to rely on users posting links to the Entanet site?