Unknown Gateway etc

[#1]

After repeated tests, over a period of several weeks, and confirmed by an independent  it tech, the unknown gateway has simply deplorable sppeds issues. Avoid this gateway if you can; It is pure [Censored].
For people having speed issues  my advice is always to check which gateway you are allocated and then change it, if its the unknown rubbish one

[#2]

I can only assume that you're referring to the 'Unknown gateway' response you get from the Usertools Gateway Checker?
If so, then this doesn't map to a single gateway. You get the response due to missing rDNS entries in the path back to your router. The rDNS entries will be added before too long but you can be connected to a number of different gateways and still get this response. There's more about this in the thread here.
In a nutshell, it will be having no affect whatsoever on your speeds and I'd be interested to hear the justification offered by your 'independent IT tech'?
You can find out what gateway you're actually on when you get this error by running a traceroute from a command prompt:
[quote author="Traceroute"]C:\Users\Bobby>tracert mail.plus.net
Tracing route to mail.plus.net [212.159.9.81]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
  1    3 ms    1 ms    1 ms  gateway.low.road [192.168.1.254]
  2    27 ms    22 ms    22 ms  lo0-central1.pcl-ag04.plus.net [195.166.128.241]
  3    22 ms    23 ms    21 ms  gi1-10-411.pcl-gw01.plus.net [84.92.6.224]
  4    28 ms    28 ms    29 ms  gi5-8.ptp-cr01.plus.net [84.93.224.48]
  5    35 ms    28 ms    32 ms  vlan2657.ptp-elb01.plus.net [84.93.224.36]
  6    28 ms    29 ms    29 ms  mail.plus.net [212.159.9.81]
Trace complete.

[#3]

Good afternoon bob.  I am no techie so please excuse my reply. 
When connected using as you said the usertools gateway checker and finding myself on the unknown gateway, my speed as measured by speedtest net and not the useless mybroadbandspeed, reguarly showed a d/l  of 3.8.
When i changed to another gateway alg 2 fopr example my speed test showed a speed of 5.9.
This was not a one off. It happened reguarly over a period of weeks and the it guy rightly or wrongly told me that certain gateways were 'better than others'.
I, therefore stand by my assertion that the 'unknown gateway is unsatisfactory'

[#4]

Quote from: thisoldman

When connected using as you said the usertools gateway checker and finding myself on the unknown gateway, my speed as measured by speedtest net and not the useless mybroadbandspeed, reguarly showed a d/l  of 3.8.

Funny you should say that because in my experience the opposite is true! i.e. mybroadbandspeed.co.uk is more reliable/accurate than speedtest.net.

Quote

When i changed to another gateway alg 2 fopr example my speed test showed a speed of 5.9. This was not a one off. It happened reguarly over a period of weeks and the it guy rightly or wrongly told me that certain gateways were 'better than others'.

Certain gateways can be better than others based on how many customers are connected to each one and what their Internet habits are like. Having said that, we've plenty of capacity at the moment (we lit even more this morning) meaning the disparity between the gateways should be negligible, if it's even noticeable at all.

Quote

I, therefore stand by my assertion that the 'unknown gateway is unsatisfactory'

You're missing my point. There isn't an 'unknown gateway'. You can get this error when connected to *more than one* gateway e.g. you could be connected ptn-ag2 and see 'ptn-ag2' returned when you run the Gateway Checker. Under different circumstances, you can be connected to *exactly the same gateway* and get the 'unknown gateway' error.

[#5]

ok so why does my speed increase dramatically when i change gateway?
Secondly, webuser mag and other people have told me that mybroadbandspeed is unreliable.

[#6]

I've no idea why your speed changes so dramatically, but I'd suggest you run a traceroute in future to find out what gateway you are actually on as opposed to using the Usertools checker.
This can be done by clicking Start > Run > typing 'cmd' (minus the quotes) and clicking OK. This should open a command prompt.
Next type 'tracert mail.plus.net' (minus the quotes) and press enter. You'll see something like this, and it's the bit in bold that tells you what gateway you're on.

Quote

Tracing route to mail.plus.net [212.159.9.81] over a maximum of 30 hops:   1    6 ms    3 ms    1 ms  gateway.low.road [192.168.1.254]   2    23 ms    23 ms    22 ms  lo0-central1.ptn-ag01.plus.net [195.166.128.202]   3    47 ms  123 ms    28 ms  gi2-6-111.ptn-gw01.plus.net [84.92.3.137]   4    28 ms    24 ms    25 ms  te2-2.thn-gw1.plus.net [212.159.1.54]   5    23 ms    24 ms    30 ms  vl22.pte-gw1.plus.net [212.159.4.11]   6    32 ms    57 ms    36 ms  te2-2.pcl-gw01.plus.net [212.159.0.185]   7    31 ms    34 ms    28 ms  gi5-8.ptp-cr01.plus.net [84.93.224.48]   8    30 ms    28 ms    27 ms  vlan2657.ptp-elb01.plus.net [84.93.224.36]   9    28 ms    28 ms    28 ms  mail.plus.net [212.159.9.81]

I strongly suspect that using this method will not point to a problem with one of the gateways (although I'm happy to be proved wrong).
mybroadbandspeed.co.uk is hosted in our London data centres as are the gateways themselves. For this reason there's less of a chance of something going wrong between your router and the speedtester itself.
Here's four speedtests I've just run from my machine at home whilst connected to different gateways. I might not be hitting the gateway you're having problems with but as you can see the results are pretty consistent.
ptn-ag01:

thn-ag3:

pte-ag2:

pte-ag1:

[#7]

Thank you bob for your time and perseverance.You are well worth the plus net subscription.
THis is what i got. I must admit it means sweet f a to me but im sure you will be able to translate:

1      82 ms        99 ms            dsldeviceian
2        36                45                  lo0-plusnet.pte-agl1
3        38                40                  ge0-o-o-403.pte-gw1.plusnet
4        39                38                  te2-2.pel-gwo1.plusnet
5          44              40                  gi5-8.ptp-cro1.plusnet
6          43              109                vlan2657.ptp-elbol.plusnet
7        45                    38              mail.plus.net

[#8]

Quote

Microsoft Windows XP [Version 5.1.2600] (C) Copyright 1985-2001 Microsoft Corp. C:\Documents and Settings\All of us>tracert mail.plus.net Tracing route to mail.plus.net [212.159.8.81] over a maximum of 30 hops:  1    66 ms    99 ms    99 ms  dsldevice.lan [192.168.1.254]  2    34 ms    32 ms    32 ms  lo0-plusnet.pcl-ag01.plus.net [195.166.128.27]  3    33 ms    31 ms    32 ms  gi1-2-803.pcl-gw1.plus.net [84.92.5.57]  4    40 ms    40 ms    39 ms  gi5-8.ptp-cr01.plus.net [84.93.224.48]  5    40 ms    40 ms    41 ms  vlan400.pih-gw3.plus.net [84.93.224.51]  6    40 ms    40 ms    40 ms  if25.pih-lb03.plus.net [212.159.0.17]  7    41 ms    40 ms    38 ms  mail.plus.net [212.159.8.81] Trace complete.

this is mine, as Bob said the second line gives mine as pcl-ag01 and yours as pte-ag1

[#9]

Well........last post......

Is bob suggesting that there is something unreliable about using the usertools  gateway checker.
2.Did bob check his speed using  speedtest net. I did not suggest mybbspeed was inconsistent, i merely suugest it is unreliable.

[#10]

Quote from: thisoldman

THis is what i got. I must admit it means sweet f a to me but im sure you will be able to translate: 1       82 ms         99 ms            dsldeviceian 2        36                45                   lo0-plusnet.pte-ag1

The bit in bold is the gateway you're connected to.
Here's another tip too. You can copy and paste stuff from the command window by right-clicking an area of the screen and then left-clicking 'Mark'. You can then click and drag your cursor to highlight the traceroute results. Once you've done this, right-click the selection which will copy it to your clipboard. You can then use CTRL+V to paste the results into a forum reply.

[#11]

soz bob  i forgot to ask you a simple q  if there is no such thing as the 'unknown gateway' why does usertools/gatewyt checker call it the unknown?

[#12]

Because the script that generates the data doesn't know how to parse the reverse traceroute back to your machine. The code has been built in such a way that it returns 'unknown gateway' i.e. it's not clever enough to work out the gateway you're on (yet).

[#13]

snip
Certain gateways can be better than others based on how many customers are connected to each one and what their Internet habits are like. Having said that, we've plenty of capacity at the moment (we lit even more this morning) meaning the disparity between the gateways should be negligible, if it's even noticeable at all.
snip
Hmm, PN usually publicize the "lighting" of additional capacity.
Could PN elaborate?
Richard
   

[#14]

pcl-ag03

pcl-ag04

unknown gateway [thn-ag3]

[#15]

Quote from: RichardB

Hmm, PN usually publicize the "lighting" of additional capacity.

Indeed we do and it's been on my to-do list for far too long now!

Quote

Could PN elaborate?

Certainly.
On 1st June we lit 3 additional 155Mbps segments (almost an entire 622Mbps central). These extra segments terminate on the gateways known as ptn-ag01 and ptn-ag02.
Last Friday (16th July) we lit another 155Mbps segment. This one terminates on a new gateway known as pcl-ag05.
I'll see if I can get the announcements out for these ASAP so people don't lose track...
Edit: corrected error regarding the number of segments in a central.