Testing and Pinging with Sprint

ekrauska · Last edited by ekrauska on Tue Feb 14, 2006 1:29 pm; edited 1 time in total

i just got a Sprint Sierra 580 and have some questions. Links to good information are welcome. I've tried the search and it seems to not be helpful.

I read on here that there are tweaks for this card to help improve bandwidth. Where is the information about the tweaks? Any that I should not do?

I am going to use this as my dedicated home Internet connection. I do not plan on moving it. I live on top of a hill. Is there any kind of additional antenna I can purchase to help get the best signal possible? I ordered the Arc antenna and am expecting it this week. My signal without it is in the -100 range for EVDO, but does tend to drop every once in a while. I was thinking that maybe a directional antenna on my roof could help?

I currently have a fractional T1 in my house. The $500+ per month is killing me. I know I can't expect the same latency and bandwidth with EVDO, but I would like to maximize as much as I can. Obviously, if I am going to save $450 per month, upfront costs to make this setup right is not a huge worry for me as long as the costs aren't enormous. Any suggestions or helpful tips to maximize my signal and ultimately my bandwidth are welcome.

Thanks!

EDIT: I live in a heavily wooded area and my tests are currently with no leaves on the trees. Even though I live on top of a hill, can I expect the signal strength to drop significantly when leaves come back on the trees?

MaximumSignal · Posted: Tue Feb 14, 2006 9:30 am Post subject: Re: Need Info

ekrauska · Posted: Tue Feb 14, 2006 12:20 pm Post subject:

I'm running some tests now with the card in my desktop. I'm seeing the signal bounce from -88 to -117. Is this sort of fluctuation normal on Sprint EVDO?

by the way, I saw some earlier posts about posting the PCI to PCMCIA cards that work. I am using a SIIG PCI-to-PC Card Pro product and it works fine. I had to insert the Sierra 580 card twice in order for everything to get installed properly, but it works fine now.

ekrauska · Posted: Tue Feb 14, 2006 12:31 pm Post subject:

Perhaps I should rename this thread to "Testing". Take a look at the latency. I never would have imagined I'd get this good:

PPP adapter Sprint PCS Vision - Sierra Wireless:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : WAN (PPP/SLIP) Interface
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-53-45-00-00-00
Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No
IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 70.12.168.xxxxxxx
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.255
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 70.12.168.xxxxxxx
DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 68.28.90.11
68.28.82.11
NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Disabled

C:\Documents and Settings\xxxxxxx>ping www.google.com

Pinging www.l.google.com [64.233.167.147] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 64.233.167.147: bytes=32 time=59ms TTL=237
Reply from 64.233.167.147: bytes=32 time=44ms TTL=237
Reply from 64.233.167.147: bytes=32 time=51ms TTL=237
Reply from 64.233.167.147: bytes=32 time=57ms TTL=237

Ping statistics for 64.233.167.147:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 44ms, Maximum = 59ms, Average = 52ms

Michael · Posted: Tue Feb 14, 2006 1:11 pm Post subject:

Please do rename the thread "Testing and Pinging with Sprint".

Your ping times seems WAY better than I have ever seen with Sprint or Verizon. My ping times on the T1 are not even that good.
_________________
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ekrauska · Posted: Tue Feb 14, 2006 1:33 pm Post subject:

Michael, subject is now renamed.

For those interested, I am in the St. Louis area and am on the Ellisville EVDO tower. In fact, I'm not even supposed to be in that cell because I'm too far south. But, I live on top of a hill, so I'm sure that's why I'm getting a decent signal.

I was astounded when I saw those ping times myself. The T1 I currently have gets a bit better than that, but not by much. I was so surprised at the results that I went back to make sure all my other data connections are disabled. I also ran the following tracert to make sure I'm not nuts:

Tracing route to www.l.google.com [64.233.167.99]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 52 ms 50 ms 96 ms 68.28.89.69
2 * * * Request timed out.
3 46 ms 58 ms 61 ms 68.28.83.54
4 70 ms 81 ms 87 ms 68.28.83.6
5 * * * Request timed out.
6 * * * Request timed out.
7 61 ms 66 ms 63 ms 68.28.83.97
8 58 ms 57 ms 58 ms 68.28.83.17
9 70 ms 51 ms 76 ms sl-gw10-kc-1-2.sprintlink.net [160.81.107.17]
10 56 ms 58 ms 57 ms sl-bb21-kc-14-0.sprintlink.net [144.232.23.73]
11 66 ms 59 ms 68 ms sl-bb22-chi-8-0.sprintlink.net [144.232.20.128]

12 68 ms 79 ms 71 ms sl-st21-chi-11-0.sprintlink.net [144.232.20.21]

13 59 ms 75 ms 82 ms sl-googl1-1-0.sprintlink.net [144.223.241.90]
14 71 ms 55 ms 70 ms 66.249.95.249
15 64 ms 69 ms 67 ms 72.14.232.53
16 59 ms 67 ms 78 ms 72.14.232.57
17 63 ms 49 ms 58 ms 64.233.167.99

Trace complete.

ekrauska · Posted: Tue Feb 14, 2006 1:39 pm Post subject:

What's bizzare about my connection is that my bandwidth is not what I thought it would be. I'm only averaging 200 down and 100 up, with the up dropping to 30 every once in a while. Will the arc antenna I ordered help fix this?

brendanhoar · EVDO Heavy User Joined: 09 Jun 2005 Posts: 140

FYI, here's a super useful tool to replace both ping and tracert under windows:

http://winmtr.sourceforge.net/

We use it at work to diagnose network path bottlenecks. MTR "Matt's TraceRoute" or now "My Traceroute", combines the functionality of both ping and traceroute into one grid. It's cool.

-brendan

xenophon · EVDO Addict Joined: 30 Aug 2005 Posts: 2003

I've never seen a ping time below 120ms for Sprint and that's outdoors being within line-of-site of a tower. Amazing if you are actually getting 50ms.

For speedtest, try this site and record the results..

http://speedtest.frontiernet.net/

ekrauska · Posted: Tue Feb 14, 2006 2:07 pm Post subject:

not sure how this happened or why, but I had to reboot and now look at the results. Weird:

Pinging www.l.google.com [64.233.167.99] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 64.233.167.99: bytes=32 time=154ms TTL=238
Reply from 64.233.167.99: bytes=32 time=219ms TTL=238
Reply from 64.233.167.99: bytes=32 time=232ms TTL=238
Reply from 64.233.167.99: bytes=32 time=148ms TTL=238

Ping statistics for 64.233.167.99:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 148ms, Maximum = 232ms, Average = 188ms

C:\Documents and Settings\xxxxx>tracert www.google.com

Tracing route to www.l.google.com [64.233.167.99]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 310 ms 186 ms 346 ms 68.28.89.69
2 * * * Request timed out.
3 332 ms 182 ms 160 ms 68.28.83.54
4 265 ms 184 ms 161 ms 68.28.83.6
5 * * * Request timed out.
6 * * * Request timed out.
7 202 ms 191 ms 168 ms 68.28.83.97
8 152 ms 193 ms 351 ms 68.28.83.17
9 706 ms 180 ms 203 ms sl-gw10-kc-1-2.sprintlink.net [160.81.107.17]
10 178 ms 184 ms 173 ms sl-bb21-kc-14-0.sprintlink.net [144.232.23.73]
11 195 ms 205 ms 213 ms sl-bb22-chi-8-0.sprintlink.net [144.232.20.128]

12 211 ms 222 ms 196 ms sl-st21-chi-11-0.sprintlink.net [144.232.20.21]

13 192 ms 161 ms 206 ms sl-googl1-1-0.sprintlink.net [144.223.241.90]
14 207 ms 215 ms 216 ms 66.249.95.249
15 213 ms 208 ms 182 ms 72.14.232.53
16 177 ms 195 ms 203 ms 64.233.175.26
17 216 ms 213 ms 194 ms 64.233.167.99

Trace complete.

ekrauska · Posted: Tue Feb 14, 2006 2:09 pm Post subject:

xenophon · EVDO Addict Joined: 30 Aug 2005 Posts: 2003

Maybe you also had a wifi or ethernet connection that was active, thinking you were on EVDO?

206 bits/sec down is not good. Is that bits or bytes? Have you tried other parts of town? Also get latest Connection Manager at... sprint.com/downloads

ekrauska · Posted: Tue Feb 14, 2006 2:15 pm Post subject:

that's what is strange. This is in a desktop computer with only a ethernet connection which was disabled. If you look at the original tracert though, you can see the traffic was going across the EVDO connection. Oh well, pretty crazy for sure.

This connection is going to be strictly for my home, which is where I'm testing it from. I need to improve the connection here and not worry about going around town. Are there any tweaks that I can do to this card to improve the performace? I have the arc antenna on order, so I'm hoping that will help too. My signal is -85 right now and that is all the bandwidth I'm getting with that signal. I'm not sure any additional antennas are going to help.

ekrauska · Posted: Tue Feb 14, 2006 6:10 pm Post subject:

At 5:02 PM my connection dropped. It came back up about 10 minutes later. The bandwidth I am getting now is 50 both down and up. I have a feeling the tower is maxed out and got overloaded once everyone got off work this evening. Does this seem logical?

MaximumSignal · Posted: Tue Feb 14, 2006 6:14 pm Post subject: