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Is the internet broken? possibly on a geographical location basis?

#1 User is offline   1eyedjack 

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Posted 2014-August-21, 08:02

I have observed a dramatic and persistent reduction in the quality of my connection to BBO over the last week or so. Not saying that it is BBO's fault. It just makes me feel better if I am not alone (and at least it is beyond my control). Indeed I know that BBO is not to blame for a good part of the problem as I have started dropping connections to the net generally, which then re-connect after a short interval, and my ISP claims no general problems in my area.

I use the Flash version most of the time (occasionally android, never the old downloaded version).

When using the Flash version, the connection indicator bars in the top right corner fluctuate all over the shop. At any given instant I do not pay much credence to this reading, because the contemporaneous accuracy of that reading seems to rely on the very connection that it is intended to measure. So it could be showing 4 bars at one instance of measurement, valid at the time, then lose connection, but the bars do not update for a while. I know that something is up because despite the 4 bars the screen is otherwise frozen and even chat to table is not getting transmitted.

Added to all the above, I quite often get "connection closed" without any prompting by me, requiring me to re-login. When I do, it is hit and miss whether the software invites me to re-sit at the same table (not a tourney). Not sure whether is should, but sometimes it does. More often not.

My ISP is Virgin Media, one of the more expensive suppliers locally (via cable). The interesting thing is I went to visit relatives for a few days, who were on BTInternet, and I had broadly the same experience.

Then I read an article that suggests that the Internet is creaking at the seams:

http://blogs.telegra...internet-broke/

What I would find interesting is whether BBO has some way of measuring global connectivity to its servers, and has seen a peak in dropped connections (for whatever reason) in recent weeks, perhaps localised to UK
Psych (pron. saik): A gross and deliberate misstatement of honour strength and/or suit length. Expressly permitted under Law 73E but forbidden contrary to that law by Acol club tourneys.

Psyche (pron. sahy-kee): The human soul, spirit or mind (derived, personification thereof, beloved of Eros, Greek myth).
Masterminding (pron. mPosted ImagesPosted ImagetPosted Imager-mPosted ImagendPosted Imageing) tr. v. - Any bid made by bridge player with which partner disagrees.

"Gentlemen, when the barrage lifts." 9th battalion, King's own Yorkshire light infantry,
2000 years earlier: "morituri te salutant"

"I will be with you, whatever". Blair to Bush, precursor to invasion of Iraq
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#2 User is offline   hrothgar 

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Posted 2014-August-21, 08:34

A BGP glitch of the type discussed in this article would manifest itself as a complete loss of connectivity rather than service degradation.
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#3 User is offline   1eyedjack 

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Posted 2014-August-21, 08:55

I have noticed of late that Virgin Media have been trying to flog me an upgraded package. Up to now I have not been interested, being (until now) broadly happy with all that I have so far.

Included in the package is a faster broadband connection. My concern here is that the throughput that I currently "enjoy" does not come anywhere close to using up the existing maximum capacity that I rent under the current plan. I speculate that the shortfall in speed has little to do with the capacity that I have with my ISP, and more to do with congestion between my ISP and the end destination. If that suspicion is valid, then simply improving my connection to the ISP might not give rise to any noticeable benefit.

Perhaps some of you readers to whom this is less of a black art can advise?



Psych (pron. saik): A gross and deliberate misstatement of honour strength and/or suit length. Expressly permitted under Law 73E but forbidden contrary to that law by Acol club tourneys.

Psyche (pron. sahy-kee): The human soul, spirit or mind (derived, personification thereof, beloved of Eros, Greek myth).
Masterminding (pron. mPosted ImagesPosted ImagetPosted Imager-mPosted ImagendPosted Imageing) tr. v. - Any bid made by bridge player with which partner disagrees.

"Gentlemen, when the barrage lifts." 9th battalion, King's own Yorkshire light infantry,
2000 years earlier: "morituri te salutant"

"I will be with you, whatever". Blair to Bush, precursor to invasion of Iraq
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#4 User is offline   barmar 

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Posted 2014-August-21, 09:49

Reports of the imminent demise of the Internet have been circulating for decades. There are occasional glitches that cause outages like the one in that article. That just means it isn't perfect, but what is? For the most part it works, and works very well, and it's constantly improving.

#5 User is offline   1eyedjack 

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Posted 2014-August-21, 09:59

View Postbarmar, on 2014-August-21, 09:49, said:

Reports of the imminent demise of the Internet have been circulating for decades. There are occasional glitches that cause outages like the one in that article. That just means it isn't perfect, but what is? For the most part it works, and works very well, and it's constantly improving.


Yes I agree with all of that, which said and done, I would expect BBO to have in place some sort of background monitoring of the general quality of its own connections to its own customers. Not on an individual basis, but by the ten of thousands, or maybe by country. So it could turn round and say by 'eck, Thursday was a bad day, with 13243 UK players dropping connections in the period from 16:00 to 18:00
Psych (pron. saik): A gross and deliberate misstatement of honour strength and/or suit length. Expressly permitted under Law 73E but forbidden contrary to that law by Acol club tourneys.

Psyche (pron. sahy-kee): The human soul, spirit or mind (derived, personification thereof, beloved of Eros, Greek myth).
Masterminding (pron. mPosted ImagesPosted ImagetPosted Imager-mPosted ImagendPosted Imageing) tr. v. - Any bid made by bridge player with which partner disagrees.

"Gentlemen, when the barrage lifts." 9th battalion, King's own Yorkshire light infantry,
2000 years earlier: "morituri te salutant"

"I will be with you, whatever". Blair to Bush, precursor to invasion of Iraq
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#6 User is offline   barmar 

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Posted 2014-August-21, 10:39

We monitor how well our servers are connected to the Internet in general. We don't have any way of monitoring how well they're connected to specific parts of the Internet. And even if we did, there's not a whole lot we can do about it. If there's a problem with connectivity between the US and UK, we just have to depend on the ISPs to resolve it.

#7 User is offline   hrothgar 

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Posted 2014-August-21, 12:22

View Postbarmar, on 2014-August-21, 10:39, said:

We monitor how well our servers are connected to the Internet in general.


Akamai also monitor's how well our servers are connected to the internet in general (as well Barry knows)
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#8 User is offline   1eyedjack 

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Posted 2014-August-22, 16:22

See, here is a thing that I find totally frustrating.

I pay $1 to enter a 55% Robot Rebate tournament (#6548). Throughout the tournament I am having connection problems, with the system hanging for minutes between card plays. I get around some of them by logging off and on again, but the clock is constantly ticking.

I get to hand 12, lying in first place, but there is only one minute left on the clock. As expected, the tourney closes before I can get to finish the hand. Heck, I would have passed the hand out except that one of the robots went and opened the bidding.

I would not have minded so much if the system simply assigned me 0% on the final hand. Sure, it would have probably knocked me off the top slot, but I would still have got my $1.50 back (and a reduced but positive masterpoint award).
Psych (pron. saik): A gross and deliberate misstatement of honour strength and/or suit length. Expressly permitted under Law 73E but forbidden contrary to that law by Acol club tourneys.

Psyche (pron. sahy-kee): The human soul, spirit or mind (derived, personification thereof, beloved of Eros, Greek myth).
Masterminding (pron. mPosted ImagesPosted ImagetPosted Imager-mPosted ImagendPosted Imageing) tr. v. - Any bid made by bridge player with which partner disagrees.

"Gentlemen, when the barrage lifts." 9th battalion, King's own Yorkshire light infantry,
2000 years earlier: "morituri te salutant"

"I will be with you, whatever". Blair to Bush, precursor to invasion of Iraq
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#9 User is offline   uday 

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Posted 2014-August-23, 06:39

View Post1eyedjack, on 2014-August-22, 16:22, said:

I would not have minded so much if the system simply assigned me 0% on the final hand.



Something feels odd about allowing someone who didn't play all the boards to scratch but maybe if you can scratch with a Zero on each incomplete board you deserve to scratch.

I don't think this is as effective at IMPs, tho , bec. we can't really assign -24 imps on each board and -3 or whatever seems too low.
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#10 User is offline   1eyedjack 

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Posted 2014-August-23, 08:17

Yes I see the problem with the IMP game. I don't see that as being an objection to improving the MP game, apart from a simple lack of elegance that a mirrored approach would provide.

There may be a better solution that cuts across both games.

One might be to allow the player unilaterally to apply for an extension to the clock. There could be conditions attached, to prevent abuse.

Possible controls might include

1) Server monitors connection status to player throughout the event and provides the facility if conn quality falls below a certain limit.

2) Maybe user can only extend clock once per day (or similar limitation) (possibly with a finite carry forward of unused applications)

But it does seem wrong to me that a player who as already done enough to qualify for at least a minimum prize or master points (obv applies only in MP field) is then denied that result through timeout of the remainder.

As a brute force measure, is there anything so wrong with simply increasing the tourney clock globally be default to cater for this type of thing?



Psych (pron. saik): A gross and deliberate misstatement of honour strength and/or suit length. Expressly permitted under Law 73E but forbidden contrary to that law by Acol club tourneys.

Psyche (pron. sahy-kee): The human soul, spirit or mind (derived, personification thereof, beloved of Eros, Greek myth).
Masterminding (pron. mPosted ImagesPosted ImagetPosted Imager-mPosted ImagendPosted Imageing) tr. v. - Any bid made by bridge player with which partner disagrees.

"Gentlemen, when the barrage lifts." 9th battalion, King's own Yorkshire light infantry,
2000 years earlier: "morituri te salutant"

"I will be with you, whatever". Blair to Bush, precursor to invasion of Iraq
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#11 User is offline   uday 

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Posted 2014-August-23, 08:52

View Post1eyedjack, on 2014-August-23, 08:17, said:

As a brute force measure, is there anything so wrong with simply increasing the tourney clock globally be default to cater for this type of thing?


The issue is that it isn't uncommon for a player to AFK or offline for the entire duration of the T, so that everyone else has to wait longer to find out how they did.

It feels like assigning a zero isn't going to harm the comparisons, and it feels like maybe a little grace time would not be so terrible if I can easily/reliably detect that the table is still active. I'll take a look but this seems relatively low prio to me, so we'll see what happens

U
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