Reports: Telstra Customers Suffering Crippling Speeds To Any Apple Service

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Reports: Telstra Customers Suffering Crippling Speeds To Any Apple Service

Posted by timothy on Thursday October 1, 2015 @12:56AM from the try-turning-your-computer-upside-down dept.

An anonymous reader writes: It appears a large number of customers of Telstra (one of Australia's largest telcos) have been suffering crippling speeds while attempting to connect to any Apple Service for the better part of four days. Reports indicate this is affecting Apple Music, Apple App Stores (on both iOS and OSX) and are stopping many Telstra customers from getting access to app updates and the much anticipated El Capitan release of OS X. Mobile phone customers as well as home broadband customers seem to be affected at this stage with a large number of posts both on Twitter and the Whirlpool Broadband Forum. It appears one Twitter user has also fully summarised all the issues in a single post including many of the Twitter posts as well.

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Could this be unintentional? by DejectedAngel · 2015-10-01 01:03 · Score: 1

Pardon my ignorance, but does anyone know whether this is unintentional or not? I don't know of anyway this could be an unintentional action by the telco, but I've been wrong before; if anyone knows, please enlighten me!
1. Re:Could this be unintentional? by JMJimmy · 2015-10-01 01:04 · Score: 2
  
  RTFA and you'll quickly find out.
2. Re:Could this be unintentional? by DejectedAngel · 2015-10-01 01:09 · Score: 1
  
  Shouldn't that cable cut be affecting more than just Apple services though?
3. Re:Could this be unintentional? by known_coward_69 · 2015-10-01 01:13 · Score: 1
  
  not if the other services have CDN's on different networks or locally on Telstra's network
4. Re:Could this be unintentional? by JMJimmy · 2015-10-01 01:13 · Score: 1
  
  Shouldn't that cable cut be affecting more than just Apple services though?
  Not necessarily. They could simply have been routing all apple traffic along the line that was cut. It shouldn't take them 4 days to re-route but it could simply be lack of available bandwidth to route such a major set of services through. If that were the case it likely became a choice of letting one service slow/fail or have the entire network slow/fail.
Cable Cuts by JMJimmy · 2015-10-01 01:03 · Score: 1

They happen.
Sigh. by ledow · 2015-10-01 01:14 · Score: 2, Insightful

And nothing of value was lost.
Local cache servers by DigiShaman · 2015-10-01 01:19 · Score: 1

Question: Why wouldn't Apple have local cached servers in place? That seems redundantly silly for having an entire nation pull effectively the same content over trans transoceanic cables.

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Life is not for the lazy.
1. Re:Local cache servers by jrumney · 2015-10-01 01:30 · Score: 1
  
  For updates it would make sense, but iTunes downloads get some metadata inserted that identifies the user, so it would have to be custom made for Apple's requirements.
2. Re:Local cache servers by known_coward_69 · 2015-10-01 01:31 · Score: 2
  
  its australia and will probably cost five times what it should really cost anywhere else
3. Re:Local cache servers by jittles · 2015-10-01 02:36 · Score: 1
  
  Question: Why wouldn't Apple have local cached servers in place? That seems redundantly silly for having an entire nation pull effectively the same content over trans transoceanic cables.
  I have been wondering the same thing. I have issues downloading stuff from Apple in the US. Just the other day I was trying to download WatchOS 2 and was getting a blazing 0.02MB/s from Apple. On the same device I started downloading a file from a big content provider and was getting 7MB/s. WatchOS 2 speed did not increase or decrease based on whether or not I started or stopped that transfer. And I'm not far from one of Apple's big data centers.
  Anyway, I feel like Apple is sliding quite a bit right now in quality and I am actually very pissed with them. It seems they updated the BIOS for the motherboard on my MBP with El Capitan and now it is reporting half the memory that is actually installed and at a lower FSB speed. I had upgraded my memory to 16GB, which I have been using without a problem for years. Now it's showing two sticks at 4GB each.
4. Re:Local cache servers by DigiShaman · 2015-10-01 02:56 · Score: 1
  
  It seems they updated the BIOS for the motherboard on my MBP with El Capitan and now it is reporting half the memory that is actually installed and at a lower FSB speed. I had upgraded my memory to 16GB, which I have been using without a problem for years. Now it's showing two sticks at 4GB each."
  OT, but I'll chime in.
  Firstly, I didn't know El Capitan rolled up a BIOS update as part of the OS installation, unless there was an outstanding update already available and your MBP needed it installed prior as a prerequisite. Either way, I haven't a clue. However, I have MBP - 13-inch, Mid 2012 model that just got El Capitan installed last night. It's still reporting 16GB (two sticks of 8GB @ 1600Mhz). And while yes, only 8GB is officially supported, the only aftermarket provider of RAM the I can rely on with 100% confidence is crucial.com; which is where I purchased my kit from.
  
  --
  Life is not for the lazy.
5. Re:Local cache servers by jittles · 2015-10-01 06:59 · Score: 1
  
  It seems they updated the BIOS for the motherboard on my MBP with El Capitan and now it is reporting half the memory that is actually installed and at a lower FSB speed. I had upgraded my memory to 16GB, which I have been using without a problem for years. Now it's showing two sticks at 4GB each."
  OT, but I'll chime in.
  Firstly, I didn't know El Capitan rolled up a BIOS update as part of the OS installation, unless there was an outstanding update already available and your MBP needed it installed prior as a prerequisite. Either way, I haven't a clue. However, I have MBP - 13-inch, Mid 2012 model that just got El Capitan installed last night. It's still reporting 16GB (two sticks of 8GB @ 1600Mhz). And while yes, only 8GB is officially supported, the only aftermarket provider of RAM the I can rely on with 100% confidence is crucial.com; which is where I purchased my kit from.
  Actually I think I was confused this morning - grabbed the wrong laptop. I opened the case and that one does indeed only have 8GB of RAM in it. But they do sometimes package new SMC code and other tidbits with the OS installers - that was why you could not revert backward from I think 10.6, for instance.
A Dingo Ate My Internet! by Kagato · 2015-10-01 01:20 · Score: 2

Crickey!
Re: And this is a bad thing why? by Bing+Tsher+E · 2015-10-01 01:45 · Score: 1

Couldn't it be that the lines are saturated because everyone is trying to get the new MacOS update at the same time?
Maybe an automatic traffic "shaping" appliance? by Mortimer82 · 2015-10-01 01:46 · Score: 2

I used to work for Blizzard Europe customer support, occasionally during my time there Virgin customers in the UK would complain of terrible latency and each time it was a result of some traffic shaping appliance that Virgin was using, which was incorrectly categorizing WoW traffic as being peer-to-peer. This was over 3 years ago, but happened at least 3 times during my time there.

However, as Apple traffic is likely over HTTP(S), it seems less likely to be mistaken as "questionably illegal traffic" and is probably more likely a peering issue of sorts. Perhaps the CDN servers that Apple uses are at a different ISP and there is a routing / peering issue making it all route internationally instead.
1. Re:Maybe an automatic traffic "shaping" appliance? by david_thornley · 2015-10-01 05:51 · Score: 1
  
  When I was playing WoW, Blizzard liked to distribute updates peer-to-peer, with downloading from Blizzard being available if that didn't work. Technically, the appliance might have been correct.
  
  --
  "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Re: And this is a bad thing why? by Applehu+Akbar · 2015-10-01 02:03 · Score: 1

I think this is what happened. Early yesterday MST I installed El Capitan, a 6.08G download, onto my two machines without problems. Late last night I tried updating my mother's system (same town, somewhat slower broadband), but by then the servers had bogged down to a crawl and it was impossible to complete the download.
Re:Live on a remote island... by trevc · 2015-10-01 02:34 · Score: 2

They had no choice - the English sent them there.

Live on a remote island... complain about internet speeds. Sorry Australia, but this goes with the territory.
Re: Hmm, I thought Apple boosted servers? by ZeroWaiteState · 2015-10-01 02:49 · Score: 1

To be fair, Microsoft recently pushed out a Windows update to their live servers which was literally random garbage, so Apple's problems aren't unprecedented.
Crippling speeds? by MightyDrunken · 2015-10-01 04:17 · Score: 1

What are crippling speeds? Do Apple services run so fast that users can't manage and Australian Telcos cannot cope?

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The most dangerous drug
Re:Why Does an Australian Telco Outage get Reporte by Spy+Handler · 2015-10-01 04:42 · Score: 1

Because Australians are sexy, while Canadians and Poles are not. Ever watch Crocodile Dundee? Ok now how about.... erm.... (can't think of one single famous Canadian or Polish movie)
VPN works fine; Telstra is throttling by netwiz · 2015-10-01 04:50 · Score: 2

It's pretty telling that should a Telstra user (who's experiencing slow performance) activate a VPN, suddenly they have no issues whatsoever downloading from the various Apple services. The only way this could be the case is if Telstra is intentionally throttling (by way of some QoS method) traffic destined for Apple's address ranges. Their claims of a cable cut are bald-faced lies, nothing more. That they've "fixed" it shows the degree to which they've been caught, and relented their behavior. While the motives for this remain to a certain degree unclear, it' appears to be yet another case of a big, unregulated "communications" company (I place quotes due to the obvious nature of their desire to bleed their customers for all they're worth) pushing around their users as though they were a commodity to be monetized. Hey Apple, you want to not look bad? Pay up or else!
Re:Why Apple? by Dog-Cow · 2015-10-01 05:13 · Score: 1

There are many legitimate reasons. If you need someone else to come up with one, you are the singularly most stupid person to be alive today.
Florida (us) too - comcast or at&t by TigerPlish · 2015-10-01 07:13 · Score: 1

I'm having the same, downloading apps, iOS and books is slow via comcast internet or over the at&t wireless network.

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The "Civilized World" jumped the shark ca. 1973.
Re:Why Does an Australian Telco Outage get Reporte by Atryn · 2015-10-01 09:28 · Score: 1

I realize this must seem horrible if you are Texan. The rest of us are just waiting on a new set of Articles of Secession from ya'll. Just get on with it.

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Come play Moral Decay!
Re:Why Does an Australian Telco Outage get Reporte by CanadianMacFan · 2015-10-01 13:57 · Score: 1

Gawd, you probably think Fosters is good beer too.
That is exactly the issue. by Demena · 2015-10-01 14:40 · Score: 1

I am on Optus not Telstra and have the same issue. It is site specific not provider specific.