Broadband modems connections capable of much higher rates than published - DNC server connection?

I never thought about posting this on this forum as this happened about 4-6 years ago but at the time I researched it extensively to try to find other cases of what I experienced and only found a few similar cases but they weren't exactly the same. I have a background in IT and at the time had about 12 years of experience in the industry (and many more personally), so I was well acquainted with networking and Internet broadband connections. Much of my work was setting up or troubleshooting connections for clients and did it many times a week.

I had been having problems with my DSL connection and had to have the techs come out to run tests on the lines to make sure there wasn't a problem with the line or modem. I had a bonded modem which uses 2 lines to get a faster speed and my rate was 10Mbps/1Mbps Down/up. When the tech was there he had to log into the modem with his user account and also have my line switched to a test switch/router at the central office. Each line is connected to a switch in the office which is provisioned for a certain speed (limiting max speed) and this is also often done on the modem, some ISP's do it in 2 locations, some just use one. They use a test switch/port b/c they know there aren't problems with it so they can verify if there is a problem with the copper line running to my house.

While the tech was logged into my modem with his account, I ran a speed test on a number of sites and was blown away by the speed that was being reported. It was 340Mbps to 380Mbps download and about 80-100Mbps upload on all the tests on at least 3 different sites and then on the ISP's own test server. I showed the tech while they were running and he said that it wasn't possible and I said I agree, so we kept running it and changing sites. We thought there was a problem with the testing site/software so we decided to download some ISO's (Linux OS's) and a number of other large files both from FTP, HTTP and bittorrent. I was able to download over 1GB in about 30 seconds and did this for a number of different files. I made sure that I didn't have these files downloaded before, downloaded into a new folder and even drive, so it wasn't downloading a cached file, locally stored file or anything.

The tech was unable to explain how this was happening but did say that the test line was "open ended" as far as speed. It didn't have a transfer speed limit as it was used to test all their customers who have a wide variety of service speeds. He was unwilling to discuss it or explore it further and seemed very agitated after it happened, so much so that he immediately called the office, had them run the tests and switch the line back, which didn't find or resolve any issues. He then quickly wrapped up the service call and said that they would have to run some more test back at the office and scurried back to this van.

After this I looked extensively into the various DSL protocols and their limitations and found that the VDSL2, which my modem uses, is capable of 100Mbps up/down, in ideal conditions and within 300 meters of the switch. This would mean that theoretically I would be able to get 200/200 if 300m or less and in ideal conditions. My location is MUCH further away and my line is old (meaning line noise, slower speeds), I'm on the edge of it's reported functionality which is from 5,000 to 7,500 ft, depending on line conditions. I was told that the max rate my each line could support was 5/.5 Mbps down/up - although before the current ISP bought the local phone company I had 12/2Mbps on a single line but the new company made me move to 2 lines and slower speeds.

Now with cable modems, they are often capable of much higher rates than what is provisioned and this can be done by uncapping the modem. The thing is that they still operate within the specs of the protocol (DOCSIS 2.0 or 3.0), they don't out preform the rated speeds that are published for the technology/protocol.

Now I have a theory that many of these technologies are capable or more than they are reported to offer. This is probably limited by hardware or firmware within the device and it is possible that the excess bandwidth could be used for monitoring purposes in an undetectable (for the average person) manner. Now if you put a oscilloscope on the device and monitored what is actually passing in/out of the modem, it may be possible for detect more data being transferred than what is being reported. Now if doing this, it would be next to impossible to differentiate "noise" (blamed on a bad/old copper line) which would result in dropped packets, which need to be re-broadcast - possibly multiple times, in order for the data to be received. It is possible that this "noise" isn't noise but is some kind of systematically encrypted data (which would look like noise to the standard protocol) which is transferred and 'siphoned off" somehow as a separate data stream which is used to monitor the network connection. This would be theoretically possible on both the up and down stream of the data and this could account for the reason I'm told that there is "noise" on my line, why the speed was slowed down and why the tech wouldn't talk about, acted nervous and scurried off so quickly w/o any explanation or even trying to fix the issue.

Now what made me think about this issue was reading the report that the data transferred from Hillaries email server had a speed closer to USB rate than from DSL, and that the rate couldn't have been done over DSL. I can say that on MANY occasions (happens all the time) I have extremely slow USB transfer rates even on USB 3 or 3.1 and even when copying to an SSD or Class 10 USB (both of which should be very fast). From my experiences it seems that it is more than possible for a "faster than advertised" transfer over DSL and there are many factors which could influence the speed at which the transfer takes place (distance from CO, if more than one line is used, etc). It is also possible that they may have had redundant internet connections, which in some cases can make use of both connections (which is different than my bonded setup) to get the cumulative speed of all connections - this is highly possible if the transfer is of many files vs one large file as sending one file usually uses one connection unless it has a more advanced setup.

So, reading this transfer of DNC email over USB vs DSL really made me think about what might be possible and why I had such an odd experience with the DSL testing. I am guessing that it would be pretty simple for an advanced hacker to get into the ISP's server and change the speed for Hillaries connection - I doubt that was looked into. Every tech I've ever had come out has typed their credentials into my machine, which would allow for elevated privileges while logged in. By using a simple key logger, it would be possible to get the username/password and later use this to connect at a higher speed if someone wanted to. If Hillary was provisioned for something like 30Mbps/5Mbps and they then had a transfer rate of 100Mbps (upload) this would be possible with the published DSL speeds but they could hide behind it by saying "we only have 5Mbps upload"...

a reply to: DigginFoTroof

I had the bonded phone line hookup like you did for a few months.
It started with supposedly high speed that wasn't.
Their excuse was currently upgrading lines.
2 years of hearing that.
so we upgraded with frontier.
Up to 18mbs download!
The best I ever got was maybe 3mbs but I was charged for the potential 18mbs.
The tech said I was to far out on the line to get that fast... by by frontier...

I switched to cable dsl and have 24mbs now.

Until everything is upgraded we will be pinched for speed.

a reply to: DigginFoTroof

You set a clockrate for the line that you pay for

So when they enable the connection to your router there is an option on the router for them to set the clockrate for that interface

#clockrate 56000

As an example

Now I'm not 100% sure they are using Cisco products but I'm pretty Damn sure they are

a reply to: Bluntone22

Nice, I'm rocking 100 down and 25 up, courtesy of Spectrum.

originally posted by: Bluntone22
a reply to: DigginFoTroof

I had the bonded phone line hookup like you did for a few months.
It started with supposedly high speed that wasn't.
Their excuse was currently upgrading lines.
2 years of hearing that.
so we upgraded with frontier.
Up to 18mbs download!
The best I ever got was maybe 3mbs but I was charged for the potential 18mbs.
The tech said I was to far out on the line to get that fast... by by frontier...

I switched to cable dsl and have 24mbs now.

Until everything is upgraded we will be pinched for speed.

Our local phone company (started like in 1930's) provided 12/1 on my DSL from 2006 to 2010. Had perfect service. A national company bought them and I was told I could only have 5/.5 b/c my line didn't support it, even though they installed all new switches when they took over which was supposed to give much faster speeds. So they offered bonded to give me 10/1. The tech support was horrible, full of liars or people who just read a script. Always gave same excuses for every client - I was in local residential tech support and had to call for customers, always the same story, no matter who I called for. That right there should tell you something.

At one point I had 4 techs at my house at once b/c I knew more than they did and called out their BS and I guess they wanted "backup" to support their line of BS they fed people. Needless to say, the problem was never resolved even with 4 techs working on it for 5+ hours...

a reply to: DigginFoTroof
You have ‘tech’s’ come out to your house, using ‘their credentials’ on your router... you mean admin admin..
do you even have an IT background? Do you know anything about ‘noise’ caused on the copper line the closer you are to the exchange?

I can shoot so many holes in everything you said.
But time...
I’m pretty confident the transfers happened over a local usb 2.0 device and 2.0 port, or 3.0 device over a 2.0 port.
Either or. I’m concerned though that you think it was remote hackers, as someone pointed out in an earlier thread, when one is hacking remotely, you do your best to keep quiet. Bumping up a DSL line and using most of, if not all the bandwidth would cause someone to notice, it would also be logged.

Are you a developer/programmer?

Also- the DNC probably has a 1000mbps fibre line. It was 2016 not 2000

There are configuration files on the modem file system which store the upload and download speed limits. These are normally downloaded by the ISP based on what tier of service you have purchased. There was a big hoo-hah in the past where home users were modding their modems to change these files. The ISP's were actually cancelling service and taking legal action against users who did this.

The idea of home internet service is that a large 300 mbit premium tier service is shared between residential customers. Based on usage statistics, it's possible to create a ratio of 100:1 or 20:1 users to one line. For business users and test engineer accounts, this ratio would be 1:1 - you get the whole bandwidth to yourself.

originally posted by: toysforadults
a reply to: DigginFoTroof

You set a clockrate for the line that you pay for

So when they enable the connection to your router there is an option on the router for them to set the clockrate for that interface

#clockrate 56000

As an example

Now I'm not 100% sure they are using Cisco products but I'm pretty Damn sure they are

There were no changes to the setup of my modem from what I have/had to when the Tech logged in. The speed is higher than the VDSL2 protocol allows. This would be like a 3Ghz CPU running at 9Ghz with only changing the login name on the operating system. I was with the tech the entire time (watched him like a hawk, lol) and know that only username/password was changed.

In the 3rd or 4th paragraph of the OP I stated that the VDSL2 isn't capable of the speeds I recorded as per the IEEE specs. The upper limit is 100/100 and I exceeded that by almost double (for each line).

a reply to: stormcell

I don't know a lot about the home routers but I know you can administratively set clock rate on a serial interface and that's the speed it will run at.

www.cisco.com...

To configure the clock rate for the hardware connections on serial interfaces such as network interface modules (NIMs) and interface processors to an acceptable bit rate, use the clock rate command in interface configuration mode. To remove the clock rate if you change the interface from a DCE to a DTE device, use the no form of this command. Using the no form of this command on a DCE interface sets the clock rate to the hardware-dependent default value.

This is how I would assume they were doing it but I don't know anything about ISP's.

In an ideal world, if everything were equal, and everyone had the exact same equipment and means to access broadband, I may agree. But we're not, and everyone has different problems that occur to hinder their speeds. Where I live, we still have copper wire to the exchanges. Or, now that we've been forced onto the NBN (Lose landline phones and all ability to contact anyone with a normal home phone, OR get the NBN and VOIP) we are copper to the node, which is the fibre to the exchange. On ADSL2+ I was stuck at 12Mbps down, 1Mbps up. 2.6km from the exchange, the line noise and snr was bad. I could have gotten up to 20Mbps, but alas, no. Now on NBN, I get 50Mbps down, 20Mbps up.

My point is, there are too many factors for it to be so, I believe. Everyone has different scenarios that affect this ability. Some places down here that are on the NBN by choice have nothing but complaints with speeds of less that 1Mbps down, after moving over, which is shocking. My ISP's facebook page is littered with complaints, threats to go to the ACCC, legal concerns, etc.

Many people have written their own firmware for their version of modem that gives a slight performance boost, but nothing to that extent.

For it to be a subversive means to direct a set band of traffic to an obscure server/service I think it would need to be a little more defined. It's one thing to skim the 'cream' from the crop, but another to degrade services to the point they are in some areas here.

Or we're clear of this, being the equivalent of a third world broadband country...

originally posted by: GreenGunther
a reply to: DigginFoTroof
You have ‘tech’s’ come out to your house, using ‘their credentials’ on your router... you mean admin admin..
do you even have an IT background? Do you know anything about ‘noise’ caused on the copper line the closer you are to the exchange?

I can shoot so many holes in everything you said.
But time...
I’m pretty confident the transfers happened over a local usb 2.0 device and 2.0 port, or 3.0 device over a 2.0 port.
Either or. I’m concerned though that you think it was remote hackers, as someone pointed out in an earlier thread, when one is hacking remotely, you do your best to keep quiet. Bumping up a DSL line and using most of, if not all the bandwidth would cause someone to notice, it would also be logged.

Are you a developer/programmer?

Also- the DNC probably has a 1000mbps fibre line. It was 2016 not 2000

Man you are full of yourself.. No he never logged into my router. No my user/PW isn't admin/admin. He logged into my modem, which if you know anything about DSL requires a PPPoE login for about 95% of accounts, which is where he used his credentials (unique to the tech) to login for testing.

Go ahead and shoot holes and make a fool of yourself. You already started.

originally posted by: Arnie123
a reply to: Bluntone22

Nice, I'm rocking 100 down and 25 up, courtesy of Spectrum.

I could theoretically get 100 down, 50 up. But I'm not paying that, when I'm unlimited at 50/25 and never really reach that from vanilla websites anyway. Torrents otoh... well..

ssd and usb are in MB not Mb thats probly why they seem slower ur talkimg 10x diferance isp's use Mbps to make them faster

all internet connections have caped speeds and when uncaped are insanly fast docis 3.1 is sopose to be gigabit speeds thats still only 125 MBps

originally posted by: SummerRain
In an ideal world, if everything were equal, and everyone had the exact same equipment and means to access broadband, I may agree. But we're not, and everyone has different problems that occur to hinder their speeds. Where I live, we still have copper wire to the exchanges. Or, now that we've been forced onto the NBN (Lose landline phones and all ability to contact anyone with a normal home phone, OR get the NBN and VOIP) we are copper to the node, which is the fibre to the exchange. On ADSL2+ I was stuck at 12Mbps down, 1Mbps up. 2.6km from the exchange, the line noise and snr was bad. I could have gotten up to 20Mbps, but alas, no. Now on NBN, I get 50Mbps down, 20Mbps up.

My point is, there are too many factors for it to be so, I believe. Everyone has different scenarios that affect this ability. Some places down here that are on the NBN by choice have nothing but complaints with speeds of less that 1Mbps down, after moving over, which is shocking. My ISP's facebook page is littered with complaints, threats to go to the ACCC, legal concerns, etc.

Many people have written their own firmware for their version of modem that gives a slight performance boost, but nothing to that extent.

For it to be a subversive means to direct a set band of traffic to an obscure server/service I think it would need to be a little more defined. It's one thing to skim the 'cream' from the crop, but another to degrade services to the point they are in some areas here.

Or we're clear of this, being the equivalent of a third world broadband country...

I you look at most enctypted files, it would look like noise if it were to be analyzed by most every means. Also remember that everyone thought that CPU's were secure but then we found out that the Pentiums had major security flaws which could basically allow remote access and or priviledge elevation.

There are so many "flaws" or backdoors which are found after the fact that I won't rule out anything unless I had a part in making it from the ground up and produced it.

Just do a search for CIA electronics spy catalog which is choked full of various parts like USB ports, Network (RJ45) ports and a host of other things, just about ever computer part, which has "secret" hardware in them that allows for hijacking of the system. The price is outrageous (I think I saw a USB 2 or 3 port for like $50,000) for this stuff but I found it about 6-10 months ago. With hardware like this I think they might be capable of a lot more than we would like to think. This stuff is mainly for intercepting hardware before it reaches the customer, maybe before it reaches the distributor, that really wasn't covered in the catalog.

originally posted by: markovian
ssd and usb are in MB not Mb thats probly why they seem slower ur talkimg 10x diferance isp's use Mbps to make them faster

all internet connections have caped speeds and when uncaped are insanly fast docis 3.1 is sopose to be gigabit speeds thats still only 125 MBps

Yeah, been using computers heavily since 1988 and I'm not able to discern Mb from MB. Sorry but no dice.

No idea how it works in other countries but here in the Netherlands the connection speeds are determined by the DSLAM (telephone exchange) and not the modem. Depending on your subscription, you are assigned a profile which the modem receives from the DSLAM. In other words, the telcos set the speed and not the modem. The engineers never log in to the modem. They have their own equipment that they use to measure the line.

They recently did a DSLAM upgrade here and without warning my connection went from roughly 35 megabits down to 120 megabits down and 35 megabits up. No increase in price which is nice but to be honest, 120 is overkill for me.

a reply to: LightSpeedDriver

it makes more sense to me to set the rate on the interface connected to the modem

but I don't know how they setup through the ISPs so I have no idea***

originally posted by: LightSpeedDriver
No idea how it works in other countries but here in the Netherlands the connection speeds are determined by the DSLAM (telephone exchange) and not the modem. Depending on your subscription, you are assigned a profile which the modem receives from the DSLAM. In other words, the telcos set the speed and not the modem. The engineers never log in to the modem. They have their own equipment that they use to measure the line.

They recently did a DSLAM upgrade here and without warning my connection went from roughly 35 megabits down to 120 megabits down and 35 megabits up. No increase in price which is nice but to be honest, 120 is overkill for me.

The DSLAM is the reason they needed to change the line at the CO (Central office) to run the tests. As I said, the line to which they switched was unprovisioned with an upper limit on speed but that does not change the fact that the modem itself is limited by the technology/protocol it uses for data transfer. The DSLAM may be capable of 1Gbps or 10Gbps but you still aren't going to get a speed faster than what the modem can provide, which in my case is 100/100 under ideal conditions of

a reply to: DigginFoTroof

What you are describing there is normal operating procedure.

Of course those modems can move data at speeds they don't advertise.

Why? Because 1 person can overextend a network if they start downloading everything under the sun. Or if a malicious hacker gets a hold of a pc. Then they can max it out.

Speeds are limited because of this. And also they can charge you tiers of service for more money.

I don't understand here?

Are you saying your modem has a higher throughput than what's advertised?
Higher line rate?
Or where you shocked to find out that your ISP is controlling the amount of bandwidth that's allocated to you?

Also remember that everyone thought that CPU's were secure but then

No, everyone didn't think this. Not knowing about a particular vulnerability does not default to a system being 'secure'. I'd wager there are more vulnerabilities that no one's talking about.