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[craigski]

Well something has changed just after 9pm.

I also see some packet loss on BQM just after 21:00 also on my Zen FTTP monitor.

[Alex Atkin UK]

I also see some packet loss on BQM just after 21:00 also on my Zen FTTP monitor.

Same on my Zen FTTC and my AAISP L2TP connection over Vodafone 4G.

In fact looking at my list http://csdprojects.co.uk/ping/ I see it happened on Virgin too with Plusnet somehow unaffected.

[EC300]

First post here, just about to join AAISP tomorrow so this post caught my eye.

Leaving Aquiss/CityFibre for AAISP after issues with congestion on working days that starts a few minutes before 9am. CityFibre didn't really take much interest and closed the ticket on Aquiss as no fault found. The TTB BQM was really helpful in seeing the issue graphically.

What I noticed was that using f8lure.mouselike.org as a second opinion, which also sets up a chart from a Firebrick at AAISP (so you get 2 for 1), didn't always mirror the chart of TTB. Usually the AAISP chart showed no congestion issues, even though TTB and f8lure did. Just recently the AAISP chart is showing the same pattern of congestion, when sometimes TTB or f8lure are not showing, but whichever chart is showing congestion it always kicks in from a bit before 9am getting worse over the course of 10 or 15 minutes and continues, can be most of the working day or just really bad for an hour before recovering mid-morning, so seems to me several routings that CityFibre have me taking are all running close to capacity and easily get very congested with business traffic.

Whilst it might sound like I'm obsessing over the charts, I'm not, the issue is seen as generally slower speeds (at worse from 900Meg down to around 10Meg) and less than great video calls, just backed up graphically by the monitoring.

So a bit disappointing to read that AAISP with TTB monitoring there seems to be some issues with some packets taking longer as reported here. I'd recommend the OP sets up a second opinion via f8lure to see if it is a wider problem or just a routing issue to the Thinkbroadband network.  When I switch over I will report back with my BQMs for comparison.

This is a normal day on Aquiss/CityFibre, being today, although it gets a bit rougher on the chart from 9am nothing that causes a problem:


What happens on a bad day, CityFibre business traffic presumably.  I've never known congestion at 9am in the morning with any ISP ever until now, 9pm maybe  :

[Alex Atkin UK]

If its showing on one chart and not another I'd say its almost certainly down to congestion on a route out of Aquiss and nothing to do with CityFibre.  If it was a CityFibre problem it should occur equally across every path as it would be BEFORE reaching the ISP rather than after.

[EC300]

Well I'm on A&A. Will need to wait to see what the BQMs look like as I've been on and off setting things up so it's more red then anything else currently.

pfSense was doing funny things.  It seemed to get hold of an IPv4 gateway, then after a few seconds got a IPv6 gateway then the IPv4 gateway went off line in pfSense.  I think I have fixed this now by deleting the IPv4 gateway and letting it dynamically add a new one a fresh.  Then the IPv6 gateway was always showing offline in the gateway monitor but had already read about this on their wiki pages as their IPv6 gateway didn't respond to pings, so added bottomless to ping for monitoring, and that sorted that.

As you do on joining a new ISP I hit some speed tests, but couldn't get anything over about 650Meg from anywhere, including AAISP libra speed test. I had read about their LNS upgrades and faster connections to support FTTP higher speeds moving to new 'witless' LNSs, so I did a tracert and first hit was aimless, no witless.  So following the instructions to get on to a witless LNS by prefixing beta- to the PPP login name, I was now showing first hop to a witless box, and speeds are now able to get up to around 920Meg.  Odd I'm not getting a witless LNS by default being on 1000/100 FTTP so will raise it with them.

I'll drop back later with some BQMs.

If its showing on one chart and not another I'd say its almost certainly down to congestion on a route out of Aquiss and nothing to do with CityFibre.  If it was a CityFibre problem it should occur equally across every path as it would be BEFORE reaching the ISP rather than after.

Aquiss don't have any kit at all, they just resell CityFibre wholesale products, and CityFibre do everything connectivity wise, even the IP addresses they give out and DNS servers all belong to CityFibre/Entanet.  Whilst I'm sure many people have great service with Aquiss via CityFibre, when you get a networking issue then you are back to dealing with a large ISP so the odd person reporting an issue stands little chance of being taken seriously.

[Weaver]

Welcome to the forum, EC300!

[EC300]

Okay I can confirm I'm getting the same looking BQM in between me dropping PPP whilst I've been configuring things.  This appears to be an issue somewhere on the route to thinkbroadband, it isn't happening on f8lures chart, or on other locations I've tested using a pingplotter.

Still not connecting via witless LNS so speeds max out at around 600-650, but prefixing beta- and all is great, so I've sent support an email about it.

[Weaver]

I have used f8lure.mouselike.org on occasion. Very useful.

[Jon21]

Okay I can confirm I'm getting the same looking BQM in between me dropping PPP whilst I've been configuring things.  This appears to be an issue somewhere on the route to thinkbroadband, it isn't happening on f8lures chart, or on other locations I've tested using a pingplotter.

Still not connecting via witless LNS so speeds max out at around 600-650, but prefixing beta- and all is great, so I've sent support an email about it.

Thanks. Would you be able to confirm where Pingplotter is showing the issue? I've attached a screenshot of a quick run of it it, but not entirely sure what it's showing.

[EC300]

What I do is click on each hop and see which chart tends to match the final destination as that normally indicates where the variability is being added.  I couldn't see any pattern on any of those hops so I think that tends to point to it happening between hop 6 and 7.

It definitely is route related as f8lure doesn't show that pattern.

What are your speed tests like to Thinkbroadband?  Mine are not as good as they were via CityFibre (outside of working hours) or IDNET prior.  Hard to get anywhere near 800Meg at the moment on any speed test with AAISP, the worst ISP for top speeds I've had.  Considering the premium and they promise to not slow you down it's a bit disappointing.

Speed test via AAISP


Aquiss CityFibre on a Saturday


I also posted this in the Thinkbroadband forum.  The routing for a speed test server in London goes via Africa!

AAISP is coming in at 227ms for a round trip, and seems to go via Johannesburg. What are others seeing doing a tracert or ping to 197.227.5.218?

Via AAISP

Code: [Select]

Tracing route to 197.227.5.218 over a maximum of 30 hops
 
  1     6 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  pfSense.localdomain [192.168.1.1]
  2     6 ms     7 ms     7 ms  y.witless.thn.aa.net.uk [90.155.53.134]
  3     7 ms     7 ms     9 ms  g.aimless.thn.aa.net.uk [90.155.53.47]
  4     7 ms     7 ms     7 ms  8-1-1.ear1.London2.Level3.net [217.163.102.225]
  5     *        *        *     Request timed out.
  6     *        *        *     Request timed out.
  7   200 ms   206 ms   200 ms  be2385.ccr51.jnb01.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.40.94]
  8   227 ms   227 ms   227 ms  206.249.0.154
  9   227 ms   227 ms   227 ms  197.226.230.42
 10   227 ms   227 ms   238 ms  197.226.230.8
 11   227 ms   227 ms   227 ms  197.227.5.218

Via a work connection

Code: [Select]

Tracing route to 197.227.5.218 over a maximum of 30 hops
 
  1     1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  *
  2     3 ms     3 ms     3 ms  *
  3     3 ms     3 ms     3 ms  *
  4     3 ms     3 ms     3 ms  *
  5     3 ms     3 ms     3 ms  *
  6     3 ms     3 ms     3 ms  be42973-10.man1.pag.gb.m247.com [164.39.60.82]
  7     3 ms     3 ms     3 ms  hu0-0-0-3.man1.agg1.gb.m247.com [217.138.224.20]
  8     3 ms     3 ms     4 ms  hu0-0-1-0.man1.edg.gb.m247.com [217.138.224.17]
  9     3 ms     4 ms     3 ms  xe-0-4-0-7.r02.londen03.uk.bb.gin.ntt.net [83.231.235.229]
 10     8 ms     8 ms     9 ms  ae-12.r20.londen12.uk.bb.gin.ntt.net [129.250.4.191]
 11    24 ms    13 ms     9 ms  ae-13.a03.londen12.uk.bb.gin.ntt.net [129.250.3.249]
 12     *        9 ms     *     195.219.23.72
 13     8 ms    10 ms     8 ms  if-ae-66-2.tcore1.ldn-london.as6453.net [80.231.60.144]
 14     9 ms     8 ms     8 ms  195.219.83.158
 15     8 ms     8 ms     8 ms  197.227.5.218

This IP is a speed test server which can be picked from the list at nperf.com (select Mauritius Telecom, in London with a 10Gb/s link). Previous ISPs the speed test came in at 900+, but with AAISP and that routing, lucky to get over a hundred!

[Alex Atkin UK]

Definitely a routing problem well outside AAISPs control:

1  l2tp.thn.aa.net.uk (90.155.53.19)  11.726 ms  11.623 ms  11.776 ms
 2  g.aimless.thn.aa.net.uk (90.155.53.47)  11.804 ms  11.964 ms  12.133 ms
 3  * 8-1-1.ear1.London2.Level3.net (217.163.102.225)  12.810 ms  12.515 ms
 4  * * *
 5  * * *
 6  be2385.ccr51.jnb01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.40.94)  187.923 ms
    be2489.ccr51.jnb01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.88.222)  188.749 ms
    be2385.ccr51.jnb01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.40.94)  188.330 ms
 7  206.249.0.154 (206.249.0.154)  232.307 ms  232.309 ms  233.144 ms
 8  197.226.230.42 (197.226.230.42)  232.840 ms  215.135 ms
    197.226.230.52 (197.226.230.52)  232.358 ms
 9  197.227.5.218 (197.227.5.218)  231.891 ms
    197.226.230.4 (197.226.230.4)  232.801 ms
    197.227.5.218 (197.227.5.218)  231.997 ms

1  vt1.cor2.lond1.ptn.zen.net.uk (51.148.72.22)  12.433 ms  12.675 ms  12.781 ms
 2  lag-9.p1.thn-lon.zen.net.uk (51.148.73.160)  12.534 ms lag-9.p2.thn-lon.zen.net.uk (51.148.73.174)  12.645 ms  13.310 ms
 3  lag-1.br1.thn-lon.zen.net.uk (51.148.73.153)  13.183 ms  12.616 ms lag-2.br1.thn-lon.zen.net.uk (51.148.73.167)  13.307 ms
 4  ldn-b3-link.ip.twelve99.net (213.248.84.100)  13.545 ms  13.407 ms  13.648 ms
 5  * * *
 6  be2385.ccr51.jnb01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.40.94)  189.989 ms  188.179 ms  188.092 ms
 7  206.249.0.154 (206.249.0.154)  233.790 ms  253.497 ms  253.338 ms
 8  197.226.230.42 (197.226.230.42)  446.773 ms 197.226.230.62 (197.226.230.62)  458.513 ms 196.20.225.96 (196.20.225.96)  466.971 ms
 9  197.226.230.4 (197.226.230.4)  461.670 ms  442.344 ms 197.227.5.218 (197.227.5.218)  439.881 ms

1  vodafone (192.168.7.1)  0.321 ms  0.311 ms  0.244 ms
 2  * * *
 3  192.168.213.21 (192.168.213.21)  35.133 ms  42.625 ms  38.985 ms
 4  192.168.213.22 (192.168.213.22)  41.990 ms  44.695 ms  45.016 ms
 5  * * *
 6  * * *
 7  63.130.104.194 (63.130.104.194)  37.544 ms  39.148 ms  38.021 ms
 8  ae13-100-xcr1.ltw.cw.net (195.2.23.77)  35.964 ms  41.788 ms  42.967 ms
 9  * * *
10  be2348.ccr41.lon13.atlas.cogentco.com (130.117.51.73)  41.407 ms  27.691 ms  42.978 ms
11  be2870.ccr22.lon01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.58.174)  42.981 ms
    be2868.ccr21.lon01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.57.154)  27.100 ms
    be2572.ccr21.lon02.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.61.254)  43.837 ms
12  be2485.ccr51.jnb01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.88.206)  215.353 ms
    be2436.ccr51.jnb01.atlas.cogentco.com (130.117.0.90)  186.087 ms
    be2389.ccr51.jnb01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.80.202)  221.990 ms
13  206.249.0.154 (206.249.0.154)  271.720 ms  257.713 ms  256.929 ms
14  197.226.230.62 (197.226.230.62)  485.985 ms
    197.226.230.42 (197.226.230.42)  461.610 ms
    196.20.225.96 (196.20.225.96)  469.629 ms
15  197.226.230.8 (197.226.230.8)  502.669 ms
    197.227.5.218 (197.227.5.218)  467.627 ms
    197.226.230.4 (197.226.230.4)  471.723 ms

1  three (192.168.8.1)  0.591 ms  0.338 ms  0.385 ms
 2  * * *
 3  172.25.211.65 (172.25.211.65)  34.176 ms  41.451 ms  32.893 ms
 4  * * *
 5  * * *
 6  172.25.217.81 (172.25.217.81)  36.631 ms  29.921 ms  24.184 ms
 7  * * *
 8  172.25.195.150 (172.25.195.150)  32.632 ms  34.719 ms  35.486 ms
 9  * * *
10  * hu0-1-0-0.rcr21.b015534-1.lon01.atlas.cogentco.com (149.11.142.121)  36.114 ms
    hu0-4-0-3.agr21.lhr01.atlas.cogentco.com (149.14.198.73)  31.304 ms
11  be2185.ccr21.lon01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.61.62)  35.613 ms  29.447 ms  41.657 ms
12  206.249.0.154 (206.249.0.154)  253.934 ms
    be3487.ccr41.lon13.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.60.5)  64.009 ms
    be2870.ccr22.lon01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.58.174)  23.901 ms
13  be2572.ccr21.lon02.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.61.254)  33.278 ms *
    196.20.225.50 (196.20.225.50)  245.575 ms
14  197.226.230.4 (197.226.230.4)  256.548 ms  267.329 ms
    206.249.0.154 (206.249.0.154)  254.184 ms
15  196.20.225.96 (196.20.225.96)  253.007 ms
    197.226.230.62 (197.226.230.62)  257.820 ms
    197.226.230.40 (197.226.230.40)  248.042 ms
16  197.227.5.218 (197.227.5.218)  237.107 ms  262.340 ms  256.356 ms

[EC300]

It's a strange one, just for fun you can run a speed test against Mauritius Telecom on Speedtest.net as well, how slow can you go :-)

What are their aimless boxes, Firebricks?  I know they've got faster Firebricks (witless) for faster FTTP connections, but I'm struggling to get anything near top whack for FTTP 1000/100, so just wondering if the aimless routers are a bit of a bottleneck at 2 x 1Gbps, which might explain the struggle maxing out my connection.

[Chrysalis]

Looks like level3 routing weird to cogent network.

Does that speed test ISP have any other transit other than cogent or LINX peering?

[Alex Atkin UK]

Looks like level3 routing weird to cogent network.

Does that speed test ISP have any other transit other than cogent or LINX peering?

Looks more like an issue within Cogent itself to me.

10  be2348.ccr41.lon13.atlas.cogentco.com (130.117.51.73)  41.407 ms  27.691 ms  42.978 ms
11  be2870.ccr22.lon01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.58.174)  42.981 ms  be2868.ccr21.lon01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.57.154)  27.100 ms be2572.ccr21.lon02.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.61.254)  43.837 ms
12  be2485.ccr51.jnb01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.88.206)  215.353 ms  be2436.ccr51.jnb01.atlas.cogentco.com (130.117.0.90)  186.087 ms be2389.ccr51.jnb01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.80.202)  221.990 ms

The only good traceroute we have is one that doesn't use Cogent to reach that IP.

[Weaver]

> just wondering if the aimless routers are a bit of a bottleneck at 2 x 1Gbps, which might explain the struggle maxing out my connection.

That might well be right. I’m a very long time AA user. They are serious about the ‘not being the bottleneck’ thing, so talk to them if you’re getting any performance problems and chastise them suitably.