Kitz Forum
Broadband Related => FTTC and FTTP Issues => Topic started by: Reaps on February 08, 2019, 04:38:26 PM
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Hi all,
First time poster, but was advised by a good friend to post here to get some good info.
Equipment:
I have a HG612/Ubiquiti EdgeMax setup.
I have BT Fibre 80/20, usually get around 70 down, 18-20 up, roughly.
I've swapped my equipment back to the BT HomeHub for BT to run some tests, but as far as BT can tell - there's nothing wrong with my line, as my throughput is within threshold.
Issue:
Pings are high (10 - 150ms) - when using a small amount of bandwidth. (1mbps)
Pings are high (20 - 150ms) - when using a medium amount of bandwidth (3mbps)
Pings are high (70 - 250ms) - when using a large amount of bandwidth (7mbps)
Pings are low (10-15ms) - when doing absolutely nothing on the network.
This is a little frustrating for the gamer in me, high pings are useless in fast paced FPS gaming, so I'm looking for answers. :)
As of the last few days, when there's activity from the wife, watching Netflix or streaming iPlayer - my latency rockets, as per above - my gaming starts to warp.
Tracing route to www.google.co.uk [216.58.204.67]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.0.254
2 4 ms 4 ms 4 ms 172.16.16.61
3 * * * Request timed out.
4 10 ms 10 ms 10 ms 31.55.187.180
5 11 ms 10 ms 10 ms core1-hu0-6-0-8.southbank.ukcore.bt.net [213.121.192.76]
6 11 ms 11 ms 11 ms 109.159.252.82
7 11 ms 11 ms 11 ms 109.159.253.73
8 * * * Request timed out.
9 10 ms 11 ms 10 ms 108.170.233.232
10 11 ms 11 ms 11 ms 74.125.242.83
11 13 ms 13 ms 13 ms 209.85.250.185
12 12 ms 12 ms 11 ms 216.239.58.2
13 14 ms 13 ms 14 ms 108.170.246.161
14 11 ms 11 ms 11 ms 108.170.238.123
15 11 ms 11 ms 11 ms lhr25s13-in-f67.1e100.net [216.58.204.67]
Trace complete.
While downloading at 7.8MB/s during the day - worse at night
Tracing route to lhr25s13-in-f67.1e100.net [216.58.204.67]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.0.254
2 30 ms 20 ms 15 ms 172.16.16.61
3 * * * Request timed out.
4 40 ms 33 ms 30 ms 31.55.187.180
5 49 ms 43 ms 55 ms core1-hu0-6-0-8.southbank.ukcore.bt.net [213.121.192.76]
6 47 ms 51 ms 50 ms 109.159.252.82
7 70 ms 67 ms 54 ms 109.159.253.73
8 * * * Request timed out.
9 64 ms 64 ms 70 ms 108.170.233.232
10 69 ms 68 ms 53 ms 74.125.242.83
11 53 ms 47 ms 53 ms 209.85.250.185
12 55 ms 51 ms 48 ms 216.239.58.2
13 64 ms 62 ms 56 ms 108.170.246.129
14 58 ms 50 ms 46 ms 108.170.238.123
15 72 ms 62 ms 60 ms lhr25s13-in-f67.1e100.net [216.58.204.67]
Trace complete.
This is the SNR from the BTHomeHub, i'll try and grab some out of my HG612 when I swap it back later.
19:08:29, 07 Feb. DSL Link Up: Down Rate=72420Kbps, Up Rate=20000Kbps; SNR Margin Down=3.4dB, Up=6.7dB
Any thoughts why I get such high latency when the wife is watching Netflix?
I can emulate this by using Steam, to download a game patch update, while limiting the update to 3MB/s.
This never occurred until a few days ago. I also get the odd lost packet
Pings to www.bbc.co.uk over the last couple of hours, with very little in the way of usage on my network:
Packets: Sent = 19159, Received = 19110, Lost = 49 (0% loss)
Thank you, appreciate it.
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Hi
What device is running on 172.16.16.61
Could you post same 2 tests with just bt homehub connected
Many thanks
John
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What device is running on 172.16.16.61
Some large device of BTWholesale (MSE/BRAS). It'll be the other end of the PPP connection.
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Hi
@ets - I thought that but I wanted to be sure that both hg/edge were not setup separate and was in bridge mode
Many thanks
John
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Hi there,
HG is setup in bridged mode.
I get the same exact symptoms while using both homehub and the Edgerouter. I've played with both, but the HG/Edge configuration gives me a lot more stats to work with for these diagnostics.
You're correct, 172.16.16.61 is BTs device, down the other end of the copper.
Thanks!
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I believe the edgerouters support SQM QoS... have you tried it? Works great on my connection, 15-20ms even when fully loaded.
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I've not tried it yet.
I can't seem to understand the options for QoS on the edgemax though.
All I want to do, is prioritize my gaming pc above everything else.
Have any tips dude?
Thanks
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In the Edgemax router click on the QoS tab. You'll probably want to set the values up like in the attached screenshot based on your previous comment of "usually get around 70 down, 18-20 up, roughly." Ensure the drop-down box is set to "Mbits/sec". You can of course later fine tune these values based on your speed tests at the time. But this should give you an indication if QoS will help with your setup. The values are basically whatever your speed test gives you minus a couple of Mbits/sec. There are advanced settings for fine tuning but I never usually bother with these.
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That's very helpful! I've enabled it.
Thanks!
What is this effectively doing though?
All traffic is getting QoS applied but limiting my maximum to a little under the normal max that I see in the speedtests?
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I'm curious about this too as QoS was one of the reasons I got the Zyxel 8924, am I right in thinking that the little bit of throughput that is left over is used strictly for whatever QoS service requires it?
i.e. 70M - 68M = 2M (2Mbit lane reserved for gaming traffic / 68Mbit for all other)...?
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Still getting these issues.
Can't play games while netflix/streaming/twitch/youtube is being used. Ping is all over the place:
Here are my DSL stats, anything look out of the ordinary?
Stats recorded 10 Feb 2019 20:58:27
DSLAM type / SW version: BDCM:0xb12d (177.45) / v0xb12d
Modem/router firmware: AnnexA version - A2pv6C038m.d24j
DSL mode: VDSL2 Profile 17a
Status: Showtime
Uptime: 2 days 4 hours 17 min 31 sec
Resyncs: 0 (since 10 Feb 2019 20:58:24)
Downstream Upstream
Line attenuation (dB): 14.7 0.0
Signal attenuation (dB): Not monitored
Connection speed (kbps): 73406 20000
SNR margin (dB): 3.2 9.4
Power (dBm): 13.3 6.5
Interleave depth: 8 1
INP: 53.00 0
G.INP: Enabled Not enabled
Vectoring status: 5 (VECT_UNCONFIGURED)
RSCorr/RS (%): 0.0067 0.0000
RSUnCorr/RS (%): 0.0000 0.0000
ES/hour: 0 0
This is my TBB ping graph:
https://www.thinkbroadband.com/broadband/monitoring/quality/share/3231b72aaeddbe9affa9fa90faf557992b6ebe08
(https://www.thinkbroadband.com/broadband/monitoring/quality/share/3231b72aaeddbe9affa9fa90faf557992b6ebe08)
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What values did you put in the SQM settings? It can take some testing to find the right ones, try reducing the download & upload values little by little each time testing with a long ping to bbc or similar while running a speedtest using fast.com (http://fast.com) or speedtest.net (http://speedtest.net).
You can also use the dslreports tester which specifically monitors buffer bloat:
http://www.dslreports.com/speedtest
If the issue was due to errors on your line then the problem should be apparent even when you are not streaming/downloading.
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What values did you put in the SQM settings? It can take some testing to find the right ones, try reducing the download & upload values little by little each time testing with a long ping to bbc or similar while running a speedtest using fast.com (http://fast.com) or speedtest.net (http://speedtest.net).
You can also use the dslreports tester which specifically monitors buffer bloat:
http://www.dslreports.com/speedtest
If the issue was due to errors on your line then the problem should be apparent even when you are not streaming/downloading.
Thanks for the quick reply.
I put in 55/15 into the QoS settings.
At this stage, I don't want to have to work around a problem that BT are having, to get back to where it was, so I've removed it to conduct more testing.
The problem only exists when streaming/downloading. I know you probably think its normal to have an elevated ping during downloading, but here is my ping to www.bbc.co.uk while the wife's watching Netflix (not in 4k, which is effectively 1-2MB/s).
(https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/439530975467143193/542794247582253059/unknown.png)
Here's the link to the speedtest:
http://www.dslreports.com/speedtest/45895351
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Here are my DSL stats, anything look out of the ordinary?
It's very unlikely to be a problem with the xDSL part of the link so DslStats won't show anything.
Pings are high (10 - 150ms) - when using a small amount of bandwidth. (1mbps)
That sounds pretty extreme and I can't see how tweaking QoS settings is going to help it.
Your BQM is pretty similar to mine.
I only get the 50-60ms+ peaks when the line is being used heavily.
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Repeating the tests has found buffer bloat, sometimes reported as B, sometimes as C and sometimes as D.
http://www.dslreports.com/speedtest/45895723
Is there anything I can ask BT to do, in order to resolve this?
Like move me to another port their end, which may be less congested etc?
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This is my connection when using Netflix, both lots of spikes....
https://www.thinkbroadband.com/broadband/monitoring/quality/47355cabe92c044c03a385fd6ccd034298dacca2-08-02-2019.png
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The problem only exists when streaming/downloading. I know you probably think its normal to have an elevated ping during downloading, but here is my ping to www.bbc.co.uk while the wife's watching Netflix (not in 4k, which is effectively 1-2MB/s).
See its not just 1-2MB/s. Its bursts up to the max you pull data from your ISPs CDN every now and then, its not a constant low rate the same as the streams bitrate.
At this stage, I don't want to have to work around a problem that BT are having, to get back to where it was, so I've removed it to conduct more testing.
I guess thats fair, but if QoS lets you play a game in the evening its worth trying to get right in the meantime.
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See its not just 1-2MB/s. Its bursts up to the max you pull data from your ISPs CDN every now and then, its not a constant low rate the same as the streams bitrate.
That's true, I hadn't though of it like that. I'll put QoS back on, and limit downloads to half of my line speed and will test throughout the day. Thanks.
This is my connection when using Netflix, both lots of spikes....
https://www.thinkbroadband.com/broadband/monitoring/quality/47355cabe92c044c03a385fd6ccd034298dacca2-08-02-2019.png
That link for me, seems to be broken. You need to click 'share' to produce the shareable link IIRC.
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Sorry try this :-[
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Regarding Ubiquiti's implementation of their QoS service, I've been trying to find an online post I read a while ago by a Ubiquiti employee explaining an overview of how it works. But it explained that the router analyses the packets and gives priority to smaller data packets which are commonly associated with VoIP, online gaming and other time sensitive data packets. Of course it's far more complex than that, but that's the gist of it.
Reaps - I am not sure if you've answered this already, but when gaming, is your PC / consoles connected directly to the router or other intermediary network switch equipment with a wired ethernet connection? Not using wifi or powerline ethernet adaptors to connect your gaming systems up to the router? If you are using wifi or powerline ethernet adaptors then try a fully wired ethernet connection for your PC / consoles and see if it helps.
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Regarding Ubiquiti's implementation of their QoS service, I've been trying to find an online post I read a while ago by a Ubiquiti employee explaining an overview of how it works. But it explained that the router analyses the packets and gives priority to smaller data packets which are commonly associated with VoIP, online gaming and other time sensitive data packets. Of course it's far more complex than that, but that's the gist of it.
Reaps - I am not sure if you've answered this already, but when gaming, is your PC / consoles connected directly to the router or other intermediary network switch equipment with a wired ethernet connection? Not using wifi or powerline ethernet adaptors to connect your gaming systems up to the router? If you are using wifi or powerline ethernet adaptors then try a fully wired ethernet connection for your PC / consoles and see if it helps.
I've just looked up a couple of youtube videos on the Edgemax QoS, it's exactly as you explain. I'll have it enabled for some further testing later this evening, thank you!
I'm also connected through ethernet. Wifi is only used for mobiles/etc.
I'm connected like so, PC > Gig Switch > EdgeMax Router, same occurs when I connect direct into the BT HomeHub via Ethernet too.
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Mad thought, and I'm sure fellow forum members will tell me why its a stupid thing to bring up, but could you have changed the 802.1p VLAN tagging at any point? I'm not sure if BT/ISPs even pay attention to it, but it is supposed to assign classes to traffic, "background" "best effort" "excellent effort" etc. Have always used 2 - "excellent effort" on my connection.
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Mad thought, and I'm sure fellow forum members will tell me why its a stupid thing to bring up, but could you have changed the 802.1p VLAN tagging at any point? I'm not sure if BT/ISPs even pay attention to it, but it is supposed to assign classes to traffic, "background" "best effort" "excellent effort" etc. Have always used 2 - "excellent effort" on my connection.
All out of the box thoughts are welcome at this stage!
I don't have any VLANs configured and have never used any at home. The Router firmware hasn't changed either, as it's set manual updates.
The modem has the below configuration, looks like mine is set to 2 as well:
Layer2 interface:
WAN connection: Enable
Service list:
Port binding: LAN1 LAN2
Connection mode:
Bridge type:
DHCP transparent transmission: Enable
WAN 802.1q: Enable
VLAN ID: 101 [2-4094]
WAN 802.1p: Enable
2 [0-7]
LAN 802.1q: Enable
LAN 802.1p: Enable
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WAN 802.1p: Enable 2 [0-7]
You could try changing that to 1 [Best Effort]
I'm not sure if BT/ISPs even pay attention to it,
According to SIN 498 it's up to the CP whether they use VLAN tagging.
Unmarked (no VLAN) = Low Priority
0 or 1 = Low Priority
2 or 3 = High Priority
Both BT and TT do use VLAN tagging for IPTV services... and presumably also Plusnet as I had to change my 802.1p setting from 2 to 1 to be able to get Chromecast to work correctly.
This thread VLAN ID Priority (0-7) for 802.1p (https://forum.kitz.co.uk/index.php/topic,20093.msg352116.html#msg352116) gives a bit more information.
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How are you getting on with the high latency issues?
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Both BT and TT do use VLAN tagging for IPTV services... and presumably also Plusnet as I had to change my 802.1p setting from 2 to 1 to be able to get Chromecast to work correctly.
I've always had 802.1p set to 2 and my Chromecast Gen 1 worked with Talktalk.
My Chromecast Gen2 and Nvidia Shield TV (with built in Chromecast) worked with BT with this setting, and it still works since I switched to Plusnet in October.
This is with both a VMG8924-B10A and a VMG1312-B10A
The VMG1312-B10A is currently connected to Plusnet with 802.1p set to 2. Chromecast is used daily.
I set this to 2 using your guide here (https://kitz.co.uk/routers/zyxel_VMG8324-B10A_vdsl_setup.htm) as I was with Talktalk at the time.
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Weird! Mine are as below, and everything (including BT multicast TV) seems to work fine:
802.1p : 0
802.1q : 101
EDIT: BT SIN498v7p5.pdf specifies the above too.
More info: https://forum.kitz.co.uk/index.php?topic=20093.0
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How are you getting on with the high latency issues?
I'm giving it a few days before conducting more tests, to see if this gets better over time.
I've had a few improvements - where my latency isn't quite as high as it was originally.
Still, I'm getting 70-80 pings while watching some www.twitch.tv channels, but I am going through an unusual time, where the wife hasn't got anything to watch on Netflix! :)
If it's ok to keep this post open for a couple of days before I post back with more details?
Here's a current graph of my latency last night:
https://www.thinkbroadband.com/broadband/monitoring/quality/share/030ab9c45faee1e59f96649a9fc7752f0d5d0574-13-02-2019
The spikes are me watching a 4 hour twitch tournament until the early hours (sadly), this never used to spike previously. This is with the Edgemax Smart QoS enabled, which is set at 40Mbps down and 10Mbps up.
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What does your TBBx1 look like?
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My tbbx1 is still up and down by the looks of things.
Also, in other news!
While looking into this - one of my colleague pointed me out to this:
https://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/8274-caerphilly-added-to-list-of-fast-exchanges
Checked with bt.com - no gfast available on my account.
Checked with openreach - they say its ready.
Checked with another provider (zen) - they say they can provide me up to 130~Mbps
Called up BT, they said they can't provide it - as their systems have not yet updated and they basically see what I see on my account in bt.com
They say to wait a few weeks and keep checking the website, once its available there - it will be available to me.
Hopefully, this will mean they will have to move me on the infrastructure to somewhere new, especially as they will need an engineer visit to do it - which should mean they can physically test my line while they are there, to get max speed, low latency.
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Can you enter your details on to the BT Wholesale Broadband Availability Checker (https://www.btwholesale.com/includes/adsl/adsl.htm?s_cid=ws_furls_adslchecker) and post the results.
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Sure can.
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As I thought when you mentioned the 130Mb estimate from Zen.
Look at the upstream difference to what you get now...
As the minimum downstream estimate is below 100Mb this marks the service as "Amber" instead of "Available".
You're at the very end of the G.Fast range and the Amber may mean they won't allow the order to progress.
Possibly why BT say no.
It will almost certainly mean a slower upstream.
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I live about 100m away from my cabinet, is that far?
I read it was a max of around 350m.
I guess it matters how they laid the cable in my area, rather than it being straight down the road.
Amber means it's on the limit? or simply not yet available for resale?
I see the the range is listed as: 6-17Mbps, rather than the 18-19 i'm getting now. I wouldn't mind having 10Mbps up instead of 20, which may be close to reality? What do you think?
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Amber means it's on the limit? or simply not yet available for resale?
Any estimate that drops below 100Mb is marked as Amber.
I believe they won't sell the service below 100Mb.
I read it was a max of around 350m.
The maximum 350m is line length with 0.5mm copper, even then 350m is on the outer edges.
You may have lower gauge copper, aluminium on the line, or the line takes a long route to the cabinet.
Amber means it's on the limit? or simply not yet available for resale?
I've seen Amber orders progress successfully.
Amber indicates a range of potential issues. In your case it's the low estimates.
I've seen these also progress successfully.
Check your immediate neighbours on both sides and see if their estimates are way above yours. Occasionally there's random database mistakes.
I see the the range is listed as: 6-17Mbps, rather than the 18-19 i'm getting now. I wouldn't mind having 10Mbps up instead of 20, which may be close to reality? What do you think?
If you wouldn't mind halving your upstream for a small increase in downstream then go ahead and order it!
Personally I'd rather have 80/20 than 120/10 but everyone's usage is different.
I'm not a fan of G.Farce. It's essentially only available to those who already receive the full 80/20 and even then some will see a big drop in upstream at the outer edges.
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Thanks for answering pretty much all my questions!!
Very helpful.
When I first moved in roughly 2.5 years ago, I was getting 74Mbps down, with a full 20 up, but over time - I'm guessing the congestion is slowing me down.
I guess that could go towards saying my line is (was) pretty clean and some high speeds though be attainable.
I'd be interested to hear why you don't like g.fast. Is it simply because of the lower uploads?
I like to be the most informed with regards to a purchase like this, especially when being something I use so regularly and rely upon.
Thanks again.
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Hopefully, this will mean they will have to move me on the infrastructure to somewhere new, especially as they will need an engineer visit to do it - which should mean they can physically test my line while they are there, to get max speed, low latency.
I know next to nothing about g.fast, but it sounds like your only reason for upgrading is to fix these latency issues that have occurred recently.
Firstly I doubt the engineer installing it will be of the kind that could diagnose such an issue. Secondly unless the issue is a faulty port/line card in the cabinet I would assume all other factors will remain the same, if the issue is congestion at some point in BTs network (or possibly something in your premises) you will get the same results.
I await input from a more knowledgeable members, but my understanding is g.fast is unlikely to solve your problem.
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[rant]
They could have went with a technology (VDSL2 profile 35b) that that was fully compatible with the existing FTTC spectrum and would have (pretty much) doubled the speed and range of FTTC for most.
It would likely have given you over 160/40.
Even those who didn't receive the full 80/20 could have seen a considerable upgrade on both upstream/downstream.
They picked G.Farce instead which has a very limited range.
It also isn't compatible with the existing FTTC spectrum so they had to modify G.Farce to drop the initial 20% of available spectrum (used by FTTC) reducing its range further.
In its current form G.Farce only helps those who already get the fastest speeds.
It's a waste of time and will probably cost more than it makes.
It's a box ticking exercise so they can quickly claim Ultrafast coverage to millions of properties.
It kept the marketing department happy also.
[/rant]
To even out my comments...
Rolling out VDSL2 profile 35b wouldn't have been the easiest. It would require ECI DSLAMs be replaced or left as is leaving those connected to them unable to be upgraded.
It would require upgrades on the Huawei cabinets.
The original intention for G.Farce was for it to be deployed between homes and the PCP, meaning the range would have mattered less.
They then decided to deploy it from the cabinet instead.
IMO they should have gone with (in order of my entirely uneducated preference);
1. None of the above, with a bigger push of FTTP.
2. VDSL2 profile 35b
3. G.Fast deeper in the network.
but they went with the current G.Farce rollout from the cabinet.
edit: I agree with Johnson's comment advice regarding the latency. The lower upstream may even make it worse.
If it's for higher downstream then go for it. If it's for fixing your latency issues I don't see it helping.
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Ah
Ok.
So my hope of them doing 'something' as part of the g.fast switch is very unlikely?
Would they not move me from 1 switchport to another, to use g.fast?
Perhaps to a less congested one?
Or is it likely that they are just enabling at my currently connected (congested) port?
I half expected that if they were pushing out g.fast, they would have newer equipment at the backend for it, which means I'd get moved to it?
If none of that is accurate, i'll stick to what I've got.
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The switch to Zen may indeed help.
The switch to G.Fast alone probably won't.
The latency isn't a problem with the xDSL link so not something an OpenReach engineer would be able to help with.
That's the ISP's realm.
edit: I'll add, there's no congestion at the line card (what you call the switch port).
The cabinet to exchange links are also good.
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So what's the most objective way Reaps can test the latency on his line, I wonder?
If memory serves, he was getting tbbx1 results of 5Mb/s at one point. I have to be trying quite hard to get mine below 40. His BQM was a right state, too.
What should the latency / throughput curve look like, typically, for an 80:20 line? There's a few of us here with identical cabs, CPEs and sync speeds so we could quite easily baseline it?
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Thanks Boost, appreciate that.
As a question - if this was specific to BT, would you expect others in the local area? eg. within 2 miles of my home to have the same latency issues if there is something wrong at the ISP end?
I know a bunch of BT Fibre users in my area, who are not seeing this issue.
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I would start with anyone off the same cab as you. There's quite a few off that main roundabout, I think?
Same cab + same ISP would be a great start?
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It would be, but I don't know any of my neighbours well enough to start asking about their Internet.
We take each others postal deliveries from time to time, but thats about it! :)
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This same issue is happening to me, fibre connection, 80/20 connection and using XR500 anti bufferbloat settings and the smallest download on another device is causing lag spikes, tried wired, different routers, different combos and still is happening.
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So far, i'm going through over the hurdles BT put in place to try and get this escalated.
Step 1 was to get 3 different BT engineers at my house. Only once 3 engineers have been, will this get assigned a case manager to look further into.
That has happened today and I've now been assigned a case manager to look into it. We'll see what happens after this.
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Update:
Had a BT case engineer assigned.
They looked over the issue from the 3 engineers. They originally wanted to schedule another engineer (lol), but I talked them out of it, as I didn't see any value in it.
I mentioned BT Wholesale was spoken about on the call with regards to capacity earlier on in my issue.
The case engineer took a couple of days to speak to BT Wholesale, who said they would cease and recreate my line on their system, which may resolve the issue.
Result: My issue is almost fully resolved, with my pings returning much closer to normal during streaming/downloading. They're not perfect, but they are much better and I can see a big change in the TBB quality monitor graphs.
old:
https://www.thinkbroadband.com/broadband/monitoring/quality/share/12b1d1bdd3a7fd42fc84df72d102009d53a40ab2-03-03-2019 (https://www.thinkbroadband.com/broadband/monitoring/quality/share/12b1d1bdd3a7fd42fc84df72d102009d53a40ab2-03-03-2019)
new:
https://www.thinkbroadband.com/broadband/monitoring/quality/share/9f2df6f8d2098aef0ef570a8b9e15a500bd66bef-12-03-2019 (https://www.thinkbroadband.com/broadband/monitoring/quality/share/9f2df6f8d2098aef0ef570a8b9e15a500bd66bef-12-03-2019)
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It looks like I had a less congested night, where my pings are still high throughout this the evening.
I'm now waiting for the case engineer to call me today, as I would like to start to discuss my options with regards to contracts if I'm no longer getting what I used to - out of the Fibre connection. (ignoring max throughput).
He last mentioned he was going to speak to the experts in BT wholesale to see if there's absolutely anything else they can do for me, before going down that route. I'll wait for the call today, before updating this thread.
As a side note, my line is measured at 280 meters from my DSLAM. Looks like over the last 2-3 years of living here, uptake of fibre in my area has increased crosstalk, with a low SNR of 3.2, this is why my speeds are now down to 61Mbps, from 74Mbps, actual not attainable.
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It looks like I had a less congested night, where my pings are still high throughout this the evening.
I'm now waiting for the case engineer to call me today, as I would like to start to discuss my options with regards to contracts if I'm no longer getting what I used to - out of the Fibre connection. (ignoring max throughput).
He last mentioned he was going to speak to the experts in BT wholesale to see if there's absolutely anything else they can do for me, before going down that route. I'll wait for the call today, before updating this thread.
As a side note, my line is measured at 280 meters from my DSLAM. Looks like over the last 2-3 years of living here, uptake of fibre in my area has increased crosstalk, with a low SNR of 3.2, this is why my speeds are now down to 61Mbps, from 74Mbps, actual not attainable.
Hi Reaps, I'm suffering from the exact same issue (Although you seem to have got it sorted from the looks of things)
I have SQM QoS on my router to eliminate lag when there is heavy downloading going on but the SQM has stopped doing its job making gaming a nightmare
I'm with BT and have been dealing with this latency bug for the past two weeks. I've exhausted all forms of troubleshooting on my end to no avail so I really want an engineer to come visit and do some tests.
Can you tell me what you said to BT in order to get an engineer visit? Since this is a latency issue more than a speed issue would I be expected to pay for the visit? I really don't want to pay £100 for something outside of my control :no:
Also, I don't know if you ever did some dslreports tests when you had this issue, (but if you did) could you tell me if it looked similar to how mine looks at the moment? Right now, my connection struggles getting to max bandwidth during the test and suffers severe latency on startup.
Here is my thread on another forum where I tried to fix this issue, you can see a video of the test about halfway down the page :fingers:
https://forum.openwrt.org/t/sqm-not-working-correctly-wndr3800-18-06/34304
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Hi Flood,
Hope you get your issue resolved.
BT updated my line to use a 55/10 profile, to see if that 'changed' something to fix my pings. It did - it made them much worse.
Interestingly, I just fired up my 4k bt sport channel - checked my router and could see iptv was streaming it at 30Mbps, a little higher than I expected. Checked my ping - expected it to be all over the place, nope... completely flat - as if nothing was happening on the network.
This goes towards the thought process that BT are prioritizing IPTV way above normal data traffic - which is why my pings are normal when streaming 4k IPTV, but terrible when streaming 1080p through netflix/twitch.tv
I'm now looking at a move to a new provider, after multiple conversations with a good case manager, who's letting me leave free of charge.
Zen will likely get my money going forward - Ill report back with any findings.
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Hi Flood,
Hope you get your issue resolved.
BT updated my line to use a 55/10 profile, to see if that 'changed' something to fix my pings. It did - it made them much worse.
Interestingly, I just fired up my 4k bt sport channel - checked my router and could see iptv was streaming it at 30Mbps, a little higher than I expected. Checked my ping - expected it to be all over the place, nope... completely flat - as if nothing was happening on the network.
This goes towards the thought process that BT are prioritizing IPTV way above normal data traffic - which is why my pings are normal when streaming 4k IPTV, but terrible when streaming 1080p through netflix/twitch.tv
I'm now looking at a move to a new provider, after multiple conversations with a good case manager, who's letting me leave free of charge.
Zen will likely get my money going forward - Ill report back with any findings.
So when the engineers came round are you saying they couldn't identify any type of fault? If so, that doesn't bode well for me :s
Would you mind doing a test on dslreports.com? Could you tell me if you experience really bad pings at the start of the test like I do?
https://streamable.com/nmt2i (https://streamable.com/nmt2i)
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Sure.
My test looks almost identical to yours, with a slightly higher buffer bloat throughout. My upload test smashes it the worst though.
When the engineers came to my property each time, no one found a fault, which is why it eventually went up to openreach wholesale (assuming they do the backend configs) - who did the cease/renew each time.
It doesn't bode well to anyone to be honest, if they are causing issues by having too much iptv traffic or having the prioritizing misconfigured somewhere along the route, it's going to be a long time before they fix it I'd imagine.
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I recently found pretty decent improvements to my QoS, but it was a long time to get to where I am.
I found basic fq-codel to be pretty much as good as it gets for improving my egress during busy periods but it wasnt so good for ingress, given I do lots of downloading, watching streams etc. and not that much uploading (maybe sending emails, and uploading data to cloud drive on occasion). I decided to go back to a optimal setup for ingress again
For that I found nothing better than HFSC which I have implemented via ALTQ on pfsense.
Now the original setup I had a while back was to set the overall size of the shared queue about 5% lower than my max possible throughput, but then not leave much buffer from that to the child queues. I also didnt take advantage of the service curve feature where you can have the traffic run at a temporary rate limit before it goes to a ongoing rate limit.
Take a look at this pic. https://imgur.com/a/Dm3YDmh (also attached to post)
What I did was set for the first 10ms a much lower rate limit, which makes the slow start and congestion control behave different, so its less aggressive, but you can see ultimately the throughput is still almost at full speed, it just has some breathing space as shown in the dumeter graph which makes all the difference in QoS. That graph was a 32 threaded steam download as well. Also the limit of the parent queue is much closer to my max throughput (98%), and the 3% I saved I reduced the child queues so there was more space for higher priority queues like icmp.
Now the other issue, is when you dealing with many download threads in applications like steam, you ideally need a ton of extra overhead for better shaping, so I borrowed an idea from Carl which was to route my steam traffic through an external network, and shape it on that device so before it reaches my network, its already "tamed" traffic. I dont know if the above service curve trick would have removed the need for that taming, but that result is with both things combined.
Obviously when you doing things like this you need an isp which provides consistent performance e.g. shaping at say 90% of your line rate wont do squat if congestion puts attainable throughput at say 60%.
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Today was the day!
Moved from BT to Zen.
Very happy with my new low latency
https://www.thinkbroadband.com/broadband/monitoring/quality/share/3231b72aaeddbe9affa9fa90faf557992b6ebe08
Graph has been great since plugging in this morning.. had a couple of GB download earlier at full speed is the little blip in the graph you can see, as that finished, I also changed the local LAN settings to match my previous router. Absolutely on top of the moon having a decent ISP again. :)
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Hi,
I had this problem on BT so I switched ISP to Plusnet, using all existing equipment and the lag issues are all gone now.