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Author Topic: Massive ping spikes - EE ADSL  (Read 3356 times)

michty_me

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Massive ping spikes - EE ADSL
« on: September 26, 2021, 07:15:07 AM »

Morning all,

Its been a while and a good bit longer on trying to pin point issues on ADSL.
My brother recently switched from Plusnet to EE, The reason he switched was due to never being able to receive above 1.8mbps from Plusnet who always said there was no issue. I believe that was the only issue as BT said no fault was found.

Fast forward a few months and they allowed him to leave FOC so he switched to EE. Now he has the opposite issue. He is hitting a decent sync speed with the EE box consistently but the ping times are hitting northwards of 700ms. Not always but it will spike for periods of time.

So far what we have done is have the EE box into the test socket and PC hard wired, Same issue. Nothing else on the network. I've since given him my D7000 in the hope it would sort it but all it done was increase the sync speed but still getting massive ping spikes.


It seems to happen when the connection is loaded up and a temporary relief from it is to reboot the modem which seems to sort it. There have been four BT engineers out who all say the line is fine. Just doing a google search of the issue seems to bring up multiple EE community posts of similar issues so perhaps an EE network problem?

What should I be looking at testing?
Traceroutes? Ping traces?
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Iain

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Re: Massive ping spikes - EE ADSL
« Reply #1 on: September 26, 2021, 09:57:43 AM »

How about getting DSLStats running on the D7000 ?
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meritez

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Re: Massive ping spikes - EE ADSL
« Reply #2 on: September 26, 2021, 10:37:16 AM »

Pings to an IP address or a domain name.
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michty_me

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Re: Massive ping spikes - EE ADSL
« Reply #3 on: September 26, 2021, 10:59:10 AM »

How about getting DSLStats running on the D7000 ?

I have already asked him to do this so hopefully he gets it setup.

Pings to an IP address or a domain name.

I was going to get traceroutes too. Also heard of pingplotter. Ever tried that?
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meritez

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Re: Massive ping spikes - EE ADSL
« Reply #4 on: September 26, 2021, 11:06:11 AM »

I've heard of pingplotter, it may reveal the source of the latency.
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michty_me

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Re: Massive ping spikes - EE ADSL
« Reply #5 on: September 26, 2021, 11:08:28 AM »

I've heard of pingplotter, it may reveal the source of the latency.

I'll get him t get DSLstats and pingplotter installed and left running in the background.
I did previously ask him to due to using it for the fault finding or to use it for getting out the contract.
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RealAleMadrid

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Re: Massive ping spikes - EE ADSL
« Reply #6 on: September 26, 2021, 01:34:48 PM »

A possible cause particularly on ADSL with low upstream speeds is traffic saturating the upload which cripples downstream as acknowledgement packets can't get through.
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michty_me

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Re: Massive ping spikes - EE ADSL
« Reply #7 on: September 26, 2021, 01:50:03 PM »

A possible cause particularly on ADSL with low upstream speeds is traffic saturating the upload which cripples downstream as acknowledgement packets can't get through.

Hmm, Never thought of that one. That is certainly worth keeping in mind I suppose. I'll get him to check the previous suggestions anyway and see.
He actually switched to 4G for gaming for a while but his 4G router packed in which is why he is back on the ADSL connection.

Edit to add: If that were the case, Would we not be seeing packet loss indicators increase in game?
« Last Edit: September 26, 2021, 01:53:42 PM by michty_me »
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Alex Atkin UK

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Re: Massive ping spikes - EE ADSL
« Reply #8 on: September 26, 2021, 02:59:12 PM »

It being fixed after a reboot would rather suggest it not being a saturation issue.  If it was saturation of upload, just stopping any heavy use would fix it without needing a reboot.

How long does it remain solved after a reboot?  As that could perhaps suggest it IS an EE backhaul issue and after a while THAT becomes overcontended, where a reboot switches to a different backhual?  (I didn't think this was still a thing but then who knows how EE are running their network)
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michty_me

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Re: Massive ping spikes - EE ADSL
« Reply #9 on: September 27, 2021, 10:28:06 PM »

Tonight I believe he was on the phone to their tech support.
My brother doesn't really get the ins and outs of how it all works too well but was speaking about his dB's and frequencies. He said they upped his dB's from 6 to 9 and the max they can do is 12.

Basically they manually adjusted his SNR by the sounds of the vague description from him but we have been gaming all night and so far no lag spikes.
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kitz

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Re: Massive ping spikes - EE ADSL
« Reply #10 on: September 30, 2021, 01:09:16 PM »

My immediate throughts when reading the first post was the possibility of past  DLM interaction.    Being that PN cant do anything about the sync speed and theoretically it should be the same whoever he goes with.   Changing ISP will likely have reset the DLM thus removing any interleaving and increased SNR margin - both of which reduces the sync speed.  Without the DLM protection this could be causing packet loss and extremely high ping times.

It is difficult to say though without any stats.  Does his router record errors such as CRC & Err Secs?     A lot of Err Secs indicate packet loss.   Really do need to get some sort of monitoring on the line.
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michty_me

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Re: Massive ping spikes - EE ADSL
« Reply #11 on: September 30, 2021, 02:30:00 PM »

That could be the case actually. I forgot about the DLM and line training after an ISP switch over.
The high pings and packet loss have been going on for a couple of months now. Is it possible that the DLM hadn't applied a profile and was stuck like that causing the higher pings and packet loss?
I'll speak with him tonight but I have the feeling he probably won't bother to monitor if it is 'working'
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michty_me

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Re: Massive ping spikes - EE ADSL
« Reply #12 on: October 01, 2021, 02:15:57 PM »

I think I'll have to go round and pull some stats from it when I get home. Last night he said his pings were pretty high. He went and reset the router and the rest of the night was fine.
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kitz

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Re: Massive ping spikes - EE ADSL
« Reply #13 on: October 01, 2021, 05:16:43 PM »

>> Last night he said his pings were pretty high. He went and reset the router and the rest of the night was fine.

Line conditions could have changed, resyncing the line could have caused slightly lower sync speed but increased the SNRM..  therefore fewer errors and packet loss.


Without the stats we are blind though and just guessing what is going on.  :(   
The following is pure speculation, but it would certainly fit the symptoms described.... that the line could be experiencing noise issues in the evening which starts a chain reation:- 
The noise reduces the SNRM, which causes errors, which causes packet loss, which causes noticeably increased latency.

The 21CN DLM doesnt react as soon as the Openreach DLM for FTTC and is a bit more lenient with the error rate before it starts profiling a line.


[Moderator edited: Typo fix.]
« Last Edit: October 01, 2021, 05:37:39 PM by burakkucat »
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michty_me

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Re: Massive ping spikes - EE ADSL
« Reply #14 on: October 01, 2021, 07:19:51 PM »

>> Last night he said his pings were pretty high. He went and reset the router and the rest of the night was fine.

Line conditions could have changed, resyncing the line could have caused slightly lower sync speed but increased the SNRM..  therefore fewer errors and packet loss.


Without the stats we are blind though and just guessing what is going on.  :(   
The following is pure speculation, but it would certainly fit the symptoms described.... that the line could be experiencing noise issues in the evening which starts a chain reation:- 
The noise reduces the SNRM, which causes errors, which causes packet loss, which causes noticeably increased latency.

The 21CN DLM doesnt react as soon as the Openreach DLM for FTTC and is a bit more lenient with the error rate before it starts profiling a line.


[Moderator edited: Typo fix.]

Hi again Kitz,
Yeah I believe so too. Its just taking random stabs in the dark at the minute really until he provides or I can get over to his to do some investigating.
As I may only have a couple of hours there, Which tests would be more beneficial for a bigger picture? Get DSLStats up and running?
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