Internet Dropping out and High Latency

[#1]

Hello all,

Posting a more detailed thread in the hope someone has had a similar fault and managed to fix it.

I moved over from TalkTalk on the 21st of August and have had the internet drop out and high latency/speed drops daily. I have attached screenshots showing the readings. Does anyone have an idea of what to try?

I have paid £5 to get a static IP after seeing others use that as a fix, but so far no difference. This is really starting to consume my day-to-day life as I am currently working from home and have been dropped from video meetings. I used to game after work on xbox with friends as an escape but that also is close to impossible with latency hitting over 1000ms. I have taken a video showing this and hopefully I can attach which shows the spikes.

I also purchased a router from PC world hoping it may have been an issue with the one Plusnet had sent. No difference unfortunately.

I am using a wired connection.

Please, if you have any idea let me know. 

Thanks,

Rory

[#2]

I have attached a video showing the latency spikes. You may need to right click and open with to play it but it does work.

Again if anyone has any ideas I'd appreciate the help.

[#3]

Apologies wrong attachment, useful nonetheless as that is my connection currently. My NAT type is open and I am using port forwarding to try and help but nothing seems to be helping.

[#4]

Hi Rory,

You really need to work through all of the basics here.  Drop outs and latency can have multiple causes, from a faulty line, faulty router, problematic wifi or indeed PC perfomance.

You said that you transferred from Talk Talk - there have been experiences where BTOR did not do the in-exchange swap properly giving rise to performance issues.  The usual suspects need to be eliminated first.

Broadband is not going to work well if the "phone" line is not working properly.

Please perform a quiet line test - dial 17070 select option 2 using a corded phone plugged into the test socket behind the face plate of the master socket. It should be silent. A noisy phone line (or no dial tone) will have a marked adverse impact on the performance of broadband.

If the line is noisy or there is no dial tone, then a PHONE LINE fault needs to be raised with your phone provider. If this is PlusNet, you can report a fault on line using the button below.  From the Q&A list, choose the one which matches the problem, 'open' the 'section' and click the trouble-shooter link.  NB: If you receive a failure message (rather than a log-in prompt) then log-in to the user portal in a different browser tab and attempt to use the trouble-shooter again.

• Phone Faults

[#5]

Hi Townman,

Thanks very much for getting back in touch.

Hopefully we can rule out a faulty router as mentioned I’ve tried the old TalkTalk router and a brand new TP-Link and have had the same issue. In both cases I did make sure to log into the plusnet account in the router setting haha.

In terms of the WiFi, it’s a wired connection I use for gaming and on my work laptop to take part in meetings. The high latency and speed drops occur on all three of my devices, iPhone over WiFi, Xbox over Ethernet and laptop over Ethernet. I have had one or two days without a drop (not lately) but this maybe points to routing on the plusnet network or congestion? Apologies if that doesn’t make sense I’m not too much of a telecoms pro.

I did try a phone line test with no noise on the line as instructed on the help ticket I had raised with plusnet. I’m currently out of the property for the weekend but once back I’ll do it once again to be sure. But I can’t see there being a change from before.

You may be onto something with a problem during the transfer over as I hadn’t any issues prior to the line going live on the 21st of August.

If you have any other tests or information you’d like me to get please let me know!

Thanks again,

Rory

[#6]

Hello all,

An update. I have been back and forth with the help team at Plusnet. Had some calls by people who seem to be genuinely trying to help, but unfortunately still an issue. I have installed a router that will respond to ping tests and after buying the fixed IP I can run the broadband quality monitor. 

As you can see from the attachments peak times my latency and packet loss sky rocket, even more so at weekends.

I'm guessing it's just too much traffic for the Plusnet servers to handle as this was not an issue before switching. Again if anyone has an idea of what I can do to fix this it would be great. 

I should mention where you see 100% packet loss that was Plusnet support team restarting the router. I typically experience 2-15% packet loss at peak times with high latency peaking well over 1000ms.

Kind regards,

Rory

[#7]

Do those peak latency periods coincide with your intensive usage? Responding to ping requests is a low priority task which can suffer when routing devices are busy with real work. I’d only be concerned about list packets, not slow responses if your use is otherwise not impacted.

@Gandalf what does the SVLAN loading look like please?

[#8]

Hello Towman/Gandlaf,

Thanks for taking the time to reply on a Saturday, I'm sure this isn't high on the list of things you want to spend your Saturday looking at!

The spikes occur both when I am using the line and when I am not, you will see late last night the BQM was showing latency spikes and packet loss around midnight, I would have been fast asleep at this time and it is only me using the connection.

The spikes are also noticeable across my devices, I use an xbox for gaming when not working and I can track my latency and packet loss on this device as well as my laptop when they occur. Both devices are on a wired connection. I have tried playing the xbox very early morning or in the afternoon and can at times get a game, peak times I don't even try it, especially weekends.

If you would like any more data I can try and gather it for you.

Kind regards,

Rory

[#9]

Thanks for your time on the phone @RoryD 

I'm sorry for the issues you've had with the latency of your connection. As discussed I've booked an engineer visit for further investigation and I've added details of the appointment onto your support ticket Here. I'll call you back after to follow things up with you as I'm taking this on personally moving forward.

@Townman I checked the SVLAN data and there's no signs of congestion at the exchange on the weekly report.

[#10]

Hi Gandalf,

Thanks for your time also, no need to apologise! 

Fantastic, thanks again for arranging the visit. I'll update this thread accordingly hopefully if a fault is found and someone else is experiencing something similar it may be of use to them.

Kind regards,

Rory

[#11]

Hi Rory thanks for the post back.

No problem, let me know how it goes

[#12]

Morning @Gandalf , 

That's the Engineer come and gone. He has said SNR being too low may be a cause but also it has always been 3dB before so its a "fault from the provider" in some form or another, he cannot be 100% certain. A little demoralised it wasn't something he could fix, I know Plusnet had tried to increase the SNR to 6dB on the 18th but this hasn't worked or hasn't remained at 6dB for one reason or another. 

Feel free to give me a call anytime I am sure the information he will pass over to you will be much more thorough.

Kind regards,

Rory

[#13]

@Gandalf,

Apologies just to clarify, he had said to call this afternoon but I know you have previously said you will be handling this so if it's okay I will let you get in touch with me instead as I don't know how well calling the support number and asking to speak to Gandalf will go haha.

Kind regards,

Rory

[#14]

Thanks for the detail @RoryD 

This is a bit odd as the SNRM target was definitely showing at 6dB when I picked this up. I've changed it back to 6dB now. Surprisingly or sometimes unsurprisingly, the engineer's notes we receive are fairly brief. 

"Investigated the network and no further work required. Possible issue with EC equipment / Wi-fi, advised EC to contact CP." 

EC refers to End Customer which would be you and CP is us as a Communication Provider.

(If you did call and ask for Gandalf, aye I'm pretty sure the adviser would be confused unless you're lucky to get someone that knows me. I'm the only Anoush in Plusnet though so I'm easy to track down)

I'll call you back at about 2pm to discuss the options moving forward.

[#15]

Seems an odd response from BTOR.

The only way in which a 3dB SNRM is going to give rise to the night time poor latency seen on the BQMs is due to the need to retransmit data transmission errors. So the question is, do the line stats indicate a high error rate which might support the claim?

Problems in “EC equipment” is not likely to show time related patterns. One thought I did have is are you running a SamKnows broadband performance test box? They can put massive loadings on the line at times you are not knowingly using the internet.