Lag and Slow Internet

[#1]

Ive recently switched over from Virgin, hoping plusnet would be alot better and without traffic control policies which i was told are not part of plusnets package.
It seems there is still excessive lag at weekends and weekdays during the evenings.
I get this especially when i try to play online games, such as Requiem Bloodymare, or even old crappy ones like Delta Force, but its not just games, websites are also slow to load, sometimes taking a few minutes...
So its maybe a problem at my end i hear you saying already? Well, why then are all these problems are not present during the day of weekdays or at free-usage time.
Therefore i can only assume there IS some kind of traffic control or something is not quite right? I was told in Manchester were i am living in the city i should be getting anything up to 8MB, with 2MB being the absolubte minimum... i have not yet seen it rise above 2.1MB?
Virgin was the worst internet in the world... terrible.. This is better ill admitt, but its not fantastic so far...i know plusnet is a good service, my mum has it in Hereford and its great there, im hoping something can be done about my lag problems.
Please help
Thanks
Alex.

[#2]

Hi Alex
What package are you on?
All packages with the exception of Pro are subject to some traffic management (plusnet are far more open than Virgin about this)
Have a look at this http://www.plus.net/unlimited_broadband/
Personally I do quite a bit of browsing, banking and streaming and have found performance to be about the best of the ISPs I have used (never had Virgin cable but used their ADSL and was unimpressed)
FYI I'm on essential which has the same limits as option 1.
techguy

[#3]

On the £15 pound a month for 15 GB broadband package. Why when on the phone did the guy at sales management obviously lie then and say that there is no traffic control and i wont have any problem playing games... i cannot play games online with this, at weekends or weeknights... its just too laggy, and impossible.
Is the only option here gonna be going for the expensive games package?

[#4]

BBYW 2 is one that is recommended for gaming, to see how the various packages are priorities see http://www.plus.net/support/broadband/quality_broadband/traffic_prioritisation.shtml you will see that gaming is given nearly top priotity on your package

[#5]

What game are you trying to play?

[#6]

excuse his french

Quote

I get this especially when i try to play online games, such as Requiem Bloodymare, or even old crappy ones like Delta Force, but its not just games, websites are also slow to load, sometimes taking a few minutes...

[#7]

d'oh!!
Let me do a little digging and find out and then maybe I can help

[#8]

Now the site for that game has an IP allocation belonging to PSINet (now owned by Cogent Communications)
Now assuming that the gaming servers are colocated with the webserver for http://www.playrequiem.com/ the connection should be good as PN peer directly with Cogent)
I must admit I'm not familiar with this particular game but it looks as though you play on a specific server rather than a cluster
Can you post a tracert to the server so we can have a look at the figures for you?
Start > Run and type cmd
type tracert <server name>.domainname

Press enter

[#9]

welcome to PN alex. i would advise doing a wireshark capture why playing the game your having problems with to find what priotity PN are giving it. But if your on the pro package all your traffic is in the top two priotiy's all ready.
Have you checked your exchange status here http://usertools.plus.net/exchanges/ looking at the top exchange searches manchester central is showing as red so if your connected to this exchange its likely you will see some slow downs during peak times no fault of PN but yet again that monster called BT. type you numba into that page and see if this is the exchange your connected to in manchester.

[#10]

I tried typing the server name which is " Lintra " then the domain name, but im afraid i get no result.. i think im doing something wrong , could you possily tell me what i need to type exactly?

[#11]

Hi Alex
I'm assuming here that you are trying to use tracert?
If you are getting the unable to resolve target system name error it usually indicates that you have put a space in the target system name.
apart from between tracert and the system name there should be no spaces so to trace a server called 'hotdog' in the example.com domain, at the command prompt I'd type tracert hotdog.example.com
(If you introduce spaces it will result in the error as it will attempt to look up a server called hotdog in your local network (which may only comprise your PC and router)

[#12]

Hi Alex,
Whilst saying that we don't manage traffic would not be true, we do actually prioritise gaming traffic on our network.
There's a guide hidden in here about how to run a traceroute:
http://www.plus.net/support/network_performance/broadband_packets_drop.shtml?supporta=networkpbroadb...

Quote

Open command line from Windows: Click Start. Click Run (or press the r key). Type "cmd" into the 'Run' window. To use Traceroute: In the command line window, type "tracert www.plus.net". Click Enter and watch for the results The first server address you see returned will be your Gateway. Apple Mac users would use traceroute available from the Terminal (type traceroute into a Terminal window) Go > Utilities > Terminal > traceroute

Let us know if you're still having problems.
I sduspect that's it's nothing to do with the gaming traffic and more to do with your connection itself as you've said other pages are laggy?

[#13]

OK "tracert-ed" it lol, and i have lots of numbers on my screen... im not quite sure which one am i to use, however i do see after "lintra.playrequiem.com" there is an IP address, i assume this is the server ip,
So i then type ping "ip address" and that should give me how well im pinging to it right? Is is that not correct? because all that happens is it times out, but what about all the numbers and address i get when i first tracert to lintra server, what exactly do these mean?
Some ping number towards the end and seeming the likly where about 190-200, i was playing requiem at this time and it was so so... playable ill say, but still some elements of lag, especially in certain little bursts (i beleive the term is packet losses no?)
On the other hand i guess a great test is Delta Force Land Warrior, it has a pinger test programme! yey click a button and see! Plusnet is pinging me at 350-500 ping... fantastic, i only have to shoot about 6-7 seconds infront of people to kill them! thats really poor lol, normally or should be hitting a ping of about 180 to the novaworld.com servers...
any ideas? thanks for all your help so far though, good to see a supportive community

[#14]

Ok, perfect example, now the time is 19:10pm,
Im getting constantly disconnected from the server, i press to use something on the game, i.e. i press number 2, it only responds about 5-6 seconds later, by which time im usually dead, or for example i type a message online to other people which only appear in the chat box 5-6 seconds later, or sometimes really bad and we are talking 15-20 seconds lag, then ill get d/c.
Web pages or ok at the moment, not too much trouble... gaming traffic prioritised?
Help me please

[#15]

Just did a general speed test... while things are uber laggy,
1464Kbps Download,
234Kbps Upload,
I was promised no less than 2mb would occur...