Terrible bufferbloat, packet loss, jitter, etc. Text support service DOES NOT WORK

[#1]

Stepping away from the real problem a VDSL connection over telephone lines to a rant is not going to advance your case.

Plenty of other routers are available, but they all have to face the exact same telephone line to the local street cabinet.

Back in 2017 we had similar issues and the solution was a new build of VM RFoG, we too still wait for OR FTTP.

I'm sceptical of QoS, because it is like saying I have wheel wobble at 70mph, the QoS solution is we will limit you to 50mph where it less noticeable i.e. not a fix.

[#2]

Thank you for the ill-toned comment. I don't know why you act as if I'm unreasonable for wanting a functional internet connection from my internet service provider without having to buy loads more stuff, especially when--as you do not address--it has gotten a lot worse recently.

I don't know what these acronyms mean in this context.

As I have made clear: the problem is mostly not with my router, as per the pathping I mentioned earlier. The bufferbloat might be (why are you demeaning when I correctly state Plusnet shouldn't be giving us routers which don't allow for basic internet function?), but the instability otherwise is not. The connection doesn't become unstable until it reaches nodes that are away from anything to do with me and that which are owned/run/managed by BT/Plusnet.

Now if there aren't actually any solutions that can be brought about here, please let me know so I can stop wasting our time. What a rotten ISP this seems to be.

[#3]

idk if this'll help. It's to the BBC. The ping spikes at a Plus Net infrastructure thing! And idk why it's taking me through Sheffield.

[#4]

@MyInternetisSoS - that Sheffield hostname is a misnomer and nothing to worry about.

Neither are the elevated pings at that hop; it's just a sign that the device in question is not prioritising ping responses. The end to end latency to 151.101.128.81 is still 7ms which is perfectly fine.

Whatever your problem, the traceroute sadly doesn't indicate the cause and looks normal.

[#5]

Dear Bobpullen,

Thanks for the info, I appreciate it.

So what now? Plusnet support say they don't help with anything but upload/download speeds and dropping out connections (then WHO DOES HELP WITH LATENCY AND PACKET LOSS!?). I am at a loss.

My internet is almost unuseable and Plusnet have absolved themselves of responsibility. They say I can't do anything basically.

[#6]

What is making you think there's packet loss rather than 'just' latency spikes? The ThinkBroadband Monitor shows zero signs of packet loss which would be very unusual if traffic was genuinely getting dropped.

As for the latency spikes, 10mbps is not a lot of upload to play with. Pretty much everything you do on the download side of things is dependent on acknowledgement packets being sent in the reverse direction i.e. if your upload is contended, it's going to start affecting downstream activities too.

Capping your upstream below the ~10mbps the line is capable of may yield results but as others have alluded to, the Plusnet hub doesn't feature such capability.

Running something like WinMTR in the background on a Windows machine might offer some clues as that would accurately measure any packet loss/latency from your side of the connection and show you where it was occurring.

Typical signs of contended upload would be a noticeable increase in response times starting from the hop directly after your router. If you see that during the periods of time you're experiencing problems then it does support the theory that your upstream is being saturated on occasion.

[#7]

Quick example of what I'm dealing with. This is all within 14 seconds or so. It's unplayable and unacceptable.

[#8]

I'm having problems 24/7 atm.

I posted some game screenshots that show I am getting packet loss. It might not be intuitive so let me know if I need to parse it for people.

You can see here multiple spikes of packet loss in about 14 seconds.

It's literally getting worse every day atm. I can't believe hoiw poorly PLusnet support responded.

[#9]

Is that showing packet loss?

It's showing missed ticks isn't it, which could just as easily be due to latency spikes. Your max latency is hitting 40ms and that's probably enough to register misses.

In fact, unless I'm misinterpreting the overlay, it's telling you that there is 0% packet loss?

[#10]

omfg you're right, I'm so dumb.

I'm so sorry, you're 100% right about that bit. Ok no packet loss then, just missing ticks.

Aaaghghghghgh.

Ok, so moving on from there, it's not packet loss but just jitter to the point of instability. E.g., within the game it is causing teleporting for obvious reasons.

I imagine (forgive me if I am wrong) that the inability to stream anything might not have the same cause, but idk, e.g., that is bufferbloat whereas the game issues (it's not just this game btw, it's everything--it's just most obviously expressed there) are a separate jitter/instability of latency or whatever.

Ok, thank you for clarifying, that's my bad completely.

So where do we go from here?

[#11]

Going to bed now. I'll leave it on sleep so it keeps going overnight. Here is today's BQM in full.

Please ignore the red spikes (disconnected the computer from the internet for a few secs, and the first one was while I set it up) and the green spike (uploaded something). The rest of it is from normal use.

As you can see, it's extremely bad. I hope this helps with your investigation Mr Bob Pullen.

[#12]

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@MyInternetisSoS wrote:

I hope this helps with your investigation Mr Bob Pullen.

---

What are you expecting to be investigated ?

Your line isn't showing any faults, your connection is running at the expected line speeds, and there is ZERO packet loss.

The latency you are seeing is typical for a connection with the speeds you have, when using a router without SQM or QoS.

Plusnet no longer does line bandwidth management (which used to work well before July 2017) but this was removed because so many customers complained that they were only getting 95% of their connection's bandwidth, so now you get the full available line speed but if you want low latency for real time uses (such as gaming, or live music collaborations, etc) then you will need to buy a router with whatever features are needed to achieve your requirements.

It is unlikely that Plusnet could do a firmware update for the Hub Two to fix bufferbloat, as the doing the traffic queue management would require more CPU power and RAM than the hundreds of thousands of shipped routers have available.

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@MyInternetisSoS wrote:

So where do we go from here?

---

If you want this fixed, then you need to research buying a router with some sort of bufferbloat controls.

For your gaming requirements, look at the router specs for keywords such as -

• "SQM"  (Smart Queue Management)
• "CAKE"  (Common Applications Kept Enhanced)
• "FQ-CoDel"  (Fair Queueing Controlled Delay)

For non-gamers, most people suffering bufferbloat when browsing, streaming video, or using VoIP phones

they can mostly overcome latency and buffering issues by using simple routers that have line bandwidth limiters, or some sort of QoS.

For what it's worth, my VDSL2+ connection behaves similarly to yours with any standard router,

but I have been using bandwidth limiters with FQ-CoDel, since I was on ADSL broadband (8 / 0.7 Mbps)

so my latency barely changes no matter how many people are gaming, streaming, or uploading.

Here is a typical result using the WaveForm bufferbloat test (note the very low jitter at the bottom) -

[#13]

I'm sorry but this isn't a good answer whatsoever when it was completely fine until this month,. and it's getting worse every day. The bufferbloat isn't the problem because the spikes happen even when nothing's being uploaded or downloaded. I've said this multiple times yet it appears to have been ignored. That is not the primary cause of the BQM results I'm seeing, that's a separate issue that, yes, I'm sure I could improve by buying a new router. But let's put that to one side for now because it's immoral to sell something dysfunctional and demand the customer pays more money to get the promised service.

So let's focus on the latency instability/jitter. No, that extreme level of jitter is not normal for basic speeds and I have never had it this bad until recently. No, it is not associated with downloading/uploading things such that it is not resulting from the connection being saturated. I have said this multiple times.

Something held constant (the router) doesn't explain this when the level of instability is changing. Just basic causal analysis y'know? So it is not caused by the router or the speed.

I expect Plusnet to do their jobs and not leave me with dysfunctional internet when they've promised the contrary lol. The idea that it's acceptable to have someone pay over £30 (I can't change it sadly, it's a rotten deal but I'm stuck in it for reasons I won't go into here) a month for this is daft.

I expect them to actually help me diagnose the cause rather than do guesswork, not to just tell me to pay more money without even figuring it out themselves, and to deliver a basically functional service. If their own hubs can't do that, they should be put out of business. I don't think that's what they want to deliver, surely? 

I don't know why you've written this quite brash and harsh comment when I've still not been told what the actual cause of the problem is with any real evidence, and I've not received a single bit of diagnostics help despite giving so much info outside of Pullen helping me out with interpreting some results (such that it wasn't packet loss). That's nice of him but it's not helpful.

I'm not sure if you work for Plusnet or what, but it is once again not acceptable that Plusnet don't see it fit to help one of their customers with a dysfunctional internet which they sold to us as the opposite. It's not acceptable and I'm not paying extra, I'm just going to leave if they don't even see it fit to TRY and help.

I'm just praying that Bob Pullen comes back and at least gives me some things to try that might help with diagnostics. So far I've set up the BQM, I've posted loads of things, I posted my technical info from the hub page, etc, and I've not even been given something to try. At least diagnose the issue definitively before telling me to spend more money ffffsfsfsfs.

PS--I have been gaming for a long time now, almost always on default ISP hubs, and I have never had an issue this severe, with one exception that was actually just fixed by the ISP at the time (cannot remember who it was, not Plusnet of course, I think Virgin or something. This was when I lived in York). To say this is normal/expected/inevitable is either bad information or an outright lie.

Also it does just go orange + flashing for like 10 minutes sometimes, but that's more rare so idk if I'll capture it in the BQM. No clue what that's about...

[#14]

Also no, normal internet connections with normal routers do not--for most people--cause buffering when streaming one (1) HQ video lmfao. That's completely untrue, why would you even say that?

[#15]

So from another person I've heard that this is pretty much normal. Again, no indication that it has anything to do with the connection on my end. A networking professional told me it's probably on Plusnet's end.

So please may I have some further help confirming where the issue stems from through some sort of diagnostic test?