gaming, packet loss between southbank and plusnet?

[#1]

Hiya Plusnet,

Trying to play World of Warcraft today and getting huge latency and packet loss, but my connection is fine for everything else (I'm very rural and only get about 80kb/s but that's generally enough). MTR looks like all the packets are dropping between core1-hu0-3-0-5.southbank.ukcore.bt.net and 84.93.253.122/84.93.253.126 which are Plusnet?  Is this a known issue?  I'm attaching the full output from Blizzard's Looking Glass diagnostic tool, will be grateful for any info or advice.  Thanks.

[#2]

Hi @Rhedyn 

Can you please confirm if you are currently running a Wired or Wireless connection whilst playing WoW?

Also, do you currently have a Static IP provided by ourselves, or are you on a standard Dynamic? 

Thanks, 

MoR

[#3]

Wireless, and standard dynamic.

[#4]

Can you try wiring up the device and checking if your latency issues continue, @Rhedyn ? 

Coming from a gaming background myself I can't stress enough how gaming (unlike streaming that can buffer ahead or browsing that can load bits at a time) needs a constant connection so it can transfer small packets of data forward and back updating the game/server as to what actions your doing. This meaning wireless (which can be interfered by a huge number of things) isn't ideal for gaming and I'd always suggest a wired connection over Ethernet cable for a solid constant connection. If a trailing Ethernet cable isn't ideal, i'd suggesting looking into power line adapters as they use a houses electric wiring to transfer a much more solid signal.

We also offer Static IPs at a one of charge of £5 which may also help in this matter. 

Thanks, 

MoR

[#5]

Can you add a static IP for me please via the member centre and let me know how it goes please  

[#6]

Thanks MoR, I have just tried it on ethernet and it is exactly the same.  I don't think the wireless is an issue as I have been playing on it here for years, and as mentioned I am very rural and there is quite a distance between me and my closest neighbours who could be doing anything that might interfere. 

[#7]

Hi @Rhedyn, thanks for updating us.

Did you get a chance to add the Static IP as per @JonoHs suggestion?

[#8]

Hi JonoH, I'm hesitant to pay for a static IP without some more information, given that I've been playing for years on the dynamic IP (although granted Blizzard did just do a big game update so they could have changed something relevant, but I'd have thought there'd be a lot of affected people speaking up on their forums if so).  It does look to me from the diagnostic I posted like it is an upstream issue?  I can do a more direct tracert (not Blizzard's reverse tool) if that is helpful.

[#9]

We'd be happy to refund the £5 charge on this occasion, however from what I can see I'm not convinced that a static IP will help, because you're already routing the way you would route if you had a static IP.

Our tests are also showing something is very wrong as your router in sync at a slow speed of 0.98mbps which while it's not that bad given the length of your line, line tests are showing a Battery Contact fault. 

I've reported this through to our suppliers now and we've been given an estimated response time of by 03/01/19 23:59:59 for an engineer to go out and investigate this further.

Let us know how it goes over the next few days.

[#10]

Hi Gandalf, thanks very much.  My line has a special negotiated sync setting because that is the only way to keep the connection stable, so please don't mess with that!  If you look back at the ticket history for me over the past three years you'll see it took some time to get that sorted, but it works very well.  Otherwise it keeps resetting trying to get a faster speed that isn't achievable.  I don't think there's a fault because my connection is working perfectly well for everything except WoW.

[#11]

No worries. I've just reported a physical fault to Openreach for further investigation.

Not sure what you mean by a negotiated sync setting, but I can see we added interleaving to your line last year, which is a form of error correction and can keep the connection stable.

I can also see you're on a capped upstream of around 448kbps which can also help on long lines.

[#12]

I mean the interleaving, thanks 😃

[#13]

no problem