New to Fibre, first in my area, small bursts of packet loss weekday mornings only

[#1]

I recently just upgraded from FTTC to "Full fibre" to the premises. 

Openreach remarked that I appeared to be the first (I guess from the corner of the street; it only just became available).

Nothing in my house changed, same Hub Two same place same network same everything for years and years, and the only thing that changed was swapping the VDSL phone cable out for the optical and ethernet to WAN port.

Weekday mornings since (last 5 days really) at random times between 9am and about 11:30am I might get a 2 to 5 second burst of packet loss.
VOD streams, you wouldn't notice it. But video meetings you lose all videos and they can't hear you and it goes blocky until it catches back up.

Pings to 1.1.1.1 and other big hosts get dropped for a couple of seconds, or some drop some go through. Like 50% packet loss for a short burst of time.

Pings to 192.168.1.254 seem to be unaffected. Wifi didn't change; it's full signal 866mbps RSSI of like -54 to -59 and noise is super low like -90 dBm, MCS index is 8 or 9, and the channel is not shared with anyone else within broadcast range.

Called up PN and had a new Hub 2 sent out. Came next day, set it up, today is first day since then and same issue again 10:45 5 seconds of packet loss.

Nothing in the hub 2 event logs at all. 

Called up PN again and was told about wifi, but pings to router don't drop, signal solid, hardware replaced.

I heard Openreach run a PON or something and so my fibre could be or end up be being shared by many homes on the same but of fibre, but not sure if that was just bad search info for FTTC not FTTP I don't know. 
But it made me wonder if this was other people getting connected up on new installs on weekday mornings. 

It's the smallest blip you wouldn't notice unless you had a video call running at that moment, and I have video running pretty much all the time.
Never had this issue with the FTTC VDSL connection.

Speed tests return 303mbit on the Fibre 300. Pings are usually around 8ms. It's fine so far as I can tell almost all of the time.

I wonder if anyone else has the same experience. Hub lights don't change. Nothing in the log. PlusNet see nothing their side. And whilst I could get a wifi extender; the signal is so solid and has been for so many years, I can't see why I'd need it. 

My next experiment will be to move my kit to use ethernet; just so I can then prove it's not the wifi; but since my pings to the router over wifi don't drop during these blips, I can't see how wifi would be to blame. 

Am I going crazy? is this just how fibre can be? I checked some recent posts but they mention actual dropouts which I presume then the router needs to PPP back in and this isn't what I see at all. 

I've also been told by PN to allow the connection to settle for 10 days, but I thought that was an ADSL/VDSL thing?

I have no logs to attach since nothing is logged. 

[#2]

@iZian 

There is no "training time " for Full Fibre.

OpenReach do share fibre capacity to a limilted extent. Your fibre cable will run to an "aggregator (I think that's what it's called) before sharing capacity back to the Internet Head End. A maximum of 32 connections I believe to the aggregator.

Brian

[#3]

Thanks for the reply

I guess that means the fibre glass isn’t shared so this probably isn’t some issue where I get a packet loss when someone new gets connected up on a fibre install in the week…

and the chances of someone else noticing the same small blip are slim if it was this aggregator. And of it’s my ONT then I’ll just have to live with it because getting to proving that will be impossible. 

Unless this is some common thing to have a bit of packet loss in the morning. 

I was advised by PN on my second call to allow 10 days but I feel like it was almost just as a hope the issue goes away.

I’m still hoping someone has had the same and found what their cause was. But I’m fairly certain since the only thing that changed was the internet side that my local network and kit is fine.

I’m at a total loss as to what to do next. Aside from having to use Ethernet to prove what I know. I’ll run next week’s video from a different laptop on Ethernet to rule out everything my side of WAN. 

I’m also guessing that if my fibre install was off, and the fibre was bending too much; I’d be seeing issues all day long constantly. But this connection seems to be super fast and solid the rest of the time. 

Thanks again

[#4]

"Aside from having to use Ethernet to prove what I know. I’ll run next week’s video from a different laptop on Ethernet to rule out everything my side of WAN. "

WiFi issues would be my best guess for the cause of the problems.

If the light coming to (or from) you is low level (not something you can really test) that's another possible cause. It's worth seeing if the ONT lights change when you have this interuption. If not it suggests the incoming connection is OK.

It isn't others being connected or other users 

The "Think Broadband" monitor is worth trying. While your IP address isn't static it's probably stable enough to get some useful data. It tests to your router (not your laptop) so essentially tests the connection incoming.

[#5]

@iZian 

Aside from having to use Ethernet to prove what I know. I’ll run next week’s video from a different laptop on Ethernet to rule out everything my side of WAN.

That would be useful to prove whether its just a wifi problem.

The other thing to consider, have you got any device(s) on your network that may be backing up to the cloud at the time of the packet loss ? 

[#6]

Thanks for the tip about think broadband monitoring. I’ll look in to that. 

The disruption is so sudden I can’t get to the ONT; but the router logs and Plusnet logs show no connection drop.

I just thought if it was WiFi issues then my local pings would also drop, and it would be a mighty coincidence after this many years it goes wrong the day I get new fibre. My pings across LAN keep going fine at 3ms ish

I wondered about the optical connection but I was hoping that I could rule that out because this happens 1 to 3 times a day rather than consistently 

I almost wish I hadn’t upgraded from FTTC now. I don’t need the speed and I had no issues before. 

I think I’ll look at the monitoring and also do some meets next week on wired connection. 
thanks

[#7]

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@MisterW wrote:

@iZian 

The other thing to consider, have you got any device(s) on your network that may be backing up to the cloud at the time of the packet loss ? 

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This morning I had nothing apart from my Philips hue bridge and iPad and the laptop. None were updating or backing up. 

The other 99.999% of the day though I can run speed tests on their devices and stream TV and still have no issues. 

Just these couple of random bursts of packet loss. External pings fail but internal pings to the router seem unaffected. Sometimes these video calls are 4 hours because they just run and it’s only 5 second loss but perfectly timed when I’m saying something important. And it’s not total loss. I’d guess it’s like 50%. Not all pings are lost. 

and it seems like it’s always just for a few seconds. I’ll get to trying the Ethernet next week but I’m expecting it to behave the same. Openreach man said I was the first here on fibre so I wondered if what I was connected to could be slow. But who would even check or think to check if this packet loss is so short it doesn’t affect people streaming video. 

thanks for taking the time to leave a reply though it’s appreciated. I’ll try do more testing. I am regretting moving off FTTC; over half a decade of solid connection. The replacement hub 2 behaves identically. I guess it’s just stress getting at me. Nothing else changed. Hub is still in the same spot. Replacement sat next to original.  Been with Plusnet since metronet days and this is the first time anything has come up

[#8]

@iZian 

It's a matter of detailed investigation to get to the bottom of this.

I would set up the Think Broadband monitor but I've a suspicion that it won't show any packet loss at the times you notice issues.

One other thing to try if you have or can have a low power "always on" device is Smokeping.

If it could be running over WiFi it would replicate your laptop experience.

[#9]

So this morning I did a test and had pings running across the network and from each device out to external IP like CloudFlare and Google.

At the same time they all suffered about 80% packet loss to the external IP addresses on all devices but the internal packet loss across the network was 0%

I don’t know where I even go from here because Plusnet support just talk about WiFi extenders and software when I call them. But this is an iPad and 2 MacBooks so it’s not one device. I’m not sure what wiring in Ethernet will do since their pings across the network were fine.

It has to be the ONT or beyond. And if an engineer comes they’ll plug in, see it’s fine (because it drops out for 5 seconds only once or twice a day) and move on.

I’ll let Plusnet know but I think the only thing I can do is switch to virgin inside my cooling off period. Which I really don’t want to do.

I’ve yet to set up the monitor I was hoping that my test would show just one device having an issue.

[#10]

@iZian 

It's still not clear to me if you are or are not carrying out these tests via an Ethernet cable from the test device to the router.

Meanwhile, have you tried rebooting the ONT? Plus, if it is a problem with the ONT, I can't see what good switching to another ISP would do.

[#11]

This morning they were all on WiFi. I’ll can only set up on Ethernet again later when I buy a new adapter and will leave a MacBook on Ethernet permanently for the next few days.

But the WiFi isn’t dropping if the pings across WiFi are working. Unless there’s something I’m not understanding about how the Hub 2 works.

I’ve restarted the router. I’ve replaced the router. I’ve factory reset the router after a guy from PN changed a setting on it so it stopped being able to connect to their TR69 by mistake. I’ve restarted by power cycling the ONT twice.

I need to buy a more reliable Ethernet USB-C to do any long term Ethernet test as the one I have doesn’t seem to be a reliable device. That’s why it was all WiFi again this morning.

I expect that the Ethernet device will suffer the same fate. I can’t explain pings over wireless lan not being dropped otherwise. But will test it again; I might set it up with the old adapter and hope that it stays connected. (It drops the USB connection randomly and I only ever used it once a year so never needed to replace it)

[#12]

I’ve got the new Ethernet dongle now; so I’ve set up that one to leave on all day. Will see if I get another drop.

The drops usually only happen in the morning between like 8:30 ish and 11:45 ish

Rarely had them in the afternoon. That I’ve noticed.

That’s the thing; if I wasn’t on a meeting I wouldn’t notice. Apart from meetings and multiplayer gaming; everything else copes with 1 or 2 seconds packet loss without you ever realising.

I’ll report back. But I had this same setup since about 8-10 years, and the first issue was the next day from switching to FTTP. Will rule out coincidence though

[#13]

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@pvmb wrote:

It's still not clear to me if you are or are not carrying out these tests via an Ethernet cable from the test device to the router.

Meanwhile, have you tried rebooting the ONT? Plus, if it is a problem with the ONT, I can't see what good switching to another ISP would do.

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first drop out since Ethernet testing

all devices lost packets to google and cloudflare for about 10 seconds. No internal pings to router was lost. 

screenshot is from the Ethernet connected device. The WiFi device showed near identical dropout to both external IP. 

Virgin use their own fibre so wouldn’t be using openreach. There’s something beyond my routers before cloudflare that’s dropping packets. The ONT. the aggregator or PON or whatever it is. Or Plusnet. But I never had this issue with FTTC 

the pings are just the test. The actual issue is my video calls drop out both up and down. Not just one but both directions. I lose them and they lose me. 

[#14]

second instance this afternoon; same result on ethernet again   
pings at 2 second intervals 10-15 seconds of loss. Internal pings at 1 second