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Support and latency unacceptable

Ringbo
Newbie
Posts: 2
Registered: ‎06-05-2013

Support and latency unacceptable

Hi.
I am writing on this forum since I an getting really frustrated with the plusnet support and they are getting me nowhere with my problems. It has been several weeks now and I am just getting thrown back and forth.
I became a plusnet customer 3 weeks ago and I have had issues with my internet ever since. My main issue is that I have high latency. This makes it impossible to play games, which is the main reason I have internet. Every minute or so my latency spikes to 300 ms for several seconds, sometime even worse than that. This is really unacceptable. This happens any time a day, and in most of the games I have tried (including: dota 2, league of legends, CS:GO and more). Furthermore my connection drops several times a day and is gone for a couple of minutes. This is getting really frustrating! Below you can read my progress with the support so far.
This is how the experience has been so far.
1) I contact the support by phone telling them I have a problem with latency. After having explained to them that I am a power user and I more or less know what I am doing, I get through the initial non helpfull questions and the tell me to make a support ticket on the website. So I make the support ticket and explain everything again.
2) I get a response from the support ticket where they tell me that they don't see a problem with the line. They have attached some test results to show me. The only issue is, I made the ticket because I had latency issue and the only thing the test shows is that my speeds are as they should be. I don't know why they made that test. I never complained about the speed, only the latency.
3) I write a response explaining the issue one more time (3rd time now)
4) Support now asks me to do a wireshark capture of the issue.
5) I follow the documentation to do so, and run into problems uploading it, since that file type is not supported (you should update that documentation). I find a solution and upload the the results.
6) Now a problem with my line has magically appeared after they did more testing and they ask me to raise a fault.
7) I fill in the fault form, but I cannot complete it, since one of the questions in it requires me to have a phone (maybe you should make this step optional or add an option if you don't have a phone). I write support and tell them.
8 ) They tell me to go and buy a phone. Here I am starting to get a little annoyed. I bought a product that was faulty from the beginning and they ask me to go and buy the tools to test it. That seems wrong to me. So I suggest that they can send me a phone (a great solution I think).
9) Support say they cannot help me if I don't buy a phone. At this point I am really annoyed, but I want this to work more than I am annoyed, so I end up buying a phone against all my principles.
10) I test the line with the phone, and as I expected there is nothing wrong there. I write that to plusnet support.
11) I am now told that there is no issue with the line and they will close the ticket. Wait a minute! Where did the problem they discovered earlier go? It has not disappeared, but now they tell me that there is no issue, when I know in fact there is. They tell me that it is probably my equipment that is faulty or setup in the wrong way. The ironic thing is that the only equipment I use is whatever plusnet send to me, and I have not changed the setup. So I tell them that the problem is still there  Sad
12) They tell me that another support ticket should handle this. Since it is a problem on my end. (I have plugged the equipment from plusnet directly into the only BT socket I have).
13) I now have two support tickets where both of them claim that it is the other one that should help me (the first support ticket told me to created the second. I think one is for broadband, the other is for the telephone line). Maybe they should talk to each other and figure out the issues before they hold me hostage in the middle.
14) Now I am writing this forum post, since I am getting nowhere with the support.
During this process I have repeated myself many times. I have even suggested that it might be an issue with the upload speed being too low, but they have just ignored this. So what should I do now? I have tried port forwarding and it did not help at all. Also I should not end up with a latency of 300 ms if I don't port forward.
I am really close to simply switching to another isp. A shame since I heard good things about plusnet, but this situation is really unacceptable and it does not seem like it is getting fixed. I have really tried my best to provide plusnet with all the information I could, but they seem to ignore most of it  Sad
5 REPLIES 5
JIO22
Grafter
Posts: 433
Registered: ‎05-02-2013

Re: Support and latency unacceptable

Hi Ringbo.
I feel for your scenario here, and hopefully this gets sorted soon.
I won't tarnish your problems the same as mine, but your not on your own.  I have had, shall I say not a great service from my b/band for online gaming.  In total I have been having problems for about 2 years now, the latter problem currently still under investigation, this has been with me from about last May.  Thankfully from my first issues I knew the score, the first time round I went through all the rigmarole that you have done, and then got esculated through various departments, and this is where I tend to deal with now to try and get the problems sorted, as in  my opinion the first line support can only help for very very basic issues.  It is very very annoying having to constantly repeat yourself all the time and prove everything on your side, I have been doing this until I'm blue in the face over the last 2 years, one major thing here as well is the sheer amount of time wasted tested and trying all sorts of things that we have to do to get nowhere.
It took well over 12 months for Plusnet to even acknowledge that there could be issues on the network with gaming/latency and everything else got pointed at.  Here we still are with the same latency/lag problems now.... >:(.
I am currently awaiting Plusnet to once and for all to get my issue sorted after 2 years of being patient and waiting for them.  I hope your issues are sorted much quicker than mine and posting here is a good choice as I'm sure the PN guys here will be able to help.
Goodluck.
Ringbo
Newbie
Posts: 2
Registered: ‎06-05-2013

Re: Support and latency unacceptable

Hi JIO22.
Thank you for the information. I really feel for you! I am certainly not waiting that long for a solution. If it is not fixed within a month I am switching to an ISP that knows what they are doing with their traffic management system.
You are completely right about the support, I feel like the are mocking me. I am a network programmer in a games company, so I know a thing or two about networking. I am not an expert in everything that an ISP does, but I can understand most things. Also I am the network administrator of a LAN party with more than 200 people. So again, I know a thing or two about networking. And then they start questioning if I set my router up correctly? You have got to be kidding me! I understand that they might have a lot of costumers that are not very technical, but that is why I told them this from the beginning.
I do not have a firewall issue. I do not have an issue with my router setup and I do not have an issue with my hardware!!!! They keep coming back to this, even though the issue is obviously with the traffic management or line (low upstream speeds). I have told them this but they refuse to look at the facts and investigate the issues at hand. They claim there is no issue with the traffic management system, but then how come that a youtube video kills my latency in games when it is not supposed to?
I would like an answer from plusnet on these issues. I don't even have to be an expert to see that there is a general latency issue for a lot of costumers. These forums are filled with posts about latency issues and still the support questions me? They should maybe take a look at their own forums and sense the general feeling in here. I am not really the only one...
In the meantime does anyone have suggestions on other ISP's that handles gaming in a professional way and offer low latency (I am not in a fiber area)?
Sorry plusnet, but if you are not even responding to my posts then why should I stick with you?
JamesM
Grafter
Posts: 1,103
Registered: ‎24-06-2009

Re: Support and latency unacceptable

Which router are you using Ringbo, the reason I ask is because I used to use the Thomson 585v7, and playing BFBC2 my ping would jump to 999, turning off Upnp used to help for about 5 minutes then it would spike again. ARMA 2 was the same, my mate used to pick up the spawn truck with the chinook and be at the battle, whereas I was sat in the spawn truck but on my screen I was still sat on the runway waiting for him to pick me up.
I ended up buying a Belkin, and now my ping is as low as 3m/s.



I have had loads of runarounds with PN, and basically spent money that I shouldn't have had to to get my BB working because PN dropped the ball so many times, but I have been with free-online since 1998 and PN since they took over so it can't be all that bad  Roll_eyes
chrispurvey
Plusnet Alumni (retired)
Plusnet Alumni (retired)
Posts: 5,369
Fixes: 1
Registered: ‎13-07-2012

Re: Support and latency unacceptable

Hi Ringbo,
Sorry to hear of the issues you've been experiencing. I've taken a look through your fault ticket and can see an initial fault was detected, after further testing it transpired this was not the case.
You currently have no exchange capacity issues, I've checked your connection and noticed that your SNR on your downstream is set to 3dB which is causing your line to error which could contribute to the performance issues on your line, so it might be worth setting this ti 6dB to see ig this helps.
Firstly if you're able too generate a ping graph, this would help us see any spikes and try to locate any issues you're getting.

@JIO22
Would it be possible for you to attempt the wireshark as mentioned in the FIFA thread?
Froug
Grafter
Posts: 109
Registered: ‎21-03-2013

Re: Support and latency unacceptable

Ringbo - do you share you Internet connection with other users? I had a similar problem with lag shooting up whenever someone in the house streamed video (which was a traffic shaping issue - I was on the 'wrong' profile). I was switched to the 'speed' profile, and it immediately resolved the problem. If this sounds familiar, ask the PlusNet folk to check the profile on your line.