Hi all,
For a long amount of time, we have been suffering from a range of different broadband problems.
For around half a year, (on my custom router) we kept suffering from daily 'broadband blackouts'. Essentially, nearly every single day, like clockwork, the internet would just disconnect at very specific times. The router was still on and operational, but it would lose it's connection to broadband. It wasn't that bad then, however it kept increasing with intensities so I've decided to try using the BT Smart Hub instead, while formatting my router. However, the same thing happened with the BT hub as well, but in this case the whole router would stop working (whilst mine still was on).
Within the last couple of months, we had a courtesy call from BT asking about our service, during which I complained about the constant problems with our broadband. Their response? They offered us 4G internet...
Either way, after the whole household got fed up with the BT router (poor WiFi, horrible speeds and latency on LAN etc), I connected my freshly formatted router and it seems to work fine. The 'blackouts' stopped, however, a new problem has arisen. Ping spikes.
This image shows a latency test I did a couple of days ago on my custom router. The test failed since it timed out.
The effects of this problem affects everything. I haven't been able to play any multiplayer games without raging about the constant 'connection interrupted' messages and ping in the thousands every couple of minutes.
It is important to note these problems are not happening all the time, these periods of proper bad pings happen at specific times of the day for an amount of time, before fading.
While the first issue could be my WiFi connection, that is quickly debunked as it happens even on a wired connection, at the same time as the wireless. 2 of us tried to play a game together, while being on Discord. We would both be either disconnected or suffer great ping problems at the same time. Myself using WiFi, and the other person using ethernet.
So to double check, I send 256 packets back and forth between my machine and my custom router to measure the local latency.
(These images were taken at the same time as the latency test in the first picture)
The first image shows me initiating the command with my router, as well as a sample of many of the ping it did. As you can see, the connection is almost perfect. The 2nd image shows the end of that command, with 0% packet loss and an average ping of 2ms, with the maximum only being 64 which is expected on a WiFi connection, but still impressive.
The 0% packet loss is important, as all of the games I tried reported packet loss at the same time as the ping problems start.
I forgot to screenshot one important trace route I did on my custom router, but I did it today on the BT one and I manage to capture the thing I believe is the problem (I have the BT router right now because support told me to use this one while they tried to diagnose the problem. Of course they found nothing.)
This is the trace I did today. A couple of days ago when I did it on my custom router, the 2nd hop to that private address (same one) had over 3000ms. Today however, I manage to capture it above 100ms, which is hard as it is usually 5-15ms. That 2nd hop is what I believe is causing all of the problems. I have been running constant traces to the same 1.1.1.1 (Cloudfare DNS) address, and I keep noticing that the only hop that every seems to have increased latency is that 2nd hop.
All of the other hops have a stable almost identical ping each time I performed this command, but the 2nd hop varies between 8ms and thousands of ms (aka seconds), and it is consistent with the ping spikes I get in games.
Nevertheless, I filed in a BT complaint after I tried isolating all of the problems myself (WiFi, router, cables).
I then receive a call from a support technician, who while mostly understood my problem, couldn't help me anyway.
The technician told me to connect the BT Smart Hub router so they can perform diagnostics, during which they didn't find any problems, because as I've mentioned, these latency problems are not constant, but rather happen throughout the day. They did call me back later this evening to try diagnosing again, however at that time there were no problems, which is annoying as they happened later the same evening. The only thing they suggested was changing the WiFi channel, even though I've explained, multiple times the same thing was happening on ethernet wired connection. I've literally explained all of the thing I did and tried, yet they still kept saying to change my WiFi channel...
They said if I am still not satisfied, then I can try reaching out on the community forum, hence why I am posting this.
The following images have been done after the technician call, on the BT router, over the last couple of days:
There is an obvious problem happening that is not happening because of WiFi, or the router as it happens on both.
While I cannot be 100% confident, I believe the 2nd hop, which must be local to my area, is causing the problems with my broadband.
I am honestly sick and tired of waiting 10 seconds for google to load and random points during the day, as well as using up my mobile data as Netflix struggles to keep a stable connection and constantly buffering. And I am not even going to mention trying to play anything online.
What can I actually do, to resolve this? BT haven't been helpful at all, and honestly I don't think switching will be a good idea anyway, since whatever ISP I will choose, they all pass their connection on the same cables, so the 2nd hop server will cause problems either way. I keep seeing Openreach engineers messing up with the cable boxes on a regular basis, there could be a possibility they messed something up?
