High ping latency

[misterBaz]

Morning all,

I'm having issues with my broadband - it downloads and uploads fast enough, but probably half the time Netflix/Prime/iplayer is extremely pixelated and will often just stop playing altogether. I think it's because of my ping rate.

This was run from a laptop whilst standing 5 metres from the smart hub in direct line of sight. The TV that we use streaming services on is also about the same distance and in direct line of sight. It's a BT Smart Hub - Type B.

I spoke to BT and they 'reset the wifi' whatever that was, it helped for an hour, but then it went back to being rubbish, this has been going on about 6 months.

Any advice from you guys would be greatly appreciated, I'm a bit of a networking numpty I'm afraid, I just think that the ping rates seem way too high, so feel that trying to sort that out is key. I don't think anything else was using the network when I ran this test.

Oh, if I plug things in directly to it it's great - which I do when I need to use zoom, but I really don't want wires from every tv and want to try and get some usable Wifi in the house.

Netmeter Ping test:

2021-09-19 10:33

min: 26 ms

avg: 172.4 ms

max: 522 ms

median: 155.5 ms

jitter: 47.3 ms

Tracert test:

Tracing route to bbc.co.uk [2a04:4e42:400::81]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 2 ms 1 ms 2 ms 2a00:23c4:4481:a701:4e1b:86ff:fe1f:f60e
2 139 ms 142 ms 135 ms 2a00:2302::1102:203:f
3 * * * Request timed out.
4 * * * Request timed out.
5 111 ms 120 ms 106 ms peer3-et4-1-7.slough.ukcore.bt.net [2a00:2380:106::83]
6 118 ms 112 ms 121 ms 2620:11a:c000:372:fa57::
7 131 ms 130 ms 127 ms 2a04:4e42:400::81

Trace complete.

Thanks!

[misterBaz]

Any ideas about what I can try to get this sorted?

[PaddyB]

Hi @misterBaz,

Thank you for posting and welcome to the Community.

With the details you've posted it does sound like it could be wireless interference or  wireless congestion depending of how many devices you have connected to your WiFi.

 What speeds are you seeing on your connection and how many devices do you have connected to WiFi?

A wired connection will always work better. If your TV is only 5 meters away from your hub it would be a good idea to run an Ethernet cable to it connecting the tv or TV box, which would also free up some bandwidth on the WiFi as well.

There are a few thing you can do to help improve the Wifi connection. Like moving the hub to a new position away from any other electrical equipment. You could also try changing the wireless channel -

How do I change the wi-fi channel on my BT Hub 

Thanks,

Paddy

[misterBaz]

Thanks Paddy 🙂

I went to look wifi channel and realised it was set to a specific channel for 2.4 and a specific channel for 5ghz - I've reset it to the recommended settings so that the channels are now smart selected - I've run a new ping test (three times) and whilst the ping rate has improved a little (70-105) over the three tests, the jitter rate was 4ms on the first pass and 9ms on the second pass, 10.2 on the third, so that sounds like it has helped.

Currently the only device I'm using on the network is my TV, laptop and phone, as everyone else is out at work/college.

I'll see how it goes today and then report back

Thanks again