Ping spikes and packet loss making gaming unplayable

[JackB1]

Online gaming has been more or less impossible for over a year now due to constant ping spikes and packet loss. Any sort of streaming especially tanks it but even people just browsing the internet causes ping to spike.

I'm at a complete loss as I have contacted BT several times to see if there is an issue with the line but all the tests come back fine. We paid to upgrade our package a few months ago in the hopes that it would help, but it's just as bad as before. 

I've scrolled through many of the threads so sadly this seems to be common with BT, but I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions for making it playable? We've got the SmartHub2. 

I'm on a wired connection and forwarded all the relevant ports but I can only get a somewhat stable connection when people are out of the house, which obviously is rare at the moment. 

[Keith_Beddoe]

@JackB1 

Not much you can do about it, as the home hubs do not give any priority to any device. Even viewing websites these days, can result in a large sudden load on your network, and that will delay any other data. Many website now load video content and high quality images.

Streaming services normally take as much bandwidth that is available, especially if its HD content. Upgrading your package simply means that streaming can grab more bandwidth.

There are third party modem/router combinations which do allow you to define the priority of devices connected to your network, so that web browsing and streaming has a low priority.

See https://community.bt.com/t5/Home-setup-Wi-Fi-network/Is-there-anyway-I-can-restrict-bandwidth-on-cer...

[JackB1]

Hi Keith,

Thanks for your message.

Yeah Netflix is by far the biggest culprit, once it's on I struggle to get below 300 odd ping.

Just frustrating as at university we were with Virgin and it was brilliant. I shared with a house of 7 students, streaming constantly, and never had any issues whatsoever despite being in the basement on a wireless connection. Cheaper too!

Would you have any recommendations as to which third party devices in particular are good? 

Thanks!

[Keith_Beddoe]

It depends on what type and speed is your broadband connection. How fast is your connection?

A similar thread and some suggestions there https://community.bt.com/t5/Home-setup-Wi-Fi-network/Is-there-anyway-I-can-restrict-bandwidth-on-cer...

Its really a case of throttling back and giving a low priority to some devices. The users are unlikely to notice any difference.

Netflix is bad because of the amount of pre-buffering it does, so that the next episode is downloading while the current one is being watched.

It also uploads a lot of information to control content quality.

[Keith_Beddoe]

There is also a long thread discussing this https://community.bt.com/t5/Home-setup-Wi-Fi-network/Recent-online-gaming-ping-spikes-when-streaming...

[JackB1]

Ran a test and it's 28.9MB/s, think we're promised anything up to 32.

Going to leave BT as soon as our contract expires, been having loads of other issues recently with devices disconnecting and dropping out so the ping issue is just one of several. Looks like OpenReach are planning to roll out fast fibre in our area soon so fingers crossed we can switch asap.

Apologies for the rant but thank you very much for your help!