Recent online gaming ping spikes when streaming Netflix

[Reaps]

lol, it's not the homehub.

The issues we're seeing here are nation wide.

It's not down to hardware at your home, it's down to the networking infrastructure - nothing you can do about it, with any kit you get. Buffering will always occur until BT change their network management settings at the core of their infrastructure.

People who are seeing resolution by changing router, don't have the same issue as the majority of people in this thread.

[Tmillo]

That's what I was thinking. I dont see how the home hub could be the issue as it's the same one I've had for months prior to the problem starting.

[Mighten82]

Let me assure everyone that it is not a home hub issue. I have used 3 different hubs one of which the engineer supplied to test this theory and, surprise surprise, no change. Yes you can try using routers with qos but unless you throttle the usage of devices streaming to the point of them not working it wont fix this problem.

[Tmillo]

This is my work around at the moment and its horrendous. I can not lag when I game, if I reduce the rest to essentially dial up speeds and then the girlfriend cant stream.

Hilarious that my speed is often above 50, upload above 15 but cant run an online game and Netflix without it crashing to a halt

[Reaps]

My resolution to get out of contract, was:

1. Get 3 engineer visits

2. Get a case manager applied to the issue, due to hitting the 3x engineer visit threshold.

3. Discuss the issue with the case manager - express your concerns with the inability to 2 things on a fibre package, not ADSL. 

- Make it simple - Disconnect everyone in the house and have ONLY your PC connected via ethernet - Open netflix and watch your pings rocket. Provide evidence based on your simple configuration.

The reason I mention this is because case managers and tech support assume you have a complicated setup and use this method to point the issue being at your end. Simplifying this to the extreme is the only way to get them to understand.

4. Jump through hoops and allow your case manager to keep sending engineers at their cost to resolve your issue.

5. Wait until they realise they can't keep sending engineers without resolution, as this is costly for them. More costly than keeping you in contract.

6. Request to leave if there's nothing else that can be done. Also refer them to this forum.

Link here:

https://community.bt.com/t5/Home-setup-Wi-Fi-network/Recent-online-gaming-ping-spikes-when-streaming...

If you have a custom router, always plug the homehub back in before calling them.

If you have a custom router, open up icmp inbound and configure a thinkbroadband quality monitor from here to monitor your issue:
https://www.thinkbroadband.com/broadband/monitoring/quality/list

You can then supply screenshots to your case manager for analysis.

[CAI_007]

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@NilSatisOptimumwrote:

Having just moved over to BT I can see the spike when using their kit.

However I like to use my own kit, I had this same kit in when I moved over, the same user name from previous ISP in my own set up, this issue does not occur!

What does occur and I would expect any other service using the connection increases my latency on both setups.  Although spike not occuring in my own setup, just expected steady increase.

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That's not true. I swapped out the modem and router for 3rd party equipment and the issue still occurs. Although I can relieve the symtoms with good QoS management. It's still a problem. 

[CAI_007]

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@Tmillowrote:
This is my work around at the moment and its horrendous. I can not lag when I game, if I reduce the rest to essentially dial up speeds and then the girlfriend cant stream.

Hilarious that my speed is often above 50, upload above 15 but cant run an online game and Netflix without it crashing to a halt

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Change the upload on the device your girlfriend uses to 1Mbps and cap the download at something like 5 or 10. You should definately see an improvement if you are using QoS. 

I've switched to DD-WRT firmeware on my router using FQ_CODEL QoS and limiting upload/download on the BT player, so that when she streams netflix I only get minor lag. I know the problem still exists though because if I load twitch on the PC i'm gaming from. Then the ping spikes skyrocket every second or so. So I simply cannot have any twitch stream on in the background.  Not the end of the world obviously. 

For anyone that relies on actual streaming as a career though, this would be a killer. You should be able to get an acceptable ping without so many spikes with good QoS management as you are limiting 3rd party devices on your network. The gf is watching hours of tv series in a row while i'm playing now. 

[Tmillo]

I'll play around with my QOS later and try and find a common ground.

Luckily I'm neither good or charismatic enough to be a professional streamer haha

[NilSatisOptimum]

No I dont belive its the Hub itself. 

As the day progressed i was moved to BT, no spikes. This was with my own set up with nothing changed from previous ISP settings,

When I tried the bt hub,  it was with the default settings and I had spikes.

[NilSatisOptimum]

Excuse me, what are you implying?

I can assure you my own setup does not experience the lag spike, yes it increase as various devcies and servcies are connected, that is to be expected.  However, nothing compared to BT Home hub in default settings.