Gaming ping spikes all of a sudden when Netflix is being used.

[dubstepzombie]

I can stream netflix with hardly any impact on my ping at all, same is true at work on a Virgin connection.

It all depends where the latency is coming from, it's either the BT core network or home to cabinet or cabinet to exchange.

Users on here have solved their ping issues by moving to another ISP so I'd speculate it's a BT core / infrastructure problem.

If I was out of contract I'd switch ISP or under contract but suffering badly from this I'd insist on being able to leave without paying exit fees, in particular if a BT rep has admitted there's nothing that can be done to solve the issue.

[Reckless11]

@dubstepzombie 

When you say your route changed, what exactly do you mean?

Unless you're on a Business line with a fixed IP? Otherwise your route is likely to be changing given the way dynamic IPs work.

[dubstepzombie]

@Reckless11 

I mean at the time I was monitoring my route via the BT network using tracert to the same destination IP address and noticed changes to the hops. I'm on a residential line, as far as I know you only end up with a new internet facing IP address if you reboot your router, or perhaps also if your connection drops but that never happens with my connection.

The changes to the route via the BT network may mean nothing or it could have been for example the BT engineers making changes to figure out why my ping was complete junk i.e. lets try a different route to see if that solves it.

[dubstepzombie]

In fact the software I was using at the time was ping tracer, google for 'github pingtracer', far easier to visualise the route and the problem.

[joo1]

You damn right sound like you know what you're talking about and i'm taking it all in so thank you.

What would you recommend for me mate? Is there anything I can try? Cheers

[dubstepzombie]

@Reckless11 

I wouldn't claim to really know any more than anyone else as regards what the 'fix' is or what the problem is, it's all speculation or even how the get the 'fix', apart from talking to the various mods on here.

If you've exhausted all avenues with BT then the only option is switch ISPs, this will almost certainly solve the problem on the basis you're 100% sure you've got this problem and not some other issue causing ping spikes.  If BT admit there's an issue and admit they can't solve it then you've got good grounds to leave your BT contract without early exit fees, although when I tried they wasn't budging.

If you can leave BT personally I'd witch to leetline, the only thing I'm not sure about with leetline is whether they can offer the anytime calling plan which for me is valuable. If not then I'd perhaps keep the phone with BT and just switch the broadband or switch to Sky broadband which I believe offer an anytime calling plan.

When / if you switch evaluate the ping situation ASAP and use the cooling off period to exit without fees if the ping is useless.

Of course you can keep battling with BT and providing traces and graphs and possibly getting no where, this 'ping problem' has been ongoing for far too long, personally I'd rather spend my time gaming on a good broadband connection and avoid all the grief 🙂

[Ian72]

Just thought I'd update on my situation,after emailing the Ceo and being contacted it seemed like the changed made to my line had more or less fixed the issue.

I was having problems with freezing with streams and gaming as well as high ping,my line was fixed which solved the freezing and some changes were made to my line which helped with the ping issue.

This seemed to involve changing the hops between my router and the destination which I think someone has mentioned before,doing speed tests the servers never seemed to be as near to my location as before now the problem is back on speed tests it uses more local servers again.

Maybe just coincidence?

I've emailed the person at Bt who got the problem sorted before and hopefully can have it put back again.

[gharperr1992]

Update on my situation. I got a phone call on thursday with them saying they will request to change something which may take a couple days and they will phone me on monday. Before when i would play netflix and fifa, every few seconds, i would get a freeze then about a couple more seconds where the game lags and tries to play catchup making it unplayable.

Played two games this morning with netflix on and now it would go to freeze like before, but it would almost instantly catchup. Its just a slight jitter. Now games are totally playable. Is it perfectly smooth? no. But it really is playable now and given i only game every other day this is fine for me. The ever so slight freezing is just a mild inconvenience. It doesnt really affect reactions or buttons pressed.

Ill try again tomorrow incase it was just a coincidence.

[JamesCO]

I've currently had 2 fixes implemented on my line, the first did nothing, but the second has actually improved things. Previously, any type of streaming would cause major latency spikes (300ms), but now, the severity has dropped to 100ms spikes and only for Netflix.

The graph below from PingPlotter shows how my latency changes when going from no stream -> 4K Youtube -> regular Netflix. It blows my mind how Netflix at a much lower bitrate causes higher latency fluctuations than streaming a 4K video on Youtube.

Whilst games are playable at 40ms, the constant 100ms spikes from Netflix render most online games near impossible to play without freezes/constant stuttering. Is there any way this can be looked at and addressed like the other streaming services which have been seemingly fixed? @RobbieMac 

Again, as others have mentioned in this thread, there is certainly some form of traffic shaping/prioritisation at play here to ensure VOD users have a good experience. Whilst that's understandable, ISPs have a duty to be transparent about any shaping/prioritisation at the point of purchase which is clearly not the case with BT. If this can't be fully resolved, I'll be escalating this by emailing the CEO and writing complaints outlining the issue so I can move ISP without charges. Hopefully BT get a handle on this in the future and make it so other users don't suffer as a result of streaming services - there's enough bandwidth to go around!

[RobbieMac]

Hi @JamesCO

Thanks for posting back and apologies for the delay getting back to you.

I am still waiting to hear from my colleague about your case.  I have contacted them again asking for an urgent update and I will give you a shout as soon as I hear word back.

Cheers,

Robbie