Recent online gaming ping spikes when streaming Netflix

[LDNW10]

I've been battling with this issue the last couple of weeks.

We have swapped out the BT HH for a DreyTek Vigor-130 and Ubiquity EdgeRouter X with a Netgear GS305E managed switch for the two gamers in the house. We have a BT Fibre with BT Halo 1 (58-73 Mbps / 17-18 Mbps). 

We run QoS on the EdgeRouter and have a A+ A+ A+ report from dslreports(.)com (screenshot attached). The PingPlotter report shows spikes as soon as I start streaming Netflix (less with other streaming services). When we are not streaming the plot is almost flat.

Nothing more I can do inside my LAN the issue is outside (screenshot attached).  With five adults in lockdown our internet usage is higher than usual and managing usage to help the gamers is pretty impossible and shouldn't be required.

Any help to highlight this issue to BT is important for all users.  

dslreports(.)com

[scootwilson]

Has anyone managed to resolve this issue. Please, please tell us the solution. Currently getting 300 m/s lag with Netflix playing downstairs. Netflix stops and it goes down to 26!

[Ian72]

Still an ongoing problem for me that I've had since last January.

After contacting the Ceo i was finally listened to and got the line fixed for a whilewhich was to have the Bt business profile appliedbut earlier this year it stopped working.

After months of getting nowhere and having to resend ping plots so they believe I have an issue in the first place they've noticed "a slight increase in errors" that match with my ping plots.

They've now changed my profile from super stable to fast which to my knowledge was supposed to be better for gaming anyway,becuase  it'll be easier to spot where the errors are coming from apparently.

I've been told my connection will be worse for a few days,but as I said I'm sure fast path was supposed to be better for gaming and that it used to be on it.

If you know what are your connections set to fast stable or super stable?

I'll include some of my recent ping plots,we all need to keep on to Bt as atm they don't really seem to care

[dubstepzombie]

@Ian72 to me this looks like a problem between your modem and the road side cabinet i.e. your phone line.

The latency to the first hop is not stable, this thread is really about the BT infrastructure problem where there's nothing wrong with your internal network or the connection to the road side cabinet.

What was happening on your network at the time of the spikes - anyone else streaming / browsing etc ?

What router / modem are you using ? third party /  BT gear ? wired or wireless ? is it a FTTC connection ?

Note the BT gear allows anyone to connect via your connection, it broadcasts a 'BT Fon' wireless hotspot. No one in their right mind would use it for a internet connection but you never know if you've got some rich neighbors that just don't care about costs and they have rubbish wifi so they choose to use your 'BT Fon' connection.

Have you had an engineer visit to check your master socket / internal phone wiring ?

Where is your modem plugged into ? direct to the master phone socket or via phone extension wiring i.e. not the master socket ?

Is there any specific time of the day where the ping spikes don't happen e.g. early hours such as 2am ?

With a decent third party modem you can view your DSL stats including errors and see if they clock up in relation to the spikes. Also different modems with different chipsets can give different results  e.g. Broadcom chipset, Intel/Lantiq chipset all depending on what sort of cabinet you're connecting to.

Also some modems allow the SNR to be changed, so you can opt for a lower sync rate but a more reliable / less errors connection.

Is vectoring enabled on your cabinet ? that can help with noisy lines, you need a modem with vectoring support such as the DrayTek Vigor 130.

[LDNW10]

Have you read my thread?

[Ian72]

I've posted to this thread before and my issue is 100% the Bt infrastructure.

I've had my connection looked at many times by Bt engineers,yes my connection is worse when someone is streaming.

But my connection is 80/20 so should be more than capable of handling streaming whilst someone else in the house is gaming.

I've an Asus dsl ac68u used as a router and a Zyxel Vmg 1312b10a for a modem.

My modem is plugged directly into the master socket and has been checked by Bt several times,it happens on completely random times.

Bt have noticed that I have an increase in errors when I have lag spikes and the reason I've now got a Zyxel router is because it has a Broadcom chip the same as my cabinet.

I used to have a Draytek vigor 130 but got lots of disconnections possibly due to the lantiq chip.

Vectoring was on on my line but now shows off,I'm guessing becuase  without telling me they'd changed my line profile while trying to fix the issue.

Apparently it was on super stable which I'm guessing is interleaved and now vector shows off,from the above screenshots they saw thet my errors went up at the same time I had ping spikes so switched me back to fast path  because  they'd see where the errors were coming more accurately.

Not sure why I was put on interleaved it certainly hasn't helped at all!

Don't think they've got any idea or care,don't see how they could think turning vectoring off and putting my line on super stable which as I said is interleaved I think? would help with this problem

Well just been told by someone at Bt that super stable is not the same as interleaving so that's cleared that up,but they couldn't tell me why vectoring is now off!

[scootwilson]

Wow. 92 pages of comments and nobody's come up with a solution. I'd be grateful if someone could summarise!!🤔

[dubstepzombie]

@Ian72 well there's nothing wrong with your modem, I use the exact same one, I assume you've made sure it's on the latest firmware version ? same for your router. Have you tried taking the Asus out of the picture and using the Zyxel as an all in one router / modem ?

You say it's worse when someone is streaming, the problem this thread focuses on is a stable ping with very little jitter with a quiet internal network and insanely high pings when someone is streaming. If you can't achieve a stable ping with a 100% quiet network then you've got some other problem or you've got 2 problems i.e. connection to the cabinet issues and the BT infrastructure issue.

I'd watch out for background network usage from things like Windows update i.e. you think you're internal network is quiet but it may not be, you need to use tools like Windows performance monitor or Wireshark to make sure you definitely have a quiet network. Even things like antivirus can decide to use your connection in the background, also unplug / power off all other devices from your internal network when you're testing to make sure nothing else is using your connection.

Vectoring needs to be supported by your modem, I can't see the option on the Zyxel although I can see vectoring in the stats, I'll have to do some googling to see if it can be enabled, the Vigor 130 has vectoring but you have to enable it using a SSH command line option.

Errors will cause lag spikes, there's no doubt about that, higher interleaving depth is normally added for more stability - less errors, it'll push up your base ping but won't be the reason for spikes. What normally happens is the DLM will monitor your error rates and slowly over days start to reduce your interleaving depth / delay, if your connection keeps having uncorrectable errors or dropping then the DLM will make adjustments to stabilize it by changing the SNR level and / or interleaving. I've never heard of a 'super stable' connection option although BT do have some hidden options such as 'Elevated Best Efforts', ''real time'  basically BT's own QoS.

@LDNW10 the BT infrastructure issue is easily summarized, BT has known about the issue for over 1 year, their initial response to customers complaining about ping spikes is what I'm calling a bodge fix issued on a case by case basis, for me it improved my connection but deteriorated over months. BT have now got what I'm calling a proper fix which is a hardware and software fix which has to be applied to their routers. This work was going to take many months, I've not seen an update but I suspect the virus has slowed things down. I've no idea if this 'proper' fix has been fully implemented or not. Personally I moved to another ISP seeing as I got fed up with waiting and not knowing any details, I still can't really return to BT even if I wanted to seeing as no one is saying if the proper fix has definitely worked.

@Ian72 here's my Zyxel DSL stats, I'm about 1Km away from the cabinet.

====================================================================================
VDSL Training Status: Showtime
Mode: VDSL2 Annex B
VDSL Profile: Profile 17a
G.Vector: Disable
Traffic Type: PTM Mode
Link Uptime: 6 days: 6 hours: 31 minutes
====================================================================================
VDSL Port Details Upstream Downstream
Line Rate: 17.029 Mbps 66.998 Mbps
Actual Net Data Rate: 16.996 Mbps 66.999 Mbps
Trellis Coding: ON ON
SNR Margin: 8.4 dB 7.6 dB
Actual Delay: 0 ms 0 ms
Transmit Power: 7.4 dBm 12.7 dBm
Receive Power: -5.0 dBm -6.4 dBm
Actual INP: 0.0 symbols 49.0 symbols
Total Attenuation: 0.0 dB 18.6 dB
Attainable Net Data Rate: 21.237 Mbps 73.761 Mbps
====================================================================================
VDSL Band Status U0 U1 U2 U3 U4 D1 D2 D3
Line Attenuation(dB): 5.1 23.7 36.3 N/A N/A 13.4 30.8 48.7
Signal Attenuation(dB): 5.1 22.9 35.0 N/A N/A 15.4 30.5 48.7
SNR Margin(dB): 8.6 8.3 8.4 N/A N/A 7.6 7.6 7.6
TX Power(dBm): 0.0 -19.7 6.5 N/A N/A 8.8 7.8 7.2
====================================================================================

VDSL Counters

Downstream Upstream
Since Link time = 31 min 9 sec
FEC: 2031982 0
CRC: 0 135
ES: 0 101
SES: 0 0
UAS: 0 0
LOS: 0 0
LOF: 0 0
LOM: 0 0
Latest 15 minutes time = 1 min 35 sec
FEC: 1 0
CRC: 0 0
ES: 0 0
SES: 0 0
UAS: 0 0
LOS: 0 0
LOF: 0 0
LOM: 0 0
Previous 15 minutes time = 15 min 0 sec
FEC: 11 0
CRC: 0 0
ES: 0 0
SES: 0 0
UAS: 0 0
LOS: 0 0
LOF: 0 0
LOM: 0 0
Latest 1 day time = 6 hours 31 min 35 sec
FEC: 191806 0
CRC: 0 20
ES: 0 16
SES: 0 0
UAS: 0 0
LOS: 0 0
LOF: 0 0
LOM: 0 0
Previous 1 day time = 24 hours 0 sec
FEC: 94541 0
CRC: 0 14
ES: 0 11
SES: 0 0
UAS: 0 0
LOS: 0 0
LOF: 0 0
LOM: 0 0
Total time = 1 days 6 hours 31 min 35 sec
FEC: 2031982 0
CRC: 0 135
ES: 0 101
SES: 0 0
UAS: 24 24
LOS: 0 0
LOF: 0 0
LOM: 0 0

[Ian72]

Don't think really care about trying to fix this issue,has anyone gone to another isp and found any improvements?

Zen are supposed to be good for gaming,but Bt say the same lol 

[dubstepzombie]

I've tried IdNet and Leetline, neither ISP has ping spike issues, I'm currently with Leetline, they have a network tuned for low latency / gaming, it's like next to 0ms across their core network and they have excellent external links to the various gaming locations / servers.

I think about all other ISPs won't have the BT issues although they're supposed to have a fix, as usual no updates on progress, no information / evidence their new fix really does fix the issues. Although complaints on this thread have definitely died down so perhaps their fix is at least good enough for most. Obviously stay away from re-branded BT offerings, perhaps PlusNet seeing as they're owned by BT and also EE, what ever ISP you pick check out ISP review, check out the forums of the ISP you're interested in for complaints, contact their support and ask for some ping results to some of your favorite gaming severs, you may be surprised how bad some ISPs are i.e. ping spikes although probably not as bad as BT / jitter / packet loss.

I live in the midlands, when I inquired about Zen their support said they couldn't confirm if I'd be routed to Manchester or London and they wasn't able to change where I ended up being routed to. Routing to Manchester would add 7ms to my base ping so I couldn't risk being trapped for 12 month with a crazy high ping. So they was another ISP off my list, if you live close to Manchester or London then this won't be an issue. Most ISPs just won't even attempt to estimate your ping, as said the closest you can get is to get them to provide some ping results.

Obviously if you've got link problems to the road side cabinet changing ISP won't solve anything, although worst case it'll rule out the BT infrastructure problem seeing as it's not something you can find out about / check by calling BT - they have no clue.