Recent online gaming ping spikes when streaming Netflix

[george1976]

@Tyrrell91  If your speed has dropped it means your cables got damaged or there is interference from other faulty lines.

You should raise a fault, if the problem is outside it will get fixed.

[Tyrrell91]

They don’t seem overly worried about the fact my line has dropped. Each time I raise a complaint it gets closed quoting “you are receiving above your stay fast guarantee”. It’s quite frustrating. I have no issues with my speed it’s just that any streaming device takes priority and causes huge ping spikes. I have taken everything off the network and tried it with just two devices and it’s really blatant but they aren’t remotely interested. 

I’ve seen some people on here say it’s been resolved with ‘profile changes’ but if I mention that to the team on the phone I’m told they can’t do anything. Unfortunately it’s meant that I’ve had to take out of a 4G contract for the streaming devices in order to isolate the broadband. It’s a real nightmare and an expensive one too. 

[Keith_Beddoe]

@Tyrrell91 

The alternative, which has already been suggested, is to use a different router which allows you to allocate priority and bandwidth to each device.

[Stu_H]

As others have suggested a router with SQM or other means via QoS will help you.

they range from Ubiquiti to Netduma so it’s worth doing some research on a setup that will improve your experience. 

[Keith_Beddoe]

Or even this one.

https://www.tp-link.com/uk/home-networking/dsl-modem-router/archer-vr400/v2/

You give streaming devices the lowest priority, and limit their upload and download bandwidth.

[Tyrrell91]

I’ll give it another shot! I have a TP-LINK router but I was told off for using it last time!

Will plug it back in and try the QoS again. Actually last time it didn’t seem to fix my issues but maybe I had not properly set the QoS up. I just moved everything into the low category aside from the PC’s.

[Keith_Beddoe]

@Tyrrell91 

You only need to move any streaming devices to low priority, remembering of course that the controls are applied to the device IP address, so that must not change, or the controls will not work. That is something you need to check, and make sure the IP address is reserved so it cannot change.

For streaming devices, limit the upload speed to 200Kbs and the download speed to 10% of your total bandwidth.

It does take a bit of work to get it right.

[dubstepzombie]

For anything based on an IP address watch out for any DHCP configurations, depending on how DHCP is setup and  potentially depending on what order you boot your network devices you can easily end up with your gaming PC receiving the IP address of your streaming device then wondering why your connection has lag /  is slow.

I always have DHCP disabled and assign static IP addresses, the downside being it's a minor pain when you plug something new into your network.

You can do both, as in have DHCP enabled and assign static IP addresses to your network devices providing your DHCP pool is using a range outside of your static IP address assignments.

For my Ubiquiti router I just have single rule that applies to my whole LAN, the same basic end result as other routers is that you reserve a small amount of headroom to allow gaming traffic to get through.

[Tyrrell91]

Brilliant. I’ve set it up, and also found out where I went wrong last time inputting the download and upload settings... 

It’s passed the first test so we’ll try it again later!!

Set up my QoS and allocated everything. Fingers crossed that’s it! 

thanks for all your help. 

[Keith_Beddoe]

@Tyrrell91 

As you will discover, you only need to concentrate your effort on the device(s) causing the problem, the rest can be left alone.

Streaming devices will adjust themselves to lower bandwidth availability, and will not attempt to pre-buffer things like the next episode while streaming the current one. Netflix is one of the worst offenders, and will try to buffer as much as it can.

Its those "hits" on the connection that upset other devices and cause latency.