Recent online gaming ping spikes when streaming Netflix

[dubstepzombie]

@Twigus 

Well a ping of 100's of ms on a quiet network or even a busy one shouldn't be happening.

Have you checked if the firmware for the BT hub is up to date ?

All you can do is try your best to ensure it's nothing internal to your network, if it was me I'd swap out your BT gear for something else to see if the problem is internal or external to your property.

From Amazon you can buy a cheap TP-link all in one VDSL modem / router, it's around £30 (model TD-W9970), I'd then connect that up direct to your testing device / laptop and check if you see the same problem. If you see the same 100's of ms pings then it's likely noise / a problem with your phone line, stable ping means it's something wrong with your internal devices / network.

At least at that point you'd know whether you need to beat up BT to get an engineer to visit or start trouble shooting your BT gear.

[Twigus]

I have upgraded to a brand new BT Smart Hub 2 just two weeks ago. Do you think buying a 3rd party router would make a difference? I would have hoped that swapping to a new/upgraded router versus my old one would have made a difference already.

[george1976]

@dubstepzombie Just trying to prove a point. There is the graph with no one using the connection then at the end I fired up Our Planet on Netflix HD. Graph you saw yesterday was my wife streaming IPTV on her laptop, that always killed the connection even more than Netflix.

[john9411]

@dubstepzombie 

Seem to recall somewhere that you moved to Leetline?

My BT contract ends shortly and, after many years, am giving up with them. Final straw was having an engineer out to check line to be told that my minimum guaranteed speed was only 28Mbit/s. They failed to mention this when I recontracted 16 months ago! It had been 35Mbit/s previously - unfortunately a long way from exchange!

I too suffer from unacceptable latency on XBOX when someone else is streaming so have started looking elsewhere.

My cheapest option is Sky as I already have Sky TV but am reluctant to move broadband to them for minimum term of 18 (or is it 24) months as I suspect that with increase in streaming they, like all major well known isps, will also possibly start having latency problems.

I have been looking at Zen, IDnet and Leetline and was wondering (assuming you did move to them) what your experience has been.

[dubstepzombie]

@Twigus 

I can't say whether a 3rd party modem / router will help, logic tells you that the best device for a BT connection would be BT equipment, all I can say is I've never used BT equipment. I've always used 3rd party equipment and apart from the BT infrastructure problem I've never had connection issues, although I'm closer to the cabinet compared to yourself.

As said buying a cheap router / modem gives you something to compare against, it would allow you to be more sure of where the problem i.e. is it your BT hub / modem or some setting on your network or is it you phone line.  Worst case is you send it back to Amazon if it doesn't help or keep as a backup device should your BT equipment ever fail. You could even try to buy something even cheaper off ebay, just be sure it has VDSL in the product description.

Can you plug your old BT hub back in, just as a test ?

Also even though your BT hub is new I'd still check your firmware, the hub you've got could have been sitting in stock for months i.e. still have older firmware.

@george1976 

As said Netflix affects my connection, up to about 60 to 70ms spikes without any bandwidth management and I'm not using a BT connection. I see the same ping change when I saturate my connection doing a speed test.net, which is no surprise seeing as speed test is designed to push your connection to the max. I never see any ping above that, ever, so indeed 100+ or around 400ms for your last graph is definitely not right.

What download / upload speed do you get, is it constant, does it ever drop while testing  ?

Seems to me your connection is showing the exact problem this thread is about and that is supposed to be fixed, you probably need some mod on here to look a little deeper.

On the assumption BT can't or wont help, that you're testing fully wired, that your internal networking, your DSL modem connection is reliable / solid the only other option would be change ISP e.g. leetline, IdNet, Zen, Sky.

Assuming you've got the classic BT ping spike issue, you night be able to mitigate the problem by using a 'UBIQUITI Networks EdgeRouter', this is £50 off Amazon, this has queue management where you can leave headroom for gaming - so that streaming can never fully saturate your connection. As I found at the time it wont solve your ping issues it'll just reduce the severity, might make gaming bearable.

[dubstepzombie]

@john9411 

Leetline for gaming to my mind is the best ISP you could ever switch to if you want to game, I'm still with Leetline and seeing these recent posts just reminded me to never consider switching back to BT.

What makes Leetline special is they get it, they get why latency is no.1 for gaming, they care about latency and their network is designed to low latency and delivers it but they also deliver the speed as well.

I've also used IdNet, nothing wrong with IdNet for gaming, I did notice some small amount of jitter creeping in on various connections +/- 3 ms. Last time I was with IdNet they operated a 1 month rolling contract, so that does allow you to switch to another ISP if IdNet didn't help.

Watch out for up front costs when switching ISPs, this is where having your own router / equipment helps, Leetline and IdNet will waiver these costs if you have your own gear.

I would though warn you that if you've got connection issues to the road side cabinet changing ISP wont help at all, the only slim chance a different ISP will change anything is if the supplied router / modem cleans up / solves your connection to the road side cabinet issues - assuming you have any. 

In other words this thread relates to issues internal to ISP side of BT which is why switching ISP solved everyone problems, in theory these issues have been solved so any remaining ping / latency issues should be down to problems with customers equipment / connection problems to the road side cabinet or issues in the local exchange, which again mean switching ISP wont help. On the flip side of that you could argue if BT aren't delivering what you want then you've got nothing to lose switching to a different ISP.

[john9411]

@dubstepzombie 

Many thanks for response. I have Vigor 130 coupled with Asus RT86U so have done all I can to tweak my network. i don't appear to have any problems normally (whichever site i ping not matter where in UK or US varies from 5 to 35ms and is generally sub 15ms) so, despite distance from cabinet and exchange I would say latency only becomes a problem when gaming and streaming at the same time. I am certainly not happy with my speed though. Following a complaint to BT Chairman some months ago my speed went up to 39-41 mbit/s but following a major local problem whch BT say was fixed it has slowly dropped and now I rarely get above 32mbit/s; hence the reason for the engineer visit. To be told all was well and my minimum guarantee was only 28 mbit/s was the final straw! BT will now not only lose my broadband but also BT Sport and three mobile contracts. Whoever I switch to has got to be an improvement but Leetline is looking favourite and so far they are the only one to efficiently and promptly deal with all the questions I have raised. Yes it may cost me a little more but for peace of mind it is worth it.

[dubstepzombie]

@john9411 

Have you tried tweaking your Vigor 130 connection settings ? there's quite a few DSL settings not shown in the web UI that are only available via telnet, such as setting the SNR, you could reduce this to get extra speed potentially but could have a negative effect of more errors / less stability.  There's also vectoring you can switch on via telnet that might improve your speed - certainly for longer distances from the cabinet, assuming your cabinet supports vectoring.

Your speed is limited by your connection to the cabinet, this is unlikely to  improve by changing ISP, there might be some things BT or a different ISP can do such as DLM reset but it'll likely end up being roughly where you're currently at speed wise. The slow drop is most likely just the DLM adjusting your sync rate for less errors / stability.

[James3793]

I noticed this thread has lit up again so I thought I would throw some thoughts in seeing as i've experienced the same issues and have eventually moved to a new ISP.

First of all, I had a history of connection issues in my new house and had 8 engineers out last year with no resolution whatsoever. They would simply come to my house, reset my line and then 2/4 weeks later my speed would bottom out again until the next engineer came to visit. I was on engineer number 3 this year when the moderators on these forums helped me escalate the issue after I was reporting the ping issue. I did in fact have a fault on my line that all of those engineers had failed to find and fix. 

This issue was eventually resolved but the ping issues still remained, they were just less extreme but still a problem for me as a gamer.

Eventually it was clear BT could not help me anymore, the moderators here were fantastic and I was grateful for them helping to solve a much bigger issue that had been plaguing my connection for over a year. In my view, this was never BT's fault, it was Openreach just doing a lazy job when they visited my house.

I felt exhausted from discussing the ping issue and I was still in contract with BT.

In the end I took advice from @dubstepzombie and looked into Leetline. I had a great call with them and decided I would take out a separate line in my house that would just be for me and my home office/gaming setup. I know this is not viable for everyone but i decided paying an extra £40 a month to not have this headache was worth it. When my BT contract is up, I wont be renewing.

Leetline offered a no fuss grace period so I decided to give it a go and decide from there. I have to say, things were rough at first and I was not getting the speeds I was expecting but the team at Leetline got on it straight away and were communicating with me constantly to let me know what was happening. Although it was a rough start, I didn't mind because the service was exactly what I wanted. They also comped me due to the inconvenience.

What I will say is that I have tested streaming on my Leetline while gaming and I do experience the occasional spike but its not noticeable and nothing compared to what was happening with BT. A big part of the issue is that platforms like Netflix load up chucks of data at a time which is why the spikes are consistent and will always be there to some extent.

I have friends who are on other ISP's and they all experience spikes. Some of them didn't even realise it was happening until I asked. Moving to another ISP is definitely not always going to fix the issue.

My suggestion would be that if it's viable and affordable, get your own line and let the rest of the house do what they want with the other.

[john9411]

@dubstepzombie 

Thanks again for response. Must admit I had not considered tweaking the Vigor so I will look into that..

With regard to speed I was getting a consistent 39-41 mbit/s for at least 2 months until the local fault (which affected the whole local area) so whilst I take your point about DLM ‘adjustments’ I do not believe that is the reason in this case. Having seen that an old TV was causing speed problems in Wales I am beginning to wonder whether a nearby building site, which cable from cabinet runs by, may  be to  blame. The road is continually being dug up with new power cables, gas mains and telephone lines being installed. Some months ago there was no spare capacity in the cabinet now there appears to be plenty - maybe they forgot to increase capacity from cabinet to the exchange; with Openreach and BT nothing would surprise me and if that could be the case then I have no hope. Perhaps I should just move home!!!