What's with the reliability lately?

[RCS2K4]

So, here it is. This is the longest I have ever stayed with one ISP - 6 years this year. Sadly, service isn't what it should be. The speed is having frequent drop-out's, especially in the evenings (congestion?), and I get random bursts of packet loss.

Synthetic speed tests are looking ok, but since Sunday loads of requests to go to youtube, BBC, Facebook, Photobucket etc all randomly time out when I click links. This is just for a few sites. I can't believe all of the sites are all down at the same time - the odds are well against that. Some tracert tests to these sites using CMD are interesting. There's always a huge pause, or no reply when telehouse-gw5-e4-400.idnet.net [212.69.63.245] appears as one of the hops, so you never reach the destination site.

It's random, getting worse and online gaming is really interesting via PSN and Live at the moment - I'm lagging a good 400-500 Ms in some cases. IDNET's support was not it's usual self when I called them earlier, hence my post here (they blamed the router). For the reccord, the router's fine as I plugged in my spare Linksys 300N and I have the same problem.

Any ideas (ps, broadband package is Home SuperPro)?

Some router stats from my main router (Netgear DGND3300 V2):
System Up Time 1030:26:26

Port      Status           TxPkts          RxPkts         Collisions Tx B/s Rx B/s Up Time
WAN      PPPoA           4549786       7965054       0 541 3718 162:53:42
LAN      10M/100M       83273046     61532217      0 843 529 1030:26:22
WLAN 11M/54M/270M   229811        229811         0 10 10 1030:26:10


ADSL Link Downstream Upstream
Connection Speed 15766 kbps 910 kbps
Line Attenuation 31.5 db 15.6 db
Noise Margin 5.1 db 5.4 db

[Steve]

There is a LINX peering issue being reported over on AAISP so that could well be the source of tonight's problems, however I'm not seeing anything myself i.e BBC

[Lance]

I can say with complete confidence that the problem is local to your line or at worst your exchange. I'm wondering if it would be worth you running routerstats so we can see if your line is dropping at all. If it's mainly the evening that you experience the slowdown then it's a good chance it is exchange congestion.

[Technical Ben]

I'd normally say "not a chance". However, doing tests I get a tiny amount of packet loss (up to 2% but no more). Not sure if it's IDNet, or general "uk internet" at fault.
Did not notice any difference in games, or browsing. I use Open DNS though for pages.

[RCS2K4]

I dont have RouterStats installed, but in terms of line dropping vs sync speed, the Netgear DGND3300 already logs and records this. It says that the sync rate is 15766 [D], 910 , Uptime on the line is almost as long as the router's been up for since the last power down: 1032:28:57 - Cool, thats 43 days of stability. I would say my line is ok.

[esh]

Also have ~2% packet loss at peak times and have lost a megabit or so over the past year. It is still reliable though.

[Bill]

Not sure if it's connected, but over the last couple of weeks my ping monitor has been showing spikes that weren't there before:



Note the fat spikes at about 4:30am, 11am, 2:30pm(?), and 6pm. They're not me, they're new and getting more frequent...

[sof2er]

Got the exact same thing as Bill, my broadband monitors used to be clean in terms of yellow spikes (always had packet loss of about 2 to 4% with IDNet.) and lately I'm seeing alot of yellow spikes despite not even downloading or uploading.

I'm sure it's not exchange related, because they're happening at 04:00 AM too...

[Gary]

So, here it is. This is the longest I have ever stayed with one ISP - 6 years this year. Sadly, service isn't what it should be. The speed is having frequent drop-out's, especially in the evenings (congestion?), and I get random bursts of packet loss.

Synthetic speed tests are looking ok, but since Sunday loads of requests to go to youtube, BBC, Facebook, Photobucket etc all randomly time out when I click links. This is just for a few sites. I can't believe all of the sites are all down at the same time - the odds are well against that. Some tracert tests to these sites using CMD are interesting. There's always a huge pause, or no reply when telehouse-gw5-e4-400.idnet.net [212.69.63.245] appears as one of the hops, so you never reach the destination site.

It's random, getting worse and online gaming is really interesting via PSN and Live at the moment - I'm lagging a good 400-500 Ms in some cases. IDNET's support was not it's usual self when I called them earlier, hence my post here (they blamed the router). For the reccord, the router's fine as I plugged in my spare Linksys 300N and I have the same problem.

Any ideas (ps, broadband package is Home SuperPro)?

Some router stats from my main router (Netgear DGND3300 V2):
System Up Time 1030:26:26

Port      Status           TxPkts          RxPkts         Collisions Tx B/s Rx B/s Up Time
WAN      PPPoA           4549786       7965054       0 541 3718 162:53:42
LAN      10M/100M       83273046     61532217      0 843 529 1030:26:22
WLAN 11M/54M/270M   229811        229811         0 10 10 1030:26:10


ADSL Link Downstream Upstream
Connection Speed 15766 kbps 910 kbps
Line Attenuation 31.5 db 15.6 db
Noise Margin 5.1 db 5.4 db

Same issues with Facebook , BBC etc when pinged it showed 'host not resolved' changing DNS cured that for me but I prefer idnets DNS for speed, unless my exchange is having the same issues and it effects DNS resolution, the issues vanish using Norton DNS or OpenDNS. These issues happen in the day and at night, the BBC was a once off, but Google, Youtube, and Facebook all suffer the same "server not found" This can occur while actually using the sites. I have two routers and it happens on both until dns nameservers are changed as I said. I also have lost 10ms off my ping times they are creeping up again back to 24ms from 14ms.

[Gary]

Gone back to DynDNS for the time being, it works and that's what I need.

[Steve]

Gary,Being stupid how does DynDNS solve the problem for you.

[Gary]

Gary,Being stupid how does DynDNS solve the problem for you.

Well the sites resolve correctly, what is happening is when I browse I get server not found, or when on the site you loose connection to it, when you ping the site you get that message about host cannot be resolved but other sites can still be accessed fine, by changing DNS servers from Idnets to OpenDNS, DynDNS or Norton DNS it all resolves correctly. Pings are still higher right now for some reason but I can access sites correctly, my MTU is set at 1458 after testing to get the right value.

[JB]

I have been getting ~2% packet loss with IDNet for quite a time now. One of the ways this seems to manifest itself is when clicking a link to a new web page. Firefox (or whatever) will just sit there saying "loading page" but click the link again and the new page loads immediately and quickly. I have a solid 8012 connection with a steady 9db margin on my HGV2700. Have tried all the combinations of different router, different browser, different DNS's and different OS, but the results are the same.

My son, who is a senior network manager, was staying over Xmas and by running various reverse traceroutes from his own server, has pretty much decided the problem lies within IDNet somewhere.

I'm at my property in Spain atm using Telefonica on a poorer line but with an HGV2700. The difference is apparent, with pages loading on first click all of the time.

I love IDNet and the community spirit but I am coming close to at least trying a different ISP (Zen or AAISP) to see if the issue goes away.

Just my 2C.

[Gary]

Well I got the router answer from Idnet, that feels a bit bit scripted really but there you go. I do not think its both my routers, I think its something to do with Idnets DNS and maybe something a bit deeper, I will monitor things but if it stays fine using another DNS server, its not my set up, which I am already 99% sure is fine.

[Bill]

I've been using IDNet's DNS, but have switched to OpenDNS for a while to see what happens.

It doesn't appear to be configured for IPv6 though, so I'm not going to stick with it.

[esh]

The IDNet DNS has been fairly reasonable for me of recent. I have had periods where the odd resolution would fail, since this was logged by my server performing regular ping quality tests, but I haven't seen that for a while now. I have assumed the 2% loss (and 100KB/s loss) is in the BT backbone because I certainly did not get it 1-2 years ago.

Edit: getting back on topic... obvious DNS resolution shouldn't really affect the ping time to a hop. That said we've had IDNet staff in here saying that you can't really measure line quality by pinging some of the telehouse routers because they have ICMP on a very low priority and hence it will appear more laggy than it really is. That said, although I do not go via the telehouse hop you report, I can ping it just fine and get 7ms.

Is there any test that *always* gives a bad result as opposed to intermittently?

[Bill]

I don't really think it has anything to do with DNS either, but it's an easy check to do so what the hell

[Gary]

I don't really think it has anything to do with DNS either, but it's an easy check to do so what the hell

Well why does changing DNS servers stop the issue of DNS lookups not resolving correctly? As for IPV6 I am sure when it's needed OpenDNS like others will be ready. Right this very second Its not my highest priority to be IPV6 enabled, especially as my Router is not set up for that. Once again it has the capability in a hidden page but it's not been turned on yet. Also companies like DynDNS and Open DNS have been in the business of providing alternative DNS servers for quite a while, with servers world wide so I belive they are pretty knowledgeable in that area. 

[Bill]

Well why does changing DNS servers stop the issue of DNS lookups not resolving correctly?

I was referring to my problem of periods of elevated pings... it may or may not be related to the other problems in this topic but, as I said, it's easy to do. If it doesn't make any difference then my problem is probably unrelated to yours

As for IPV6 I am sure when it's needed OpenDNS like others will be ready.

I'm sure you're right, but I want it now- I like new toys

[Gary]

I'm sure you're right, but I want it now- I like new toys

Patience is a virtue they say, but if there is one thing I have learnt now as far as computers are involved, Bill. Being at the bleeding edge hurts to much as you get older 

[Rik]

I've seen no packet loss, no DNS problems, my only issue seems to be BT working at the exchange and disconnecting me periodically.

[Bill]

Patience is a virtue they say

I thought I'd try it because everthing I've got here is IPv6-capable... it works fine using 6to4 tunnelling (and IDNet's DNS!) but I can't go native IPv6 because (according to Simon Davies) the BT RADIUS servers don't know about IPv6 yet so the router login only works for IPv4

[Rik]

BT will get there, Bill, probably in a decade or so. Hell, they can't even get the speedtester to work and you expect IPv6?

[Bill]

I've seen no packet loss, no DNS problems, my only issue seems to be BT working at the exchange and disconnecting me periodically.

It's by no means impossible that the periods of high latency I'm seeing are down to BT messing about, maybe causing my routing to go a bit haywire at times. But it could be related to the OP's problem so I thought I'd put in my four penn'orth.

I've always had a low level of background packet loss, average probably <0.1%, so that's not a problem here.

[Rik]

With BT, anything is possible.