Inconsistent routing and performance

[L2020]

Looks like I'm moving from IDNet at end of contract after the first year.  I'm on FTTP and every 30 or so days at around 2am the PPP drops and I connect back up again.  That in itself isn't so bad as I'm usually asleep (might annoy some people though who are night owls), however it always comes back up onto a different route, so latency goes up, speeds go down.  To get speeds back again I have to do a gateway shuffle, by that I mean spend several minutes dropping PPP then reconnecting, eventually I get back to the lowest latency and fastest speeds.

Product is FTTP 900/100.

Example: Yesterday and last 30ish days latency at 6ms, speed tests >700 > 100 on single thread tests via Thinkbroadband, multi thread tests >900, all good.  Started work today, thought my remote connection for work felt a bit sluggish, twigged I'd probably been dropped overnight and sure enough I had been.  Speeds were now around 200 and <40 on upload on single thread test, and not that much better on multi thread tests, latency up to 11ms and sure enough checking the router it was about 30 days since the last PPP drop and it had dropped again at just before 2am. 

IDNet describe their broadband as "business class" so I don't expect to be having to hop gateways, this isn't PlusNet, or so I thought.

I've raised this with support and they've said that is just how it is and nothing they can do.  Essentially it seems to me this broadband product from IDNet is just a white labelled Zen residential package as all these issues I've had with Zen in the past (I am on Zen backhaul with IDNet so they are involved).

I think what is happening is sometimes I get a route via Zen POPs at Manchester, and because IDNet only has gateways in London, I'm going Leicestershire to Manchester to London and then IDNet's gateways so see the latency increase, with the Manchester to London route also seemingly much more congested. If I manage to get a London route direct via Zen back haul, then I'm going Leicestershire – London then IDNets gateway which could even be in the same data centre, and get half the latency as a result and a less congested route. I'm not a gamer so the latency change isn't really a concern, it just seems to give away the routing changes and what might be happening.

Prior to IDNet I was with Cerberus 330/30 and PPP seldom dropped unless I triggered it and there were never any changes when connecting.  Unfortunately, at the time their 900/100 package was very expensive but that has now reduced in price so I may go back to them at end of contract.  Currently if I get a bad route on the PPP lottery with IDNet/Zen speeds can be less than they were on Cerberus 330/30 package I moved from.

I just thought it worthwhile posting my experiences for anyone googling something similar, or is thinking of joining from Zen to get away from these sorts of inconsistencies, as may not. Of course, it may be very much a regional thing and I'm just unlucky and straddle both possible routes onto Zen's backhaul and those closer to London only ever see good routing and speeds, and those further north only go via Manchester and don't know any different. The irony that IDNet advertise their broadband as 'Consistent' has not escaped me though 😊  I assume IDNet, from telling me nothing they can do, have no say or control over what Zen does with the backhaul for their own customers and we are just part of the same mob, so I can't see what advantage there is with IDNet over just buying from Zen directly and saving some money.  Okay support might respond quicker than Zen but that hasn't resolved my issue.

It is a pain moving as I like to stay loyal and also it is hassle getting various remote firewalls updated to accept a change of IP, but there we are, first world problems I suppose

[L2020]

So just decided to try and get on another route, dropped PPP, connected and luckily managed it first go and immediately back to 6ms latency and speeds back up to something decent and just tested (>800 >100 on single thread Thinkbroadband tester).  Often takes several goes to get the better route.

It's not right though is it that the speed fluctuates so much based on a lottery of how someone gets routed.  Typical Zen, they run their network with nothing spare, I'm sure I'll be knocked back off this fast route in a few weeks again.   

[Simon]

It's kind of strange that not more people have had your experience, unless they have and either don't realise or just haven't posted on here.

[zappaDPJ]

I don't know about routing or re-routing, I'm on a pretty dreadful high latency FTTC connection so I tend not to check these things. However the 2.00am (or thereabouts) line drop is something I see quite regularly because I am often around at that time. If I leave it a few minutes and restart the modem a few times it usually gets me back on-line. I've always assumed it's maintenance hour for OpenReach.

[L2020]

It's kind of strange that not more people have had your experience, unless they have and either don't realise or just haven't posted on here.

By complete coincidence someone on the Zen Thinkbroadband forum has just posted having the same issues on Zen.  It's been something rumbling on with Zen for a number of years.

I don't know about routing or re-routing, I'm on a pretty dreadful high latency FTTC connection so I tend not to check these things. However the 2.00am (or thereabouts) line drop is something I see quite regularly because I am often around at that time. If I leave it a few minutes and restart the modem a few times it usually gets me back on-line. I've always assumed it's maintenance hour for OpenReach.

I'm pretty certain the regular 2am drops are Zen having to rebalance gateways etc, previously I was with Cerberus (still FTTP over Openreach) and with the exception of the odd known problem or published maintenance schedules causing drops in the early hours (maybe a few times in 12 months), there was never a regular 2am drop like this and uptimes typically went well beyond 30 days, I think at one point I was well over 100 days uptime until a firmware update my end needed a router reboot.  Even with VDSL I've regularly had longer uninterrupted uptimes than on IDNet FTTP.  I think it is because Zen run their network to maximum capacity with little to spare so they tend to need to keep micromanaging it and the 2am drops are for load balancing reasons.

[Simon]

Do IDNet run ALL of their network through Zen, or would it be possible to ask to be switched back to Openreach?  I could be talking rubbish here, but I seem to recall a discussion about this somewhere previously. 

[L2020]

Do IDNet run ALL of their network through Zen, or would it be possible to ask to be switched back to Openreach?  I could be talking rubbish here, but I seem to recall a discussion about this somewhere previously.

I'm not sure.  I've read of people switching backhaul on IDNet before but this certainly hasn't been offered, it might they just don't have that option on FTTP 900/100 products or it is simply too expensive and they lose money, and I don't expect them to lose money on me just because I'm not happy if the majority of their customers don't have the issues or don't notice.

At the time of ordering I did request not to be on Zen backhaul, but was assured it was only a short hop then I was on to BT and it wasn't a Zen service just their backhaul and I accepted that on the basis of what they told me and that they were a known good ISP.  Of course once I get to IDNet's data centre their kit and ongoing connections may be the best in the world, but this is a case of the weakest link being the experience the customer is going to see.

It is only over the last few months I've started to see the pattern of 2am drops and then find the service has taken a dive each time, so as I'm nearing a decision to renew or not I thought I would give them chance to see if they could sort it. I'm grateful for their honesty in that there is nothing they can do.

Don't get me wrong, it isn't terrible or unusable and it's only a miner inconvenience after 30 days or so to try and hop back to a better routing, but it's not what I excepted to be doing with IDNet selling what they call a business class connection. If it drops like Zen, routes like Zen, speeds are like Zen, its Zen Broadband end of!  I see little point in paying extra for IDNet, although prices are more inline with Zen now after IDNet's price drop a few months ago.

[Postal]

It's kind of strange that not more people have had your experience, unless they have and either don't realise or just haven't posted on here.

There are Zen customers complaining of exactly the same issue elsewhere (for example https://forums.thinkbroadband.com/zen/f/4692541-increase-in-latency-after-change-of-backhaul.html).

Edit:  Didn't notice L2020's post before I hit the keyboard.  Apologies for the duplication.

[L2020]

There are Zen customers complaining of exactly the same issue elsewhere (for example https://forums.thinkbroadband.com/zen/f/4692541-increase-in-latency-after-change-of-backhaul.html).

Edit:  Didn't notice L2020's post before I hit the keyboard.  Apologies for the duplication.

Yep, it seems this is a characteristic of Zen affecting any Zen customer or any company using their backhaul or reseller, and Zen seem to just brush it under the carpet according to various comments over on that forum, it's not a fault that will be corrected, it is just the way they run their network.  It's exactly why I didn't want anything to do with Zen in anyway shape or form and should have listened to the alarm bells ringing when IDNet was using their "backhaul".  Only a couple of months left on IDNet then I'm off, we live and learn 

[zappaDPJ]

My line dropped dead on 1.30am this morning. It came back after a couple of modem restarts. Looking at other BMQs I seem to be the only one.

[L2020]

My line dropped dead on 1.30am this morning. It came back after a couple of modem restarts. Looking at other BMQs I seem to be the only one.

Not the only one, I also had the same drop I posted about this over in the Thinkbroadband forum as the last couple of days latency and jitter on the BQM graphs were showing some problem or congestion, so basically after managing just 7 days uptime since the last forced drop of PPP, Zen have needed to drop a load of PPP sessions again to try and load balance their congested network, I assume anyway.  There is never any warning or advanced notice of this work to drop sessions, which is poor given I purchased what I thought was business broadband.  I guess Zen just don't care and not sure why IDNet are using them. 

Luckily I'm on FTTP so the dropped session seems to reconnect itself without any issue and I'm not having to worry about the effect of rebooting modems to try and bring the session back, i.e. causing DLM to think there is a fault and slowing down the line speed.

[dobber]

Same here last two days

[Postal]

Same here last two days

Over the last few months I've been seeing drops at random intervals (averaging about once a week) where the router maintains connection but the internet drops out then returns after about 2 minutes.  The ThinkBroadband Quality Monitor shows a red block while the internet connection is down.  This normally happens between 1:00 am and 2:00 am.  The stats do not show a re-sync and the up and down rates are unchanged.  I suspect this is connected with some sort of backhaul re-configuration as my latency to a web-site in the south of England will often jump between a figure of ~20ms and a figure of ~25ms as the drop and re-connect takes place (presumably depending on the backhaul selected).  I can live with the latency but the random drops without any warning are not really a customer-focussed event.  This wasn't what I was expecting when I signed up with IDNet and it is only inertia that is stopping me seeking a better solution.

[L2020]

Over the last few months I've been seeing drops at random intervals (averaging about once a week) where the router maintains connection but the internet drops out then returns after about 2 minutes.  The ThinkBroadband Quality Monitor shows a red block while the internet connection is down.  This normally happens between 1:00 am and 2:00 am.  The stats do not show a re-sync and the up and down rates are unchanged.  I suspect this is connected with some sort of backhaul re-configuration as my latency to a web-site in the south of England will often jump between a figure of ~20ms and a figure of ~25ms as the drop and re-connect takes place (presumably depending on the backhaul selected).  I can live with the latency but the random drops without any warning are not really a customer-focussed event.  This wasn't what I was expecting when I signed up with IDNet and it is only inertia that is stopping me seeking a better solution.

The drops you are seeing is in the PPP session, and hence you notice the sync doesn't drop.  This is IDNet/Zen telling the router part of your modem/router to drop the PPP session and then your kit usually keeps attempting to reconnect until you are back on line again.  The latency changes are due to you getting a different route over Zen's network each time. I suspect every time someone connects it is a round robin assignment.  It wouldn't surprise me though, as many Zen customers are wise to the fact now, that if they keep dropping the PPP and reconnect you eventually get a good route, so over days and weeks people end up moving to the lower latency routes, which means the network becomes unbalanced so Zen kick a load of people off so they shuffle back up onto their other bits of the network, and the process repeats itself.

No this isn't customer focused at all, usually other ISPs where you pay more to obtain a business type connection like with IDNet, you would be told in advance of drops due to maintenance issues, but there is never anything about these drops in IDNets service status pages, they don't know about it either I suspect.  It's just rubbish Zen, and IDNet should not be claiming lowest latency network, consistency and reliability when their backhaul is nothing of the sort, and they obviously know it isn't as they didn't bother checking anything for me, just said that is how it is and nothing they can do.  Well they could always get a decent backhaul provider?

I'm gone in a couple of months.

[zappaDPJ]

So it's not just me then!

I wish they would do whatever it is they are doing a couple of hours later on when I'm not working on a remote server.