Annoying packet loss otherwise very good

[sinong]

I know everything is OK in UK but I occasionally need to access other websites. See the packet loss, very annoying, absolutely unacceptable. Why EE virgin and other ISPs don't have this issue? Will go back to EE even if they are greedy but they do provide stable service.

I believe 90% people will be satisfied but unfortunately I'm in 10%, I need to access some website abroad.

[TJ]

@sinong We're sorry to hear you're having problems accessing some websites. You should be able to access any websites from around the world as long as they're within our safety standards. What are your current content controls set to?

When you first connect to the internet, you’ll be prompted to set up content controls. You’ll need to either choose a profile, or disable the content control feature, before you can browse or access any services from the internet. After your first connection, you can change your settings by logging into My Vodafone To do this, you’ll need your username and password, which should have been emailed to you.

In My Vodafone, choose Broadband service, then go to content controls to set up and manage your profile. If you have problems setting up your content controls, call us on 08080 034515 or contact our Broadband Live Chat team. You can also discuss your packet loss with the team and they'll be happy to run diagnostics on your line, to see if they can find any issues.

Let us know how you get on and pop back to us if you've got any further questions.

[sinong]

Thanks for your reply. Actually I have disscussed with your support and the problem is escalated to the engineers. The problem is not content control, as packet is lower level network traffice. I'm using a cisco 877va roter and have checked the line status is excellent. The max download/upload speed matches the description when tested with ookla. However as other people on this board see, sometimes packets are dropped, this is especailly worse when busy. For example, in the morning, the route to 202.96.209.5 has around 1% packet loss while in the afternoon the rates increase to over 10%, and last night it was almost unusable, packet loss over 90%. I found the route is different from other ISPs, I asked my friends to check BT, talktalk, virgin, also I checked in my company, the latency is much smaller and packet loss is almost none. As I swictched from EE on the same day and I noticed a very big difference.

Will keep an eye on it. Today it seems better, latency is around 400ms, as long as the packet loss is below 5% for most of the time I can accept that.

[sinong]

I'm too optimistic. Just after my reply, the packet loss go crazy. I guess some traffic control is applied. 

[TJ]

@sinong Thank you for getting back to us, sorry to hear your packet loss is still up and down. Please keep us updated and let us know what the engineers advise when you've heard from them.

[sinong]

I don't know if anything is changed but today it seems excellent! My traffic to 202.96.209.5 is still routed via 195.2.14.70 (vodafone backbone in US) but today the latency decreased to 300ms and there's no packet loss!

I'll keep an eye on it for a few days. Shall be very happy if this gets resolved! 

[sinong]

The packet loss started again this morning. Now nearly 10% i believe the router in the core network is overloaded. I have a site to site VPN, the vpn packets have less packet loss rate, but the ping(icmp echo) packets is higher. Guess some traffic control policy is used in the core network. See the results, all tested at the same time:

Ping statistics for 192.168.0.2:
Packets: Sent = 151, Received = 136, Lost = 15 (9% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 422ms, Maximum = 792ms, Average = 446ms

Ping statistics for 101.229.27.xxx:
Packets: Sent = 125, Received = 105, Lost = 20 (16% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 412ms, Maximum = 797ms, Average = 437ms

This is the only problem disappoting at the moment but I think it could take long to resolve.

[TJ]

@sinong So we can pass this along to our Broadband team, I've sent you a private message with details on how to get in touch.

[Soofla]

The bottom line really is that you should be getting ZERO packet-loss. There really isn't any acceptable level and even low 1% or 2% loss can result in serious browsing problems.

Keep pushing on this as it does possibly indicate a line fault or faulty router. I can run a continous ping against any major server in the UK and if I see a single packet drop I'll get worried - really shouldn't see them on today's connections.

[DJRenegade]

I have been complaining about this since September 2017 and NOTHING has been done about it.

Terrible broadband, useless support.

They run so called "tests" from their end and see nothibg so assume im either lying or just stupid. Despite having evidence of packet loss.

For me its ruining my TV, we use onlibe services through amazon TV and NowTV. The packet loss makes these services totally unusable at peak times.

The forum staff just link you generic bad advice, or pm you to contact the same useless support teams. And the support teams start asking you to do speedtests and to try the same scripted list of troubleshooting that havent worked the last 20 times you tried.

I have started looking at legal ways out of my contract, as i am currently being sold a service that is NOT fit for purpose and in 4 months I havent recieved a single bit of useful support. I get better internet by tethering my mobile and using that.