Gigafast 900 - Unusable in the evenings

[James3793]

I am wondering if anyone can help me or give me any advice on how to approach VF with my issue.

I have had Gigafast 900 since December last year and its been amazing until recently. I usually get 900 up and down and its been pretty flawless for gaming. 

Last week I noticed something was not right while I was gaming so ran a ping test and found an issue. I am getting around 15ms but every 3 seconds or so, huge spikes of 300-500ms and lots of jitter on the line. I am not getting this issue at all during the day when I am working from home.

Yesterday I noticed I was being routed to Edinburgh which is obviously a little strange, I reset my router and now I am being routed to Birmingham which I thought would fix the issue but tonight, the ping spikes are still going on.

Last night the internet was pretty much unusable.

I ran tracer route and got the following results.

tart: 2023-08-25T01:14:08+0500

HOST: DNSChecker.org                                               Loss%   Snt   Last   Avg  Best  Wrst StDev

  1.|-- ???                                                          100.0     3    0.0   0.0   0.0   0.0   0.0

  2.|-- 10.74.194.222                                                 0.0%     3    0.9   7.2   0.9  19.6  10.7

  3.|-- 138.197.248.242                                               0.0%     3    1.2   1.4   1.2   1.7   0.3

  4.|-- 138.197.248.14                                                0.0%     3    0.7   0.9   0.7   1.0   0.2

  5.|-- nyk-b11-link.ip.twelve99.net (62.115.45.5)                    0.0%     3    1.7   1.6   1.5   1.7   0.1

  6.|-- nyk-bb1-link.ip.twelve99.net (62.115.112.68)                  0.0%     3    1.9   1.9   1.7   2.1   0.2

  7.|-- ewr-b3-link.ip.twelve99.net (62.115.140.191)                  0.0%     3    1.9   2.2   1.9   2.5   0.3

  8.|-- cablewireless-ic-379002.ip.twelve99-cust.net (62.115.149.41)  0.0%     3    2.3   2.8   2.3   3.4   0.6

  9.|-- ae3-xcr1.slo.cw.net (195.2.28.170)                            0.0%     3   73.4  73.5  73.4  73.5   0.1

 10.|-- cust-gw-ae15-100-xcr1.slo.cw.net (195.2.2.218)                0.0%     3   74.4  74.5  74.3  74.7   0.2

 11.|-- ???                                                          100.0     3    0.0   0.0   0.0   0.0   0.0

[Ripshod]

There's no problem with those times - they're actually pretty good. Are you getting bad ping times from the game server right now? Could be the game servers are under heavy use right now.

I don't even need to query your gateway because it's clearly pretty close to you.

[Ripshod]

I queried your gateway anyway. It's in Bracknell.

[James3793]

I’m actually not gaming tonight and wasn’t running the tests while gaming. 

my gateway seems to have moved around a bit. It was up north in Scotland, then Birmingham but today it’s definitely closer.

is there a preferred tool for monitoring ping and showing results? I was using Netmeter but I also have ping plotter. 

If I experience the issue tomorrow evening I’ll try and record a video and upload it to YouTube so you can video it.

[Ripshod]

Ping Plotter would be the choice. When testing I always ping to bbc.com. As they have multiple collocated servers you'll connect to the closest one from your gateway.

I've also been doing the gateway shuffle. I've just been moved back to my local one in Leeds after months on Edinburgh. 

[James3793]

If things are playing up tonight I’ll record ping plotter doing it’s thing and share a link.

rebooting my router seems to change my gateway for some reason. Right now it’s the closest it’s been to my location. Does anyone know why the gateway stuff is happening out of curiosity?

[Ripshod]

Vodafone call it "load balancing", but what we call it can't be said on a public forum 😈

Let's just say the algorithm needs a little tweaking. 

[James3793]

Roger that 😂

[clint_flick]

Hi

Your gateway is your router, 192.168.1.1.

Your DNS may change, and your PoP Point of Presence.

Where you look up your gaming site address, and where Vodafone let you out onto the internet.

Unfortunately traffic shaping may be the problem.

[Ripshod]

@clint_flick Your gateway, also called your PoP is the first IP outside of your local network which in your case is 84.65.192.1 - aka Birmingham.

Best to use bbc.com, as the .co.uk TLD will be disappearing. 

[Jayach]

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@Ripshod wrote:

Best to use bbc.com, as the .co.uk TLD will be disappearing. 

---

I did not know that. I have been using the .co.uk as at one time the .com domain used to take you to the USA.

Really confused me the first time I tried it.