RE: Constant packet loss and ping variance when accessing any Internet service via Ethernet or WiFi

[Double000]

Good afternoon, I am a Full Fibre customer and for approximately 3 weeks now I have been having frequent packet loss and ping variance when I access the Internet through any of my computers, the problem exists regardless of whether the devices are connected by Ethernet or WiFi. Tests that I performed revealed to me that the issue was not on my network.

I contacted TalkTalk technical chat support and explained the issue and my findings. I expressed to the agent that the problem is not likely to be the router based on the aforementioned but nevertheless I accepted his solution of a new router and so proceeded to order me a new TalkTalk router.

The router arrived on 17/06/2023 and I installed it but the packet loss and ping variance problem was still present. I explained this to the TalkTalk technical chat support agent on that same day and showed them the data and graphs to illustrate the issue to them but the agent did not recognise the issue and was not able to help me further other than telling me to wait for one day for my line quality to settle.

To me that made no sense considering the problem looked exactly the same as before the new router was installed so naturally one would think that the issue is not caused by the router and would move on to diagnosing the next component such as the ONT box or suggest a BT Openreach engineer visit to analyse the line quality from the exchange or my router point but this is not the case, so I wait for one day.

One day passes and the problem remains, no different exactly the same.

I am open to any suggestions from anybody but as expressed I don’t think this is likely to be an issue that can be solved by the average domestic user because all of the components have been changed right down to the mains adapters except for the ONT/fiber box itself.

Again, the ping variance and packet loss does not occur when pinging networking nodes on my network, only when trying to send data to a networking node on the Internet and this is constant there is no downtime.

I was told that posting my issue to the forum may allow for TalkTalk support staff to raise the problem further so I am asking for support staff to please take the information on board and investigate this.

I tried to convey all this to the TalkTalk technical support chat agents but either they don’t understand the information I provided and so cannot understand the problem or they don’t have the tools to analyse packet loss and ping variance and so cannot take analysis further.

Given the following I am starting to believe the former over the latter as one agent (the one that told me to wait and see) even told me that this high frequency of packet loss and ping variance was not a fault and that I should talk to the service owners of my game or the website owners to resolve the packet loss issue despite the fact that I had expressed to the agent that the packet loss is not random and is occurring to every website or server I access. It doesn’t matter if I ping youtube.com, bbc.co.uk or play a game of Battlefield 4 the issue is there. The reason why it is more notable in some services over others is because the packet loss though frequent is not quantifiable in megabytes for most basic services and services like Youtube are not as time critical as online games.

I have attached PDF print outs of: 2 packet loss tests performed on https://devicechecker.org/packet-lost-test/ , 2 tests performed on https://speed.cloudflare.com/ and 2 command ping lists based on my computer pinging to google.co.uk and bbc.co.uk to help express the issue.

I kept the ping test from https://devicechecker.org/packet-lost-test/ intentionally small so the result graph could be better seen. Using a test with more packets or changing the size of the packets produces the same result.

Looking at some of the data one could easily assume random packet loss at first glance but given what we can see from the report on https://devicechecker.org/packet-lost-test/, the command ping test and https://speed.cloudflare.com/ the packet loss test is being executed quickly and out of sync with the interval where packets can be sent hence the variance in packet loss. So in some cases I am executing the packet loss test at the tail end of when packets can be sent successfully in other cases at mid point and in other cases at the beginning or just before packets can be sent. At least this is my thinking based on the information available.

My intuition tells me that either there is a fault with a networking device external of my address or my packets of data are being routed through an already highly congested area and that the networking devices that handle this area are overloaded and as such are delaying packets beyond their TTL or dropping packets entirely.

Please, if an engineer could look into this I would be very grateful.

Thank you

[Chris-TalkTalk]

Hi Double000,

Apologies for the delay, I'll chase this up and let you know when I have an update

Chris

[Gliwmaeden2]

I'll re-escalate this thread for you, @Double000.

[Double000]

Chris, it has been 2 weeks since you have passed on my problem to the Future Fibre team and I have heard nothing at all from anyone since.

How long exactly am I supposed to wait for a solution?

[Chris-TalkTalk]

OK thanks. I'll pass this over to our Future Fibre team now

Thanks

Chris

[Double000]

Just an update – I got the idea into my head to borrow my friends laptop computers and connect them one at a time via Ethernet directly to the ONT much like I did with my laptop in earlier posts but unlike earlier I get the same packet loss that I had seen when the router is connected to the ONT.

It seems that the ONT when paired with the Ethernet network adapter in my laptop or my other computers is able to work without error, its reason specifically for working here is unknown but all my computers do have Ethernet adapters that are all related to a similar chipset. My friends laptop computers use a completely different Ethernet network adapter chipset than my computers.

I also tried connecting the ONT directly to a TP-Link powerline device to see if the result is any better and again the same issue can be observed as well as serious stability issues (I wasn't able to maintain Internet connectivity with this configuration).

This coincidence in network hardware had unfortunately led us down a perplexing road; what at first seemed to be a result which made no sense now is clearly obvious though the reasons to exactly why are not.

Despite this the important thing to note is that I can now reliably show the fault by making an Ethernet connection directly to the ONT without the router being connected providing I use my friends laptops instead of my own computers and I can do something similar when I connect my powerline kit directly to the ONT aswell.

This means that the fault is with the ONT. Some Ethernet networking adapters can coax it into functioning, others cannot.

[Double000]

I think it was CityFibre. I had a friend who said he had an Openreach engineer for one reason or another and so I must of gotten them mixed up.

[Chris-TalkTalk]

Sorry but just to confirm, you mentioned Openreach earlier but are you on a City Fibre circuit?

Chris

[Chris-TalkTalk]

It's not really been a problem so far as far as I'm aware and I think it's pretty much standard practice. The Future Fibre team generally run through diagnosics and they can then send an engineer if required. It would probably be up to the engineer to decide if a new ONT is required

Chris

[Double000]

That is a serious problem if there is an ONT fault as you should have the ability to authorise an order of an ONT much like you do with routers.

Just to confirm what exactly can I expect by you passing this on to the Future Fibre team. That is do they have ability to arrange an engineer visit to replace the ONT or are they just going to do a bandwidth test?

Because if they just do a bandwidth test you are not going to see any problems.

[Chris-TalkTalk]

I'm sorry, we don't send ONTs, we would have to arrange an engineer visit, the engineer would then decide if a replacement ONT is required

Chris

[Double000]

With the greatest of respect Chris. We have already established that there is something odd happening and that it has something to do with the ONT being paired up with the router and we have tried enough routers to know that it is not the router. We know that the ONT is the only thing that is left; it might look fine but it is not working correctly if it only works when you connect it to a computer.

I don’t think I am asking too much here but can you just send me an ONT please?

[Chris-TalkTalk]

Apologies for any confusion, I just really needed to know what specific problems you are experiencing rather than a general description of what issues packet loss can cause. I'll pass this over to our Future Fibre team and ask them to take a look. I'll let you know when I receive an update or they may contact your directly 

Thanks

Chris

[Double000]

This seems unnecessary as technicians should be aware of how packet loss can influence games but I will explain anyway.

When playing online games that are fast paced such as a first person shooter the game requires a constant update of player position, selected weapons and vehicles in use as well as other attributes that describe the state of the those assets.

Look at this from the most basic attribute player position.

If I am player A and I want to shoot player B who is running in a straight line from the left side of the screen to the right side of the screen then my computer needs to receive data that describes where he is at each point. If I do not receive data describing where he is then the game will not be able to plot his next movement.

In some games this problem can look like someone running on the spot but keep in mind player B is still moving as Player B is still sending his position to Player A. Player A simply hasn’t received it because he has packet loss.

Eventually player A receives more data on player B’s new position but remember player B was always moving so player A now receiving this new information and now sees player B move instantly from running on the spot to now running from the new position.

Player A cannot track player B’s position to shoot properly because player B's trajectory is not smooth because the data that relates to his movement is either lost or not being delivered on time.

That is a very basic scenario of how packet loss can cause problems. Keep in mind that these problems can manifest in other issues such as seeing the wrong animation, getting the wrong health report and a range of other issues.

The issue I am experiencing at the least is players teleporting from one location of the screen to the other.

[Chris-TalkTalk]

Could you just tell me how it's affecting gaming. It's just that I'll need to pass this to our Future fibre team and they'll want to know what specific problems you are experiencing with your service

Chris

[Double000]

Yes but please do not make the mistake of thinking that it is specific to a game or service.

The issue is occurring in everything that involves sending data over the Internet and it only started occurring over the last 3 or 4 weeks so it was not always like this.

As mentioned it does not matter if I am playing a game, using FTP or sending ping requests to bbc.co.uk the problem is very evident.

[Chris-TalkTalk]

So just to confirm, you are experiencing performance issues when gaming?

Chris

[Double000]

No, watching Youtube videos or accessing websites does not reveal any issues but as expressed in earlier comments those are non-time critical examples and will further work to buffer information before displaying it to help deal with late or loss packets. Providing the packet loss is not in Megabytes at a time I would never see a problem with watching Youtube or accessing a website.

Aside from the packet loss test software the issue will also be visible though in the rendering of online games as these are time critical and as mentioned again will also be represented using their network checking software.

[Chris-TalkTalk]

Thanks. Are you experiencing any problems with your service, slow webpages, buffering when stream or pixelation etc?

Chris

[Double000]

Yes the problem persists, this was also done on router 1 and router 2.

[Chris-TalkTalk]

Thanks for retesting. If you run the tests on one device with all other devices disconnected from the router (wired and wireless) do you still experience the problem?

Chris