Extreme packet loss

[Canadians4truth]

For the past two weeks I have been experiencing major packet loss,after many frustrating calls/online chats with Aliants less than helpful tech support I have taken it upon myself to find out "where" the issues have been happening.

 

I use a small but simple program to test my connection/traces called Pingplotter,it shows all of the relevant hops to a server I frequently game on,but the packet loss seems to be happening locally but degrades the entire connection to the server,so I have limited the hops to just 4 including my modem:1=modem

                                 2=loop0.69w.ba13.hlfx.ns.aliant.net

                                 3=te-0-1-0-0-82.cr01.hlfx.ns.aliant.net

                                 4=be5.bx01.nycm.ny.aliant.net

 

I'm getting anywheres from 10 percent up to 100 percent packet loss at a time.

Hoping to be able to somehow upload a few screenshots here.

[Canadians4truth]

Screenshots

[Pgoodwin1]

As an electrical engineer and not a communications expert, generally, when signals degrade, the source driver has degraded and can't properly drive the load impedance. for transmission lines the impedance is capacitance and the farther along the wires you go, the more capacitance is presented to the driver. If the load nodes are terminated properly (which in this case I'd assume they were) the characteristic impedance of the transmission line presents a low resistive impedance and the capacitance of the wires is damped out. The source driver may be degraded enough that it can't drive the low impedance load. It's not bad enough that it's not working, but not working well enough to provide the right signal wave shape, amplitude, timing, and the result is distortion and low signal to noise ratio.

There is another possibility that the driver amplitude is out of calibration on the high side. If the signal is too big, it can also cause distortion and data loss.

Have your ISP send a tech out to measure the signal integrity coming out of your house. If you're having consistent problems, the ISP should be able to identify them - many times remotely from their facility. If you call enough times, they should elevate the issue, and make sure their equip,net is operating normally. They should send a real technician out to verify the operation of their gear. And if your Internet connection isn't working properly, they should do that at their expense if there's reason to believe that their hardware is at fault.

[Canadians4truth]

Thanks PGoodwin1,

 

Yeah that was a large part of the many conversations I had with them so far.Right now I have it narrowed down to their hardware,where is another issue altogether.I have had them test the lines from within the building,from their end and I have swapped out the modem,network card and cables.The C/O is only about 1.5km up the road from me,so it could be there that the problem starts.I'm at the point with this that I'm about to drop them as a service provider,we spend about $200 plus per month (Home phone,internet and 2 cell phones) their lack of customer service it almost putrid

[Pgoodwin1]

Yeah. That's frustrating. I've had several occasion over the last 10 years where the Time Warner amps out at the street were out of calibration. It took a few calls to them but they did finally send techs out and solved the problem each time. Twice the signals were too low, and once they were too high. Temperatures outside play havoc with the equipment. I'm actually amazed that they work and last as long as they do.

I designed electronics for jet engines before I retired. We had to make the stuff work from -65 F to over 180 F cooling fuel and over 250 F air. It takes pretty expensive hardware to do even the temperature extremes that the ISPs see in their boxes in the heat of summer and the cold of winter.

[Canadians4truth]

Well,had another tech in today.We swapped out some cables,checked for corrosion on some of the lines in the building (found very little) and he ran more tests,changed a wall plug/jack and still could not resolve the problem.From the C/O up the road he changed a few things (more cables and switched the ports)

As of right now I'm still without a solution and "tech support" is no help at all.We're now thinking the problem lays further from me and further from the C/O leading to it...we shall see.

[tommie gorman]

We had to make the stuff work from -65 F to over 180 F cooling fuel and over 250 F air. It takes pretty expensive hardware to do even the temperature extremes that the ISPs see in their boxes in the heat of summer and the cold of winter.

Maybe solar powered heaters and air conditioners? 

[Pgoodwin1]

It's hard to get enough power from the solar to overcome the ambient temperature without having gigantic solar panels, plus solar panels are extremely expensive, as are the air conditioners.

The best solution would be small cooling systems like they have in computers. But the cooling fluid reservoir would have to be buried in the ground, deep enough to be where it's 55 deg F all year. But then you'd need pumps to get the cooling fluid from down there, through some cooling jacket/radiator in the box where the electronics are.

The simplest solution is to use parts rated from -40C to 85C, which cost more than the typical consumer electronic parts that are 0C to 70C rated. It's still tough to make it reliable though even with the better parts, as the changing temperature every day temperature cycles all the solder joints, and eventually they fail mechanically

[Canadians4truth]

It seems that my packetloss issues have been resolved.I do not know where or why yet as my ISP will not release any of their findings to me,that could be that they hate to admit that a customer was right all along.If any one of you are like me,you certainly don't like to  be treated as if you're a "dummy" I was tired of the smoke and mirrors treatment and it did get quite frustrating to say the least.