0.15 Mbps (day) to 102.9 Mbps (overnight) - Major fluctuations and high packet loss - Suggestions?

[TCas125]

Hello,

 

I've been having some major issues with my internet for the past few months, between regular drops, large packet loss, much lower speeds, multiple hour downtimes, etc. They actually reattached the wire to my house a few months ago, as well as installed a new node (i think?) in the area - something that was supposed to increase the bandwidth in the area. The issues started a few months back when they upgraded the node, but my ISP has since been taken over by another company. I'm on a 100/10 plan. 

 

Attached are all of my testmy.net speed test results over the past 24+ hours. They range from a min of 0.15 Mbps, median of 3.51 Mbps, and max of 102.9 Mbps. The only time it was above 5 Mbps was from midnight until 8 AM. I'm currently getting ~1 Mbps on testmy.net, 90+ Mbps on speedtest, and ~3-5 Mbps on fast.com . Most other speedtests all show perfect numbers when my internet is being unusable - but occasionally even speedtest will dip down to 10 Mbps. I understand testmy.net is the most accurate representation, and my browsing experience confirms that. I consistently have trouble loading images, videos, and haven't been able to watch a twitch stream without buffering in the past 2 months (unless I set it to 360p...and even then I continue to have issues - pingplotter shows 100% PL at the final destination - maybe its just blocked there). 

 

Testmy.net speed test results

https://testmy.net/stats/?t=u&l=250&q=TCas125

 

I use the free version of PingPlotter and consistently have 15-20% packet loss. 

 

 

My MTU is set to 1500, turned off QoS, hardwired to router. Router is separate device than modem. DNS is set to 8.8.8.8. 

 

Latency test:

https://testmy.net/latency?gID=pxappqtqpv

 

Any thoughts or suggestions based on the data? I can only come up with peering, congestion, routing, etc... maybe signal strength/noise? I can't see signal strength on my router. I have consistent (bad) results on other devices as well. I've called the support line probably 20 times in the past month and spent hours on hold; and each time it's the same old they're working on the signal in the area, getting everything transferred over, will be done by the end of this week - yet it continues to get worse.

 

Thanks!

[Sean]

From what I can see, the issue does not appear to be with your router and line to the ISP.  Going by your PingPlotter graph, the packet loss does not start until the 10th hop.  This clearly indicates a peering issue at their end as the last IP address before drops packets is an internal IP address, i.e. 172.16.x.x is a private address range and the next IP address showing the massive packet loss is on the public Internet. 

 

When you try Speedtest.net, try some other servers in a few different states to see if it still maxes out your connection.  It is very likely that it and many other speed tests (which are actually Ookla under a custom skin) are choosing a server within your ISP, in which case your speed test traffic is not even reaching the Internet. 

 

If the Speedtest gives fast results on other servers, then there is also a very good possibility that the ISP is giving special treatment to port 8080, a TCP port that Ookla connects to its servers over.  Most web traffic, including video streaming goes over port 443 (SSL) or http port 80. In this case, you may be able to exploit this by running a VPN connection over port 8080.  For example, you could try getting a free 10GB account with the Hide Me VPN provider, go into settings and choose IKEv2 for the protocol, then set the port # to 8080.  Then check if TestMy performs any faster over the VPN connection:

 

[xs1]

@TCas125

"My MTU is set to 1500, turned off QoS, hardwired to router. Router is separate device than modem. DNS is set to 8.8.8.8. 

Latency test:

https://testmy.net/latency?gID=pxappqtqpv"

 

 

I see what your ping plotter is saying, but what's up with the latency results?? Other than to google and amazon, your latency is outrageous just about every where else!  I almost wonder if you have a bum splitter somewhere causing all your irrationalities. 

Here's a latency test i just took.. 

https://testmy.net/latency?gID=oziuorfhyt

 

Edited September 23, 2020 by xs1

[TCas125]

Hey Guys - I appreciate the feedback and suggestions. I'll definitely try the VPN trick if I continue having issues. Around a week ago I started having much better results, and apart from a few hiccups it has been relatively steady and around 80 Mbps. I had them schedule a technician to come out (they didnt come to my house like I thought they would... but instead must have came and done work in the area / development). We called and were told they had to adjust an amplifier that was impacting about 15 customers, so I'm guessing our entire development. Don't have much more info other than that - but it is substantially better than it has been for the past few months. This is the latency test I just took https://testmy.net/latency?gID=beug361nvs, which now looks a whole lot better. There may have been some other issues they fixed as well, but ultimately nothing was changed at my specific location. PingPlotter is also showing very minimal packet loss, if any at all. I'm hopeful it is smooth sailing now, but I will continue to monitor and report back with any other information that may be helpful to others. Thanks!!

[xs1]

@TCas125

 

That's look much better   If you have any questions let us know!