So I got fiber installed about 2 months ago now, when I first got it I was surprised my latency was so low compared to cable. About 20ms to Chicago server close by, after a internet outage across a lot of America a few weeks ago it was effecting my fiber services and my latency has never been the same. I get about 33-38ms latency now to Chicago server. When I use a rerouting program, it seems to almost fix the issue entirely. When I reroute my internet pathing (using basically a VPN but for gamers) it goes down to about 24-26ms latency. Obviously I don't want to pay long term for these rerouting services when my ISP routing used to be better than even these programs can provide. Any suggestions? Should I call my ISP? Will they even be of any help? That's what I'm worried about, I don't want to call them and they don't even know what I'm talking about.
[SOLVED] Latency higher than it used to be
- Thread starter Dylan_
- Start date
-
- Tags
- internet Latency issues
- Sep 29, 2020
- 1,468
- 136
- 890
Sorta off topic but I'm finding it's really hard to contact anyone these days. I think a lot of the difficulty due to understaffing due to covid. My ISP gives an expected peak hour speed. I check it with SpeedTest before I try to make a complaint.
The ISP does not guaranty any latency, in fact they try to not even deliver the bandwidth they promise. They will always tell you to test to their servers if you press the issue.
They likely won't/can't fix this. It is not likely a issue inside their network. Since you can "fix" it with a vpn it is even more likely it is not just their network.
The internet is actually a huge mess of different ISP connecting to each other in many different locations. Your traffic must pass between different ISP and they do not all connect in the same locations. The example I use is say you use ISP 1 and your neighbor uses ISP2. These ISP are really cheap and only want to pay for 1 connect point and they decided it should be in Australia. So now for your data to go across the street it must go all the way to Australia and back. Now lets say another neighbor buy a connection from both ISP and sets up a vpn service. Your traffic would go to his house via your ISP1. Pass through his vpn router and connect to the other neighbor using his connection to ISP2.
What likely happened is some fiber got cut and your ISP and other shifted to a backup path. This new path is likely longer than the original so you get higher latency. They will eventually fix the fiber and it will move back. Then it could be that the ISP change their connection to other ISP for financial or technical reasons.
Not much you can do about this type of problem.
You need to not actually worry about these numbers. 10ms will make no difference in a game. What is much more important is consistent latency. Games are designed to not give a advantage to someone who has low because they live near the server. The introduce artificial delays internal to the game to make everyone the same. They seem to do pretty good until you get over 100ms of difference.
They likely won't/can't fix this. It is not likely a issue inside their network. Since you can "fix" it with a vpn it is even more likely it is not just their network.
The internet is actually a huge mess of different ISP connecting to each other in many different locations. Your traffic must pass between different ISP and they do not all connect in the same locations. The example I use is say you use ISP 1 and your neighbor uses ISP2. These ISP are really cheap and only want to pay for 1 connect point and they decided it should be in Australia. So now for your data to go across the street it must go all the way to Australia and back. Now lets say another neighbor buy a connection from both ISP and sets up a vpn service. Your traffic would go to his house via your ISP1. Pass through his vpn router and connect to the other neighbor using his connection to ISP2.
What likely happened is some fiber got cut and your ISP and other shifted to a backup path. This new path is likely longer than the original so you get higher latency. They will eventually fix the fiber and it will move back. Then it could be that the ISP change their connection to other ISP for financial or technical reasons.
Not much you can do about this type of problem.
You need to not actually worry about these numbers. 10ms will make no difference in a game. What is much more important is consistent latency. Games are designed to not give a advantage to someone who has low because they live near the server. The introduce artificial delays internal to the game to make everyone the same. They seem to do pretty good until you get over 100ms of difference.
It almost feels like I'm being throttled. Even during the night, like 2am I am getting 50 upload speed! I had 930 upload when I first got fiber. I can tell the speed tests are correct because when I first got my fiber and uploaded videos it was like INSTANT upload, now it takes multiple minutes (same file size). There was a big outage in my area in Indiana and it's been terrible since. Latency I mean, I play Overwatch and the closest server on east is Chicago. On the Chicago server I used to get 20-24ms. After this giant outage I am getting terrible speeds and much higher latency 33-38ms. I looked at lagreport for my city before getting fiber and the average customer had about 8ms latency. Now when I look in the past 30 days the average is 15ms, obviously from personal experience I indeed have felt this jump in latency and seen it with my own eyes since I play fast paced shooters and always have my ms displayed.
I called my ISP and they do see problems but they are not sure what it is, they are going to call me this morning and get back to me with their results from the engineers.
Last edited:
At the moment, 290 download and 37 upload. When I first did a speed test I had 940 download and 930 upload, lol. The weird thing is when I ping my ISPs servers it shows me getting high 900+ speeds, but when I ping anything that isn't my ISPs towers the speeds are drastically worse. 290 download and 37 upload like I said (my real speeds). When I ping my ISP tower right now, it says I have 900 download and 900 upload. But those speeds aren't real, I can tell when downloading stuff and uploading youtube videos those speeds pinging to my ISP towers are completely fake because it took me literally 1 second to upload 500mb files to youtube when I first got my fiber, now when I upload a 500mb video it takes literally 5+ minutes. So speed tests NOT pinging my ISP are telling me my real speeds.
- Sep 29, 2020
- 1,468
- 136
- 890
The 290 down and 37 up is the problem I'd say. I pay for and get 50 down and 20 up and it doesn't give me a problem.
Maybe the Luxul is a problem. If you can, plug your PC straight in to the ethernet cable and redo speedtest.
Sometimes the problem can be related to which connection route is used by the internet eg https://www.mediacollege.com/internet/troubleshooter/traceroute.html
Maybe the Luxul is a problem. If you can, plug your PC straight in to the ethernet cable and redo speedtest.
Sometimes the problem can be related to which connection route is used by the internet eg https://www.mediacollege.com/internet/troubleshooter/traceroute.html
Basically I'm personally saying it's something messed up with their routing. When I do speed tests to my ISPs servers, I am getting gigabit speeds (around 900 down and 900 up). But as soon as I ping to a server that's not my ISP and only maybe 25 miles away from my ISP servers the speeds are drastically worse (wtf is the point of gigabit speeds if they don't work outside of your own ISP servers, remember I DID used to have gigabit speeds when I first got fiber and something changed one day). I am only getting like 40-70 upload and 250-600 download depending on the server. There's something wrong with the pathing my ISP is taking, that's the only thing I am assuming. I'm still waiting for a call back and it's 4pm..
Solution: none. My ISP called me, they had me do a tracert and they basically told me there's nothing they can do. Everything looks fine for the 3 first hops, then when my routing goes through other ISP lines, things change and are off. They told me other ISPs might be having problems and that's the cause of my issues, so basically there's nothing I can do. I'm getting cable speeds with gigabit internet, cool. Basically back on cable. I'll just have to wait it out basically and who knows if it'll ever get better... it's been nearly a month now like this.
- Sep 29, 2020
- 1,468
- 136
- 890
Sorry to hear that. Maybe one other thing you can try is to change the DNS that your ISP uses. eg https://www.hpe.com/us/en/insights/articles/get-faster-internet-with-better-dns-1909.html
DNS does not change the routing. The only way that works is if the same site name is mapped to different IP and that other IP happens to take a different path through the internet. It will be very hit and miss.
10ms of difference really is not worth worrying about. These type of cases are where it would be better if you didn't know because you can't actually detect it any real life use. The performance is much greater than many people get.
10ms of difference really is not worth worrying about. These type of cases are where it would be better if you didn't know because you can't actually detect it any real life use. The performance is much greater than many people get.
10ms isn't even a big deal. It's a big deal when I start also getting lag like tonight, my real speeds are so bad right now I have to use a VPN to change my pathing. I can't even watch 160p on my ISP route currently, I am getting like .1 download. Turning on a VPN I'm getting 150mbps (probably the max this VPN can get)
It's just purely a routing issue. Sometimes like magic my ping is back down by 10 again at some random time a week later, then few hours later back to 10 ping higher. Just idk man weird stuff going on with my ISP
Last edited:
You have to test a bit better. You are either getting very large ping spikes or packet loss. Although you have to be careful how you read the tool things like pingplotter should show you any hop that is causing a issue.
This really sounds like you are on a backup connection and it is being overloaded by traffic at times.
If you can actually get something fixed is another story. You hope it is inside your ISP network or at least where your ISP connects to another ISP.
Before everyone outsources data centers to hosting companies you used to buy direct internet connection from the largest tier 1 providers like level 3 or uunet. Although these companies have new names they still make up the vast majority of core internet. These tend to provide the most direct paths especially when you need connectivity to undersea fiber.
Only if you have big money can you get direct connections to these type of providers. The rest of us take what we can get. Where I used to live there was no wired option of any kind not even DSL. So I used to pay huge money for a crappy wireless connection. I too used VPN for similar issues in their network but what can you do when there is no other option for ISP.
This really sounds like you are on a backup connection and it is being overloaded by traffic at times.
If you can actually get something fixed is another story. You hope it is inside your ISP network or at least where your ISP connects to another ISP.
Before everyone outsources data centers to hosting companies you used to buy direct internet connection from the largest tier 1 providers like level 3 or uunet. Although these companies have new names they still make up the vast majority of core internet. These tend to provide the most direct paths especially when you need connectivity to undersea fiber.
Only if you have big money can you get direct connections to these type of providers. The rest of us take what we can get. Where I used to live there was no wired option of any kind not even DSL. So I used to pay huge money for a crappy wireless connection. I too used VPN for similar issues in their network but what can you do when there is no other option for ISP.
TRENDING THREADS
-
-
Question Seagate Ironwolf as single harddrive - ERC disabled?
- Started by Mumintroll
- Replies: 5
-
-
Question Looking for a Cybenetics report that Tom's Hardware referenced - EVGA SuperNova 650 P2
- Started by motoxnate
- Replies: 6
-
Question How to correctly identify and oragnize PSU cables with their respective PSUs
- Started by BlackOrangutan
- Replies: 6
-
Question 24 inches monitor FHD or QHD for home office and scaling dilemma
- Started by RyanBR
- Replies: 3
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram