[SOLVED] Telus fibre internet 2nd hop showing a "worst" of over 4,000 regularly on WinMTR. Games, streams, etc routinely pause/lag. VPN fixes lag spikes.

[mikeplowright]

I moved into a new house and signed up for my own internet with the same ISP as my previous place, but opted for faster speed. My internet has been constantly having big lag spikes whenever a constant connection is needed (i.e when live streaming, when watching streams, when gaming).

I have 750/750 fiber internet through Telus in Canada. The download speeds on speed test always show good results but the actual performance has been horrible. Running WinMTR multiple times for extended periods showed very little to no packet loss, and every hop except for the 2nd seemed completely fine.



However, the 2nd hop very clearly portrays my problem - a solid average speed with spikes of 4 second+ response time.



Interestingly, if I switch on a VPN and have a location close to my place selected for a server, the WinMTR shows no big spikes in ms though it does result in slower overall speeds. However, they are consistent speeds allowing me to actually watch streams, stream myself, and play games which are the big 3 things for my computer. Our Wi-Fi throughout the house is also quite slow, but that is a less important issue than my PC as I'm.. well.. a bloody gamer that needs to game, yo!



What could be the problem here and how can this be resolved? At this point, it is unusable for me without a VPN but a VPN does not allow me to unlock the speeds I am paying for and want.

 

[bill001g]

You are going to have to do more careful testing. It likely is in a hand off between your ISP and the game company ISP. It likely means the site you tested does not have the same path. This is made even more likely if vpn fixes. it.

In many ways I really wish tools like winmtr did not exist. Too many people go red is bad so it must be my problem.

Problems that only occur on intermediate nodes mean nothing. It is generally something like the node is too busy passing actual traffic to bother with your test traffic.

A example would be say the traffic reporters say there is a truck blocking a intersection that you need to pass to get to work. You drive to work and are not delayed. Even after you get to work they still say there is a problem. This means this data about a intermediate point in your trip is not really valid.

To mean something a problem at some node must affect all nodes past it.

 

[mikeplowright]

It likely is in a hand off between your ISP and the game company ISP. It likely means the site you tested does not have the same path. This is made even more likely if vpn fixes. it.

In many ways I really wish tools like winmtr did not exist. Too many people go red is bad so it must be my problem.

Problems that only occur on intermediate nodes mean nothing. It is generally something like the node is too busy passing actual traffic to bother with your test traffic.

A example would be say the traffic reporters say there is a truck blocking a intersection that you need to pass to get to work. You drive to work and are not delayed. Even after you get to work they still say there is a problem. This means this data about a intermediate point in your trip is not really valid.

To mean something a problem at some node must affect all nodes past it.

It isn't just a single game that has the lag issue, nor is it just games. It's basically everything. My ISP is BGP directly with the game company I play. WinMTR was not the first thing I tried to test, it was just the first one that actually showed data that reflected my problem. I've tried many speed tests, traceroutes.. but that's about the extend of my know-how which is what led me to here. I really don't feel like I should have to use a VPN to speed up my internet. It sure feels like the truck is delaying my trip to work when I'm trying to use this internet without a VPN

I just did a pathping and it showed 3 points of 100% packet loss on hops 3,4, and 12.

 

[bill001g]

Again if you get 100% loss in hop 3 then no data can ever get past that hop. How do explain that it can see hop 4 when all traffic is being lost in hop 3.

A valid problem would show say 5% loss in some hop and continue all the way to the and could get worse if other hops had problems.

 

[mikeplowright]

Again if you get 100% loss in hop 3 then no data can ever get past that hop. How do explain that it can see hop 4 when all traffic is being lost in hop 3.

A valid problem would show say 5% loss in some hop and continue all the way to the and could get worse if other hops had problems.

The data could never get past that hop while it's showing 100% loss, but these issues are spikey so I assume it isn't ALWAYS at that loss. I'm just tryin gto relay the information that I see when I try these things. The internet, It runs fine for 20-30 seconds at a time and then there is a massive drop off for 5-6 seconds at a time resulting in constant lag spikes/buffering/etc until I turn the VPN on. Then those problems go away and the tests show no loss or big spikes in ms from hop to hop.

It, thus far, can't really be explained and I am trying to find an explanation, but it also can't be called "not a problem" when the performance of the internet is extremely poor and these tests are showing abnormalities. There is definitely a problem, I just don't know what it is. But I've had this ISP before using their copper wire on 75mb internet and there was never an issue. When I switched to fiber on 750/750, the issue began. It has to be a network thing on their end.

You mentioned above to do some more careful testing, do you have any suggestions? I'm really just trying to solve this as I've never had inconsistent internet before and it is veeery frustrating.

 

[bill001g]

The best test is to not use fancy tools. Just open a bunch of cmd windows and let constant ping run to some hops in the trace. Your goal is to find some pattern.

Then again this is mostly a waste of time. The ISP is going to say we don't promise you anything in regard to latency. In addition they will point out that they actually good latency to THEIR network unless you can show issue in hop2.

This would have to be some rare case where you could find one of their core routers that was having some issue that they did not know about. They would gladly fix this. They likely have lots of monitoring data already and would have seen issues. Your ISP actually has a looking glass site so they are not dummies. That site may actually help you find a problem since you can run ping/trace from their routers.

 

[mikeplowright]

The best test is to not use fancy tools. Just open a bunch of cmd windows and let constant ping run to some hops in the trace. Your goal is to find some pattern.

Then again this is mostly a waste of time. The ISP is going to say we don't promise you anything in regard to latency. In addition they will point out that they actually good latency to THEIR network unless you can show issue in hop2.

This would have to be some rare case where you could find one of their core routers that was having some issue that they did not know about. They would gladly fix this. They likely have lots of monitoring data already and would have seen issues. Your ISP actually has a looking glass site so they are not dummies. That site may actually help you find a problem since you can run ping/trace from their routers.

Appreciate your time, bill!