Incredibly bad ping.

[Ranek]

Hey everyone

My family has been signed up to virgin for well over 5 years. It started off relatively decent, I can remember a few years ago while using a 1mb connection we used to recieve a ping of around 50ms. Over the years Virgin has been increasing our connection speed, first to 2mb, and now to 8mb. Even though we can't recieve the full amount in our area we never had any problems, so didn't complain.

But over the last year we've been having terrible problems with the ping on online game servers. Doing a speedtest reveals that we are getting a fairly decent download speed for our area. Between 1.5 - 2.5Mb/s. But the latency after about 2pm in the afternoon, until about 11pm (all day on weekends), can range between 150-400ms. This makes online games totally unplayable, and seems to delay the opening of web pages and videos.

After contacting virgin via there online service, I was told that this was their fault, and it was high. But there is nothing they can do about it?! Is this correct?

The reason i'm asking is because we used to recieve a lower ping while using 56k, but now the connection is supposed to be 8Mb its almost 10 times worse. Its now become such an irritation that i'm contimplating switching to another ISP if its not fixed. But I would like to know if there is anything I can do before taking that step.

Can anyone offer any ideas? Is it just virgin or could it be a router fault? Or a problem with our cables?

Thanks

Chris

[AbyssUnderground]

can you post a ping to bbc.co.uk?

In command prompt, use: ping bbc.co.uk -n 10

[Ranek]

C:\Documents and Settings\Chris>ping bbc.co.uk -n 10

Pinging bbc.co.uk [212.58.254.252] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 212.58.254.252: bytes=32 time=309ms TTL=246
Reply from 212.58.254.252: bytes=32 time=430ms TTL=246
Reply from 212.58.254.252: bytes=32 time=431ms TTL=246
Reply from 212.58.254.252: bytes=32 time=372ms TTL=246
Reply from 212.58.254.252: bytes=32 time=416ms TTL=246
Request timed out.
Reply from 212.58.254.252: bytes=32 time=305ms TTL=246
Reply from 212.58.254.252: bytes=32 time=439ms TTL=246
Reply from 212.58.254.252: bytes=32 time=349ms TTL=246
Reply from 212.58.254.252: bytes=32 time=372ms TTL=246

Ping statistics for 212.58.254.252:
Packets: Sent = 10, Received = 9, Lost = 1 (10% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 305ms, Maximum = 439ms, Average = 380ms

Its particularly bad at the moment.

[ro53ben]

For comparison, my Virgin 50meg connection:

Pinging bbc.co.uk [212.58.254.252] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 212.58.254.252: bytes=32 time=9ms TTL=246
Reply from 212.58.254.252: bytes=32 time=12ms TTL=246
Reply from 212.58.254.252: bytes=32 time=9ms TTL=246
Reply from 212.58.254.252: bytes=32 time=14ms TTL=246
Reply from 212.58.254.252: bytes=32 time=13ms TTL=246
Reply from 212.58.254.252: bytes=32 time=12ms TTL=246
Reply from 212.58.254.252: bytes=32 time=13ms TTL=246
Reply from 212.58.254.252: bytes=32 time=12ms TTL=246
Reply from 212.58.254.252: bytes=32 time=11ms TTL=246
Reply from 212.58.254.252: bytes=32 time=10ms TTL=246

Ping statistics for 212.58.254.252:
Packets: Sent = 10, Received = 10, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 9ms, Maximum = 14ms, Average = 11ms

Clearly something wrong with yours, you shouldn't be dropping any packets.

[AbyssUnderground]

Do a tracert to bbc.co.uk and post that here.

tracert bbc.co.uk

This will show where the potential problem is.

[Ranek]

Tracing route to bbc.co.uk [212.58.254.252]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 1 ms 1 ms * www.routerlogin.com [192.168.1.1]
2 32 ms 30 ms 30 ms watf-bam-1.network.virginmedia.net [194.145.148.
86]
3 31 ms 30 ms 30 ms watf-t3core-1a-ge-111-0.network.virginmedia.net
[80.3.1.13]
4 34 ms 31 ms 33 ms bre-bb-a-ge-320-0.network.virginmedia.net [212.4
3.162.138]
5 33 ms 39 ms 33 ms gfd-bb-b-so-120-0.network.virginmedia.net [213.1
05.172.150]
6 33 ms 35 ms 33 ms redb-ic-1-as0-0.network.virginmedia.net [62.253.
185.78]
7 35 ms 35 ms 35 ms 212.58.239.249
8 34 ms 35 ms 37 ms 212.58.238.133
9 36 ms 36 ms 38 ms rdirslb0.thdo.bbc.co.uk [212.58.224.136]
10 34 ms 38 ms 34 ms virtual3.rbsov.bbc.co.uk [212.58.254.252]

Trace complete.

Sorry for the delay but i've been out, this tracert was done at 1:34 am. As you can see here there is absolutely no problem. But i'll get one done at a more normal hour tomorrow to show when there is a problem with ping.

[ro53ben]

An equipment or routing issue would show up at any time.

If it's time of day linked, it's related to traffic congestion in my opinion. Sounds like your local UBR is over subscribed.

[Ranek]

Hey,

I'm not really familar of what UBR is, is there any chance you could give me a brief explanation? Also, is there anything I can do to fix it?

I posted this message orginally at 16:12. Went away for 10 minutes, came back and it has become extremely bad again. I imagine it will be like this for the rest of tonight now.


Tracing route to bbc.co.uk [212.58.254.252]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 3 ms 2 ms 1 ms www.routerlogin.com [192.168.1.1]
2 50 ms 46 ms 56 ms watf-bam-1.network.virginmedia.net [194.145.148.86]
3 380 ms 272 ms 338 ms watf-t3core-1a-ge-111-0.network.virginmedia.net [80.3.1.13]
4 417 ms 493 ms 513 ms bre-bb-a-ge-320-0.network.virginmedia.net [212.43.162.138]
5 402 ms 366 ms 462 ms gfd-bb-b-so-120-0.network.virginmedia.net [213.105.172.150]
6 * 401 ms 437 ms redb-ic-1-as0-0.network.virginmedia.net [62.253.185.78]
7 475 ms 271 ms 207 ms 212.58.239.249
8 * 379 ms * 212.58.238.133
9 410 ms 322 ms * rdirslb0.thdo.bbc.co.uk [212.58.224.136]
10 440 ms * 412 ms virtual3.rbsov.bbc.co.uk [212.58.254.252]

Trace complete.

[Ignitionnet]

An equipment or routing issue would show up at any time.

If it's time of day linked, it's related to traffic congestion in my opinion. Sounds like your local UBR is over subscribed.

Given that he's not on cable so has no uBR that's probably unlikely.

---------- Post added at 16:55 ---------- Previous post was at 16:54 ----------


2 50 ms 46 ms 56 ms watf-bam-1.network.virginmedia.net [194.145.148.86]
3 380 ms 272 ms 338 ms watf-t3core-1a-ge-111-0.network.virginmedia.net [80.3.1.13]

The issue seems to be between watf-bam-1 and watf-t3core-1a-ge-111-0 - try to disconnect and reconnect your DSL and see if you can get onto another bam which doesn't have these problems.

Virgin DSL is a rubbish service in many ways for many subscribers, and for those who aren't on the LLU network it's not only throttled into submission it also tends to be awfully oversubscribed.

[Ranek]

If i'm honest i'm not that great with computers or networking. So when you say disconnect the DSL, do you just mean just pulling the cable out from the router? Or is it something more than that, cheers.

Well I unplugged the ADSL for about 30 minutes. Came back and my ping was low. I did another tracert:

Tracing route to bbc.co.uk [212.58.254.252]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms www.routerlogin.com [192.168.1.1]
2 33 ms 31 ms 32 ms brnt-bam-2.network.virginmedia.net [194.145.148.7]
3 * 32 ms 32 ms brnt-t3core-1b-ge-110-0.network.virginmedia.net[195.182.179.129]
4 31 ms 31 ms 31 ms bre-bb-b-as1-0.network.virginmedia.net [213.105.174.249]
5 * * 38 ms bre-bb-a-ae0-0.network.virginmedia.net [213.105.174.225]
6 * 42 ms 36 ms gfd-bb-b-so-120-0.network.virginmedia.net [213.105.172.150]
7 34 ms 34 ms 35 ms redb-ic-1-as0-0.network.virginmedia.net [62.253.185.78]
8 * 56 ms 41 ms 212.58.239.249
9 41 ms 41 ms * 212.58.238.133
10 * 34 ms * rdirslb0.thdo.bbc.co.uk [212.58.224.136]
11 36 ms 34 ms 35 ms virtual3.rbsov.bbc.co.uk [212.58.254.252]

I guess it switched and got better. If I get the same problem again (which i assume i will at some point), i'll do the same, and post back with the result.

Thanks.