Packet Loss on NL websites/game servers
 

Hallo, first post here so not quite sure on the etiquette.

Basically, had ntl broadband since it first rolled out, currently on 2mb with a surfboard 3100 which I've had since the dawn of time.
I'm in Glasgow and 2 weeks ago I started getting very bad packet loss to any Dutch website or game server I connected to. German, Swiss and UK servers are always fine.

I've never had this problem before.

Phoned NTL tech support and got an Indian operator which I was prepared for. After having to explain to him what packet loss was, there followed a long conversation with many holds to try and find the problem area. After about 45 mins, I came ot the conclusion I wasn't going to get anything sorted so just accepted what he said and hung up. I know it might not be an NTL fault, but Dutch people in my clan route through the same NL ips and have no problem.

Is anyone else having this problem, or have an idea on how I should go about getting it fixed?

Here's some pathpings to a Dutch website/Unreal Tournament Server, I get PL to varying degrees on EVERY Nl website/server I connect to:

http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f3...eenShot002.jpg
http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f3...thping_rnl.jpg
http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f3...g_UTserver.jpg

Thanks.

Re: Packet Loss on NL websites/game servers
 

:welcome:

16-24% loss on the first hop is not good....

have you checked the signal levels to your modem? details below...

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/robin.d...ps/signal.html

Re: Packet Loss on NL websites/game servers
 

Ugh and you worked tech support :p:

Issue seems to be across AMSIX (Amsterdam Internet Exchange) between ntl and cici.nl.

This should be fixed by AMSIX, cici or ntl depending on whose issue it is, could be an issue with either cici or ntl's routers, the fibre connecting them to the AMSIX LAN, or any of the switches, copper or fibre in between!

Loss at uBR is fine as it's not repeated across ntl network.

Re: Packet Loss on NL websites/game servers
 

Edited since you edited yours :)

Who should I get in contact with about this, or is it something that I can't have any bearing on?

Thanks for the help.

Re: Packet Loss on NL websites/game servers
 

:blush: I bow to your superior knowledge :nworthy:

i was only a 2nd line munkeh anyway :p:

Re: Packet Loss on NL websites/game servers
 

there are problems with some amsterdam routes currently, as for resolution I dont know I am afraid the best you can do is try and get them to log it so its escalated.

Re: Packet Loss on NL websites/game servers
 

I've been having the same problems with NL servers since last august (was fine before that) and has not been fixed since :td: terrible ping problems+packet loss

Theres been a thread on NL issues before. We kinda thought it due to traffic load with NTL in NL because at quiet hours there is no problem eg. when u get up in the morning see how the issue is then but by afternoon its gone downhill again.

My fellow UK friends on other ISPs have no issues in NL so definately is an NTL problem.

Re: Packet Loss on NL websites/game servers
 

There looks like a peering problem with some NL routes at the moment on NTL, as Chrysalis says other ISP's don't seem to be suffering as we NTL users are so it looks like NTL's fault.

Mornings are fine, from about lunchtime onwards it all slows down until the evenings are awful, a good place to see this in action is the Giganews speed connection tester page:
http://www.giganews.com/test_connect.html

Try it at different times of the day, hopefully NTL will fix this, but I'd guess they won't hurry themselves as they never seem to spot peering problems until its too late.

Re: Packet Loss on NL websites/game servers
 

I've been having the same issues for a while now on an online game called 'Planetside'. Through the day i get a loss of around 0.2%, which is fine, but from about 6 or 7pm this goes upto anything from 7-15% loss :confused: It's just NTL aswel because people in my squad on BT etc are getting 0.0% loss all the time

Re: Packet Loss on NL websites/game servers
 

Speeds are awful to Giganews currently and also to that quake server you mentioned, surely someone at NTL should be monitoring these terrible peering points, its been like this for weeks now.

I had the same problem with Cogent and the only way it got fixed was by going directly to Cogent and moaning, telling NTL about it did nothing and it looks like the same is happening here.

Not much point advertising these 10mb speeds when your peering is so stuffed that even 1 meg is a waste of time.

Someone at NTL isn't doing their job properly it seems...again

Re: Packet Loss on NL websites/game servers
 

cogent isnt really fixed its just been worked around, the routing is going through germany and france and then to usa which is far from optimal and I get at least 1 drop a day, I wake up and a ssh session (going over cogent) will be disconnected. When over london the drops arent there but cogent in london is saturated.

Re: Packet Loss on NL websites/game servers
 

Cogent has been fine here since the fix, good speeds and reliability.
I'd guess this is location dependent again, some routes seem to go through London, some Europe, both are fine here though currently.

NL routed stuff is rubbish though, NTL don't seem to have any kind of monitoring of peering at all, I've never known an ISP be so rubbish at something that should be one of their core strengths, both BT and AOL are fine currently everywhere I try, even at peak times.

NTL just seem to keep boosting speeds but not bothering about the basics to keep it all working...

Re: Packet Loss on NL websites/game servers
 

so how can we get this escalated and fixed ?

I know this problem has existed since around august 2005.

is it a problem with ntl's peering on amsterdams exchange amsix ?

i found these details on NTL on amsix

https://www.ams-ix.net/connected/

https://www.ams-ix.net/connected/sho...68549aa236ce7b

Re: Packet Loss on NL websites/game servers
 

You could try emailing those contacts you found directly, ringing support does nothing for these sorts of issues, wouldn't hurt to try, also raise a responsetek from this site.

Re: Packet Loss on NL websites/game servers
 

well the cogent drops are out of ntl's control of course that is cogent themselves, here is an example of some poor cogent routing however, the destination is .uk.

1 25 ms 74 ms 47 ms UBR [10.8.143.254]
2 36 ms 20 ms 21 ms leic-t2cam1-a-ge914.inet.ntl.com [82.3.35.149]
3 41 ms 83 ms 22 ms leic-t2core-a-ge-220-0.inet.ntl.com [82.3.33.10]
4 25 ms 10 ms 90 ms lee-bb-a-so-220-0.inet.ntl.com [62.253.188.110]
5 40 ms 91 ms 44 ms nth-bb-b-so-000-0.inet.ntl.com [62.253.185.101]
6 17 ms 22 ms 14 ms nth-bb-a-ae0-0.inet.ntl.com [62.253.185.117]
7 45 ms 32 ms 97 ms fran-ic-1-as0-0.inet.ntl.com [213.105.174.86]
8 68 ms 30 ms 43 ms po1-0.core01.fra03.atlas.cogentco.com [80.81.192.63]
9 45 ms 42 ms 38 ms p3-0.core01.ams03.atlas.cogentco.com [130.117.0.145]
10 70 ms 32 ms 32 ms p5-0.core01.lon02.atlas.cogentco.com [130.117.1.225]
11 166 ms 68 ms 50 ms oh-tele.demarc.cogentco.com [130.117.241.194]
12 35 ms 45 ms 73 ms web2.hostingfreak.net [195.242.215.140]

again I believe this may not be ntl's fault since cogent london does appear to be congested I know nildram are also avoiding cogent london but they only route through france and not germany.

(yes my pings do suck but thats another topic)

Re: Packet Loss on NL websites/game servers
 

The giganews speed problems are also being discussed on Digital-Spy, one of the guys there has got a reply from Giganews on this issues with NTL, hopefully he won't mind me repeating it here:

"We have verified that there are no outstanding issues with our network that would cause your speed levels to drop. Currently our network engineers are trying to work with ntlworld.com to find and fix this problem so that you can resume your normal high speed Giganews access. At the moment, we are unable to offer an estimated time of resolution. We are proud of the download speeds we are able to offer all of our customers, and I assure you that we are doing what we can to get this problem resolved."

Fingers crossed then !

Re: Packet Loss on NL websites/game servers
 

Its another odd one this, parts of ntl have no problems and other areas apperently speeds have crashed to giganews. Regional routing kicking in again I bet.

Re: Packet Loss on NL websites/game servers
 

Well easy to see the bad peering in the trace from Giganews USA to the Poplar Proxies, don't know if thats repeated in NNTP though as I don't have a giganews account to try (didn't join them yet as speeds are too slow from NTL)

1 gw-vlan201.dca.giganews.com (216.196.98.1) 0 ms 0 ms 0 ms
2 216.196.96.122 (216.196.96.122) 0 ms 0 ms 0 ms
3 ash-bb1-geth6-3-3-0.telia.net (213.248.89.1) 0 ms ash-bb1-geth7-3-1-0.telia.net (213.248.88.81) 14 ms ash-bb1-geth6-3-3-0.telia.net (213.248.89.1) 0 ms
4 nyk-bb2-pos0-3-0.telia.net (213.248.80.137) 6 ms nyk-bb1-pos7-1-0.telia.net (213.248.80.70) 6 ms nyk-bb2-pos0-3-0.telia.net (213.248.80.137) 6 ms
5 ldn-bb1-pos7-1-0.telia.net (213.248.65.89) 75 ms 92 ms ldn-bb2-pos6-0-0.telia.net (213.248.65.209) 73 ms
6 ldn-b2-pos9-0.telia.net (213.248.74.2) 75 ms ldn-b2-pos12-3.telia.net (213.248.64.74) 73 ms 73 ms
7 ntl-111210-ldn-b2.c.telia.net (213.248.100.38) 270 ms 269 ms 240 ms
8 bre-bb-b-as0-0.inet.ntl.com (62.253.188.122) 76 ms 77 ms 76 ms
9 win-bb-a-so-400-0.inet.ntl.com (213.105.172.233) 80 ms 80 ms 79 ms
10 win-bb-b-ae0-0.inet.ntl.com (213.105.172.162) 80 ms 78 ms 78 ms
11 pop-bb-a-so-000-0.inet.ntl.com (62.253.185.201) 81 ms 79 ms 81 ms
12 popl-t2core-a-pos81.inet.ntl.com (213.105.174.114) 81 ms 79 ms 81 ms
13 popl-cache-9.server.ntli.net (62.255.64.12) 89 ms 88 ms 90 ms

The euro one looks fine though, but speeds are even worse than the USA one !!

1 216-196-110-1.ams.giganews.com (216.196.110.1) 0 ms 0 ms 0 ms
2 amst-ic-1.inet.ntl.com (195.69.144.40) 0 ms 0 ms 24 ms
3 pop-bb-b-as0-0.inet.ntl.com (62.253.188.93) 8 ms 8 ms 8 ms
4 popl-t2core-b-pos81.inet.ntl.com (213.105.174.118) 8 ms 8 ms 8 ms
5 popl-cache-9.server.ntli.net (62.255.64.12) 8 ms 9 ms 8 ms

NTL's peering really needs a good sorting out it seems, and as more 10 meg people come the worse it will get :(

Re: Packet Loss on NL websites/game servers
 

hey why not why do they give a damn about the rest of us i mean its not like we pay them or anything (yeh i know its flaim bait but im hacked off atm my connection has been appauling for days)

Re: Packet Loss on NL websites/game servers
 

Its seems that surprise surprise NTL know about the Giganews problem and refuse to do anything about it, I just raised a ticket with Giganews explaining that I am an NTL customer and would like to join them but have heard bad things about their speeds to NTL, I post their reply below:

-------
Ian,

Thank you for contacting Giganews technical support.

You would need to contact your ISP for the answers to your questions.

The problem lies within their network and thus far, they seem content to do
nothing about it.

We have asked our .ntl customers to contact their ISP with copies of their
reverse tracertoute results and our engineers have also contacted .ntl, but
we have not heard back and they do not appear to be responding to their own
customers' complaints.

This is an unfortunate situation for all parties involved, but
unfortunately, we can not force them to address this issue, as they may
manage their network as they choose.

Thank you.

--
Jeff
Giganews Support Specialist

-----------

*sigh*

Re: Packet Loss on NL websites/game servers
 

Thats interesting Ian, so it is definately NTL's problem.

But why are NTL ignoring it ?

its quite a major problem as its not only giganews suffering, its pretty much everything of NTL's suffering on that amsix...with ping/packetloss

No idea how to even proceed on this issue:confused:

Re: Packet Loss on NL websites/game servers
 

Personally I think that whoever *should* be looking after NTL's peering is either clueless or helpless, its either that they don't know how to fix it, or that it costs too much money to fix, the exact same thing happened with Cogent before, and it took months to fix, very poor service indeed, I'm guessing the same will happen here, NTL seem to have extremely poor network engineers, or extremely poor finances...oh and extremely poor billing staff too, but thats a different story :(
They ignore a company the size of Giganews, they ignore their own customers, not really much else we can do but put up with it or go.

Basically from my point of view NTL currently can't get much right - my bills are wrong (massively wrong), broadband plus was broke for weeks, my 10mb modem install was cocked up completely, the newsserver is broken, and peering to Europe is crap, despite the huge hassle it will involve I think I'm being forced to leave them and take my money elsewhere, they don't seem compentent in any area at all currently and for the third time in about three months I'm having to talk to the 'Executive Office' to get my faults fixed as the usual routes are rubbish.

Re: Packet Loss on NL websites/game servers
 

Well that Amsterdam router, amst-ic-1, doesn't appear to be switched on even at the moment ;)

The trace apparently blaming Telia for poor speeds to Giganews US isn't really correct as pings were normal after that Telia node. Ping prioritisation and all that.

I suspect it's more local congestion, or uBRs running too hot. I note various other Usenet providers have been mentioned in threads reporting slow speeds.

Re: Packet Loss on NL websites/game servers
 

Just did a trace:

1 216-196-110-1.ams.giganews.com (216.196.110.1) 0 ms 0 ms 0 ms
2 amst-ic-1.inet.ntl.com (195.69.144.40) 15 ms 15 ms 0 ms
3 pop-bb-b-as0-0.inet.ntl.com (62.253.188.93) 8 ms 9 ms 8 ms
4 popl-t2core-b-pos81.inet.ntl.com (213.105.174.118) 8 ms 8 ms 8 ms
5 popl-cache-9.server.ntli.net (62.255.64.12) 9 ms 8 ms 8 ms
Looks fine as always, but speeds are awful again.

I'd also blame local congestion usually, but Giganews says its *all* NTL customers that are complaining, and I'm sure they have many customers from all over the country that use NTL.
Giganews have reported it as mentioned above, and many NTL customers have reported it, but we are ignored, very bad service for paying customers, and not very repsectful to giganews either, not even a reply.

Easynews is full speed here btw, as are all other sites that I use, its just Giganews and apparently some other Amsterdam routing, in the same way that it was just Cogent routing before..

Re: Packet Loss on NL websites/game servers
 

Ntl have a amsterdam congestion problem it could well be they prioritising icmp to try and hide it or simply throttling traffic over it, I did know before I moved my server to bypass the route that traffic used to suddenly speed up around 2am rather then gradually get faster, which is odd behaviour for general contention.

Re: Packet Loss on NL websites/game servers
 

it seems as my ping/pl issue to nl game servers is now fixed.

Re: Packet Loss on NL websites/game servers
 

Can I just say (after many, many posts about this situation)...


WE AIN'T GONNA GET ANYTHING DONE ABOUT IT!!!!


:mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

And yes, I'm just as fed up as you with it...:cry: