World of Warcraft NTL Issues

leonardlizaaard · 10-04-2006, 21:00

Hello,

I currently have 2 problems with my NTL broadband service. The first is that I have a very intermittent connection during peak times. I have posted about this on this forum before, and I have received excellent advice that helped me to prove that the problem lies with NTL. Well the issue is still ongoing after many phone calls and 3 engineer visits. I am getting to the stage where if someone on this forum (who works for NTL) can PM me (I will send all my details, tests and findings) and if you help me to sort my conection I WILL PAY YOU!!.

This brings me to my second Issue. I play World of Warcraft, they have recently applied a new patch to their servers. Since the patch, many NTL users are having high latency issues. I am also having this problem. NTL say that its not ther problem, Blizzard (World of Warcraft makers) also say its not their problem. The general concensus on this thread (which gives details of the problem) http://forums-en.wow-europe.com/thre...n&T=288703&P=1

is that although NTL and Blizzard dont consider it to be their problems, so many of their paying customers (World of Warcraft has a monthly subscription) are having problems, its worth the 2 companies getting together to work out a solution.

Just wondering what you guys think about the World of Warcraft Issue.

And by the way, I was serious when I said that if anyone working for NTL can sort intermittent connection problem (my connection to the internet, not Warcraft, when the connection goes, I cant even ping the NTL homepage), I will pay you!! you can think of it as payment for a service, a gift, a donation, or a consultancy fee. Think about it, some nice beer money for you

Rone · 10-04-2006, 22:13

NTL probably dont give a gnats chuff about WOW.
If you can browse the web and send e-mails, nothing else matters.

Seriously dont expect much from NTL regarding gaming.
You will however get more help from the guys who work for NTL that are here.

Acathla · 10-04-2006, 22:36

just out of interest, and it aint gonna help your cause, but as an NTL and WoW user I have not seen any change in latency since the 1.10 patch. infact all has been very good recently :o

Graham M · 10-04-2006, 23:19

I get high latency on my Realm sometimes (Turalyon) as its quite heavily used, but its been much better of late.

James Henry · 11-04-2006, 00:01

OK...

Firstly this isn't WoW's fault, ntl are passing the buck rather than dealing with the issue. Looking at pages 2 and 3 various bits of ntl's network do a pretty good impression of being boned but page 1 issues below:

EVERY traceroute on that first page without exception goes sky high on the same node: 9 204 ms 200 ms 203 ms telc-ic-1-as0-0.inet.ntl.com [62.253.188.121]

This is Telecity Interconnect 1, that looks like an aggregated serial link going by the description.

Latency shoots through the ceiling there and stays high throughout. I'd blame the aggregated serial link, probably overloaded the FPC the serial links live on on the Juniper router or tickled a bug with JunOS.

NB FPC = a card on Juniper routers into which you plug the actual interface cards themselves.

Only people who can sort this are ntl networks in Crawley Court, this is their kit and they should be fixing this.

webstuff · 11-04-2006, 01:59

Hey

Latency has occasionally pee'd me off to, so much so I decided to try wow on dial-up, instead of my 10mb ntl, and surprise surprise, it worked dam well considering, latency showed as yellow, but was a hell of a lot better than my 10mb ntl

. So you can always switch back to dial-up, nothing like going back in time

Have fun

Mr_phil · 11-04-2006, 16:17

I got in touch with NTL about this a while ago and kept getting standard responses until I complained and asked for the issue to be escalated.

I was asked for more information so I emailed traceroutes from various ISPs at the same time that I was having latency issues. The NTL traces showed problems while the others didn't. I also got a trace from Telia back to NTL which showed the same latency problem.

I got an email back saying "thanks this looks interesting" or words to that effect and today I had a phone call from a very helpful NTL employee (who I won't name here) confirming that this information was escalated and shows that there is an issue with congestion between NTL and Telia. They have investigated it further and have identified what needs to be done and they have promised to fix it.

I asked for a timescale (not really expecting an answer) and was told that no promises could be made as to when it would happen but it WILL be fixed.

Toto · 11-04-2006, 16:46

Well, this could be an improvement

Tracing route to 80.239.233.101 over a maximum of 30 hops

(left out the early hops, they are always very good)

6 13 ms 12 ms 15 ms win-bb-b-so-700-0.inet.ntl.com [62.253.185.142]

7 14 ms 15 ms 22 ms bre-bb-a-so-100-0.inet.ntl.com [62.253.185.197]

8 16 ms 13 ms 16 ms bre-bb-b-ge-000-0.inet.ntl.com [213.105.174.226]

9 29 ms 53 ms 24 ms telc-ic-1-as0-0.inet.ntl.com [62.253.188.121]
10 26 ms 26 ms 27 ms ldn-b2-link.telia.net [213.248.100.37]
11 25 ms 25 ms 26 ms ldn-bb1-pos0-2-0.telia.net [213.248.64.77]
12 42 ms 42 ms 43 ms ffm-bb1-link.telia.net [80.91.249.9]
13 42 ms 41 ms 81 ms ffm-b4-link.telia.net [80.91.249.237]
14 * * * Request timed out.

Mr_phil · 11-04-2006, 16:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

Well, this could be an improvement

Tracing route to 80.239.233.101 over a maximum of 30 hops

(left out the early hops, they are always very good)

6 13 ms 12 ms 15 ms win-bb-b-so-700-0.inet.ntl.com [62.253.185.142]

7 14 ms 15 ms 22 ms bre-bb-a-so-100-0.inet.ntl.com [62.253.185.197]

8 16 ms 13 ms 16 ms bre-bb-b-ge-000-0.inet.ntl.com [213.105.174.226]

9 29 ms 53 ms 24 ms telc-ic-1-as0-0.inet.ntl.com [62.253.188.121]
10 26 ms 26 ms 27 ms ldn-b2-link.telia.net [213.248.100.37]
11 25 ms 25 ms 26 ms ldn-bb1-pos0-2-0.telia.net [213.248.64.77]
12 42 ms 42 ms 43 ms ffm-bb1-link.telia.net [80.91.249.9]
13 42 ms 41 ms 81 ms ffm-b4-link.telia.net [80.91.249.237]
14 * * * Request timed out.

Mine usually looks like that until 7 or 8pm. Then it gets nasty at hop 9. That's where they identified the problem but it is usually bad at peak times.

Toto · 11-04-2006, 16:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mr_phil

Mine usually looks like that until 7 or 8pm. Then it gets nasty at hop 9. That's where they identified the problem but it is usually bad at peak times.

Fair comment, I'll do a few more later this evening.

IanUK · 11-04-2006, 17:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mr_phil

I got in touch with NTL about this a while ago and kept getting standard responses until I complained and asked for the issue to be escalated.

I was asked for more information so I emailed traceroutes from various ISPs at the same time that I was having latency issues. The NTL traces showed problems while the others didn't. I also got a trace from Telia back to NTL which showed the same latency problem.

I got an email back saying "thanks this looks interesting" or words to that effect and today I had a phone call from a very helpful NTL employee (who I won't name here) confirming that this information was escalated and shows that there is an issue with congestion between NTL and Telia. They have investigated it further and have identified what needs to be done and they have promised to fix it.

I asked for a timescale (not really expecting an answer) and was told that no promises could be made as to when it would happen but it WILL be fixed.

You got further than I ever did, I've been complaining about the NTL-Telia link for months, I gave up in the end.

Glad they listened to someone at last..

Mr_phil · 11-04-2006, 17:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by IanUK

You got further than I ever did, I've been complaining about the NTL-Telia link for months, I gave up in the end.

Glad they listened to someone at last..

I nearly gave up and went elsewhere, but I am stubborn at times and it became a mission..

---------- Post added at 16:11 ---------- Previous post was at 16:08 ----------

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

Fair comment, I'll do a few more later this evening.

It became a habit with me. Latency went high in game so I alt-tabbed out ran a trace and saw problems at the same hop each time... I have hundreds of traceroutes now...

Sad really.

Toto · 11-04-2006, 19:55

ok, took this at 19:45, better?

Tracing route to 80.239.233.101 over a maximum of 30 hops

6 14 ms 14 ms 13 ms win-bb-b-so-700-0.inet.ntl.com [62.253.185.142]

7 14 ms 22 ms 13 ms bre-bb-a-so-100-0.inet.ntl.com [62.253.185.197]

8 13 ms 14 ms 13 ms bre-bb-b-ge-000-0.inet.ntl.com [213.105.174.226]

9 33 ms 61 ms 24 ms telc-ic-1-as0-0.inet.ntl.com [62.253.188.121]
10 25 ms 26 ms 43 ms ldn-b2-link.telia.net [213.248.100.37]
11 26 ms 24 ms 25 ms ldn-bb1-pos0-2-0.telia.net [213.248.64.77]
12 42 ms 52 ms 41 ms ffm-bb1-link.telia.net [80.91.249.9]
13 42 ms 41 ms 42 ms ffm-b4-link.telia.net [80.91.249.237]

---------- Post added at 19:55 ---------- Previous post was at 19:52 ----------

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mr_phil

I nearly gave up and went elsewhere, but I am stubborn at times and it became a mission..

---------- Post added at 16:11 ---------- Previous post was at 16:08 ----------

It became a habit with me. Latency went high in game so I alt-tabbed out ran a trace and saw problems at the same hop each time... I have hundreds of traceroutes now...

Sad really.

No, not sad at all, a genuine desire to know what's going on, and wether you are winning the battle to get a decent game experience.

rogerdraig · 11-04-2006, 21:23

just to add my 2 cents worth i and my kids play a less taxing game called runescape and untill recently played on a 300k line with 3 of us sharing it with no problems

we were upgraded to 1 meg and at first it was fine but over the last few weeks its got to the point where it wont take two playing let alone 3 in the evening

so personaly i think its ntl's end rather than the games sites

Mr_phil · 11-04-2006, 22:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

ok, took this at 19:45, better?

Tracing route to 80.239.233.101 over a maximum of 30 hops

6 14 ms 14 ms 13 ms win-bb-b-so-700-0.inet.ntl.com [62.253.185.142]

7 14 ms 22 ms 13 ms bre-bb-a-so-100-0.inet.ntl.com [62.253.185.197]

8 13 ms 14 ms 13 ms bre-bb-b-ge-000-0.inet.ntl.com [213.105.174.226]

9 33 ms 61 ms 24 ms telc-ic-1-as0-0.inet.ntl.com [62.253.188.121]
10 25 ms 26 ms 43 ms ldn-b2-link.telia.net [213.248.100.37]
11 26 ms 24 ms 25 ms ldn-bb1-pos0-2-0.telia.net [213.248.64.77]
12 42 ms 52 ms 41 ms ffm-bb1-link.telia.net [80.91.249.9]
13 42 ms 41 ms 42 ms ffm-b4-link.telia.net [80.91.249.237]

---------- Post added at 19:55 ---------- Previous post was at 19:52 ----------

No, not sad at all, a genuine desire to know what's going on, and wether you are winning the battle to get a decent game experience.

I think things are starting to improve, according to chetnet they will be upgrading this link and are now putting less traffic through it in the meantime:

http://www.chetnet.co.uk/portal/foru...?t=6467&page=3

At the router in hop 9 above I was getting pings of 200+ most nights.