Any computer networking experts here?

[BayMoWe335]

Update: Switched to Spectrum from ATT and problem is completely solved. Blazing fast now.

Long story short, I have ATT fiber internet (300 Mbps down and 300Mbps Up) that tests those speeds all day long.

Problem is, my internet sucks. It's not that it isn't fast. It's that it constantly drops for 1-2 seconds so it's always hanging on simple Google searches.

Another thing that makes it obvious the connection isn't stable is chatting online with Amazon or companies that offer chat support. I'll get "connection lost, reconnecting" several times during chat.

Also, timed games like Chess make it obvious the internet loses connection because I will be waiting for my opponent to move, only to realize 3-5 seconds have gone from my clock when it finally connects.

Replaced the router multiple times, strong single everywhere.

ATT says it's fine...it's not. I did a -t ping test to google.com and get these results.

Packets: Sent = 78, Received = 78, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 5ms, Maximum = 259ms, Average = 39ms

As you can see, I have a maximum ping of 259ms and average of 39ms. It's mostly under 10, but is it normal to have so many over 200ms?

Tracert gives me this:

Tracing route to www.google.com
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 7 ms 2 ms 2 ms homeportal
2 12 ms 21 ms 14 ms
3 * * * Request timed out.
4 * * * Request timed out.
5 16 ms 31 ms 22 ms
6 11 ms 17 ms 11 ms
7 * * 8 ms
8 63 ms 78 ms 48 ms
9 13 ms 9 ms 45 ms
10 13 ms 23 ms 6 ms
11 9 ms 7 ms 14 ms
13 8 ms 17 ms 12 ms

That looks F'D to me. Anyone have any ideas?

[iminhell1]

I am not but,
When mine got spotty like that we played hell with 'tech support' trying to nail down the problem (over the course of 3 years). Multiple new routers (which is the SOP answer to everything, the did you try turning it off/on answer).

Turned out the problem was the line outside was corroded inside the plastic. Guy cut back to god wire and put new end on, alls well.

[The Libertine]

Not an expert, but how many devices do you have connected to your network at any given time? Also, should unplug your router at least once per month to reset the connection.

[Hawkeye]

I'm really good at talking to people...

[m630]

To eliminate all possible situations, have you tried your tests hardwired or only via wifi? Perhaps something in your house is interfering so try to plug a laptop in and test if you have not already

[zx10guy]

Run a continuous ping test where you're pinging google.com and the internal IP of your router at the same time. See if you're getting any dropped packets at the same time on both ping tests.

I was having this issue with Mediacrap at my vacation home. Couldn't stream anything. VPN connectivity when I worked remotely was crap. Even web pages were starting to load slowly. Mediacrap didn't even argue with me when I finally had the time to work with an onsite tech. The rep could see all the errors on their end. A tech was sent out. Found the TV block they put to prevent me from stealing basic cable was sopping wet. The block was removed which made the line signal better but it wasn't the sole issue.

For what ever reason, the coax line from the exterior DMARC of my home to the structured wiring cabinet went bad. The tech tested that run and the signal to noise ratio was unacceptable even though when I had service first established everything was fine. No work on my house that could have caused that issue. Fortunately, the sub that ran the structured wiring did the smart thing and ran an extra run of RG6. We tested that run and everything test fine. So I switched over to that line and it's been good since...except the typical Mediacrap performance issues.

[UncleWede]

1 7 ms 2 ms 2 ms homeportal
2 12 ms 21 ms 14 ms
3 * * * Request timed out.
4 * * * Request timed out.

what is on 3 an 4???

[ipilcher]

Originally Posted by UncleWede

1 7 ms 2 ms 2 ms homeportal
2 12 ms 21 ms 14 ms
3 * * * Request timed out.
4 * * * Request timed out.

what is on 3 an 4???

Likely routers that have been configured to not respond to echo requests, because SECURITY!!!

[zx10guy]

Originally Posted by ipilcher

Likely routers that have been configured to not respond to echo requests, because SECURITY!!!

Yep. More explicitly blocking ICMP requests which include ping and trace route.

[M_Six]

Originally Posted by iminhell1

I am not but,
When mine got spotty like that we played hell with 'tech support' trying to nail down the problem (over the course of 3 years). Multiple new routers (which is the SOP answer to everything, the did you try turning it off/on answer).

Turned out the problem was the line outside was corroded inside the plastic. Guy cut back to god wire and put new end on, alls well.

Originally Posted by zx10guy

Run a continuous ping test where you're pinging google.com and the internal IP of your router at the same time. See if you're getting any dropped packets at the same time on both ping tests.

I was having this issue with Mediacrap at my vacation home. Couldn't stream anything. VPN connectivity when I worked remotely was crap. Even web pages were starting to load slowly. Mediacrap didn't even argue with me when I finally had the time to work with an onsite tech. The rep could see all the errors on their end. A tech was sent out. Found the TV block they put to prevent me from stealing basic cable was sopping wet. The block was removed which made the line signal better but it wasn't the sole issue.

For what ever reason, the coax line from the exterior DMARC of my home to the structured wiring cabinet went bad. The tech tested that run and the signal to noise ratio was unacceptable even though when I had service first established everything was fine. No work on my house that could have caused that issue. Fortunately, the sub that ran the structured wiring did the smart thing and ran an extra run of RG6. We tested that run and everything test fine. So I switched over to that line and it's been good since...except the typical Mediacrap performance issues.

Similar issues here. Coax from the box out front to my house was bad. Mediacrap hired a freelancer to replace it. When he was trenching, he nicked the underground power cable, which blew up the closest transformer the next time it rained heavily. But my internet has been ok since he replaced the coax. Power company wasn't too pleased with the contractor, though.

[mc-m3]

1) do that same ping from the router and see if you get similar results.
2) if it's better from the router, if possible connect via wire to the router and ping.
3) if the above both look good, turn off all your other wireless devices and try again.
4) if 1 is good and 2 is not, kill all the apps on your computer and try again.

Basically, you need to narrow down where the issue is. is it inside or outside of your network. Wireless really sucks and I almost never use it in the house. You are competing with every other device on your net for time. All but the very latest are essentially half duplex, meaning only 1 device can talk at at time.

BTW, your numbers aren't that bad (not good either). for comparison, I just did a few (~30)
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 7.638/10.260/16.563/2.171 ms

[FriedPiston]

Your ISP is likely not the issue if you're able to get consistent 300 Mbps throughput rates against the nearest server via speedtest.

First of all, you need to do ALL the network diagnostics via wired ethernet as a process of elimination. This sounds like an RFI/EMI related issue, or possibly even RF channel saturation against neighboring APs.

I can offer you free professional help via phone and TeamViewer if you can beat me in a 3-minute blitz game. PM me if you're up for it.

[UncleWede]

Originally Posted by ipilcher

Likely routers that have been configured to not respond to echo requests, because SECURITY!!!

But when we see what is on 2 and 5 we know whose network it is, and a potential significant slow-down

[BayMoWe335]

Originally Posted by nars3000

Your ISP is likely not the issue if you're able to get consistent 300 Mbps throughput rates against the nearest server via speedtest.

First of all, you need to do ALL the network diagnostics via wired ethernet as a process of elimination. This sounds like an RFI/EMI related issue, or possibly even RF channel saturation against neighboring APs.

I can offer you free professional help via phone and TeamViewer if you can beat me in a 3-minute blitz game. PM me if you're up for it.

I won’t be able to beat you in 3min blitz because I’ll have 2min of lag because my internet sucks.

[BayMoWe335]

Originally Posted by mc-m3

1) do that same ping from the router and see if you get similar results.
2) if it's better from the router, if possible connect via wire to the router and ping.
3) if the above both look good, turn off all your other wireless devices and try again.
4) if 1 is good and 2 is not, kill all the apps on your computer and try again.

Basically, you need to narrow down where the issue is. is it inside or outside of your network. Wireless really sucks and I almost never use it in the house. You are competing with every other device on your net for time. All but the very latest are essentially half duplex, meaning only 1 device can talk at at time.

BTW, your numbers aren't that bad (not good either). for comparison, I just did a few (~30)
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 7.638/10.260/16.563/2.171 ms

Not using WiFi is really not feasible in the current world we live. iPads, iPhones, laptops, and other mobile tech is not really setup or practical to hardwire. If I have fiber internet, why the F can I not have a stable WiFi connection?

I frequently go to Japan and get better WiFi on the freaking subway. So frustrating.

[M_Six]

Are you running 5GHz or 2.4GHz? Our microwave oven used to screw up our 2.4GHz wifi, so I switched to 5GHz. That should be a very noticeable thing, though, so it doesn't sound like your problem.

[zx10guy]

Originally Posted by BayMoWe335

Not using WiFi is really not feasible in the current world we live. iPads, iPhones, laptops, and other mobile tech is not really setup or practical to hardwire. If I have fiber internet, why the F can I not have a stable WiFi connection?

I frequently go to Japan and get better WiFi on the freaking subway. So frustrating.

Fiber Internet and WiFi are two different things. Anyone telling you never to use WiFi doesn't know what they're talking about. Networks are part of what I do for a living.

Did you do the test I asked you to do? There's a reason why I asked you to do them and will shed some light on where to start the troubleshooting process.

[zx10guy]

Originally Posted by UncleWede

But when we see what is on 2 and 5 we know whose network it is, and a potential significant slow-down

Even if we know whose network it is at hops 2 and 5, he's not going to be able to do anything. It'll be an ISP issue and they should already know there is a problem. And the way traffic is pathed and routed on the Internet, the chances of this going unnoticed and not being actively worked on is slim to nill. Routing decisions on how your network traffic is sent through the Internet is determined by a bunch of parameters over a protocol called BGP (border gateway protocol). If there is a significant problem over some network path, BGP would route the traffic over a different pathway.

[zx10guy]

Originally Posted by M_Six

Are you running 5GHz or 2.4GHz? Our microwave oven used to screw up our 2.4GHz wifi, so I switched to 5GHz. That should be a very noticeable thing, though, so it doesn't sound like your problem.

Microwaves, baby monitors, cordless phones, etc run over 2.4 GHz. Switching to 5GHz is one solution to get around interference from these devices.

Neighboring WiFi networks can also cause interference on 2.4 GHz, but also on 5 GHz. It's more likely to happen on 2.4 GHz than 5 but can still happen over 5 GHz.

A fix to help with neighboring RF interference on both 2.4 and 5 is to locate a channel on either which is not being heavily used to run your WiFi network on. You can figure this out by utilizing a WiFi tool which sniffs the RF space and gathers information on what devices are out there and what channel they're operating on. I have this free app I run on my Android phone called WiFi Analyzer which I use to do a crude site survey. Some wireless network devices will have that feature available for the network admin to use. The wireless system I have running in my house from Aruba Networks gives me the ability to do a full RF spectrum analysis by designating one of my wireless access points as the RF analyzer. As a feature of unified wireless systems is the ability for these systems to do an auto channel selection on both 2.4 and 5. These systems have intelligence in them where they monitor the RF space and do an automatic channel selection to avoid using noisy channels. I have not seen personally SOHO routers with this feature. One of the reasons why 5 GHz is preferred is because of more non overlapping channels available for one to use to avoid neighboring interference. 2.4 only has 3 non overlapping channels in the US to choose from (1, 6, and 11). So you can see how one can run into issues quickly using 2.4 GHz.

For 5 GHz, there are a ton more channels to choose from depending on the channel width (bonding) being used for the specific top end wireless speed you're trying to achieve which gets into a whole other rat hole. I'm attaching a chart which illustrates the number of available channels based on channel width.

[eluded]

Originally Posted by BayMoWe335

Long story short, I have ATT

Looking at that statement I would have no idea where I would lay the blame.

Have you contacted AT&T and ask them to run testing to what I assume is their router/device on your side to verify throughput and connectivity is OK?

[UncleWede]

Originally Posted by zx10guy

Even if we know whose network it is at hops 2 and 5, he's not going to be able to do anything. It'll be an ISP issue and they should already know there is a problem. And the way traffic is pathed and routed on the Internet, the chances of this going unnoticed and not being actively worked on is slim to nill. Routing decisions on how your network traffic is sent through the Internet is determined by a bunch of parameters over a protocol called BGP (border gateway protocol). If there is a significant problem over some network path, BGP would route the traffic over a different pathway.

But it tells you who to call when it continues for days on end

[zx10guy]

Originally Posted by UncleWede

But it tells you who to call when it continues for days on end

You're still calling your own ISP. Who you'll just get the Tier 1 drone that many times just shuffles you along. Issues with routing through the Internet backbone would be handled by the Tier 2/3 network guys that don't answer phone calls from customers. Even the crappiest ISP would have monitoring systems in place to alert these higher level engineers there's a problem. These guys would be the ones checking into if it's an issue on their end or calling the other ISP that there is a problem.

Problems over the backbone don't go unnoticed for very long as it wouldn't just affect one user, it would be for a whole bunch of users.