Intermittent Lag in online game

Hi Clarkiss, have you already contacted NTT to advise them of the issue to find out what (if anything) they can do to alleviate the situation? If you have not already done so, I suggest you send them the information you have and ask if this is an issue they can assist you with.

I contacted NTT last night - they will not deal with you unless you are their customer. Their response to me : 

Alex,

Unfortunately, we are not able to open tickets to investigate circuits
not owned by the contact. Please have your upstream open a ticket and we
will be happy to investigate these circuits.

Someone at COX needs to escalate with NTT.NET : 

Global Network Operations Center (NOC)

• Service for NTT GIN Customers: 1-877-868-8638
• Email: noc@us.ntt.net

Hello, We are not seeing any stand out issues with the route. Couple things you may want to do and retest is removing the static IP as you should not be using one with this account and bypassing any internal hops by performing a trace directly from the modem. If you can do this and resend your tracert, we would be happy to look into this for you and see what can be done to help.

Hello,

My Ethernet TCP/IPv4 properties are set to Obtain an IP address automatically.

The router is using DCHP.

Im not using Wi-fi. Any other place a static IP address would be set?

The trace route was done from a command prompt entering only the command and the server.  Right now at 11:38 am, the trace looks good. ~ 8pm tonight, if the trend continues, things will get wonky : 

C:\Users\Alex>tracert 204.2.229.97

Tracing route to 204.2.229.97 over a maximum of 30 hops

 1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms READYSHARE [192.168.1.1]
 2  6 ms  7 ms  7 ms 10.48.64.1
 3  7 ms  8 ms  8 ms 100.127.74.54
 4  6 ms  7 ms  7 ms 70.169.74.152
 5 19 ms 20 ms 19 ms langbprj02-ae1.0.rd.la.cox.net [68.1.1.14]
 6 20 ms 21 ms 20 ms ae-7.a00.lsanca20.us.bb.gin.ntt.net [129.250.194.165]
 7 32 ms 32 ms 32 ms ae-3.r01.lsanca20.us.bb.gin.ntt.net [129.250.2.233]
 8 19 ms 19 ms 23 ms ae-8.r23.lsanca07.us.bb.gin.ntt.net [129.250.6.48]
 9 27 ms 27 ms 27 ms ae-12.r22.snjsca04.us.bb.gin.ntt.net [129.250.4.150]
10 35 ms 29 ms 28 ms ae-19.r01.snjsca04.us.bb.gin.ntt.net [129.250.3.27]
11 31 ms 32 ms 31 ms ae-1.a00.snjsca04.us.bb.gin.ntt.net [129.250.2.228]
12 35 ms 34 ms 33 ms xe-0-0-42-1.a00.snjsca04.us.ce.gin.ntt.net [129.250.195.42]
13 32 ms 33 ms 33 ms 204.2.229.242
14 30 ms 30 ms 32 ms 204.2.229.97

Thanks for any ideas to help assist. One thing I did to help lightly mitigate the issue was to turn up the number of ACK requests from zero to 5. That prevented server disconnects.

Hello,

I'm actually having the same problem, seeing 5-10% Packet Loss from NTT's network: https://i.imgur.com/5RRyFPP.png

My issue is manifesting differently and I'm in the same "not my problem" support deadzone. I control both ends of my connection, my home internet, and my server (spectralcoding.com) running some VoIP services. I get inconsistent packet loss and garbled voices. Clarkiss is right, because we don't have a direct relationship with NTT we have no avenue of obtaining support or notifying them. Cox is NTT's customer, not us. Someone from Cox's routing or peering team needs to open a support ticket with NTT to notify them of the packet loss and ask for an ETA on a fix.

Here are other complaints specific to NTT, just in the last few days:

• https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/384894/disconnections-due-to-package-loss-in-ntt-americas-node
• http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/354155-Unstable-connection-with-Cox-ISP
• https://us.battle.net/forums/en/overwatch/topic/20759596609
• https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comments/7ibxj3/psa_something_going_on_in_the_chicago_area_for

Looping in this thread where we're dealing with the same issue: http://forums.cox.com/forum_home/internet_forum/f/5/p/19556/72581.aspx

I have taken the liberty of contacting NTT Communication's NOC directly. The thread is below.

My email to noc@us.ntt.net:

Hello, I'm a customer of both a local ISP providing my home internet (Cox Communications) and a hosting company providing virtual servers (Linode). I'm seeing a consistent ~3% packet loss between my ISPs network and my hosting company's network, specific to us.bb.gin.ntt.net nodes. At the end of the email is WinMTR output which should be able to help you narrow down source of the packet loss. This problem is referenced several places online, mostly relating to online gaming (bottom of email). My issue is related to a VoIP service I provide which is degraded due to packet loss. I don't have a direct relationship with NTT Communications but am hoping someone actually monitors this NOC email and can at least acknowledge that they've received this and are investigating. From one overworked IT Professional to another, thank you for your time. - Caesar Kabalan WinMTR Output: - Text: https://pastebin.com/raw/s1c7BQF7 - Image: https://i.imgur.com/93nrAVh.png Online references to this issue: - http://forums.cox.com/forum_home/internet_forum/f/5/p/19556/72581.aspx - https://twitter.com/CaesarKabalan/status/943695400191455233 - https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/384894/disconnections-due-to-package-loss-in-ntt-americas-node - http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/354155-Unstable-connection-with-Cox-ISP - https://us.battle.net/forums/en/overwatch/topic/20759596609 - https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comments/7ibxj3/psa_something_going_on_in_the_chicago_area_for

Their response (15min later):

Hello Caesar, Unfortunately if you are not an NTT customer we can't support you, please open a ticket with your ISP or hosting company and have them escalate to us. Thanks, Carrie

My Reply:

Hi Carrie, Thank you for the response. I will continue to attempt to do so.

Can a Cox Employee comment on this? There is obvious packet loss on the NTT network. Cox is directly peered with the NTT Communications network. You are the only ones who can open a support ticket. If the Cox forums are not the optimal place to escalate this, please let me know where I can escalate.

Thank you for your time.

Hi, everyone.

Our Network Operations Center investigated this last night and found no problems. I've been tracing to 204.2.229.9 and have not seen any loss occur. Since latency doesn't increase where you're seeing timeouts I suspect this is merely a result of traffic prioritization. If you do see any loss occurring on the game servers it would be best to contact the game support directly.

When playing my favorite game even during non high traffic times i am getting terrible lag and have determined it is packet loss on infrastructure owned by NTT in California. I realize that this is not property owned by Cox but they will not listen to me as i am nobody to them. They will however listen to someone at COX if they submit a ticket to them. 

Here is my proof.

Tracing route to 204.2.229.9 over a maximum of 30 hops

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms READYSHARE [192.168.1.1]

2 13 ms 9 ms 11 ms 10.39.120.1

3 12 ms 10 ms 11 ms 100.127.73.174

4 11 ms 11 ms 11 ms 70.169.73.196

5 25 ms 20 ms 23 ms langbprj02-ae1.0.rd.la.cox.net [68.1.1.14]

6 23 ms 23 ms 21 ms ae-7.a00.lsanca20.us.bb.gin.ntt.net [129.250.194.165]

7 58 ms * 47 ms ae-3.r01.lsanca20.us.bb.gin.ntt.net [129.250.2.233]

8 41 ms 40 ms * ae-8.r23.lsanca07.us.bb.gin.ntt.net [129.250.6.48]

9 46 ms * 48 ms ae-12.r22.snjsca04.us.bb.gin.ntt.net [129.250.4.150]

10 * 46 ms 49 ms ae-40.r02.snjsca04.us.bb.gin.ntt.net [129.250.3.121]

11 52 ms * 58 ms ae-2.a00.snjsca04.us.bb.gin.ntt.net [129.250.3.58]

12 48 ms * 49 ms xe-0-0-42-1.a00.snjsca04.us.ce.gin.ntt.net [129.250.195.42]

13 * * * Request timed out.

14 49 ms 50 ms 49 ms 204.2.229.9 Trace complete.

As you can see the packets I send from my router to the server are being dropped after they leave Cox's infrastructure and enter NTT's. I realize this is not the fault of COX however NTT will only listen to a complaint from COX, not me. This has been an ongoing issue for weeks now and is making my game unplayable. If someone at COX could make a formal and official complaint to them and at least get some feed back or a time frame of how long it would take to fix the issue it would be greatly appreciated! 

Hi ColleenD,

Is your test traffic transiting hops ending in us.bb.gin.ntt.net?

We've seen evidence of this issue from multiple Cox users to multiple downstream service providers (game servers, VoIP services, personal servers, etc). This is not an issue with any specific Cox customer or any specific internet service/website. There is a systemic issue with packet loss on a network Cox is peered with. Unfortunately as Cox customers we have no ability to troubleshoot routing issues through your environment and peered networks only you can do that. We don't get to pick our routes or which peers we transit; however we trust you as an ISP to pick peers which deliver reliable service.

To be clear, I don't think anyone here thinks anything is wrong with Cox, but you are the only ones able to solve this issue for us by holding NTT accountable for their network reliability.

Can we please have this looked at again or at least open a dialog with NTT to have them investigate a potential issue with packet loss on hops in THIS link?

I am having conversations with my hosting provider to see if they can escalate to NTT as well. I am an experienced IT professional and am willing to help out any way I can. 

Thank you for your time.

Hello, We seen your other post showing a tracert defining the packet loss. We need some information from you so we can pull up the modem so we have a starting point to look into this for you. Please reach us on Twitter at @CoxHelp, visit us on Facebook, or email by at cox.help@cox.com with a link to this tread. Provide us the name on the account with the full service address with a link to this thread so we can get started.