Ping & Packet loss [Megathread]
Collecting the threads where people are saying they have ping and packet loss issues.
Unlikely that this wide spread problem is caused by a "router", "signal issue" or "bent cables" (unless somehow...
Forum Discussion
Update Apr 1
- Added few more threads on the list
- Chatted with customer support over twitter. Sent more traceroutes. Part of the time they were confused about the hops and why my second hop is 10.134.0.1 and is that part of my network. (It's not, it's part of theirs and lot traceroutes from different customers here show 10.x.x.x.x address as second hop). Didn't make any progress and didn't receive any new information. They just asked me to reset the Cox modem to factory settings and offered to send technician to look again. (Technician visited 3 days ago and found nothing wrong expect their network likely overloaded).
- I monitored Zoom and the latency to AWS (which is what they use for call). When I speak I often get "Unstable connection" and the packet loss is up to 25% on upstream (sent).
I think their issue is that the cable (not fiber) is not optimized for lot of upstream usage. Now with people doing more video calls etc, their upstream is likely more congested and can't handle all the traffic increasing the pings and packet loss. Not sure what kind of upgrades they could do to increase the upstream capacity.
From Cisco's manual (Troubleshooting Slow Performance in Cable Modem Networks): https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/docs/broadband-cable/cable-modems/12551-troubleshooting-slow-perf.html#upstreamchannel
Upstream Channel Congestion
The upstream channel is normally the most precious resource in a cable system. Currently, most cable service providers use a 1.6 MHz channel width and Quadrature Phase Shift Keying (QPSK) modulation in the upstream path. This equates to approximately 2.5 Mbps in total available upstream bandwidth for all users connected to the one upstream channel. It is important to ensure that the upstream channel does not become over used or congested, otherwise all users on that upstream segment suffer poor performance.
If upstream channel usage is consistently above 75 percent during the peak usage time, end users begin to suffer issues such as latency, slower "ping" times, and a generally slower Internet experience. If upstream channel usage is constantly above 90 percent during the peak usage time, end users experience an extremely poor level of service because a large portion of the end user's upstream data will have to be delayed or discarded.
Sounds like we are in the 75-100% usage.
