Severe Packet Loss/Latency That Disappears when Downloading?
Hi all,
Similar to a lot of folks on here, I have had crazy high latency and packet loss for around 6 months now. 4 tech visits and one FCC complaint later Cox finally concluded we are on a very oversaturated node and a node split is in the works (I keep getting arbitrary dates, nothing set in stone so no idea when this will happen). I've been using pingplotter for a few months now to track my latency and have noticed it gets a tiny bit better (still unacceptable though) late in the evening or early morning which tracks with a congestion issue. My connection is interfering with my ability to work from home as I can barely communicate during meetings due to how choppy my audio is. Any sort of gaming that requires low latency is also impossible.
I have noticed something interesting however. My ping generally looks something like the following:
However when I download a file for example on Steam, my latency and packet loss suddenly fixes itself.
You can see above right where I start downloading something. I might add that this effect only happens when I download at my max speeds, if I throttle my connection to anything lower than the maximum it stays inconsistent.
Here is another picture showing both before and after I download for a bit, you can clearly see the start and stop.
I've been using this as a way to get some sort of stability in my connection when I need to, and as a result had to upgrade to unlimited data to avoid overages... So now I'm paying $50 more a month to be able to use my internet.
Here are my modem levels if that is needed. I have a CM1000 and a Nighthawk X4S. This is a new modem (replaced it a couple months ago because I thought it was the issue), and yes I have already tried bypassing the router. Multiple Cox techs have confirmed the issue is outside of my house
I have not gotten an answer out of Cox on why this is happening. Anyone else ever seen this or have any ideas why using more bandwidth seems to "fix" the problem?