Packet loss, latency on gigablast in Scottsdale, AZ for the last few months
I've been battling issues similar to multiple other recent posts on the forums [1, 2, 3, 4].Since this problem has started, I've replaced the cabling in my house, gotten a new modem and a new router, but the problem has persisted. As of today, I've had four different techs come to my house. Techs 1 and 2 both replaced the connections from my house to my tap. Tech 3 did that too, but also said he added a "boost filter" because of "low transmits" to my modem. Tech 4 replaced connections as well, and then said he "lowered the signal" because it was "too high" at the modem (sounds like he removed the boost filter from tech #3 lol). Today I noticed there is one especially bad host in the tracerts to both a sample Rocket League server and to Google, and several other hosts giving packet loss. Sunday and Monday had very bad packet loss all day, while it cleared late Monday night (9pm-1am). Today there was supposedly an outage in my area, but my Internet access was fine, and in fact had very little packet loss. Lo and behold, as the "outage" was clearing up, the packet loss came back. Attached are several samples from yesterday and today. I chose a smattering of times from yesterday's samples to show that the problem was definitely exacerbated during peak times, but that there is still packet loss in the tracert on Cox's end even outside of peak, which persists even after today's supposed outage was fixed. In addition to this, the last phone tech I spoke to via the Cox Cares (what a BS name) actually remarked that Arizona was the highest reporter of these issues in their personal experience. To me, that's pretty telling. Obviously it's anecdotal, but with my data and the rest of the data from others it seems to me Cox has some serious infrastructure issues that they are actively choosing to avoid dealing with. Lucky for them they have a monopoly here, huh? https://drive.google.com/file/d/1irw5zdTEkkEb5818-UJJBkbLkP6DHzFM/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pkmfPBba58rBVsLE1dvU53BGUTjvKtNN/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gHbb7vwUXIT2FXpFvoeNbbpUsogvPwT7/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RmCGIvrtx1Sc1Q7w0yU7b6gbJP_ggy3G/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TmK8voj4KXR4li6N7XahocB4uA6HC5m1/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bLOWFfg9vnDwZ6PAbCz1G_406JJmSeXe/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LhWZxlJoREkhb7Fji6HAZ0X6EIC6J55d/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/19YF_sdIIG8sAyVAQorc_fYIj0X6cjlHO/view?usp=sharing [1]Gaming and warzone/CoD in general packet burst - Internet - Internet Forum - Cox Support Forums [2]Noisy node issues - Speed drops until reset - Internet - Internet Forum - Cox Support Forums [3]Terrible packet loss and jitter. - Internet - Internet Forum - Cox Support Forums [4]Another packet loss and ping spike issue - Internet - Internet Forum - Cox Support Forums
Cox throttling speeds to gaming servers? I think so.
So I've just had it with Cox and their seemingly dishonest practice of blaming everything on the customer... I just got the 300mbps service in Las Vegas, and suspiciously get 500% increases in ping to gaming services as opposed to standard browsing/streaming service. I've validated everything is good to go on my end, and spent an hour or more being treated like a fool with Cox "technical support" people who don't even know what ping or traceroute are. As a background I've worked in IT for 15+ years and manage large load balanced networks like this for a living... Either there is an immense amount of ineptitude and apathy going on, or they're trying to push gamers to spend more money. My modem is a DOCSIS 3.1 enabled modem. My router is a gigabit router. I'm wired into the router with CAT6 cable, directly. My connection to the COX gateway is fast, and fine. The issue is the Cox internal routing. In this case, I'm going to use League of Legends for an example since they post their server IPs publicly. All I need to do to show where the breakdown is occurring is run a simple tracert. It's clear that I'm getting solid ping to Cox's gateway - langbprj01-ae1.rd.la.cox.net [68.1.1.13] - but they're choosing to route gaming traffic specifically through some kind of WAF, concentrator, or other type of internal network device which is throttling all traffic to 60-70ms (at lowest) The glaring technical evidence: Tracing route to 104.160.131.3 over a maximum of 30 hops 1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.1.1 2 9 ms 8 ms 7 ms 10.67.0.1 3 8 ms 8 ms 7 ms 100.127.4.164 4 11 ms 7 ms 11 ms 100.120.102.24 5 15 ms 16 ms 12 ms langbprj01-ae1.rd.la.cox.net [68.1.1.13] 6 60 ms 61 ms 61 ms 72.215.224.162 <---- the offending Cox IP. 7 61 ms 67 ms 65 ms 104.160.152.223 8 62 ms 61 ms 60 ms 104.160.152.227 9 67 ms 70 ms 70 ms 104.160.159.100 10 68 ms 67 ms 68 ms 104.160.131.3 So why are they throttling gaming speeds to 60-70ms? It doesn't really make sense until you realize they've just started marketing their "Cox Elite Gaming" service to unlock higher speeds for a premium monthly rate. The only problem? I CAN'T EVEN BUY THEIR EXTRA SERVICE IN MY AREA. Come on! If you're going to scam me into buying a premium service, at least offer the option to buy it! My only option has been to reduce my service to the 150mgps service (why bother with bandwidth if it's slow), and subscribe to Haste for a slight ping boost to try and compensate. Note - COX - you're losing money here. In the end I'm just getting screwed, and Cox is showing how dishonest they are. If they could explain exactly what that IP is and why they refuse to address it internally, maybe it will matter. Until then I'll be planning my exit ASAP.
