High Latency Spikes on ADSL

[S1lent]

On both wireless and wired connection, when pinging the Telstra Gateway, the modem sends back a response of about 150-200ms every so often, then it goes back down to 2 or 3 ms. This shows in online games as well, not only do I have at least 80ms but it Spikes to 150ms constantly and sometimes goes past 2000ms. The spikes occur every second and get really annoying.

[S1lent]

btw the Gateway is a Telstra Gateway max: TG799vac

[Kenobi]

Hi S1lent, 

I'm assuming you're pinging the Gateway Max from your local device? Are you pinging 10.0.0.138 or another IP?

[PA23]

I too am having the same problem with my ping/latency im on ADSL2+ and it's fluctuating anywhere between 37-2000ms every miniute it fluxuates where as before it was stable on 37ms. Ive called technical support and they were no help what so ever they kept saying that the speeds were fine so theres nothing wrong with the internet, when in fact theres a big problem. I have a D-link modem and have turned the modem off for 20secs which was the instruction from tech support. Any help to this matter would be highly appreciated.     

[Kenobi]

Hi PA23, 

Take a look at the following article about latency and see if this help determining the issue.

International-routing-latency-and-ping

[PA23]

Hi Kenobi,

Thanks for the reply unfortunately all the artical says is what ive already done, Im already using a wired connection, reset the modem, turned off the wifi while using it and playng on servers in aus only. What I dont understand is how out of no where the internet can go from being really good with no latency spikes to a matter of months of it being unusable. I would've thought telstra would investigate this issue not just say "your speeds are fine so theres nothing wrong" because as a customer its a service I'm paying for and not getting it to all its capabilities.

[Kenobi]

Did you try the other suggestions, like changing your DNS settings and checking for other programs and downloads running in the background?

[PA23]

Yes Ive done all that's in the artical and no there are no downloads running in the background. Theres nothing more I can do on my end. So not sure where this is going to lead. 

[Kenobi]

Have you tried running a traceroute to see where the latency increases?

[S1lent]

Sorry for late reply but, yes I am pinging 10.0.0.138 on a local connection. The ping fluctuates like described by PA23. The ping is constantly fluctuating and is never stable. The higher ping is caused by other devices on the network but I don't know why the ping is fluctuating so severely.

[S1lent]

Here is the dialog of me running a traceroute to www.google.com

C:\WINDOWS\system32>tracert www.google.com

Tracing route to www.google.com [216.58.203.100]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 190 ms 2 ms 1 ms dsldevice.gateway [10.0.0.138]
2 * * * Request timed out.
3 250 ms 21 ms 20 ms 144.130.213.210
4 24 ms 25 ms 19 ms bundle-ether7.cha-core4.brisbane.telstra.net [203.50.11.142]
5 36 ms 37 ms 37 ms bundle-ether11.ken-core10.sydney.telstra.net [203.50.11.72]
6 35 ms 33 ms 34 ms bundle-ether1.ken-edge903.sydney.telstra.net [203.50.11.173]
7 37 ms 35 ms 35 ms goo2503144.lnk.telstra.net [58.163.91.202]
8 37 ms 37 ms 49 ms 108.170.247.65
9 37 ms 260 ms 36 ms 209.85.255.165
10 262 ms 34 ms 133 ms syd09s15-in-f4.1e100.net [216.58.203.100]

Trace complete.

While this is on a wireless connection, i dont believe there should be 190ms just to the gateway (if i am reading this right). but as you can see the spikes continue throughout.

I ran a second one to make sure my findings were accurate:

1 3 ms 2 ms 1 ms dsldevice.gateway [10.0.0.138]
2 * * * Request timed out.
3 26 ms 240 ms 23 ms 144.130.213.210
4 246 ms 20 ms 234 ms bundle-ether7.cha-core4.brisbane.telstra.net [203.50.11.142]
5 37 ms 37 ms 35 ms bundle-ether11.ken-core10.sydney.telstra.net [203.50.11.72]
6 34 ms 38 ms 34 ms bundle-ether1.ken-edge903.sydney.telstra.net [203.50.11.173]
7 35 ms 35 ms 37 ms goo2503144.lnk.telstra.net [58.163.91.202]
8 39 ms 36 ms 36 ms 108.170.247.65
9 82 ms 37 ms 277 ms 209.85.255.165
10 207 ms 34 ms 261 ms syd09s15-in-f4.1e100.net [216.58.203.100]

Trace complete.

It seems as though it is a spike every so often which can severely effect the connection to a game server for instance.

most of the servers i play on are very close and i used to get about 50ms on these servers. but lately it has been really bad being atleast 150ms most days. i have also tried pinging the router on other devices which showed spikes also.

[cf4]

"The higher ping is caused by other devices on the network"

Do you know which device on network is causing the high ping? Either switch this device off or disable app which is causing high ping.

[S1lent]

sorry i didnt really explain.

Some other devices stream netflix and other things, which can cause the ping and i know that. but when they stop using the internet and its just me on, i still get spikes and consistanly high ping.

I just dont understand why the ping is only really bad now when it used to be fine.

[Kenobi]

Hi S1lent, 

Thanks for providing the traceroute results.  It looks like a WiFi issue. So you can try and connect your device directly to your modem via an Ethernet cable and see how that goes. As a direct Ethernet connection gives you a better flow of data.

Alternatively if you are using WiFi enabled devices to connect to your modem, I would suggest having a look at the following WiFi troubleshooting article, which you may find resolves your issue.  It contains tips, an online tool and a downloadable app which can help in optimising your connection.  I usually find that changing the channel the modem transmits the WiFi signal on can help.  You may have to try a few different channels before finding an optimal one.

http://crowdsupport.telstra.com.au/t5/General-Internet-KB/WiFi-Troubleshooting/ta-p/107516

Finally if all else fails try resetting your modem to it's factory default settings. 

[S1lent]

Thanks for te response,

I think I will try swapping around a few channels and see if I can et any improvements and if not I'll see if that article can help.
Thanks for your help hopefully it works.

[DingoDan]

Please do let us know how it goes? 

[S1lent]

Ok, so it seemed to work at first but it didn't last long.

I changed the channel from auto (which put it on 1) to 2, which worked well for about a day. i.e. constant low and stable 50-54ms in CSGO which is incredible compared to my previous connection. Previously the ping would constantly be between 70 and 300, constantly fluctuating and never stable.

But like i said after about a day, it went back to the bad connection. so i tried resseting the router and changing the channel again, but it didnt make much improvement. so i dont know what exactly is going on.

I decided to run a couple more traceroutes just to see if there was any difference, here is a link to all of the results(sorry bastebin was under heavy load):

https://paste.ee/p/XKWAg#1UDO5cTTbWsyF8cxVOVa9iVGarKSTI3E

It seems to be a common theme that the traceroute shows that the connection times out on the second line, im not sure what this means but i am hoping it can shed some light.

[S1lent]

I would also like to add that, while you used to be able to change the line profile for your service, i can no longer find that option in my account settings. I believe that if the problem is on the line or modem end, this could have made an improvement, especially in stability.

So if anyone knows how to change your line profile that might be helpful.

Any otehr suggestions would be appreciated also.

[cf4 · Accepted solution]

Rather that change channels randomly install a Wi-Fi analyser app on PC or smart device and use it to pick a channel that suffers least interference from adjacent channels. In the example below I have chosen channel one as it has the least interference from other channels.

[S1lent]

Thanks for the reply, what program would you recommend for this?

Also, while this may fix it temporarily, i still experience spikes pretty frequently so is there anything else to try and reduce this.

[cf4]

For Windows 10 PC I use WiFi Analyser by Matt Hafner, its free from the Windows app store.

For Android devices I use WiFi Analyser by farproc, its free from android store.

Ther is also a free Wi-Fi Analyser in IOS app store.

If interference the cause of the problem once you set gateway to the channel with least interference that should fix problem until one of your neighbours decides to use that channel.

[S1lent]

Thanks for your help,

I will try this out as it seemed to fix the problem temporarily but hopefully one day there will be a better solution, as it is inconvienient to have to change channels so often.

But thanks anyway hopefully it works for me.

[S1lent]

It seems to have improved the latency but I still remember it being better, this may mean that my area has just become more busy but I'm not sure. Hopefully Telstra can improve the latency and ping on adsl, or allow for more cable positions available. As Telstra has said that we are unable to get cable put our residence because the exchange is full. Which sounds pretty lazy seeing as though they also said that there is a very long waiting list just for our area. Please Telstra stop spending your money on these amazing ads and start actually improving your service.