Frequent upstream packet loss on NBN HFC

[democritus]

We are experiencing frequent upstream packet loss on our HFC connection. Symptoms include:

• Voice Chat tools (Slack, MS Teams, discord): can hear other people but they complain our voice either cuts out or sounds robotic
• Remote desktop sessions: frequent delays and/or disconnects when remoting into servers at work. No other issues detected on the office network (ie it's just me having this problem)
• Always online games: Activity still occurs in the game but our actions are delayed or simply do not occur; consistent with the download stream working correctly but the upload stream failing.
• Browsing the web can result in "server not found" error pages, noticeable delays in accessing pages, downloads interrupting etc.

I have run PingPlotter (windows machines) and mtr (linux machines) to track network activity during these periods of interruption.

Every single time it shows that the packet loss starts at the first hop *after* "mymodem.modem", on the way to "gateway.nb11.sydney.telstra.net".

I have contact Tesltra support about this, and they have run checks on their side and pronounced "the issue is on your local network."  I have tried isolating the problem following their advice:

• Connected a single machine to the LAN on the back of the Telstra modem with a brand new cat 6 cable, disconnected all other machines, and turned off the wifi. Issue persisted.
• Tried each of the LAN ports on the back of the Telstra modem.  Issue persisted.
• Swapped machines and cat cable, repeated both steps above.  Issue persisted.

As I informed the person I spoke to yesterday - we were previously with iiNet for two years, and during that time had multiple NBN techs out to inspect the line in the house. Twice we were informed by the NBN tech that there is excessive noise on the NBN line out at the street ie it is not a problem in our house.

Despite all this, and the route tracing, Telstra support insist the issue is on my local network.

Any suggestions as to what I can do now?

[cf4]

One thing you could do is to disconnect Telstra modem from the NTD and connect a PC directly to NTD and run a test. This will eliminate the modem as the cause of the problem.

One thing that puzzles me is that the NBN technician admitted there was excessive noise on the line. Why didn't the tech fix the fault causing the excessive noise? There is probably a fault connector on the street cabling or faulty equipment causing the excessive noise.

[democritus]

Thanks for the tip re plugging directly into the NTD, I will try that next.

Re the NBN tech detecting the excessive noise: the tech said (and I am somewhat paraphrasing here, it's been a while) said the issue was on the line when he tested at the street but he couldn't tell where the noise was coming from.

We never heard any more about it, other than iiNet (ISP at the time) telling us every now and then that the NBN had promised the issue was resolved... despite faults continuing.

[cf4]

The noise will be the cause of your packet loss and until the source is located and fixed will continue to experience packet loss. If you haven't already lodge a complaint with Telstra.

Make a complaint (telstra.com.au)