San Jose - High latency and dropped packets in the evening
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rgralak @ 4th Sep 01:36AM:
San Jose - High latency and dropped packets in the evening

Hello,

I'm located in San Jose, CA and I've been a DSL Extreme customer for over 4 years now. Up until recently I was extremely happy with the performance of my DSL connection. Ironically I left SBC to become a DSL Extreme customer because of exactly the same problem I am now seeing on my DSL Extreme connection.

During the day my connection is excellent. Pings to the first hop are a steady 7 msec or so with no dropped packets and performance is over 5MB up and 650Kbits down. However, for the last half year in the evening I've been experiencing much higher latency ping times to the first hop (30-60 msec) and occasional dropped packets. At times the performance becomes so low that Winamp will drop the buffered 128Kbit music stream to which I was listening, which was how I discovered this issue in the first place.

I've posted several trouble tickets which resulted in big efforts by AT&T and DSL Extreme Tier 2 techs to solve this problem. The lines in my house have been checked. I have a new DSL modem. AT&T made several repairs to external lines between my home and the remote terminal my connection is routed through. I was told that my connection has been moved to a different port on the remote terminal and twice on the router at the data center. I'm on my third static IP address, the performance of which actually seems worse than the original IP block I had. I was hoping to be put on a router with less traffic, but perhaps the router was not the problem.

Anyway, this issue looks like classic congestion on some network component, probably because of AT&T-Uverse evening usage (since DSLX uses AT&T equipment). I'm wondering if there are any plans to improve the equipment to lighten the load and thus reduce latency and packet loss in the evenings? I'm getting frustrated because the trouble tickets I mentioned above were closed because I was told there is nothing else that can be done. I was told I will have to live with the performance in the evenings or cancel my service.

So, is anyone else in San Jose seeing this in the evenings? To check this, Just ping the first hop from your IP address - ping time should be consistently under 10 msecs when there is no other internet traffic.

I'm wondering if there any hope that this can be fixed?

Thanks,

-Ray
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dslx_gm @ 4th Sep 02:17AM:
Re: San Jose - High latency and dropped packets in the evening

Hi Ray,

I would be happy to take a look for you. I haven't seen any network issues or latency so this could be something in your specific area (neighborhood) or with your line. When does the problem start? Do you lose sync on the line? What is the status of the light on the modem when it occurs?

Do you notice latency to all sites or only specific sites? Can you provide trace routes to those sites? Can you also provide ping test to the gateway?

You mentioned that the ILEC has come out. Did they come out in the evening hours (4:00PM to 8:00PM) or last dispatch slot?

Thanks
--
George
General Manager
DSL Extreme
Will work for reviews. ;)
reply
rgralak @ 4th Sep 09:21AM:
Re: San Jose - High latency and dropped packets in the evening

Hi George,

On weekdays the higher latency starts usually around 8pm in the evenings and lasts until after midnight. On weekends I sometimes see less severe latency in the afternoon and it is usually not quite as bad in the evening as on week nights.

The modem has not ever lost synch and everything appears to be ok. I am pinging only to the first hop, that is to the gateway at the data center. I'm using a numeric IP address so DNS is not involved. Pinging any other site past the gateway just adds to the latency. If you want I can private email you my static IP and gateway?

> You mentioned that the ILEC has come out. Did they come out in the evening hours (4:00PM to 8:00PM) or last dispatch slot?

They have been out here after 7pm but not after 8pm when the problem starts. However, I have been on the phone with DSLX Tier 2 several times while the problem has been occurring and they have observed the phenomenon.

-Ray
reply
dslx_gm @ 4th Sep 06:44PM:
Re: San Jose - High latency and dropped packets in the evening

Please feel free to send over the account information. I would be happy to take a closer look.

Thanks
reply
rgralak @ 4th Sep 10:40PM:
Re: San Jose - High latency and dropped packets in the evening

George,

I sent you a private message with my info. In fact my connection is already getting hit with higher latency right now at 7:39 pm.

-Ray
reply
rgralak @ 10th Sep 11:07AM:
Re: San Jose - High latency and dropped packets in the evening

Unfortunately the latency problem has still not been resolved. I haven't heard from George in a few days so maybe he's on vacation this week.

Can anyone in the San Jose area confirm that they do (or don't) have extra latency in the evening?

Thanks,

-Ray
reply
dslx_gm @ 10th Sep 06:48PM:
Re: San Jose - High latency and dropped packets in the evening

Hi Ray,

I apologize for the delay in getting back to you. I had a quick trip to the bay area to visit my new born nephew and was away from the office for a few days.

I have your line setup to graph traffic on the line itself. I will am going to monitor that to see if I notice any changes. Are you seeing a decrease in speed when you do a speed test at night vs during the day? Are you noticing an increase just to the gateway or beyond the gateway.

I have asked our network operations team to take a look as well. They haven't seen any issues on this end but are monitoring as well. Do you have access to the MPOE outside your house? Could you attempt to plug in there and see if you are seeing an issue still?

Thanks
--
George
General Manager
DSL Extreme
Will work for reviews. ;)
reply
rgralak @ 10th Sep 07:05PM:
Re: San Jose - High latency and dropped packets in the evening

Hi George,

Oh, no problem. I figured you must be out of the office. Congratulations in regards to your new nephew!! :)

To answer your questions:

* Yes, I do see a speed drop in the evenings after 8pm or so. I have once or twice measured below 1Mb download speed, although it is usually in the 3Mb range. It is 5Mb+ during the day. Upload speed seems to be hardly affected, usually about 630kbits/sec.

* I believe the latency is increased to all IP addresses, not just to the gateway.

* Sorry, although I think I can open the AT&T box on the side of my house I don't think I have the equipment to connect to the lines and test the connection (Is that what you mean by MPOE?)

Thanks,

-Ray
reply
dslx_gm @ 10th Sep 07:23PM:
Re: San Jose - High latency and dropped packets in the evening

said by rgralak :

Hi George,

* Sorry, although I think I can open the AT&T box on the side of my house I don't think I have the equipment to connect to the lines and test the connection (Is that what you mean by MPOE?)

Yes. Most of the MPOEs now have a standard phone cable jack them. You can typically just unplug that and plug in the DSL modem. If it doesn't then you wouldn't be able to.
--
George
General Manager
DSL Extreme
Will work for reviews. ;)
reply
rgralak @ 10th Sep 07:44PM:
Re: San Jose - High latency and dropped packets in the evening

I don't think there is a jack. I seem to recall the tech disconnecting the wires at the terminal to connect to an adapter of some sort.

What were you thinking could be done from the terminal? A few months back an AT&T tech did do a ping test after 7pm and luckily saw the start of the latency trend.

-Ray
reply
rgralak @ 16th Oct 11:53AM:
Re: San Jose - High latency and dropped packets in the evening

George,

Here's an update after about 6 weeks...

I've been contacted numerous times by your support staff, which is great, but the latency/drop packet problem in the evening still persists. AT&T keeps sending techs out to try to fix my line but it is not helping. I have asked a tech today (Herbert), who was also on the phone with an AT&T representative, if someone from AT&T could be made available at the data center after 8pm to try to figure out what is happening. He told me that was not possible.

I guess there is no hope to solve this latency problem?

-Ray
reply
dslx_gm @ 17th Oct 10:36PM:
Re: San Jose - High latency and dropped packets in the evening

Hi Ray,

Unfortunately it looks like AT&T has struck out thus far. I show we have done everything possible to attempt to resolve the issue including changing the port you are on and it appears some work was done by AT&T's cable maintenance team. The ticket has currently been escalated to the chronic team at AT&T. Unfortunately it appears there is something on your line that is causing the increased latency and AT&T hasn't been able to isolate it down to date. We will continue to push AT&T to see if they can resolve the issue. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Thanks
--
George
General Manager
DSL Extreme
Will work for reviews. ;)
reply

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