Ping is unusually high - stop deleting my post!

[#1]

Hi, I've had plus net for many years and to be honest, I knew something was a little wrong when I move to my place and I pinged 1.1.1.1 in cmd and it returned 20ms. but since I wasn't able to really play anything competitive online, I wasn't really that fussed as I just played games casually and socially. Now i have time to play seriously I'm having real issues with my ping. It's constantly drifting up and down sometimes on a server and can go from 50-70. UK servers ping 20 and when I join them netgraph tells me I'm actually pinging between 55-60.  Trying to play on a official steam server it is impossible, as it pings even higher at like 80 and even 90 sometimes?! This makes the game un-playable for me. I have done every tweak I can possibly think of to ensure it is not my end that is the issue.
While I'm not the most networking orientated I know a little and was trying to diagnose the problem. I think i found something that might resemble a causal issue ( possibly) 

When I tracert the lowest pinging server in the CS server browser (20ms) (these were done at about 1:30 am UK time)

Tracing route to vps-26a62d78.vps.ovh.net [51.89.165.168] a community server
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.1.1
2 12 ms 11 ms 11 ms 172.16.13.159
3 * * 24 ms 133.hiper04.sheff.dial.plus.net.uk [195.166.143.133]
4 19 ms 19 ms 19 ms 132.hiper04.sheff.dial.plus.net.uk [195.166.143.132]
5 20 ms 73 ms 41 ms peer8-et-7-0-4.telehouse.ukcore.bt.net [62.172.103.176]
6 20 ms 20 ms 20 ms be105.lon-thw-pb2-nc5.uk.eu [54.36.50.114]
7 * * * Request timed out.
8 * * * Request timed out.
9 * * * Request timed out.
10 21 ms 20 ms 20 ms vl1272.lon1-eri1-d1-a75.uk.eu [213.186.32.253]
11 19 ms 19 ms 19 ms be5.lon1-eri1-vac1-a75.uk.eu [188.165.9.93]

This is a cs:go official server which net-graph said I was pinging 50ms (which is really good for me sadly) at 1:30am:

To be honest, I suspect if I did this at peak time It would be a lot worse. I think my inflated ping value i'm getting is an average of the 'laggy' packets my client is receiving through the network when gaming?

Also why is the very first hop to the cabinet just down the road 10ms?

I have contacted Plusnet to make sure interleaving is turned off - it is apparently. I am using ethernet connection. I have a decent mobo with up to date drivers and gigbit LAN. decent hi cat cable. I have an up to date firmware ASUS router optimised for gaming traffic and prioritised this computer. I have a high quality 3rd party modem - Draytek. 

Is there anything I can do or is it infrastructure? Do you think there Is there anything Plusnet can do? My contract is coming up for renewal shortly and I can't think of anything else to solve it apart from perhaps trying another ISP? Apart from this one issue I have never really had any bad experience with Plusnet apart from when my old contract expired and they started charging me 2x the cost a month

Thanks for any advice, explanation on misconceptions I have.

This is not a spam post?!

[#2]

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@Stimpynator wrote:

When I tracert the lowest pinging server in the CS server browser (20ms) (these were done at about 1:30 am UK time)

Tracing route to vps-26a62d78.vps.ovh.net [51.89.165.168] a community server
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.1.1
2 12 ms 11 ms 11 ms 172.16.13.159
3 * * 24 ms 133.hiper04.sheff.dial.plus.net.uk [195.166.143.133]
... ... ...

... ... ...
11 19 ms 19 ms 19 ms be5.lon1-eri1-vac1-a75.uk.eu [188.165.9.93]

So your local ASUS router is at address 192.168.1.1,  but what is that connecting to ?

It is my understanding that IP addresses that start with 172.16.x.x are usually corporate private networks, so it is unlikely that your hop#2 is a public path to Plusnet.  Is your router connected either directly or via a VPN to perhaps your employer's or university's network ?, or perhaps another layer in your home network ?

It seems to me that if you can eliminate going via whatever private network is at hop#2, then you would improve your latency by possibly as much as 11ms - which would be much more reasonable.

[#3]

Hi thanks for the reply, it is just plugged directly into the Openreach port in the wall. 

It goes PC - Asus Router RT-AC86U - Draytek Vigor 130 modem - wall. 

I'm not using any kind of VPN, so I have no idea what is. I naively guessed it might be like the street junction box or something?

[#4]

Oh well, it just seemed a bit odd to me - perhaps someone else on the forum might have an idea of what that 172.16.x.x. address is ?.

For what it's worth, my setup is similar to yours -

    PC  ->  pfSense router  ->  DrayTek Vigor 130 modem  ->  wall

and my traceroute gives -

                                     Loss%   Snt   Last   Avg  Best  Wrst StDev
  1.|-- pfsense_router                0.0%    10    0.2   0.2   0.2   0.3   0.0
  2.|-- be5.lon1-eri1-vac1-a75.uk.eu  0.0%    10    5.5   5.7   5.5   6.0   0.2

[#5]

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@Stimpynator wrote:

I have an up to date firmware ASUS router optimised for gaming traffic and prioritised this computer.

Have you tested your connection's bufferbloat score using https://www.waveform.com/tools/bufferbloat  ?

If your router is correctly optimised, you should get a score of "A+" or "A",  regardless of the overall latency.

[#6]

t is my understanding that IP addresses that start with 172.16.x.x are usually corporate private networks, so it is unlikely that your hop#2 is a public path to Plusnet

The 172.16.x.x is the PN gateway to which the PPPoE connection has been established.

[#7]

Hi thanks for the reply, I get a C (results attached). I already tried tweaking the QoS and cannot get a higher score seemingly. If I limit my bandwidth anymore it seems to get worse, especially my piddly upload.

However, when I am playing online it uses a tiny fraction of my download speed and upload would that be enough to cause ping issues?

[#8]

I also bypassed the router entirely and went straight into the modem and ran the test again and got a C. I don't really know how I could raise it. When i restricted the bandwidth it basically told me off because I couldn't perform xyz.

I also re-ran a tracert to the same IP for comparison 

1 11 ms 10 ms 10 ms 172.16.13.159
2 * * * Request timed out.
3 19 ms 19 ms 19 ms 132.hiper04.sheff.dial.plus.net.uk [195.166.143.132]
4 40 ms 33 ms 36 ms peer8-et-7-0-4.telehouse.ukcore.bt.net [62.172.103.176]
5 22 ms 20 ms 20 ms be105.lon-thw-pb2-nc5.uk.eu [54.36.50.114]
6 * * * Request timed out.
7 * * * Request timed out.
8 * * * Request timed out.
9 20 ms 20 ms 19 ms vl1272.lon1-eri1-d1-a75.uk.eu [213.186.32.253]
10 19 ms 19 ms 19 ms be5.lon1-eri1-vac1-a75.uk.eu [188.165.9.93].

I have read various things online, which I am not sure of how true they are. Some people are saying a VPN could lower my ping (could just be marketing) and some are also saying that changing isp may give me a lower latency also? 

Thanks

[#9]

@Stimpynator  - I wouldn't be alarmed with those sorts of ping times especially when your connection is managed though our network. Unless anyone here knows definitively how out networks works, I could quite easily put 70MS ping down to our network managing your connection. Is it possible that your game play lag is affected by something else? 

The more I think about it, the difference between a hop of 50MS and 70MS is 20MS, that's the same as having an extra few hops in the in the equation and a couple of switches which you wouldn't really batter a eye lid over so I can't see that having a noticeable impact.

Have you tried gaming elsewhere with similar trace route latency to compare results to be sure we're on the right lines looking at the server latency?

[#10]

Its generally not a good idea to assess latency by looking at the RTT reported on a traceroute.  Loads of times I've seen traces where the RTT from intermediate hops is reported as greater than that from the final destination, which clearly can't be the case. I guess it's something to do with how the equipment processes the TTL expired cases, which after all is an admin overhead and not the device's main function.

If you think there's a big latency change between two points, maybe check this by pinging each of them and comparing.

Back to the underlying issue, is there any chance you have something uploading in the background somewhere?  Could be Google Drive, Icloud or any number of cloud related services.  My experience with Plusnet was that hitting the upload quite often had a big impact on latency and on download speed.

[#11]

@Stimpynator I found two posts in the Spam Filter which I have released and subsequently removed from the board.