High latency causing lag on gaming and general speed issues

[mae-3]

@mrpugster 

Can you ping the router at 192.168.0.1 and bbc.co.uk to isolate whether it's the router/LAN cable or a line fault?

[mrpugster]

Yep, I'm on wired ethernet, under 1ms.  Interestingly when I switch on my VPN my ping to www.bbc.co.uk goes to normal, check out the results below.  

Without VPN

With VPN

[mae-3]

@mrpugster 

Because ICMP (ping) is low priority on routers on the internet and other traffic is at a higher priority it's not impacting VPN traffic. But it does mean that a router on the route to the bbc.co.uk is likely slightly congested. Can you do a traceroute to the bbc.co.uk to see whether it's a Sky router, that is most likely, without the VPN in the circuit, please?

[mrpugster]

Here you go 😀

[mae-3]

@mrpugster 

It seems that it is only impacting the BBC ICMP network router traffic which is low priority and ICMP is only used for diagnostic purposes. I doubt it is impacting normal UDP/TCP traffic, and the only thing that would be done is to add capacity at the BBC to handle capacity in the future.

[mrpugster]

what about where it says "226ms - be105.er12.enslo.isp.sky.com" ?

[mae-3]

@mrpugster 

But the average latency is 17ms, the first traffic ICMP traffic took 226ms because of its low priority but the traffic later took an average of 17ms.

Are you getting issues watching the BBC, and more importantly what games have issues, and whether it's a console or PC? And speed looks good at 27Mbps downstream for the distance to the cabinet, is the guarantee minimum speed above that speed?

[mrpugster]

the spikes are the problem, and that I think is what is causing the lag on BF3 - I had a constant ping going on the 2nd screen and the results compare to the lag I get when playing.  As soon as the VPN comes on it dissappears - no spikes whatsoever.  Either way I shouldn't get a better experience on a VPN no matter how you chop it up.

I don't watch BBC at all but I get the same issue on my IPTV service, I'll give SKY a call as soon as I can.

thanks for all the help

[cookiemonsteruk]

@mrpugster 

"what about where it says "226ms - be105.er12.enslo.isp.sky.com" "

Looks like for whatever reason sky are routing you through Birmingham hence the longer times

[mae-3]

@mrpugster 

I'd try switching off the router for more than half an hour to acquire a new public IP address, and then contact Sky to enquire whether anything can be done about those spikes if that doesn't fix it.

[mrpugster]

thanks but already tried the old "switch off the router for 30 mins" fix yesterday but didn't make any difference.  I've switched all other devices off, had Wireshark running, done everything I can think apart from reformating my PC 🙂

[HB1971]

Hi, I'm also experiencing this.

sky keep giving me the your connection is good alibi. But, I get painful lag spikes on the PlayStation 5 - which has stopped me frkm even playing now. How do I get the VPN to make this stop? 

[Chrisee]

@HB1971 how is the PS5 networked? If you are using wifi that is the most likely cause.

[HB1971]

Hi, when I renewed contract with sky I had zero lag spikes for 3 months, now since April it's just been constant daily. Yes, I understand Ethernet could possible help in this matter, but it was perfect before. Also, people on this forum are saying this happens even with Ethernet. 

[JPR007]

@HB1971 Wifi varies constantly, so it doesn't matter if something has worked for the last however many days/weeks/months, it doesn't mean it will today. It is probably interference from something, or someone else's network. It could also be your own if the WiFi band you are using is the 2.4GHz one, as that is immensely overcrowded and inherently slower. 
The vast majority of people will tend to use WiFi for everything, even if it is perfectly practical to use Ethernet.

What a lot don't realise is that WiFi, even if it's supposedly possible to achieve high "headline" speeds, is hamstrung and has to run at the speed of the slowest device on that band. 

Things such as gaming, and video conferencing/calls, even things such as Netflix, are all sensitive to jitter and latency.
Ethernet does not suffer from jitter, and keeps latency to minimum, keeping things running as sweet as possible. Ethernet also increases performance because multiple devices can transmit and receive data at the same time over it, whereas with WiFi (WiFi 6 is an exception), only one device can transmit and receive data at once, so if you have lots of devices, the more you add, the slower and more congested it gets. 

As a few others have found, if you are using Ethernet, and still have problems, then it can possibly be your actual broadband connection to the router from the cabinet, or the back haul connection, or your router could be under strain. This is, however, rare and by using Ethernet you are eliminating the issues of using WiFi, which 90% of the time is the cause.