Gaming Lag on Ultrafast Plus Fibre

[buggyy]

About 7-10 days ago i started getting some serious lag while playing xbox. This has not been the case up until recently. I pay for Ultrafast plus up to 500mbps, i get 100-130mbps download but i have ping tested and it goes crazy. Have screenshots for all, even though my speed should be around 450 and has been previously, 130mbps should still comfortably be enough to play online.

I have screenshots of slow speeds, and crazy ping and its just unplayable. I have 6 Devices total connected, 2 of those being Sky Q boxes so very little connected. I have spoken to sky tech support, but if you have spoken to them before you know they know little to nothing. 

I work in the IT sector so i know they read a jargon script to try fob you off, i was told to disable my Broadband Shield potentially allowing harmful malware ridden websites to be accessed. Regardless i gave it a shot but no change so switched it back to be safe. 

Extra info: Never had a problem before i switched to sky even on a 79mbps package, before fibre was installed in my area about 9 months ago. 

[buggyy]

Screenshots attached below. Also, why on any speedtest site does it sit at 70-80mbps for 5 seconds before finally kicking in up to 130mbps,  even though it should be about 450mbps. Seems like they have some sort of cap, untill the connection demands more then it allows it. 

[mormegil]

Is your Xbox connected via Ethernet or WiFi?

[buggyy]

Apologies, forgot that piece of info. Wireless, the same as it was when I had no problems on my old provider at 79mbps. I shouldn't need a wire running through my whole house.

[mormegil]

Do you know if you are connected via the 2-4ghz wireless or 5ghz signal?

[buggyy]

Always 5ghz.

[mormegil]

Have you added any new wireless or electrical devices since you started getting the problems?

[Chrisee]

@mormegil full fibre connections are in the vast majority of cases both stable and deliver thecspeed they are rated for. To accurately know what speed your Ultrafast+ service delivers you need to run the test on a single device connected by a direct Gigabit Ethernet cable to the hub with nothing else running. Tests run over WiFi often only report the speed of the Wifi between the hub and the device. The fact you report speeds around 100Mb/s indicates a probable Wifi issue in your home. My own SR203 could provide wifi speeds up to 700Mb/s in my main living area but dropping to below 100Mb/s in the most distant rooms.

Wifi signals are affected by interference that can cause packet loss which causes a game to stall waiting for the packet to be resent. Online Gaming actually does not require much bandwidth typically under 10Mb/s is used to play, but it does require a regular signal with low jitter. For this reason it is always best to avoid using wifi and to use ethernet cables which do not introduce jitter.Tracing and eliminating the source of wifi interference can be a frustrating business and is not a service any ISP offers.

There is another factor which can disrupt gaming traffic which is multiple users requiring data from the router.at the sametime . Cheap routers like Sky's hubs have no way to prioritse gaming traffic you would require a gaming router which offers QOS. Asus make a range which are comptable with Sky full fibre, have QOS and offer advanced wifi mesh support but these can be pricy.

To check that the issue is not an obscure fault in the connection from Sky to your home you can set up a Broadband Quality monitor which records a regular ping from a server near the London Interne Exchange to your hub. This will show any issues in Sky's network and whether your hub is getting busy see https://www.thinkbroadband.com/broadband/monitoring/quality

using the public IP4 address. 

[JPR007]

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@buggyy wrote:

I work in the IT sector so i know they read a jargon script to try fob you off, i was told to disable my Broadband Shield potentially allowing harmful malware ridden websites to be accessed. 

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@buggyy If you work in the IT sector, do you not already know and understand the limitations and instability that Wi-Fi brings with it? Any critical/important  device should always be connected via cable. If you can't run Ethernet, then the next best step is powerline adapters. 

There's nothing wrong with your fibre connection. You are using Wi-Fi to game, which is one of the most sensitive things to jitter/latency in a data connection. The Wi-Fi is connection is the issue, as it's inherently unstable.

As full fibre connections become more commonplace, the limitations of Wi-Fi is rearing its head more and more. 

[buggyy]

Sure, but can you explain why it was absolutely fine 6 months previous and unplayable in the last 10 days? 

No devices added, nothings changed. Speed has dropped from 450mbps to 130mbps and the ping is crazy, all in the last 10 days. 

Controversial, but it's 2023 I should be able to play a simple online game with fibre WiFi. I am causal gamer, along with all of my friends and no one has a problem playing on WiFi. 

[Ryan+H]

Download a WiFi analyser maybe?

things in local environments do change, WiFi is a wireless technology and can be impacted easily by interference. Nobody is going to be able to tell you why it was working perfectly before but not now - way too many factors to even consider.

 Yes, it is 2023 and there have been many advancements to WiFi connectivity! But interference will always be an issue.

If you work in IT, surely you'd be checking to see what has changed? Are there other routers operating on the same wireless channel as you? Are you using extenders? 

[buggyy]

I will do, I have never used one before. Do you have a suggestion for one on Mac by chance?

[jamesn123]

@buggyy 

Just because its worked fine before and works fine your neighbours does not mean it will always work fine because the WiFi environment around you can change constantly. Given you claim you work in IT I'd hope you'd understand this. 

Your claim about the speed only being 130mbps and ramping up slowly over 5 seconds is an obvious sign of slower WiFi link, again this can often being caused by neighbouring routers or the fact that your connecting via one of your Sky Q boxes which boosters the signal range at the cost of speed & latency.

Your Sky Q box may also be the culprit of your gaming woes as if your console is connecting via that or a mini box it is essentially introducing latency because of the extra hop and it also introduces a second point in which this signal can get disrupted. 

Finally your comment about 'being in 2023 and you should be able to game over WiFi' is just one big vicious circle because everyone has the same mindset so they then connect all their devices via WiFi which then increases the amount of interference in the WiFi airspace which then affects other people and around we go in a big circle. In 2023 with online gaming becoming so latency sensitive you should now more than any other time be seeking a wired connection over wireless even if you are a casual gamer. Even powerline would be better than WiFi. 

[Chrisee]

@buggyy while lousy wifi is almost certain your problem you can set up a Broadband Quality Monitor on the off chance its your line. 

Wifi analyzer apps are best run on a phone so you can see the position in various rooms Wifi Analyzer is free if you have an Android phone. iPhones dont allow 3rd party analyzer apps but Apples Airport Utility can be configured to scan all networks. On a mac see https://setapp.com/how-to/best-wifi-analyzer-for-mac 

[buggyy]

I understand everything everyone has a replied, and I appreciate then help offered. My main gripe here, is that this only seems to happen on sky. I regret my decision hugely to switch as I had non stop problems before moving out from my family home  3 years ago, so moved to another provider and never had a single issue on a 79mbps contract. 

No devices added, only 4 reachable other WiFi routers in my close neighborhood and not one of them is on sky. So what else could possibly caused the connection to be so much worse than before? 

I have now run an Ethernet cable to my console and that has solved the issue, although the mrs is not too happy with a bright yellow cable running through the house. (Only one long enough I could find at work to reach). Until I inevitably have a buy another, has anyone tried the powerline adapters and do you think this could solve my problem?