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High Latency in the Evening

Branden_
I've been here awhile

Hi guys, for the past two months I've been experiencing high latency with my connection around 7-11pm, and my Internet gets pretty slow compared to what I get during the day. I am on the Gigabit plan with Ignite Internet, when running a speed test during the day I can easily get over 800Mpbs, but  around 7pm it will drop to low the 100s. However this isn't my main concern, the high latency is. Since I play a video games during those times, its basically impossible to play any shooter games, since my ping will be around 120ms, when normally its in the low 50s. I also get a lot of packet loss during these times.

 

When performing a trace route, the high latency is at the second hop. During the day, I will get an average of 10ms to my second hop, but during the evenings, it will be in the high 50s. Here is one of the trace route around 9pm.

 

 

Tracing route to google.ca [142.251.32.99]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

  1    <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  192.168.23.1
  2    51 ms    55 ms    53 ms  174.118.100.1
  3     *       91 ms    85 ms  8676-dgw01.nbmn.rmgt.net.rogers.com [24.156.149.129]
  4    83 ms   102 ms    71 ms  209.148.236.113
  5    86 ms    74 ms    72 ms  69.63.248.77
  6    81 ms    79 ms    91 ms  209.148.233.130
  7     *        *        *     Request timed out.
  8    64 ms    46 ms    45 ms  66.249.95.18
  9    84 ms    95 ms    87 ms  108.170.251.2
 10   116 ms   133 ms    83 ms  216.239.58.118
 11   103 ms   114 ms    94 ms  142.250.57.138
 12    95 ms    88 ms    97 ms  108.170.248.65
 13    82 ms   100 ms    97 ms  142.251.60.181
 14    96 ms   101 ms   102 ms  lga25s77-in-f3.1e100.net [142.251.32.99]

Trace complete.

 

 

My current setup is the following:

XB7 in bridge mode connected to my Unifi Dream Machine.

 

I've tried disabling bridge mode and only using the XB7 but the issue persists. 

 

Here are my modem signals.

Downstream
Channel Bonding Value
15
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
16
34
33
34
Locked
Locked
Locked
Locked
Locked
Locked
Locked
Locked
Locked
Locked
Locked
Locked
Locked
Locked
Locked
Locked
Locked
Locked
Locked
645 MHz
555 MHz
561 MHz
567 MHz
573 MHz
579 MHz
585 MHz
591 MHz
597 MHz
603 MHz
609 MHz
615 MHz
621 MHz
633 MHz
639 MHz
651 MHz
723 MHz
350000000
723000000
37.6 dB
39.2 dB
39.2 dB
39.2 dB
39.1 dB
39.0 dB
39.0 dB
38.9 dB
38.6 dB
38.5 dB
38.1 dB
38.4 dB
38.2 dB
38.0 dB
37.8 dB
37.3 dB
37.2 dB
38.8 dB
37.0 dB
3.5 dBmV
1.7 dBmV
2.4 dBmV
2.6 dBmV
2.9 dBmV
3.1 dBmV
3.0 dBmV
3.2 dBmV
2.8 dBmV
2.8 dBmV
2.5 dBmV
3.3 dBmV
3.6 dBmV
3.7 dBmV
3.5 dBmV
3.1 dBmV
5.1 dBmV
1.5 dBmV
5.2 dBmV
256 QAM
256 QAM
256 QAM
256 QAM
256 QAM
256 QAM
256 QAM
256 QAM
256 QAM
256 QAM
256 QAM
256 QAM
256 QAM
256 QAM
256 QAM
256 QAM
OFDM
OFDM
OFDM

 

Upstream
Channel Bonding Value
1
2
3
4
Locked
Locked
Locked
Locked
18 MHz
23 MHz
30 MHz
36 MHz
2560
5120
5120
5120
40.0 dBmV
41.0 dBmV
41.0 dBmV
41.0 dBmV
QAM
QAM
QAM
QAM
TDMA_AND_ATDMA
ATDMA
ATDMA
ATDMA

 

Anyway, I've contacted Rogers and I was told by the technician that my signal to my modem were good and to "enable port forwarding" (lol) and if that doesn't work, its the game. However, I told him it happens on any games that I play, but he didn't seem to care so I gave up on that. If anyone could help with this it would be appreciated. 

 

4 REPLIES 4

Re: High Latency in the Evening

Datalink
Resident Expert
Resident Expert

You've basically pointed out the problem on your own, "high latency at the second hop".  That second hop is the Cable Modem Termination System (CMTS) which controls and provides data services to its connected modems.  During the day you're seeing reasonable times to the CMTS around 10 ms, and in the evening it increases to 50 ms.  That looks like a heavily loaded CMTS, or perhaps the neighbourhood node which sits between the modem and the CMTS.  You don't have a signal problem, you have a neighbouhood node or CMTS load problem.  

 

If you want to track this, ping the CMTS address at 174.118.100.1   Run a 24 hour ping test to see the difference during that time period.  

 

You really need to be speaking with a Level II tech, who has access to the load numbers.  You will probably never be told what those numbers are, but, you can certainly point out the issue.  The level I techs are useless in this case, so, the only question I would pose to them is "can you fix a CMTS load problem, yes or no?"  If yes, ok, lets get on with this, if no, then pass me on to a Level II tech who has access to the CMTS load numbers.  

 

Ultimately, the only solution to this is to split the neighbourhood node, which reduces the number of customers on the node.  The end result is that the connected modems can be allotted more receive/transmit time slots which reduces the latency downstream and upstream.  That node split can take months to plan and carry out, and these days, with pandemic supply chain problems, it might take more than a few months.  

 

So, give a shot at speaking with a level II tech and see where it leads.  At the very least, if you're speaking with a Level II tech, you should be able to have an educated conversation about latency to the neighbourhood node and the CMTS.  

 

Food for thought, also take into consideration what might be happening on your own network.  If you have a family with kids, then perhaps there is more traffic inbound and outbound in the evening than you would expect.  That can also have a detrimental impact on the traffic latency.  The solution in that case might include running a router that can run CAKE as a packet management scheme.  

 

Cake - Bufferbloat.net

 

So, while it looks like there's an external issue with evening loads, consider what is running on your network during the evening as well. 

Re: High Latency in the Evening

Branden_
I've been here awhile

Thank you for your reply, I was aware that my issue was most likely at my neighborhood node or CMTS. 

 

My network load during the day and at night is pretty much the same, we have two Ignite IPTV running and my computer and a tablet. Nothing that should cause this.

 

I did perform a ping during the day at 174.118.100.1 and at night. During the day, I get an average of  9ms, which is acceptable and in the evenings I will see spikes upwards of 120ms, (60ms average) and a lot of packet loss.

 

I wasn't aware of being to speak to a level II tech, so I will definitely try that out.

 

Thank you for your help and explanation! 

Re: High Latency in the Evening

Fwiw, the Level II tech should be able to ping your modem from the neighbouhood node, or CMTS, and vice versa, so, he or she should be able to run the same ping tests and come up to the same conclusion, the loads are too high at the neighbourhood node or CMTS. 

 

You could also ask the Level II tech to check the OFDM MIBS, which is a breakdown of the OFDM channel into smaller sub-channels, each of which has its own signal level and signal to noise ratios.  If those numbers check out, then I'd say the problem is a load issue.

Re: High Latency in the Evening

User2453
I plan to stick around

I believe this is a typical issue with Rogers, network congestion is correlated to the sun coming and going along with the majority of users peak time. Packet loss occurs at peak hours, only way to avoid this loss is to setup a VPN on a provider that uses a more unused route of Rogers network, I have found this method is the only way to get around internal Rogers network congestion. Below is my smokeping from the last month tracking latency and packet loss internally on Rogers network, very jittery and funny to note it's my highest packet loss test, Google DNS, Cloudflare DNS never have latency issues on the Rogers network, only their own services.

User2453_0-1644347862292.png

 

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