Do You Like Your ISP?

**enf** · 07-28-11, 11:56 PM

Dont forget that theres always the non-technical 'grass is always greener' issue to think about... ;-)

I've had U-Verse for 4-5 yeard and while I get a few blips here and there while browsing or gaming, its nowhere close to the shotty service Comcast provides in the area (judging by personal experiences as well as plenty of other people's experiences). If youre not having consistent rubber-banding issues on multiple servers or having extended outages, I would say stick with Uverse and dont get so granular with your ping in game.

**[CoFR]SirMoo** · 07-29-11, 12:29 AM

Originally Posted by MajorBrass

Here is a trace with both tracert and pathping. I'm not sure how to interpret things. The ping from my router to the VRAD used to always be 21-25 ms and now, after the new router was put in, it is in the hundreds + and very inconsistant.
Attachment 5241 Attachment 5242 Attachment 5243

Looks like your aggregation route(r) got switched. That's interesting. You can't ping the VRAD itself, it just acts like a bridge (basically the VRAD replaces the DSLAM from the classic ATM-based copper-all-the-way DSL.) If Tier 2 does see a problem and the line testing people say it's not theirs then yeah it needs to go to tier3/ICU. Have you gotten in touch with your area tech/linetester on dslreports forums? What sync rate are you promised/getting and what happens when they detune your syncrate? I know a couple years ago towards the end of the u-verse fiber deployment era, ATT was trying to "save money" by stretching distances more and more, resulting in shitty service for people toward the edge of their areas. Do you get IPTV too? Do you have a problem with TV pixelation and freezeups at all?

**MajorBrass** · 07-29-11, 04:35 PM

Dont forget that theres always the non-technical 'grass is always greener' issue to think about... ;-)

I've had U-Verse for 4-5 yeard and while I get a few blips here and there while browsing or gaming, its nowhere close to the shotty service Comcast provides in the area (judging by personal experiences as well as plenty of other people's experiences). If youre not having consistent rubber-banding issues on multiple servers or having extended outages, I would say stick with Uverse and dont get so granular with your ping in game.

I agree about the grass not being greener. However, I do think it is less likely to have issues with Charter. ATT has really heavily marketed this area and I see their trucks in the neighborhood very often. Charter has probably lost business to ATT.
I honestly do not care what my ping (+- a few ms) is as long as it is not affecting game play. When it shoots up above 90 it gets progressively harder and harder to play. Last night it was going for the 70 & 80's ms to 140+ and then my wife got on Netflix and it was not playable at all.

Have you gotten in touch with your area tech/linetester on dslreports forums? What sync rate are you promised/getting and what happens when they detune your syncrate? I know a couple years ago towards the end of the u-verse fiber deployment era, ATT was trying to "save money" by stretching distances more and more, resulting in shitty service for people toward the edge of their areas. Do you get IPTV too? Do you have a problem with TV pixelation and freezeups at all?

I don't know about the "syncrate" or detuning it or how to find out what it is/should be. Initially, we got the U-verse TV service but discontinued it after the world cup was over last Summer. I'll have to look into dslreports to see, if I can get in touch with anyone. I read a few threads when I was trying to do research. The consensus seemed to be that ATT would not care or do much about any latency issues.

If you want some real diagnostic help just frikken add me on steam.

GreyVee, I added you on Steam and turned the friend's feature on. I appreciate the offer for help! Let me know what may be convenient/best way for you.

This is from my network card's properties. I have never messed with those. Maybe there's something there to adust that might help? Following the 1st pic are some UV Realtime sceenshots that I have no idea how to interpret
Attachment 5287 Do You Like Your ISP?-stats-2011-07-29-17-12-47-png

Do You Like Your ISP?-stats-2011-07-29-17-12-47-png

Do You Like Your ISP?-errortable-2011-07-29-17-13-23-png

Do You Like Your ISP?-bitloading-2011-07-29-17-14-26-png

**[CoFR]SirMoo** · 07-29-11, 11:06 PM

Looks like your syncrate is 32/5. Everything that UV Realtime is reporting looks fine, so I don't think the problem is between you and the VRAD, it's gotta between the VRAD and the aggregation router or past that. Do you have any neighbors on Uverse? Do they have latency problems?

**MajorBrass** · 07-30-11, 12:43 PM

I think I have a bunch of people around that are have uverse. I don't think any of them are gamers and would notice as the problem does not affect browsing. One of the competent techs told me a WOW gamer in the area had the same issue a month ago but he did not know how and if the problem got resloved.

These are the ip's that the route goes to after the VRAD. They time out most of the time. They are always hop 3 and 4. They do ping from time to time and that's how I saw and wrote them down. IP look up websites say they are ATT ip's in the Wichita, Kansas area.
70.243.192.82
70.243.192.84
70.243.192.124
70.243.192.130
70.243.192. 182

The tech had the tier 2 guy run trace routes through his and his dad's 2wires (also in the Fort Worth, Tx area) and they were timing out on the same hops. I understand them timing out may not mean anything as related to my issue but I'm not sure what else to look at as the cause or solution.

Some nights, as last night, my ping swings up but not as high and stays between 70-110 ms mostly between 85 and 100. Maybe less people on my block were on Uverse TV... I really don't know. Other nights it will stays mostly 95 -120 with the occasional moments in the high 80's. It is frustrating...

**[CoFR]SirMoo** · 07-30-11, 10:55 PM

80ms might be high for uverse but I think it's pretty average for broadband in general.

To look at some numbers between networks, I am getting 2x the ping to the BF2 server (50ms) that I am from one of google.com's CDN IPs (74.125.67.104)...(25ms). At work where I am closer to the backbone, I get 20ms to google at 74.125.67.104 and 40ms to the BF2 server. At my colo which sits on the backbone (it's a peering point) I get < 1ms ping to both (different routing), but the ping to the BF2 is still higher (0.5ms) than to google.com...If I ping google at the same IP (74.125.67.104) that I use from home, ping jumps up to 33ms, which shows how different the routes and route selection are. At my last job, which was a verizon oc-3 to global crossings POP, my ping to google still averaged 75ms...

Again, start posting all of this stuff to AT&T U-verse forum | DSLReports.com, ISP Information and then escalate up to https://secure.dslreports.com/forum/sbcdirect

**moving-target** · 07-30-11, 11:01 PM

my isp sucks all kinda ass whenever theres bad weather cause its wireless but its the only affordable option i have in this no tech town

**bust331** · 07-31-11, 12:35 AM

I have frontier (used to be verzion). They have barely any competition so they don't really care to upgrade the service (1.5mbps down, .3 up). It's slow, but expected. Worst part is I have to reset the modem at least once a day....it gets incredibly annoying.

**Phyrelight** · 07-31-11, 01:20 PM

I have had my DSL for a few days now. I get 12mb down and 1mb up and I must say its impressive for responsiveness. I click and pages instantly load. My cable service is 20mb down 2mb up but with 150-200ms latency to the node 25 miles from me (Tempe server of speedtest.net) I always felt like I was waiting for the browser. In WoT with cable I never had a sub 200ms latency. During prime time it was as high as 300ms (little worse if wife is streaming netflix) with some rubber banding into the 900s. During that same time my 20mb plan was lucky to pull down 2mb.

Now with 12mb DSL I have a 40ms latency to that same server 25 miles from me and an in game latency of WoT of about 120ms. The best part is that even if my wife is also streaming netflix across the DSL while I am playing I have yet to go above 130ms in WoT even during prime time. There is something to be said about quantity of download speed but in my case I will go with the quality of the signal itself instead.

**Gumby** · 08-01-11, 01:21 PM

My ISP is the suck. While all my neighbors can get 100mb/30mb cable (I can too for the low low price of €3500 install fee) I got stuck with 1mb/512kb DSL. The price is good €10/month, but I would happily pay extra for more speed. They just cannot deliver it here.