MAJOR Packet Loss issues with Spark/Chorus Fibre

Forums › Spark New Zealand (including Skinny and BigPipe) › MAJOR Packet Loss issues with Spark/Chorus Fibre

mou

5 posts

Wannabe Geek

#318991 11-Mar-2025 19:23

Hello!

Making this post as I am at a complete loss with what more can be done to resolve my issue, I really need some expert advice.

Some facts before I get into it: I am using Sparks Max Fibre plan, modem is a Spark Smart Modem 3, I am on a WIRED ETHERNET connection, I live in Auckland NZ.

I have contacted both Spark and Riot Games for advice, so far to no avail.

Everyday around 5pm-11pm mine and my flat mates connections to the Sydney Valorant servers is disrupted by a ludicrous 30-60% packet loss. The game is basically unplayable and has been really getting on my nerves.

I have been using PingPlotter 5 Pro to investigate the issue myself and have included snapshots showing my issue, also note I blacked out my private IP, don't know if that's the right thing to do or not but oh well. I really don't know a heap about all this, just trying to be safe lol.

Can someone please explain what on earth is going on, this started happening about 2-3 weeks ago right after some scheduled maintenance by Spark. Like I said I don't know all that much but I'm starting to think my ISP or Chorus has screwed something up. Riot support advised me that there was nothing they could really do on my end, and they believe there is a routing issue between my connection and the riot servers in Sydney.

List of my troubleshooting adventures:

Power cycled modem many times - never does anything
Used factory reset button on modem - changed nothing
Got a new modem via warranty - changed nothing
Ran Sparks "connection tool" to try diagnose an issue - says everything is fine
Contacted Spark - no help
Contacted Riot - more help than spark but no answer
Searched all over the internet (reddit mainly) for anyone with similar issues - didn't find much

Any advice or methods outside of what I've already tried would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance!

1 | 2

4335 posts

Uber Geek

Retired Mod

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#3353301 12-Mar-2025 21:30

Same here issues here with Spark to the Oceanic World of Warcraft servers.
Every night for the past week, around 8:30pm start getting high ping and packet loss, it climbs up to around 600ms from 25ms and bounces a bit between 350ms-600ms.
A few guild members also with Spark and BigPipe are having the same issue from around NZ to the Aussie servers.
I rang Spark and was told the problem was likely with my 3rd party modem. Support truly has gone downhill.

RunningMan

8960 posts

Uber Geek

#3353314 12-Mar-2025 21:44

bradstewart:[snip] I rang Spark and was told the problem was likely with my 3rd party modem. Support truly has gone downhill.

That sort of comment from them is incredibly unhelpful, as a less experienced user would drop money on a replacement and find it didn't fix what is more likely an upstream failover or capacity issue somewhere.

bradstewart

4335 posts

Uber Geek

Retired Mod

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#3353317 12-Mar-2025 21:56

RunningMan:

bradstewart:[snip] I rang Spark and was told the problem was likely with my 3rd party modem. Support truly has gone downhill.

That sort of comment from them is incredibly unhelpful, as a less experienced user would drop money on a replacement and find it didn't fix what is more likely an upstream failover or capacity issue somewhere.

I had the same issue with them 18 months ago where they blamed my modem, wanted to sell me a new one or send a technician at my cost for what turned out to be some fault equipment in a Chorus cabinet.

toejam316

1466 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#3353319 12-Mar-2025 22:00

Not sure how helpful it is, but from what I can see it looks like the latency stays reasonable through the Spark network, then gets silly once its entering Telstra Global's network. What they're doing with that traffic, I couldn't tell you. All I can recommend is you keep trying to complain and escalate to Spark, and hopefully you can get it pushed up to be raised with Telstra Global.

Anything I say is the ramblings of an ill informed, opinionated so-and-so, and not representative of any of my past, present or future employers, and is also probably best disregarded.

Talkiet

4793 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#3353336 12-Mar-2025 23:43

We're looking into this. It does look like the specific issue here may be outside our network borders but there might be something we can do.

Cheers - N

Please note all comments are from my own brain and don't necessarily represent the position or opinions of my employer, previous employers, colleagues, friends or pets.

BenoNZ

4 posts

Wannabe Geek

#3353357 13-Mar-2025 09:10

Can confirm I get the exact same issue.

Be great to see a fix instead of having to change from Spark.

yitz

2080 posts

Uber Geek

#3353452 13-Mar-2025 12:44

Probably same issue as this thread so likely to be going on for 3+ weeks now:

https://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=49&topicid=318865

Looks to be a problem in the Aus -> Spark direction, routing to the gaming services is likely to be asymmetric due to ingress DDoS scrubbing.

Sharesies

Trade NZ and US shares and funds with Sharesies (affiliate link).

mou

5 posts

Wannabe Geek

#3353456 13-Mar-2025 12:57

yitz:

Probably same issue as this thread so likely to be going on for 3+ weeks now:

https://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=49&topicid=318865

Looks to be a problem in the Aus -> Spark direction, routing to the gaming services is likely to be asymmetric due to ingress DDoS scrubbing.

I did have a look at the post prior to making my own thread. Good to know that they seem related, was there any fix available? I don't really understand many of the replies to that post.

yitz

2080 posts

Uber Geek

#3353458 13-Mar-2025 13:01

mou:

I did have a look at the post prior to making my own thread. Good to know that they seem related, was there any fix available? I don't really understand many of the replies to that post.

Nothing conclusive, I noted Valve changed to a new DDoS mitigation provider but turns out that may have been a confounding point, the poster there also considered changing ISPs as issue seemed to be confined to Spark/Skinny/Bigpipe.

mou

5 posts

Wannabe Geek

#3353462 13-Mar-2025 13:03

yitz:

Nothing conclusive, I noted Valve changed their DDoS mitigation provider recently but turns out that may have been a confounding point, the poster there also considered changing ISPs.

Would a change in ISP be the correct choice to resolve the issue? If so I'm not too sure about other NZ ISP's, any recommendations? Thank you for replying and giving me some help :)

Talkiet

4793 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#3353463 13-Mar-2025 13:05

If I were you, even though I am not authorised to talk about future changes, I'd wait a few days and see if the situation improves.

Cheers - N

Please note all comments are from my own brain and don't necessarily represent the position or opinions of my employer, previous employers, colleagues, friends or pets.

bradstewart

4335 posts

Uber Geek

Retired Mod

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#3353714 13-Mar-2025 17:15

I've confirmed with a few people in our group that it is limited to the Spark/BigPipe/Skinny users. There will be 30 of us in a group in game and only those ones getting hit with prolonged latency increases. Everyone else is watching us lag around.

irpegg

142 posts

Master Geek

#3353929 14-Mar-2025 12:44

Same thing with my group, theres about 5 of us on Spark/Skinny and we are the only ones lagging. As soon as you use a VPN/Exitlag, the issue is fixed so its just awful routing on their end.

Is there a spark rep on this forum to look into this at all? Or do we just flood their support emails / change providers?

mou

5 posts

Wannabe Geek

#3353930 14-Mar-2025 12:46

irpegg:

Same thing with my group, theres about 5 of us on Spark/Skinny and we are the only ones lagging. As soon as you use a VPN/Exitlag, the issue is fixed so its just awful routing on their end.

I tried VPN's but I kept getting ping issues, is Exitlag really a good option?

cbrpilot

955 posts

Ultimate Geek

Trusted

Spark NZ

#3353947 14-Mar-2025 14:27

Just dropping a quick note that this is being worked on as a matter of priority. Will hopefully have some good news to report soon.

My views are my own, and may not necessarily represent those of my employer.

1 | 2