[TelstraClear] Latency Spikes

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Vadar

7 posts

Wannabe Geek

#64324 13-Jul-2010 12:00

Hello,

Over the last few months I have been battling latency issues with Telstra. It happens mainly during peak periods but will happen during off peak periods as well. Some nights it will be bad other nights it will be fine. I play WoW and thats mainly where i see it, although it is easily seen on youtube and such as well.

Its come to the point where I am 100% certain its not my PC setup, Modem, or line to the exchange. This has been deduced by buying hundreds of dollars worth of parts, and multiple technician visits and tests.

I have talked to many Telstra technicians, to no avail. Tracert's clearly show the lspikes, when it is happening.

Has anyone had experience with this? If so, where do I go from here? Does anyone have an idea that I havent tried yet?

Thanks alot for any help.

Tracert to Us WoW server
C:\Users\Tony>tracert 12.129.225.123

Tracing route to 12-129-225-123.attens.net [12.129.225.123]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1     1 ms     1 ms    <1 ms RTA1025W.home [192.168.1.1]
2    63 ms    20 ms    47 ms 121-75-0-1.telstraclear.net [121.75.0.1]
3     *        *        *     Request timed out.
4    46 ms    41 ms    15 ms ie1-g-0-0-0.telstraclear.net [203.98.50.1]
5    13 ms    12 ms    12 ms ge-0-2-0-1.xcore1.acld.telstraclear.net [203.98.
50.251]
6    39 ms    11 ms    11 ms 210.80.27.5
7    34 ms    14 ms    12 ms 0.xo-1-0-0.XT3.AKL1.ALTER.NET.35.80.210.in-addr.
arpa [210.80.35.9]
8   192 ms   222 ms     *     0.so-5-1-0.IR1.SAC2.ALTER.NET [210.80.49.101]
9   217 ms   189 ms   183 ms 0.so-2-0-0.IL1.SAC1.ALTER.NET [152.63.48.33]
10   169 ms   178 ms   189 ms 0.so-5-2-0.XL3.SJC7.ALTER.NET [152.63.48.6]
11   158 ms   157 ms     *     0.ae3.BR3.SJC7.ALTER.NET [152.63.50.5]
12   171 ms   172 ms   216 ms uu-gw.sffca.ip.att.net [192.205.36.61]
13   194 ms   209 ms   163 ms cr1.sffca.ip.att.net [12.122.114.10]
14   162 ms   181 ms   181 ms cr1.la2ca.ip.att.net [12.122.3.122]
15   193 ms   179 ms   162 ms cr83.la2ca.ip.att.net [12.123.30.109]
16   204 ms   191 ms   200 ms gar5.la2ca.ip.att.net [12.122.128.25]
17   309 ms   199 ms     *     12.122.255.74
18     *        *        *     Request timed out.
19     *        *        *     Request timed out.
20     *        *        *     Request timed out.
21     *        *        *     Request timed out.
22     *        *        *     Request timed out.
23     *        *        *     Request timed out.

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19282 posts

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Inactive user

#350578 13-Jul-2010 12:04

Have you got a SLA agreement on latency with TCL?

JAMMAN2110

871 posts

Ultimate Geek

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#350581 13-Jul-2010 12:08

I found your problem: "I play WoW"

Here's some things you need to read:

http://community.livejournal.com/wow_rehab
http://www.engadget.com/2006/07/15/rehab-center-for-video-game-addicts-opens-in-amsterdam/

Remember, a problem shared is a problem halved.

Novatech

72 posts

Master Geek

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#350583 13-Jul-2010 12:10

LFG [Trying To quit WoW] need dps and tank.

SeanC

9 posts

Wannabe Geek

ID Verified

#350587 13-Jul-2010 12:20

World of Warcraft's servers are protected by a commercial firewall service provided by AT&T, ATTENS (AT&T Enhanced Network Services), and thus are setup to drop ICMP among other packet types (ie, ping/traceroute) as soon as you hit the ATTENS network; this is shown by the fact that requests after 12.122.255.74 time out. The latencies for nodes between you and the ATTENS network node are fairly standard for a NZ connection to a US hosted server, so this traceroute doesn't exactly show that it is TCL's problem that you are experiencing latency spikes within a specific application.

I would recommend making sure that you turn off any file-sharing/other network intensive applications running in the background before attempting to play the game. To use a rough analogy, you only have a particular sized pipe, if you try to fill that pipe with too much then things will slow down/break.

If you are concerned about the latency of your connection to games like WoW, you might find that looking into a SSH tunneling service such as LowerPing or similar might help to get those latencies down, however you'll still need to make sure to close any applications on your network sucking up bandwidth from the precious internet tubes to net the best result from these services.

Hope that helped!

Behodar

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#350595 13-Jul-2010 12:31

I've seen the same issues with my TCL connection. I've been playing WoW since 2004 and the last few months have been very bad compared to how it used to be; the issues are definitely TCL/AT&T/Blizzard-related.

I'm currently with Xnet, which is far worse than TCL, and I'm currently waiting for TCL to reprovision service (Xnet cancelled my TCL connection). I'll be interested in seeing what my latency is like once I've been switched back. It's certainly not unique to you though Vadar.

JAMMAN2110

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#350607 13-Jul-2010 12:43

Behodar: the issues are definitely TCL/AT&T/Blizzard-related.

Evidence? </Network Technician>

Behodar

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#350609 13-Jul-2010 12:48

I'm basing that on both of us having the same issues over the same period. It's obviously not an equipment/PC fault at my end since Vadar is having the same issues.

Sharesies

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Vadar

7 posts

Wannabe Geek

#350620 13-Jul-2010 13:01

SeanC,

Thanks for the reply.
As too your questions, these were some of the first things I tried, and of course have tried them many times in frustration. I've tried three different tunneling services. I've run windows in Safe mode to ensure there are no backround programs running. Tried both windows xp and 7, in case it was some service screwing it up. No firewall, no antivirus running. I am fairly confident it is not to do with my system. I did try others computers as well on the same network, and the latency spikes appear on those systems as well. I have heard some people even have had a network problem orginating from their house power supply. I borrowed some gear from Uni, and made sure the power supply to my computer doesn't have excess noise on it (as too give power spikes/lag to the modem etc.)

How would I go about investigating the AT&T side of things? Anything else I could try that I have not mentioned?
Once again, thanks for your help.

jamman,
Most people who don't play WoW, watch copious amounts of TV on weeknights instead. I dont see the difference.

lchiu7

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#350635 13-Jul-2010 13:21

Not a WoW problem but I was watching my son play COD/MW2 on the PS3 in online mode. He kept on getting killed. Now I am not sure he's the great COD player out there but the kills would come out of the blue and even when he thought he was shooting the guy who killed him.

When I said he wasn't a good player (great Dad perk you up talk!) he said, well it's latency. He's shot by the other player before our machine can even register that the bad guy is there.

I am on a 10MB TCL connection and there is little I can do on the PS3 to improve the performance.

Staying in Wellington. Check out my AirBnB in the Wellington CBD. https://www.airbnb.co.nz/h/wellycbd PM me and mention GZ to get a 15% discount and no AirBnB charges.

inane

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#350648 13-Jul-2010 13:40

I'm not sure about the PS3 servers, however I do know for the WoW servers, the simplest problem is Latency and distance to the server is going to be an issue.

I've played online games for years, but only in comparitively recent times has it even become feasible to play a multiplayer game that is hosted on the other side of the planet.

I'm sure the lag is getting worse, but then I personally have noticed that international traffic seems to be getting laggier.

there are so many reasons this could be, but if you are 5000 kilometres (underestimate) from the server on your 10mbit connection, you'll never have a ping as good as the guy who is within 500 kilometres and has a 25mbit+ connection.

Unfortunately NZ is too small to rate the installation of many dedicated services.

and a game like CoD is way more susceptible to lag than a game like wow...

ie FPS's you ideally need a ping less than 100ms to even compete at all. MMO's tend to be more lag friendly at around 500 ms and less being playable (although far from ideal.)

now I've been reasonable...

You guys should try playing Dungeons and Dragons online. better graphics than WoW, Free to play (well, at the lower levels), no gold sellers,

and my ping and latency sit at a health 235 all day every day (ok I lie, I get ping spikes maybe once or twice a week)

currently with Xtra, only on a adsl 1 exchange.

but I haven't played wow in ages either so I'm not sure about the lag...
it may well be I'm not getting those issues,

that said, as I already mentioned I have definitely notice a massive degradation in international traffic in general... no figures to back it up, but it takes much longer for things to load / stream / finish loading than they used to.

but thats a bum-o-the-seat hp metre.. so make your own judgements.

lchiu7

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#350752 13-Jul-2010 15:04

inane: I'm not sure about the PS3 servers, however I do know for the WoW servers, the simplest problem is Latency and distance to the server is going to be an issue.
...

ie FPS's you ideally need a ping less than 100ms to even compete at all. MMO's tend to be more lag friendly at around 500 ms and less being playable (although far from ideal.)

...

Maybe that's why my son is getting killed all the time. I doubt if we aretting pings < 100ms to a US server since I doubt if there is a NZ server for COD.

Staying in Wellington. Check out my AirBnB in the Wellington CBD. https://www.airbnb.co.nz/h/wellycbd PM me and mention GZ to get a 15% discount and no AirBnB charges.

Vadar

7 posts

Wannabe Geek

#350970 13-Jul-2010 17:51

High latency is not my issue as you are discribing. My issue is large and defined lag spikes. During peroids where this is not happening, i regularly play with 150ms or less. That is better than most aussies and some Americans who cant configure computers properly. For about the first two months when i joined telstra, this was my latency. However over the last three months i have experienced these lag spikes.

So I ask again, has anyone been through this issue before, that can give me some insight? Has anyone chased up AT&T regarding this? Does anyone have any idea's as to where I go from here?

Thanks alot

inane

216 posts

Master Geek

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#351139 13-Jul-2010 22:32

Do you get the same spikes on different servers?

How far does you ping increase during spikes? Or is it a complete dead spot, as If u have no connectivity??

Behodar

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#351266 14-Jul-2010 10:00

Unless Vadar is on the same server as me (Bronzebeard), it's not the individual server. In my case the latency will shoot up to 700 or more, but the traffic is still "flowing" during that time.

kyhwana2

2566 posts

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#351282 14-Jul-2010 10:36

@lchiu7: I do fine on west coast US TF2 servers with a ping of 180-220ms. Maybe your son just isn't very good at FPSs. (Although I find MP FPS's on consoles tend to suck compared to PCs)
You do have to compensate a little for lag, but it's not that bad.

As some people say lrn2play :P

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