Help! I Dont Want To Leave Orcon If I Dont Have To! Is It Me or Them?

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Joannegeeker

2 posts

Wannabe Geek

#46487 6-Nov-2009 23:03

Hi there

For the past 3 weeks Ive been experiencing horrible lag when playing World of Warcraft on US servers from 5pm onwards.

During the day, I experience my normal ping of around 200-300, but as soon as 5pm hits, I average 600ms peaking at 1500ms.

I have tried different modems, unplugged all other jacks, plugged the modem directly into the jack, restarted the modem, basically everything they make you do =P

I am using the Te Atatu Peninsula Exchange, on ADSL2 Currently on the Orcon Platnium plan.

Here is my tracert from last night when my latency was 1000ms (Hellscream US Server)

Tracing route to 63.241.255.19 over a maximum of 30 hops

1    <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms www.routerlogin.com [192.168.0.1]
2    25 ms    25 ms    24 ms lo1.ras1.nct.orcon.net.nz [60.234.8.201]
3    25 ms    25 ms    25 ms ge-0-0-4-0.cre2.nct.orcon.net.nz [121.98.9.5]
4    25 ms    25 ms    24 ms xe-1-0-0.cre1.nct.orcon.net.nz [121.98.9.13]
5    26 ms    26 ms    25 ms ae3.bdr1.nct.orcon.net.nz [121.98.9.142]
6    26 ms    26 ms    25 ms Gi10-0-0-401.GW1.AKL1.asianetcom.net [203.192.16
7.33]
7    26 ms    26 ms    25 ms ge-0-0-0-0.gw1.akl2.asianetcom.net [203.192.185.
45]
8   151 ms   150 ms   150 ms po1-1-0.gw3.lax1.asianetcom.net [203.192.185.62]

9   151 ms   150 ms   150 ms 12.119.138.33
10   186 ms   184 ms   185 ms cr2.la2ca.ip.att.net [12.122.129.74]
11   185 ms   185 ms   183 ms cr2.dlstx.ip.att.net [12.122.28.177]
12   183 ms   185 ms   182 ms gar23.dlstx.ip.att.net [12.122.138.153]
13   184 ms   184 ms   183 ms 12-122-254-154.attens.net [12.122.254.154]
14   184 ms   184 ms   184 ms mdf001c7613r0003-gig-12-1.dal1.attens.net [63.24
1.193.22]
15     *        *        *     Request timed out.
16     *        *        *     Request timed out.
17     *        *        *     Request timed out.
18     *        *        *     Request timed out.
19     *        *        *     Request timed out.
20     *        *        *     Request timed out.
21     *        *        *     Request timed out.
22     *        *        *     Request timed out.
23     *        *        *     Request timed out.
24     *        *        *     Request timed out.
25     *        *        *     Request timed out.
26     *        *        *     Request timed out.
27     *        *        *     Request timed out.
28     *        *        *     Request timed out.
29     *        *        *     Request timed out.
30     *        *        *     Request timed out.

Trace complete.

Here are some speed tests

Ping tests

Any help would be MUCH appreciated.

insane

3240 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Trusted

#270769 6-Nov-2009 23:53

Try get a traceroute from the far side back to you. The route on the way back may take an alternative path than how to goes from your connection to the wow server.

http://traceroute.org/ should help you to find a looking glass which might help you.

If your latency to local servers in NZ are fine then there is little point trying different phone jacks etc unless your sync speeds have recently reduced dramatically.

8d52797c436

264 posts

Ultimate Geek
Inactive user

#270780 7-Nov-2009 01:25

Have you tried ssh tunneling? You can either use a service like lowerping.com which I believe costs a few dollars a month, or if you already rent a server on the west coast of america then you could use http://www.pimpmylatency.com/ to try and get some lower pings for free.

Generally you find that its not something you can do too much about, as theirs only so much international bandwidth that NZ has, so even switching ISP's may not help.

Before you do consider switching at least try the free trial of lowerping.com, it may save you a lot of time and hassle.

Joannegeeker

2 posts

Wannabe Geek

#270788 7-Nov-2009 07:48

Here is the result from the tracert you suggested

traceroute to 63.241.255.19 (63.241.255.19), 30 hops max, 38 byte packets
1 f0-1-0-15-c7507-1.kc.net.nz (202.27.217.193) 0.513 ms 0.763 ms 0.816 ms
2 traffic2 (202.27.217.131) 0.746 ms 0.622 ms 0.321 ms
3 202.169.192.245 (202.169.192.245) 4.954 ms 1.974 ms 1.596 ms
4 gi-0-0.akl-int-3.linktelecom.co.nz (202.169.192.14) 1.726 ms 3.042 ms 1.123 ms
5 ip-82.28.92.203.VOCUS.net.au (114.31.203.82) 2.735 ms 2.240 ms 2.510 ms
6 ge-0-0-0-58.bdr01.sjc02.ca.VOCUS.net.au (114.31.199.46) 130.285 ms 129.130 ms 128.694 ms
7 12.126.40.41 (12.126.40.41) 136.746 ms 135.606 ms 136.144 ms
8 cr2.sffca.ip.att.net (12.122.136.62) 168.546 ms 167.303 ms 168.170 ms
MPLS Label=16733 CoS=6 TTL=255 S=0
9 cr2.la2ca.ip.att.net (12.122.31.133) 167.400 ms 167.405 ms 167.759 ms
MPLS Label=20774 CoS=6 TTL=255 S=0
MPLS Label=17300 CoS=0 TTL=255 S=0
10 cr2.dlstx.ip.att.net (12.122.28.177) 168.132 ms 167.393 ms 167.313 ms
MPLS Label=0 CoS=6 TTL=255 S=0
MPLS Label=17300 CoS=0 TTL=255 S=0
11 gar23.dlstx.ip.att.net (12.122.138.153) 178.778 ms 167.013 ms 168.403 ms
12 12-122-254-154.attens.net (12.122.254.154) 168.870 ms 167.675 ms 168.362 ms
13 mdf001c7613r0003-gig-12-1.dal1.attens.net (63.241.193.22) 168.762 ms 167.297 ms 168.632 ms
14 * * *
15 * * *
16 * * *
17 * * *
18 * * *
19 * * *
20 * * *
21 * * *
22 * * *
23 * * *
24 * * *
25 * * *
26 * * *
27 * * *
28 * * *
29 * * *

However, this is during the day when the latency isnt as bad as it is in the evening.

I guess my main concern is that until up to 3 weeks ago, my latency was perfect and had been for months with Orcon. Even during peak times.

When I first contacted them, I was told it was a problem with pacnet, however, this issue seems to have been resolved and yet my latency at peak times is still dreadful.

How did I go from having wonderful latency to unplayable speeds in the evenings?

Ilmarin

94 posts

Master Geek

#270808 7-Nov-2009 09:53

What you need to understand is that the so called 'latency' reported by WoW is not really IP network latency (which is usually what is meant when people use the term latency), but rather effective application latency. Your actual IP network latency, as shown by your first traceroute, is around 180 ms. What WoW does (I assume... I've never analysed its network traffic) is to measure how long, on average, it takes for an application level network call to return. It may only measure a particular type of call, like a TCP ping, or it may measure response times for calls that actually do something and potentially contain a lot of data.

In a happy days scenario, that call may only involve a single TCP packet from the client and a single TCP packet in response from the server. However, in a congestion scenario, which anyone on Orcon should be all too familiar with, packets can get dropped en-route in either direction, and it may be a matter of seconds before the response is received by the sender. You might have one TCP ping return in 180 ms, but the next gets delayed by a surge in congestion and comes back in 1000 ms, hence the reported average will be around 600 ms.

Although one can think of this type of latency reporting as 'effective application latency', it is essentially an oversimplification, and misleads MMO gamers into believing that their network latency is the issue, when really it is congestion/packetloss. The only fix for it is either for Orcon to increase their NZ -> US bandwidth capacity, or for you to switch to another ISP like Telecom. Orcon has shown in 2009 that they are incapable of maintaining consistently good NZ -> US throughput during peak hours, so that only leaves you with one reliable option.

And as for 'latency' results reported by speedtest.net or pingtest.net, I suggest you ignore them, as the mechanism they use to obtain those results is flawed. When speedtest.net reports 355 ms, your latency is actually half that. To measure network latency, you should rely only on 'ping' and 'tracert'.