Considering Bigpipe, wondering about latency.

Forums › Spark New Zealand (including Skinny and BigPipe) › Considering Bigpipe, wondering about latency.

Razven

19 posts

Geek

#141401 11-Mar-2014 16:21

Hey guys, I'm considering switching my ISP to Bigpipe, after experiencing regular packet loss and high ping while gaming while using Freedom Internet (which apparently works with Vibecome or something, I am not a techie, I have no idea what it means).

After repeated attempts to contact their customer service to try and resolve the issue, where they pushed the blame to everyone else but themselves, I am seriously considering switching to another ISP. I know for a fact that the ping could be better because this issue did not come up until last Wednesday afternoon (6th of March, '14)

However, before I join up, I would like to know what sort of ping current Bigpipe users get to World of Tank's Asia server, located in Singapore.

PREVIOUSLY:
Using the World of Tanks in game client, I am getting an average of 150ms in game.
If I recall correctly, data goes from NZ to AU and straight to SG.

CURRENTLY:
Using the World of Tanks in game client, I am getting an average of 280ms in game.
Using Pingplotter to login.worldoftanks.asia, I am getting 240ms on average.
Apparently, I am being routed from NZ to the US, HK before hitting the servers in SG.

Basically, I'm just asking for current Bigpipe users to ping and run a trace route to see what sort of speed and what route my data will be going.

Also, I'd like it to be noted that Bigpipe's customer support reacts in a timely, efficent and most importantly, a HELPFUL manner.

Unlike Orcon, which overcharged me to the point of close to bankruptcy or Freedom Internet where they like pushing the blame to everyone else.

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Lizard Networks

#1002895 11-Mar-2014 16:36

IIRC, freedom internet only provide connections via wireless, that could easily be attributed to your packetloss and increase in pings.

absolutely, this would depend on your isps routing, and could change without warning.

bigpipes guys seem pretty decent, im sure you could flick them an email and ask about their routing, might even be able to get a traceroute out of them.

otherwise if your still open for options, few other isps that do have routes that go via AU to SG.

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NonprayingMantis

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#1002896 11-Mar-2014 16:43

I'll have a look tonight when I get home.

I don't play world of tanks, but experience playing BF4, SC2 and a few others has been good, no latency issues.

ETA: I don't know much about routing. How much is that determined by the ISP or is it just bundled up in the international bandwith they pay for?

Razven

19 posts

Geek

#1002985 11-Mar-2014 19:54

I don't know either, I'm pretty sure there's something either the ISP or the bandwidth wholesaler does. If I use pingtest.net or speedtest.net, I get the 'expected' ping of 150ms (give or take 10 on the browser, 20 in game), so there's something odd going on.

My uneducated guess is that the data is 'interpreted' and sent a particular path according to how/what the ISP wants to handle it.

RunningMan

8961 posts

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#1003003 11-Mar-2014 20:33

Before up and changing providers to solve a latency issue, you really need to do some troubleshooting and work out where the problem lies.

If you are on a xDSL connection for example, there's all sorts of reasons why latency could increase, some within the control of your ISP, and plenty out of their control.

No point in changing to fix a problem if you don't know where that problem lies.

BigPipeNZ

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BigPipe

#1003013 11-Mar-2014 20:57

Hi Razven,

sitting at home now here is what I get with a traceroute

(performed from my Macbook Pro, over Wifi connection, using Bigpipe VDSL, CGNAT, nothing else running in the background)

Traceroute has started…

traceroute: Warning: login.worldoftanks.asia has multiple addresses; using 92.223.16.47
traceroute to login.worldoftanks.asia (92.223.16.47), 64 hops max, 72 byte packets
1 192.168.1.254 (192.168.1.254) 4.065 ms 4.093 ms 1.764 ms
2 100.64.0.1 (100.64.0.1) 22.416 ms 24.733 ms 21.580 ms
3 10.1.2.2 (10.1.2.2) 21.586 ms 21.439 ms 20.902 ms
4 203.96.123.101 (203.96.123.101) 22.385 ms 24.533 ms 22.063 ms
5 g7-2-8-201.akbr6.global-gateway.net.nz (122.56.118.65) 40.712 ms 21.340 ms 21.227 ms
6 ae2-6.tkbr12.global-gateway.net.nz (122.56.127.17) 21.370 ms 21.545 ms *
7 xe6-1-0.sebr1.global-gateway.net.nz (202.50.232.234) 47.040 ms 45.013 ms 44.839 ms
8 so4-0-0.phbr2.global-gateway.net.nz (122.56.127.34) 122.406 ms 121.470 ms 123.639 ms
9 starhub.phbr2.global-gateway.net.nz (203.96.66.150) 149.980 ms * 149.438 ms
10 203.118.15.186 (203.118.15.186) 149.744 ms 148.959 ms 149.034 ms
11 203.118.15.254 (203.118.15.254) 149.562 ms 151.961 ms 149.954 ms
12 203.117.163.142 (203.117.163.142) 150.222 ms 150.063 ms 156.380 ms
13 xe-0-1-0.gw401.sg1.ap.equinix.com (27.111.222.102) 193.309 ms 176.148 ms 172.511 ms
14 xe-1-1-1.gw401.sg2.ap.equinix.com (27.111.222.107) 152.421 ms 200.575 ms 177.681 ms
15 27.111.214.82 (27.111.214.82) 149.376 ms 149.534 ms 148.999 ms
16 wotsg1-slave-47.worldoftanks.sg (92.223.16.47) 150.358 ms 152.022 ms 148.943 ms

Hows That?

Pingtest shows results of between 150 and 154ms

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kodiaknz

25 posts

Geek

#1003102 12-Mar-2014 06:03

Razven: I don't know either, I'm pretty sure there's something either the ISP or the bandwidth wholesaler does. If I use pingtest.net or speedtest.net, I get the 'expected' ping of 150ms (give or take 10 on the browser, 20 in game), so there's something odd going on.

My uneducated guess is that the data is 'interpreted' and sent a particular path according to how/what the ISP wants to handle it.

I'm not sure what your ISP does exactly, but I'm not aware of an ISP in NZ making routing chooses based on application type (e.g. gaming, BT, HTTP). That is what https://secure.myrepublic.com.sg do, they will route gaming traffic out an uncontested route, as games don't like jitter (often caused by congestion) whereas normal web page loading does not make it so obvious. This is likely something an ISP would use to differentiate themselves or make you pay extra for as it's quite a bit of added expense and complication for their network.

I put that WOT link you provided into my smokeping instance running on Bigpipe using a public IP and here is the result.

A quick lesson on smokeping, smokeping as I have it setup sends 20 ICMP echo pings every 5 minutes, these are graphed and the green line shows there was no packet loss, and that most of the pings sat inside that line, and the more "smoke" (grey lines) there is, the more of the pings were higher or lower than the media rtt. You can see in this picture quite a bit of variance every five minutes or so, this is quite possibly load balancing going on as it switches between hosts in a cluster, or something in their network, which may or may not relate to the actual game server IP that your session would connect to.

To compare, here is one to NTT in Japan, note the "smoke" showing jitter.

Loosely as Bigpipe uses Telecom/Spark as their upstream your connection to international locations should be great, Telecom owns half of Southern Cross Cable, and has direct wavelengths over it, you can spot this by seeing that in a traceroute Telecom has routers that are on the other side of SCC, whereas if you are with a small ISP their routers will stop most likely in Auckland, and then be passed to an international transit provider, e.g. Telecom or Voda/Telstra, etc.

slingynz

154 posts

Master Geek

#1003180 12-Mar-2014 10:34

BigPipeNZ:
Hows That?

Pingtest shows results of between 150 and 154ms

How long would it take BigPipe to implement a route change once a customer request is made?

e.g Imagine you were OP's ISP and started routing a .sg sites via USA rather than Aus.

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Razven

19 posts

Geek

#1004188 12-Mar-2014 11:20

slingynz:
BigPipeNZ:
Hows That?

Pingtest shows results of between 150 and 154ms

How long would it take BigPipe to implement a route change once a customer request is made?

e.g Imagine you were OP's ISP and started routing a .sg sites via USA rather than Aus.

That is actually an excellent question.

mercutio

1392 posts

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#1004481 12-Mar-2014 18:27

slingynz:
BigPipeNZ:
Hows That?

Pingtest shows results of between 150 and 154ms

How long would it take BigPipe to implement a route change once a customer request is made?

e.g Imagine you were OP's ISP and started routing a .sg sites via USA rather than Aus.

AFAIK BigPipe only use Telecom for transit, so they don't haev much direct control. Telecom have the majority of internet connectivity in New Zealand, and would be in a position to make some outbound changes, but whether or not you can get them to make a change is anyone's guess.

I think the problem with Vibe is that they just got peering in the US, and most Singapore providers have peering in the US, and so it's seen as a low cost good path when in fact it's not. The biggest problem is that Vibe don't have a Singapore POP AFAIK. Which means it'd be transit - the simplest solution for them would be to depeer or deprioritise peering with Asian ISP's in the US, which they may or may not do. They could cover a large variety of sites to improve performance this way, so it would probably make sense for them.

So if I was trying to get it fixed I'd find other examples of Singapore and south-east Asia in general sites and show that they all have significantly higher latency.

That said, this seems to be happening in both directions judging by the ping times. And you may be able to get traffic from world of tanks back to you rerouted by contacting the provider assuming they have multiple transit options. (Blizzard don't fix issues, Valve do, I have no idea what World of Tanks would do... )

slingynz

154 posts

Master Geek

#1004505 12-Mar-2014 19:32

mercutio:
slingynz:
BigPipeNZ:
Hows That?

Pingtest shows results of between 150 and 154ms

How long would it take BigPipe to implement a route change once a customer request is made?

e.g Imagine you were OP's ISP and started routing a .sg sites via USA rather than Aus.

AFAIK BigPipe only use Telecom for transit, so they don't haev much direct control. Telecom have the majority of internet connectivity in New Zealand, and would be in a position to make some outbound changes, but whether or not you can get them to make a change is anyone's guess.

I think the problem with Vibe is that they just got peering in the US, and most Singapore providers have peering in the US, and so it's seen as a low cost good path when in fact it's not. The biggest problem is that Vibe don't have a Singapore POP AFAIK. Which means it'd be transit - the simplest solution for them would be to depeer or deprioritise peering with Asian ISP's in the US, which they may or may not do. They could cover a large variety of sites to improve performance this way, so it would probably make sense for them.

So if I was trying to get it fixed I'd find other examples of Singapore and south-east Asia in general sites and show that they all have significantly higher latency.

That said, this seems to be happening in both directions judging by the ping times. And you may be able to get traffic from world of tanks back to you rerouted by contacting the provider assuming they have multiple transit options. (Blizzard don't fix issues, Valve do, I have no idea what World of Tanks would do... )

Thanks.

I was thinking more in the case of the routes being changed to something less than optimal.

Having previously been on TCL/Vodafone cable, any time I encountered a change in route (once every few months) that negatively affected latency, I would contact simcore aka Vodafone and it would be fixed within a few hours.
I don't mind if my web traffic goes via the states, however games (to fixed IPs) are another thing.

Razven

19 posts

Geek

#1004507 12-Mar-2014 19:36

Update:
Freedom Internet (paying 120GB per 30 days for $119.95 NZD) have said that are looking into it but it's been exactly a week since I've encountered the issue but have heard no response from them, nor Vibecom.

I've just signed up for Bigpipe and with any luck, will be back to gaming with an acceptable ping by the end of this week. Just really wanted to thank all of you guys for helping out, weighing in and posting - really appreciate the support from this forum.

Quick Edit:
1) Apparently, Vibecom needs my 'Client ID' because they do not have my e-mail on record - it would seem that unless you are the actual ISP or a commercial entity where you specifically use their services (as opposed to through an intermediary), they will not see it as an issue.

2) I'm scratching my head here - I wonder how many people who regularly use pre-paid wifi in residential apartments regularly spend well north of $180 (120 per month + another 60 if I go over the 120GB data limit and need to buy another 120GB package). I seriously hope that this impacts their bottom line in my area, as soon as I tell everyone how much BS I was told trying to get them to even look at it.

BigPipeNZ

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BigPipe

#1005937 14-Mar-2014 22:03

Razven: Update:
Freedom Internet (paying 120GB per 30 days for $119.95 NZD) have said that are looking into it but it's been exactly a week since I've encountered the issue but have heard no response from them, nor Vibecom.

I've just signed up for Bigpipe and with any luck, will be back to gaming with an acceptable ping by the end of this week. Just really wanted to thank all of you guys for helping out, weighing in and posting - really appreciate the support from this forum.

Quick Edit:
1) Apparently, Vibecom needs my 'Client ID' because they do not have my e-mail on record - it would seem that unless you are the actual ISP or a commercial entity where you specifically use their services (as opposed to through an intermediary), they will not see it as an issue.

2) I'm scratching my head here - I wonder how many people who regularly use pre-paid wifi in residential apartments regularly spend well north of $180 (120 per month + another 60 if I go over the 120GB data limit and need to buy another 120GB package). I seriously hope that this impacts their bottom line in my area, as soon as I tell everyone how much BS I was told trying to get them to even look at it.

Just so you are aware, because you are not switching from another adsl provider you will need to make sure you cancel the Freedom service yourself as, unlike ADSL from another ISP, it won't be automatically switched off when you switch to Bigpipe. Best to make the sure you have a couple of days breathing room too in case there are any issues with getting you up and running on bigpipe straight away. (There shouldn't be, but you never know, especially if this cyclone hits bad we may find connection dates get shunted out by chorus, understandably)

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Razven

19 posts

Geek

#1006095 15-Mar-2014 12:05

BigPipeNZ:
Razven: Update:
Freedom Internet (paying 120GB per 30 days for $119.95 NZD) have said that are looking into it but it's been exactly a week since I've encountered the issue but have heard no response from them, nor Vibecom.

I've just signed up for Bigpipe and with any luck, will be back to gaming with an acceptable ping by the end of this week. Just really wanted to thank all of you guys for helping out, weighing in and posting - really appreciate the support from this forum.

Quick Edit:
1) Apparently, Vibecom needs my 'Client ID' because they do not have my e-mail on record - it would seem that unless you are the actual ISP or a commercial entity where you specifically use their services (as opposed to through an intermediary), they will not see it as an issue.

2) I'm scratching my head here - I wonder how many people who regularly use pre-paid wifi in residential apartments regularly spend well north of $180 (120 per month + another 60 if I go over the 120GB data limit and need to buy another 120GB package). I seriously hope that this impacts their bottom line in my area, as soon as I tell everyone how much BS I was told trying to get them to even look at it.

Just so you are aware, because you are not switching from another adsl provider you will need to make sure you cancel the Freedom service yourself as, unlike ADSL from another ISP, it won't be automatically switched off when you switch to Bigpipe. Best to make the sure you have a couple of days breathing room too in case there are any issues with getting you up and running on bigpipe straight away. (There shouldn't be, but you never know, especially if this cyclone hits bad we may find connection dates get shunted out by chorus, understandably)

Thanks for the reminder but Freedom Internet uses it's own wi-fi network, very much like the wi-fi serves one tries to go through on Starbucks so I doubt there will be an issue there as you know...there's no software or hardware on my end.

I have managed to locate a modem that was given to the previous tenant of my current residence but it's one of those 'free' ones provided by Orcon - I checked and it should compatible. Do you (or any of the posters here) know if they are or do I need one that's not previously used or given by any other ISP?

BigPipeNZ

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BigPipe

#1006103 15-Mar-2014 12:11

Razven:
BigPipeNZ:
Razven: Update:
Freedom Internet (paying 120GB per 30 days for $119.95 NZD) have said that are looking into it but it's been exactly a week since I've encountered the issue but have heard no response from them, nor Vibecom.

I've just signed up for Bigpipe and with any luck, will be back to gaming with an acceptable ping by the end of this week. Just really wanted to thank all of you guys for helping out, weighing in and posting - really appreciate the support from this forum.

Quick Edit:
1) Apparently, Vibecom needs my 'Client ID' because they do not have my e-mail on record - it would seem that unless you are the actual ISP or a commercial entity where you specifically use their services (as opposed to through an intermediary), they will not see it as an issue.

2) I'm scratching my head here - I wonder how many people who regularly use pre-paid wifi in residential apartments regularly spend well north of $180 (120 per month + another 60 if I go over the 120GB data limit and need to buy another 120GB package). I seriously hope that this impacts their bottom line in my area, as soon as I tell everyone how much BS I was told trying to get them to even look at it.

Just so you are aware, because you are not switching from another adsl provider you will need to make sure you cancel the Freedom service yourself as, unlike ADSL from another ISP, it won't be automatically switched off when you switch to Bigpipe. Best to make the sure you have a couple of days breathing room too in case there are any issues with getting you up and running on bigpipe straight away. (There shouldn't be, but you never know, especially if this cyclone hits bad we may find connection dates get shunted out by chorus, understandably)

Thanks for the reminder but Freedom Internet uses it's own wi-fi network, very much like the wi-fi serves one tries to go through on Starbucks so I doubt there will be an issue there as you know...there's no software or hardware on my end.

I have managed to locate a modem that was given to the previous tenant of my current residence but it's one of those 'free' ones provided by Orcon - I checked and it should compatible. Do you (or any of the posters here) know if they are or do I need one that's not previously used or given by any other ISP?

My advice was more to make sure they don't keep billing you. If they are prepaid then it should be fine :D

As for the orcon modem, hard to say as it depends on how old it is.

If you post the model number I can have a look. Broadly speaking, any ADSL2 modem will work. Some will require configuration, most will work just by plugging it in and not doing anything else

As long as Orcon didn't lock down the settings so it's impossible to re-configure, then it should be sweet.

Worst case if it doesn't work, then you can pick up a Telecom ADSL2 modem from trademe for about $20.

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Yabanize

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#1006107 15-Mar-2014 12:24

BigPipeNZ:

Pingtest shows results of between 150 and 154ms

Isnt that a bit high? Heres what i get on vodafone 15/2 cable

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