Strange Spark Network Issue

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sJBs

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#273044 1-Aug-2020 10:54

I have been using the Spark Wireless Broadband since lockdown started. I originally had a 2Degree account which worked very well for 6 months, but they started to throttle me due to all the Steam updates.

Initially, problems were experienced with the whole family (all 5 of us) going online simultaneously in the mornings, for multiple Zoom, Teams, One-Drive, Sharepoint, G-Drive, Updates, Web browsing, VOIP, Youtube etc.

I quickly realized that the wifi is struggling with 10 devices, and gave everyone a copper 1Gb connection, via a Mikrotik Routerboard to the Huawei 618 to the Spark Tower and then into the Spark net.

This resolved the wifi problems completely, with only the 5 cell phones and tablets now on wifi.

However, we started to experience a strange intermittent problem, where you would not be able to get another connection, while the other services would continue to run.

Numerous calls to Spark only resulted in the operators trying to resolve the now non-existent wifi problem and/or reset/restart the modem. Yes, I even had a modem change, and a new sim card delivered, but the problem still persists.

So I did some more analysing on my own.

Using a program called MTR (mytraceroute), that tracks the datapath via the hops to the destination I tried to see where the issues are.

In order to eliminate DNS issues, I ran the MTR directly to 1.1.1.1 and 8.8.8.8, but didn't really make a difference with similar results achieved when using MTR spark.co.nz

I was experiencing up to 100% packet drops at a particular device on the Spark network (122.56.113.7 ), and all further coms stopped when I can't get another connection. This would then also just return to normal again after a while.

Internet Not Work

See attached photo of where the internet is currently working.

Internet Working

The problem device doesn't appear to be the cell phone tower (10.207.224.169), but really the next device (122.56.113.7 ) that appears to be completely non-responsive to new requests at some stages as all other devices further on doesn't respond.

Strangely enough, I don't have a speed problem at all.

Steam regularly achieves better than 70Mbps when downloading updates.

Signal strength to the 4G tower is also consistently very good:

CELL_ID: 335983
RSRQ: -5dB
RSRP: -78dBm
RSSI: -53dBm
SINR: 17dB
PLMN: 53005

As I'm in the process of purchasing a home, I haven't pursued fiber yet. That will be the preference at our new home due to the improved latency for gaming, but the speed should be quite similar.

If anyone has any suggestions as to how to overcome this problem of intermittent connectivity, or ideally is the techy at Spark networks that works on this equipment and can assist, it would be appreciated.

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#2532594 1-Aug-2020 11:10

2dregrees don't throttle customers never heard of this before!

hio77

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#2532595 1-Aug-2020 11:13

that's not your ping to the cell tower.

Since you have stuck a mikrotik in there, can you confirm how many active connections you have?

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freitasm

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#2532598 1-Aug-2020 11:23

sJBs:

I have been using the Spark Wireless Broadband since lockdown started. I originally had a 2Degree account which worked very well for 6 months, but they started to throttle me due to all the Steam updates.

Seeing you had problems with 2degrees after a while and are now having problems with Spark, I'd put a wild guess that the source of the fault just using the wrong type of connection really. I personally can't see how you can have "or multiple Zoom, Teams, One-Drive, Sharepoint, G-Drive, Updates, Web browsing, VOIP, Youtube etc." plus gaming working efficiently on a mobile connection.

sJBs:

As I'm in the process of purchasing a home, I haven't pursued fiber yet. That will be the preference at our new home due to the improved latency for gaming, but the speed should be quite similar.

I am also lost here. Are you saying you expect speed on fibre to be similar to speed on fixed mobile?

sJBs

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#2532601 1-Aug-2020 11:28

hio77:

that's not your ping to the cell tower.

Since you have stuck a mikrotik in there, can you confirm how many active connections you have?

Mikrotik is reporting 180-240 connections through the firewall

BarTender

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#2532603 1-Aug-2020 11:33

By the time you have hit your first hop from the RGW of 10.207.x.x you have already been over the whole radio network, encapsulated, deencapsulated and terminated as a DHCP session on a core router that is also doing CGNAT.

Plus you are now running through a triple NAT scenario where you have the Mikrotik, Spark Wireless Broadband router HG618 and then core router doing CGNAT.

Spark along with other providers deprioritise ICMP / Ping Traffic to their core nodes so the fact you are getting packet loss isn't a big issue.

I would say you are saturating your upstream connection and that is what is causing your problems.

Wireless Broadband connections are never going to perform like fixed broadband, so perhaps it is worth getting UFB or DSL if you can get it.

sJBs

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#2532611 1-Aug-2020 11:50

BarTender:

By the time you have hit your first hop from the RGW of 10.207.x.x you have already been over the whole radio network, encapsulated, deencapsulated and terminated as a DHCP session on a core router that is also doing CGNAT.

Plus you are now running through a triple NAT scenario where you have the Mikrotik, Spark Wireless Broadband router HG618 and then core router doing CGNAT.

Spark along with other providers deprioritise ICMP / Ping Traffic to their core nodes so the fact you are getting packet loss isn't a big issue.

I would say you are saturating your upstream connection and that is what is causing your problems.

Wireless Broadband connections are never going to perform like fixed broadband, so perhaps it is worth getting UFB or DSL if you can get it.

Thanks for the detailed description.

Am I constrained by the number of upstream connections, or the upstream connection speed?

I did check my up usage, but it rarely went higher than 5Mbps. Even ran a queue for a while, but didn't make any difference. Everything has since been removed though, and back to vanilla.

I just did a speed test, a bit slower than usual, but should not be problematic though.

Speedtest

sbiddle

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#2532618 1-Aug-2020 12:13

How many devices do you actually have connected?

Quic Broadband

Move to New Zealand's best fibre broadband service (affiliate link). Free setup code: R587125ERQ6VE. Note that to use Quic Broadband you must be comfortable with configuring your own router.

sJBs

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#2532623 1-Aug-2020 12:25

sbiddle:
How many devices do you actually have connected?

Total devices: 16
WiFi devices: 5
Network devices: 3
Computers: 8

quickymart

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#2532648 1-Aug-2020 13:13

Can you get fibre, or VDSL (at least?) This would be much more suitable for your situation.

sJBs

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#2532721 1-Aug-2020 14:41

quickymart:

Can you get fibre, or VDSL (at least?) This would be much more suitable for your situation.

It would hopefully be possible in the next couple months. Unless we actually go rural, which will require Rural Wifi or else still this Wireless Broadband using a cell extender (which comes with the "lifestyle")....

Sounds like another vote to move away from 4G broadband.

What is the limitation with the specifications of 4G that I should be aware of?

1) Download speed doesn't appear to be a problem. 100Mb fibre and this Wireless Broadband's speed seems quite similar in term of numbers

2) Upload speed also doesn't appear to be an issue. In the past I enabled a queue on the Mikrotik to limit uploads to below 10Mbs, and it didn't even get close to the limit. So unless I'm mistaken, it does not appear that I'm using available the bandwidth here in any case. I have removed the queues, but still the traffic seems minimal and rarely gets to 2Mbps when looking at the graphs on the Microtik. Even now while writing this, I'm still experiencing the intermittent connectivity issue.

3) Latency - Yes I do expect a significant improvement in response time when moving to fibre, but I wasn't expecting any other benefit from fibre or problem with the 4G.

4) Number of simultaneous connections - This is a function of the modem/router, with the 618 rated at 64 users at the same time (but is this specification even relevant here. Isn't this the maximum number of wifi users that can be connected via wifi the router?). Not sure of the spec on the Mikrotik Routerboard, or what the fibre router can provide here either.

cyril7

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#2532825 1-Aug-2020 18:14

Hi, not exactly sure of what is impacting you connection, and I am just throwing out some thoughts. Thing is a 4G connection is only got 150Mb/s to play with, and without moving to higher categories and band aggregation it cannot be improved, thats all there is to provide and spread among all the masses on your cell tower.

So when the weekend comes around and all the kiddies are in their holiday homes streaming YT or netflix the whole system goes to cr@p, but oh wait I got a good speed test just now, ...........bugg3r its gone to cr@p again, and so it goes.

A fixed wire connection on the other hand either UFB fibre or VDSL is part of a network that Chorus pride themselves in making congestion free, and if they see congestion, they dump another 10G uplink onto it or get the ISP to do the same at appropriate hand overs, that is a big difference between 4G service and fixed line. I suggest you seriously look at moving off what is really just a mobile convience service.

Cyril

quickymart

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#2532832 1-Aug-2020 18:31

sJBs:

quickymart:

Can you get fibre, or VDSL (at least?) This would be much more suitable for your situation.

It would hopefully be possible in the next couple months.

Fibre or VDSL will be possible? Is fibre being rolled out to your area right now? Does your connecting copper cabinet support VDSL?

hio77

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#2532835 1-Aug-2020 18:48

cyril7:

Hi, not exactly sure of what is impacting you connection, and I am just throwing out some thoughts. Thing is a 4G connection is only got 150Mb/s to play with, and without moving to higher categories and band aggregation it cannot be improved, thats all there is to provide and spread among all the masses on your cell tower.

Cyril

Minor correction, B618 is CAT 11 not CAT 4 :)

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sJBs

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#2532854 1-Aug-2020 19:50

Thanks everyone for all the information.

VDSL and fibre is available here and should have been installed in December already, but Chorus tech phoned to delay to Feb. At that stage 2degrees worked perfectly for me, so didn't have a need to change. In Dec holidays I rebuilt all our machines and started the couple TB steam downloads again. Ever since then 2deg throttled me. I had to find something else.

Soon after that, lockdown happened and I came across the Spark wireless broadband deal which would be unthrottled. Delivery was very quick, and the start went well. However, the random timeouts proved very frustrating.

I would still prefer the wireless setup as well move soon.

I still don't think it is a connection speed issue, just because it happens randomly, even during very low traffic (less than 2Mbps) trying to open a webpage.

Is there maybe a tool to use that can pinpoint the constraint, whether too many connections, download speed constraint, upload speed constraint, or upstream network congestion, or mabe something else?

snnet

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#2532855 1-Aug-2020 19:53

are you sure it isnt the device? I know with mine for a while now if I've had tabs opened or a process is stuck open such as chrome it can hog resources and slow things right down on the device itself

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