[TelstraClear] Big increases with TCL pings cod4 online gaming.

Forums › One New Zealand (including Vodafone, WxC, Farmside) › [TelstraClear] Big increases with TCL pings cod4 online gaming.

rossmnz

507 posts

Ultimate Geek

#35323 8-Jun-2009 15:31

I havent played COD4 for quite a while, but had some free time and fired her up the other day for a fragging sesh.
I was seriously pissed off to discover the internode server ping had jumped up significantly into the mid-high 200s, when it was in the high 50s-80s formerly.

Its not unplayable but has diminished the experiencesubstantially.

Anyone else had this, and anyone know a reason why my connection has slowed down?

The force is strong with this one!

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484 posts

Ultimate Geek

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#222715 8-Jun-2009 15:34

Yes its been like that for some time, apparently related to a routing issue for internode servers. One of the reasons why I stopped playing COD4 on node servers. It affects TCL customers, not sure who else though.

CraZeD,
Your friendly Southern Geeky Fellow :P

Ragnor

8219 posts

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#222729 8-Jun-2009 16:12

Unresolved routing issue between TCL and Internode in Australia, try different servers if possible.

rossmnz

507 posts

Ultimate Geek

#222737 8-Jun-2009 16:23

Damnit those are some of the best servers with lots of users at a decent ping!!!

TCL fails the consumer again!

The force is strong with this one!

Ragnor

8219 posts

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#222788 8-Jun-2009 18:41

Actually there was some speculation awhile back it was the return route from internode that was the issue. ie: Packets take a sensible lag free route to internode servers then come back by some retarded latency infested route.

crazed

484 posts

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#222795 8-Jun-2009 19:26

I remember Reach.com being the service its being routed through? is that still the issue?

CraZeD,
Your friendly Southern Geeky Fellow :P

NZBJH

15 posts

Geek

#222839 8-Jun-2009 22:09

This issue has been annoying me for a few months now (and I see this is not the only thread here on the issue - it goes back at least to March). Its pretty irritating for them to shrug and say its someone else's routing problem.

A decent low ping connection, particularly to Australia, was one of TelstraClear's main advantages. Does anyone hold out any hope that TelstraClear (presumably through Telstra) might do something to fix it?

crazed

484 posts

Ultimate Geek

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#222928 9-Jun-2009 07:42

Yea I got the same excuse when I rung and complained to TCL, Its not there fault.

CraZeD,
Your friendly Southern Geeky Fellow :P

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Ragnor

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#223080 9-Jun-2009 12:19

Olof Olsson from Telstra Clear used to read and answer a questions on geekzone, I wonder if he still does.

Perhaps he might be willing to raise the issue.

eXDee

4032 posts

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#223216 9-Jun-2009 17:02

They certainly know about the issue and its been like this for well over a month, it pops up every now and then it seems. Very frustrating.

Unxious

34 posts

Geek

#224718 13-Jun-2009 21:13

Both Internode and Gamearena are impossibly unreliable for pings.
To me, it really truly takes the micky that ISPs can't sort out such basic functionality for our closest country. On the whole all our ISPs are total rubbish when dealing with international links. I would happily pay for a link which was low latency at all times, not just at 3am in the morning when people have stopped checking their emails.

TC like other ISPs, doesn't really care about the customer. Connecting to the internet seems to be the bar. All other levels of service like decent ping, international bandwidth etc are a bonus but not mandatory.

What adds insult to injury is the fact that NZ has an ever diminishing number of game servers.

NZBJH

15 posts

Geek

#224845 14-Jun-2009 11:49

I had a refreshingly frank, but somewhat depressing, response from TelstraClear's helpdesk (copied below). It does seem like the answer to the problem is "change ISP". :(

NZBJH:
I use TelstraClear cable because it provides the fastest, best ping connection for game playing, particularly when using trans-tasman links.

However, for at least the past few months I have noticed that connections to the Internode servers in Australia are unplayable (with latency increasing from 50ms to 200+ms).

Some quick googling of the terms "internode" and "TelstraClear" suggests that I am by no means alone, and that there is some kind of routing problem in Australia. Examples of other people complaining of the same problem include:

http://forums.clearnetdeluxe.co.nz/index.php/topic,12105.0.html
http://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=44&topicid=35323
http://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?ForumId=44&TopicId=31099
http://www.gpforums.co.nz/thread/345021

Could you advise what steps TelstraClear/Telstra is taking to resolve this?

TelstraClear:
Unfortunately there is nothing we can do to improve the connection to Internode and other Australian based servers.

What we have found, is that the problem is with the way Internode and other networks advertise routes to their servers.
We have been in discussion with the team that operate this side of the network for Internode and they are not going to adjust anything.

We did try to have this problem corrected, we even applied band-aids to the problem from our side, but these have not held and the problem is still occurring.

At this stage it is basically a stalemate.
If you have any other questions, I'm happy to discuss them with you.

NZBJH:
Thanks for the response. I know a number of other gamers who have the same issue (and a growing frustration about it). I suspect it will start to cost TelstraClear customers if it not resolved by the pre-Xmas gaming rush in November...

I do have a follow up question though - Why does this problem affect TelstraClear, but not other ISP's? If traffic on other networks can find a low latency route (and not be tromboned to Hong Kong or New York or wherever) why can't TelstraClear/Telstra?

TelstraClear:
It is mainly due to the company we choose to provide our routes in Australia.
However, the main problem is how the Australian servers tell our connections to route.
As when our connections go from our provider to the actual server, they force our connections to take a specific route that doesn't cost them money as it goes via their peer's.
As we are not peered with the same people, our connections would ask for a different route, since none is specified, they find the next best thing etc.

Other providers probably don't experience this as they have different overseas route providers.

So the problem could technically be solved by TelstraClear changing route providers(highly unlikely as that would be a massive change over) or on the gaming server end, by allowing our connections to take correct routes(this has been explained to the people at Internode and various other gaming network providers, yet they refuse to try this, as they have nothing to gain).

At the end of the day, we are only one ISP, probably the only one experiencing this problem, so why would they want to help resolve this problem.

Behodar

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Lifetime subscriber

#228080 24-Jun-2009 20:11

I'm playing WoW and my latency has increased to over 1100 ms (usually around 200). Even pings to clear.net.nz are in the hundreds of ms. Is anyone else getting very high latency right now?

I'm on PDQ in Whakatane.

Edit: I just called my parents, also on TCL here in Whakatane and theirs is fine. How do I go about troubleshooting this sort of issue? I've rebooted the computer, modem, wifi base, connected the computer via Ethernet, etc.

Edit 2: I suddenly also have no data connection on my Telecom XT phone. Exchange fault?

Edit ∞: Pings to my ISP are now much lower, although fluctuating wildly (85, 114, 25, 89 within 1 second of each other). My phone has data again. It looks like things are coming right and I expect that it'll all be normal by the morning.

eXDee

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#228135 24-Jun-2009 23:21

How annoying, interestingly im getting different pings to different IPs which i know are all hosted on the same physical box and same connection. Its screwed.
Telstraclear has always known to be bad with local peering, not sure about international, but no one else seems to have any issue.

Ragnor

8219 posts

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#228206 25-Jun-2009 11:04

I starting to think the best choice for gamers is going to be Maxnet naked DSL and 2talk for phone. Telecom's lack of local peering is still as bad as Telstra's right?

crazed

484 posts

Ultimate Geek

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#228431 26-Jun-2009 07:08

These ISP's need to stop fighting among themselves and start peering better, its better for the customer, but all they can see is there almighty profit.

CraZeD,
Your friendly Southern Geeky Fellow :P

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