Vodafone throttling connection to Steam/Origin

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Drinkmelk

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Topic # 239464 19-Jul-2018 13:44

Hey guys, my first time posting. I've always used this forum for tech support but only now have something of value to add. So recently I upgraded to FibreMax with Vodafone with provides around 800/500 most of the time. Soon after this I found that my downloads on platforms such as Steam, Origin and Battle.net where not reaching anywhere near my max speed, despite other downloads on other platforms doing fine. Looking abit closer I saw that all 3 apps where downloading at a max of around 8.7MB/s. I did all the usual troubles shooting, changing download regions, double checking bandwidth limits, R&D modes etc but nothing worked.

Being frustrating at not being able to achieve anything near what I was paying for and Vodafone Support being no help, I downloaded Windscribe VPN and connected through a New Zealand based server. Now Windscribe isn't gigabit capable, I was getting around 350mb/s on most speedtest sites but it was enough to test my theory. After a bit of downloading and testing, all three apps that were previously capped to 8.5MB/s all jumped up to 30MB/s and were performing perfecting fine now.

What do you guys think? Am I missing something or is Vodafone actually capping my connection to certain servers. Another interesting thing is there no QoS setting available in my new Vodafone Ultrahub and i can't get a third party modem without sacrificing my home line than that is now VoiP. Thanks!

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152 posts

Master Geek
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Reply # 2058853 19-Jul-2018 13:53

I'm not sure about the Steam slow down as I'm also on VF Gigabit and getting anywhere between 10-60MB/s (not sure if FibreMax in north shore).

You can't set up SIP on a new router but you can have phone voip with a third party router. I have the old Huawei HG659 behind a Edgerouter lite, all you need to do is detag VLAN on the WAN interface, plug it in behind your new router and it'll pick up the phone line. It can also act a another wireless point if you set it up as so.

Drinkmelk

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Wannabe Geek
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Reply # 2058855 19-Jul-2018 13:58

My worry is that if I use a third party router as the sole access point, connecting back through the Ultrahub, I'd still get this weird throttling in the end since all the connections are still passing through the Ultrahub in the end.

Spyware

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Reply # 2058864 19-Jul-2018 14:07

You misunderstand. The Ultrahub (vlan tag off on WAN interface) would be behind your router (which connects directly to Internet).

Coil

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Reply # 2058869 19-Jul-2018 14:41

I have an ultrahub and download through steam or something every day of the week. I quite frequently download at 60MB/s to 70MB/s.

When dealing with Gigabit speeds many things come into question.

The source of the content, Might not have sufficient upstream or poor routing between the source and you.

Your PC's read and write speed on local storage. Gigabit fibre is faster than what a Mechanical HDD can write to....

I have never once seen a home hub limit a speed to 8.7MB/s. Are you using wireless or anything specific? Have you searched for a firmware upgrade for your router?

You are getting what you "pay" for. Up to 1 Gb/s over fibre optic. You are receiving those speeds as per your speed test. You are paying for a link, Not a service level.

michaelmurfy

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Reply # 2058871 19-Jul-2018 14:42

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To quickly answer your question:

NO! Vodafone is not rate limiting Steam or anything else.

The problem here is likely you're connecting to a steam cache that is overloaded / not capable of full speed. Most ISP's run their own Steam caches. Ensure you're using Vodafone's DNS servers and even try setting you steam download region to one of the Australia regions. There is also a chance that your PC just isn't up to handling Gigabit speeds.

As for the Ultrahub - I know this is Gigabit capable. Ensure you're testing with Ethernet only (you didn't mention this). The latest Windows 10 upgrade has also really messed with the QoS settings in Windows causing slow download speeds. Try booting into Ubuntu Linux (via the Live environment) and testing from there. It is a problem I recently had.

Michael Murphy | https://murfy.nz
A quick guide to picking the right ISP | The Router Guide | Community UniFi Cloud Controller | Ubiquiti Edgerouter Tutorial

michaeln

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Master Geek
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Reply # 2058874 19-Jul-2018 14:51

How strange. VF don't throttle traffic.

Have you a trace route to see where the Steam/Origin/Battle.net traffic is going?

Is your PC using IPv6?

Battle.net uses Bittorrent as a protocol for some things, do you know what Torrent speed is like?

michaeln

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Master Geek
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Reply # 2058876 19-Jul-2018 14:54

One person supports this post

michaelmurfy:

The problem here is likely you're connecting to a steam cache that is overloaded / not capable of full speed. Most ISP's run their own Steam caches.

Not any more. Steam goes through Akamai these days.

Nismo214

3 posts

Wannabe Geek

Reply # 2058878 19-Jul-2018 15:11

Hey This is the exact same issue i was having and it appears to be due to the Ultrahub modem.
As i had both an Ultrahub and a Homehub I tested with both and found that on the Ultrahub i was getting 8.7 MB/s down when downloading games and if I switched to the Homehub would see upwards of 30 MB/s.
When i spoke with vodafone the first time they sent me a new one and it had the same problem. the second time they ran some tests and passed them on to networking but i never heard anything back
I ended up using a 3rd party router with the Homehub behind it for the phone and haven't had any problem since

Drinkmelk

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Reply # 2058887 19-Jul-2018 15:29

michaeln: How strange. VF don't throttle traffic. Have you a trace route to see where the Steam/Origin/Battle.net traffic is going? Is your PC using IPv6? Battle.net uses Bittorrent as a protocol for some things, do you know what Torrent speed is like?

I haven't done any trace routes, not really sure how to find the ip address to ping. Yes my computer is using Ipv6 and my torrent downloads are fine, averaging around 40MB/s. I now have a sneaking suspicious its the Ultrahub just de-prioritising traffic to certain servers as the QoS setting is hidden on the modem.

Drinkmelk

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Wannabe Geek
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Reply # 2058895 19-Jul-2018 15:36

michaelmurfy:

To quickly answer your question:

NO! Vodafone is not rate limiting Steam or anything else.

The problem here is likely you're connecting to a steam cache that is overloaded / not capable of full speed. Most ISP's run their own Steam caches. Ensure you're using Vodafone's DNS servers and even try setting you steam download region to one of the Australia regions. There is also a chance that your PC just isn't up to handling Gigabit speeds.

As for the Ultrahub - I know this is Gigabit capable. Ensure you're testing with Ethernet only (you didn't mention this). The latest Windows 10 upgrade has also really messed with the QoS settings in Windows causing slow download speeds. Try booting into Ubuntu Linux (via the Live environment) and testing from there. It is a problem I recently had.

Yup testing with ethernet, tried switching download servers and dns. I doubt its to do with windows itself as if that were the case my download speeds wouldn't be increasing while connected to a VPN. I now agree its not throttling but suspect something with how the router handles traffic.

Sorry about the edits, new to here to i didn't know you could quote when replying.

michaeln

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Master Geek
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Reply # 2058900 19-Jul-2018 15:45

Drinkmelk:
michaeln: How strange. VF don't throttle traffic. Have you a trace route to see where the Steam/Origin/Battle.net traffic is going? Is your PC using IPv6? Battle.net uses Bittorrent as a protocol for some things, do you know what Torrent speed is like?

I haven't done any trace routes, not really sure how to find the ip address to ping. Yes my computer is using Ipv6 and my torrent downloads are fine, averaging around 40MB/s. I now have a sneaking suspicious its the Ultrahub just de-prioritising traffic to certain servers as the QoS setting is hidden on the modem.

All of the sites will be served by CDNs, which tend to care deeply about the DNS used.

Exactly what DNS are you using?

http://help.vodafone.co.nz/app/answers/detail/a_id/27167/~/vodafone-dns-settings-and-flushing-your-cache

Drinkmelk

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Reply # 2058903 19-Jul-2018 15:53

michaeln:
Drinkmelk:

michaeln: How strange. VF don't throttle traffic. Have you a trace route to see where the Steam/Origin/Battle.net traffic is going? Is your PC using IPv6? Battle.net uses Bittorrent as a protocol for some things, do you know what Torrent speed is like?

I haven't done any trace routes, not really sure how to find the ip address to ping. Yes my computer is using Ipv6 and my torrent downloads are fine, averaging around 40MB/s. I now have a sneaking suspicious its the Ultrahub just de-prioritising traffic to certain servers as the QoS setting is hidden on the modem.

All of the sites will be served by CDNs, which tend to care deeply about the DNS used. Exactly what DNS are you using? http://help.vodafone.co.nz/app/answers/detail/a_id/27167/~/vodafone-dns-settings-and-flushing-your-cache

My bad, looks like i was running on google dns before. But after following the instructions on the page not much changes, I now peak at around 9.1MB/s on steam. Something that might be of note is that sometimes when I turn secure ddns on or off (like 10% of the time) my speeds will shoot up to peak for about 10 seconds and then come back down.

michaeln

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Master Geek
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Reply # 2058911 19-Jul-2018 16:07

Drinkmelk:

My bad, looks like i was running on google dns before. But after following the instructions on the page not much changes, I now peak at around 9.1MB/s on steam. Something that might be of note is that sometimes when I turn secure ddns on or off (like 10% of the time) my speeds will shoot up to peak for about 10 seconds and then come back down.

Ah, Google DNS is going to mess with your performance through a CDN (using a VPN, you usually also use the DNS of the provider, so you use CDN's appropriate to the other end of the VPN. That might account for the change in speed).

Is your Windows box using the UltraHub as the DNS (and you were altering the DNS setting on the UltraHub), or did you change the DNS server on Windows directly?

Drinkmelk

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Wannabe Geek
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Reply # 2058912 19-Jul-2018 16:11

Is your Windows box using the UltraHub as the DNS (and you were altering the DNS setting on the UltraHub), or did you change the DNS server on Windows directly?

Was altering it on windows directly, I couldn't find any setting on the Ultrahub to alter it there.

michaeln

211 posts

Master Geek
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Reply # 2058914 19-Jul-2018 16:15

Are you letting Windows detect the DNS automatically, or did you configure in the static DNS addresses?

What happens if you change Windows to use the other method?

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