Looking at new ISP for gaming - especially USA servers

Forums › Gaming › Looking at new ISP for gaming - especially USA servers - currently Vodafone

BigTim

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#293523 27-Jan-2022 23:14

Hi all,

I've been getting a LOT of packet loss recently to US servers.

Ping stable mostly until falling apart with massive packet loss - w has been happening a lot.hich

Contacted Voda - we are on the voda cable formerly Telstra - 200gbs down, 20 up.

Started having a lot of trouble with work pc as it uses a vpn and while I can hear clients, they couldn't hear me.
So seemed like it was logical the throttle on uploads was a problem.

We've talked to voda about going to 800 down/100 up plan and while that gets more bandwidth the ping and packet loss (I would think) remains a problem.

Pathping was showing 18% or more packet loss at several steps voda reset the router, and one of many restarts of the modem/router MIGHT have fixed it but I still have 1%-2% PL creeping in gaming on us. ping about 210-233 to US.

Ping to last voda server on the way out of NZ appears to be 141-143 ping consistently - 216.218.236.102

Which seems kinda rubbish BEFORE heading offshore and picking up another 70-80 ms to US West...

Can anyone confirm better Chorus performance in Wellington. Cos still wonderign if we shoudl sign on for a year of vodas plan - Is 143ms before leaving the country passable?

143 to get to the gateway in NZ seems a bit... sad. Like 90's level.

Just wonder if there a bottleneck for the old wellington citylink/voda/telstra cable we are on... and shoudl we skip vodafone and go with something on Chorus would they get out of NZ with a lower ping?

Cheers!

timmmay

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#2857471 28-Jan-2022 07:54

I'm on 2degrees and I'm happy with them, but I don't game. I've never seen any packet loss. My ping to a server in Oregon (US West Coast) is 168ms. Ping to 216.218.236.102 is 154ms, which suggests it's not in NZ. ping is a low priority protocol and ping responses can be discarded if the router / server is busy so you can't entirely trust the results in terms of performance or packet loss, though packet loss would be rare. I would look at pinging a server you control or known reliable server rather than an infrastructure router.

Linux

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#2857475 28-Jan-2022 08:03

If you are on the HFC network and can get Fibre then move while it is still free!

Not saying that is going to improve ping but Fibre is better hands down

Jase2985

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#2857486 28-Jan-2022 08:19

Linux:

Not saying that is going to improve ping but Fibre is better hands down

may improve packet loss

nztim

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#2857515 28-Jan-2022 09:23

First of all if we need to know what technology you are on while fibre is the best HFC is still a great network

HFC packet loss is prone to things like an unbalanced line - did you have Vodafone TBOXs in the past? are their splitters on the line? have they been removed? Get a clean COAX run from the street to your HFC modem (should be the only thing that exists now) a good clean line will give a low 5-10ms ping

Fibre should give you a nice clean 2ms to the next hop

Any views expressed on these forums are my own and don't necessarily reflect those of my employer.

zaptor

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#2858173 29-Jan-2022 16:54

Why don't you just trial fibre for 2-3 months while keeping your HFC connection?

In our household we access game servers based in Sydney. Was getting much better performance from HFC this time last year (this against a 900/500 plan on BigBipe), but, recently joined Prodigi and getting better numbers on fibre this time around.

Although, I suspect a combination of HFC deteriorating and fibre improving since the last time I compared.

DjShadow

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#2858175 29-Jan-2022 16:59

200 down - 20 up does not sound right speed wise, the only plan they have is 950 down - 100 up.

Has your cable modem been upgraded to a DOCSIS 3.1 unit?

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zaptor

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#2858183 29-Jan-2022 18:19

DjShadow:

200 down - 20 up does not sound right speed wise, the only plan they have is 950 down - 100 up.

He's on one of the older (deprecated) plans. Depending on what's offered/bundled on his plan, it can be more cost-effective to stay on it.

michaelmurfy

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#2858236 29-Jan-2022 21:17

First off - we need to know more information of your home network such as router type, how you're testing, what game etc. HFC isn't bad at all but if you're using WiFi this can be a factor. Always use Ethernet.

Also, that IP address you sent is in-fact overseas, it isn't in New Zealand. It is also important to note that routers such as this do not prioritize ICMP (ping) traffic as their task is to route traffic and so you won't get an accurate response back.

                                                                                                                     Packets               Pings
 Host                                                                                                              Loss%   Snt   Last   Avg  Best  Wrst StDev
 1. router                                                                                                          0.0%    10   16.8   6.1   4.0  16.8   3.8
 2. 86.7.69.111.static.snap.net.nz                                                                                  0.0%    10    6.1  14.3   4.9  66.6  19.0
 3. as23655.auckland.megaport.com                                                                                   0.0%    10   20.5  30.6  15.5 117.4  31.7
 4. 10ge0-48.core1.akl1.he.net                                                                                      0.0%    10   42.5  43.6  41.1  54.5   3.9
 5. 100ge0-36.core1.akl2.he.net                                                                                     0.0%    10   45.0  46.6  44.0  50.8   2.2
 6. 100ge0-35.core1.pdx3.he.net                                                                                     0.0%     9  176.6 162.4 153.7 198.5  15.3
 7. 100ge0-36.core1.pdx2.he.net                                                                                     0.0%     9  154.1 154.2 153.0 155.4   0.9
 8. 100ge8-1.core1.pdx1.he.net                                                                                      0.0%     9  154.3 155.9 152.3 175.2   7.3
 9. 100ge5-1.core1.lax2.he.net                                                                                      0.0%     9  153.2 157.8 153.2 169.5   5.6
10. vodafone-nz-ltd.10gigabitethernet6-11.core1.lax2.he.net                                                         0.0%     9  152.4 160.0 152.4 204.3  16.7

Michael Murphy | https://murfy.nz
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