I'm looking at ways of improving my internet, so that I am ready for ultra fibre!

Forums › LAN (ethernet/Wifi/routers/Bluetooth) › I'm looking at ways of improving my internet, so that I am ready for ultra fibre!

B3H1NDu

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Wannabe Geek

Topic # 198277 2-Jul-2016 21:09

Hey,

This is my first post here, but I have browsed this forum many times in the past, and it has been extremely helpful.

For a few months now I have been fed up with my internet. I play games competitively (Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and now Overwatch), and it sucks when these games are made unplayable by the internet gods!

I currently have a standard VDSL connection with Vodafone, using their standard provided router (Huawei, the one everyone, and their dog seems to have) and going over wifi.

My connection speeds aren't much of a problem when just playing games because games don't use up much bandwidth. However, I get extreme ping and ping jitter, random disconnects, choke and atrocious packet loss maybe once or twice a month, and this is my problem.

The reason for this post is to bounce some of my ideas off you guys to see what I should do.

I am thinking of:

Switching ISPs when I get fibre (I was looking at MyRepublic as they seemed to be good but after a brief look on these forums it seems I should do my best to stay away from them)
Getting a better wireless setup (better modem/router and extenders)
Wiring my house for ethernet.
Shooting my family if they want to use the internet at the same time as me

or a combination of the above.

For me the biggest (limiting) factors are:

Cost, time and expertise.

My house is quite big, two stories with the router on the bottom floor and four humans living in the house with up to 8 devices demanding the internet at once at some points during the week (I have no idea how we have survived so long with our current internet setup)

Any suggestions/experiences would be awesome! As I said this is some research so I can be armed and ready come August (when my fibre is supposed to be connected)

Thanks heaps!

P.S.

I know I have not included a lot of information, mainly because I don't want my post to be overly long, if you have a question or need information about my situation to provide better advice please, please ask it. I will be more than happy to oblige :)

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Reply # 1584865 2-Jul-2016 21:15

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Step one: ditch wifi and get a hardwired ethernet connection. See how it goes after that - it's likely to be the best bang for your buck.

B3H1NDu

8 posts

Wannabe Geek

Reply # 1584872 2-Jul-2016 21:19

RunningMan:

Step one: ditch wifi and get a hardwired ethernet connection. See how it goes after that - it's likely to be the best bang for your buck.

Yep, but what would that involve? Honestly with a house as big and old as mine, it would be a hard, long process to take on myself, and to get a professional to do it for me. I've read that it would be very expensive (in the thousands) as I am a long way from the modem, and there is literally like 0 crawl space. I don't know, though. I got my info from a thread from 2011.

And ethernet won't fix my biggest problem (the ping jitter).

Sideface

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Reply # 1584890 2-Jul-2016 22:06

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B3H1NDu:

RunningMan:

Step one: ditch wifi and get a hardwired ethernet connection. See how it goes after that - it's likely to be the best bang for your buck.

Yep, but what would that involve? Honestly with a house as big and old as mine, it would be a hard, long process to take on myself, and to get a professional to do it for me. I've read that it would be very expensive (in the thousands) as I am a long way from the modem, and there is literally like 0 crawl space. I don't know, though. I got my info from a thread from 2011.

And ethernet won't fix my biggest problem (the ping jitter).

RunningMan is right.

If you can't manage ethernet, try Ethernet over Power (EoP) - see various Geekzone threads. If it doesn't work, you won't lose much money.

Your post implies that you can get fibre now. Just do it. Performance will be much better.

Leave Vodafone if you want, but avoid MyRepublic at all costs. (see below)

TrueNet May 2016 Urban Broadband Report

Chart 7: Fibre & Cable Performance as Percentage of Advertised Speed

(MyRepublic fibre is the worst performer by a long mile - Vodafone fibre performs much better)

Sideface

Lias

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Reply # 1584892 2-Jul-2016 22:08

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B3H1NDu:

And ethernet won't fix my biggest problem (the ping jitter).

It might.. A congested wireless connection is going to see some serious jitter.

Ethernet is best, but worst case use powerline adapters. They are usually far superior to wireless.

Information wants to be free. The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.

Thinking about signing up to BigPipe? Get $20 credit with my referral link.

Scott3

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Reply # 1584900 2-Jul-2016 22:23

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I just ran three back to back ping tests (to EOL tauranga, I am on Vodafone in Auckland)

On Ethernet Ping 11ms, Jitter 3ms, on WiFi, Ping 11ms, Jitter 3ms, On Ethernet again Ping 10ms, Jitter 2ms.

When I pinged my router (via cmd) on Wifi I get time=1ms,time=2ms, time=2ms, time=2ms for the four pings, When on wifi I get 4x time<1ms. This is easy for you to check yourself before your fiber arrives.

These tests were done under pritty ideal conditions (low density suburbia, no other traffic on network, laptop 1m from modern router). I hear WiFi starts to preform poorly when the airspace gets congested.

In short if you are the kind of gamer where milliseconds matter, then there are at least one or two up for grabs by moving off wifi.

Scott3

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Reply # 1584902 2-Jul-2016 22:40

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In regards to running network cables, no denying it, this can be a real pain, And I wouldn't like to do it for a living.

I retrofitted full structured wiring into my house. All cat6, Came in about $700 in parts (excluding Switch, NAS, Router etc, and cost of electrification to install a power outlet inside it).

I have in wall style cabinet in the garage with a 24 port patch panel (I keep a 16 port gigabit switch, the ONT, and my 2 bay NAS (only because it fitted) in here too).

I have 8 drops to our office, 2 drops to each of three bedrooms, and four drops to behind the lounge TV. Router is in the office as box is metal so no good for Wifi.

All my wiring is done via the roofspace. Where I couldn't get direct access to a wall (upstairs rooms with roofspace adjacent to wall) I used an existing phone or TV signal wire as as a mouse line to get the cables down to a low level face-plate.

Major costs are the cabinet, and the Mech's (bits that clip into the wall faceplates). If I did it again I would do cat6 cable but cat5 mech's (much cheaper).

If you just want to do one drop from the router to your gaming PC, parts costs should be quite low, if, of course it is possible to run the cable.

PhantomNVD

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Reply # 1584908 2-Jul-2016 22:56

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For about $25 on Trademe you can get a 25m Ethernet cable. Run this out a window by the PC (loop over a window handle or something to take off the weight pressure) and sling it in the window that the router sits in.

Cheap test of exactly how much better Ethernet will be and proves the case before investing in permanent installation?

Alternatively, if the inside stairs make an easier path, and you can do it that way, it'd be much warmer at this time of year 🤔

michaelmurfy

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Reply # 1584941 3-Jul-2016 00:57

Take it from me, whatever wireless AP setup you get will cause more problems than using Ethernet or powerline adapters.

(source: xkcd #654)

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

DarthKermit

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Reply # 1584944 3-Jul-2016 03:50

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What area are you in? There are a few members of GZ who do data/phone installations around the country.

B3H1NDu

8 posts

Wannabe Geek

Reply # 1584957 3-Jul-2016 08:21

Sideface:

B3H1NDu:

RunningMan:

Step one: ditch wifi and get a hardwired ethernet connection. See how it goes after that - it's likely to be the best bang for your buck.

Yep, but what would that involve? Honestly with a house as big and old as mine, it would be a hard, long process to take on myself, and to get a professional to do it for me. I've read that it would be very expensive (in the thousands) as I am a long way from the modem, and there is literally like 0 crawl space. I don't know, though. I got my info from a thread from 2011.

And ethernet won't fix my biggest problem (the ping jitter).

+1

RunningMan is right.

If you can't manage ethernet, try Ethernet over Power (EoP) - see various Geekzone threads. If it doesn't work, you won't lose much money.

Your post implies that you can get fibre now. Just do it. Performance will be much better.

Leave Vodafone if you want, but avoid MyRepublic at all costs. (see below)

TrueNet May 2016 Urban Broadband Report

Chart 7: Fibre & Cable Performance as Percentage of Advertised Speed

(MyRepublic fibre is the worst performer by a long mile - Vodafone fibre performs much better)

Thanks for the awesome information :) I'll look into EoP. I can't get fibre just yet, one more month! And since it will actually save us money it is high on my priority list.

Scott3:

In regards to running network cables, no denying it, this can be a real pain, And I wouldn't like to do it for a living.

I retrofitted full structured wiring into my house. All cat6, Came in about $700 in parts (excluding Switch, NAS, Router etc, and cost of electrification to install a power outlet inside it).

I have in wall style cabinet in the garage with a 24 port patch panel (I keep a 16 port gigabit switch, the ONT, and my 2 bay NAS (only because it fitted) in here too).

I have 8 drops to our office, 2 drops to each of three bedrooms, and four drops to behind the lounge TV. Router is in the office as box is metal so no good for Wifi.

All my wiring is done via the roofspace. Where I couldn't get direct access to a wall (upstairs rooms with roofspace adjacent to wall) I used an existing phone or TV signal wire as as a mouse line to get the cables down to a low level face-plate.

Major costs are the cabinet, and the Mech's (bits that clip into the wall faceplates). If I did it again I would do cat6 cable but cat5 mech's (much cheaper).

If you just want to do one drop from the router to your gaming PC, parts costs should be quite low, if, of course it is possible to run the cable.

Yea, if that's just the parts cost of wiring up the house I would definitely only wire up my gaming PC and the two computers in the office with the modem downstairs to avoid WiFi congestion.

PhantomNVD: For about $25 on Trademe you can get a 25m Ethernet cable. Run this out a window by the PC (loop over a window handle or something to take off the weight pressure) and sling it in the window that the router sits in.

Cheap test of exactly how much better Ethernet will be and proves the case before investing in permanent installation?

Alternatively, if the inside stairs make an easier path, and you can do it that way, it'd be much warmer at this time of year 🤔

Great idea! And this has reminded me a video which LinusTechTips did about him doing an outdoors ethernet run this year, I may be able to do the same thing :).

If I was to *somehow* get ethernet to my room and to the two other computers in the office, would I be able to plug them directly into that huawei router? I would, right?

tdgeek

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Reply # 1584965 3-Jul-2016 09:11

B3H1NDu:

If I was to *somehow* get ethernet to my room and to the two other computers in the office, would I be able to plug them directly into that huawei router? I would, right?

Not sure where your office is or the main TV, but if you got fibre downstairs where I assume the main TV is, the router will be there. If you get someone to send one ethernet upstairs, that also solves your gaming PC issue. Connect a wifi router upstairs in bridge mode and ethernet that to your PC, and that also helps wifi coverage upstairs.

If the ethernet cabling is too hard (we have a two storey house as well) perhaps an external conduit feed up an external wall will be much easier, perhaps allowing a feed to the office as well (if thats also upstairs) If that external feed was ideally in a place where its not easily seen or ugly, that maybe an easy cost effective solution. Particularly if the fibre connect side was well placed for the upstairs side as well.

What area are you in, as someone may be able to recommend a sparky/cable guy is does it properly and can visit and advise/quote.

darylblake

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Reply # 1584968 3-Jul-2016 09:19

If you are truly a serious gamer, you CANNOT use WIFI.

1) It might drop out.

2) It can add horrible jitter due to wifi noise and mean re-transmits are required.

3) From a programmers perspective because I am a programmer.. Games are generally programmed using UDP and they apply their OWN transmission control. This means that at a network level the packets are just sent, they are delivered extremely quickly. However the downside of not using TCP is that it doesn't establish a connection every time, send its data then tear it down. The game will usually constantly send packets and organise its own re-transmits of missing information if it never arrives at its destination with 'x' period of time.

I would DEFINATELY fix these items first, get an electrican in if you have to, to get a cat5e or cat6 cable ran up to where the gaming machine is. Even changing to UFB WILL NOT FIX this problem.

this next bit is somewhat less important.....

Once you have implemented that and are happy with the result, then you can consider switching ISP's, but it may or may not make a huge difference.

I am in Auckland, and I am with Mynxnet because,... I work there, but I play a bit of Overwatch. What I have found is Overwatch sometimes hosts games off to Singapore or USA if it cant match you to a game in Sydney. But about 80% of the games are in sydney, its been better the last week since season 1 competitive play came out. So the latency across the ditch is about 24ms. And then into AWS is about another 1-2, it depends who your ISP has peered with, most would peer direct with amazon.

So I am on VDSL, my ping to Mayoral drive is about 3-4ms but I do have a particularly good VDSL line if you are outside of Auckland, then your traffic is going to have to get to a handover, be backhauled to Auckland and then out to Sydney. My in game ping is about 28 all up if I get ufb it might drop by 1 or 2 ms. If it matches me with a game in Singapore, my ping will go up to about 128ms.

C:\Users\daryl>ping 120.136.0.248

Pinging 120.136.0.248 with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 120.136.0.248: bytes=32 time=3ms TTL=63
Reply from 120.136.0.248: bytes=32 time=3ms TTL=63
Reply from 120.136.0.248: bytes=32 time=3ms TTL=63
Reply from 120.136.0.248: bytes=32 time=3ms TTL=63

B3H1NDu

8 posts

Wannabe Geek

Reply # 1584984 3-Jul-2016 09:50

tdgeek:

B3H1NDu:

If I was to *somehow* get ethernet to my room and to the two other computers in the office, would I be able to plug them directly into that huawei router? I would, right?

Not sure where your office is or the main TV, but if you got fibre downstairs where I assume the main TV is, the router will be there. If you get someone to send one ethernet upstairs, that also solves your gaming PC issue. Connect a wifi router upstairs in bridge mode and ethernet that to your PC, and that also helps wifi coverage upstairs.

If the ethernet cabling is too hard (we have a two storey house as well) perhaps an external conduit feed up an external wall will be much easier, perhaps allowing a feed to the office as well (if thats also upstairs) If that external feed was ideally in a place where its not easily seen or ugly, that maybe an easy cost effective solution. Particularly if the fibre connect side was well placed for the upstairs side as well.

What area are you in, as someone may be able to recommend a sparky/cable guy is does it properly and can visit and advise/quote.

My main TV is upstairs also D:. I live in Howick, Auckland. Really, after rewatching linus' video I think that having an outside run will be the best.

darylblake:

If you are truly a serious gamer, you CANNOT use WIFI.

1) It might drop out.

2) It can add horrible jitter due to wifi noise and mean re-transmits are required.

3) From a programmers perspective because I am a programmer.. Games are generally programmed using UDP and they apply their OWN transmission control. This means that at a network level the packets are just sent, they are delivered extremely quickly. However the downside of not using TCP is that it doesn't establish a connection every time, send its data then tear it down. The game will usually constantly send packets and organise its own re-transmits of missing information if it never arrives at its destination with 'x' period of time.

I would DEFINATELY fix these items first, get an electrican in if you have to, to get a cat5e or cat6 cable ran up to where the gaming machine is. Even changing to UFB WILL NOT FIX this problem.

this next bit is somewhat less important.....

Once you have implemented that and are happy with the result, then you can consider switching ISP's, but it may or may not make a huge difference.

I am in Auckland, and I am with Mynxnet because,... I work there, but I play a bit of Overwatch. What I have found is Overwatch sometimes hosts games off to Singapore or USA if it cant match you to a game in Sydney. But about 80% of the games are in sydney, its been better the last week since season 1 competitive play came out. So the latency across the ditch is about 24ms. And then into AWS is about another 1-2, it depends who your ISP has peered with, most would peer direct with amazon.

So I am on VDSL, my ping to Mayoral drive is about 3-4ms but I do have a particularly good VDSL line if you are outside of Auckland, then your traffic is going to have to get to a handover, be backhauled to Auckland and then out to Sydney. My in game ping is about 28 all up if I get ufb it might drop by 1 or 2 ms. If it matches me with a game in Singapore, my ping will go up to about 128ms.

C:\Users\daryl>ping 120.136.0.248

Pinging 120.136.0.248 with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 120.136.0.248: bytes=32 time=3ms TTL=63
Reply from 120.136.0.248: bytes=32 time=3ms TTL=63
Reply from 120.136.0.248: bytes=32 time=3ms TTL=63
Reply from 120.136.0.248: bytes=32 time=3ms TTL=63

Thanks so much for the information. I thought that blizz always sends you to their NA servers but this makes so much more sense. Anyway, I always thought choke, packet loss and ping jitter were the faults of Vodafone/my old copper line as it only happens once or twice a month at the most. I agree that UFB won't fix the problems. Really the only improvement will be less buffering when everyone is on youtube at the same time.

If someone could tell me how much it could cost to get an electrician to sort out an outside run (the office is five meters down the hall and one story down from my computer) and maybe even recommend one it would be great :)