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bcrocker74

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Ongoing Packet Loss

(firstly apologies for English, if we where talking this would be easy in Dutch but written is harder)

 

I have been suffering intermittent packet loss on my link for some time now mostly noticeable during zoom calls as that seems to be most affected by packet loss but the kids complain about netflix and gaming drops as well. 

 

I have just move home (Dec 2020)  so at first I thought it was my setup and cabling and I have been through several changes including changing all my own cabling and even replacing my firewall (ubiquiti dream machine pro) which is connected direct to the modem which is in bridge mode.  I have already had a call to the helpdesk who sent me a new cable and splitter of which I don't use the splitter anyway but I did replace the cable (even though it's the same model and length of cable as the 2 month old one I had plugged in before, you never know).

 

I looked at the logs from the modem (Connectbox Giga) (I will attach captures) and errors don't appear to be a problem, the only log messages that I can see appear to be around issues I can explain either from me power off the box or there being a known issue. But the packet loss is a lot more frequent than this and effects all of my destinations, which can only lead me to think that it comes from something very close to my location, either my own network (which is why I replaced the devices and the cabling (all new equipment and cables)) or the very first hops on the provider network (as it impacts every location I monitor).

 

So I wanted to provide you guys with the data and see if somebody can suggest something other than there being a problem in the Ziggo network that I can look to solve

 

I will attach some of the capture here and then some more afterwards, I have my smokeping results which I will add

 

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bcrocker74
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Hi Mark,

 

Worst seemed to be between 10 -12:30 today, there have been bad bits during the whole day however. In general it seems to be a little less bad since we changed to router mode from bridge mode which would seem interesting as we effectively added a hop that is processing the traffic when we did that. Any chance there's a known issue on the connectbox in bridge mode? The other interesting part is that large packets seem to be very much more impacted than small ones (attached are large graphs)

 

As for upstream capacity, the FW is rated at 3.5 G (Unifi Dream Machine Pro) and has never apparently seen a dropped packet in its counters, I have smoke ping graphs for both the internal and external side of the FW at the same times and there has never been an instance of loss

Mark
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You're pinging random hops in our network which don't prioritize ICMP requests, the amount of packetloss on those hops doesn't translate to packetloss when you're trying to have a MS Teams meeting of playing a video-game (examples).

There is a minimal amount of packetloss in the connection from your modem to the internet, between 10:00 and 12:30 on tuesday:
Knipsel.JPG

 

The upstream capacity however (I should have specified this) is worrying. I'm talking about the upstream capacity of our hub (CMTS) where traffic of all the customers in your area is bundled and sent off to the next hub in the network.

You can see below the hub is working at full capacity for ~1,5 hours straight which means there is more traffic than the hub can handle at that time, causing delays which influences livestreams like Zoom meetings most.

image.png

 

I've escalated this to our Network Capacity management team, they will check my findings and let me know what the next step will be. If it does come down to a necessary capacity increase, that could take several months depending on the circumstances.

 

I will update you on the situation as soon as I have news.

bcrocker74
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Hi Mark,

 

Thankyou for looking into this and the explanation.

 

I chose the two hops on the network as they are consistently the next two hops in any path I go to, it was the best I could do to look at the PE devices. The trend they show is also shown by the other external locations for the same times (I chose 11 or 12 other locations mixed in europe and US to try and make sure that any local provider network problems didn't effect all the destinations). When I get serious loss on the local destinations it is also shown at the far away ones so it suggested it was something common to both paths which can only be the close by local connections (my own CPE and the connection to the PE). As the CPE is the only bit I can impact I already replaced the firewall and the network cabling and then the cable to the modem so there wasn't much else to look at.

 

I have turned the modem back in to bridge mode and opened firewall rules to allow ICMP, if you are not able to ping the device please let me know the range I should include in the rules and I will open it for you as well.

 

Again, really appreciate your help.

Mark
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Hi Ben, I've sent you this info in private as well but just to confirm:
 

The capacity of our hub doesn't seem to be that critical, I don't see a lot of extra packetloss or increased ping during peak hours. I'll schedule a mechanic to visit your address asap, since I also don't see any packetloss to one of your neighbours.

You'll receive confirmation of the appointment by e-mail, if the date and timeslot doesn't suit you, you can click on the link in the e-mail to reschedule.

Mark
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Hi Ben, I see our mechanic did find signal noise issues further up in the network (not in your individual connection) which is being investigated by our network management. It looks like there are multiple sources of noise coming from several different customers. We're trying to reach all of them and make appointments so our mechanics can fix the issues without having to disconnect their services.

 

It can be a hassle getting in touch with the customers, so this might take some time. If a (number of) customer(s) doesn't respond to our phonecalls and messages, after some time they will be filtered off of the network, but that's a last resort we would rather avoid.

Paul
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Good afternoon @bcrocker74,

I received an update in regards to the ticket that was reported by @Mark to our network department. The problem with both the up and downstream signal to noise ratio has been resolved. I'm very curious what your own findings are at the moment in regards to our services, Is everything working properly at the moment? 

bcrocker74
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Hi Paul,

 

It was fine for a couple of weeks and actually I have seen some recurrence over the last few days. The pattern of loss from my side looks to be very similar to what I saw before so I don't know if this is something you guys can see as well.

 

Thanks

 

Ben

Paul
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@bcrocker74 Hi Ben,

I'm very sorry that the problem still persist. I had a look at the connection and i still notice a problem with the upstream. I reported this issue back to our network department for further investigation. I will inform you as soon as I have an update for you in regards to this problem with the upstream signal. Kind regards, 

Cecilia
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Hi @bcroker74

We got an update about the ticket which was created according this issue. Another customer was responsible for noise in our network. Our technician has visited this customer and take action. The complete installation is been replaced. The powerline adapter of this customer is also an issue and the customer is forced to replace this one (is not from Ziggo). Can you please check your connection for the upcoming 2 weeks and let us know if everything is working properly? 🙂