Hi,

Like many others here, I've been having issues starting with the second hop of trace route. The result is variant latency ranging from 8ms to 400+ms. Sometimes the packets are just lost. It's somewhat tolerable from 02:00 to 10:00, but absolutely awful around 20:00 (even if I have nothing else transceiving during these times), and generally bad anytime else.

I have the typical setup of PC<-ethernet->ROUTER<-ethernet->MODEM<-coax->WALL.

I'm a bit confused about what PingPlotter shows for my second hop (96.120.70.105). When I who.is that, it shows it's owned by my ISP. It would make most sense for that to be my modem, however, it doesn't match my IP address. When I who.is my IP address, it shows it's owned by my ISP, and further, it reports the IP in the right city whereas the 96.120.70.105 IP location is unknown. When I trace my IP, the ping is sub-millisecond and has very little variance. Same goes for 127.0.0.1 and 192.168.1.1. So I'm guessing my modem isn't even listed on PingPlotter for some reason. Just to triple check, I swapped out my modem (and all ethernet and coax cables) with a new one to no avail.

After about a dozen conversations with my ISP, they said they'd have their engineering department look at it, but I'm not holding my breath. Technicians have come and shot the line up to my modem and back out to... not sure where, and observed good dB power levels. I'm not an RF engineer, but I don't think that would necessarily expose latency variation.

It would be great to hear from someone who knows more than me that this is/isn't on my ISP. I don't have 48 hours of collected data to upload here, but the attached image is an hour of capture at the worst time of the day.

Thanks in advance for any responses!

Hi lessmess,

Sorry to hear you're having issues with your internet connection - it can be super frustrating for sure!

(love the handle by the way)

Thanks for all of the great information that you've provided in your post, it's really helpful in being able to give you our two-cents!

The not seeing any IP address for your modem is how it should be as it won't have an IP address unless it's a combination modem/router. A modem is just a two-way converter from the signal that your ISP sends to a signal that your router can understand and vice-versa.

To me, from your screenshot, this looks like a classic case of packet loss that starts with your ISP at the second hop and goes all the way through to the destination. If their engineers actually look at this they should see right away that there is an issue.

If techs have been out and checked your line than and it's good then it's definitely your ISP's problem and it's their responsibility to investigate and fix it. Here is an article about building a compelling case for your ISP. You just have to be the squeaky wheel and not take no for an answer. Be kind, be patient and keep asking to talk with a manager or someone who can address your issue until you get to someone who knows what you're talking about. It will likely be someone in a higher tier of support that you can email your PingPlotter results to who can interpret them.

Good luck and let us know how it turns out!

Thanks,

-Poe

Poe,

Thanks for your response. Still waiting to hear back from their engineering team and still experiencing the latency variations.

In the meantime, given your experience, have you ever seen a traceroute change as a result of going from DOCSIS 3.0 to 3.1? Maybe this is a stupid idea, but what I'm trying to do is change my second hop myself. If the ISP automatically detects that it needs to use different nodes to provide the more demanding DOCSIS 3.1 capability, maybe my second hop issue goes away. I might need to also upgrade my plan in order to necessitate the higher bandwidth.

The other question I had is whether or not my neighbors who use the same ISP will have a similar traceroute (after their modem, anyway). I ask because the last technician said, "you're the only one experiencing this problem." I'm not sure if that's accurate or if it's just that I'm the only one who has noticed/is motivated to fix it.

Thanks,
lessmess

Hi lessmess,

Sorry for the delayed response!

As far as DOCSIS 3.0 vs 3.1 I'm not sure but I don't think that should have any impact on what you're seeing. That said, I'd be really interested to hear if you're able to manipulate your hop #2.

As far as your neighbors on the same ISP, they most likely are seeing a very similar route to yours. If you know your neighbors I'd totally ask them what ISP they use and if they have any issues. You could also suggest that they download the PingPlotter free trial and have them do some tracing and send you the pp2 files to see if they have similar issues. If you use something like NextDoor you could hop on and start a discussion topic as I'm guessing you're not the only one.

Let us know if there is anything else we can help with!

-Poe