In reply to a post by mikel543:

A small amount of packet loss on the BQM is normal with a Fritzbox. They are known for not responding to ping packets in a timely fashion.

Good point, I had forgotten about the known issue of the Fritzbox dropping pings which shows up as packet loss on a BQM.

Have you tried https://packetlosstest.com/ to see if you are actually losing packets? Make sure you select UK for the target server at the bottom of page.

Edited by PCJM40 (Thu 18-Jul-24 13:33:51)

I had exact same issues as you but for Downloads. on a 500mbps and test file from TBB was showing 40 minutes.

Someone suggested enabling mult threading on the browser, that helped to bring it down to 8 to 10 minutes.

Long story short, changed providers and still same issue OR found no fault, this was going on for few months,

Touch wood tested today and for the first time ever TBB speed tests showed over 450 and normally was around 70, file downoad was 20 secondish, nothing changed for me as I had given up on the issue as never any fault. T

he only thing I can think of, is city fibre were connecting their fibre to the pull outside my house but they didnt use ducts as connected from a pole further up the road, perhaps they jiggled somehting

In reply to a post by PCJM40:

In reply to a post by mikel543:

A small amount of packet loss on the BQM is normal with a Fritzbox. They are known for not responding to ping packets in a timely fashion.

Good point, I had forgotten about the known issue of the Fritzbox dropping pings which shows up as packet loss on a BQM.

Have you tried https://packetlosstest.com/ to see if you are actually losing packets? Make sure you select UK for the target server at the bottom of page.

I’m still experiencing packet loss and I can see it occurring via packetlosstest.com, and also our neighbour is with EE via Openreach and experiencing the same issues as us.

Zen has been in touch and asked if we’d like to upgrade because the contract is up next month. I’m tempted to upgrade to the next package up, which is 500/70.

But by doing so, is that likely to result in more packet loss because the connection is faster? Or could it go the other way and result in more speed but less packet loss, or possibly even no packet loss altogether?

In reply to a post by adhdave:

I’m still experiencing packet loss and I can see it occurring via packetlosstest.com, and also our neighbour is with EE via Openreach and experiencing the same issues as us.

How much is a "small amount"?

Packet loss of even 0.1% *can* badly affect TCP performance, when talking to a distant server. The maximum speed you can get from a TCP session is a function of the packet loss and round-trip time:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TCP_tuning#Packet_loss

e.g. for a connection with 0.1% packet loss and 70ms RTT (East coast USA):

1460 / 0.07 / sqrt(0.001) = 659560 bytes/sec

Multiply by 8 for bits per second and you get ~5.2 Mbps

In reply to a post by adhdave:

Zen has been in touch and asked if we’d like to upgrade because the contract is up next month. I’m tempted to upgrade to the next package up, which is 500/70.

But by doing so, is that likely to result in more packet loss because the connection is faster? Or could it go the other way and result in more speed but less packet loss, or possibly even no packet loss altogether?

It will almost certainly make no difference to packet loss. It's just a change in profile on the OLT.

Low levels of packet loss are hard to measure directly, and you can get false readings due to (for example) the router itself dropping pings addressed to itself when it's busy.

IMO, the best approach is to do a single-threaded speed test, to several servers some distance away (e.g. Europe or USA). If you find you get lower speeds to servers with a larger round-trip time, then this is evidence of low-level packet loss and you can use the formula above to work backwards to estimate the amount.

If you are getting good speedtest performance to all these sites, or the pattern is inconsistent, then likely packet loss is just a red herring.

What actions did you take after posting in here ~7 months ago and being given advice?