FTTP / BQM Share

Hi all,

I've not been too happy with my latency on 300/50 FTTP tier with Zen. I do upload alot which can cause some fluctuation but even blocking all connections I'm still not happy. Zen have suggested going up to the 900/110 tier but this will commit me for another 2 years.

Is anyone on FTTP willing to share their BQM's along with approximate location so I can get an idea of what is 'normal'? I'm based in Lincolnshire and usually average 18-25ms but get these 'steps' in performance, often after reconnecting a PPPOE session.

Thanks

(I did post a while back but can't find it now + I have solved some of the max latency spikes so seems like a good time to regroup on this)

My Broadband Ping

Your latency is fairly high, possibly twice what you should expect, although routing will play a large part however it is consistent - until 4:00 pm today. Did you swap something over?

Moving to 900/110 - will it give better latency? probably not.

Thanks MHC, that was my thought but Zen just are not interested at all.

I didn't change anything at that time. I get those 'step' changes quite often, as mentioned usually the PPPOE session resets at the same time and a few packets get dropped.

I do have some heavy upload applications which I have disabled for the time being, but if you go back on my BQM you will see this was causing spikes in the max ping time. Going up to the larger package would help on this front as the uploads would in theory be finished in half the time or I would have more headroom over the same amount of time.

If 20ms+ really isn't normal for my area then I wont renew with Zen and will set out 6 months until contract renewal and go with BT.

Just realised I'm not sure you can go back on others BQM's to different days

Example of step changes

Example while uploading

Hi,

Happy to share my BQM, i have been on BT FTTP Fibre 900 for the past 4 weeks and have been happy so far with the pings etc they have dropped about 5 - 10 ms over FTTC. only thing i really have using upload is nest cameras. I am based in Central Scotland.

My BQM

In reply to a post by dan_miles86:

I get those 'step' changes quite often, as mentioned usually the PPPOE session resets at the same time and a few packets get dropped.

Probably that's your session re-establishing to a different Zen BRAS.

As always, the question with latency is, "to where"? If what you care about is latency to London, and Zen are routing you via a POP in Manchester say, then you might get a lower latency from another provider, by a few milliseconds. But ultimately you are limited by the distance from Lincoln to London.

A faster throughput service from the same provider won't make any difference to latency. The line rate is fixed at 2.4G down / 1.2G up; they just apply packet rate limiting so that the average throughput stays at or below the level you pay for.

But that rate limiting will increasing latency if I'm hitting it? Which on upload I quite often do.

I don't know the souce of the BQM pings?

Zen route me via London and I get over 20ms to the first hop.

Tracing route to bbc.co.uk [151.101.0.81]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms 192.168.100.1
2 22 ms 21 ms 35 ms vt1.cor1.lond2.ptn.zen.net.uk [51.148.72.23]
3 21 ms 22 ms 21 ms ae-3.pe2.ixn-lon.zen.net.uk [51.148.73.26]
4 21 ms 21 ms 21 ms ae-2.br1.ixn-lon.zen.net.uk [51.148.73.125]
5 21 ms 21 ms 20 ms 195.66.225.91
6 23 ms 21 ms 21 ms 151.101.0.81

Does that 'jump' in latency been BRAS sessions also not indicate an issue in the Zen core? It's stable otherwise and then all of a sudden and extra 5-8ms out of no where?

Edited by dan_miles86 (Tue 14-Jul-20 17:30:31)

Thanks, very useful. A little lower then mine but not loads.

Mind you if the ping source on the BQM is London your probably 3/4 times the distance so should be significantly higher than mine yet it isnt...

In reply to a post by dan_miles86:

But that rate limiting will increasing latency if I'm hitting it? Which on upload I quite often do.

Certainly, congestion will increase latency. But I thought it was the base 15ms you were concerned about; that's the flat line bit.

In reply to a post by dan_miles86:

Zen route me via London

What you can't see is the layer 2 part of Zen's network - in other words, how your traffic gets to the lond2.ptn.zen.net.uk BRAS.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

Certainly, congestion will increase latency. But I thought it was the base 15ms you were concerned about; that's the flat line bit.

It's both.

I've had to stop using my broadband as I would like to get to the near flat 15-20ms. I hope a regrade to 900/110 would reduce the impact of the uploading so I can resume backing up my files!

However I don't want to recommit to Zen for another 24 months if I would likely get a better performance than a flat 15-20ms from another provider. Right now I'm tempted to sit out the last 6 months of my contact with Zen and move to BT at the end of it. Would save me £10 a month for a start over Zen pricing.

Also I just want to know if its worth me pushing the case with Zen. Right now they have no interest in helping me, just blame the fact up uploading even though base latency is the same when I'm not.