Something badly wrong there, my BQMs from N.Ireland in sig

Pings are low priority traffic so if you are using a device at the limits of the hardware then it would be no surprise to see an increase in ping reply times.

That doesn't look like what's happening with your connection unless you have been fully throttling the line 24/7.
The high ping peaks on the BQM are consistent and you wouldn't expect that when the connection is idle.

As suggested by others your 1st troubleshooting action should be trying an alternative router.
Until you rule out your own hardware you shouldn't contact the ISP.

You could try QoS - https://www.draytek.co.uk/archive/kb/kb_qos.html

In reply to a post by smouty:

You could try QoS - https://www.draytek.co.uk/archive/kb/kb_qos.html

If the router's CPU is overburdened then that will make things worse.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

In reply to a post by smouty:

You could try QoS - https://www.draytek.co.uk/archive/kb/kb_qos.html

If the router's CPU is overburdened then that will make things worse.

Possibly but it also limits the bandwidth so could even out.

I don't think the router is overburdened, CPU usage is showing at <50%, often in single figures.

I will replace the Draytek with the BT hub when I get a chance and report back.

By all means swap the BT router to prove that there is no underlying issue with the new service.

Bear in mind that unless you notice real performance impacts, then a lovely flat BQM graph may be a bit of vanity chasing, especially if your router doesn't look to be working flat out and is otherwise passing traffic normally at full rated speed and there are no impacts you can quantify or measure (dropping packets etc.). It may simply be deprioritising ping.

For example here is todays BQM for the gateway router at my service provider. It doesn't look particularly pretty, but its perfectly 100% normal. Its just the router doesn't give a hoot about ping - nor should it - it's got more important things to do ... like route our traffic

https://www.thinkbroadband.com/broadband/monitoring/...

Edited by Pheasant (Thu 11-Nov-21 17:55:52)

"..a lovely flat BQM graph may be a bit of vanity chasing"

This is, of course, a fair point. The router certainly isn't flat out and I just looked at the router traffic graph for the past 6 hours, which shows virtually no activity whatsoever. I am not particularly worried about it, hence the rather casual "is this normal?" question....as I said in the original post, everything is working fine and at full speed.

Rather off-topic, but if anyone is interested in Drayteks, there was a very good webinar on Tuesday about their routers, the speeds, hardware acceleration, etc - https://www.draytek.co.uk/our-solutions/videos/drayt...

"..a lovely flat BQM graph may be a bit of vanity chasing"

It is to a point.
Another test you can do is this one - http://www.dslreports.com/speedtest

It is a bit more 'real world' as bufferbloat can be an issue.

In reply to a post by nieldm:

I will replace the Draytek with the BT hub when I get a chance and report back.

Just take note that the BT Hub doesn't support replying to pings therefore no BQM support.
Putting the Draytek behind the BT Hub to reply to the BQM is not exactly ruling out the Draytek.

Ideally you want another router that replies to the BQM to be run for an hour.