Fibre Latency advice

Hi all
First post here
I'd be grateful if the community can offer any advice on whether I'm making a mountain out of a molehill.

Just had CityFibre FTTP installed and I've joined Toob on a 900/900 service (CGNAT). Whilst the speeds are as good as expected, the family are reporting drop-offs, lagging when viewing social media video, and network connection warnings on PS4. (Even in the same room as the router). It doesn't seem as snappy as VM, even though VM had 16ms latency on a 1GB package.

With Toob, I'm getting 12-20ms pings from the East Midlands, with frequent spikes to 160ms, and small packet drops. (Not seeing the 3-6ms ping that Toob claim on their website). Testing from an ethernet connected PC and wifi devices is consistent. Toob support are pleasant (and reachable!), but they're focussed on upload/download speeds being good - which they are
.
I don't know the significance of the latency and spikes on general internet usage shown in BQM. Should I be expecting a better ping from my area, and would CGNAT be a contributory factor?

Also, there are approx 25 devices connected to the Linksys MX5600 router.


Thanks all

My Broadband Ping

I can't comment on CityFibre but we are with Gigaclear and this is our BQM for one day...

My Broadband Ping

The latency has always been excellent although over the previous months the level of congestion and contention in the evening between 8pm and 10pm has been increasing. What we notice is an increase in latency during these times but very little impact on the overall speed.

Latency is critical for gaming and also 4K streaming so hope you get them to improve your connection. As you saiid technical support often focus on overall speed but latency is very important too.

I also use nPerf for testing my connection at various times as this includes internet and streaming tests.

It would be interesting to see what your full 24hr BQM looks like.

Thanks for your comments. Your BQM looks much cleaner than mine does with a lovely low latency, although I can see the evening congestion you mentioned.

I will try with Toob's support again and see if I make any progress. I am still in my 14 day cooling-off so could leave, but am not sure if I'll just have the same issues with a different fibre provider! There are lots of options on the CityFibre network but it feels like a shot in the dark for latency.

VM may not have had a faster ping, but people in the house never complained about lagging on different devices and different apps. VM are also more expensive, especially with their annual price increase.

Will have a look at the nPerf.

In reply to a post by dgilbert2:

It would be interesting to see what your full 24hr BQM looks like.

Unfortunately I haven't got a full BQM. I think this is due to CGNAT as each time I shut down my PC, and come back to check, I've got a different IPv6 address so the BQM fails. I've got snippets from different days and a range times of the day.

I've never seen a ping on any of my tests lower than 12ms. I don't know if the yellow maximum latency spikes is excessive for fibre and if it explains the performance family are commenting on.

19 April 16:30-18:45
My Broadband Ping

20 April 12:45-21:30
My Broadband Ping

21 April 11:45-17:30
My Broadband Ping

21 April 18:00-21:45
My Broadband Ping

22 April 18:00 - 20:00
My Broadband Ping

24 April 11:30-11:45
My Broadband Ping

Are you sure the IPv6 address is for your router and not the PC you keep turning off??

Yeah you need the router's IPV6 usually ends ::1

Thank you PCJM40 and BuckleZ.
I am a prat - that was my PC's address. I've created a new BQM using the router's external IP6 address and it's running now. Will post later.

In reply to a post by BuckleZ:

Yeah you need the router's IPV6 usually ends ::1

Mine ends ::

That was a good day, this is a bad day: My Broadband Ping

At these times we get buffering and pixelation (as the bit rate drops) when watching 4K streams on AppleTV even though it has an ethernet connection to the router.

Gigaclear are working on upgrading capacity so hopefully it will soon return to the lovely flat line of low-latency that we had for the first 5 years after joining them.

Hope you get your issue resolved.

Edited by DatabaseJase (Thu 24-Apr-25 18:32:36)

In reply to a post by ArthurMorgan:

Thank you PCJM40 and BuckleZ.
I am a prat - that was my PC's address. I've created a new BQM using the router's external IP6 address and it's running now. Will post later.

Is there an equivalent of "Allow Ping to WAN interface" on your router? This would avoid local network issues giving misleading BQM results.

Mine Vodafone BQM from the 22nd, just as bad!
Vodafone BQM 220425

Not a good example, although your constant latency is normally good, so that does seem to me to be evening congestion.

Something Virgin Cable used to be criticsed of a lot, this is a DOCSIS old area in Hampshire, for yesterday 23rd.
https://www.thinkbroadband.com/broadband/monitoring/...

Post deleted by ArthurMorgan

OK, so this is the BQM from my router. I was very surprised to see quite so much congestion so early in the morning. The red line is were I rebooted the router.

It's interesting to see your BQM from Virgin Media and mirrors what I remember of their service, which was good but pricey. I'm tempted to leave CityFibre and go back to VM just to have that consistency again. At least everyone in the house was happy the broadband was reliable. The core latency you are getting is similar to what I had with VM - which is only a couple of milliseconds slower than FTTP.

I posted my current BQM in an earlier reply this morning, but this is what I have now

My Broadband Ping

Edited by ArthurMorgan (Fri 25-Apr-25 09:42:10)

In reply to a post by ArthurMorgan:

...I'm tempted to leave CityFibre and go back to VM just to have that consistency again. At least everyone in the house was happy the broadband was reliable. The core latency you are getting is similar to what I had with VM - which is only a couple of milliseconds slower than FTTP.

My Broadband Ping

I guess the question to ask is if what you are seeing in the BQM is down to CityFibre or Zoob, I suspect the latter? When I asked CityFibre about my Vodafone performance and if it could be down to them, they said "At CityFibre, it’s our role to provide the infrastructure to facilitate the connection via your broadband provider. We would encourage you to reach out to your provider"

In reply to a post by ArthurMorgan:

I'm tempted to leave CityFibre and go back to VM just to have that consistency again.

Leave toob and go to a different CF based ISP. Remember CF doesn't provide your internet connection, they provide a high speed link from your home to the chosen ISP, and that is the benefit of a wholesale network operator like CityFibre, you can change ISP.

You'd have to get toob to wave any minimum term commitment first.

Toob have their own network in my road, without CityFibre, and people here seem very happy with them, so I would guess congestion could be on the Toob to CityFibre part of the link.

Edited by jchamier (Fri 25-Apr-25 18:09:32)

A&A is different,

mine ends in :9EAC

They do publish how they generate the ipv6 router address:-
2001:8b0:1111:1111:0:ffff:[your IPv4 WAN in HEX]

Edited by andew (Fri 25-Apr-25 18:25:35)

Ahh, was just going by what I've been assigned on BT and Youfibre.

Thank you to everyone who has offered feedback and advice. It's so reassuring to hear from more technically experienced and impartial customers.

Regrettably, I did cancel Toob earlier today. The deciding factor was three of us were working at home today and had lots of problems with maintaining a reliable and fast connection. I would like to give a lot of credit to Toob's customer service team in Stockton. They were superb and did not cause problems in ending the contract. (I was still within my cooling off period).

I would liked to have moved to a different ISP on City Fibre but once bitten twice shy, I wasn't confident another ISP would resolve all the issues I'd seen. I've therefore gone back to Virgin - I know what I'm getting and have always been pleased with the speeds and reliability. As I've said before, my latency was equivalent to what I had with Toob.

I couldn't risk the time on something that may or not work - family members WFH and one just about to start GCSEs.

I will look again at CF in future. Based on their customer services, I wouldn't exclude looking at Toob again when my new VM contract ends.

hi yes so if you are on fibre to the house,

do you have an ONT in your home, small box with fibreoptic cable going in and an Ethernet port on it as well, if so probably from ONT box to a router?

can you confirm please I might be able to help

In reply to a post by ArthurMorgan:

.... I've therefore gone back to Virgin - I know what I'm getting and have always been pleased with the speeds and reliability.

I can understand the reassurance that knowing the devil gives you, even if it is VM
Good luck