Sky / NowTV customer BQMs request

My parents have a NowTV FTTC connection I've been trying to ascertain the quality of; BQM here. Looks a bit unsatisfactory, particularly the big spikes.
https://www.thinkbroadband.com/broadband/monitoring/...
Found a random customer with FTTC Sky and a BQM set up, it has many of the same features at exactly the same times:
https://www.thinkbroadband.com/broadband/monitoring/...

I'm wondering if these are indicative of issues in Sky/s network, or whether there is potentially some issue between TBB and Sky that results in these patterns. I've been watching it for a few days now and they happen fairly regularly, a couple at least a day.

I'm going to set up f8lure also to have a look, but for now, any thoughts? Has anyone else here on Sky or NowTV noted such "features" on their BQM? Anyone else here with a BQM setup on Sky or NowTV care to share the live graph so we can compare them? Thanks!

Edited by jimbof (Tue 14-Feb-23 19:12:51)

Neither of your posted BQM links work.
You've simply posted https://www.thinkbroadband.com/broadband/monitoring/...

Should be mine, but on a FTTP connection with minor issues.

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

Sorry, the forum software stitched me up, as it obscures whole URLs. Original post now fixed.

Thanks for that, yours looks differently rubbish I guess, but doesn't seem to share common features with mine or the other one I found from forum member @severedsolo . I wonder where they are based; wouldn't it be ironic if we were neighbours?! Would be a bit too much of a coincidence though.

Wow @ whatever just happened on the Sky network. Visible on both BQM's.
Look at that minimum latency increase!

Yowsers!
There are often a lot of very obvious common features (like the individual spikes), and then some stuff which I assume is more local.
But... It's pretty rubbish. If it wasn't so cheap my parents would be jumping ship.

I've collected up the BQMs I've got so far here, on Kitzforum as it allows easy comparison (this forum SW is pretty limited):
https://forum.kitz.co.uk/index.php/topic,27504.msg46...

Looks like Sky's network is in VERY bad shape tonight...

I pulled the plug on a Sky FTTP line during the cooling off period a year ago for this reason. Old thread here:
https://forums.thinkbroadband.com/fibre/4704116-a-ta...
Seeing this, Sky have ended up on my 'avoid' list.

I'm no fan of Sky as a company but I have sat here over the last year or so and seen a lot of bad FTTP BQMs being posted from many providers not just Sky. I've also seen some really good FTTP BQMs from some Sky customers as well so it may be area dependant.

Hey I'm famous! That second one is mine.

For the record, that is not a "normal" day. Possibly Sky had an issue last night (but I was also downloading Steam games at around 7pm so that might have contributed) - it was definitely a bit dodgy last night, but at the time I put that down to Reddit acting up again (as that's what I was doing).

This is a more "typical" day:
https://i.imgur.com/4LztR9c.png

The random "big but short lived" spikes don't seem to have any effect on the connection (and aren't always there). Usually it's fine.The short yellow spikes are my daughter watching YouTube all day.

I did have an issue last week where my connection was "stuck" at 40Mbps thoroughput (79Mbps sync speed). Turned the router off for half an hour and got a new IP and was all back to normal. That was a one off though.

TL:DR - Sky is usually fine but the last couple of weeks have had a couple of one off issues.

Edit: Also on location, I'm on the Norwich North exchange. Obviously not gonna give any further detail than that.

Edited by severedsolo (Wed 15-Feb-23 12:02:36)

Clearly something bad happened last night between 7pm and 10pm but I just spoke to someone who has Sky FTTP and they said they were happily streaming during those times without issue so maybe unless people have BQMs they wouldn't be aware of the issue.

Thanks, yes, yesterday's disaster was something else (though I do quite often see them having a latency "shelf" at peak times).

The shortlived spikes seem to reasonably often trigger us to get disconnected briefly. You and I seem to have them at the same time quite often.

What a coincidence that you are Norwich North. We are Norwich City Centre, so I'm pretty sure we are probably ending up on the same equipment in the exchange...

It does look liike myself and severedsolo (who I share lots of spikes with) are on the same exchange.

The other thing that seemed to affect the whole world (of Sky) must have been something else.

Yes, I think it was unfortunate timing me asking for BQMs as they weren't the kind of issues I was looking for. It's the much narrower spikes that severedsolo and myself seem to see, which do look like against all odds are probably due to us being on the same exchange.

In reply to a post by jimbof:

The shortlived spikes seem to reasonably often trigger us to get disconnected briefly. You and I seem to have them at the same time quite often.

Oh yes forgot to mention that, random WAN dropouts the last couple of weeks (couple of minutes at most, sync stays fine but it's like it just loses the session for a minute). Not long enough or frequent enough to actually bother Sky about, but it's happening.

The thoroughput issue I mentioned happened after one of those dropouts actually. I know the exchange has had a few issues recently (anecdotally told to me by a Sky tech support rep after the last "big" outage a couple of months ago). You're probably right we're ending up at the same headend.

Was one of the main reasons I ditched sky a few years back, regular outages during dusk hours. I get maintenance has to happen at some point but it got to the point was almost every week.