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I have an odd one and would appreciate any ideas.
I recently changed ISP to HeyBroadband (FTTP) from FTTC. I now find that when streaming video from some providers, the audio cuts out for 1-2 seconds, perhaps 3-4 times in an hour. (There is no obvious pattern.) I can live with it but it's the sort of thing that annoys me 
- The problem started after changing ISP.
- It affects Prime video on my Samsung TV. It also affects some web streams to my PC. It affects NowTV but less often.
- It does not affect iPlayer.
I have ruled out my home network by connecting my old FTTC modem (it's still live) into the same router that I used for HeyB and the issue goes away.
At the time of the issue, the HeyB BQM looks clean.
I have tried restarting affected devices and checking for updates to the various apps - there are none.
Any ideas appreciated!
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I'd be interested to see the BQM.
Can you run a continuous ping and monitor that whilst streaming? Might be able to see latency changes and/or packet loss.
Hey!Broadband 1Gb Fibre - Live BQM
Asus AC86U - Asuswrt Merlin
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Thanks for taking a look. BQM is here:
https://www.thinkbroadband.com/broadband/monitoring/...
I can certainly set up a continuous ping next time.
Interestingly video stream is unaffected.
Edited by Henry8 (Fri 02-Jun-23 10:21:05)
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That BQM link isn't working, Can you post a screenshot?
Hey!Broadband 1Gb Fibre - Live BQM
Asus AC86U - Asuswrt Merlin
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Link works fine for me. And it doesn't show anything really out of the ordinary (a little peak of red at about 2pm but otherwise a pretty normal looking BQM.
Edited by ian72 (Fri 02-Jun-23 10:32:27)
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The link works for me and it's a remarkably good BQM for HeyBroadband
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If just the audio is dropping but the video continues as normal then I doubt this is an internet connection problem.
Do you have a surround receiver connected via ARC to your TV? Has the Hey! ONT been installed near your TV? Is the audio link to your receiver dropping out when these interruptions are occurring?
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The link works for me and it's a remarkably good BQM for HeyBroadband
Indeed! It hasnt been this good for a while!
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If just the audio is dropping but the video continues as normal then I doubt this is an internet connection problem.
Do you have a surround receiver connected via ARC to your TV? Has the Hey! ONT been installed near your TV? Is the audio link to your receiver dropping out when these interruptions are occurring?
Interestingly, as I mentioned, it never ever occurs when I switch to my old ISP, hence me thinking it is internet-connection related.
ONT is nowhere near the TV.
I dont have an ARC connection. I use an optical out to a pair of active speakers.
Also, as mentioned, I never have the issue on iPlayer.
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It could be down to QoS in the Hey network deprioritising the audio packets compared to other traffic (could be the specific tech that the streaming service is using is not in the QoS table on Hey's config). It would suggest their network is running hot if that is the case.
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Agreed, it could be.
But I would assume that if it's not categorised, it likely falls in the same queue as ICMP, or indeed in an 'unknown' queue above ICMP.
If a hot network was then impacting this traffic, we should also see a bad BQM at the same time shouldnt we? (I am assuming they arent giving TBB BQM ICMP traffic a higher priority - that would seem very odd.)
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Interesting, the original link is working for me now.
That connection looks pretty flawless. Maybe some issue with buffering somewhere?
Hey!Broadband 1Gb Fibre - Live BQM
Asus AC86U - Asuswrt Merlin
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Thanks all.
So step 1 is the continuous ping while experiencing the issue, just to check if anything interesting.
I wonder if step 2 is perhaps using a VPN to see whether the issue persists as presumably that takes any HeyB shaping (that may or may not exist) out of the equation, agreed?
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Update - audio dropped about 10 times in the last hour (HDR stream on Prime) - very annoying.
Continuous pings look good:
Ping statistics for 9.9.9.9:
Packets: Sent = 3010, Received = 3010, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 4ms, Maximum = 15ms, Average = 5ms
AND
Ping statistics for 8.8.8.8:
Packets: Sent = 3000, Received = 3000, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 3ms, Maximum = 10ms, Average = 4ms
BQM also good....
This is driving me nuts 
Edited by Henry8 (Fri 02-Jun-23 21:36:53)
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It could be down to QoS in the Hey network deprioritising the audio packets compared to other traffic (could be the specific tech that the streaming service is using is not in the QoS table on Hey's config). It would suggest their network is running hot if that is the case.
Given above, could QoS still be at play, in your opinion?
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We had a similar issue at work on a much more complex connection.
I think it was eventually resolved by changing the MTU size so it may be worth spending 5 mins making sure this is setup correctly.
Pretty easy to do e.g. https://www.sonicwall.com/support/knowledge-base/how...
OPNSense on Topton J4125 - SWISH Fibre 900
PiHole/AdGuard home - Unifi for Wifi
Edited by smouty (Sat 03-Jun-23 09:20:11)
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Thanks very much for the suggestion - much appreciated.
I followed the instructions but sadly that just confirmed MTU was already set correctly.
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Maybe use ping logger to record the results to a specific host over a period of time e.g teams.microsoft.com
OPNSense on Topton N100 - SWISH Fibre 900
PiHole/AdGuard home - Unifi for Wifi
My Broadband Ping |
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Thanks very much! Ill give it a try.
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Does anyone else on HeyBroadband have this issue?
It's most common on Prime video, and perhaps with HDR UHD, although not certain on that....
Edited by Henry8 (Mon 05-Jun-23 09:39:26)
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I'm also on Hey, and as we have 2 small kids, we watch a lot of Prime/Netflix/Disney in 4k HDR - this is one issue I can safely say we have never had (though Hey have been creative and given us many other issues over the past 13 months!).
That said, I do not use their garbage router (I have one of their TPLink boxes in bridge only mode) so I wonder if its down to the poor quality of their kit.
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Thanks for the reply.
I run my own router and when I failover to backup WAN it's fine so I know it's something in the Hey network.
Out of interest, do you mind sharing your WAN IP (Im interested if we are in the same subnet). (Dont share the whole thing for privacy reasons - put an x in the last 1 or 2 octets.)
Thanks!
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The bandwidth requirements for most streaming services are pretty small e.g. no more than around 45Mbit for BBC UHD which I think is probably the highest. Prime and Netflix is a bit lower so given your BQM is pretty clean I'm wondering if it is something else.
Have you done a bufferbloat check?
https://www.waveform.com/tools/bufferbloat
OPNSense on Topton N100 - SWISH Fibre 900
PiHole/AdGuard home - Unifi for Wifi
My Broadband Ping |
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Thanks for the idea.
Doesnt bufferbloat only come into play when the connection is loaded? (My issue presents when nothing else is using the connection, and as you say, the stream itself wont load it much.)
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If nothing else you can provide the ISP with as much data as possible to show the issue is possibly on their side.
OPNSense on Topton N100 - SWISH Fibre 900
PiHole/AdGuard home - Unifi for Wifi
My Broadband Ping |
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Yep - fair point.
So far though, all the usual data points (download bufferbloat, ping, latency, packet loss) can all be good when the issue occurs...
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Are you using a Hey-supplied router, i.e. different router than you had with FTTC? Then it could be the router itself glitching, and/or a wifi problem if you're on wifi. The best way to rule that out would be to try a different router for a while.
Otherwise, can you tell if you're behind a CGN?
1. Periodically check what public IP address other sites on the Internet see you using, e.g. at https://ip4.me/ - or if you want to log this automatically, then use https://ip4.me/api/
If this changes at the same time as your perceived connection drops, then that would strongly point to an issue.
2. If you're able to log into the router, check what IP address it has been allocated on its 'WAN' port. If that's different to (1), you're behind a CGN. Also if it's 100.64.0.0 to 100.127.255.255, or any other private address like 10.x.x.x or 192.168.x.x or 172.16-31.x.x, then you're behind a CGN.
However, if your router's WAN address is the same as the IP address people on the Internet see you using, and it's not changing, then that's not the problem. This would then suggest an intermittent problem within Hey's network or with their transit routing/peering.
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Hi - great Qs.
I am using the same router as I was with FTTC.
I have a public IPv4 address.
Any ideas what could cause an intermittent issue such as this?
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