New Zen customer - weird BQM result - Dropped packets

My new Zen/Fritzbox service seems to be OK. However my BQM graph appears to have loads of red "dropped packets" from the top of the graph

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


Is this normal with an FTTP connection? Not seen it on my old Virgin FTTC connection nor on any of my work ones

Fritzbox routers are known for dropping ping requests, the only way to prove it on your line is to temporary use a different branded router.

Edited by PCJM40 (Tue 14-May-24 12:09:37)

I used to get some appalling BQM graphs when I was with Zen using a Fritz!Box 7590 modem/router. The problems went away when I moved to AAISP and three years later to Aquiss. I never got to the bottom of what was causing it.

It's nothing to worry about - the fritzbox is just tempremental about responding to unimportant ping requests even when it isn't busy..

I have a BQM set up for IPv4 to the fritzbox and one on IPv6 to a server on my LAN it is not uncommon for the Fritzbox to be showing up to 50% loss when the server the other side is perfectly clear. It's not obvious what the issue is as , other than a few hours yesterday evening my IPv4 BQM has been fine forover a week, but other times it can show an almost constant 10-20% loss for several weeks.

In reply to a post by PCJM40:

Fritzbox routers are known for dropping ping requests, the only way to prove it on your line is to temporary use a different branded router.

OK thanks for the answers all. I will go down the rabbit hole of Fritzbox and ICMP requests, because I enjoy self torture.

In reply to a post by bloodycat:

It's nothing to worry about - the fritzbox is just tempremental about responding to unimportant ping requests even when it isn't busy..

It could be some kind of ICMP rate-limiting. e.g. if it's rate-limited to 3 per 3 seconds, and a fourth ping squeezes in just before the end of the 3 second window, it could be dropped.

If you download and decrypt the configuration backup you can see there is a ping rate limit set. Unfortunately there is no way it seems to stop Zen overwriting any custom config you try to upload, so it's impossible to disable.

This reason alone - that you can't disable ISP reconfiguration - is good reason to bin the Zen router.

I disagree. My 4060 router has worked flawlessly on Aquiss FTTP for the last 2 years. The BQM issue that I experienced was limited solely to the Zen network at the time that I was them.

Was your 4060 supplied by Zen?
Does it have the configuration locked, and updated by Aquiss as they see fit?

Those are the two key points.

I can assure you there are no issues with running BQM on other vendor HW on Zen (I was a Zen customer), the issues with Zen and BQM only come up with people using the supplied Fritzboxes under Zen's control.

Both my 7590 (which I used on the Zen network) and my 4060 which I now use with Aquiss were purchased privately. The issue was solely related to a Fritz!Box on the Zen FTTC network. The BQM problem was no longer a problem after I switched to AAISP.

In sum, at the time, the Fritz!Box and Zen Network didn’t play nicely together. That said, if it wasn’t for the BQM, I probably would not have noticed.

In reply to a post by GoWest:

Both my 7590 (which I used on the Zen network) and my 4060 which I now use with Aquiss were purchased privately. The issue was solely related to a Fritz!Box on the Zen FTTC network. The BQM problem was no longer a problem after I switched to AAISP.

In sum, at the time, the Fritz!Box and Zen Network didn’t play nicely together. That said, if it wasn’t for the BQM, I probably would not have noticed.

[Sigh]

It's purely cosmetic if the Fritz!box rate limits inbound echo request when using the Zen configuration profile and just so happens to be a lower limit than the rate at which BQM sends.
It has no bearing on normal traffic from LAN to Internet or vice-versa.

jimbof already explained it and it has been covered many times before in TBB, so it is puzzling when people keep jumping to alternative explanations.

I would prefer to be able to manage ICMP settings and rate limits myself but can monitor another always-on system by IPv6 as it happens (a second router used for segmentation of some home office networks).

As the Fritz!box can also do onward prefix delegation to routers in the LAN as well as having the built-in FTTC DSL and DECT base station features I have kept it at the head of the network anyway.

There are far worse or more locked down "standard" routers that other ISPs have chosen in the past.

Also, I believe I don't have to select the Zen profile in the Internet → Account Settings
but could choose "other internet service provider" and enter the PPP user/pass myself,
in this case I don't know if the Zen defaults are still applied in other config areas.

Zen have never overwritten any of my LAN settings and only updated the VoiP settings when I migrated to digital voice.

Edited by prlzx (Wed 15-May-24 19:26:21)

I can confirm when you select another profile, it doesn’t use TR69 (config from Zen).

They are definitely solid performers, I can’t remember the last time I had to reboot the device, probably for a firmware update (it’s on a UPS).