Yes, Indeed it does!

When I traceroute to bbc.co.uk this is what I get:

C:\>tracert bbc.co.uk

Tracing route to bbc.co.uk [151.101.0.81]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms 2 ms <1 ms fritz.box [192.168.188.1]
2 17 ms 26 ms 16 ms vt1.cor2.lond1.ptn.zen.net.uk [51.148.72.22]
3 17 ms 17 ms 17 ms lag-9.p1.thn-lon.zen.net.uk [51.148.73.160]
4 17 ms 20 ms 17 ms lag-1.br1.thn-lon.zen.net.uk [51.148.73.153]
5 17 ms 17 ms 16 ms ip81-59.fastly-gw1.lonap.net [5.57.81.59]
6 17 ms 16 ms 17 ms 151.101.0.81

Trace complete.

I think i remember reading you need to do www.bbc.co.uk in order to get a consistent location. Otherwise you will just get a geolocated server.

So it does . On Three Mobile Broadband.

I'm on Virgin Media and noticed my own ping on avg went from 7/8ms living in Manchester to around 20ms living on Wearside. It has had very little effect on gaming and day to day use. Those complaining about difference in latency are not looking at the whole picture. If you are gaming on a console or popular PC game, they have dynamic latency and load balancing measures in place to prevent those with lower pings gaining an advantage.

I connect through the work VPN and that gives a latency of around 30ms, fast enough that calls I make be it via Teams, Skype or Zoom are in realtime and not impacted.

The difference in latency between 10ms (or lower) to 20ms is so negligable you wouldn't even notice it in real use.

Have the same issue, For me is whenever i connect to the ixn/lon2 gateways, Not a problem with lon1/thn
see

Tracing route to pingbox1.thinkbroadband.com [80.249.99.164]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms fritz,box [192.168.178.1]
2 19 ms 18 ms 19 ms vt1.cor1.lond2.ptn.zen.net.uk [51.148.72.24]
3 19 ms 19 ms 21 ms lag-7.p1.ixn-lon.zen.net.uk [51.148.73.186]
4 21 ms 19 ms 19 ms lag-2.p1.thn-lon.zen.net.uk [51.148.73.132]
5 20 ms 19 ms 19 ms lag-1.br1.thn-lon.zen.net.uk [51.148.73.153]
6 19 ms 19 ms 24 ms netconnex-gw.zen.net.uk [82.71.254.2]
7 19 ms 18 ms 19 ms po11-13.bdr-rt3.thdo.ncuk.net [80.249.97.22]
8 19 ms 19 ms 19 ms po4-31.core-rs4.thdo.ncuk.net [80.249.97.85]
9 18 ms 18 ms 18 ms pingbox1.thinkbroadband.com [80.249.99.164]

Disconnecting and reconnecting via PPPoE and then get connected to the lond1 / thn-lon gateway as you can see is 6ms

Tracing route to one.one.one.one [1.0.0.1]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms fritz,box [192.168.178.1]
2 6 ms 6 ms 6 ms vt1.cor1.lond1.ptn.zen.net.uk [51.148.72.21]
3 6 ms 6 ms 6 ms ae-3.pe1.thn-lon.zen.net.uk [51.148.73.108]
4 6 ms 6 ms 6 ms ae-1.br1.thn-lon.zen.net.uk [51.148.73.113]
5 6 ms 6 ms 6 ms lonap.as13335.net [5.57.81.75]
6 7 ms 6 ms 6 ms one.one.one.one [1.0.0.1]

I have complained to tech support but said is my end and me been on interleaving etc what is BS!, I have also asked a zen noc engineer via ispreview forums but all i got "there's no errors or anything else on any part of the network what the connection goes through to the gateways."

Theres got to be something that going on to get 19ms on one gateway but 6ms on another gateway :/

Edited by francisuk25 (Sat 27-Nov-21 17:18:06)

But you are comparing tracerts to two different destinations.
?????

Which has what to do with the, emboldened, first hop? That link is point to point.

Am connected via cor2.lon2. First hop is 25% higher latency than BT. Will try and connect to lon1 at some point but can't replicated your really big variation though it's certainly notable.

Indeed, but it isn't the same router that has responded. Also tracing to cloudfare as opposed to thinkbroadband's Firebrick might not make a difference in theory, but theory and practice do not always agree. I'm sure you have been around long enough to have found that many times.

Changing two things at once often makes a mess of accurate diagnostics.

For starters, it is quite possible that zen gateways treat a tracert to cloudfare differently from one to thinkbroadband's Firebrick, both of them being rather specialised equipment. Not standard websites. Or do you know whether or not that is the case?

Why would anyone deliberately use two different targets anyway?

Of course, tracing to the same destination could make no difference, but it is more normal to do that to get a true comparison.

Having said all that, and perhaps talked nonsense, the answer to the OP may lie here:

In reply to a post by F9B54DA3BB3C:

Thanks to both of your for your replies, I'm still looking into this further; however the following might be of interest / use, particularly for techguy:

Connections to the vt1.cor2.lond1.ptn.zen.net.uk gateway peer with Cloudflare in Manchester (as you've seem)

Connections to the vt1.cor2.lond2.ptn.zen.net.uk gateway peer with Cloudflare in London, which reduced latency by close to 10ms in my testing.

Lond1 & Lond2 seems to be more or less randomly on reconnecting the PPPoE connection, whereas connecting to a London or a Manchester gateway appears to be set based on geography; but with a few geographical errors!


My investigations remain ongoing and I'll update this thread again if I discover anything else interesting!

Could our OP (Edit: francisuk25, not the thread OP) be in the south of the country and VT1 has to go all the way to Manchester? The OP of that quote is north of Manchester and getting the direct opposite effect to our OP.

Edit 2: Also, specifically, the thinkbroadband site is I believe in Docklands, whereas the poster's 1.0.0.1 is Cloudfare. Manchester?

Edited by pluralist (Sat 27-Nov-21 20:40:27)