On my Zen FTTC 80/20 with a fritz.box 7530 I've got three TBB BQM's and 3 https://f8lure.mouselike.org tests which are each two monitors (one f8lure and one FireBrick) so that's nine tests in total and they all look fine. BUT only one of those tests is to the fritz box itself (using IPv4). The others are to NAS boxes and a fritz repeater using IPv6.

When I first had the Zen connection I tried just two to the fritz box (one IPv4 and one IPv6) and that was a disaster with apparently loads of packet loss.

If you have something inside your connection that is permanently on and addressable via IPv6 that's a better monitor to use.

IPv4 to Fritz box

In reply to a post by XGS_Is_On:

In reply to a post by jpm:

Agree. Though really you'd think Zen should have a troubleshooting flow chart entry that caters for BQM users with Fritzboxes and can explain how they aren't giving accurate results, and then being an AVM partner they could try and influence the software development.

Presumably they're monitoring the line now via LCP which would avoid the limitation.

At least I hope that's what they're doing.

Not sure they are - as they have requested I do not monitor the line while they’re doing so. As for what test(s) they are carrying out, I only know it’s a smoke ping which they’ve said is intended to compare my router’s response to that of other users.

Edited by kam67 (Thu 15-Dec-22 23:10:50)

In reply to a post by jelv:

On my Zen FTTC 80/20 with a fritz.box 7530 I've got three TBB BQM's and 3 https://f8lure.mouselike.org tests which are each two monitors (one f8lure and one FireBrick) so that's nine tests in total and they all look fine. BUT only one of those tests is to the fritz box itself (using IPv4). The others are to NAS boxes and a fritz repeater using IPv6.

When I first had the Zen connection I tried just two to the fritz box (one IPv4 and one IPv6) and that was a disaster with apparently loads of packet loss.

If you have something inside your connection that is permanently on and addressable via IPv6 that's a better monitor to use.

IPv4 to Fritz box

That “But” is a relief - as my heart sank initially when you said all those tests were fine before reading your proviso!

In reply to a post by jpm:

Agree. Though really you'd think Zen should have a troubleshooting flow chart entry that caters for BQM users with Fritzboxes and can explain how they aren't giving accurate results, and then being an AVM partner they could try and influence the software development.

From AVM's documentation:

If the FRITZ!Box should reject unsolicited requests from the internet instead of replying with ICMP control messages, enable the option "Firewall in stealth mode" under "Internet > Filter > Lists > Global Filter Settings" in the FRITZ!Box user interface.

I should add that my Fritz 7590 happily responds to pings on the WAN interface as long as they only come from a single source IP - if I add a second BQM-a-like (eg f8lure) it turns into a disaster area...

wow that was some install nightmare , read all the posts. Hope it stays ok.

In reply to a post by SteveBen:

It is very likely that you don’t have packet loss. If you did have the amount of packet loss that graph is showing you, your connection would be unusable. Something weird is happening that is causing that behaviour, but if your main gripe at the moment is shonky Wi-Fi performance, then you are barking up the wrong tree.
You can prove this yourself. Plug a computer direct to your router, and continuously ping something for a while. See how many are lost. The graph would suggest 25-30%. From memory on windows you can do ping -t 8.8.8.8 for a continuous ping. I bet you actually see closer to 0.
As for what is causing that… could be your IP has been recycled and someone else had similar monitoring set up that they’ve left on? Could be your router is a little broken in some special way? It’s interesting, but unlikely to cause you any actual issues with your service.

As suspected by myself and many of you, after running an extended ping test while my computer was connected to my router via ethernet, no packet loss was detected. So that’s good news!

Now to explore how best to improve Wi-Fi reception throughout the property…. I was hoping to get hold of the highly recommended (including by several other Zen fibre users) Asus AX88U, but at the moment it seems to be out of stock everywhere (apart from a few used ones on EBay).

In reply to a post by Agilly666:

wow that was some install nightmare , read all the posts. Hope it stays ok.

Thank you for your good wishes. Most definitely a nightmare - one that still haunts me!

Just noticed that IPv6 is not enabled by default but can be via the Fritzbox’s interface. Should I enable it?

Zen was one of the relatively early adopters of IPv6 among UK ISPs so it can be enabled.
However I don't know what method of address assignment is used (compared with xDSL).
Probably DHCPv6.

I'm surprised because I thought selecting "Zen Internet" in the Fritz!Box Internet > Account would fill in the right details.

Perhaps it should be a case of “if it ain’t broken…” especially in my case given how much it’s taken to get it working!