Afrihost - poor latency / packet loss in Cape Town

[Michael;]

I've been experiencing some form of latency / packet loss on Afrihost served fibre. Note that download / upload is still generally fine, it's latency or packet loss which makes sessions requiring low bandwidth but also low latency painful - for example, remote desktop.



At the moment if I want low latency, I use my phone as a WiFi hotspot. Surely my fibre should be at least as good as the phone?

Here's some output from Ping Plotter - I'm not sure exactly how to interpret this, as I understand not every server needs to respond to every ping. However, when I run this against the same destination routed via my cell hotspot, everything is green.

I have open tickets: KNM-223-13698, which went cold after about a week (they got the fibre provider to come and check, it was fine, then they asked for even more diagnostics from my router, which I provided, after which they went cold, (and in my opinion from the Ping Plotter it's clear nothing is being lost on my end, after that no reply so I opened MTC-986-66654, hoping to get another agent, but no reply there either.

Maybe someone can weigh in on the interpretation, what should be considered normal, whether to swap ISP, whether Afrihost is likely to resolve this etc - much appreciated.

 

[Chris_Auc]

@Afrigirl

 

[Packet-Kollector]

The red stuff at the last hop isn't exciting. Are you on wifi? I notice the ping to 192.168.1.1 (your router) has an average ping of 5ms, lightly indicating a Wi-Fi network.
It shouldn't be that big of a deal, but always best to check it out with a cable connected instead.

Otherwise, something is sick indeed.

 

[Michael;]

Hi, thanks for the reply. Yes, that was on WiFi, I ran again on Ethernet cable which has average ~ 1 ms.

Notes:

• The problem I'm complaining about is more of a loss / high latency spike rather than a high ping. I don't think I'd notice 40 ms ping, which is around what I get off cell WiFi hotspot and works fine. The issues I have are for example, typing via remote desktop, and the output lags by ~ 1s, or select text / scroll, and nothing happens or very patchy.
• There is a strong time dependence: Often almost fine in the early morning, bad later in the day. The screenshot below seems a lot better than the previous I posted, I would attribute this to testing at 7 am rather than ~21h00
• This used not to be a problem for me (has worked fine consistently previously)

This is what it looks like around 7 am on Ethernet:

 

[Afrigirl]

I've been experiencing some form of latency / packet loss on Afrihost served fibre. Note that download / upload is still generally fine, it's latency or packet loss which makes sessions requiring low bandwidth but also low latency painful - for example, remote desktop.

View attachment 1918256

At the moment if I want low latency, I use my phone as a WiFi hotspot. Surely my fibre should be at least as good as the phone?

Here's some output from Ping Plotter - I'm not sure exactly how to interpret this, as I understand not every server needs to respond to every ping. However, when I run this against the same destination routed via my cell hotspot, everything is green.

I have open tickets: KNM-223-13698, which went cold after about a week (they got the fibre provider to come and check, it was fine, then they asked for even more diagnostics from my router, which I provided, after which they went cold, (and in my opinion from the Ping Plotter it's clear nothing is being lost on my end, after that no reply so I opened MTC-986-66654, hoping to get another agent, but no reply there either.

Maybe someone can weigh in on the interpretation, what should be considered normal, whether to swap ISP, whether Afrihost is likely to resolve this etc - much appreciated.

Hi. Checking the ticket reference.

 

[Afrigirl]

I've been experiencing some form of latency / packet loss on Afrihost served fibre. Note that download / upload is still generally fine, it's latency or packet loss which makes sessions requiring low bandwidth but also low latency painful - for example, remote desktop.

View attachment 1918256

At the moment if I want low latency, I use my phone as a WiFi hotspot. Surely my fibre should be at least as good as the phone?

Here's some output from Ping Plotter - I'm not sure exactly how to interpret this, as I understand not every server needs to respond to every ping. However, when I run this against the same destination routed via my cell hotspot, everything is green.

I have open tickets: KNM-223-13698, which went cold after about a week (they got the fibre provider to come and check, it was fine, then they asked for even more diagnostics from my router, which I provided, after which they went cold, (and in my opinion from the Ping Plotter it's clear nothing is being lost on my end, after that no reply so I opened MTC-986-66654, hoping to get another agent, but no reply there either.

Maybe someone can weigh in on the interpretation, what should be considered normal, whether to swap ISP, whether Afrihost is likely to resolve this etc - much appreciated.

Hi.

I believe I've identified the cause of the issue. Over the past few days, our Cape Town CGNAT infrastructure was reaching capacity, which would have impacted clients using those NAT gateways. During the changes implemented last night to address this, some clients experienced a temporary increase in connectivity issues. Those changes have now been completed, and the issue has been resolved.

To further mitigate any potential impact, I've allocated a public IP address to your connection. Please reboot your router to obtain the new IP assignment. Once you've done so, please monitor the connection over the next few days and let us know if you experience any further issues.

 

[Michael;]

Hi @Afrigirl , thanks for investigating. I've rebooted and can confirm the network feels smooth now and all green on Ping Plotter. Near capacity sounds about right as this seemed to have been getting worse the days preceding when I opened the ticket

For comparison: