Claremont Clareinch Exchange congested?

[zll]

I am trying to confirm whether or not the Clareinch exchange is congested. I have noticed a pattern that from approximately 5 PM pings start to increase. Local pings reach about a max of 150ish. International pings hit about 350ish. Then, at about 11 PM, pings start to drop back down to normal. I have tested this using multiple ISPs.

During the day speeds are normal, so I can only assume this is congestion, but I was wondering if anyone else on the Clareinch exchange can confirm?

 

[sybawoods]

I am trying to confirm whether or not the Clareinch exchange is congested. I have noticed a pattern that from approximately 5 PM pings start to increase. Local pings reach about a max of 150ish. International pings hit about 350ish. Then, at about 11 PM, pings start to drop back down to normal. I have tested this using multiple ISPs.

During the day speeds are normal, so I can only assume this is congestion, but I was wondering if anyone else on the Clareinch exchange can confirm?

Can confirm more-or-less the same pattern. Have had TELKOM grunts here more than once to come check my line. I've been on the phone with more than one ISP. I regularly arrange for port resets which gives some temporary respite. Have pretty much given up on TELKOM. Line can be perfect for a day or two sometimes but usually in the evenings it randomly goes into high ping mode. Ping usually escalates to about 100ms+ at the first hop. When it runs well, first hop ping is 5-6ms. TELKOM basically saying "fault" is at my end or with the ISP. Has all the symptoms of a congested exchange from my tests.

 

[zll]

Can confirm more-or-less the same pattern. Have had TELKOM grunts here more than once to come check my line. I've been on the phone with more than one ISP. I regularly arrange for port resets which gives some temporary respite. Have pretty much given up on TELKOM. Line can be perfect for a day or two sometimes but usually in the evenings it randomly goes into high ping mode. Ping usually escalates to about 100ms+ at the first hop. When it runs well, first hop ping is 5-6ms. TELKOM basically saying "fault" is at my end or with the ISP. Has all the symptoms of a congested exchange from my tests.

Ugh. Ya, pretty much the same story here. The problem is it's not consistent. Some evenings it's perfect, others, not so much. And at least it's not as bad as some exchanges.

 

[sybawoods]

Ugh. Ya, pretty much the same story here. The problem is it's not consistent. Some evenings it's perfect, others, not so much. And at least it's not as bad as some exchanges.

So frustrating. Actually bought 2 new modems along the way and all give the same problems. By the way, do you have any problems with authentication at the exchange? My modem syncs perfectly but sometimes it takes forever to authenticate.

On a semi-related note... as part of my troubleshooting to ensure that the problem is not at my end, one of the things I discovered was that some of our smart devices contributed to the problem. We have 2 iPads and 3 iPhones in the house. All of these are set to sync with the cloud, backup etc once they are on wi-fi. One of the things I noticed was that as soon as my wife came home from work (round about 5 or 6pm) my pings would go crazy. I realized that it was her iPhone and iPad that was syncing to the cloud. If she had taken pictures during the day, it would take even longer.

I have a teenage son with an iPhone too (and some of his close friends have access to our wi-fi) - these all contribute. We also have a Samsung Smart TV that uses the wi-fi connection to get updated firmware, keep apps up to date etc. I have now disabled all of these auto-updates.

When I took these out of the equation, things improved quite a bit, but there's still a problem at the exchange with random latency increases almost every day.

 

[zll]

So frustrating. Actually bought 2 new modems along the way and all give the same problems. By the way, do you have any problems with authentication at the exchange? My modem syncs perfectly but sometimes it takes forever to authenticate.

On a semi-related note... as part of my troubleshooting to ensure that the problem is not at my end, one of the things I discovered was that some of our smart devices contributed to the problem. We have 2 iPads and 3 iPhones in the house. All of these are set to sync with the cloud, backup etc once they are on wi-fi. One of the things I noticed was that as soon as my wife came home from work (round about 5 or 6pm) my pings would go crazy. I realized that it was her iPhone and iPad that was syncing to the cloud. If she had taken pictures during the day, it would take even longer.

I have a teenage son with an iPhone too (and some of his close friends have access to our wi-fi) - these all contribute. We also have a Samsung Smart TV that uses the wi-fi connection to get updated firmware, keep apps up to date etc. I have now disabled all of these auto-updates.

When I took these out of the equation, things improved quite a bit, but there's still a problem at the exchange with random latency increases almost every day.

I have 2 routers also just for troubleshooting purposes. And yes, there have been random nights (it usually is late in the evening) where the line syncs but no authentication occurs. I usually contact my ISPs at this time and all of them go "Eh, it's not us." Usually at this point I just leave it and go to bed. Another problem I have is when I'm dialing from my PC I usually have to dial twice for the account to connect.

Also have the same "mobile device" issue. My brother's phone used to wreck our router. I could literally tell when my brother arrived home because the moment he arrived at our door his phone would try to connect to our network and I would lag out of any game I was playing. I flipped out about it one day so I don't know if he's changed something or it's our new router, but I don't have this problem any more.

Tonight is "fine" in that pings only increased from 15-20 for local to 30-50. International is still also quite stable, even if it is a tiny bit higher.

 

[km2]

Ugh. Ya, pretty much the same story here. The problem is it's not consistent. Some evenings it's perfect, others, not so much. And at least it's not as bad as some exchanges.

Don't worry, it'll get there That's how it starts and it really doesn't take too many more people to upgrade their ADSL or increase their usage for it to feel significantly worse. Hopefully you're in an area that will be upgraded soon.