Mweb Bad Ping Evenings

[Leon M]

Hi All,

I'm currently on a fibre 100/25 Mweb (Octotel) connection. My router is the Netgear Nighthawk XR500.

For the last two weeks or so I experience a substantial drop in my gaming pings every single evening between 20:00 and 22:00 in the order of about 50ms. In this time when I run speedtest my download speed drops down to 60 Mbps. It returns to normal after 22:00.

When I ping and tracert 1.1.1.1 and 8.8.8.8 for example I get the results shown below.

What can I do to remedy this undesirable situation?


Before 20:00 and after 22:00:






Between 20:00 and 22:00

 

[S.Claus]

https://mybroadband.co.za/forum/threads/octotel-octofail-you-have-been-warned.1006378/

Few questions :
What ping do you get when using your geofilter/ping assist ?
Do you still get hit detection/do you lag when gaming ?

 

[Leon M]

https://mybroadband.co.za/forum/threads/octotel-octofail-you-have-been-warned.1006378/

Few questions :
What ping do you get when using your geofilter/ping assist ?
Do you still get hit detection/do you lag when gaming ?

Enabling and disabling the geofilter or enabling and disabling anti-bufferbloat makes no difference to the results, I have tested it thoroughly over the last week. Since Friday I have even removed the router from the loop and plugged my PC directly into the ONT and the results remain unaffected. The router is thus not the problem or bottleneck.

Before 20:00 and after 22:00 my ping in South Africa (JHB servers) is 20ms and on UK servers 150ms. In this period my speedtest results are 3ms ping, 1ms jitter, 99.8 Mbps download and 25.4 Mbps upload. Between 20:00 and 22:00 my ping in South Africa drops to 70ms and my UK ping to 200ms. Speedtest reports 43ms ping, 4 jitter, 60.6 Mbps download and still 25.5 Mbps upload.

The ping in South Africa is still playable but the hit detection and lag on the UK servers (games such as Fortnite, Overwatch, BFV Firestorm) become truly laughable.

The drop in ping during the evenings happened randomly in the past, nothing that concerned me too much, but now it's a constant. The cherry on the cake is that the Mweb technical support staff only works until 20:00 so that when the problem hits they are not available anymore. Perfect timing.

 

[S.Claus]

Well considering this is a octofail problem I would recommend you use WinMTR to indicate to mweb support whats happening during 20:00-22:00 so they can take it up with them

Side note : I have legit being having non stop problems with my xr500 be it my bufferbloat , hit detection or randomly getting disconnected from lobbies

 

[Leon M]

Well considering this is a octofail problem I would recommend you use WinMTR to indicate to mweb support whats happening during 20:00-22:00 so they can take it up with them

Side note : I have legit being having non stop problems with my xr500 be it my bufferbloat , hit detection or randomly getting disconnected from lobbies

Thank you for the advice! I have reported the problem to Mweb with screenshots of my results as suggested and they have escalated the problem to Octotel.

In reality I don't really use the geofilter because I play games in South Africa and abroad in the UK, so it defeats the purpose as you can't really set a "small" circle. But the Anti-Bufferbloat really works - funny thing is I have to set the router to think that I have 1 Gbps down and 250 Mbps up (70% sliders) - instead of my real 100 Mbps down and 25 Mbps up - for it to work properly and match the speeds I reach when plugged into the ONT directly. I can comfortably play games on the UK servers without feeling disadvantaged - BFV, Apex Legends, etc. In BFV for example my ping goes as low as 140ms 90% of the time, only climbing to 143ms before the 20:00 Octotel devil strikes. If I disable the Anti-Bufferbloat my hit detection is non-existent and my ping hovers in the mid to high 160's. Other than that my connection has been rock solid and I don't experience any disconnections from Mweb or lobbies. I'm running firmware version V2.3.2.40.

 

[Leon M]

I thought I'll update this post. So after three months of collecting data for Mweb and uploading my results and their support staff agreeing that my performance figures are unacceptable, NOTHING, not a thing, has changed. In fact, things are starting to get worse! Not only is the evening peak when my performance degrades getting longer, especially on Sundays, but my performance during these times have deteriorated to the point where I cannot use my connection anymore - download speeds now drop to 4 Mbps and my jitter increases to over 250ms to the point that I have permanent packet loss on game servers and I get disconnected regularly. The last three months have been an absolute NIGHTMARE with Mweb and the cherry on the cake is I'm actually worse off at the moment. I've been with Mweb for more than 20 years but this is the final straw!

 

[zll]

I thought I'll update this post. So after three months of collecting data for Mweb and uploading my results and their support staff agreeing that my performance figures are unacceptable, NOTHING, not a thing, has changed. In fact, things are starting to get worse! Not only is the evening peak when my performance degrades getting longer, especially on Sundays, but my performance during these times have deteriorated to the point where I cannot use my connection anymore - download speeds now drop to 4 Mbps and my jitter increases to over 250ms to the point that I have permanent packet loss on game servers and I get disconnected regularly. The last three months have been an absolute NIGHTMARE with Mweb and the cherry on the cake is I'm actually worse off at the moment. I've been with Mweb for more than 20 years but this is the final straw!

I'd be willing to put money on this is more likely related to network congestion for your fiber network in your area than Mweb. Had a similar problem with Octotel recently in the Southern Suburbs in Cape Town.

 

[Leon M]

Had a similar problem with Octotel recently in the Southern Suburbs in Cape Town.

How did you manage to resolve your problem? Anything I can do from my side?

 

[ArmatageShanks]

How did you manage to resolve your problem? Anything I can do from my side?

To the exchange

 

[StoneCold]

To the exchange

OMEGALUL!

 

[zll]

How did you manage to resolve your problem? Anything I can do from my side?

Logged complaints with ISP on ISP thread here on mybb. Noticed people with the same issue in the same area in the thread. ISP highlighted that since no problem exists their side it is likely related to Octotel. ISP eventually helped identify that it is Octotel. They logged a complaint and took 3 months to get it resolved.