Openserve - Lowest Latency Options ? Gaming

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Hi Guys,

My area in Jhb Fourways only supports either Vumatel & Openserve.
Maybe I am being unfair but when I check DownDetector often I have seen Vumatel down and not Openservre.
Based on that I assume Openserve is the more stable backbone.

I am currently with CoolIdea's\Openserve. I don't have per say an unstable connection. Normal things work fine. Youtube , Netflix etc.
Recently however in the last 2/3months we have had disconnects.

My son races in a Motorsport SA series that is part of GT7 on PS5 (Wired in). He is in the Top(Tier) split.
Twice now we have been disconnected from the Host in a Live race ruining things for us.

Other drivers \ people don't seem to have this problem.
I know latency is important and possibly we are getting the odd time where there is maybe congestion in the area and that momentary slowness causing a disconnect. Who knows.

We are on a 50Mb\25Mb link BTW. - Would a synchronis speed make any diff or larger pipe ?
We don't load our line at all. So it's empty while the racing happens.

If we had to jump ship to another ISP. How would I know that they would be better off other than seeing "claimed" things.

On my initial search it seemed to suggest these three ISP's had the lowest latency on the forum.

Cybersmart seems to com highly rated ... but for Cpt ? No idea how that would fair up here ? - 50/50mb R 679
Clear Access - Also seemed to do well in the latency chart - 50/50mb for R 799
UrbanX - They Claim to be Gaming Centric with routes etc and is available on Openserve & Vumatel.. 50\50mb R 729

Any suggestions on what to look for ?
Better ways I could be doing things ?

This is PS5 Specific. Any improvement would be a good thing.

 

[AfriNatic]

@CoolEscalator @CoolHelp

Did you reach out to Cool Ideas to assist?

I can send you a test account if you want to test a different ISP to narrow down if it's Openserve related?

 

[Dimpie (JIGSAW)]

Hi Guys,

<>

Cybersmart seems to com highly rated ... but for Cpt ? No idea how that would fair up here ? - 50/50mb R 679
Clear Access - Also seemed to do well in the latency chart - 50/50mb for R 799
UrbanX - They Claim to be Gaming Centric with routes etc and is available on Openserve & Vumatel.. 50\50mb R 729

<>

They're not only CTN based ... they have JHB and DBN branches

 

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@CoolEscalator @CoolHelp

Did you reach out to Cool Ideas to assist?

I can send you a test account if you want to test a different ISP to narrow down if it's Openserve related?

Hi there,

I have again logged a call this morning.
It's not that they are not being helpful. They always are.

Last time we did port recreates etc.

Something though just isn't right.

I am not trying to bash Cool Idea's.
I am trying to see what is recommended as the best low latency solution moving forwards for Gaming.
If that means sticking with CoolIdeas no problem. Or changing speeds or synchronis ...

This time I am hoping to make a more educated decision. Possibly there is a better solution out there now for my type of needs.

 

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They're not only CTN based ... they have JHB and DBN branches

I know, thus I am looking at them. I probably should have worded it better.

I just meant that although they are good from their ratings they seem to have different options in Cpt that we don't get here. (Backend) - I have to use Openserve or Vumatel here. Possibly Backend may be the problem and thus would not achieve the latency some people have seen.

Any education I can get in this area would be appreciated.

 

[Zurg]

Where are the servers hosted?
If it's international then there's little any isp or fno could do depending on the current routing vs what you move to or test.
Also what router are you using?

 

[Zurg]

You could try these guys.
I have no affiliation to them, they came recommended by Atomic Access for the peeps up in JHB.

GHOSTFIBRE | A new gaming experience?

This is meta description

www.ghostfibre.com

 

[playback]

Where are the servers hosted?
If it's international then there's little any isp or fno could do depending on the current routing vs what you move to or test.
Also what router are you using?

I am honestly not sure how PS5 does this. I know you connect to the Playstation Network. From there you search for players / friends. You then join the said server or host.

I presume as the players are in SA you are connecting to their server in SA when they host a race.
Otherwise I am sure there would be noticeable lag.

The router is a Curby device that came with the install originally. Nothing fancy.

 

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You could try these guys.
I have no affiliation to them, they came recommended by Atomic Access for the peeps up in JHB.

GHOSTFIBRE | A new gaming experience?

This is meta description

www.ghostfibre.com

Thank you. I will look into it.

 

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@CoolEscalator @CoolHelp

Did you reach out to Cool Ideas to assist?

I can send you a test account if you want to test a different ISP to narrow down if it's Openserve related?

BTW. CoolIdeas just call just now.
We will try again to do some testing. They suggested that I may need to increase the size of the MTU.

Also that they will do a MDR test ... I think that is what they said.

 

[PBCool]

Hi there, please quote your support ref for me to have a look?

Disconnects on gaming would be related to the line or FNO. If we had international disconnects it would affect the whole network. Latency wise we have on average some of the lowest available.

 

[CoolEscalator]

BTW. CoolIdeas just call just now.
We will try again to do some testing. They suggested that I may need to increase the size of the MTU.

Also that they will do a MDR test ... I think that is what they said.

HI there, Hope you are well. I have managed to locate your ticket. #COOL-20250805-2447934

I have checked and your MTU is on 1480, which should be fine, but you can test up to 1492 if you would like.
I'm not seeing any issues on your Fibre levels that would indicate an issue, and the link is quite stable.

Regarding the latency, I have added your IP to our monitoring to asses the last mile latency and see if we can report any issues to the Fibre provider should the issue occur again. - So far, things are looking good.

I would have to do some research to see where the game servers are for this game, to see if there are any issues picked up to the Game server itself , or any routing related faults

EDIT: I do see your Fibre Levels at the OLT's end is a bit abnormal at -28.24dBm, and have shared with our support team. Might be worth for Openserve to have a look

 

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Hi there, please quote your support ref for me to have a look?

Disconnects on gaming would be related to the line or FNO. If we had international disconnects it would affect the whole network. Latency wise we have on average some of the lowest available.

COOL-20250805-2447934

 

[playback]

HI there, Hope you are well. I have managed to locate your ticket. #COOL-20250805-2447934

I have checked and your MTU is on 1480, which should be fine, but you can test up to 1492 if you would like.
I'm not seeing any issues on your Fibre levels that would indicate an issue, and the link is quite stable.

Regarding the latency, I have added your IP to our monitoring to asses the last mile latency and see if we can report any issues to the Fibre provider should the issue occur again. - So far, things are looking good.

I would have to do some research to see where the game servers are for this game, to see if there are any issues picked up to the Game server itself , or any routing related faults

EDIT: I do see your Fibre Levels at the OLT's end is a bit abnormal at -28.24dBm, and have shared with our support team. Might be worth for Openserve to have a look

Thank you. That sounds promising like there may be something.

What may I ask is the Range that things are normal at ? If -28.24dBm is slightly abnormal ? Where is considered a good range and what is considered a range where problems may start ?

 

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Ok, So Chat answered my question.

Normal Fibre Signal Ranges​

Signal Level (dBm)	Status
0 to -15 dBm	Excellent
-15 to -20 dBm	Good
-20 to -25 dBm	Acceptable
-25 to -28 dBm	Weak / Borderline
< -28 dBm	Too weak / Unstable

Your signal at -28.24 dBm is right on the edge or just below the threshold for a stable connection. That could definitely cause intermittent issues, such as:

• Slow speeds
• Dropped connections
• High latency or jitter

 

[CoolEscalator]

Thank you. That sounds promising like there may be something.

What may I ask is the Range that things are normal at ? If -28.24dBm is slightly abnormal ? Where is considered a good range and what is considered a range where problems may start ?

Ok, So Chat answered my question.

Normal Fibre Signal Ranges​

Signal Level (dBm)	Status
0 to -15 dBm	Excellent
-15 to -20 dBm	Good
-20 to -25 dBm	Acceptable
-25 to -28 dBm	Weak / Borderline
< -28 dBm	Too weak / Unstable

Your signal at -28.24 dBm is right on the edge or just below the threshold for a stable connection. That could definitely cause intermittent issues, such as:

• Slow speeds
• Dropped connections
• High latency or jitter

Hi there, yes anything over -26 is where you can start to see some issues with instability. We did check your ONT's end and its still good at -22, however at the OLT it is a bit abnormal at -28.24. hopefully Openseve can go out and improve these levels a bit to see if that improves your stability overall

 

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So quick update.

Openserve gent was able to come to site at lunch time.

He found the ONT was a very old device. It was using a mirror connection which is apparently a very old tech.
He also said the Yellow cable my Fibre had was an old spec and known to give issues.
And they replaced the Lan cable.

After all that on Openserve side they said they see 22 dBm .... So I thought at least some progress.

However once CoolIdeas managed to check from their side they are still seeing an issue.
It is now on 27.X - Which is slightly better for what they see on their end.

The lady tried to explain to me that it sounds like there is a RX rate and another one. Each supplier sees a different number based on this....

They have escalated this again. However it sounds like this may be an area issue now and I may have reached the end of the road for how far Openserve will go...

Let's see what will happen.

I will have the MTU reduced later on the link down anyway, from 1492 to 1450 to try and help stability further.

Any other suggestions?

 

[CoolEscalator]

So quick update.

Openserve gent was able to come to site at lunch time.

He found the ONT was a very old device. It was using a mirror connection which is apparently a very old tech.
He also said the Yellow cable my Fibre had was an old spec and known to give issues.
And they replaced the Lan cable.

After all that on Openserve side they said they see 22 dBm .... So I thought at least some progress.

However once CoolIdeas managed to check from their side they are still seeing an issue.
It is now on 27.X - Which is slightly better for what they see on their end.

The lady tried to explain to me that it sounds like there is a RX rate and another one. Each supplier sees a different number based on this....

They have escalated this again. However it sounds like this may be an area issue now and I may have reached the end of the road for how far Openserve will go...

Let's see what will happen.

I will have the MTU reduced later on the link down anyway, from 1492 to 1450 to try and help stability further.

Any other suggestions?

HI there, thank you for the update.
Yes with a few things that has been replaced, it would be a good idea to check if you see any improvement with the performance on the game.

After all that on Openserve side they said they see 22 dBm .... So I thought at least some progress.

However once CoolIdeas managed to check from their side they are still seeing an issue.
It is now on 27.X - Which is slightly better for what they see on their end.

We did check your ONT's end and its still good at -22, however at the OLT it is a bit abnormal at -28.24.

Yes as mentioned before, we did see -22dBm on the ONT side (fibre box) but we saw the abnormal levels at the OLT's end (exchange in the area) I am glad it did imprive slightly to -27.96 Edit: I see its back to -28.24, but its still borderline which is why our team likely reported back to Openserve again.

But regardless, please let us know if there are any improvements