Please help - Connection issues - close to cancelling

[jnash]

Hello.

We just recently switched to FIOS internet from Verizon DSL in my household.  I first noticed an issue while playing a game a few weeks ago.  During the day, I get consistent nice ping on the game, but during the evening and at night I started to notice that my ping would spike to abnormally high levels and stay there.  At first I thought it was the game server, but I noticed that literally no other people shared my issue (I consulted their tech support).  Also, I began to notice my latency spiked elsewhere on the net...other games, youtube, etc.

I tested out my speed on speedtest.net and pingtest.net.  During the daytime, I consistently ping 10ms to the speedtest.net server which is located in Los Angeles, 50 miles from my house.  I also get my 15mbps down/5 up.  During the nighttime/evening however, such as right now, I ping anywhere from 60-100 to the exact same server on both speedtest.net and pingtest.net.  Also, while my upload and download speeds seem to be normal most of the time, they do occasionally drop off drastically.  One time my download speed listed at 7 mbps (should be 15) and often times my upload is between 2-4 mbps (should be 5).

When I contacted verizon by phone, they basically told me that there was nothing they could do to help me because all numbers were normal on THEIR speed test (verizon.speedtest.net) and on the traceroute to ".verizon" servers.  However, there is something clearly wrong with my traceroutes.  Here are just a few that I ran:

Microsoft Windows XP [Version 5.1.2600]
(C) Copyright 1985-2001 Microsoft Corp.


C:\Documents and Settings\Justin>tracert www.verizon.net

Tracing route to e3002.b.akamaiedge.net [72.247.92.79]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

  1    <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  Wireless_Broadband_Router.home [192.168.1.1]
  2     9 ms     7 ms     7 ms  L100.LSANCA-VFTTP-146.verizon-gni.net [71.254.18
3.1]
  3     7 ms     7 ms     7 ms  G10-0-3-1946.LSANCA-LCR-09.verizon-gni.net [130.
81.140.130]
  4     5 ms     7 ms     7 ms  so-4-0-0-0.LAX01-BB-RTR1.verizon-gni.net [130.81
.28.72]
  5     7 ms     7 ms    10 ms  0.so-6-3-0.XL3.LAX15.ALTER.NET [152.63.113.241]

  6     6 ms     9 ms    50 ms  0.ae3.BR3.LAX15.ALTER.NET [152.63.113.185]
  7     8 ms    10 ms    10 ms  te6-3-10G.ar4.LAX2.gblx.net [64.208.110.169]
  8    12 ms     8 ms     9 ms  a72-247-92-79.deploy.akamaitechnologies.com [72.
247.92.79]

Trace complete.

C:\Documents and Settings\Justin>tracert www.verizon.net

Tracing route to e3002.b.akamaiedge.net [72.247.92.79]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

  1    <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  Wireless_Broadband_Router.home [192.168.1.1]
  2     8 ms     7 ms     7 ms  L100.LSANCA-VFTTP-146.verizon-gni.net [71.254.18
3.1]
  3     7 ms     8 ms     6 ms  G10-0-3-1946.LSANCA-LCR-09.verizon-gni.net [130.
81.140.130]
  4     9 ms     6 ms     9 ms  so-4-0-0-0.LAX01-BB-RTR1.verizon-gni.net [130.81
.28.72]
  5     8 ms    10 ms     9 ms  0.so-6-3-0.XL3.LAX15.ALTER.NET [152.63.113.241]

  6     9 ms    10 ms     9 ms  0.ae3.BR3.LAX15.ALTER.NET [152.63.113.185]
  7    11 ms     6 ms     9 ms  te6-3-10G.ar4.LAX2.gblx.net [64.208.110.169]
  8     9 ms    10 ms    12 ms  a72-247-92-79.deploy.akamaitechnologies.com [72.
247.92.79]

Trace complete.

C:\Documents and Settings\Justin>tracert www.verizon.net

Tracing route to e3002.b.akamaiedge.net [72.247.92.79]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

  1    <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  Wireless_Broadband_Router.home [192.168.1.1]
  2     6 ms     7 ms     7 ms  L100.LSANCA-VFTTP-146.verizon-gni.net [71.254.18
3.1]
  3     7 ms     7 ms     8 ms  G10-0-3-1946.LSANCA-LCR-09.verizon-gni.net [130.
81.140.130]
  4     7 ms     7 ms     7 ms  so-4-0-0-0.LAX01-BB-RTR1.verizon-gni.net [130.81
.28.72]
  5     6 ms     9 ms    10 ms  0.so-6-3-0.XL3.LAX15.ALTER.NET [152.63.113.241]

  6    10 ms     7 ms     9 ms  0.ae3.BR3.LAX15.ALTER.NET [152.63.113.185]
  7     6 ms    10 ms     7 ms  te6-3-10G.ar4.LAX2.gblx.net [64.208.110.169]
  8     8 ms    10 ms     9 ms  a72-247-92-79.deploy.akamaitechnologies.com [72.
247.92.79]

Trace complete.

C:\Documents and Settings\Justin>tracert www.verizon.net

Tracing route to e3002.b.akamaiedge.net [96.7.156.79]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

  1    <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  Wireless_Broadband_Router.home [192.168.1.1]
  2     6 ms     7 ms     7 ms  L100.LSANCA-VFTTP-146.verizon-gni.net [71.254.18
3.1]
  3     7 ms     7 ms     7 ms  G10-0-3-1946.LSANCA-LCR-09.verizon-gni.net [130.
81.140.130]
  4     6 ms     8 ms     7 ms  so-4-0-0-0.LAX01-BB-RTR1.verizon-gni.net [130.81
.28.72]
  5     9 ms     7 ms    10 ms  0.so-6-2-0.XT1.LAX7.ALTER.NET [152.63.112.45]
  6    82 ms    83 ms    82 ms  POS6-0.BR2.LAX7.ALTER.NET [152.63.112.145]
  7    10 ms    10 ms     9 ms  p64-5-0-1.r20.lsanca03.us.bb.gin.ntt.net [129.25
0.8.69]
  8    21 ms    19 ms    36 ms  ae-2.r21.snjsca04.us.bb.gin.ntt.net [129.250.2.1
47]
  9    18 ms    17 ms    19 ms  ae-2.r07.snjsca04.us.bb.gin.ntt.net [129.250.5.5
7]
 10    18 ms    19 ms    19 ms  a96-7-156-79.deploy.akamaitechnologies.com [96.7
.156.79]

Trace complete.

C:\Documents and Settings\Justin>tracert www.verizon.net

Tracing route to e3002.b.akamaiedge.net [96.7.156.79]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

  1    <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  Wireless_Broadband_Router.home [192.168.1.1]
  2     8 ms     7 ms     7 ms  L100.LSANCA-VFTTP-146.verizon-gni.net [71.254.18
3.1]
  3     7 ms     7 ms     7 ms  G10-0-3-1946.LSANCA-LCR-09.verizon-gni.net [130.
81.140.130]
  4     7 ms     7 ms     7 ms  so-4-0-0-0.LAX01-BB-RTR1.verizon-gni.net [130.81
.28.72]
  5    11 ms    10 ms     9 ms  0.so-6-2-0.XT1.LAX7.ALTER.NET [152.63.112.45]
  6    84 ms    81 ms    85 ms  POS6-0.BR2.LAX7.ALTER.NET [152.63.112.145]
  7     9 ms     9 ms     9 ms  p64-5-0-1.r20.lsanca03.us.bb.gin.ntt.net [129.25
0.8.69]
  8    19 ms    18 ms    19 ms  ae-2.r21.snjsca04.us.bb.gin.ntt.net [129.250.2.1
47]
  9    16 ms    17 ms    19 ms  ae-2.r07.snjsca04.us.bb.gin.ntt.net [129.250.5.5
7]
 10    19 ms    19 ms    19 ms  a96-7-156-79.deploy.akamaitechnologies.com [96.7
.156.79]

Trace complete.

Obviously there are some ping spikes in there that aren't normal.  The customer service guy on the phone basically told me that I was getting what I was paying for and that there was nothing he could do for me.  Obviously though, I am certainly not getting what I'm paying for and if I cannot solve this issue I will have no choice but to cancel my services with verizon.

Please help if you can, thank you.

Summation of the issue:

Windows XP, FIOS connection, hardwired computer, 15/5 down/up

Speed is fine during the day, though drastically drops off in the evening/night time consistently everyday.

Recent speedtest.net test:

14.75 down

3.28 up

75 ms ping to a server FIFTY miles from my house.

[lasagna]

Hate to disagree with you, but those traceroutes all look just fine - the one hop with higher values is a transient condition and doesn't appear to have a deterimental affect on end to end performance.  Small smikes on a particular node out in the cloud are completely normal and your down/up for a 15/5 connection is not bad either.    Welcome to the Internet.

[spacedebris]

Got to agree with lasagna, your speeds look fine. The tracerts look ok. Just a little high at hop 6 in the last couple of tracerts, but that is on the alter.net network. Past the Verizon network. And even then, its only a little high, not seriously high. As for the occasionally slow speed, again that is not uncommon. Traffic on the internet is like a freeway, it sometimes gets conjested and slows down. But it shouldnt last long. Most of the time when my speed drops, I find that usually within a few minutes its back to normal. Thats the internet.

[jnash]

Okay that's fair enough!  I'm open to the idea that this isn't verizon's problem, though again I have no choice but to cancel if I can't fix it, regardless.  Does anyone have any idea what else could be causing this issue and how I might be able to fix it?

[jnash]

And this isn't your typical "traffic congestion" slow down of the net.  I have been using the internet regularly since I was a little kid (12 years now).  I know something weird is going on.  I'm getting significant slow downs for HOURS upon hours always starting at around the same time (6pm-8pm PST).  These issues are even more troublesome than the ones we had with our old Verizon DSL.  Shouldn't FIOS be a lot more reliable and faster??

[lasagna]

So, a guy comes into the repair shop and says to the mechanic "my car makes a funny noise, but it's not doing it right now, can you fix it?" ....   So far, this is kinda what you've given us.  I'm thinking you can help us help you if you elaborate a bit further.

What you posted indicates no problem with connectivity ... so maybe you could give us just a bit more to go on, like exactly what are you trying to do at that time, does it affect just one thing or maybe everything on the internet from your perspective, what kind of PC / Antivirus are you running, do you have a file scanner as part of your anti-virus that maybe could be running at that time, how are you connected to the router, etc.

[jnash]

Okay

I started noticing the problem a few weeks ago while playing a game online.  My ping normally to the game (there is only 1 server, it is a small game) is around 90.  The server is on the East coast.  I noticed that during the night time, my ping jumped to around 140 to 150.  It frustrated me because it made the game unplayable.  At first, I thought it just might be a server issue, but I noticed that it didn't seem to happen to anyone else.  This started happening regularly every evening sometime typically between 6 and 8 pm.

I then began to do further tests to figure out what was going wrong.  I tested my speed on speedtest.net.  Speedtest.net also confirmed I was having issues.  During the "problem hours" I would ping somewhere between 60 and 100 to a server that was literally 100 miles from my house.  Also, speedtest would report down speeds as low as 7 mbps and up speeds as low as 3 mbps (15/5 connection).  Sometimes, though, speedtest would report normal up/down speeds though the ping was consistently high.

I tested it further with other games.  My ping was abnormally high to all servers in all the different games I had during these problematic hours.  I tested it on my sister's computer.  She had the same issue (exact same ping and up/down problems on speedtest.net).  All of these facts have led me to believe that there is something funny going on with our connection.

I run windows XP on my computer.  I built it myself...it has an AMD dual core x64 3000+ processor, a nvidia 8600 gts vid card, and 2gb of ram.  I use AVG as an anti-virus, though I don't keep it running all the time just when I do scans.  I don't use a firewall.  I use spybot search and destroy, CC cleaner, and diskeeper 2008 regularly to keep my computer clean.

Just this afternoon I tested speedtest.net and I pinged 10 to the local server, but tonight I expect as it has happened every night for the past 3 weeks to ping MUCH higher for reasons I cannot understand.  Hopefully this information can help you help me!  Thanks a lot for your time. 

[somegirl]

Maybe a dumb suggestion, but if you aren't using your wireless, turn it off. It's possible you have a neighbor jumping on your network sucking up bandwidth.

Even though the FiOS router has a WEP-64 secure network by default, some of the WEP keys can be guessed based on the SSID. (Not going into how, don't want to give anyone any ideas.)

If you *are* using it, make sure to change the SSID and the password, and I recommend at least WPA encryption. (Stronger than WEP)

[Hubrisnxs]

or do like I did to find my issue, I had to go into the router, and start shutting down connections when I was rocking my game, until I found the offending pc.   apparently there was one that was causing my whole issue, and when I turned him off everything went back to normal. 

do that under the network section and my network. 

[spacedebris]

Well there is another thing. The tracerts you posted are all to verizon.net. Try running a tracert to the server you are playing on when you have the high pings. Maybe there is a problem further down the line than just your local connection. While there is only a slight increase on the routes you posted, maybe there is a bad hop directly between you and where you play.

I have a similar problem with one of the servers I used to play on. Whenever I was routed through Sprintlink in Kansas City (I'm in the S. CA area and the server was in Washington DC) My pings would be unplayable. But when I was routed through Dallas, my pings were fine. I had to give up on that server becasue the only route I can get anymore takes me through Sprintlink and there is really nothing I could do. Maybe you are having something similar.