Slow internet during 'peak times' after hurricane in BIllerica, MA

[Scottyrica]

Around 2 PM on tuesday, 10/30/2012, we lost power for about 30-45 minutes.  Before then, pretty much all day and night the ms while playing any sort of game was anywhere from 40-80, usually 40-50 sometimes going up to 80 randomly but never notiecable.  

After the brief power loss, internet has been around 90ms during the day, and without fail at 7pm until around midnight its anywhere from 140-200ms.  In the early hours of hte morning (2 am-ish), it goes back down in the 50 range.

I've checked with the forums of the games that I have been playing and no one else is experiencing this, including friends of mine that play on the same servers etc.

I've restarted the modem, once the night of the power loss, once again today (11/1).  Solves nothing nor would it since its a peak time issue.  Also, in thinking maybe the power loss screwed some setting, I ran the "optimize connection' tool from my computer.  Nothing's changed.

This is something on Verizon's end, as is usually the case whenever its a 'peak time' issue.  Wondering if anyone else is experiencing this post Sandy, and if any Verizon rep reads this can you give any insight as to whether this is a known issue in small pockets across the northeast due to the power outages.  Nothing has changed on my end, nor on the end of the servers of the games I have been trying to play.

Scott L.

Billerica, MA

**edit**  Normally this isnt a big issue, but the majority the games I and others in the house use are very heavy person to person games, where the difference between 40ms and 200ms is actually pretty massive.  One of the reasons we switched from Comcast to Verizon was because of the tremendously low latency Verizon provides, and after playing with 40ms for 11 months, 140-200ms is painstaking ***edit***

[Hubrisnxs]

turn off your router, reboot the ONT and then test again.

[smith6612]

If you could provide some Traceroutes or Pathpings to the servers you play on, that may help us identify where the problem is. Are your friends who have FiOS within the same general areas as you or are they spread out?

You'll find that since Hurricane Sandy came through the Northeast, there are a lot of networks that are still working, but at reduced performance due to gear being offline from flooding, or damged fiber that had to be taken out of service. The past few days during the highest point of peak hours I've seen slow-downs to anything that routes through New York City, which occurs due to higher latency and packet loss. Things that don't hit certain circuits in New York city work absolutely fine. I normally don't see that sort of thing at night. To add, plenty of large websites that I visit are still down, running on temporary, low-powered sites to at least keep things online until they can figure out how to bring their datacenter back online. Tons of DCs in New York City (not the best of place for DCs, either) are still offline or trying to remain online.

I'm quite sure that many key locations in New York city are currently still being pumped out and damage being assessed. After damage is assessed, it's going to take even longer to clear out the damage and restore service (electrical and telecom) to everyone. If this is the "New York router" issue, then certainly hold tight until Verizon either routes around the city or can get their network in order again. Some friends of mine who were asked to go to NYC to restore telecommunications services stated that the amount of damage will amount to several weeks of nonstop work. They'll be working right into the holidays.

But yet again, maybe your ONT just needs a reboot as pointed out above. They do get into funny states when they lose power sometimes.

[Scottyrica]

At work ATM I'll try to provide some traceroute's tonight when I get home.

To clarify about the server question, the servers I were referring to were the game servers.  Other friends in various parts of MA, and in the eastern time zone in general, are seeing no difference in their latency, during peak time(s) or otherwise.  Some have verizon, some have comcast.

The jump in latency, as I mentioned anywhere from 4-5x the normal latency, is only spiking from around 7pm to 1 am, then it drops off again, and just find it weird that it suddenly started happening after my area lost power, however brief it was.  I'm aware that maybe some connections were being routed through the New York area so obviously if rebooting the ONT (whatever that is, will have to check the above posters link as to what it is/how to do it/where its located) changes nothing during peak times, I will see if through the weekend when many locations are slowly getting power/service restored if it continues.

[Scottyrica]

Okay, just got home.  Was told ms was around 100 all day, slowly fell to 42 until about 8:00 when it started to climb again, where it currently sits at 90ms.  Here are the traceroutes/pathpings.  According to the website of the company that makes the game, the server I am playing on is located in Chicago.

Tracing route to 12.129.206.130 over a maximum of 30 hops

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms Wireless_Broadband_Router.home [192.168.1.1]
2 7 ms 10 ms 8 ms L100.BSTNMA-VFTTP-09.verizon-gni.net [96.233.113.1]
3 7 ms 9 ms 8 ms G15-0-7-1356.BSTNMA-LCR-03.verizon-gni.net [130.81.177.4]
4 11 ms 10 ms 9 ms so-7-1-0-0.BOS-BB-RTR1.verizon-gni.net [130.81.29.168]
5 42 ms 19 ms 19 ms so-9-1-0-0.NY325-BB-RTR1.verizon-gni.net [130.81.19.70]
6 18 ms 19 ms 18 ms 0.ae1.BR2.NYC4.ALTER.NET [152.63.18.37]
7 18 ms 19 ms 19 ms 192.205.36.57
8 97 ms 96 ms 91 ms cr1.n54ny.ip.att.net [12.122.86.6]
9 100 ms 96 ms 96 ms cr2.cgcil.ip.att.net [12.122.1.2]
10 100 ms 96 ms 99 ms cr1.cgcil.ip.att.net [12.122.2.53]
11 96 ms 90 ms 98 ms cr2.dvmco.ip.att.net [12.122.31.85]
12 95 ms 94 ms 95 ms cr1.slkut.ip.att.net [12.122.30.25]
13 98 ms 96 ms 101 ms cr2.la2ca.ip.att.net [12.122.30.30]
14 95 ms 170 ms 150 ms gar29.la2ca.ip.att.net [12.122.129.241]
15 95 ms 98 ms 98 ms 12-122-254-238.attens.net [12.122.254.238]
16 94 ms 93 ms 93 ms mdf001c7613r0004-gig-10-1.lax1.attens.net [12.129.193.250]
17 * * * Request timed out.
18 * * * Request timed out.
19 * * * Request timed out.
20 * * * Request timed out.
21 * * * Request timed out.
22 * * * Request timed out.
23 * * * Request timed out.
24 * * * Request timed out.
25 * * * Request timed out.
26 * * * Request timed out.
27 * * * Request timed out.
28 * * * Request timed out.
29 * * * Request timed out.
30 * * * Request timed out.

Trace complete.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tracing route to 206.18.148.200 over a maximum of 30 hops

0 Scott-PC.home [192.168.1.3]
1 Wireless_Broadband_Router.home [192.168.1.1]
2 L100.BSTNMA-VFTTP-09.verizon-gni.net {edited for privacy}
3 G15-0-7-1356.BSTNMA-LCR-03.verizon-gni.net [130.81.177.4]
4 so-7-1-0-0.BOS-BB-RTR1.verizon-gni.net [130.81.29.168]
5 so-9-1-0-0.NY325-BB-RTR1.verizon-gni.net [130.81.19.70]
6 0.ae1.BR2.NYC4.ALTER.NET [152.63.18.37]
7 192.205.34.49
8 cr1.n54ny.ip.att.net [12.122.86.6]
9 cr2.cgcil.ip.att.net [12.122.1.2]
10 gar3.cgcil.ip.att.net [12.122.132.213]
11 12.122.251.22
12 63.240.130.214
13 * * *
Computing statistics for 300 seconds...
Source to Here This Node/Link
Hop RTT Lost/Sent = Pct Lost/Sent = Pct Address
0 Scott-PC.home [192.168.1.3]
0/ 100 = 0% |
1 0ms 0/ 100 = 0% 0/ 100 = 0% Wireless_Broadband_Router.home [192.168.1.1]
0/ 100 = 0% |
2 9ms 0/ 100 = 0% 0/ 100 = 0% L100.BSTNMA-VFTTP-09.verizon-gni.net {edited for privacy}
0/ 100 = 0% |
3 10ms 0/ 100 = 0% 0/ 100 = 0% G15-0-7-1356.BSTNMA-LCR-03.verizon-gni.net [130.81.177.4]
0/ 100 = 0% |
4 10ms 0/ 100 = 0% 0/ 100 = 0% so-7-1-0-0.BOS-BB-RTR1.verizon-gni.net [130.81.29.168]
0/ 100 = 0% |
5 25ms 0/ 100 = 0% 0/ 100 = 0% so-9-1-0-0.NY325-BB-RTR1.verizon-gni.net [130.81.19.70]
0/ 100 = 0% |
6 69ms 0/ 100 = 0% 0/ 100 = 0% 0.ae1.BR2.NYC4.ALTER.NET [152.63.18.37]
0/ 100 = 0% |
7 66ms 0/ 100 = 0% 0/ 100 = 0% 192.205.34.49
100/ 100 =100% |
8 --- 100/ 100 =100% 0/ 100 = 0% cr1.n54ny.ip.att.net [12.122.86.6]
0/ 100 = 0% |
9 --- 100/ 100 =100% 0/ 100 = 0% cr2.cgcil.ip.att.net [12.122.1.2]
0/ 100 = 0% |
10 --- 100/ 100 =100% 0/ 100 = 0% gar3.cgcil.ip.att.net [12.122.132.213]
0/ 100 = 0% |
11 --- 100/ 100 =100% 0/ 100 = 0% 12.122.251.22
0/ 100 = 0% |
12 --- 100/ 100 =100% 0/ 100 = 0% 63.240.130.214

Trace complete.

[smith6612]

Are these game servers owned by Blizzard Entertainment at all? If those IPs are the correct ones for the server, you're routing to Los Angeles, CA to hit their network. If the servers are in Chicago, you could be taking the long way to get there but there's no way to tell for certain as the traceroute data is firewalled after the last AT&T hop on Blizzard.

If the latency is in the 40s during the day, the route may be changing. The Traceroute you provided looks pretty clean, all things considered.