Request for information: ISPs and P2P throttling

[DeltaWeave]

ISP : Sky Broadband Unlimited
Country : Manchester, England
Issue first noticed : Around 12-14 January 2014.

Problem: 5-30 second lag spikes every 30-60 seconds. The day of the week and the time of day doesn't seem to matter, there is no time when I can play unaffected by the problem. It is impossible to progress and explore most of the games content.

ISP Contact: The person I spoke to would not, or could not help whether this is due to incompetence, inadvertence or inadequate training I don't know. They simply tested the connection and said there were no problems, unfortunately no customer service reference was provided.

It appears there is a problem with Sky broadband users from looking at previous posts, if there is anything else I can do to help resolve the issue please do not hesitate to contact me.

[Tanstalas]

My ISP Teksavvy said nothing they can do, out of their hands, I think maybe Cogent has policy on some of their hops because at 8:30pm EST I start to lag, then it will catch up, like 8:30 on the nose, give or take a minute

[MantiTeran]

sky fiber
kent UK
sever sagurtars

started 13th jan and all the time its happening

[Senliten]

ISP: Charter Communications
Country: United States
DC: Aether
Server: Siren
Times Issue Occurs: Mid morning, Early evening, practically just bout anytime in the duty finder just bout now.
Misc: Ever since 2.1, spikes have slowly started to seep into my playtime. At first being unnoticeable until up to last week, after the free weekend for returning players, then it just snowballed into hell. Yesterday afternoon was just unbearable for me in CT with a lag spike grinding everyone and everything, aside from me, to a halt for a good minute at the start of the raid. Then again during the Dullahan fight with not one, but two lag spikes, lasting up to about a minute as well overall. With combat slowly trying to seep itself in between 30 second spikes for a brief second, before getting hit with a 90K error.
ISP Ticket: Have yet to file one

Extra:
Tracing route to 199.91.189.22 over a maximum of 30 hops

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.1.1
2 10 ms 10 ms 11 ms 10.228.0.1
3 11 ms 11 ms 17 ms acr01lnttal-tge-9-1.lntt.al.charter.com [96.34.72.86]
4 12 ms 11 ms 13 ms dtr02nwnnga-tge-0-1-0-0.nwnn.ga.charter.com [96.34.72.168]
5 14 ms 15 ms 23 ms crr02sghlga-tge-0-0-0-1.sghl.ga.charter.com [96.34.72.88]
6 28 ms 23 ms 23 ms bbr02atlnga-bue-3.atln.ga.charter.com [96.34.2.72]
7 15 ms 15 ms 15 ms te0-0-0-12.ccr21.atl04.atlas.cogentco.com [38.122.46.89]
8 17 ms 18 ms 17 ms be2034.ccr21.atl01.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.6.113]
9 37 ms 37 ms 29 ms be2170.mpd21.dca01.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.31.106]
10 33 ms 34 ms 45 ms be2148.ccr21.jfk02.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.31.118]
11 50 ms 42 ms 47 ms be2108.ccr21.ymq02.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.3.134]
12 43 ms 43 ms 44 ms 38.122.42.34
13 43 ms 43 ms 41 ms 192.34.76.10
14 41 ms 47 ms 50 ms 199.91.189.242
15 41 ms 43 ms 44 ms 199.91.189.22

Trace complete.

[Morpheuss]

Sky Broadband
UK, North West
Server: Hyperion
Data Centre: Primal
Ref No: MHR11956446

I'm going to quote Awimboway's post because it is exactly the same problem I have:

"Since the 14th of January I have had persistent 10-20 second lag spikes throughout the day, every day. Some spikes going on for as long as 5 minutes. I don't lose connection during this time but everything just stops then suddenly all happens at once when the lag spike ends (which I am sure is not good for my computer). Is also making the game basically impossible to play, I can just about get my daily quests done each day but if this is something that can't or won't be fixed soon I will have to stop subscribing as paying for something I literally cannot use seems counter-intuitive."

I raised this first with my ISP they have been profiling the line, sent me a new router, micro filters and boosted the line. Both on the old and new router I could see the incoming speed from the provider was and is 19 Mbps. Considering the package I'm on is 20 Mbps maximum, I can't see how this is the ISP's fault. They have no "choke holding" policy in place for my account as I am on their top end package (unless I jump to fibre optic). Lastly, it makes no difference what time I log on the problem is constant.

[Octagon]

Sky Broadband
UK, North West
Server: Hyperion
Data Centre: Primal
Ref No: MHR11956446

I'm going to quote Awimboway's post because it is exactly the same problem I have:

"Since the 14th of January I have had persistent 10-20 second lag spikes throughout the day, every day. Some spikes going on for as long as 5 minutes. I don't lose connection during this time but everything just stops then suddenly all happens at once when the lag spike ends (which I am sure is not good for my computer). Is also making the game basically impossible to play, I can just about get my daily quests done each day but if this is something that can't or won't be fixed soon I will have to stop subscribing as paying for something I literally cannot use seems counter-intuitive."

I raised this first with my ISP they have been profiling the line, sent me a new router, micro filters and boosted the line. Both on the old and new router I could see the incoming speed from the provider was and is 19 Mbps. Considering the package I'm on is 20 Mbps maximum, I can't see how this is the ISP's fault. They have no "choke holding" policy in place for my account as I am on their top end package (unless I jump to fibre optic). Lastly, it makes no difference what time I log on the problem is constant.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...=1#post1799388

Demonocracy
"The problem seems to be with one of the servers that your data travels through between your ISP and SE's servers. Seeing as 'VPN' solutions such as Pingzapper and WTFast fix the problem, there must not be an issue with the SE servers (the problems would still exist even when using these tools).

Also seeing as it's just the FF14 connection that is affected (and not anything else internet related) there isn't an issue with the ISPs connections (such as Sky and any others reported).

So while neither SE or Sky/other ISPs are solely to blame, they do need to provide a solution as the route they have set up for their data to travel between each other is faulty. This also explains why not all ISPs are being affected, as different ISPs would have their data travel via different routes.

(This is my current understanding of it, at least.) "

It kinda make sense if all WTFast/pingzapper is doin is just re-routing the traffing to the server which fix the problem. Plusnet user suffer the same problem last year which I think lasted 5-6 weeks before they fix it by changing the route to the server. U find a 9 page topic in their forum about this here.

[Astralos]

Name of ISP: Verizon FIOS (75/35 Mbps)
Country: United States (New York)
Data Center: Aether (Gilgamesh)
Problem Times: During off-peak hours, there is rarely a problem. Then as we approach peak hours, it becomes noticeable extremely quickly.

Problems: Characters and enemies freeze for 4-5 seconds at a time and no actions seem to have any effect, and then the gameplay rapidly accelerates to try and "catch up". After 15 or so seconds, the same freezing/rubberbanding happens again. When crafting, actions take an extra 3-4 seconds to both take effect and refresh in the hotbars. When gathering, each swing of the tool and procuring of items takes 7-8 seconds - and then the gathering items list/window remains onscreen for 3-4 seconds even after each node is exhausted.

I first noticed this once the Data Centers had been added. Before that I only had problems with characters/enemies not loading quickly in congested areas, and not with lag or error codes. Now I still have those problems, in addition to lag, the occasional 90k error code, and being put into queues with a negative number of players waiting.

[Aponc]

Also having these issues. Game is pretty much unplayable.

ISP: Sky Broadband.
Country : Scotland
Timing: around January 14th.

[Heldraconis]

- Name of ISP: Sky Broadband.
- Country: UK
- When does the problem occur (always, only during specific times?): Always.
- Data Centre: Play on both Sargatanas and Ragnarok. Get lag on both servers.

Since 14th January I have been getting large lag spikes regularly. Before the 14th I never had any problems with lag and now the game is unplayable.
Contacted sky and they checked the line and didn't find any problems.

[Fudien]

- Name of ISP: Verizon Fios
- Country: United States
- When does the problem occur (always, only during specific times?): Always, but worse during 7 p.m. - 12:00 a.m. EST
- Data Centre: North America Balmung

Problem appears to be between Verizon Fios and SE. The culprit looks like alas.Cogency.com