Is my ISP limiting my connection?

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coliander
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Is my ISP limiting my connection?

Post by coliander »

For well over a year now i've been having issues with severe latency during raids and battlegrounds in World of Warcraft. During this time i've replaced my PC and I still have the issue, which pretty much rules out a hardware issue (I've tried a USB modem as well as two different ADSL routers in this time also).
I've contacted my ISP (Tiscali UK) about this numerous times but they've been of very little help. I began to suspect they were shaping traffic so I ran a 3D traceroute to the server that I play on, here are the results:

http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/invernesscru ... c/3dtr.gif

http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/invernesscru ... isc/tr.gif

Now that looks extremely suspicious to me, they claim to never shape traffic and simply limit connection speeds at peak times. However, the result for this traceroute is the same no matter what time of the day or night that I perform it.

Here's my Speedtest result:
Image

Anyone able to give me any clarification? I want to know exactly whats going on before i send an angry email further up the line with them ;)
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YARDofSTUF
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Post by YARDofSTUF »

How bout a normal tracert for us?
coliander
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Post by coliander »

Tracing route to 62.67.45.96 over a maximum of 30 hops

1 31 ms 99 ms 99 ms dsldevice.lan [192.168.1.254]
2 39 ms 38 ms 39 ms lo99.sfd-0-dsl.as9105.net [212.74.111.240]
3 40 ms 40 ms 39 ms ge1-2-25.sfd0.as9105.net [212.74.106.178]
4 39 ms 39 ms 39 ms ge1-1.sfd1.as9105.net [212.74.109.233]
5 40 ms 41 ms 41 ms pos0-0.not0.as9105.net [212.74.108.205]
6 42 ms 43 ms 42 ms pos0-0.lei1.as9105.net [212.74.109.225]
7 44 ms 44 ms 43 ms pos2-0.sa-bham0.as9105.net [212.74.109.214]
8 48 ms 46 ms 46 ms pos6-0.mk1.as9105.net [212.74.108.13]
9 48 ms 48 ms 49 ms pos3-0.lon10.as9105.net [212.74.108.10]
10 48 ms 49 ms 47 ms pos2-p0.lon11.as9105.net [212.74.111.230]
11 77 ms 48 ms 47 ms xe-2-2-0-10.lon10.ip.tiscali.net [213.200.78.117
]
12 49 ms 47 ms 48 ms xe-8-0-0.lon20.ip.tiscali.net [89.149.185.69]
13 113 ms 49 ms 49 ms ge-7-1.core2.London1.Level3.net [213.200.77.130]

14 49 ms 49 ms 48 ms 4.69.139.97
15 55 ms 55 ms 56 ms ae-2-2.ebr2.Amsterdam1.Level3.net [4.69.132.134]

16 55 ms 55 ms 55 ms ae-1-100.ebr1.Amsterdam1.Level3.net [4.69.141.16
9]
17 66 ms 67 ms 66 ms ae-2-2.ebr2.Dusseldorf1.Level3.net [4.69.133.90]

18 67 ms 68 ms 67 ms ae-21-52.car1.Dusseldorf1.Level3.net [4.69.139.3
4]
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.
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YARDofSTUF
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Post by YARDofSTUF »

Your ping is bad at hop 1. Move the modem away from other electrical items and scan for malware with malwarebytes, spybot, and super antispyware. All free and a google away
coliander
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Post by coliander »

I can guarantee you my PC is cleaner than a nun in a dishwasher ;)
I scan it weekly with AVG and Spybot, use Firefox and Noscript and the windows install that I use for gaming is part of a dual-boot setup on a seperate hard drive with the bare-minimum of services/software running.
The ping is crappy on my router, but due to space constraints moving it isn't really an issue (moving it any sort of distance at least) The electronic devices within 6 feet of it are my LCD Monitor and bluetooth mouse and keyboard.
Anyway since i've been having the exact same issue for well over a year now, whilst also using different hardware, I'm doubtful that the router is the cause of these problems. If you look back at the 3D Traceroute, you can see pronounced intermittent spikes in latency at hops 11, 13 and 18.

I'm no networking guru but I'm pretty certain these spikes are to blame for the poor latency i've been getting in World of Warcraft.

While i'm playing alone, or in low population areas my latency is absolutely fine, usually staying around 60-100 milliseconds, which i can live comfortably. However if for example, i'm in a group with 9 other players, my latency stays absolutely fine until we go into combat, at which point it quickly builds to the point that the server kicks me. The same happens in places like capital city's where there are a lot of players. It seems that whenever my client has to send and recieve a lot of information to/from other clients via the server, some sort of bottleneck occurs. From entering combat to disconnection from the server usually takes between 2-4 seconds, but has happened instantly in the past.

I've heard of ISP's delaying random packets in order to manage connection speeds, which is what I think the traceroute is displaying in this case, but i'd just like some information on the results.
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YARDofSTUF
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Post by YARDofSTUF »

Make sure you have a firewall turned on and remove the router and do the tracert again.
coliander
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Post by coliander »

Unfortunately i'm unable to do that at the moment since I only have the router at present. I did a bit of digging though and it turns out that it's perfectly normal for my router (A Thomson/Alcatel) to have a high first hop, and it's simply down to a quirk in the firmware it's using.

A ping to the router gave me:


Pinging 192.168.1.254 with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 192.168.1.254: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.254: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.254: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.254: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64

Ping statistics for 192.168.1.254:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 0ms, Maximum = 1ms, Average = 0ms
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YARDofSTUF
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Post by YARDofSTUF »

I don't think it should be normal, and I don't see why an ISP would choose to shape traffic against WoW players.
coliander
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Post by coliander »

Neither do I, but it seems like I've exhausted every other possibility.

Don't you agree that the original traceroute I posted seems a little odd?
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YARDofSTUF
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Post by YARDofSTUF »

Ya, the traceroute is odd.
hanketron
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Post by hanketron »

Your speed guide test results match mine. I'm a cable subscriber and use a Thompson/RCA DCM425 modem in the US. I was curious why there was such a difference in my upload and download speeds. Researching somewhere, I read that the ISPs here in the U.S. Limit upload speed and that European ISPs limit both up and down loads equally. If this is so, doesn't it mean that ISPs manipulate traffic in a consistent manner inside their area of operation. You are in Great Britain? I don't think of Great Britain as part of Europe(a good thing); maybe Your ISP isn't copying the European method but the US method.
MINE 6.31Down/.36 UP I don't know how this rates around here but I pay the minimum for my service

Also I had a really good/bad Trojan that Spybot missed, AVG missed, windows malicious software removal tool missed, finally got it with 15day free trial of Trojan Remover. I found I had it when certain programs couldn't update.

I hope this is helpful. I figure any info is better than no info.

Good Luck and Happy Egg Day
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