THE BIG AL
join:2009-09-14
| how much will fiber optic help my ping?
ok guys just need a quick little answer here. im a huge online gamer and need as low of a ping as possible. i have 6 mb DSL and i usually ping 50-55 to a server 100 miles away on speedtest.net. i will be soon upgrading to 10 mb fiber optic. its gonna be the FTTP (fiber to the premises) internet setup. how much do you guys think my ping will be reduced when i get that? i know theres really no way of predicting exactly. i just need a few predictions before i spend the money and step up to this internet. thanks a lot guys |
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olephart
join:2009-10-02
Lafayette, LA | I have no idea what will happen on your network. My ping went from 40 to 10 for a server 350miles away. Seems to be 50 to 75% quicker almost anywhere. |
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iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Golden, CO | reply to THE BIG AL
What provider will you be using for fiber and DSL? Can you post a traceroute (Start > Run > cmd, then tracert softlayer.com) to see how the latency is now at each hop? |
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THE BIG AL
join:2009-09-14
1 edit | reply to THE BIG AL
yes iansltx i will try right quick. my isp is a local owned cooperative. called farmers telephone cooperative. |
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THE BIG AL
join:2009-09-14 | reply to THE BIG AL
all the 30 hops except for the 1st 2 timed out on me |
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tschmidt
Premium,MVM
join:2000-11-12
Milford, NH
 ·Hollis Hosting
 ·Verizon Online DSL
·Fairpoint Communic..
| said by THE BIG AL  :all the 30 hops except for the 1st 2 timed out on me Sounds like your ISP is blocking ICMP (Ping).
I have 3000/784 DSL service, 1st hop latency is about 25ms. Fiber will reduce that because there is no need for complex modem processing.
My round trip time to Broadband Reports is about 35 ms. BBR is in New York about 200 miles away. DSL modem is responsible for 25 ms, everything else 10ms.
Raw propagation time is about 7.5 us per mile in fiber. So a 400 mile round trip takes about 3 ms. The remaining 7 ms is due to store and forward queuing delays at each router. If network experiences congestion packets are delayed increasing latency.
It is too bad your ISP blocks Ping, or perhaps you have disable it in your router. Doing a Traceroute (tracert in Windows) will give you a better idea what is contributing to overall latency. 50 ms is rather high for a broadband connection to such a close server.
/tom
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THE BIG AL
join:2009-09-14 | reply to THE BIG AL
ok i messed up. i got it to work but after 5 or 6 hops the black box just up and vanishes off my computer. what the hell? well anyways the first 6 were in the range of 57-60. pretty shitty |
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tschmidt
Premium,MVM
join:2000-11-12
Milford, NH
·Hollis Hosting
·Verizon Online DSL
·Fairpoint Communic..
| Here is mine for reference:
/tom |
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scoopy03
join:2003-05-06
00000
 ·Verizon FIOS
| reply to THE BIG AL
Here are my results on FIOS.
Tracing route to broadbandreports.com [209.123.109.175]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
1 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms myrouter.home [192.168.1.1]
2 3 ms 5 ms 4 ms L100.CMDNNJ-VFTTP-22.verizon-gni.net [72.73.237.
1]
3 3 ms 5 ms 4 ms G2-0-8-222.CMDNNJ-LCR-04.verizon-gni.net [130.81
.104.70]
4 4 ms 5 ms 4 ms so-4-2-0-0.PHIL-BB-RTR2.verizon-gni.net [130.81.
29.38]
5 6 ms 6 ms 5 ms 0.so-6-0-0.XL2.PHL6.ALTER.NET [152.63.3.81]
6 11 ms 10 ms 11 ms 0.so-5-2-0.XL4.IAD8.ALTER.NET [152.63.36.209]
7 10 ms 11 ms 11 ms GigabitEthernet7-0-0.GW8.IAD8.ALTER.NET [152.63.
33.17]
8 11 ms 11 ms 10 ms teliasonera-test-gw.customer.alter.net [63.65.76
.190]
9 16 ms 17 ms 17 ms nyk-bb2-pos0-3-0.telia.net [213.248.80.137]
10 15 ms 15 ms 15 ms nyk-b3-link.telia.net [80.91.248.174]
11 15 ms 21 ms 24 ms netaccess-tic-133837-nyk-b3.c.telia.net [213.248
.99.90]
12 18 ms 17 ms 18 ms 0.e1-4.tbr1.mmu.nac.net [209.123.10.101]
13 17 ms 16 ms 16 ms 0.e1-1.tbr1.oct.nac.net [209.123.10.17]
14 16 ms 15 ms 17 ms vlan804.esd1.oct.nac.net [209.123.10.2]
15 18 ms 19 ms 19 ms www.dslreports.com [209.123.109.175]
Trace complete. |
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scoopy03
join:2003-05-06
00000
·Verizon FIOS
| reply to THE BIG AL
said by THE BIG AL :ok guys just need a quick little answer here. im a huge online gamer and need as low of a ping as possible. i have 6 mb DSL and i usually ping 50-55 to a server 100 miles away on speedtest.net. i will be soon upgrading to 10 mb fiber optic. its gonna be the FTTP (fiber to the premises) internet setup. how much do you guys think my ping will be reduced when i get that? i know theres really no way of predicting exactly. i just need a few predictions before i spend the money and step up to this internet. thanks a lot guys When I had Verizon DSL both 768 and 3Mb service I asked to get put on Fastpath vs interleaved. The difference was going from 30ms to newyork to close to what my fios service provides now. There were times when I was gaming my pings were in the single digits on dsl after switching to fastpath. Fiber optic will improve their latency once all the networks upgrade to handle the load and when the routing is more direct. That's pretty much the only problem that I had after switching from dsl. It may have been a different story for somebody else but only after I switched there were a few routes that were a little mind boggling. All in all fiber optic is worth the money....for speed, for reliability,for much less distance-restricted than DSL limitations.
Speed doesn't seem to decrease as much with fiber optic vs dsl. |
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THE BIG AL
join:2009-09-14 | reply to THE BIG AL
so is fastpath and interleaved 2 different settings that your isp have control of? if yes then what do i need to do to get whichever one? call my isp or what? |
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tschmidt
Premium,MVM
join:2000-11-12
Milford, NH
·Hollis Hosting
·Verizon Online DSL
·Fairpoint Communic..
| Fastpath and Interleave are a single entity. Default is Interleave. If latency is more important then error recovery customer can request fastpath.
DSL lines are prone to noise bursts from many sources such as: lightning, ignition noise, radio transmissions and power line faults. DSL spec writers were aware of this and included forward error correction. FEC adds check bits to the data. If noise corrupts a few bits the check bits are used to recover the data. As long as only a few bits are damaged the receiver is able to correct the error avoiding need for retransmitssion.
The key is that only a few damaged bits can be recovered. If noise burst corrupts too many bits receiver is not able to correct damage. When that happens bad packet is passed to higher layer protocol. In the case of TCP/IP TCP requests retransmission. Needless to say this take a "long" time. UDP/IP, used with VoIP and streaming data does not have a retransmission scheme. There is not enough time to retransmit the data before it is needed. Streaming applications have provisions to “fake” missing data. How badly missing data affects quality depends on application and what data is damaged.
Now lets talk about the magic of interleave. When interleave is turned on bits from several frames are interleaved in time. If noise burst is long relative to bit time it corrupts many bits. When the receiver deinterleaves incoming data corrupt bits are now spread across multiple frames - increasing odds FEC is able to correct them. This eliminates need for retransmission or application having to fake missing data.
Something else to keep in mind is that as speed increases the number of bits affected by a given noise burst increases. Lets say a given noise burst corrupts a single bit at 768 kbps. At 1500 two bits and at 3000 four are affected by the same pulse. Also as speed increases margin decreases making transmission more susceptible to noise corruption.
The downside of Interleave is slightly higher first hop Ping, because multiple frames are processed as a single entity. The penalty for Interleave goes down as speed goes up since a given frame takes less time to transmit at higher speed.
Unless you are an avid gamer interested in absolute lowest possible ping time Interleave is transparent. Other network issues usually swamp out the slight increase (10-20 ms) in first hop ping. Telcos did not implement Interleave to annoy gamers; they do it to improve overall customer satisfaction.
/tom |
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THE BIG AL
join:2009-09-14 | reply to THE BIG AL
yes i am an avid gamer. thats 75% of the reason i have internet. so i shouldnt worry about this? just stick to the interleaved? thanks for taking the time to share your well of knowledge. its people like you that teach me new stuff like this |
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tschmidt
Premium,MVM
join:2000-11-12
Milford, NH
·Hollis Hosting
·Verizon Online DSL
·Fairpoint Communic..
| Now that you have Traceroute (tracert in windows) working post a typical trace. First hop is typically your home router. Second hop is the one affected by switching to fastpath. Your latency is rather high for such a nearby server. That means congestion elsewhere is causing latency. Switching DSL modes will have no effect on that.
Switching from Interleave to fastpath reduces signal-to-noise (SNR) margin by about 3 dB. Post your modem stats. Ideally SNR should be at least 10 dB for DSL, higher the better. Between 6-10 modem is vulnerable to noise. Below 6 dB modem will likely not be able to sync. If current SNR is not at least 13 dB I don't think fastpath will work out for you.
/tom |
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THE BIG AL
join:2009-09-14 | reply to THE BIG AL
i cant do a tracert. it will show the 1st 5 or 6 hops then the window just vanishes from my screen. idk where the hell it goes but its nowhere to be found |
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tschmidt
Premium,MVM
join:2000-11-12
Milford, NH
·Hollis Hosting
·Verizon Online DSL
·Fairpoint Communic..
| Assuming you are using XP:
Click RUN
At open type cmd in the text box, press return. That will bring up command prompt.
Screen will stay up until you close it. From your description sounds like you are entering tracert command at Open.
/tom |
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THE BIG AL
join:2009-09-14 | reply to THE BIG AL
yes you were right again. after the black window opens what do you suggest i type in? |
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tschmidt
Premium,MVM
join:2000-11-12
Milford, NH
·Hollis Hosting
·Verizon Online DSL
·Fairpoint Communic..
| said by THE BIG AL :what do you suggest i type in? To compare it to mine try: tracert broadbandreports.com
Do traceroute to server you mentioned in the first post with 50/55 ms latency.
/tom |
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THE BIG AL
join:2009-09-14 | reply to THE BIG AL
i put in tracert broadbandreports.com. after hop 2 it started timing out and wont go through. such bullshit!! so why does it do that |
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iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Golden, CO
 ·Comcast
·Qwest.net
 ·magicjack.com
 ·BeeCreek Communica..
·Sprint Mobile Broa..
| You ISP may be blocking packets of the protocol that traceroutes use.
If you can access your router (192.168.1.1 or 192.168.0.1) and make sure to set the setting that allows anonymous ICMP requests/pings (under Security if you've got a Linksys) you might be able to do a reverse traceroute from DSLReports (or, say, lg.softlayer.com) to see whether you can figure out your first hop that way.
Alternately, what are the first two hops of your traceroute? 192.168.x.x? Post what you have and maybe we can figure something out.
Maybe post your modem make and model too...might help figure out whether you could do fastpath in the first place.
One last thing: FastPath vs. interleave can sometimes be more than 10-15ms. At my apartment complex the first-hop delay for Qwest is 45ms, vs. 6ms for Comcast. I'm betting that the delay would be 10ms or so with interleave turned off. Alas... |
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