US Cable Support → OptimumOnline > [OOL] OOL Erratic latency during evenings

[OOL] OOL Erratic latency during evenings

Hi all,

I am a new OOL customer, I switched from FIOS - I had optimum many years ago but fios wasn't available here in Brookhaven(crookhaven) so i had to switch back when i bought my house. During the day and late afternoon my OOL works great, no complaints. During the evenings my OOL becomes highly erratic. Ping times are through the roof randomly, and everything lags. My speeds on speedtest.net are random as well during this time as well.

I have had the techs to the house twice. The first time for the installation, the tech put the modem and router off of a 6 way splitter and through the internal wiring through the house. Against my better judgement, I let him, but as someone in the IT field i suspected this wouldn't work as well as a direct line.

I spoke with a tech last week on the phone when this problem first began. The tech had me unhook everything and go direct to the PC. We experienced the same issue. He said my signals looked good, but we had a tech come out.

The tech came out a day or two ago - he agreed we should get a direct line into the house from the outside splitter. I agreed and had him hook it up direct. Everything seemed OK at the time but this was during the afternoon. I used the OOL this evening and I am having the same issue. I decided to try to gather as much data as I can.

Here are the facts to rule out certain things:

- The speed issue isnt just for this PC so that rules out the Network card on the PC. The problem occurs on a laptop as well, on our smartphones and ipads.

- The internal wiring to the house seems to not be the issue as the tech ran a brand new line around the house, drilling through my siding for a direct connection.

- The modem signals when the tech left were 0.2 DB, which, from my understanding, is pretty damned good.

- The problem is intermittent. So I have taken screenshots when it occurrs to give you as much data as possible.

- The tech did check the connection at the TAP and insisted all was ok.

- I am not running any servers, peer to peer file sharing, streaming music, or anything that would cause bandwidth to suffer. All I do on this PC is emails for work etc... or occasionally play an MMO video game.

At first I ran pings and tracerts to google. Normal pings are all 10-20ms for me when things work fine. When the problem starts up, I will get pings into the hundreds, sometimes into the thousands before they calm down after a few hours. The problem does go away, so it is pesky to pin down.

I also ran tracerts and took some ping Screenshots to the ftp1.optonline.net IP address, so that you can see that the problem is occurring on the OOL network - I am not even going out to the internet to see these issues.

I also posted this on direct support but I was curious if anyone ever had this type of an issue before that might have a few ideas? This is killing me, so frustrating.... when the ping times get super high the internet doesn't even browse web pages, let alone for playing a game, forget about that.

I also added some screen shots to show what I am talking about. I also posted my signals in case that helps somehow. Thanks in advance to anyone who might have thoughts on this.

-John

Just to trouble shoot, run extended pings (as you did with the ftp/google sites) to 192.168.1.1 and 192.168.100.1 (your router and Modem), when the problem occurs.

Assuming these do not show any lag, and I do not expect them to show lag, it will rule out a problem on your local network.
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Good call - but I did try that. I should have mentioned it, but my local connection was monitored as well before I tried to internet, and the pings don't go high until they leave the house. That's when I included the OOL network before the internet (by trying their FTP server) - just to see if it was happening after it left their network or not.

I am somewhat convinced it is a problem at the pole or on the node level, but I really have no way to verify that beyond what I have done afaik.

What about pings to the 1st visible IP outside of your network?
If you know how to, run Wireshark to capture raw packets and see if you can spot any packet loss or other strange things.
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Just as a follow-up to this. I did run extended wiresharks as the problem happened again tonight. There is truly nothing dubious going on internally here. When I close all windows.. close steam etc... all I get are the occasional apple itunes request going back and forth for a second or an antivirus check-in. I even disabled both of those to see if they were the root cause, but the problem still persists when all is quiet. I really think this one is out of my hands, and that worries me because I am not sure who to talk to for fixing this one.

I do have a guy looking at it on the direct support forum but all he has been doing is running pings to my modem, and when i spoke to him last he said everything looked good. Of course that was when everything was fine, and now that I have the problem I posted it again for him to look, and he didn't respond. Anyone have any other ideas? ;/

I had an issue like this awhile ago which was very hard to track down. Along with the high ping times I had packet loss (not sure if you're getting that as well).

If this happens at a set time, you may want to contact Optimum during that time period so they can make a note of it. I know when I had this issue I had to go through the same stuff you're going through before someone from their plant was able to see the issue (it only occurred during 8 PM -> 1 AM). Their last appointment was a lot earlier than that, and they could never pin it down.

As soon as the outside plant manager got a hold of the case problem was fixed within that week. I don't know the specifics of what they did but they could see that things were not looking good during certain periods of times and they nipped whatever problem it was in the bud.

Hi, I have OOL for the past 2 years and this is my first problem. For the past week, during the 5pm-10pm period our service has continuous interruptions. Each time it lasts for about 2 mins. I read this thread but not sure about the terminology the OP talks about. I just assume it's due to overuse during the evening hours. But I can't imagine everyone has this issue, otherwise who wants this service?

So is it possible something with the modem is causing the problem? I use the internet during the day and it's fine.

I just chatted with the service rep and he just suggested bringing in the modem for a new one. Is that realistic solution?