Verizon FiOS → lag and speed issues

I'm posting on my brothers behalf. He is having some major issues with lag via gaming consoles. He has the fios 70/25 package I believe. I Play call of duty like it's life and I'm very superb and I can tell he is def having issues. I get a ps4 speed test of 50 down and 6 up on average. I goto his place and get a crappy 13 down and 2 up. I use BHN. I tested at another friends house who is only a around the corner from him and has the same Verizon package and consistently get 50d and over 5 up. Why would he have such low speeds? Yes i understand it's a reference only and we are using it just as that and the information tells me he is having issues. I was going to give him my router but apparently verizon does not bridge their modems? That is a bit odd. What can he do to fix this problem? Is is signal related? Is there some Qos setting in a fios router to improve bandwidth to gaming consoles?

More questions than answers:
1. How is the PS4 connected to the network at each location?
2. If wireless, what version of the router does your brother have?
3. Is your brother using any special configuration on his network? Dual router for example.

Hardwired, he has m1424wr. he said he has never changed anything within the setting of the router. All factory settings.

I was going to give him my asus rt-N65U router but apparently verizon policy is they wont bridge their modems.. Is that a serious policy? I suggest this router because of the information it transfers. I'm huge fan Of asus routers. It actually has a Qos setting for The PSN (playstaion network) and you can set priority to it.

The Verizon router is not a modem. You can place the Asus behind the Actiontec, but that won't fix any issues. If your brother's internet is currently delivered over MoCA (Coax) and its possible to run an ethernet cable from the router location to the Verizon ONT, you can have VZ provision your internet over ethernet. Then you can use any router you want (with some downsides if you also have FiOS TV):
»Verizon FiOS FAQ »What are the tradeoffs between the various router configurations
»Verizon FiOS FAQ »Do I have to use Verizon's router?
»Verizon FiOS FAQ »Can I use my own router as primary and keep remote DVR

But again, I don't think any of that will solve your problem. I'd make sure the PS3 isn't somehow preferring wireless even though ethernet is connected. Also check the speed of the connection using a computer connected to the Actiontec router.

Online gaming has relatively low bandwidth requirements - any router from the last 10 years should be able to handle it. Latency is more important - try pinging a few locations from your brother's network and make sure there's no packet loss or anything else out of the ordinary.

I was just about to post what Thinkdiff just posted.

Do a speed test on a PC using speedtest.net. Use Miami -> Comcast option on the map and post your results.

Post a trace route to the game servers you have problems on.

I'll bet you 1 billion U.S. dollars some packet loss or high latency on a hop or two somewhere in the middle of that route. From your router to Verizon's internal network the path will be excellent with zero or minimal latency/packet loss. The same will apply to the last 1-3 hops to the final game server address. However, somewhere in the middle of the route there will be a clusterf$#k due to lack of bandwidth on a transit provider serving traffic between Verizon and the hosting company of that game server.

I will have him do this today. sorry, We have 50 miles distance between us so driving to him is not so easy. There is a Ethernet jack outside of the house located right next to the verizon exterior box. someone said this is a raw bandwidth jack and suggested him to run a usb from there to his console. Not sure how valid that is.

I'm not sure how you'd plug a USB cable into an ethernet port on the ONT but yeah, if you run an ethernet cable from the ONT exterior box to the Actiontec it will usually drop latency some, a lot if he has older cables.

Most on here only see a 5 to 10 ms drop doing this but some, like me in my apartment and at my house with many splitters on my coax network, it dropped my latency by about 30ms.

That probably won't solve the packetloss issues though unless his coax is horribly old or bad. Traceroutes are going to be the only way to find that out. I would try pinging the fios gateway IP as well to see if it's related to just his fios connection or if the problem is further down Verizon's network.

I will definitely do just that. i'm just waiting for him to get out fo work so we can start trouble shooting. I'm unfamiliar with verizon service and told him to just get a tech out. But it seems verizon is a bit on the slow end and he said they won't any wiring free of cost. I'm just baffled by that.. Being a BHN (brighthouse networks) customer they pretty much do everything free of charge. I was having issues myself and had a tech here the very next changing all my splitters inside the house. They went to the outside box of my condo and changed wiring and some other mishaps and even had a tech change some parts on the service telephone pole outside. I rather have fios to be honest only because in most cases your inter is more reliable and quicker but my condo signed a contract with BHN and i cannot have fios. But I get damn good speeds non the less. running 103 down only 11up ( their upload needs to double in my opinion) 10 ms ping, 0 packet loss and only 1 on the jitter. I'm actually going to get a static IP saturday just for my ps4 console. Not sure if verizon offers that. I know static Ip's were exclusive for business only but BHN now offers it to residential customers. I do envy that fios though lol.

I meant Ethernet cord not usb. My mistake. There is literally a Ethernet jack on his outside wall.

where should I do a packet loss test? pingtest.net? should I use a specific server? I know it only send out 250 packets.

Ok here are results and they don't look good at all! On pingtest.net we did 2 test. First was orlando, 250 packets sent, 240 received (2%) loss, 54 ms ping

Tampa pingtest, 0 packet loss, 53 ms ping, jitter 7

Now speedtest.net

Tampa result, ping 42, 58.58 down, 39.35 up

miami speedtest on comcast server results..

ping 463.. 5.04 down and 5.02 up

Yea...not good at all.

On how routing for VZ works in the Tampa area, Miami should have gotten a better test than Tampa.

I notice that you opened a ticket with VZ Direct. Did you get anywhere with them?

I did my own server test on comcast in miami and got 50ms ping, 87 down and roughly 10 up. I'm only 35 miles closer to that server than him. His ping seems outrageous. I can ping fairbanks alaska better which is over 3000 miles away at 102 ms. Seems he has some signal related issues i would guess. Any feedback would be mych appreciated.

I was speaking to a tech but he was talking about port forwarding but I really don't think that is the case here. Normally, You would only need to open ports if you have a strict NAT type which he does not. He has a NAT type 2 so it's open, Not moderate or strict. The test were done hardwired on a pc btw.

BHN and VZ take different routes in the Tampa area.

Example: For me to get to a Tampa location on VZ I have to route to Atlanta or Miami to come to Tampa. BHN takes a more direct route.

My pings to Miami are 10ms as opposed to 40-50ms to Tampa.

Please post a tracert going to a website.

You going to have to elaborate on what a tracert is for me lol. I don't know to much about internet.

Start -> Run -> Type CMD and press enter.
The command window will open. Type "tracert dslreports.com" and press enter. You should get some results like above.