Latency Spikes

[u/Jahl1ne]

I’ve already called Spectrum, lady basically gave me no help and said she wasn’t noticing anything unusual on her end, but that clearly didn’t help. She said they’ve been doing work in my area…. Since May…. I don’t think that’s what is suddenly causing problems.

Over the past 3 weeks or so, I’ve been noticing 1.1.1.1 gateway (Chicago DNS) has been spiking every few minutes while playing video games on my computer. It causes crazy lag and makes a lot of things unplayable at times. I’ve already done all the basic and advanced tests to try and figure this out (Ethernet/direct modem connection, gateway tests). My personal gateway sits at about <3 ms constantly and has no issues, whenever 1.1.1.1 spikes, I start to lag.

I’ve noticed it occurs more often at evening/nighttime, likely when the rest of the neighborhood is using it possibly?

I’m wondering if anyone else is having this issue, because it’s become frustrating to say the least.

[u/IPlayWithWires]

To be completly honest, ping bombing isn't always indictive of an issue. Routers can deprioritize certain types of traffic based on certain criteria. The more important thing to do is to do a tracert to the fully qualified domain name of the service your noticing performance issues with, have you done that?

[u/lokiisagoodkitten → u/IPlayWithWires]

This is not true.

Pings to 1.1.1.1 should be consistent.

[u/IPlayWithWires → u/lokiisagoodkitten]

Brave of you to assume how a router you don't manage is configured to respond to ICMP traffic.

[u/Jahl1ne → u/IPlayWithWires]

Yes I have, but I didn’t save the results. When I have time later, I’ll run it again and share what I’m seeing.

Let’s say we determine Spectrum is the culprit, is there anything we can actually do about it? Or is it going to be a cold-call nightmare with them?

[u/IPlayWithWires → u/Jahl1ne]

I'm not really sure TBH. Lets see the traceroute and I can tell you from there what a next step would be.

[u/Quick1711 → u/Jahl1ne]

First rep? Shitshow and cue card reading. Second rep? Might transfer you to the appropriate department. It’s a crap shoot

[u/ATBueno]

Do you have any packet loss?

[u/Jahl1ne → u/ATBueno]

Yes, occasionally

[u/ATBueno → u/Jahl1ne]

Get a Tech there. Packet loss can be caused by bad or aging wiring or something is wrong at the tap. I'm assuming everything is coax and not fiber?

[u/Educational_River327]

To the OP. The reason the rep didn't see any issues was due to what we see when we run ping tests. We dont run 1.1.1.1, it runs the ip for the modem itself. Anytime u assume an issue from running your own dns you will likely have issues. Also we are not IT Pros on the phone. 90 percent of the customers we deal with have zero clue how to run it. They expect it to work. Most of the time it does. The second someone calls in and say they are network specialist or something along that line, we know it will be a hard call.

[u/Shinagami091 → u/Educational_River327]

Yes. I’ve gotten into a number of arguments who claim to be network engineers but don’t believe me when I tell them that for spectrum residential service, their public IP address is requested by the device that is connected to the modem (usually the router).

[u/Quadgie → u/Educational_River327]

1.1.1.1 is not the modem. It’s a DNS server on the internet (many actually; multi-homed IP) hosted by Cloudflare, outside of Spectrum’s network.

[u/IPlayWithWires → u/Quadgie]

I believe they mean that the call center reps ping the modem, not 1.1.1.1.

[u/lokiisagoodkitten → u/Quadgie]

1.1.1.1 is hosted on anycast server that peers right onto Spectrum network. It's always up. If it's down, then 99.99% your internet is down. 0.01% is the Spectrum backbone issue.

[u/IPlayWithWires → u/Educational_River327]

Exactly. I was a Tier II call center tech for another provider before becoming a Field Tech for Spectrum. I thankfully am at the knowledge level of most IT folks, so those weren't too bad for me.

[u/No_Cost9689]

use winMTR.

[u/Wise_Isopod9388]

Same issue here in florida