Routing through Level 3 Communications - problem or not?

[Noggo]

Afternoon,

I've been playing on a couple of games server over the weekend which I haven't been on in a while and I've noticed that my ping is 10-15ms higher than normal. The first trace route is to a UK based games server, which should be pinging around 15ms and the second is a server in USA, which should be around 100ms. The connection is stable and the only thing showing up on trace routes is a jump in latency at the point it leaves the VM network to Level 3 communications network. Is there any issues or known problems at this point? How would I go about resolving the problem, be it with VM or level 3.

n.b. All other UK, european and US servers I play on are fine, as they don't go through Level3.



Tracing route to 217.163.10.48 over a maximum of 30 hops

1 7 ms 7 ms 10 ms xx.xxx.xxx.x
2 10 ms 9 ms 7 ms osr01brom-v15.network.virginmedia.net [62.30.254.193]
3 16 ms 13 ms 16 ms osr01wolv-tenge81.network.virginmedia.net [62.30.254.61]
4 13 ms 13 ms 13 ms man-bb-a-ge-130-0.network.virginmedia.net [195.182.178.65]
5 26 ms 27 ms 25 ms 212.187.136.125
6 40 ms 36 ms 34 ms ae-4-4.ebr1.London1.Level3.net [4.69.133.102]
7 36 ms 35 ms 35 ms ge-10-1.ipcolo2.London1.Level3.net [4.68.116.74]
8 28 ms 28 ms 28 ms 217.163.10.48

Trace complete.


Tracing route to 8.9.36.108 over a maximum of 30 hops

1 9 ms 8 ms 7 ms xx.xxx.xxx.x
2 14 ms 7 ms 7 ms osr01brom-v15.network.virginmedia.net [62.30.254.193]
3 15 ms 13 ms 16 ms osr01wolv-tenge81.network.virginmedia.net [62.30.254.61]
4 17 ms 16 ms 15 ms man-bb-a-ge-130-0.network.virginmedia.net [195.182.178.65]
5 27 ms 27 ms 25 ms 212.187.136.125
6 39 ms 35 ms 35 ms ae-4-4.ebr1.London1.Level3.net [4.69.133.102]
7 28 ms 32 ms 37 ms ae-1-100.ebr2.London1.Level3.net [4.69.132.118]
8 90 ms 91 ms 90 ms ae-44-44.ebr1.NewYork1.Level3.net [4.69.137.78]
9 93 ms 105 ms 108 ms ae-71-71.csw2.NewYork1.Level3.net [4.69.134.70]
10 101 ms 91 ms 89 ms ae-72-72.ebr2.NewYork1.Level3.net [4.69.134.85]
11 123 ms 115 ms 119 ms ae-2.ebr1.Chicago1.Level3.net [4.69.132.65]
12 110 ms 114 ms 113 ms ae-14-51.car4.Chicago1.Level3.net [4.68.101.8]
13 110 ms 112 ms 110 ms 4.79.66.146
14 111 ms 111 ms 111 ms 8.9.36.108

Trace complete.

[Stabhappy]

those are not only acceptable pings, but im impressed at how low the US one is. It looks fine to me.

[Noggo]

30ms to London UK, should be 15-20ms from Midlands. I can play on German servers with pings of around 35ms which are just over 550 miles away and thats over five times the distance to the UK server, which is 96 miles away.

[Stabhappy]

Either way that ping is neither high nor VM's problem, if you're honestly worried that 28 ping is too high then you're, unfortunately, alone in the matter.

[dev]

30ms to london is fine imo too as is anything under 130ms to the US

[|Kippa|]

I remember the good old days of having 56k modem with a ping of 150 to uk servers. Playing Quake 1 online with that ping was still playable and ok. I miss Barrysworld. :(

[Ignitionnet]

Ignoring the above, 30ms on cable is a touch high for London and 130ms is rather high for Eastern USA by the way, 90ms is not impressive for Eastern USA, and that ping is VM's problem as it's their interconnect to Level3, you shouldn't be seeing any major problems at that ping.

Test download speeds through it, if you see those being below par it does suggest some congestion on that link.

Kippa, I was a community liaison for Barrysworld, I miss it too :)

[AmAtoL]

I played TFC on BarrysWorld while it was up and running... good days indeed :)
Plus I can't see why someone would think a ping twice as high as it should be doesn't constitute a problem. I've had this arguement many times on here and don't intend to have it again, that's why I left for UkOnline. Still have cable btw so can still test the connection quality any time.

[Noggo]

I remember the good old days of having 56k modem with a ping of 150 to uk servers. Playing Quake 1 online with that ping was still playable and ok. I miss Barrysworld. :(

You should have paid for a good 56K dail up then. I use to play off 100ms ping with FreeUK 56K and many times got kicked from the Quake 3 HPB - 56K modem only servers because my ping was to low. The good old days of pwning ISDNers as well in Q3 clan arena.

And yes I miss Barrysworld too...
https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/local/2008/11/27.jpg

Anyway back to the thread.
If I'm reading it right, I've got to find some file to download from a site that uses that route through level3 and test it at peak / off peak to see if there is any drop off. The reason I ask is because I didn't see any mojor differences in my latency all over the weekend while playing on the servers, which would point to no congestion anywhere enroute (having played on a over-subscribed UBR for 9 months I know what an erratic ping feels like and it wasn't it). All I noticed that it was higher than normal.

Generally download speeds are fine pulling full 20Meg during day with very little drop off peak time / weekends (lowest around 15 Megb or so), Latency is stable nearly all the time too. Although the Bromsgrove UBR I'm on still has some worked planed in Jan 09, I personally have had a card change, along with two IP address changes in late August / earlier September which improved things no end, be it from planned capacity maintenance, resegementation or just luck I don't know. All I know is that most of the problems with bad erratic latency and yo-yo download speed have gone.

[dev]

Ignoring the above, 30ms on cable is a touch high for London and 130ms is rather high for Eastern USA by the way, 90ms is not impressive for Eastern USA, and that ping is VM's problem as it's their interconnect to Level3, you shouldn't be seeing any major problems at that ping.

Test download speeds through it, if you see those being below par it does suggest some congestion on that link.

Kippa, I was a community liaison for Barrysworld, I miss it too :)

yes 30ms is a touch high but not high, you should only start to care around 40ms+. 130ms for the US is again not the best but not something you should worry about, if you read the original post again you'll see it's not 130ms either ;). 90ms to the east coast *is* impressive, you'll be very lucky to see under 100ms to the east coast.

Just checked the pings of those 2 IPs from my server down south and got 2ms to the UK one and 103ms to the US one

[Noggo]

you'll be very lucky to see under 100ms to the east coast.

Games server just south of NY (I say just, but `just' to Americans in like the length of the UK :))
E:\Documents and Settings\Bob>ping 69.12.76.14 -n 10

Pinging 69.12.76.14 with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 69.12.76.14: bytes=32 time=93ms TTL=116
Reply from 69.12.76.14: bytes=32 time=93ms TTL=116
Reply from 69.12.76.14: bytes=32 time=93ms TTL=116
Reply from 69.12.76.14: bytes=32 time=93ms TTL=116
Reply from 69.12.76.14: bytes=32 time=94ms TTL=116
Reply from 69.12.76.14: bytes=32 time=93ms TTL=116
Reply from 69.12.76.14: bytes=32 time=96ms TTL=116
Reply from 69.12.76.14: bytes=32 time=92ms TTL=116
Reply from 69.12.76.14: bytes=32 time=93ms TTL=116
Reply from 69.12.76.14: bytes=32 time=92ms TTL=116

Ping statistics for 69.12.76.14:
Packets: Sent = 10, Received = 10, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 92ms, Maximum = 96ms, Average = 93ms


As regards the UK and US servers in the OP, you can tell something is wrong by the way the game reacts.

[Noggo]

:LOL: I think Level 3 have got some issues. UK games server 166ms ping joke, fine everwhere else in the UK apart from this one server thats get routed through Level 3 + US servers that get routed through them are also high.

Is it worth getting in contact with VM, to see what they can do?

Pinging 217.163.10.48 with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 217.163.10.48: bytes=32 time=166ms TTL=50
Reply from 217.163.10.48: bytes=32 time=166ms TTL=50
Reply from 217.163.10.48: bytes=32 time=165ms TTL=50
Reply from 217.163.10.48: bytes=32 time=167ms TTL=50

Ping statistics for 217.163.10.48:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 165ms, Maximum = 167ms, Average = 166ms


Tracing route to 217.163.10.48 over a maximum of 30 hops

1 8 ms 8 ms 7 ms xx.xxx.xxx.x
2 11 ms 8 ms 14 ms osr01brom-v15.network.virginmedia.net [62.30.254.193]
3 14 ms 12 ms 10 ms osr01wolv-tenge81.network.virginmedia.net [62.30.254.61]
4 10 ms 13 ms 12 ms man-bb-a-ge-510-0.network.virginmedia.net [213.105.174.145]
5 123 ms 27 ms 27 ms 212.187.136.125
6 172 ms 167 ms 175 ms ae-4-4.ebr1.London1.Level3.net [4.69.133.102]
7 169 ms 171 ms 174 ms ge-10-1.ipcolo2.London1.Level3.net [4.68.116.74]
8 167 ms 165 ms 165 ms 217.163.10.48

Trace complete.

One from Jolt (fine).

Pinging 82.133.85.65 with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 82.133.85.65: bytes=32 time=17ms TTL=55
Reply from 82.133.85.65: bytes=32 time=19ms TTL=55
Reply from 82.133.85.65: bytes=32 time=18ms TTL=55
Reply from 82.133.85.65: bytes=32 time=19ms TTL=55
Reply from 82.133.85.65: bytes=32 time=19ms TTL=55
Reply from 82.133.85.65: bytes=32 time=17ms TTL=55
Reply from 82.133.85.65: bytes=32 time=20ms TTL=55
Reply from 82.133.85.65: bytes=32 time=20ms TTL=55
Reply from 82.133.85.65: bytes=32 time=18ms TTL=55
Reply from 82.133.85.65: bytes=32 time=18ms TTL=55

Ping statistics for 82.133.85.65:
Packets: Sent = 10, Received = 10, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 17ms, Maximum = 20ms, Average = 18ms

[Noggo]

Turns out that is was a problem with Level 3 Communications. I finally got to speak to the guy who rents the server from gameservers.com and there already knew and where working on the problem.

:woot: low ping again

Pinging 217.163.10.48 with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 217.163.10.48: bytes=32 time=17ms TTL=57
Reply from 217.163.10.48: bytes=32 time=15ms TTL=57
Reply from 217.163.10.48: bytes=32 time=15ms TTL=57
Reply from 217.163.10.48: bytes=32 time=15ms TTL=57
Reply from 217.163.10.48: bytes=32 time=15ms TTL=57
Reply from 217.163.10.48: bytes=32 time=16ms TTL=57
Reply from 217.163.10.48: bytes=32 time=16ms TTL=57
Reply from 217.163.10.48: bytes=32 time=16ms TTL=57
Reply from 217.163.10.48: bytes=32 time=15ms TTL=57
Reply from 217.163.10.48: bytes=32 time=17ms TTL=57

Ping statistics for 217.163.10.48:
Packets: Sent = 10, Received = 10, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 15ms, Maximum = 17ms, Average = 15ms