The 10pm 'bump'

[buckleb]

I've noticed on a couple of days recently, that there is a bump in my broadband ping monitor (with accompanying packet loss).

Now it doesn't seem to be causing any problems for me (I'm not a gamer and don't download huge amounts) I'd be interested to know what this could be. I think it started over a week ago, so before I had my service upgraded to 100Mb.

Here's some examples:

December 1st
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/ping/share-thumb/0ebba3489f8f61974d4dc34f45673b2b-01-12-2011.png (http://www.thinkbroadband.com/ping/share/0ebba3489f8f61974d4dc34f45673b2b-01-12-2011.html)

December 4th
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/ping/share-thumb/0ce1efef0bc739ad5732ade13a2796fd-04-12-2011.png (http://www.thinkbroadband.com/ping/share/0ce1efef0bc739ad5732ade13a2796fd-04-12-2011.html)

December 6th
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/ping/share-thumb/1795efdb7d5cc9cc44ccf9d95e4f5925-05-12-2011.png (http://www.thinkbroadband.com/ping/share/1795efdb7d5cc9cc44ccf9d95e4f5925-05-12-2011.html)

I should probably stop obsessing about these graphs, but any ideas?

[Slyder]

have you been given a new superhub?

[buckleb]

Yes I was given one as part of my upgrade, but saw this bump before that day too!

[Ignitionnet]

Yes, it's due to congestion between Brentford and Croydon. Crawley, like Mortlake where I'm connected, goes through Croydon, I just checked.

Here's a reverse traceroute from TBB and a forward one from me:

# Host Sent Recvd Best Avg Worst
1 thinkbroadband-gw2.core-rs2.thdo.ncuk.net 15 15 0ms 3ms 11ms
2 gi4-3-10-star1.bdr-rt1.thn.ncuk.net 15 15 0ms 0ms 4ms
3 gi4-47-10-star1.bdr-rt3.thdo.ncuk.net 15 15 0ms 4ms 49ms
4 linx-gw2.router.ntli.net 15 15 0ms 1ms 4ms
5 brnt-tmr-1-as0-0.network.virginmedia.net 15 15 1ms 2ms 26ms
6 brnt-bb-1b-ae5-0.network.virginmedia.net 14 15 1ms 11ms 76ms
7 brnt-bb-1a-ae0-0.network.virginmedia.net 15 15 1ms 3ms 23ms
9 mort-geam-1a-tenge71.network.virginmedia.net 15 15 15ms 21ms 60ms
10 mort-cmts-06-gigaether-151.network.virginmedia.net 15 15 17ms 19ms 21ms
11 cpc8-mort6-2-0-custx.croy.cable.virginmedia.com 14 15 23ms 32ms 41ms

traceroute to 80.249.99.123 (80.249.99.123), 30 hops max, 40 byte packets

1 cpc8-mort6-2-0-gw.croy.cable.virginmedia.com (82.43.108.1) 9.369 ms 21.926 ms 7.658 ms
2 mort-geam-1a-ge115.network.virginmedia.net (81.96.225.25) 7.463 ms 9.002 ms 8.465 ms
3 croy-core-1b-tenge81-490.network.virginmedia.net (62.30.242.57) 10.952 ms 20.364 ms 13.510 ms
4 croy-core-1a-v99.network.virginmedia.net (195.182.179.57) 8.920 ms 7.863 ms 7.730 ms
5 brnt-bb-1a-ae2-0.network.virginmedia.net (195.182.178.82) 31.984 ms 35.280 ms 32.014 ms
6 brnt-bb-1b-ae0-0.network.virginmedia.net (213.105.174.226) 39.494 ms 40.668 ms 28.906 ms
7 brnt-tmr-1-ae5-0.network.virginmedia.net (213.105.159.50) 28.072 ms 29.007 ms 32.182 ms
8 telc-ic-1-as0-0.network.virginmedia.net (62.253.185.74) 26.099 ms 26.781 ms 29.373 ms
9 linx-gw1.thdo.ncuk.net (195.66.226.240) 38.386 ms 39.034 ms 32.961 ms
10 gi0-24-10-star1.core-rs2.thdo.ncuk.net (80.249.97.9) 34.847 ms 30.883 ms 32.012 ms
11 speedtest1.thinkbroadband.com (80.249.99.123) 28.560 ms 32.360 ms 28.443 ms

Trace complete

You can't see Croydon in the first trace but you can see the jump in latency between Mortlake and Brentford, the second trace shows this to be due to congestion between Croydon and Brentford as Mortlake <> Croydon is fine.

This will affect you in the exact same way, as you'll take the same path from Croydon.

1 1 ms <1 ms <1 ms CISCOE4200 [192.168.10.1]
2 10 ms 45 ms 20 ms cpc8-mort6-2-0-gw.croy.cable.virginmedia.com [82.43.108.1]
3 9 ms 11 ms 21 ms mort-geam-1a-ge215.network.virginmedia.net [81.96.225.153]
4 23 ms 17 ms 11 ms croy-core-1a-tenge81-490.network.virginmedia.net [62.30.242.41]
5 24 ms 22 ms 11 ms craw-geam-1a-tenge71.network.virginmedia.net [62.30.242.46]
6 13 ms 12 ms 13 ms craw-cmts-01.network.virginmedia.net [82.7.205.26]

EDIT: The routing is a bit weird generally - notice I'm going Mort 1a - Croy 1b - Croy 1a to get to TBB, which makes no sense as Mort 1a is connected directly to Croy 1a and Croy 1b so could save a hop by going direct.

[buckleb]

Well I think that comprehensively explains it!

Thanks, very interesting.

[thenry]

is there an eta on a fix ignition?

[Ignitionnet]

No idea.

[thenry]

Ignition whats this..

http://ukinternetreport.co.uk/cmts/details.php?area=crwl&town=Croydon

theres two Croydons, the above link being the latter. its got crwl02 is that separately linked to Crawley?

[Ignitionnet]

That's a test uBR that lives in Crawley Court, Winchester, which is actually the office where I worked for ntl way back when.

It's homed from Southampton, not Croydon.

9 16 ms 14 ms 13 ms sotn-core-1b-ae1-0.network.virginmedia.net [212.43.163.154]
10 17 ms 15 ms 15 ms sotn-cam-1b-ge-wan31.network.virginmedia.net [195.182.175.158]
11 16 ms 14 ms 15 ms crwl-ram-1a-ge20.network.virginmedia.net [80.4.226.174]
12 16 ms 14 ms 23 ms crwl-cmts-02.network.virginmedia.net [62.253.190.230]

---------- Post added at 10:28 ---------- Previous post was at 10:24 ----------

They may have actually sorted this - I can see that 2 new core routers, croy-core-2a and 2b, have gone live which will have increased the capacity between Croydon and the rest of the network a ton.

[buckleb]

Could be. There was a bump on Tuesday night, but not last night (though some packetloss is still evident). I'll have a look over the next couple of days to see how that goes (as I'm temporarily immobile and bored :)).

Tuesday
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/ping/share-thumb/d67b764ce713c8472ca0a037bd6deff6-06-12-2011.png (http://www.thinkbroadband.com/ping/share/d67b764ce713c8472ca0a037bd6deff6-06-12-2011.html)

Wednesday
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/ping/share-thumb/0aeb7a5f41ac73897aa879cd018bf608-07-12-2011.png (http://www.thinkbroadband.com/ping/share/0aeb7a5f41ac73897aa879cd018bf608-07-12-2011.html)

[thenry]

thanks for replying Ignition.

looks much better. has your test results got any better Buck

http://ukinternetreport.co.uk/cmts/details.php?area=craw&town=Crawley

[buckleb]

Yes speedtests are in the mid-90Mb range now, so it all seems to have settled down nicely.

[Ignitionnet]

Yes speedtests are in the mid-90Mb range now, so it all seems to have settled down nicely.

:tu:

[ccarmock]

My connection off the New Malden node has improved fairly significantly towards the end of the past week, so maybe these new core routers in Croydon have helped there too. Though it's not quite as clean as buckleb's

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/ping/share-thumb/6544b05755720741c746f5639691085e-10-12-2011.png (http://www.thinkbroadband.com/ping/share/6544b05755720741c746f5639691085e-10-12-2011.html)