2nd hop showing a "worst" of over 4,000 regularly on WinMTR. Games, streams, etc routinely pause/lag

[mikeplowright]

I posted earlier about my internet constantly having big lag spikes whenever a constant connection is needed (i.e when live streaming, when watching streams, when gaming). I have 750/750 fiber internet. The download speeds on speed test always show good results but the actual performance has been horrible. Running WinMTR multiple times for extended periods showed very little to no packet loss, and every hop except for the 2nd seemed completely fine.

However, the 2nd hop very clearly portrays my problem - a solid average speed  with spikes of 4 second+ response time.

Interestingly, if I switch on a VPN and have a location close to my place selected for a server, the WinMTR shows no big spikes in ms though it does result in slower overall speeds. However, they are consistent speeds allowing me to actually watch streams, stream myself, and play games which are the big 3 things for my computer.

What could be the problem here and how can this be resolved? At this point, it is unusable for me without a VPN but a VPN does not allow me to unlock the speeds I am paying for and want.

[Nighthawk]

Post the MTR results. Typically if the second hop has an odd result, all that follow will as well unless that device isn't always responding to ICMP. That doesn't necessarily indicate there is a problem.

If you're on fibre, you don't have a modem. There will be an ONT and a router typically and the router is the one you'll see on MTR. Do you have the T3200M? Do you also have your own third party router also connected?

[mikeplowright]

Right, the ONT and the T3200M.

Host	%	Sent	Recv	Best	Avrg	Wrst	Last
192.168.1.254	0	581	581	0	0	48	1
10.29.238.1	1	534	530	1	129	3760	7
STTLWAWBCI01.bb.telus.com	0	581	581	10	12	59	11
154.11.2.145	0	581	581	13	18	185	14
ae1-br01-eqse2.as57976.net	0	581	581	40	43	122	41
xe-0-0-0-1-br01-eqsv5.as57976.net	0	581	581	40	44	143	41
et-0-0-29-br02-eqsv5.as57976.net	0	581	581	42	44	103	43
xe-0-0-1-1-br02-eqla1.as57976.net	0	581	581	42	48	152	43
et-0-0-29-br01-eqla1.as57976.net	0	581	581	42	47	156	43
et-0-0-2-br01-swlv10.as57976.net	0	581	581	41	45	110	42
et-0-0-0-pe02-swlv10.as57976.net	0	581	581	41	45	164	76
las-swlv10-ia-bons-02.as57976.net	0	581	581	40	41	89	41
137.221.105.2	0	581	581	40	41	88	41

those are the MTR results. I've also done a pingpath that showed this,

Hop  RTT    Lost/Sent = Pct  Lost/Sent = Pct  Address

  0                                           DESKTOP-VUQU32C.telus [192.168.1.64]

                                0/ 100 =  0%   |

  1    0ms     0/ 100 =  0%     0/ 100 =  0%  192.168.1.254

                                0/ 100 =  0%   |

  2    2ms     0/ 100 =  0%     0/ 100 =  0%  10.29.238.1

                                0/ 100 =  0%   |

  3  ---     100/ 100 =100%   100/ 100 =100%  STTLWAWBCI01.bb.telus.com [75.154.217.106]

                                0/ 100 =  0%   |

  4  ---     100/ 100 =100%   100/ 100 =100%  154.11.2.145

                                0/ 100 =  0%   |

  5   54ms     0/ 100 =  0%     0/ 100 =  0%  ae1-br01-eqse2.as57976.net [137.221.73.33]

                                0/ 100 =  0%   |

  6   51ms     0/ 100 =  0%     0/ 100 =  0%  xe-0-0-0-1-br01-eqsv5.as57976.net [137.221.65.40]

                                0/ 100 =  0%   |

  7   52ms     0/ 100 =  0%     0/ 100 =  0%  et-0-0-29-br02-eqsv5.as57976.net [137.221.65.117]

                                0/ 100 =  0%   |

  8   59ms     0/ 100 =  0%     0/ 100 =  0%  xe-0-0-1-1-br02-eqla1.as57976.net [137.221.65.6]

                                0/ 100 =  0%   |

  9   55ms     1/ 100 =  1%     1/ 100 =  1%  et-0-0-29-br01-eqla1.as57976.net [137.221.65.0]

                                0/ 100 =  0%   |

 10   59ms     0/ 100 =  0%     0/ 100 =  0%  et-0-0-2-br01-swlv10.as57976.net [137.221.65.69]

                                0/ 100 =  0%   |

 11   48ms     0/ 100 =  0%     0/ 100 =  0%  et-0-0-0-pe02-swlv10.as57976.net [137.221.83.83]

                                0/ 100 =  0%   |

 12  ---     100/ 100 =100%   100/ 100 =100%  las-swlv10-ia-bons-02.as57976.net [137.221.66.19]

                                0/ 100 =  0%   |

 13   41ms     0/ 100 =  0%     0/ 100 =  0%  137.221.105.2

It seems testing shows very inconsistent results, which kind of describes the problems I have when using this internet without a VPN - semi-regular speeds with spikes of extremely slow to no connection, but not long enough to actually disconnect me from a game or stream or anything.

I do not have a third party router but did order one to try and see if it would solve any of these problems.

Where I get stumped is why using a VPN would solve this.

[mikeplowright]

also, I'm not saying there is a problem because of the test results. The problem is how this internet performs when I'm trying to use it without a VPN. The test results are just me trying to find out what the problem is.

[Nighthawk]

The problem could be a number of things, if it's even a straight forward connection issue. I'd say start by speaking with tech support directly and see if there are any issues or errors with the connection. If you're using a VPN, it'll still be connecting through that same second hop since it is the first device outside of the house that the T3200 reaches first. Possibly a QoS issue but hard to say for sure.

My MTR to the same IP shows pretty much the same path with the exception of the second hop.

|------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|                                      WinMTR statistics                                   |
|                       Host              -   %  | Sent | Recv | Best | Avrg | Wrst | Last |
|------------------------------------------------|------|------|------|------|------|------|
|                           192.168.1.254 -    0 |   59 |   59 |    0 |    0 |    1 |    0 |
|                            10.145.148.1 -    0 |   59 |   59 |    4 |    4 |    5 |    4 |
|               sttlwawbci01.bb.telus.com -    0 |   59 |   59 |   28 |   28 |   31 |   29 |
|                            154.11.2.145 -    0 |   59 |   59 |   25 |   30 |   85 |   26 |
|              ae1-br01-eqse2.as57976.net -    0 |   59 |   59 |   58 |   60 |  112 |   58 |
|       xe-0-0-0-1-br01-eqsv5.as57976.net -    0 |   59 |   59 |   58 |   60 |  119 |   59 |
|        et-0-0-29-br02-eqsv5.as57976.net -    0 |   59 |   59 |   58 |   59 |   83 |   58 |
|       xe-0-0-1-1-br02-eqla1.as57976.net -    0 |   59 |   59 |   54 |   60 |  116 |   55 |
|        et-0-0-29-br01-eqla1.as57976.net -    0 |   59 |   59 |   58 |   64 |  119 |   75 |
|        et-0-0-2-br01-swlv10.as57976.net -    0 |   59 |   59 |   78 |   81 |  122 |   80 |
|        et-0-0-0-pe01-swlv10.as57976.net -    0 |   59 |   59 |   54 |   56 |  121 |   55 |
|                           137.221.105.2 -    0 |   59 |   59 |   53 |   54 |   56 |   54 |
|________________________________________________|______|______|______|______|______|______|

I even tried MTR to your second hop but see no loss

|------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|                                      WinMTR statistics                                   |
|                       Host              -   %  | Sent | Recv | Best | Avrg | Wrst | Last |
|------------------------------------------------|------|------|------|------|------|------|
|                           192.168.1.254 -    0 |  740 |  740 |    0 |    0 |   11 |    1 |
|                            10.145.148.1 -    0 |  741 |  741 |    3 |    4 |   14 |    4 |
|                             10.29.238.1 -    0 |  741 |  741 |   15 |   15 |   26 |   16 |
|________________________________________________|______|______|______|______|______|______|

[mikeplowright]

I spoke to tech support the other day and he recommended first to try a third party router to bridge to, and if that doesn't work give a static IP a go. They said they did not see any connection issues on their end. It's strange because when I lived just 10 minutes away we had copper internet and this never happened; I've only noticed it since upgrading to fiber. My parents house also has a similar issue (I went over and tested it) on fiber but they only browse the internet so it does not effect them noticeably.

I'm going to give the new router a try once it arrives and see if that solves it. This is such a strange issue that I've yet to talk to anyone that understands what it could be, though I have read a few other similar cases both on reddit and these specific forums that never seemed to have found a solution (the VPN seems to be the best fix.. which still makes no sense to me)