Bad routes through Qwest

This is a dup post. I posted to high speed forum, but realised this is more appropriate forum.

Had FIOS installed on 11/3 and have 2 weeks left to decide to keep it. (Not looking good.)

Verizon network techs.

In a nut shell, any routes going through qwest drop too many packets. I see packets through alter.net get dropped sometimes too.

I have seen up to 90% packet loss through qwest routers.

Verizon needs to drop thier peering agreement with qwest, and quit routing traffic through them.

using mtr (my traceroute)

Packets Pings
Host Loss% Snt Last Avg Best Wrst StDev
1. DD-WRT 0.0% 20 0.4 0.4 0.4 0.5 0.0
2. Wireless_Broadband_Router.home 0.0% 20 0.7 0.6 0.6 0.7 0.0
3. L100.BLTMMD-VFTTP-59.verizon-gni 0.0% 20 13.7 12.8 6.3 27.2 5.3
4. G0-10-3-6.BLTMMD-LCR-21.verizon- 0.0% 20 13.9 15.0 9.7 18.6 2.2
5. ae4-0.RES-BB-RTR1.verizon-gni.ne 0.0% 20 9.6 30.1 9.6 119.4 30.9
6. 0.xe-5-1-0.BR1.IAD8.ALTER.NET 0.0% 20 18.0 17.8 11.6 44.3 6.9
7. 63-235-40-49.dia.static.qwest.ne 5.3% 19 20.4 21.0 15.7 32.3 3.8
8. tuk-edge-14.inet.qwest.net 88.9% 19 92.6 94.9 92.6 97.2 3.2
9. 65-122-235-178.dia.static.qwest. 0.0% 19 94.5 92.9 87.6 96.9 3.1
10. 205.251.225.24 0.0% 19 90.9 91.3 86.9 96.2 2.2
11. 205.251.232.107 0.0% 19 96.5 100.2 96.5 104.9 3.1
12. 205.251.232.215 0.0% 19 104.8 113.7 97.1 155.3 18.4
13. 205.251.232.61 0.0% 19 99.1 109.4 99.0 136.8 10.9
14. ec2-54-213-111-10.us-west-2.comp 0.0% 19 105.6 101.1 96.9 107.4 3.6

I will continue to monitor my wife's happiness level and make the dicesion to drop or not. I still have comcast hooked up, and all the sites my wife is complaining about, do not have issues running through comcast network and routes which do not include qwest starting from comcast network.

Accepted answers

mojibake

I appreciate the reply, but I will have to disagree.

I thought about router dropping ICMP traffic as you stated.

But then I thought...If the router is getting overloaded enough that it needs to start dropping less prioritized traffic, then that is telling me it is overloaded and running at full capacity. And if it is dropped less priroritized traffic, then it is dropping other traffic. "other" likely included streaming videos and such, or over seas bound traffic. Streaming Video is often classfied as "Bulk" and on the lower priority.

It only takes one bad router to screw up a connection. Because when a packet drops. The TCP stack with resend again until all expected packets are sent/received, and in the order they were expected. UDP is on the application to resend packets or deal with what has been received. However I beleive all Web Browser based stream is TCP based.

Above if the objective view of the problem. Below is the subjective view of the problem.

I did more than enough testing hook up the fios..Try to watch a video...Hang 3mins in. Waiting on video to load.

Hook up the Comcast the video fully buffers before 3mins is up.

Hook the fios backup...hanging within a few mins waiting on video to load again.

Tried with various Asian sites, always slow loading with Fios and expected load time with Comcast.

As stated bpreviously. If I was only connecting to USA based sites, i probably would have no complaints with Fios.

However main usage of internect is connecting to Asian based sites, I need to choose the service that best serves my needs.

All comments

Namronorman

You'll find regular issues with qwest, ntt, above.net, xo, and cogent. Sometimes you'll find issues with Level 3. Verizon is a complete bully with their peering - even to other tier 1 providers. Comcast isn't great with peering but is a lot better.

mojibake

After enough reading on the forums and out there in the either, I determined that we would not ultimately be happy customers and to just quit while we still can. (Within 30days).

I called to Sunday to cancel. The rep who first took my call replied "We see that you have not spoken to tech support about your issue. Would you like to speak to tech support? Maybe they will be able to resolve you issues" I replied "No thank you. Just ready to cancel. This is not a problem you can fix." He replied "I can give you a $49.99 credit if you are willing to speak with tech support." After confirming I am getting the $49.99 credit for just speaking with tech support and not for not canceling, I agree to be transferred to tech support. Spoke with tech support, gave them the details and the woman who was on the call was knowledgeable enough to know "yeah we can't help with that." So off to be transferred to billing/cancel again. No grips, it was worth $49.99 to talk to tech support for 3mins.

In the end no hard feelings from me, I know this is something high up the food chain, and decisions that need to be made by higher ups to cut off Qwest. I do feel sorry for those who do not have a choice in service.

I will say that if I was only to ever use FIOS for US based sites/content, I probably would not have any complaints. But considering my wife if the main internet user (I get enough internet at work, don't need at home) and her internet experience exists in Asia, if the those routes are no good, then her experience sucks, and my life will suck.

I will add that I find something fishy. This posting is the post that I said was a dup. I got an email this morning that said "please accept a solution to your posts". Well, the link in the email leads to section of forum that appears to be an archive and I do not have any permission to see my original post. Nor do I see my original post in the High Speed forum. So I find it fishy that my original post magically disappeared. If it was closed or archived it should have been marked or notified so.

dorse

I have the same problem, at its worst my ping is over 200 with loss. When it's fine, I get 20 ping. I hit qwest and it all goes downhill. This is a near daily occurrence and it's getting old. What I want to play becomes unusable nearly every night, my ping can literally increase by an order of magnitude over a couple minutes.

It's been close to a month and Verizon tells me they're powerless. So what do I do? Threaten termination? Given that I can't do what I want to do, with no forseeable end, it might soon become a reality.

devnuller

What you are showing in that traceroute is ICMP rate limiting on the routers. The routers are configured to de-prioritize ICMP (ping traceroute) packets in favor for normal traffic. The packet loss is NOT happening with the site you were tracing to and is demostrated in the last hop

ec2-54-213-111-10.us-west-2.comp 0.0% 19 105.6 101.1 96.9 107.4 3.6

This is normal on all networks. The rule of thumb is if the packet loss follows all the way to the destination it is a real capacity issue. If the loss only shows up on a few intermediate hops it is ICMP rate limiting.

mojibake

I appreciate the reply, but I will have to disagree.

I thought about router dropping ICMP traffic as you stated.

Above if the objective view of the problem. Below is the subjective view of the problem.

I did more than enough testing hook up the fios..Try to watch a video...Hang 3mins in. Waiting on video to load.

Hook up the Comcast the video fully buffers before 3mins is up.

Hook the fios backup...hanging within a few mins waiting on video to load again.

Tried with various Asian sites, always slow loading with Fios and expected load time with Comcast.

As stated bpreviously. If I was only connecting to USA based sites, i probably would have no complaints with Fios.

However main usage of internect is connecting to Asian based sites, I need to choose the service that best serves my needs.