[OT] .::The Official Mega PTCL Thread::. -- New lines, same old BS

[manobilla]

you can use cmd with tracrt for example
tracert 1.1.1.1

Tracing route to one.one.one.one [1.1.1.1]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms OpenWrt.lan [192.168.1.1]
2 5 ms 8 ms 5 ms 182.187.0.1
3 7 ms 6 ms 5 ms 10.0.5.81
4 10 ms 10 ms 11 ms 182.176.139.181
5 14 ms 10 ms 9 ms 182.176.139.225
6 6 ms 6 ms 6 ms 182.176.125.204
7 9 ms 9 ms 9 ms one.one.one.one [1.1.1.1]

Trace complete.
or you can download ping plotter and it will show you path to your gaming server if you can find the IP address of the server

 

[Farrukhkazimi]

For instance, 72.5.161.228 is the IP of Singapore for Apex Legends. Currently, on 39.x.x.x pool, I am getting 280ms ping and on 182.x.x.x, I am getting 100-105ms which is a HUGE difference. 119.x.x.x is rare for me but my friend has it and he is also getting good latency on that. PTCL routing for you.

This is PIE route using StormFiber connection. Routing is definitely on optimum level if you are on PIE upstream. Pings to apex and other regions are slightly higher if using transworld's upstream. So, keep emailing PTCL and bug their asses off, until they assign you on a really good optimized IP pool.

 

[EliTuS]

This is PIE route using StormFiber connection. Routing is definitely on optimum level if you are on PIE upstream. Pings to apex and other regions are slightly higher if using transworld's upstream. So, keep emailing PTCL and bug their asses off, until they assign you on a really good optimized IP pool.

Well, for now it's fine on 182 IP pool. But the catch is that some of the EU servers in Battlefield have increased latencies now. It is rarely all good when it comes to PTCL I suppose.

 

[ahmar16]

I think it would be better to control your bufferbloat if you are concerned with gaming lag. A speed test on dslreports.com should tell you how much bufferbloat you currently have on your line on a silent network (meaning no one else is using it). If it is high then you need to prioritise it with SQM and you should be good to go.

 

[greyfreak19]

I think it would be better to control your bufferbloat if you are concerned with gaming lag. A speed test on dslreports.com should tell you how much bufferbloat you currently have on your line on a silent network (meaning no one else is using it). If it is high then you need to prioritise it with SQM and you should be good to go.

That will only help if you have an issue within your home network. for e.g someone watching an HD video on a 5mbit connection which basically maxes it out, leaving none or very little left for games OR perhaps a torrent is sucking up all the bandwidth. This won't magically deal with bad routing issues on your ISP's side or fix Wifi interferance which also causes lag.

This will, however, provide a much more stable experiance. So for e.g if you get a ping of 100ms at idle and it tends to jump around to 150-200ms mid game, it will potentially make it a solid 100-110ms ping. If you have an issue with ping spikes when your family gets on the internet, this can definitely fix that. Alongside this if you can switch to 5Ghz wifi or to Wired Ethernet, you will get a very stable gaming experiance. The only thing holding you down after that will be PTCL's routing which isn't an easy or simple fix.

Personnel Experiance: On my own DSL connection I used to get very terrible ping spikes and in order to combat that I deployed SQM for OpenWRT, DD-WRT's QoS with fq_codel, and Gargoyle's fantastic effortless QoS on my TP-Link 841n V9 Router. In the end i still got ping spikes of about 10-50ms (A big improvement over the 100-300ms spikes) and it wasn't a totally solid experiance still. After many experimenting I came to the conclusion that my ADSL line just couldn't deliver any better since on the DSLreports test I only got a B at best, sometimes an A. I've got Fiber now and I also tried SQM on this connection. Needless to say I effortless got a ping. I downloaded a Torrent maximizing my connection yet my ping didn't increase for more than 1-5ms. So, even SQM or the world's most advanced QoS can't combat shitty situations.



For anyone who may not know what SQM (Smart Queue Management) is, it's BASICALLY a "QoS" feature on OpenWRT (A custom firmware for routers) that is meant to get rid of bufferbloat which in simple terms causes high latency w/e you're maxing out your connection.

Basically you have a limit, a bottleneck, which is 5mbit but it's on your ISP's side so you can't really control the flow of incoming traffic. What SQM does is that it limits the internet speed at your Router, making that the point of bottleneck and therefore the router has the ability to gain control of prioratizing the traffic which is then done through schedulers like Cake. This way it get's rid of bufferbloat.
If someone wants to, they can read all about it here:

For a simple version: https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-user/network/traffic-shaping/sqm
For a detailed version: https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-user/network/traffic-shaping/sqm-details

 

[shaheerk]

That will only help if you have an issue within your home network. for e.g someone watching an HD video on a 5mbit connection which basically maxes it out, leaving none or very little left for games OR perhaps a torrent is sucking up all the bandwidth. This won't magically deal with bad routing issues on your ISP's side or fix Wifi interferance which also causes lag.

This will, however, provide a much more stable experiance. So for e.g if you get a ping of 100ms at idle and it tends to jump around to 150-200ms mid game, it will potentially make it a solid 100-110ms ping. If you have an issue with ping spikes when your family gets on the internet, this can definitely fix that. Alongside this if you can switch to 5Ghz wifi or to Wired Ethernet, you will get a very stable gaming experiance. The only thing holding you down after that will be PTCL's routing which isn't an easy or simple fix.

Personnel Experiance: On my own DSL connection I used to get very terrible ping spikes and in order to combat that I deployed SQM for OpenWRT, DD-WRT's QoS with fq_codel, and Gargoyle's fantastic effortless QoS on my TP-Link 841n V9 Router. In the end i still got ping spikes of about 10-50ms (A big improvement over the 100-300ms spikes) and it wasn't a totally solid experiance still. After many experimenting I came to the conclusion that my ADSL line just couldn't deliver any better since on the DSLreports test I only got a B at best, sometimes an A. I've got Fiber now and I also tried SQM on this connection. Needless to say I effortless got a ping. I downloaded a Torrent maximizing my connection yet my ping didn't increase for more than 1-5ms. So, even SQM or the world's most advanced QoS can't combat shitty situations.



For anyone who may not know what SQM (Smart Queue Management) is, it's BASICALLY a "QoS" feature on OpenWRT (A custom firmware for routers) that is meant to get rid of bufferbloat which in simple terms causes high latency w/e you're maxing out your connection.

Basically you have a limit, a bottleneck, which is 5mbit but it's on your ISP's side so you can't really control the flow of incoming traffic. What SQM does is that it limits the internet speed at your Router, making that the point of bottleneck and therefore the router has the ability to gain control of prioratizing the traffic which is then done through schedulers like Cake. This way it get's rid of bufferbloat.
If someone wants to, they can read all about it here:

For a simple version: https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-user/network/traffic-shaping/sqm
For a detailed version: https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-user/network/traffic-shaping/sqm-details

OT, but perhaps this could be the reason why TW1 connections face random spikes in their pings - cause their backbone routers could be misconfigured, and the effects would be passed on to the ISPs and ultimately, the end users.

And yes, it only happened during peak times (afternoons, nights).

Sent from my Pixel 4 using Tapatalk

 

[manobilla]

That will only help if you have an issue within your home network. for e.g someone watching an HD video on a 5mbit connection which basically maxes it out, leaving none or very little left for games OR perhaps a torrent is sucking up all the bandwidth. This won't magically deal with bad routing issues on your ISP's side or fix Wifi interferance which also causes lag.

This will, however, provide a much more stable experiance. So for e.g if you get a ping of 100ms at idle and it tends to jump around to 150-200ms mid game, it will potentially make it a solid 100-110ms ping. If you have an issue with ping spikes when your family gets on the internet, this can definitely fix that. Alongside this if you can switch to 5Ghz wifi or to Wired Ethernet, you will get a very stable gaming experiance. The only thing holding you down after that will be PTCL's routing which isn't an easy or simple fix.

Personnel Experiance: On my own DSL connection I used to get very terrible ping spikes and in order to combat that I deployed SQM for OpenWRT, DD-WRT's QoS with fq_codel, and Gargoyle's fantastic effortless QoS on my TP-Link 841n V9 Router. In the end i still got ping spikes of about 10-50ms (A big improvement over the 100-300ms spikes) and it wasn't a totally solid experiance still. After many experimenting I came to the conclusion that my ADSL line just couldn't deliver any better since on the DSLreports test I only got a B at best, sometimes an A. I've got Fiber now and I also tried SQM on this connection. Needless to say I effortless got a ping. I downloaded a Torrent maximizing my connection yet my ping didn't increase for more than 1-5ms. So, even SQM or the world's most advanced QoS can't combat shitty situations.



For anyone who may not know what SQM (Smart Queue Management) is, it's BASICALLY a "QoS" feature on OpenWRT (A custom firmware for routers) that is meant to get rid of bufferbloat which in simple terms causes high latency w/e you're maxing out your connection.

Basically you have a limit, a bottleneck, which is 5mbit but it's on your ISP's side so you can't really control the flow of incoming traffic. What SQM does is that it limits the internet speed at your Router, making that the point of bottleneck and therefore the router has the ability to gain control of prioratizing the traffic which is then done through schedulers like Cake. This way it get's rid of bufferbloat.
If someone wants to, they can read all about it here:

For a simple version: https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-user/network/traffic-shaping/sqm
For a detailed version: https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-user/network/traffic-shaping/sqm-details

yes i am already using openwrt with sqm on vdsl and i dont get ping spikes anymore when other people are watching youtube

 

[EliTuS]

That will only help if you have an issue within your home network. for e.g someone watching an HD video on a 5mbit connection which basically maxes it out, leaving none or very little left for games OR perhaps a torrent is sucking up all the bandwidth. This won't magically deal with bad routing issues on your ISP's side or fix Wifi interferance which also causes lag.

This will, however, provide a much more stable experiance. So for e.g if you get a ping of 100ms at idle and it tends to jump around to 150-200ms mid game, it will potentially make it a solid 100-110ms ping. If you have an issue with ping spikes when your family gets on the internet, this can definitely fix that. Alongside this if you can switch to 5Ghz wifi or to Wired Ethernet, you will get a very stable gaming experiance. The only thing holding you down after that will be PTCL's routing which isn't an easy or simple fix.

Personnel Experiance: On my own DSL connection I used to get very terrible ping spikes and in order to combat that I deployed SQM for OpenWRT, DD-WRT's QoS with fq_codel, and Gargoyle's fantastic effortless QoS on my TP-Link 841n V9 Router. In the end i still got ping spikes of about 10-50ms (A big improvement over the 100-300ms spikes) and it wasn't a totally solid experiance still. After many experimenting I came to the conclusion that my ADSL line just couldn't deliver any better since on the DSLreports test I only got a B at best, sometimes an A. I've got Fiber now and I also tried SQM on this connection. Needless to say I effortless got a ping. I downloaded a Torrent maximizing my connection yet my ping didn't increase for more than 1-5ms. So, even SQM or the world's most advanced QoS can't combat shitty situations.



For anyone who may not know what SQM (Smart Queue Management) is, it's BASICALLY a "QoS" feature on OpenWRT (A custom firmware for routers) that is meant to get rid of bufferbloat which in simple terms causes high latency w/e you're maxing out your connection.

Basically you have a limit, a bottleneck, which is 5mbit but it's on your ISP's side so you can't really control the flow of incoming traffic. What SQM does is that it limits the internet speed at your Router, making that the point of bottleneck and therefore the router has the ability to gain control of prioratizing the traffic which is then done through schedulers like Cake. This way it get's rid of bufferbloat.
If someone wants to, they can read all about it here:

For a simple version: https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-user/network/traffic-shaping/sqm
For a detailed version: https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-user/network/traffic-shaping/sqm-details

How did you setup SQM on PTCL's ONT? I have white ZTE F660 ONT.

 

[greyfreak19]

You don't setup SQM on PTCL's ONT. You have to buy another router (Check OpenWRT's router compatibility list), then install OpenWRT which will then give you the SQM feature along with many others on your router.
Before I basically set my ADSL router to Bridge mode (Turning it into a basic Modem and turning off any router functionalities) and let the TP-Link router handle everythin. But I didn't really find an option on the Alcatel ONT, plus I don't game much now a days so I just setup my TP-Link router as a Wi-Fi extender instead.

 

[greyfreak19]

OT, but perhaps this could be the reason why TW1 connections face random spikes in their pings - cause their backbone routers could be misconfigured, and the effects would be passed on to the ISPs and ultimately, the end users.

And yes, it only happened during peak times (afternoons, nights).

Sent from my Pixel 4 using Tapatalk

Yes, Transworld did advertise QoS and claimed minimal latency throughout and they still do. But, given that they have to deal with many connections I don't think theirs would be fully perfect either. As in Peak times even SQM would fail because the ISP is underload and you start getting lower bandwidth, this sometimes may undermine the local bottleneck limit you had set which stops SQM from working. There are many gateways, routers, and stops before your packets reach it's destination or get to you from it's source. Anything could become the bottleneck and tracking that down wouldn't be easy. So ideally you try to fix what you can control, which is moving to Ethernet from Wifi, deploying SQM or various other offerings from both Router Companies like Asus, TP-Link etc. to the custom firmwares for these routers like DD-WRT, OpenWRT, Gargoyle, and Tomato (mostly for broadcom based devices) which offer their own takes on QoS.

Side Note: There is another Router Firmware called Gargoyle and it's QoS has something called ACC (Active Congestion Controller). First you set the downlink speed to the maximum you can get on your connection or set it to your advertised internet speeds. After that ACC works it's magic, basically what it does is, it pings a target (Preferebly something like Cloudflare or Google DNS) and set's the idle ping. Once that is done it then set's a buffer of sorts which is usually 10-20ms. It then keep's pinging that target and if the ping increases more than 10-20ms from the idle amount, it starts to lower the downlink rate until it stabalizes. for e.g I get 5ms to cloudflare and the buffer is of 10ms, if the ping goes above 15 ms it will start to reduce the downlink rate until the ping is back whiting 5-15ms.

So say, at non-peak times you get full 10mbit's download speed's on speedtest but during peak times you get only 8-9mbits or maybe you get the speed but latency increases or jumps around (jitter), it could mean a Congestion issue which Gargoyle's ACC intends to solve on the fly while also giving you the maximum download speed you can get along with it. With OpenWRT's SQM you just have to test everything yourself manually and enter a static downlink rate (usually 85-95% of your package plan) and if the congestion get's so worse that you don't even get that much, SQM stop's working. The other downside is that you trade off some download speed for a stable ping. I personally went with Gargoyle's implementation of QoS since on a 8mbit DSL connection, I really didn't have the luxury to drop 10% of my overall download speeds for a stable ping all the time - I needed all the speed I could get while also getting a playable gaming experiance.

You can read more on Gargoyle's QoS here, scroll down to read on ACC.
https://www.gargoyle-router.com/wiki/doku.php?id=qos

Disclaimer: THE ACC ONLY WORKS ON THE DOWNLOAD SIDE, FOR UPLOAD YOU WILL STILL NEED TO SET IT UP MANUALLY.

P.S: Whenever I get spikes in latency I quickly open up a few command prompt windows and ping 3 different targets. The first is my router, then it's either the gateway or the local ISP DNS, and finally I usually ping CSGO's Dubai server since that is what I usually play on. This allows me to see exactly where the spike is forming, it could be because of my own router, because of the load on the ISP which would result in high pings anywhere, and if it's just on IP Address's out of Pakistan it could potentially mean a cable cut of sorts or a routing issue if it's just limited to a few specific server locations. I could fix the spikes being caused by my router on my own, I could also complain to my ISP for the second scenario, but for the third it's almost always a larger issue effecting many other people which probably won't just get fixed by my complaining alone.

P.P.S: If you do suspect a routing issue, you can use the 'tracert' command in Command Prompt or use the WinTMR tool and then preferebly email your ISP the results and nag them to fix the routing. Get enough people to do it and something may or may not happen.

 

[murtaza12]

You don't setup SQM on PTCL's ONT. You have to buy another router (Check OpenWRT's router compatibility list), then install OpenWRT which will then give you the SQM feature along with many others on your router.
Before I basically set my ADSL router to Bridge mode (Turning it into a basic Modem and turning off any router functionalities) and let the TP-Link router handle everythin. But I didn't really find an option on the Alcatel ONT, plus I don't game much now a days so I just setup my TP-Link router as a Wi-Fi extender instead.

How did you setup SQM on PTCL's ONT? I have white ZTE F660 ONT.

Even if you configure SQM on an OpenWRT router, you'll still be affected by bufferbloat because of the PTCL ONT.

PTCL doesn't allow bridging the ONTs so that people can use their own routers, so the only real way to use SQM QoS with PTCL is with ADSL / VDSL connections that can still be bridged.

Grey's ADSL + OpenWRT setup would've allowed good results with SQM, but you won't get much of an advantage setting up QoS with a router attached to the ONT without bridging it.

 

[greyfreak19]

Even if you configure SQM on an OpenWRT router, you'll still be affected by bufferbloat because of the PTCL ONT.

PTCL doesn't allow bridging the ONTs so that people can use their own routers, so the only real way to use SQM QoS with PTCL is with ADSL / VDSL connections that can still be bridged.

Grey's ADSL + OpenWRT setup would've allowed good results with SQM, but you won't get much of an advantage setting up QoS with a router attached to the ONT without bridging it.

I'm pretty sure you could get some results if you only have the router connected to the ONT and nothing else, turn off the wi-fi and disconnect any ethernet devices from the ONT. Then when you do setup SQM on the router, it should in theory work just fine.
NAT issues might pop up, but I think a way to fix that would be putting the Router in DMZ on the ONT. Altough I didn't really do many tests after I got Fiber so can't say. I did manage to get an A+ rating for bufferbloat on DSL Reports with this setup.

 

[murtaza12]

I'm pretty sure you could get some results if you only have the router connected to the ONT and nothing else, turn off the wi-fi and disconnect any ethernet devices from the ONT. Then when you do setup SQM on the router, it should in theory work just fine.
NAT issues might pop up, but I think a way to fix that would be putting the Router in DMZ on the ONT. Altough I didn't really do many tests after I got Fiber so can't say. I did manage to get an A+ rating for bufferbloat on DSL Reports with this setup.

I don't doubt that it will give some results compared to just using the stock ONT, however it won't be optimal performance by any means since the ONT will still be doing all the routing and heavy lifting.

 

[greyfreak19]

I don't doubt that it will give some results compared to just using the stock ONT, however it won't be optimal performance by any means since the ONT will still be doing all the routing and heavy lifting.

Not Optimal, but would work. Unless someone can find some hidden bridge mode on the Alcatel ONT's :/

 

[murtaza12]

Not Optimal, but would work. Unless someone can find some hidden bridge mode on the Alcatel ONT's :/

There is bridge mode on the Alcatel ONTs.

Authenticating it with the OLT at the exchange is the hard part. PTCL will never allow it since they'll lose all ability of remote management of the device.

 

[manobilla]

Even if you configure SQM on an OpenWRT router, you'll still be affected by bufferbloat because of the PTCL ONT.

PTCL doesn't allow bridging the ONTs so that people can use their own routers, so the only real way to use SQM QoS with PTCL is with ADSL / VDSL connections that can still be bridged.

Grey's ADSL + OpenWRT setup would've allowed good results with SQM, but you won't get much of an advantage setting up QoS with a router attached to the ONT without bridging it.

whats the reason behind being so strict with FTTH why you cant dial connection from own router? Is it because of security?

 

[SSyar]

Apparently its been a month in lockdown with PTCL Broadband, before that i mostly used my internet on weekends and I have been able to conclude that its not the PTCL Internet that sux.. its their modem/router.(in my case)

Reason on getting this conclusion is., i dont have any disconnection issue as the lights on the modem are stable as they should be and the stats on admin are all OK but internet keeps getting idle regularly. Its because that my device's wifi on which i am using the internet keeps getting disconnected or switch to my Zong device, moreover i have an Android TV box connected via ethernet from modem/router on which the internet works flawlessly. I have noticed that too many device connected to ptcl modem/router makes it under stress and wifi keeps dropping on devices.

PTCL Device model HG150-Ub.

I also tried using TP Link router as my wireless device switching off ptcl's wlan but creates some other issues (wireless interference)

Another thing i have noticed that when a device is connected on my Zong's device and it switch over to PTCL modem/router this phenomena happen mostly., although i have bind MAC with IP to avoid conflicts over DHCP.

 

[shaheerk]

I have the Huawei device too (HG8245H). A few settings that you may want to adjust based on my experience:

1. Because I have a wireless router bridged to this, the channel width needs to be 20Mhz (and not 40Mhz) on the PTCL router. My wireless router is defaulting to 40Mhz for some odd reason.
2. Make sure that the channel interference is minimal - get an app such as a wifi scanner, and pick the channel with the least interference.
3. Tried resetting your router? I suggest this because it's possible some wifi settings may have been inadvertently tweaked. Now would obviously not be a good time because God knows if PTCL will come to your house to reconfigure the modem.

I won't mention adjusting your antenna direction since you mentioned it's a modem/wifi issue, and it's flawless over ethernet.

 

[ASKnASK]

Got my ONT replaced because I was having wifi issues. The switch is from a white Nokia ONT (Alcatel) to a black Nokia ONT with the PTCL logo (again Alcatel). I was advised this one's better.

My stats are now worse, aren't they? The signal level used to be -19. The only positive is that the packet loss values in the RG Troubleshoot counters are both 0 now.

 

[shaheerk]

Well... as the old adage goes: if it seems fine, and if it works fine, then it probably is fine.