StarDestroyer.Net BBS

I've just picked up an ADSL line and am getting some fairly severe lag time. The initial connection starts off fine, but then hits some periods where I just hang.

I'm getting ping times of around 180 to 190 ms, and the tracert command is showing 11 hops. While a chunk of time is the first hop (in other words, the last mile problem), a significant amount of time seems to be lost in the middle.

Does anyone have any advance as to:
1) How (or can) I improve the first mile or is this solely an ISP issue?
2) Any other suggestions for improvement, or am I just screwed.

Thanks

I've had similar problems on two occasions. The first time, it turned out the phone line running into the house was severely frayed, almost to the point of being broken. Severe lag on the DSL connection was the first symptom we noticed; eventually we lost voice phone service as well. Verizon switched service to another line in better condition and the problem disappeared. Note that this is an old house and the phone line had probably gone at least forty years without repair; if you're in a newer dwelling I doubt this would be a problem.

The second time, it turned out that the DSL modem had developed a fault and was periodically overheating, increasing latency and causing it to drop packets. The ISP happened to have to some spares on-hand and was gracious enough to replace the modem at no cost.

If you call tech support, I wager the first thing they'll ask you to do is tear down any local network you have, connect one machine directly to the DSL modem, and run a speed test to see if the problem is really on their end. You may as well do that if you haven't already, and call them if the results are the same (or if you don't have any network to tear down). Also, I'd recommend looking around at broadbandreports.com to see what other people did about similar problems - some of them may be in your area and may be customers of the same ISP.

It could also be faulty wiring in your neighborhood. I had a problem with my cable internet after I got it, were I was seeing high lag times and a lot of disconnects. Comcast came out, and determined the neighborhood's line was faulty, and they reran the cables a week later.

Upon investigation, I've spotted two hops with high lag time.

One is just the first hop (avg ping time of 49). Is it possible for layman to figure out (or at least rule out) the source? Could you narrow it down to a likely source (slightly faulty connection to the phone line, etc...) and if so, how? Would be nice to be able to go to Telus and minimize the runaround.

The second place looks like it is one of the backbone connections and the delay is about 120 ms. This would be an ISP issue to my knowledge.

Jalinth wrote: One is just the first hop (avg ping time of 49). Is it possible for layman to figure out (or at least rule out) the source? Could you narrow it down to a likely source (slightly faulty connection to the phone line, etc...) and if so, how? Would be nice to be able to go to Telus and minimize the runaround.

Your phone box might have an RJ-11 port on it; you could connect the DSL modem to that and test it with a laptop to rule out the possibility that the problem is with internal wiring in your building. I believe those ports are only found on newer installations; I don't have one. Apart from that, and also swapping out the cable running from your modem to the wall, I don't know.