24 Hour Test Results

Here is a typical 24 hours in the life of my connection as monitored using My Connection PC.

Note that these tests reflect the actual throughput of the connection and are not a test of the connections capacity as measured with something like the BT Speed Tester. Please read this if you are unsure of the difference. You will note that the middle of the graph shows the day time, with performance dropping off in the evening (the two ends).

Quality of Service

This is the main reason I am unhappy with my connection. During evening hours (approximately 18:00 – 00:00) the latency on my connection increases dramatically. Pings to our hosted game server (snatch.electricdeath.co.uk) typically increase by 100ms or more to the region of 130-150ms, making on-line gaming a very poor experience. This can also be seen in the more sophisticated test results above.

An explanation of the poor results (quoted from a run at a comparable time) is given in My Connection PC software itself:

From the report (my italics):

4. QoS measure of 35% recorded for this test is poor indicating problems with the data flow going fast-slow-fast-slow during the test. MyConnectionPC measures the data flow as well as the data speed to detect congestion or regulation patterns. If the data flow is not consistent then it will result in a low QoS reading for the test. The most likely cause for this problem is contention caused by congestion. If the speed graph is very erratic i.e. not uniform then this indicates congestion, uniform indicates by design i.e. regulation. One of the causes for a low QoS is a high Max Delay and you should review the Max Delay for this test.

5. Max delay of 228ms was recorded which is very high and indicate data loss problems with the delay being caused by recovery. This will almost certainly cause the QoS to drop. Because MyConnectionPC measures the data flow as well as the data speed it can detect traffic delays. This metric reports the largest delay recorded for the test. The most likely cause for a high max delay value is packet loss because packet loss causes recovery actions to take place. However high latency connections will always cause TCP idle delays which will show in the graph as very regular and repeated delays all about the same value. This is a natural delay that cannot be avoided. The Trip Time value reports the route latency.

Download Speed

As you may expect this also correlates with download speeds achieved at similar times.

Round Trip Time

The increase in latency can also be observed from the round trip time statistics gathered:

Traceroute

Further investigation by using Visual Route indicates that the slow response is the entry point to the O2(Be) network.

During the day this typically drops to the region of 30ms.

The source data and all graphs can be found here.

What the problem is not

The problem is not due to the following factors:

• My router. Both the O2 supplied router and my other router, a Linksys WAG200G behave exactly the same.
• My PC. I have three PCs in my household. The problem is exhibited on all of them, when the others are not connected. Also the problem can be confirmed using the built in ping utility in my Linksys router.
• Game ports. The problem is seen inside games, at the command prompt, in test software and at the router. For the information of O2 first line support, opening game ports will not help latency. Opening a port allows traffic on that port and denies it completely when it is closed.
• Other software on my PC. See above.
• Congestion at the exchange. A number of people in my village share the same exchange, but use different ISPs (Plusnet, BT). They are not seeing the same congestion/ latency issues. The problem is within O2.

Resolution

I was told that O2 would be fine for gaming and that is clearly not the case. Unfortunately I’m over the 30 days money back period. Since investigating this problem, I have found a 91 (yes 91) page thread on the O2 forums with people experiencing similar problems. Out of the 544 respondents to the poll on the thread. 90% are experiencing a problem. There are at least 490 other O2 customers would would not agree that the problem “must be my pc” as the last person I spoke to on O2 support said. There is another message from O2 here that acknowledges the problem. It would be nice if support did the same. However the timeframe for the fix has come and gone and myself and others are still experiencing problems.

In order to resolve this I would like one of the following:

• O2 to resolve my problem, or
• Give a firm date and commitment when the problem will be resolved, or
• Issue me with a MAC code with no further charges or opt out costs. Either now, or should the problem not be fixed when promised. I am prepared to waive the money I have already spent and put the episode down to a bad experience.

I really hope that I can resolve this. However should it prove necessary, I will have no hesitation in escalating in the following manner until I achieve a satisfactory result:

• I will make a formal complaint to O2. If that does not solve the issue, then
• I will seek resolution via the ADR process via Otelo. If that is unsuccessful then
• Ofcom

But I really hope it doesn’t come to that. I’ve had really good service from my O2 phone and would like the issue resolved. Or at least let go without a fight.

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