latency issues with PC/Xbox gaming -_-

[Truu`upA]

hey all, im new here as u might of guessed. I've been on the phone to sky and not really getting much help so i thought id try here.

Ill start from the beginning. I live in South Wales and I've only recently moved into this house which already has been using 2mb sky BB for about 2/3 months.

In my old house I first had BT Broadband, starting off at 512k a few years back and eventually as the years went by I upgraded to 8mb. This was back in say... October/November last year where I upgraded to 8mb and I had absolutely no problems with any bit of the net, gaming was fine all pings to UK servers were around 24/28ms, 28/32 to NL servers and around 40/44 to german servers.

Now BT decided to have a good laugh and a joke and managed to charge us £600 for 6 months use of the internet. Me and my partner struggled to get the money together and ended up having the line cut off. We then decided to swap to Sky BB, 16mb. So it all arrived, installed it and away I went obviously expecting if anything, even lower pings than my previous 8mb BT line.

Sadly that wasn't the case. My pings to all UK servers jumped from 24/28 to 44/48 which is what I should be getting to a german server I phoned them several times and they said my connection was running at 15mb and they would monitor it to see how to fix the problem. After a few days they called me back up and said they've fixed the problem and everything should be fine. That was abit of a lie as I still had exactly the same latency.

I've been in this new house now (back with my parents ) and they already had 2mb sky bb. I tried to play some online gaming and to my horror my pings were now around 74 to uk servers and 110 to NL/Ger servers! I ran the tracert command in command prompt so see what on earth was going on and basicly every single hop my connection is being routed through is generating ATLEAST 71ms or above, usually around 80ms and on some 131ms. I've called sky twice and they can't offer a tiny bit of help other than 'We've ran the checks on your line and its all running perfect'.

anybody have any ideas on what could be causing this? and if its anything that I can do to fix it? I can post screens of tracert command results if needed or netstat ones, anything I can use to bring to light the problem just ask

Thanks for your help!

[dholdi]

Do a search on this forum for max delays, when youve had a read you need to get sky to reduce them. They prefer it if you use the kana form ( search it again ). Sorry for the short reply, I would normally stick some links in but a work at the mo.

[Truu`upA]

"All

After reviewing the sky forums sites, recent escalations from customers and after discussions with Marketing, please can you implement the following

Should any customer be transferred to Tier 3 and request for their max delay levels to be decreased as a result of them using their broadband connection for Gaming, please arrange for this to be done. You should look to set their max delays at 8. Please ensure you leave the customer with a stable line after completing this."

I dont know what Tier 3 means :S but in any case should I be ringing sky and telling them to change my max delays to 8? Im upgrading to 16mb soon but dont want to upgrade until I know the connection will work properly ...

[IWasNotTheEnemy]

there is no tier 3 any more - you need to call Sky tech and get through to CST (Customer Solutions Team). they can lower the delays on the line latency and hopefully get your pings down to workable levels...

[Truu`upA]

hmm well il give them a call in a bit, ive phoned twice and they havent been able to offer any solutions. Im thinking about formatting and seeing the ping after the format. That way I know its totally not my fault that the pings are bad. I've already said if they cant fix it I'm simply going to have to swap service provider :/ wish me luck

[IWasNotTheEnemy]

nothing to do with the PC - its the line profile and its interleve settings that are the issue...

[Truu`upA]

sorry to be a total 5 year old about this, didn't have chance to call them back today as im still moving house

what are the key things I really need to be saying to them? change the max delay to 8 and fiddle with the interleave settings?

I ask this because I guess I need to explain to them exactly what needs to be done because without me knowing they wont do a thing...though there was this 1 guy I spoke to where I said can u sort out the interleaving and he went on honestly for 15 mins saying how their lines dont use interleaving (?!) and that ping doesnt represent anything its merely and 'echo' by which point I had to put the phone down because I couldnt get a word in edge ways

thanks for your help everyone by the way

[dholdi]

When you get through to CST ( they know what they are doing ) they will reduce your max delays by as much as they can. They will monitor your line as they are doing it and stop reducing when the error levels get to an unacceptable level.

[Truu`upA]

huzarh, finally spoke to somebody from CST and she changed the max delay from 32 to 16 and put it on a 48 hour trial. She said it should be stable as the line has no errors on it or something which is probably due to the fact that i live in wales and most people here are havent heard of the net lol

She said that CST people arent allowed to touch the interleaving settings but she said if the max delay at 16 is stable then i can call back when i want and get it put down even lower which ill probably do tomorrow thanks for ur help every1 i would of been going through the hassle of swapping isp if it wasnt for you guys

[IWasNotTheEnemy]

yeah, the interleve is standard - Sky don't use Fastpath - and if it stays stable then get it lowered to 8 (the lowest) and hopefully you should be fine!!