Inconsistent shared connection

[WStokes]

Hi All,

Im sorry if this has been answered previously, which im sure it has, but given my limited networking knowledge I couldn't find what exactly I was looking for.

Situation:
I live in a apartment building with 100+ people on a shared connection that is included in our rent. Its Time Warner business class, that accordging to speedtest is 100Mb down / 50Mb up.
speedtest results:

Despite a speedy connection once the connection is actually made, I have trouble loading regular web pages on a very consistent basis. Id say about one third of the time a web page like amazon just doesn't load, getting "This web page is not available", or takes 20 seconds before it starts loading then loads very quickly.

The funny thing is I have played BF4 for 2+ hours without a hiccup, and alt tab out of the game to try to load a web page and the page doesn't load.

I just assumed that this was an issue of other people torrenting or streaming and overloading the router so I was thinking that QOS might resolve this, however Time Warner doesn't seem very helpful in this matter and I dont have the knowledge to suggest certain fixes - so if I do get someone from Time Warner on the phone who actually wants to help I would love to have useful suggestions for them.

I would be very appreciative for any suggestions that either:
A) Might be of use when talking with Time Warner to improve the consistency of their connections.
or
B) Would allow me to set up a constant connection to an outside source.
-The fact that BF4 maintained its connection suggests that its possible to get relatively consistent performance. Would a proxy service be a good solution to this?

Thanks in advance

 

[gimp]

That sounds more like DNS issues.
Try changing your DNS to Google's.
8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 I think?

 

[stormy1]

sounds like the router is running out of descriptors aka over the max connection limit or overloading the cpu.
It takes a pretty hefty router for 100+ users.

 

[Liger88]

sounds like the router is running out of descriptors aka over the max connection limit or overloading the cpu.
It takes a pretty hefty router for 100+ users.

Exactly my thoughts. Looks like they're overselling the connection unaware that the router/firewall they're using has limited connections it can open per second and deal with on a total basis. Generally manufacturers break up the session limits to 1,000 per user to be safe, although most people will probably peak @ around 500-600. Also the low-end devices are usually only capable of opening 1,200-2,400 connections per second which may also cause issues.

Chances are the device is having memory and cpu issues maintaining 100 users on the network.

 

[WStokes]

Thanks for the quick replies.

That sounds more like DNS issues.
Try changing your DNS to Google's.
8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 I think?

I've done this and although I thought it helped a bit at least (could have actually helped or placebo effect), still getting very inconsistent performance.

sounds like the router is running out of descriptors aka over the max connection limit or overloading the cpu.
It takes a pretty hefty router for 100+ users.

This is what I thought was happening but wasnt positive and wasnt sure if there was a way for QOS or something to resolve this? I know a few years back if I was downloading a torrent on my home router with no limits on the client it would basically hog all the connections and everyone elses connections would basically die - which is why i figured it was something similar.

 

[WStokes]

Exactly my thoughts. Looks like they're overselling the connection unaware that the router/firewall they're using has limited connections it can open per second and deal with on a total basis. Generally manufacturers break up the session limits to 1,000 per user to be safe, although most people will probably peak @ around 500-600. Also the low-end devices are usually only capable of opening 1,200-2,400 connections per second which may also cause issues.

Chances are the device is having memory and cpu issues maintaining 100 users on the network.

So if I call Time Warner, who manages the networking aspect of it as well, they should be able to see the status of the router/modem and notice they are being overworked?

Is there usually something that can be done to limit the number of simultaneous connections per mac address and/or transfer speed per connection?

Thanks

 

[bekax5]

Similar happened to me when I was using Jumbo Frames inside of the network but then the router wouldn't know how to manage them to take outside and wouldn't load some pages.
So check if this isn't the case.

 

[Ocellaris]

100 down is pretty slow for 100 potential users, hope you don't have a bunch of kids running Torrent clients 24/7 in there!

 

[Liger88]

So if I call Time Warner, who manages the networking aspect of it as well, they should be able to see the status of the router/modem and notice they are being overworked?

Is there usually something that can be done to limit the number of simultaneous connections per mac address and/or transfer speed per connection?

Thanks

Some devices will allow you to control the max sessions per IP (not MAC) and include QOS abilities which can help if it really is an over-saturation issue. Controlling actual per client bandwidth is a lot trickier. Besides a few Layer 2 tricks, which have significant downfalls, it's easier to try your hand at QOS.

This all depends on the Apartment. While TWC is providing the modem and connection, I am not sure they are controlling the actual local side networking equipment that's the problem. If you're not the owner of the Apartment then you'd need to contact them and explain the issue. Most likely a contractor would need to come in to analyze the network to determine the actual problem, so long as you an verify with some of the 100 other users that they're having the same problem.

TWC might be able to do all that, but anyone they're going to send out is going to be lazy unless you're a business owner paying $1,000+ monthly to them, or just unable to do that because most ISP's only care about delivering the connection to the premises and nothing more.

[EDIT] To clarify, the issue isn't that of the Cable Modem, but the local routing device that connects to the cable modem which every user feeds into.

 

[WStokes]

Similar happened to me when I was using Jumbo Frames inside of the network but then the router wouldn't know how to manage them to take outside and wouldn't load some pages.
So check if this isn't the case.

Thanks for the suggestion, I checked and Jumbo Frames are disabled on my computer.

100 down is pretty slow for 100 potential users, hope you don't have a bunch of kids running Torrent clients 24/7 in there!

I'm sure there are at least two or three, but thats probably all it takes if they are running without any limits on number of connections.

Some devices will allow you to control the max sessions per IP (not MAC) and include QOS abilities which can help if it really is an over-saturation issue. Controlling actual per client bandwidth is a lot trickier. Besides a few Layer 2 tricks, which have significant downfalls, it's easier to try your hand at QOS.

This all depends on the Apartment. While TWC is providing the modem and connection, I am not sure they are controlling the actual local side networking equipment that's the problem. If you're not the owner of the Apartment then you'd need to contact them and explain the issue. Most likely a contractor would need to come in to analyze the network to determine the actual problem, so long as you an verify with some of the 100 other users that they're having the same problem.

TWC might be able to do all that, but anyone they're going to send out is going to be lazy unless you're a business owner paying $1,000+ monthly to them, or just unable to do that because most ISP's only care about delivering the connection to the premises and nothing more.

[EDIT] To clarify, the issue isn't that of the Cable Modem, but the local routing device that connects to the cable modem which every user feeds into.

I was surprised to find out that TWC does manage the networking within the building, but believe youre still right in that all they care about is that the building is connected. My rental company was just too lazy to care about the problem so they gave me the open ticket number to talk with TWC myself. The first person I talked with was surprisingly eager to help and he said he could remotely monitor the network while the problem was occuring, although I called when the connection seemed fine. Since then i've called twice and gotten people who either dont know or just dont care at all - basically saying that they are looking into it and call back if it still happens in a week or so.

Ill just keep calling them back to see if I can get someone helpful and see if they can enable QOS or the max sessions per IP which sounds promising.

I appreciate all the helpful replies

 

[WStokes]

Just a quick update:
So after talking with Time Warner, they said they haven't done anything such as QOS or max sessions per IP, and that setting up those features would cost extra. I will talk with the leasing company this week but I am not holding my breath for them to pay more money haha.

Going back to what I said earlier though, I can open a teamviewer session to a computer on a more stable connection and maintain that for hours. While this isnt ideal sometimes its better to browse using remote desktop even though the UI is laggy as its more consistent.

Assuming it is a hardware issue with the router and its just a problem of opening a new session, would using a paid proxy service fix this(assuming it maintains its connection all the time)? What other options would I have besides just remote desktop?

Thanks

 

[Shockey]

DNS namebench is a great program that check against a dozen or more public DNS server and tell you which one is best for your location.

 

[Liger88]

I might have missed it earlier, but were you just a tenet in the apartment or do you manage it?

If you're a tenet it might just be easier to get a separate connection that you pay TWC directly for to eliminate this "shared" problem completely. Because it's built into your monthly rent this might be an added fee, especially if the Apartment owner wont reimburse it from your monthly statement (contracts>doubtful). It would give you much more control over the issue. As a tenet all you can really do is bitch to the manager and hope they do something about the problem.

Most of the above options were directed toward someone owning/managing the apartments, not someone who's just a resident.

Lastly, double check with your neighbors to confirm the issue is what we think it is. If nobody else is having problems similar to yours then it might be something completely different and software/hardware based within your own machine.