1. Overview
I have been experiencing persistent internet performance issues for approximately five months, primarily involving unstable upstream latency, excessive jitter, and inconsistent real-time UDP performance. Despite approximately 18 technician visits, multiple troubleshooting attempts, and equipment and cabling changes, the underlying issue remains unresolved.
My primary concern is not download speed, general internet connectivity, or FPS performance. The problem is the inconsistency of the connection under load and its impact on latency-sensitive applications, particularly competitive online gaming.
2. Main Symptoms
The primary symptoms include:
- Unstable upstream latency: During upload tests, latency frequently fluctuates from approximately 30 ms to 50–100 ms or higher, with occasional spikes exceeding 150–200 ms.
- Excessive jitter: Upload-side jitter frequently exceeds 20 ms, whereas I would expect significantly more consistent performance for real-time applications. UPLOAD SIDE JITTER 30+ MS !
- Intermittent suspected packet loss: I have observed recurring upload-side instability approximately every 7–8 seconds while gaming. I cannot confirm that every event represents actual packet loss, but the pattern is repeatable and affects gameplay.
- Inconsistent UDP performance: Competitive games experience noticeable network inconsistency, including jitter spikes and inconsistent hit registration
- Performance degradation under load: Upload activity causes substantial latency spikes in some tests
- Inconsistent gaming experience: The connection may appear stable in basic ping tests, yet real-time gaming performance remains inconsistent.
3. Testing and Observations
I have performed numerous tests using command-line ping, WinMTR, Cloudflare speed tests, Ookla speed tests, and ExitLag network analysis.
The results show a discrepancy between conventional connectivity tests and real-time application performance:
- Idle ping to external destinations is generally around 18–25 ms.
- Ping to the local gateway is generally below 1 ms.
- Basic ping and WinMTR tests often report 0% packet loss when the connection is not under load.
- During upload tests, latency increases significantly and may fluctuate repeatedly rather than remaining stable.
- Some external destination tests show latency spikes during upload activity, even when packet loss is not reported.
- Cloudflare tests have shown occasional high latency spikes and upload-side jitter.
These observations suggest that basic ping and packet-loss tests alone may not adequately identify the underlying issue.
4. Troubleshooting Already Completed
I have spent considerable time troubleshooting the connection and have made multiple changes, including:
- Approximately 18 technician visits.
- Replacement of the coaxial cable on the existing route with RG6 quad-shield cable.
- Testing with and without the coaxial splitter.
- Replacement of the splitter, which improved some upload-latency measurements but did not eliminate the jitter.
- Inspection of the coaxial connections and a change to a different tap following a reported issue with the original tap.
- Testing different routers and network configurations.
- Testing with and without Smart Queue Management (SQM) and upload traffic shaping.
- Testing with different Ethernet adapters and network configurations.
- Repeated latency, jitter, and packet-loss testing under idle and upload-load conditions.
SQM and upload shaping can significantly improve measured bufferbloat and upload latency in certain tests. However, even when those results look good, the gaming experience does not consistently return to normal. This suggests that bufferbloat alone may not explain the entire problem.
5. Cable Modem and Upstream Concerns
My connection uses an Xfinity/Technicolor CGM4981COM gateway. The upstream has been operating on ATDMA channels rather than OFDMA, with five locked upstream channels reported in the modem status.
In one set of readings, the upstream transmit power levels were approximately 36–37 dBmV. I have also observed that the issue persists after changes to the coaxial splitter and tap.
I would like the engineering team to investigate whether there may be an upstream impairment, intermittent noise, channel scheduling issue, congestion, or another problem affecting the consistency of upstream transmission.
I understand that these readings alone do not prove a plant or CMTS issue. However, the persistence of the symptoms despite extensive troubleshooting warrants a more detailed investigation.