Hub 3 / Compal CH7465-LG (TG2492LG) and CGNV4 Latency Cause

[Datalink]

Good Day Ladies and Gentlemen,

Greetings from the other side of the pond, so to speak.  Over the last few weeks I've been perusing various user forums across North America and Europe for issues related to Intel Puma 6 modem latency.  Of those forums, your Hub 3 stands out as yet another Puma 6 based modem where users see continuous latency no matter what site is used or what online game is played. Considering all of the problems that are on the go, the following information should be of interest to all Hub 3, Compal CH7465-LG and Hitron CGNV4 modem users.  There is much more to post regarding this, so this is a start, to alert VM users as to the real cause of the latency and hopefully engage the VM engineering staff, via the forum staff, with Arris.  I am surprised to see that there has been no mention on this board of users from other ISPs who are suffering the exact same issues with their modems, so, this may come as a surprise to some, and possibly old news to others.

So, the short story ........

The Hub 3 / Compal CH7465-LG (TG2492LG) & Hiton CGNV4 modems are Intel Puma 6 / 6 Media Gateway (MG) based modems.  These modems exhibit high latency to the modem and high latency thru the modem.  The latency affects all IPV4 and IPV6 protocols, so it will be seen on every internet application and game.  The basic cause is the processing of the data packets thru a CPU software based process instead of thru the hardware processor / accelerator.  It appears that a higher priority task runs periodically, causing the packet processing to halt, and then resume.  This is observed as latency in applications and in ping tests to the modem and beyond.  For the last several weeks, Hitron, along with Intel and Rogers Communications in Canada have been addressing the latency issue within the Hitron CGNxxx series modems.  To date, only the IPV4 ICMP latency has been resolved.  Although this is only one protocol, it does show that a Puma 6MG modem is capable of using the hardware processor / accelerator with good results.  Currently Rogers is waiting for further firmware updates from Hitron which should include an expanded list of resolved protocol latency issues.  For Arris modems, "Netdog" an Arris engineer indicated last week that Arris was onboard to address the issue for the Arris SB6190 modem.  That should be considered as good news for any Arris modem (read Hub 3) user as Arris should be able to port those changes over to other Puma 6/6MG modems fairly quickly.  This is not a trivial exercise and will probably take several weeks to accomplish.  Note that there is no guarantee at this point that it is possible to shift all packet processing to the hardware processor / accelerator without suffering from any packet loss side effects.  Time will tell if all of the technical issues can be resolved with the current hardware included in the Puma 6/6MG chipset.  Last night, Netdog loaded beta firmware on selected test modems on the Comcast Communications network.  As this was only done last night, it's too soon to tell what this version resolves and if it was successful or not.  Netdog has contacts with staff at Comcast, Rogers, Charter and Cox Communications to fan out beta versions and modifications for testing.  I'd say its time to add Virgin Media and/or Liberty Global to that group as well.

Recent activity:

Approx three weeks ago a DSLReports user, xymox1 started a thread where he reported high latency to an Arris SB6190 and illustrated that with numerous MultiPing plots.  This is the same latency that I and other users with Rogers communications have been dealing with for months so it came as no surprise.  As well as reporting via that thread, xymox1 took it upon himself to email several staff members at Arris, Intel, Cablelabs and others.  The result of that campaign was Netdog's announcement, last week, that Arris was fully engaged at resolving the issue.  That has led to last nights release of beta firmware, although as I indicated its too early to determine what the beta firmware resolves, if anything.

The original thread that xymox1 started is here:

https://www.dslreports.com/forum/r31079834-ALL-SB6190-is-a-terrible-modem-Intel-Puma-6-MaxLinear-mis...

Yesterday, DSLReports issued a news story covering the thread:

https://www.dslreports.com/shownews/The-Arris-SB6190-Modem-Puma-6-Chipset-Have-Some-Major-Issues-138...

Today, Arris responded:

https://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Arris-Tells-us-Its-Working-With-Intel-on-SB6190-Puma6-Problems-1...

That response was also picked by Multichannel.com

http://www.multichannel.com/news/distribution/intel-arris-working-firmware-fix-sb6190-modem/409379

This is more news likely to appear in the next few days as additional tech and news staff pick up on this issue.

Hub 3 observations:

Like many others using a Puma 6/6MG modem, Hub 3 users are experiencing latency when they ping the modem, or ping a target outside of the home, game online or use low latency applications.  The common misconception is that this is Buffer Bloat. It's not. Its most likely a case of the packet processing stopping while the CPU processes a higher priority task.  The packet processing is done via the CPU no matter what mode the modem is operating in, modem mode or router mode and no matter what IPV4 or IPV6 protocol is used.  Normally, the latency is just that, latency.  The exception are UDP packets. In this case there is latency and packet loss.  The result of that is delayed and failed DNS lookups, and poor game performance for games that use UDP for player/server comms or player/player comms.

Can this be fixed?

So far, it appears that the answer is yes.  Rogers Communications issued beta firmware to a small group of test modems in October.  This version shifted the IPV4 ICMP processing from the CPU to the hardware processor / accelerator, resulting in greatly improved performance in ping latency.  At the present time we are waiting for the next version firmware which should shift other protocols over to the hardware processor / accelerator.  That can be seen in the following post:

http://communityforums.rogers.com/t5/forums/forumtopicpage/board-id/Getting_connected/message-id/369...

The details and results of last nights beta release to the Comcast group have yet to be seen.

At this point there is enough reading to keep most staff and users busy.  My intention is to post some of the history leading up to this point and instructions on how to detect the latency and packet loss.  This is not thru the use of a BQM.  I had hoped to post this all at once but events are moving much faster than I had thought they would.  For now this should suffice to get the ball rolling.

Below is a link to a post with a couple of HrPing plots from my 32 channel modem to the connected CMTS.  This shows the latency that is observed and reflects what others have posted in this forum using Pingplotter and HrPing.

https://www.dslreports.com/forum/r31106550-

HrPing is one of the freebie applications that can be used to monitor the latency to and thru the modem. 

Pingplots with Pingplotter which show the latency from my modem to the CMTS can be found in the first two to three rows of my online image library at Rogers Communications, located below.  They are essentially what the BQM would look like if you were able to zoom into the plot to the point where you could see the individual ping spikes.  Those ping spikes are common to Puma 6 and Puma 6MG modems.

http://communityforums.rogers.com/t5/media/gallerypage/user-id/829158

 [MOD EDIT: Subject heading changed to assist community]

[cje85]

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@Anonymous wrote:

This is an interesting read if anyone interested... https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2017/10/cablelabs-finish-spec-symmetric-10gbps-docsis-3-1-cable-broadband.html under "n the meantime the wait for Virgin Media to start customer trials of ordinary DOCSIS 3.1 continues. A big chunk of the operator’s network is technically prepared for it and the first viable router kit is now in the market (e.g. ARRIS’s TG3442 cable router – a possible SuperHub / Hub 4.0 contender), although so far they’ve been reluctant to confirm any solid plans."

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The TG3442 has a "Multi Processor Technology with ARM and ATOM based Application Processor" that seems like a long winded way of saying it's an Intel Puma device. Although there's no evidence yet that Virgin will use this model, so fingers crossed they won't.

[shanematthews]

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@cje85 wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:

This is an interesting read if anyone interested... https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2017/10/cablelabs-finish-spec-symmetric-10gbps-docsis-3-1-cable-broadband.html under "n the meantime the wait for Virgin Media to start customer trials of ordinary DOCSIS 3.1 continues. A big chunk of the operator’s network is technically prepared for it and the first viable router kit is now in the market (e.g. ARRIS’s TG3442 cable router – a possible SuperHub / Hub 4.0 contender), although so far they’ve been reluctant to confirm any solid plans."

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The TG3442 has a "Multi Processor Technology with ARM and ATOM based Application Processor" that seems like a long winded way of saying it's an Intel Puma device. Although there's no evidence yet that Virgin will use this model, so fingers crossed they won't.

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In light of the removed CVE mentioning that the P7 was also vulnerable to the same issues it would be rather silly of them to push ahead with it, the issue is, if they were planning on using that device it means a fairly significant delay as they will have to start again from near scratch

[scozzers]

Does anyone have any in depth info on alternatives to Virgin. I believe all the major players are available to me in my postal area. I've been complaining about the hub 3.0 since the first day I had it but only recently stumbled upon this firmware issue. My in game ping practically doubled from the hub 2.0 from day 1 of having the 3.0 and has never shifted. Given I could pay up to 50% less for 12 to 18 months if I went elsewhere I really see no reason to stay with virgin any more. Anyone have any recommendations regarding supplied hubs and QoS for other ISPs?

[legacy1]

Sometimes I wonder if this vulnerability was blackmailed in to having this vulnerability to make it easy to DoS someone...just saying.

[dcookster]

Free Upgrades

Your free upgrade to the mighty Hub 3 - No shame!

[steelysteph]

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@dcookster wrote:

Free Upgrades

Your free upgrade to the mighty Hub 3 - No shame!

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Maybe VM are trying to get more 2ac hubs returned so they can send them out to us.

[dcookster]

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@steelysteph wrote:

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@dcookster wrote:

Free Upgrades

Your free upgrade to the mighty Hub 3 - No shame!

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Maybe VM are trying to get more 2ac hubs returned so they can send them out to us.

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I've upgraded several times and never been asked to send back old hardware.

More likely they want Customer on the SH3 so they can sell them premium services as the 2-AC can't handle anything over 200mb.

[Grumpy101]

The fact that Virgin are still actively pushing the Hub3 from that free upgrade link, says two things to me

1. They dont actually believe there is a credible issue and that a "number" of people complaining on the forum is nothing to worry about. 
2. They are just ignoring the issue and hope it does not become headline news - The Pumageddon DoS scenario for example. 

Personally Im just horrified they are continuing down this path given whats known.

[DarkBahamut]

The reason VM are still pushing the SH3 is because:

1. It's all they've got right now

2. It's overall much better for their network as the modem can take 24 downstream channels, which significantly improves load balancing on the line cards on the CMTS end.

How many people complain and moan about utilisation issues? Plenty. The SH3 goes some way to helping that particular issue (over the SH1/2 models) so there are many benefits to VM trying to get people on them. From VM's perspective, more people are going to complain that they can't watch iPlayer/Netflix/etc than are going to complain about the latency fault.

I completely agree that VM need to take some action on this issue and it's been far too long. I've been using a SH3 for ~2 years myself now (Mines been in service since day 1 of the trials) so I'm acutely aware of how bad things are, but this doesn't remove the fact that the SH3 still has some benefits to VM that the SH2 does not. From first hand experience I can assure you that a serious congestion fault is far far worse than this Puma issue. Been there and done that and both accounts, multiple times.

[DS4130]

After a series of detailed letters to VM I was rather taken back by the most recent reply, the second paragraph of the exert below especially:

Also note my scanner does not have any fault, it appears they are experiencing print quality issues at the complaints department. Also on this third letter they manged to get my postcode incorrect hmmm