on 02-12-2016 05:31
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:
Yesterday, DSLReports issued a news story covering the thread:
Today, Arris responded:
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:
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]
on 30-03-2018 11:53
on 30-03-2018 11:55
Graph link:
goo.gl/XqGPNk
30-03-2018 12:11 - edited 30-03-2018 12:38
have tried a factory reset and power re-boots - still stuck on 9.1.116V
Modem Mode, SH3, Asus AC68U, wired cat6, 24 upstream / 4 downstream - DSL test worse this morning worse than my normal BQM
79ms : x
80ms : xx
81ms : xxx
82ms : xxxx
83ms : xx
84ms : xx
85ms : xxxxxxxxxx
86ms : xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
87ms : xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
88ms : xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
89ms : xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
90ms : xxxxxxxx
91ms : xxxxxxxxx
92ms : xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
93ms : xxxx
94ms : xxx
95ms : xxxxxxxxxx
96ms : xxxxx
97ms : x
98ms : xx
99ms : xx
100 - 149ms :xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
150 - 199ms :xxxx
200 - 249ms :xxx
450 - 499ms :x
30-03-2018 14:57 - edited 30-03-2018 14:58
I've tried a factory reset and power re-boots - still stuck on 9.1.116V. Setup is modem mode SH3, Asus AC68U, wired cat6, 24 upstream / 4 downstream -
DSL test worse this morning than my "normal" BQM
79ms : x
80ms : xx
81ms : xxx
82ms : xxxx
83ms : xx
84ms : xx
85ms : xxxxxxxxxx
86ms : xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
87ms : xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
88ms : xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
89ms : xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
90ms : xxxxxxxx
91ms : xxxxxxxxx
92ms : xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
93ms : xxxx
94ms : xxx
95ms : xxxxxxxxxx
96ms : xxxxx
97ms : x
98ms : xx
99ms : xx
100 - 149ms :xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
150 - 199ms :xxxx
200 - 249ms :xxx
450 - 499ms :x
on 30-03-2018 18:44
Also is there a reason why Virgin routes through France - that can't help the latency ?
Tracing route to google.co.uk [216.58.213.67]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms router.asus.com [192.168.1.1]
2 11 ms 8 ms 15 ms 10.221.244.1
3 101 ms 144 ms 11 ms LPuteaux-657-1-282-45.w80-15.abo.wanadoo.fr [80.15.206.45]
4 * * * Request timed out.
5 16 ms 17 ms 17 ms tele-ic-8-ae5-0.network.virginmedia.net [62.252.224.94]
6 23 ms 16 ms 17 ms 86-14-250-212.static.virginm.net [212.250.14.86]
7 * * * Request timed out.
8 22 ms 18 ms 18 ms 74.125.252.130
9 163 ms 17 ms 20 ms 74.125.242.98
10 23 ms 20 ms 22 ms 216.239.57.207
11 18 ms 20 ms 22 ms 216.239.58.178
12 * * * Request timed out.
13 89 ms 28 ms 65 ms 216.239.57.117
14 143 ms 32 ms 87 ms lhr25s01-in-f3.1e100.net [216.58.213.67]
Trace complete.
on 02-04-2018 02:44
Virgin really need to move to something using the Broadcom BCM3384 chip instead of these Intel trash heaps.
02-04-2018 11:35 - edited 02-04-2018 11:36
@falconevowrote:Virgin really need to move to something using the Broadcom BCM3384 chip instead of these Intel trash heaps.
They won't.
First of all, these chipsets are more expensive.
Second, VM is owned by Liberty Global - and they will not adopt Broadcom due to it being under court injunction (translation - banned) in some major European countries due to lost patent infringement lawsuit recently (LG cares not only about UK but about having single hub for their whole EU market)
on 02-04-2018 11:52
@tonycv51wrote:Also is there a reason why Virgin routes through France - that can't help the latency ?
3 101 ms 144 ms 11 ms LPuteaux-657-1-282-45.w80-15.abo.wanadoo.fr [80.15.206.45]
That looks like a range of IPs Virgin have acquired from Wanadoo but not yet relabelled. It seems to relate to a CMTS in Warrington.
It responds quickly so is definitely on the Virgin network and not in France.
ping 80.15.206.45 PING 80.15.206.45 (80.15.206.45) 56(84) bytes of data. 64 bytes from 80.15.206.45: icmp_seq=1 ttl=60 time=17.6 ms 64 bytes from 80.15.206.45: icmp_seq=2 ttl=60 time=18.0 ms 64 bytes from 80.15.206.45: icmp_seq=3 ttl=60 time=16.4 ms 64 bytes from 80.15.206.45: icmp_seq=4 ttl=60 time=15.7 ms 64 bytes from 80.15.206.45: icmp_seq=5 ttl=60 time=16.3 ms --- 80.15.206.45 ping statistics --- 5 packets transmitted, 5 received, 0% packet loss, time 4006ms rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 15.798/16.868/18.046/0.848 ms
on 02-04-2018 14:26
"They won't.
First of all, these chipsets are more expensive.
Second, VM is owned by Liberty Global - and they will not adopt Broadcom due to it being under court injunction (translation - banned) in some major European countries due to lost patent infringement lawsuit recently (LG cares not only about UK but about having single hub for their whole EU market)"
2nd one not the case anymore - so maybe there is hope for a broadcom based SH4 or preferably just a modem
December 18, 2017 07:00 AM Eastern Standard Time
SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Tessera Technologies, Inc. ("Tessera"), a subsidiary of Xperi Corporation (the “Company”) (NASDAQ: XPER), today announced that it and certain of its affiliates entered into agreements with Broadcom Ltd. and certain of its affiliates ("Broadcom"), customers, and suppliers to settle and dismiss all pending litigation between them. In conjunction with the settlement, Broadcom entered into a new multi-year patent license agreement with Tessera.
on 02-04-2018 15:48
"maybe there is hope for a broadcom based SH4 or preferably just a modem "
Sadly that won't make much difference in the short or even medium term. In Liberty Global's most recent results announcement they were curiously reticent on DOCSIS 3.1, and investment analysts zeroed in on this and quizzed the CEO. In response he is quoted as saying "The only cost we'll really incur down the road is for new 3.1 modems...Of course, we'll do that when we're ready and we'll do that in the most economic way possible... We won't just roll out 3.1 indiscriminately; we'll roll it out to customers that pay us more for the higher speeds and the better services."
We already know that the hated Hub 3 is capable of speeds up to 700 Mbps (some users in these forums have posted data that appears to show consumer testing of this), and when it was launched, it was claimed that the Hub 3 (and European siblings) would be capable of 1 Gbps over DOCSIS 3.0. In the first article I linked to there's mutterings about the Connect Box offering up to 1 Gbps being "furiously deployed"...."to prepare for the roll out of DOCSIS 3.1" but as far as I can see that's deliberate obfuscation - the standard Connect Box is just the local name for Hub 3 and unless anybody can correct me, I'll assert that it is not D3.1 capable. UPC Austria announced a trial of 1.3 Gbps over D3.0, seven years ago, so the capabilities of D 3.0 clearly are not being stretched at the moment.
So, putting together the soft-pedalling over D3.1, and the fact that the Hub 3 has at least 100% additional speed capability over the current UK top offering, I suspect anybody hoping for a new VM hub anytime soon is hopelessly optimistic. VM know full well what a bag of crap the Hub 3 is. But they've also noticed it isn't materially affecting customer loss rates nor new customer sign up, so why would they care? Their crap customer service reflects the same thing - why change if there's no pressure? And as the CEO says, if you want better service, you'll be paying more for it. Personally I believe that custoemrs will get greater bandwidth for paying more, I don't believe him for one moment that customers will get any better service - it'll be the same offshored crap it has been for years.