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]

[FrancisM123]

I'm in the same boat as you, currently on 100 mb package and dont really feel like upgrading to 350 just to get the new firmware so it is pretty much a waiting game since virgin wont give me a date or anything on when the lower tier packages will get the firmware.

[Devaraja]

I spoke with support this week and I was told that the new firmware should be released this month. the problem is that this is not going to be a real fix, it will only improve the icmp side of things.

[Guybrush85]

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@Devaraja wrote:

the problem is that this is not going to be a real fix, it will only improve the icmp side of things.

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Wrong.

[Pro4TLZZ]

why dont they just release a new router?

[planetf1]

For anyone who moved FROM BA3 trial (Vivid 350)

 a) Did you get stuck on old firmware after trying a factory reset

 b) Did you notice much benefit in resetting (ie to get 308) - ie DNS etc latency

The trials team advised me (finally) that on BA3 I should eventually get an upgrade without doing anything as the update was rolled out, but a reset shouldn't hurt (ie somewhat inconclusive!)

[cje85]

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@Devaraja wrote:

I spoke with support this week and I was told that the new firmware should be released this month. the problem is that this is not going to be a real fix, it will only improve the icmp side of things.

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That's what people were saying before the trial was released, but has proven to be incorrect based on the tests posted here over the last few weeks.

[Andrew-G]

"why dont they just release a new router?"

The next hub needs to be DOCSIS 3.1 compatible to enable future speed upgrades, and needs much better wifi performance just to compete with other ISP's offerings.  The new hub will be at an advanced stage of development - customer prototypes are probably on trial, but under non-disclosure clauses.  Problem is that the costs of a D3.1 chipset are double those of a D3.0, and the better wifi will add a bit as well.  Why should VM spend a cent more, when the only people suffering are customers?  Most customers get billed the same whether their line works or not, regardless of speed versus contract, or latency.

They've also said publicly that they will only release a D3.1 hub for premium speed offerings, and do so only when they judge customers are willing to pay (a lot?) more for it.  To an extent, the new firmware only being released for 350 Mbps customers may be a commercial trial, to see how many people will pony up more to fix VM's crap CPE.  

[ILuvNips]

If that is the case then personally I think it's shocking behaviour by VM.

Their poor attitude to fixing issues in my mind is simply due to the majority of customers just rolling over and accepting that the service can be crap but as you say, they still pay their monthly bill. What we need is a revolt, if you live in a high utilisation area, don't put up with it, either move which is what I am planning on doing or drop your package down to the lowest and then also ask for a rolling credit to be added to your account. People need to start hitting them financially, where it hurts and where they'll then be forced to look up, listen and hopefully do something.

If you rocked up to Starbucks or Costa and they continuously kept on giving you half a cup of coffee, shrugging their shoulders and blaming the coffee machine most people simply wouldn't put up with it but with VM most seem to?

[tonycv51]

“The next hub needs to be DOCSIS 3.1 compatible to enable future speed upgrades, and needs much better wifi performance just to compete with other ISP's offerings.”

I’d happily buy an Arris surfboard 3200 if VM would connect it for me (Broadcom based docsis 3.0 and 3.1 modem with 3g RAM) Happy to be a guinea pig if anyone from VM is interested

[Badvok]

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@ILuvNips wrote:

Their poor attitude to fixing issues in my mind is simply due to the majority of customers just rolling over and accepting that the service can be crap but as you say, they still pay their monthly bill.

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It is far from a majority of customers, this issue affects no more than a very tiny fraction of VM customers. I'm sure VM would prefer it if those customers just went elsewhere, even if they all did it at the same time it probably wouldn't make a noticeable blip in VM's churn numbers. What is actually surprising is that VM are doing anything about the issue at all - it just shows that even a very insignificant minority can have an effect when they are very vocal about it.