Ask HN: Net Ops, what's a customer to do – years of packet loss at Level 3

3 points by biturd 10y ago ↗ HN

This has literally been going on for over a year, I can tell Comcast, but it is like talking into a black hole.

Traces from me, near always, look about like this: http://pastebin.com/81dvXj0v

Two offenders are always Level 3, always 60% loss or more:

ae-4-90.edge1.SanJose3.Level3.net te-11-0-2.edge4.Frankfurt1.level3.net

There is still ~4% loss on the first node outside my network. Even the IP address I am given, and is a few feet away, has loss. I have tried this wired and wireless. I can load a page faster over a 3G wireless hotspot on my phone than I can wired. Oddly, I get 50+ Mbit on a speed test. But to try to load a heavy page like "the verge", with 14M+ and hundreds of files it is calling, never works.

Who do I report this to? How can this go on so long and not get solved?

Thank you for any pointers.

3 comments

[ 2.1 ms ] story [ 15.4 ms ] thread

biturd 10y ago ↗

Also, this does not look too good for level 3 either, at least, not at first glance and my understanding of how to interpret the results.

http://www.dslreports.com/routerwatch/ae-4-90.edge1.SanJose3...

wmf 10y ago ↗

How can this go on so long and not get solved?

Because Comcast is probably doing it on purpose. http://blog.level3.com/open-internet/observations-internet-m... http://arstechnica.com/business/2015/05/comcast-ends-an-inte...

sbuttgereit 10y ago ↗

I feel your pain:

  2    48 ms    11 ms     9 ms  96.120.89.137
  3    10 ms    12 ms    26 ms  te-0-7-0-0-sur03.sfmission.ca.sfba.comcast.net [68.85.103.129]
  4    14 ms    12 ms    11 ms  be-210-ar01.santaclara.ca.sfba.comcast.net [68.85.57.245]
  5   281 ms  1030 ms   974 ms  te-11-0-2.edge4.Frankfurt1.level3.net [4.68.127.105]
  6   964 ms  1007 ms  1028 ms  ae-4-90.edge1.SanJose3.Level3.net [4.69.152.208]
  7   284 ms   689 ms  1048 ms  72.14.223.91
  8   444 ms  1074 ms   927 ms  72.14.234.173
  9   427 ms   980 ms  1012 ms  google-public-dns-a.google.com [8.8.8.8]

And that's when the higher latency hops don't just time out.

If that Frankfurt1 actually means Frankfurt... as in Deutschland... the latency makes sense, though I'm curious as why that route.

EDIT: Actually for me it's all egress from the comcast network. Comcast told me that they're currently doing some work that is the cause. Naturally, your mileage may vary.