Stuttering due to ISP packet dumping

[Garwalde]

Just thought I'd share this if anyone else is in the same situation since it took me quite some
time to figure out what the problem was.

I'm on a 100/10 LAN connection from my ISP and the ISP has traffic policing on upstream.
The problem is that it can take anywhere from 1 minute to 50+ minutes before packets
start being dumped. So it seemed it could be anything to me since PMS buffer was never
empty when stuttering occurred and CPU was around 50% average load. And I just didn't think
about the traffic policing since it isn't the first thing that comes to mind hehe. But I replaced
switches, NIC, cables, tested all versions of PMS, two different OS, fiddled A LOT with PMS
settings and tcp settings etc etc and still got very uneven results.

So after a lot of testing and analyzing I finally figured out something I should have known
from the start, I had to put a router in between my switch and my ISP's switch to get rid of
the problem. To really segmentate my LAN from the ISP switch LAN.

So if anyone else has issues with stuttering even though buffer and CPU is fine you could check
if the issue stops when you unhook your ISP and run internal IP addresses through your switch.

[FireFox1337]

what isp for Reference?

[Irvysan]

Thanks for the info

[Garwalde]

Noticed I made a mistake in the first post, it's a 100/10 connection and the ISP is
Bredbandsbolaget in Sweden for FireFox1337.

Will correct the first post.

I should add though that this isn't any fault on the ISP end if anyone gets that impression,
it's the way it works and should work with a connection like this. It's just that I didn't
think of it straight away hehe.

[FireFox1337]

Argg im so jealous of you swedish people with your 100Mbit home connections and the best you can get in canada is like 10Mbit and you pay and arm and a leg.

[Garwalde]

Hehe, life can be cruel

The date hasn't been set yet but is estimated to the beginning of next year
for a full rollout of new gigabitethernet switches for all switch installations
the ISP has, then I'll be a happy camper