PC There is some serious issue with Internet in Pakistan from past 2+ months data stops causing issue with discord and p2p games

[dadyal]

There is some serious issue with Internet in Pakistan from past 2+ months data packets randomly go missing without any traceback causing issue with discord and teamspeak and i think it it even stops data for whatsapp video and video calls and most importantly in p2p games including destiny 2 and warframe where it de-sync you fro msession causing disconection issues , i have complained it to my isp but they say no such issue , this issue is on all isp including mobiles and land based internet and happens on both PTCL PIE based networks and TW based networks m anyone else having same issue or noticed ?

 

[EurekaAkerue]

psure it's because Pakistan recently bought software as well as specialists to monitor internet traffic of that kind if i'm not mistaken. Thing is, they won't even bother admitting it publicly.

Govt working with controversial firm to monitor internet traffic: report

Outsourcing of web monitoring to Sandvine raises concern.

www.dawn.com

 

[EternalBlizzard]

Oh is that why discord audio calls are so jittery? I thought it was a problem with discord itself.

 

[dadyal]

yes jittery audio issue is happening to everyone in pakistan it started in ramdan

 

[Simonsayz]

There is some serious issue with Internet in Pakistan from past 2+ months data packets randomly go missing without any traceback causing issue with discord and teamspeak and i think it it even stops data for whatsapp video and video calls and most importantly in p2p games including destiny 2 and warframe where it de-sync you fro msession causing disconection issues

Multiple reasons for slow downs / packet losses. It was more pronounced after the "monitoring of Grey Traffic" bill was passed but the most recent one that has been causing packet losses in last 2 months+ like you said is due to latency/ping reduction services by ISPs. PTCL was the first one to start "Fast Path" service for "Gamers" to reduce ping/latency and rest of the ISPs followed suite, not to be outdone by this marketing gimmick by PTCL. But it's just a marketing gimmick. It doesn't work, rather the constant switching of servers to find lowest latency causes packet losses.

I had the same issue in Overwatch on AMS1 servers, game gets stuck with ~50% packet loss, even got penalty for leaving games. Called PTCL to de-activate "Fast Path" and everything's peachy again

 

[Silver Snoke]

im forced to use vpn to play overwatch, this shit is driving me insane, you cant even use discord properly without a vpn now, every one complains that your voice is robotic after every few mins . On Vpn everything runs super smooth -_-

 

[Simonsayz]

im forced to use vpn to play overwatch

Overwatch has been running great for me for the last 1 month after I deactivated Fast Path, I'm on PTCL GPON, which ISP are you on.

 

[Silver Snoke]

Overwatch has been running great for me for the last 1 month after I deactivated Fast Path, I'm on PTCL GPON, which ISP are you on.

Ptcl GPON as well but i never called them to activate fast path on my connection.. Also i play on Eu servers in ow, so this problem happens there, i havent tried middle east servers yet, but on US servers i never get any problem like that!

 

[Simonsayz]

Ptcl GPON as well but i never called them to activate fast path on my connection.. Also i play on Eu servers in ow, so this problem happens there, i havent tried middle east servers yet, but on US servers i never get any problem like that!

I play on EU servers as well, I have the M.E. servers blocked in firewall. EU has higher ping than ME but on ME servers there are either Arabic speaking players or desi players with disconnects or lags, also longer queue times on ME servers due to less numbers, games are quick to find in EU servers and mostly good teamwork.

Call 1218 and ask them to refresh your connection from backend, that usually helps the slowdowns. Or there might be connection issue in fiber as well.

 

[NaNoW]

im forced to use vpn to play overwatch, this shit is driving me insane, you cant even use discord properly without a vpn now, every one complains that your voice is robotic after every few mins . On Vpn everything runs super smooth -_-

this sounds like a ISP problem honestly

 

[Silver Snoke]

I play on EU servers as well, I have the M.E. servers blocked in firewall. EU has higher ping than ME but on ME servers there are either Arabic speaking players or desi players with disconnects or lags, also longer queue times on ME servers due to less numbers, games are quick to find in EU servers and mostly good teamwork.

Call 1218 and ask them to refresh your connection from backend, that usually helps the slowdowns. Or there might be connection issue in fiber as well.

There is no fiber problem on my end, i even bought new connection but its the same & not just me its happening to everyone who is using PTCL. About the fast path you said, i asked the Ptcl helpline & they all said that fast path is for copper users only. its not for Gpon/flash users so i dont know how u can use fast path on ur connection when the company doesnt even offer it for Gpon??

 

[Silver Snoke]

this sounds like a ISP problem honestly

Yea indeed it is, if it was my fiber issue then how come things run fine with VPN, not to mention that other ppls who im talking to on discord keep telling me that there is some humming sound before my voice gets robotic as if someone is monitoring call

 

[wAnxTa]

Reddit also randomly stops working sometimes

 

[dadyal]

Yea indeed it is, if it was my fiber issue then how come things run fine with VPN, not to mention that other ppls who im talking to on discord keep telling me that there is some humming sound before my voice gets robotic as if someone is monitoring call

this is nation wide issue i have tested it with many people who are on different isp and from diffrent cities i am in ajk my friends arr in karachi and peshwar and lahore all had this issue it's impossible to sit on discord for few min without robotic voice or play a p2p game without vpn , even most vpns are blocked by pta and there is vpn traffic interruption issue as well like they randomly disconnects


we need a social media voice or good lawer or something this issue is here from 2+ months now and no isp is admiting the problem it's like someone has gun on their head

 

[NaNoW]

Reddit also randomly stops working sometimes

interesting....I wonder if its somehow Pakistani govt trying to monitor internet usage

 

[Simonsayz]

this sounds like a ISP problem honestly

This

The ISPs have given more connections than the bandwidth they have available.

 

[dadyal]

This

The ISPs have given more connections than the bandwidth they have available.

it can't be the issue with every single ISP at 3am at night usage of Pakistani internet goes down after 12am

and giving more connection than bandwidth is common practice all over the world normally its like 1000 , 100mbps connection per 10Ggbit line they know all of them will never use it at all times

 

[Simonsayz]

it can't be the issue with every single ISP at 3am at night usage of Pakistani internet goes down after 12am

au contraire, Internet Rush Hour globally is defined as 9am to midday then 7pm to 10pm but the baseline is not reattained till 4am. There isn't a specific study or survey for Pakistan, but I doubt the IRH is till 10pm here, should be 12am or beyond.

and giving more connection than bandwidth is common practice all over the world normally its like 1000 , 100mbps connection per 10Ggbit line they know all of them will never use it at all times

There is a difference in CIR (Committed information rate) and Shared packages. The cheapest CIR 512Kbps (0.5Mbps) package is over 15,000 a month while PTCL's 100Mbps is 7500. Banks & corporates use CIR and even if the bandwidth is low, and believe it or not, it works for them because CIR is a guaranteed bandwidth connection. While Shared connection means you will not get the promised bandwidth as connections or traffic grows, then there is ISP throttling and prioritisations. e.g., Pakistan has no copyright protection / piracy laws but most of the torrent sites have been banned by local ISPs on the pretext of pron content.

Anyways, my point is that ISPs didn't anticipate the traffic vs the bandwidth they procured;

From Wikipedia: "In 2001 just 1.3% of the population used the Internet. By 2006 this figure had grown to 6.5% and in 2012 to 10.0%. As of August 2020; the percentage of internet users in Pakistan is 40.95%, which translates into approximately 87 million citizens having access to internet."

 

[dadyal]

au contraire, Internet Rush Hour globally is defined as 9am to midday then 7pm to 10pm but the baseline is not reattained till 4am. There isn't a specific study or survey for Pakistan, but I doubt the IRH is till 10pm here, should be 12am or beyond.



There is a difference in CIR (Committed information rate) and Shared packages. The cheapest CIR 512Kbps (0.5Mbps) package is over 15,000 a month while PTCL's 100Mbps is 7500. Banks & corporates use CIR and even if the bandwidth is low, and believe it or not, it works for them because CIR is a guaranteed bandwidth connection. While Shared connection means you will not get the promised bandwidth as connections or traffic grows, then there is ISP throttling and prioritisations. e.g., Pakistan has no copyright protection / piracy laws but most of the torrent sites have been banned by local ISPs on the pretext of pron content.

Anyways, my point is that ISPs didn't anticipate the traffic vs the bandwidth they procured;

From Wikipedia: "In 2001 just 1.3% of the population used the Internet. By 2006 this figure had grown to 6.5% and in 2012 to 10.0%. As of August 2020; the percentage of internet users in Pakistan is 40.95%, which translates into approximately 87 million citizens having access to internet."

let's not take the argument into wrong direction , i have tested these things in past months for every possible angle

and every time the results were that there is no issue with speed , the issue is UDP packets are getting interrupted


if you connect a vpn even vpn packets are getting interrupted now started in past month , i have tested it with my own private vpn servers on google cloud and servers hosted in germany as well as many privet vpn providers as well as Cloudflare Warp and i am not that guy who fixes his internet by turning it on and off i kinda know what i am talking about here and it has nothing to do with more users it's was working perfectly fine before ramdan 2021

for anyone who does not know what UDP it's protocol used in VOIP and Online Games

 

[Simonsayz]

let's not take the argument into wrong direction

I thinks it's just a healthy discussion on what our experiences have been on the subject and probable causes, I'm certainly not an expert of these things, so I don't take it as an argument, feel free to correct me, I'm here to learn as well.

and every time the results were that there is no issue with speed

From my understanding, speedtest runs a ping, download & upload from your device to the selected server, which is auto selected based on lowest ping. It is mostly your ISP's or nearby ISP's speedtest server and hence the 1 or 2ms ping because of short distance. It is not the most accurate representation of "internet" speed, it just confirms the bandwidth between you and the ISP . It is, however, useful in cases where you want to check any connectivity/bandwidth issues between you & your ISP.

However, there are lot of other ways to speedtest your bandwidth, but it will to & from those specific servers and will present it's own specific results.

For example, google has it's own speedtest servers, ProjectStream https://projectstream.google.com/speedtest and it will tell you download/upload
speed from google's servers, so it will represent your experience on Google's services like YouTube and Stadia etc.

Likewise, Netflix has it's own speedtest servers at Fast https://fast.com/# and it will test your connection for their own services.

the issue is UDP packets are getting interrupted

To check connectivity issues to a particular website or server, you have to ping that site from which you are having issues with, run an MTR or Traceroute or Pathping to find out the route from your system via ISP to that server, the number of hops it takes, ping times and packet losses etc. AND THIS IS WHERE ISP's NETWORK MANAGEMENT TEAM COMES IN. How efficient is there routing to different international servers, how diverse is there bandwidth uptake and distribution etc.

It's all up to network management. For example, few years ago we were having connectivity issues at office and through traceroute we found out that our connection to an SEA server in JAPAN was routed and get this, Pakistan-EU-North America-SEA, so we talked to the ISP and got it routed directly.

But regardless, since last few months, I have not been able to find any issues with speed test of bandwidth while there still being these random slow downs to different site with no discrepancies in routing, hence my theory of ISP throttling or bandwidth bottlenecks, I could be wrong.