Well after many years of great service from Comcast Cable, and paying extra for that powerboost... I was averaging 28K down, 3K up.... but the last couple of weeks have been really slow... I called Comcast and the guy tells me their is no problem, you get 8K down and 1K up... obviously that must be too slow for broadband and gaming, since I've been lagging games like crazy lately... so what are other Options in Broadband, their is no other cable company here... I heard DSL was Broadband but not great for gaming, same with satilitte... options?

Mbps, not Kbps.
I think you're best off staying. Might check with your neighbors though. If there has been a lot of construction and people moving in or switching to cable that can make the difference. It's pretty much impossible to know what your true speeds are with Comcast. The Powerboost is only temorary and depends on available bandwidth in your area. You benefit from extra bandwidth, but it's only for a few MB's of data. It's a boost, not a continuous fast speed. Speedtest sites just won't give you a true figure for this since they only send a few packets.
DSL adds another router to the mix and it's still all going across the same infrastructure in the end.
Comcast is rolling out faster service as well, the package you and I are on will be seeing faster speeds over the next year or so.

Regardless, what you have is plenty for gaming and hosting. Bandwidth isn't your issue.


Check this, it could help a lot:

Go to your router and check the DNS servers. Compare to the list of servers here, the "domain helper" dns server list:
http://dns.comcast.net/dns-ip-addresses.php

A few months ago, comcast switched customers to dns servers to monitor your habits for advertising purposes. When you put in a bad url, it goes to an advertising based error screen now. You can OPT OUT of this, which should help you out.

You can opt out 2 ways:
1)go to your account webpage and find the opt out. I have not done this, I used method 2.

2)The other (better) way, which is what I did when I first heard about this, is to manually change the DNS servers you use in your router.
Look at that server list I posted and find where your dns server is located. Then go to the link here to the opt out dns server list:
http://dns.comcast.net/dns-ip-addresses2.php

Go to the dns server list in your router and manually change the primary and secondary to the ones on the OPT OUT list.
This is legitimate, and the servers are staying at those addresses. You do not want the "domain helper" dns servers.
Alternatively, you could use a 3rd party set of dns servers, which your router may already have listed as an option, but the opt out servers at comcast do a great job.

I'm betting this will help you out.


Another thing:
If you have not enabled QoS (quality of service) for your 360 and pc, then do so. You may be able to put in a MAC address, but you may have to assign a static IP and put that IP address in there. Set the device to High. This tells the router to maintain bandwidth for the device(s) you see as most important. So if your wife has a laptop that she's on while you're gaming, you want your 360/pc to have priority. It's the marriage saver.
Especially important if you host, but also advisable for gaming in general. If you have VOIP, your phone is likely of highest priority and should stay that way, so you don't lose voice quality. It's a good tool to use, but it's only for your LAN, doesn't change anything for issues outside of your gateway.

DSL is fine for gaming but technically I prefer cable, easier to set up.

If you are lagging, it means your ping is bad (time it takes for a transmitted data to reach target) not the bandwidth (amount of data).

8k/1k is fine for gaming.

What you want to do is find the IP adress of your target server

then go start-run type CMD there (to get the little dos-window)

type "ping 192.168.0.100" there (where the numbers are the IP number of your server)

You will see a ping return in milli seconds. Let us know how that turns out.

Could be packet loss, that's the worst offender for lag.

You can have a ping of 30 but with any packet loss you'll still lag.

add the -n switch to what RSC said above and set it to 50 and see if you get all 50 returned.

example: ping -n 50 192.168.1.1

I have Comcast and no issues.

thx you all...but all that talk is WAY over my head... go into my router... lol... what break it open? JK... I understand go into the settings, but I don't know where or how to... enable quality control, again...got to research and learn that stuff... and no time now... there are new houses in my community, alot... but I was getting 20K download and 8K up steady for years... all of a sudden I got crap for a connection... well anyway, I still have no problem with PC games, it's just the wireless connections... so I hooked it up to a CAT cable now, a lot faster then wireless.

thx again.

cool...but bad for me:




oh, I went to LA... heres a close one like yours, lol:



still slow as hell.

Is your wireless network secure ? could have had many other users sucking up your bandwidth ?
My speed reading was off my Cat5 hooked into my Dell XPS 700. I just bought a new Belkin Wireless +N
router. What a difference in speed on my notebook now.

If it's just wireless, have you moved anything around in the house? New microwave or anything like that? You can get interference from a lot of items you might not expect. Is it possible to move the 360 to a tv closer to the router, preferably in direct line of sight to test again? If it tests fine wired, then it's either interference, a settings issue or like Jim mentioned, a neighbor on your network. They may not even know they're on your network, some people just connect to whatever they can. If you didn't change your SSID (name) of your wireless connection, it could just be "Linksys" like 10 neighbors may also use.

Basic wireless security is not hard, but you don't want to go into it before eliminating other possible causes first.

Is your router close to the floor? Can you raise it any? The higher off the floor the better.

it is 8 feet directly from each other... and those times were with my hardwired connection...so it's something with my provider I think.

I had a cable modem go bad on me and cause issues like that. Worth a try to have it tested ?
Cable company gave me crap about coming to test it, but I won out in the long run proving
to them their equipment was my issue. Having been a Comcast customer from the beginning in
town. 5 cable names latter. And 4 cable modems.

Try this and see what your grade is: http://www.pingtest.net/

I really think you need to make that dns server change.

Access your comcast account online if you aren't sure how to get into the router and look for the opt out on there. I don't know how fast they will update you though.

https://dns-opt-out.comcast.net/


How does it test if you connect the pc straight to the modem? At least if it's still crappy you can eliminate the router. You just know comcast will tell you to do that if you call in anyway. LOL

The ping times are bad for cable, so are downloads.

Either your modem is going south (I was told the same for mine, but don't believe it) or there are too many new customers in the area and they haven't upgraded the core equipment (which is what I believe is happening to me).

DNS should not be a problem for gaming. Once you are connected to the server, you do not need name resolution, if you ever needed it at all.

QoS is also not going to help. The qos between your hosts and your router is pointless. You need qos between your router and your ISP and 99.99 percent of us do not have a connection like that with their ISP.

Kill your wireless to make sure no rogue hosts are soaking up your bandwidth. 10 down and 1.5 up should be more than enough for any game unless you are hosting and even then, if you are getting those figure consistently, you should be good for quite a few people. Maybe not a 64 vs 64 map but certainly for a small "squad" of friends.

I do not know what you are paying for but, comcast only sells a cap of 12-16 Mbps down that I know of and that is only in bursts, not guaranteed all of the time like a Frame Relay CIR or ATM CBR connection.

But, have them come out and take a look. Make them check signal strength from the modem. Have them check the splitters in your house and make sure you are not getting any signal leaks from cheap splitters or cable problems.

"DNS should not be a problem for gaming. Once you are connected to the server, you do not need name resolution, if you ever needed it at all."

You're assuming it's a dedicated server. Many games these days are hosted by players, more so since I know Magnum is on the 360 as well as pc, where most games are peer to peer. Games like COD don't even tell you who the host is in a public room, the game makes that determination on it's own and the host likely changes from round to round. You'll find a lot of entries on your router's log after a night of gaming. With Comcast's "help" it can cause issues, sometimes seriously slowing you down connecting.



"QoS is also not going to help. The qos between your hosts and your router is pointless."

If your LAN bandwidth is fluctuating due to multiple devices on the network communicating at once, it does make a difference. If you're hosting a game and your wife starts streaming from Netflix, your pc is running an update of some sort, it can be enough to disrupt the room. Some games are extremely sensitive to any connection issues, like GRAW2 on the 360.

These issues may not be ongoing, but they can cause temporary problems, which can be extremely frustrating and hard to pinpoint.

If you are being redirected to new connections via a domain name instead of an IP and there was slowness incurred, it would only be while the new host was discovered. Once you resolve the IP, DNS is out of the picture. If that is happening during gameplay there might be a lag spike but, I would hope you are being directed to the new host by IP, not a name.


I have to imagine his lan link is at least 100 Megs and probably switched so he is getting at least 66megs dedicated bandwidth right to his router. This is very much not where his bottle neck is occuring.

Now, look at the 1.5 meg down connection between his isp and his router. If he has a game, netflix, skype, FTP and HTTP traffic all going at the same time, THAT is his bottleneck. QoS on his LAN will do nothing to remedy that issue.

I have a little bit better than average understanding of QoS issues as I work for Cisco and support customers that have implemented DiffServ QoS.

I respect your opinion and experience, but I do disagree.
Can you explain why QoS is so important when one of your clients implements VOIP? They don't want to lose voice quality on the all important phones just because people in the office are on youtube. LOL
If you have move than one device sharing that connection, you need to assign priority where you want it to be (as you know). Whether VOIP phones, your server, your gaming pc or your console. Let the other devices suffer with less but put priority where it needs to be.
For a home example, I could watch a movie on netflix and watch the quality degrade due to the temporary slowing of the connection when my wife and I got on our laptops online. Enabled QoS for the console (we use a 360 for that in the bedroom) and no more issues.
When hosting a game, your upload speed is more important than download. As a home user, that's going to be limited. I've hosted games while uploading a GB to youtube without issues.

On the DNS change, I've seen changing servers make a big difference. Going from 20 seconds to pull up a certain site (weather.com for instance) back to normal. I don't know what they're doing to cause *that* kind of lag, which worries me even more.

hrmm, I pay for $29 with Cox, which i think its the 5Mbit/2Mbit Up packages..

I've run tests with powerboost that get over 45Mbit Down and 9Mbit up when I was running the Motorola Extreme Modem (Beta testing it), Dual Channel bonding and 1Gbit Lan from Box to PC = No way to bog the shz down.

No one does qos on lans. QoS is done over slow wan links and provider clouds. LANs are typically at least 100Meg connections and they are also typically switched so, they have dedicated bandwidth to the router. No need for qos there. However, when your edge router aggregates all connectivity over a T-1 or E1 which is 1.5 or 2 megs, THAT is where you want to prioritize VOIP traffic over youtube. In the real world, qos occurs between 2 routers. This prioritization of traffic being sold to home users is a joke being played on you by marketing people.





No you don't. Typical application data streams are measured in kbps and typical bandwidth available on a lan is measured in Mbps. There is way more bandwidth available on a lan then is needed. Again, the QoS would be helpful once the router put the data on the link facing your ISP but, your ISP is not paying attention to any priorities you are assigning.





The connection that is taking a beating in this scenario is your wan link, not your lan. Unless you are running 5 meg token ring in your house and you have 100Meg FIOS to your isp LOL




I can't account for your experiences without being there to troubleshoot them with you, I am just sharing my 10+ years worth of experience in provider and enterprise networking.



With browsing, of course DNS will be a factor as you are typing a name into your browser and your pc needs to resolve it before it can route to it. I am talking about gaming where the machines are using IP addresses, not site names to route packets.

I see what you're saying about DNS not being a factor in gaming, that makes perfect sense. I don't think his main issue is in gaming though, Once the route is logged it shouldn't be much of an issue, but it seems to be the case anyway. Maybe it's some other quirk with Comcast's service and not directly associated with the just the fact that we're talking about DNS servers but the routing from their domain helper server to the next hop. I don't know. Still, it may improve the service, even if we don't understand why, as I've seen. You know as well as I do that systems that look perfectly laid out on paper still end up needing troubleshooting for some unforeseen issue.

I also see how QoS wouldn't be a factor as you mention for LAN gaming--through just the switch and not involving the router. I still see it as an issue when going online when you have multiple devices on your network sharing a consumer level router. The router has to queue up packets regardless and giving certain devices priority in that queue helps. No home product will approach enterprise level equipment, but then it isn't handling nearly the processing either. We may not be configuring routing protocols and extensive ACL's here, but they still all have limits, and in the home, the limits are pretty low. You can't just look at this from an enterprise level perspective.

Bottom line: he needs to do some troubleshooting and there's no reason not to include my suggestions since it's impossible to know what all could be going on at Comcast's end. Sometimes you need to try what isn't obvious after trying what is obvious and then figure out why it helped.

That's one reason why I never have connectivity issues... I DO use enterprise quality equipment in my house My router is a Cisco 831 and my WAP is an 1130. I do use some crappy switches though because even the most low end Cisco switch has horrifically loud fans.

You do want to cover all of your bases when t-shooting, I was just trying to offer some suggestions to make the process more efficient.