First time posting here, but the issue frustrates me enough and all their contact lines conveniently only are available till 18:00.
TL;DR I suspect the ISP is intentionally massively throttling my connection (to a foreign gaming server) after exactly 19:00, confirmed over multiple days.
Wondering what others their experiences are and what advise you might have.
After being in Japan for over a year, recently I have gotten back into gaming, amongst which the online game Black Desert Online. I do connect to the EU server however, not the JP one.
I have a so-net minico(manshion) plan, connecting through ADSL(100 Mbps limit).
This works pretty well for most of the day, youtube, netflix, even the above game runs 100% smooth as far as I can expect it to run smooth on a server halfway across the globe.(aka slight ping related lag but bearable)
However, I’ve started noticing that at exactly 19:00 the game goes from smooth to a lag from hell. Monsters not spawning for minutes, my attacks not registering, and when my game finally catches up I am dead cause the monsters were in fact spawning and hitting me for that entire time. Even standing in the middle of nowhere in the game, this doesn’t improve.
If it were congestion the performance would degrade bit by bit, however it goes from 100% smooth to 0% playable at exactly 19:00 multiple days in a row, so it’s clearly something the ISP does.
Services like fast.com and minoku.net reports go from 80Mbps during off times to 20Mbps during peak times.
Upload stays pretty stable at 30Mbps. Jitter goes from 1ms to 17ms, ping stays the same.
Didn’t test speedtest before, but it’s showing 0.35pbs download and 15Mbps upload to a server in Amsterdam(iirc also where the game server lives), with a 289 ping.
Testing with a JP server gets me similar results as fast/minsoku.
Youtube keeps working pretty well but it does become worse with longer loading times and rarely being unable to watch at 1080p without constant buffering.
Currently downloading JP version of the game to test if they are perhaps blocking foreign traffic during these hours. Client download speed indicates it is utilizing the full bandwidth I have currently to download the JP version.
I was wondering if anyone else has noticed similar issues and if any of you have any advise to resolve this.
I will also call them tomorrow about this.
Thanks for sny imput you can give.
8 comments
If you’re living in a building, then you share bandwidth with other people. Those people are probably active, or just went home from work at 19:00. A lot of them could be watching Netflix or what.
You are probably better off with a wireless internet.
Or the best one, move to a place that supports faster internet.
I have same issue. From 7-8 pm, the bandwidth is extremely low, can’t even watch videos on my phone. From my experience in tech support for ISP, I can assure you its not voluntarily from the provider. But that’s the time every one gets home and switch on their devices to use internet.
The quality of the lines and the infrastructure isn’t as good as those used by business.
I had a similar problem (although can’t say it was shifting at a precise hour, as I’m not a gamer) – but we had very slow internet at night. Complained to the company, they made me change a setting on my router and now I have very consistent speeds, including at night.
If I remember correctly so-net minico was the cheaper version and it was basically advertised that you could get throttled during high usage hours. (after 19:00)
https://www.so-net.ne.jp/access/hikari/minico/
if that is your internet plan then it is clearly written there if I’m not mistaken.
Had the same issue, jumped around until I found one that didn’t throttle in my complex
I was using a wireless internet thing for a lil while before bow trying to upgrade to 1gig fiber. It would work decently most of the time, but then I would just get throttled hard, even at 9 in the morning. Hoping my 一戸建て fiber will be an improvement lol
consider a new plan which can offer ipv4 and ipv6 together.
I had an issue with Nuro a while back where it was dropping packets and causing exactly what you describe. My input was going to the server and character was moving but the results were not being sent back to me.
Wife playing over mobile broadband could see my character moving in real time. This also happened at peak time and eventually the issue got resolved – a lot of angry customers on Twitter might have moved the ball a bit.
Might be worth seeing if your performance changes using a VPN. Idk why, but game streaming on my local network or from the in-laws is unbearably slow and the latter case doesn’t even connect. Once VPN is connected, both game streams run flawlessly.