A circuit has packet loss or latency

Description - A customer reports network degradation, or you receive Risk Alert notifications for a degraded circuit.

Indicators of this issue - The circuit’s Health Alarm Levels chart show some regular pattern of packet loss or latency alarm.

Potential Causes

• There may be underlying problems in the ISP’s network.

• The circuit’s bandwidth may be misconfigured.

Tests and Solutions

• Do MTR tests from the TE to the CPE and in the reverse direction to see the quality of each hop in the network path.

  • Run MTR tests from the Troubleshooting tab of the Bigleaf Web Dashboard. This can provide insight about potentially which hop in the network path between the Bigleaf router and the Bigleaf POP is causing packet loss or latency alarms. In the MTR test, if you select a WAN interface as the source, it will show the path outside the Bigleaf SDWAN service. If you select the LAN source, it will show the path through the Bigleaf SDWAN service.

• Considerations for a successful engagement with an ISP:

  • You should gather the data and metrics that shows the ISP is potentially at fault before contacting the ISP:

    • MTR outputs

    • IP addresses or circuit details

    • Screenshots of the Health Alarm charts to show when and how severe the problem is.

  • Ensure you are testing from the WAN interface on the Bigleaf CPE that is degraded, as testing through the Bigleaf router from the LAN will not show any hops in the ISP network.

• Ensure the circuit’s bandwidth is configured correctly:

  • Follow the guidance from the topic “Site speeds are too slow”.

  • If there are underlying issues showing a circuit with 30% less bandwidth than is configured, then our QoS algorithms cannot accurately discern the circuit’s bandwidth, and there will be packet loss, latency, and jitter alarm patterns matching traffic utilization. This is common with DSL circuits.

  • Change the circuit speed to align with the decreased bandwidth temporarily for a better user experience while troubleshooting actions are taken to correct the underlying circuit issue.

• Review and perform necessary physical (layer 1) troubleshooting on ISP equipment and cabling. Refer to the topic “The ISP circuit or LAN interface is not auto-negotiating properly” for additional guidance.