Bizarre Ping Behavior
Bizarre Ping Behavior
I've relied on a local ISP for about three years now, experiencing increasingly strange latency problems over time. From the start, there has been significant packet loss during games such as Minecraft and Valorant, making my hit registration unreliable. Recently, a new issue has emerged that I'm completely puzzled about: at random times throughout the day (irregular sleep schedule), my ping fluctuates wildly—from around 50ms ±5 in both games to 80ms ±30 with no clear cause. The most unusual part is that since Valorant shows different ping values depending on server location, my connection suddenly strengthens when I connect to a server four states away instead of the nearby one. I only use Ethernet, and during these events, network usage from other residents drops to nearly zero. From my own research, I suspect the old modem—likely a cheap Arris device from 15 years ago—is the source of the problem. The inconsistent performance suggests the ISP is behaving unpredictably, possibly due to internal issues or random outages. I’m already considering switching to a more reliable provider, but I’m curious if anyone else has encountered similar strange behavior.
The ISP relies on an inexpensive server located four states away. When traffic spikes, this approach leads to such issues.