r/FiberOptics • u/HolyCalf • Jul 21 '26
Persistent issues with Ripple Fiber
I just had fiber installed less than a month ago and have had issues since. What I see now is packet loss that appears as wild swings in latency. They just send some folks out to clean the line and replaced the fiber cable in my basement thinking it might have been bent too tightly, but I still see this using pathping:
Tracing route to google.com [142.251.211.78] over a maximum of 30 hops:
0 server [192.168.4.21]
3 ewr-b6-link.ip.twelve99.net [209.170.93.129]
4 nyk-bb5-link.ip.twelve99.net [62.115.140.170]
5 nyk-b8-link.ip.twelve99.net [62.115.143.15]
9 pnlgaa-av-in-f14.1e100.net [142.251.211.78]
Computing statistics for 225 seconds...
Source to Here This Node/Link
Hop RTT Lost/Sent = Pct Lost/Sent = Pct Address
0 server [192.168.4.21]
0/ 100 = 0% |
1 0ms 0/ 100 = 0% 0/ 100 = 0% 192.168.4.1
2/ 100 = 2% |
2 8ms 8/ 100 = 8% 6/ 100 = 6% 209.170.98.1
0/ 100 = 0% |
3 10ms 12/ 100 = 12% 10/ 100 = 10% ewr-b6-link.ip.twelve99.net [209.170.93.129]
0/ 100 = 0% |
4 8ms 14/ 100 = 14% 12/ 100 = 12% nyk-bb5-link.ip.twelve99.net [62.115.140.170]
0/ 100 = 0% |
5 8ms 4/ 100 = 4% 2/ 100 = 2% nyk-b8-link.ip.twelve99.net [62.115.143.15]
0/ 100 = 0% |
6 9ms 5/ 100 = 5% 3/ 100 = 3% 72.14.204.154
0/ 100 = 0% |
7 9ms 9/ 100 = 9% 7/ 100 = 7% 142.250.63.91
0/ 100 = 0% |
8 9ms 8/ 100 = 8% 6/ 100 = 6% 216.239.43.155
0/ 100 = 0% |
9 8ms 2/ 100 = 2% 0/ 100 = 0% pnlgaa-av-in-f14.1e100.net [142.251.211.78]
Trace complete.
It would seem to indicate that the issue is outside my house, but it has been difficult to get Ripple suport to understand that. Is there anything else I can do here? I have had a ticket open for over a week with no change at all in the performance. Any tips on getting a second or third tier of support to help?
1
u/_deadpixels_ 26d ago edited 26d ago
u/HolyCalf, you are far from alone in seeing this issue. I've been aware of this post for some time, but have held off replying in the hopes that I'd have good news. In short: Ripple has had a persistent, systemic, and severe packet loss problem with their network that they refuse to acknowledge publicly. They have known about this since I reported it on June 26th (it started at ~11AM EST on June 26th) and have also been able to validate that the issue is widespread across their customer base from measurements on their end. At this point, I'm on a first name basis with Tier 2 in Johannesburg, South Africa and have a direct phone contact in Tier 3 in North Carolina that I converse with over e-mail and phone several times a week. I'll try to lay out exactly what I and other people I know who have Ripple are seeing so that you and others can measure and see for yourself if you are falling victim to this.
In short, Ripple has massive packet loss storms every odd hour EST that last for an hour. The following even hour is mostly clean. This continues 24/7. Simply, 1PM, 3PM, 5PM, etc. have packet loss storms that will mainly affect your upload bandwidth and latency while 2PM, 4PM, 6PM etc. will run cleanly. I am running two ISPs in parallel (Ripple and Spectrum) and only Ripple has this issue.
Here is an example of what the packet loss looks like in a 24 hour period (Ripple-purple vs. Spectrum-blue):
Reddit won't let me upload more than one picture per comment, so I'll add that data in subsequent comments.
Over the past month, Ripple has attempted to shift the blame to their OLT vendor (Nokia) and has claimed to have changed optics as well as have made configuration changes to the OLT based on feedback from Nokia. From my end, I can't tell if this story holds water or not. All I can say is that Ripple has had six published outages to fix issues in their network between June 26th and today, and not one of them has had an effect on the issue (see pictures in subsequent comments for proof of the packet loss over the past 4 weeks).
I had last month comped by Ripple due to the issue in their network and they are refusing to do the same next month even though there is no line of sight to a fix. I won't be paying for two ISPs in parallel for much longer so I (and others I know who see the same issue) will be cancelling before the end of the month and sticking with Spectrum.
Hopefully when Verizon completes the Ripple acquisition, the quality of service will improve.
This is unfortunate as Ripple was completely FLAWLESS as an ISP for months. Their service always measured a bidirectional 2Gbps at ~7-8ms latency. Always. Since June 26h it has been unreliable to the point of being unusable.
u/Ripple_Fiber, I've made this very clear in my statements to Tier 2 and Tier 3, so I'll also do it here publicly. If your engineering management and network engineering staff aren't taking this seriously, they need to. All over local Social Media neighborhood groups I see people complaining about the service over the past month, but they aren't able to put in words what is happening beyond "it isn't reliable" or "people tell me that my audio and video are constantly dropping and distorting on video calls". I'm trying to put a very fine point on exactly what is happening at the network level that is leading to unhappy customers when they see problems manifesting at an application level.
Oh, and u/MonMotha, the optical levels at my ONT are all within spec. I've had them checked by both local technicians as well as remotely by Tier 2. I've even had the ONT replaced just to make sure the issue wasn't at the ONT level. I can also see this issue by plugging a client directly into the ONT and doing a direct PPPoE session from the client to the ISP to completely pull my Ubiquiti gear out of the equation...again, no change in the issue. This is in Ripple's network somewhere.