For the past year I've had issues with my connection to online games whenever I would start watching a show on netflix or a video on youtube (Not uncommonly Tek Syndicate or Level 1 news videos.). It feels like youtube videos will cram as much buffering into my bandwidth as it can until the video is done and netflix seems to send huge chunks of the video every 5 seconds, which spikes my ping from 20-30 up to 4-500. Seems to me that the problem is with the internet connection/my end rather than them if it's happening with several sites. I have called my ISP (Comcast) and gotten into a live chat with Netflix to see if either one of them had any tips or solutions to my problem. Neither one were helpful. I've googled it half a dozen times to see if there is a way to tell my router to prioritize game traffic over all else. Quality of Service seems to be promising but i have no idea how to mess with it. My router does have it, I've checked. Before I go messing with it, does anyone have any better suggestions or things I can try instead?
I never have a single latency issue outside of streaming video. That is the only point at which lag occurs consistently. Once in awhile my internet will go down for an hour or so, maybe every few months as i'm sure it does to many people. But as far as lag, it's only when streaming video and my supposed bandwidth should be high enough not to. The router is a Motorola Surfboard SBG6580. It isn't a shared connection as far as I'm aware, there's only one other user in my home and they don't do anything more than check email.
Get a new router and your problem will most likely be solved. Also when I mean shared I mean the entire neighborhood is using the same pipe to get the internet. When everyone gets on after 6 o'clock dinner to stream Gilmore Girls sometimes you can get latency/dropout issues.
my activity times vary - so if i lag as soon as i start watching netflix and stop lagging once i cut the video off, it's likely still not neighbors, but I get what you're saying. :)
Because it is a likely bottleneck of sorts. It has to handle all of the traffic that you are sending its way. So if you are getting issues as soon as you start loading it with traffic (and you have the bandwidth to spare), then it is likely choking.