IP Broadband experience: Better bandwidth, worse latency due to lack of Fastpath

[kintobor]

Earlier this year I was upgraded to IP Broadband (AT&T U-Verse) from a bonded Sonic Fusion ADSL connection. The bandwidth is much better: it went from ~10Mbps down and ~1 up to ~25 down and ~1-2 up, although they are oddly only using a single line now instead of two like I had before. But the latency is a lot worse. I get around 25-30ms ping on http://www.sonic.com/speedtest instead of the 10ms or lower that I had previously with Fastpath mode enabled on the Fusion service, and this is with SQM enabled on my router. Also, I can no longer use my own equipment for the modem, and from what I can tell there's nothing available on on the market that's compatible.

Is there any way to get Fastpath mode turned on for the IP Broadband service? It's no longer on the web portal and I called AT&T and Sonic about it but they weren't able to.

[brandonc]

Unfortunately, I believe that it isn't possible to achieve Fast Path on the IP Broadband service. It's only configurable on AT&T's end and they do not support Fast Path as a feature anymore, so unfortunately it's stuck in interleave.

I made a strong effort to switch my own IP Broadband service to Fast path several years ago and was not able to do so myself or with AT&T's help.

Hopefully in the near future we can bring Fiber to the area and then the latency will be ~3-5ms.

Kind regards,