Router introduces ~1% packet loss in sustained overnight ping test

[Dan Dascalescu]

TL;DR: I recently bought my first "prosumer" router, an ASUS RT-AC68U, and set it up in repeater mode in front of my phone hotspot (Google Pixel on Verizon, unlimited data). Suspecting some Play-Fi speakers might drop audio due to the router, and wanting to eliminate the router as the cause, I ran an overnight ping test, which showed that the router introduces 0.7% to 1% of packet loss. Is this normal?

Test details:

• ping to 8.8.8.8 from two laptops simultaneously
• 8 hours overnight (~1am - ~9am), two nights in a row
• closed apps to make sure no active connections were going on beyond what the OS might do
• laptops placed ~3ft from the router with no obstructions
• Night 1: ping from MacBook Pro laptop connected directly to the hostpot, so MBP -> hotspot -> 8.8.8.8: 0.3% packet loss. It's an LTE link (~-105dB), so I guess that's normal.
• Night 1: ping from Ubuntu laptop connected to the router's 5GHz AP, so Ubuntu -> router -> hotspot -> 8.8.8.8. 1% packet loss
  
• swapped the connections but kept everything else constant, including the location of the laptops
• Night 2: Ubuntu -> hotspot -> 8.8.8.8: 1% packet loss
• Night 2: MBP -> router -> hotspot -> 8.8.8.8: 2% packet loss
  

So putting the AC68U as a repeater between my laptops and the hotspot added between 0.7% and 1% packet loss, with no obstacles in the radio path. Is this acceptable? Am I overlooking something? The router was flashed with Merlin, which made it impossible to connect to the APs, so I flashed back the latest official firmware.

 

[Nullity]

You should probably test completely internally rather than pinging an external host. You should also try to isolate the pings between 2 devices connected to the AP.

You might try to run tcpdump and see what is happening when your Play-Fi speakers glitch.

What protocol does your Play-Fi speakers use? If it's TCP (which a quick Googling seems to say it is), intermittent, minimal packet loss shouldn't cause a problem.

 

[ColinTaylor]

I'd agree with @Nullity that pinging another host on the LAN would be a more meaningful test. I would suspect any issues you have are more likely to be with the mobile phone or mobile network side of things. A 1% or 2% packet loss across a mobile network doesn't sound unreasonable given that ICMP packets are low priority and designed to be dropped in preference to other packets.

BTW, personally I wouldn't call the RT-AC68U a "prosumer" device. To my mind it's definitely a "consumer" unit, but the term is ambiguous.

 

[MichaelCG]

You setup the Asus in repeater mode? Then yes, the additional packet loss seems very reasonable. You have a total of three wireless connections in play now.
1.) Client --> Asus
2.) Asus --> Phone/Hotspot
3.) Phone/Hotspot --> Verizon

Adding in the 2nd WiFi hop should be expected to have some loss/latency added.

Also, I though when in repeater mode it wasn't routing anymore? I have never used repeater mode, so not sure. I have only used it in Router, AP, and Media Bridge mode.