Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Hardware and Software => Topic started by: Krusty on November 07, 2011, 12:28:09 PM
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I share internet with somebody in my house that works online regular hours, 2nd shift. This person connects via VPN to their work and needs that steady connection to get their job done.
The setup goes from the modem to a wireless hub, this hub goes out to small switch the next floor up, and that switch just has a few wires for the stationary PCs. The laptops use wireless.
This has been ongoing for many years now, but lately, all of a sudden, the past 3 weeks have been utter crap. The house will get slow-downs on internet, and take up to several minutes for pages to load without ever fully losing Internet services.
Then the past 3+ weeks it's been cutting out almost entirely between 9:30-10:30 pm every day. No internet response. The front of the Comcast-supplied modem has about 8 lights on it. Sometimes the lights will be fine, and sometimes only the first 2-4 will be going like the modem reset itself and is trying to self-test.
Doing a power cycle, the modem never fully reboots. We had a Comcast person come in and check the lines. They weren't bad but he swapped them out for new ones, and checked the connect. It happened again. We took the modem in to a Comcast service center, and they swapped it out for a new one no problem. We called and had that one activated and it works.
Until every evening when it cuts out. Power cycling doesn't help because it never fully cycles back to "working" untilmaybe 20+ minutes after you try it.
And guess when this started happening? The instant that my relative opted to sign a 2-year contract to save $30 off the bill.
Color me jaded, but I sense "you're screwed, we own you, now suck it up" was put into play by Comcast.
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I've had similar problems in the past with my ISP. Performance will be terrible during evening hours and fine off peak. By terrible I mean it sometimes slows to dial up speed and packet loss is 50%. No amount of complaining makes any difference. Then, maybe months later, it will suddenly go away. I interpret this as them fiddling with the network topology leading to periods when my node is way over sold and other periods, say after a node split, when it works. I have no control over it and the ISP never admits any problems. I no longer even contact them: I just check the modem power and S/N levels and if they are nominal, as they always are, I just wait it out (for months at a time). In my case the data shows performance hits bottom between 9 PM and 11 PM. Taking this data is kinda fun: I can also see when people get up in the morning to check the Internet as there is a bit of a dip then another one when they come home for lunch (where I live there is only one major employer and everyone lives within a few minutes of work).
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I have a hunch they significantly oversold the bandwidth of my particular network and didn't expect it to be used. Well... IT IS! It IS being used!
Stupid frickin' Comcast! The kicker is Century Link (who bought out Qwest here) have a decent rep for DSL, but now because of the 2 year contract we're locked in. We would have to buy 2 broadband connections simultaneously. That sucks.
P.S. They tried to blame it on the router/hub... repeatedly. Only, during a power cycle I disconnect that BEFORE rebooting the modem. Guess what? The modem won't finish self-testing and reconnect to Comcast even when the hub is unplugged! New modem, new wires, still won't reboot during power cycle. They just don't have enough signal in the lines.
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sounds like the problem i had with roadrunner for a few months...i ended up sending the last tech up the pole to physically check the connection and he found a filter had been put in place where it shouldn't have been. magically appeared after my first 3 months of being connected without issue. removed the filter, new connectors at the pole, problem went away.
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Krusty dont let the corporate types win. You have to get fired up to assert yourself and get what you are paying for. You dont want to let them know you are prepared to fire them but you do need to remind them that you are a customer that demands premiere service for your money. If they cant deliver then its them that breached the contract. Dont let a service termination fee scare you. They wont win.
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The problem with pushing them to the point of getting something done is every time they come out there's a possible $75 service fee... I just can't afford that these days more than once in a blue moon. We don't have poles around here. There's a ground-level box and when the guy came to check the wires it was in another house's backyard, several houses down, nobody was home, and they had dogs out. He couldn't actually check the relay/box/whatever.
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$75!?! No sir! Not even $1! Your paying a monthly bill and not receiving the service you paid for! You have the power not them. Come on man! :D
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I was having problems a couple of months ago. My connection would go out completely. Oddly enough every time I called Comcast to schedule a service call my connection would come up a little while later so I'd cancel the call and then it would go out again. All this time my TV connection was working fine.
Finally I scheduled it and didn't cancel. Guy up the pole, new modem and I'm better than ever.
WTF? Who in their right mind would pay for a service call for a service that's not being provided as contracted?
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I never would have signed the contract myself. We've got the new modem... Now the only thing is "guy up a pole" -- or rather guy going into somebody's backyard down the block. I'll see about that as a possible fix.
P.S. I also have no interruption of TV services during these outages.
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Do what I did; give them a chance to fix your problem and when they don't you e-mail every state and federal representative that is in your district.
After 12 days of no phone, cable TV or internet I got fed up and emailed my Reps and the Dept of Public Utilities last night and suddenly I have Comcast head honchos and attorneys asking me if we'll accept a month free in exchange for the lack of service.