ISP Questions?

[d-dave]

Are any of y'all internet engineers?  My house keeps losing internet connectivity daily, usually at 10am or 1pm.  Downdetector.com is full of very colorful comments for good ole spectrum.  Is there some other issue going on in the larger web?  Did someone kick the gerbal wheel off the treadmill?  Or is it just so much freaking traffic at those times bringing the whole internet down to it's knees?

I'm anxious for either AT&T or Windstream to get their fiber to my house!  Bring the competition!

[Anybodyhome]

It's called "remote learning." All those school kids logging in to get their daily edumacation, reedin,' rightin,' rithmatick.

[d-dave]

I just thought it was weird that it's either of those times.  I figured that's what it is.

Still about fed up with Spectrum.

[Jeremy Igo]

If you can get AT& T instead you will have dedicated bandwidth and not have to share with neighbors. 

[d-dave]

2 hours ago, Jeremy Igo said:

If you can get AT& T instead you will have dedicated bandwidth and not have to share with neighbors. 

Yeah, I have friends who have AT&T fiber who love it.  Just waiting for some local competition...

[cardiackat88.]

Good garsh OP,

You are making me wonder when the conspiracy theorists are going to start claiming that all the remote learning is really just a ploy to mandate Net Neutrality. 

[d-dave]

18 hours ago, cardiackat88. said:

Good garsh OP,

You are making me wonder when the conspiracy theorists are going to start claiming that all the remote learning is really just a ploy to mandate Net Neutrality. 

That would be more of a TB thread =P

Since my wife and son are doing everything virtually, I hear about every time it starts to crap out.  Not much I can do while at my in person school.

It's just so frustrating that it keeps going out. It's not like they didn't realize this was going to happen after March.  I hate a lack of competition in my area.  It's either spectrum or a DSL...yeah easy choice there!

[Davidson Deac II]

On 9/2/2020 at 8:23 PM, d-dave said:

I just thought it was weird that it's either of those times.  I figured that's what it is.

Still about fed up with Spectrum.

Experiences can vary.  I have spectrum and love it.  ATT ran fiber in my neighborhood last year, but I am still getting better speed than my neighbor who is on fiber.  The only issues we have had were a couple weeks ago when a Tree came down on a line a couple of weeks ago.  And a few months ago, some animal chewed thru the ground cables.  And I work from home via VPN, while my son is finishing his senior year in college online.  That being said if you are having issues, nothing wrong with checking out the competition.

You said it goes down between ten and three every day. Does that include weekends?  If so, could be something else.  

[CarolinaNCSU]

Same issue for me and CenturyLink after their crash last weekend.  Sometimes it's perfectly fine, sometimes I can access some websites but not others, etc.  

Spent 2 hours on the phone with customer service today for them to tell me it's working 100%, but then they couldn't ping my modem and it's a modem issue.  Craziness. 

[d-dave]

On 9/5/2020 at 12:29 AM, Davidson Deac II said:

You said it goes down between ten and three every day. Does that include weekends?  If so, could be something else.  

I've tried talk to spectrum's customer service...  They said it's not a problem on their end.  Downdetector and my neighbors disagree.   I figure it is due to everyone doing everything remote right now.  Couple that with the stress the resat of the networks (like CenturyLink) are on, it's literally not on them.

Folks around me who have AT&T are getting full gig speeds.  Butt-holes.

[jayboogieman]

On 9/3/2020 at 7:36 AM, Jeremy Igo said:

If you can get AT& T instead you will have dedicated bandwidth and not have to share with neighbors. 

That's not true. Every connection is shared at some point. That is why areas will go into bandwidth exhaust or get oversold. Cable starts sharing just as soon as it hits the street. DSL and fiber start sharing once they hit the local dslam or hub.

 

On 9/5/2020 at 12:29 AM, Davidson Deac II said:

Experiences can vary.  I have spectrum and love it.  ATT ran fiber in my neighborhood last year, but I am still getting better speed than my neighbor who is on fiber.  The only issues we have had were a couple weeks ago when a Tree came down on a line a couple of weeks ago.  And a few months ago, some animal chewed thru the ground cables.  And I work from home via VPN, while my son is finishing his senior year in college online.  That being said if you are having issues, nothing wrong with checking out the competition.

You said it goes down between ten and three every day. Does that include weekends?  If so, could be something else.  

Yep. It could be an equipment issue, maintenance in the area, or a bandwidth issue if it is doing it daily in the same time frame.

On 9/5/2020 at 5:17 PM, CarolinaNCSU said:

Same issue for me and CenturyLink after their crash last weekend.  Sometimes it's perfectly fine, sometimes I can access some websites but not others, etc.  

Spent 2 hours on the phone with customer service today for them to tell me it's working 100%, but then they couldn't ping my modem and it's a modem issue.  Craziness. 

Worked for them for years doing tech support and programming. A lot of the reps will claim it is a modem issue because they don't have a clue or just want to get you off the phone because that long call is killing their stats. You could try pinging out when you cannot browse sites. I don't remember the exact command for Macs but it is similar to Windows and done in the terminal. For Windows, bring up the command prompt and type something like this: 

ping google.com -l 1400 -n10

That will ping google with a 1400 byte of data instead of the usual 32 byte size, which is better for testing. Larger packets of data drop out before smaller ones do. The last part of the command is the number of times you want to ping the server. Windows defaults to 4 pings which is not always enough times to see a problem.

Centurylink's  modems have a ping feature built in under the utilities tab in their interface, but it does the normal Windows default 4 pings of 32 bytes. If you cannot browse from any device and are seeing packets dropout when trying to ping a site, that is a Centurylink network issue. If you call them again and get an offshore agent, if you ask for a supervisor twice, you will get one of their tier 4 agents here in the US. Most of them know what they are doing. There is just never a lot of them on the phones due to having other duties.

13 hours ago, d-dave said:

I've tried talk to spectrum's customer service...  They said it's not a problem on their end.  Downdetector and my neighbors disagree.   I figure it is due to everyone doing everything remote right now.  Couple that with the stress the resat of the networks (like CenturyLink) are on, it's literally not on them.

Folks around me who have AT&T are getting full gig speeds.  Butt-holes.

Blaming the customer's end is par for the course for most tech support. Odds are there is a network issue. It could be something as simple as a cracked connector or leak in the cable network in the area. Field techs have to find those as they don't show up in tech support programs. Or at least they didn't when I worked in cable years ago. Could also be a bad span of cable or a booster somewhere. I would call them back and say you want a tech to come out and check it out during the time frame you've been seeing problems.

[Bronn]

If you're the last drop on the line or close to it, and you have an amplifier inside/outside your house, it could be causing an issue similar to this.

We were once the very last drop in our area. They had installed an amplifier at the outside box to boost our signal.

Years later when they had extended the line, they forgot about our amplifier. We had lots of issues that sound similar to what you're experiencing.

TWC was garbage. Spectrum seems to carry the same garbage plus being overall a-holes as a corporation.

[Davidson Deac II]

On 9/7/2020 at 7:00 PM, d-dave said:

I've tried talk to spectrum's customer service...  They said it's not a problem on their end.  Downdetector and my neighbors disagree.   I figure it is due to everyone doing everything remote right now.  Couple that with the stress the resat of the networks (like CenturyLink) are on, it's literally not on them.

Folks around me who have AT&T are getting full gig speeds.  Butt-holes.

That is why I ask if its happening on weekends between ten and three as well.  They won''t be logged in as much at that time, so if its occurring then, it might not be a bandwidth issue.  Also, if possible, test your speed connected to the router with an ethernet cable vs connected via wifi.   If you get much faster connection thru the ethernet, could be an issue with your wifi.   Don't get me wrong, could be an overall speed issue, but there are also any number of other things it could be.  

[d-dave]

10 hours ago, Davidson Deac II said:

That is why I ask if its happening on weekends between ten and three as well.  They won''t be logged in as much at that time, so if its occurring then, it might not be a bandwidth issue.  Also, if possible, test your speed connected to the router with an ethernet cable vs connected via wifi.   If you get much faster connection thru the ethernet, could be an issue with your wifi.   Don't get me wrong, could be an overall speed issue, but there are also any number of other things it could be.  

It's hit or miss on the weekends, but any blips are pretty short term.  That makes me think that it's just the volume.

I've tried the wifi/ethernet, and I get about the same speeds.  I set up a mesh network a while ago which solved a lot of our network connectivity, but it's just the fact that spectrum drops out about the same times during the week.

I know I sound like I'm just whining =P  I am.  It's just frustrating to have the same issues, day after day and Spectrum acting like it's all fine.  As far as getting a tech out there, it will have to be a day when I'm at home.  My wife doesn't like strangers and my dogs can be buttholes.  

It would have been super nice if the telecoms had prepared a little more for everyone being online starting in March.