Cable internet speeds - should I complain

[NateTheBrewer]

I have DSL and cable coming in for internet at my house... These are the only things available in our area. The DSL is 3 Mb down / 768 Kb up. The cable is 25 Mb down / 2 Mb (yes, really) up.

With the DSL I get pretty close to the exact speeds for that plan.

With the Cable, I understand that it is a shared pool of bandwidth with everyone else who is on the same node (or whatever you call the last hop that distributes network connectivity to my neighborhood or street) and that during peak times it slows down, but I have never seen the differences be this bad...

When I am working from home on a weekday, I get their quoted speeds (sometimes faster). During peak times, though, it consistently drops to around 1.5 Mb down - can't remember what the average upload I get during that time is.

So is it worth complaining to them at all? It would seem like they need to build up their infrastructure on the back end to handle the increased traffic during peak times... I know my complaint would not get this done, but would it help?

[K PhaNTOM]

That is way too slow. When I used to have 60/12 from Comcast I got that constantly. If it dropped down it didn't drop below 50/12. I would personally complain, or lower your speed so you don't have to pay so much for average DSL speeds. I did eventually drop down my speed from comcast's 60/12 for 140 dollars to AT&T's 3/.5 for 20 bucks. I just don't download like I used to anymore. And for some reason my Ping is better through DSL rather than cable, which isn't logical to me.

[NateTheBrewer]

That is way too slow. When I used to have 60/12 from Comcast I got that constantly. If it dropped down it didn't drop below 50/12. I would personally complain, or lower your speed so you don't have to pay so much for average DSL speeds. I did eventually drop down my speed from comcast's 60/12 for 140 dollars to AT&T's 3/.5 for 20 bucks. I just don't download like I used to anymore. And for some reason my Ping is better through DSL rather than cable, which isn't logical to me.

Same thing for my Ping, I think it is because you have a single circuit back to the CO, versus hitting a hub somewhere...

I wish I had another carrier to go to... Our city for some reason has not gotten Comcast Cable, and the only thing Verizon has in the area is DSL, no FIOS. There are 2 well-entrenched cable companies, and each have divided up the city geographically with some overlap. They are Service Electric and RCN. I have RCN here. Have heard similar and worse things about Service Electric.

[TheTurboSloth]

In the tri-state area, theres only like 1 cable company that supplies us. Fios hasn't made it to my road. My DL is only 1mb/s. My internet company said they doubled my speed though it only peaks at 1.5mb/s

[goldenfooler]

Turbo where are you at? I am in North Jersey and I think I have 3 choices.

[TheTurboSloth]

The Central Jersey area (Edison). I believe that only Cablevision and Verizon DSL really are my 2 choices (comcast, time-warner, and Fios aren't in my town). Basically, I left Verizon DSL because my DL speeds peaked at only 500kb/s. Seriously.

[goldenfooler]

ah ok. My brother lives in Metuchen

[Devilguns]

Nate are you saying your cable is dropping to 1.5 down? I had a similar issue with my cable and it turned out to to be the modem. It was a crazy thing, it took two weeks for them to diagnose and they wound up replacing my modem three times too. At first they thought it was bad line noise coming from the junction in the street. They replaced everything, the box in the street, the cables in my house, the cable running to my house. Line noise went away, I still had the problem. And it took a lot on my part to talk them into trying different modems. For me it was worth complaining. Even if they credit you for not getting advertised speed.

[NateTheBrewer]

Nate are you saying your cable is dropping to 1.5 down? I had a similar issue with my cable and it turned out to to be the modem. It was a crazy thing, it took two weeks for them to diagnose and they wound up replacing my modem three times too. At first they thought it was bad line noise coming from the junction in the street. They replaced everything, the box in the street, the cables in my house, the cable running to my house. Line noise went away, I still had the problem. And it took a lot on my part to talk them into trying different modems. For me it was worth complaining. Even if they credit you for not getting advertised speed.

I posted this on a tech list for work and a lot of others are saying it could be the modem too, but I am not sure if that is because they are overlooking the fact that it is consistent... During the day it is at or above advertised speeds, and it consistently drops to that speed from 5pm-8pm every day - that's what makes me think it is a bandwidth bottleneck upstream, but I guess it is worth asking for a new modem, especially since they make you rent the damn thing - and maybe I would get one that heats up less... I mean, I can't even watch and HD video on YouTube during the most likely time that I would (and I am sure part of the problem is there are hundreds of other people just like me trying to do the same thing at the same time). Just wish we had a non-shared bandwidth provider in the area that had more than just DSL...

I looked into the fine print on my contract and found this - basically saying they will do their best, but then turning around and saying they don't really need to:

7.2. The Service provided is an ethernet-like IP service over a shared bandwidth connection, and users will contend for bandwidth. RCN will undertake reasonable efforts at network management, traffic analysis, operational procedures and user policies that ensure appropriate bandwidth at all times for as many customers as possible.

Then it links to this rider at the bottom of the page:

Rider D

HOWEVER, RCN EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMS ALL LIABILITY ARISING FROM OR RELATING TO ANY FAILURE TO PROVIDE ADEQUATE BANDWIDTH TO ITS CUSTOMERS

[Rand{CLR}]

The rider doesn't mean anything. It just helps protect them from lawsuits. You wouldn't be taking it that far, but you should definitely complain to them.

-Rand

[NateTheBrewer]

The rider doesn't mean anything. It just helps protect them from lawsuits. You wouldn't be taking it that far, but you should definitely complain to them.

-Rand

Thanks all, I guess I will give it a try.

[{CLR} Cobalt]

They know about the problem, trust me. Sad thing is, without spending a lot of money on infrastructure, it aint gonna change.That's why America's internet is rated so poorly. Too much demand for bandwidth , and little to no motivation to fix it.

They demand big money for bandwidth will little concern for the product delivered. But they think they are top notch. Just ask em.

If some company ever steps up and goes all out on infrastructure , they would corner the market if the bandwidth was good. But I dont see that happening in the next 20 years.

[Dead...Again]

I have AT&T DSL, 6Mb down, 768Kb up. The download speeds are OK, but sometimes the upload speeds are annoying. Thinking of switching to Comcast cable.