[ale] OT: Charter Broadband

[Scott Castaline]

Going to war with charter. For the last week my broadband keeps going up 
& down like a yoyo. Reminds me of the Univac 1100 back in the 70's, we 
code named it YoYo Computer. I have had someone hear about 4 times and 
it'll consistently work. NPF so off goes the tech and 10 minutes later 
I'm done right in the middle of an upload.

I'll call and phone support says that my return is too hot. Then they 
start blaming my PC is doing something with their modem because it's 
running Linux and I need to shutdown or remove my system. My wife's 
system is ok, since it's running M$ although she needs to upgrade (Win2K 
to at least KP or Xp or wtf), Then they change paths and blame my router 
(LinkSys) and that in ordr to get continued support I need to get one of 
their routers for $5/month and of course my PC has to be running WinXP 
or preferably Vista.

I've even called the new AT&T to find out about DSL for my area, as as 
far as I know that is the only alternative to cable. After listening to 
someone from probably Bangladesh, who I couldn't understand, for 1/2 hr. 
I think he was trying to sell me their router which would allow both 
systems to have 3Mb/s access because of their software. Using my own 
router would split the 3Mb/s. Okay so now I'm stuck between 2 piles of 
crap, and it really stinkx.

Is it possible that someone in my building (I live in an apartment), 
could be playing games with my modem through their connection since 
we're on the same node. I know that a couple of years back that someone 
was playing games with my wife's system, which stopped after the person 
I suspected moved out. Now my problem has started coincidently after 
someone new moved in. Also my son and his family live on the other side 
of the community and are NOT experiencing these problems.

Their common response now is due to the shopping center under 
construction is the reason why I'm having problems. Charter's pile of 
crap keeps getting bigger. They didn't even know of that situation until 
I told them about it. I would buy it everybody in the complex was going 
through this too, but as far as I've been able to tell I'm the only one. 
Also my TV signal is fine, no constant dropping.

Another question I have. I remember when I was doing Digital Head End 
installs for SA (now CISCO) and if the downstream to the set top box was 
too low then the set top would ramp up to the point of being too hot and 
the opposite could happen where the return path was too low could cause 
the downstream QPSK to ramp up. Is this possible with DOCSIS modems? I 
don't remember what my levels should be, anyone have that?

TIA
Scott Castaline