[ale] [OT] Comcast

[Joshua Kite]

Sweeps can last for weeks.  If I recall correctly, I had about a month of
relatively poor service after which my speeds tests improved tremendously.
As Jim P. points out, a good speed test does not necessarily indicate a good
experience, but a bad speed test will certainly indicate a bad one.  And
when my performance was unacceptably bad my tests always confirmed it.

The fact that Comcast is sending someone to check the signal seems like a
good sign to me.  The fact that you're having problems only during the day
but ALSO on weekends is confusing and makes me second guess the sweep
diagnosis.  It also makes me think Jim K's conspiracy theory of business
customers consuming all of the available bandwidth is off the mark.
However, cable sag or something similar to that seems very possible.  When
the tech shows up, make sure he shows you how to pull information from your
modem if you don't know how to do that already.  That information might come
in very useful if you need to show a pattern of poor service.

I'm assuming that you've already checked all of your own equipment - router,
network card, etc.  A good friend at AT&T was experiencing poor downloads
when I suggested it sounded like an overheated router; turns out it was an
overheated modem.  I've blamed Comcast more than once when it turned out my
router was to blame, either QoS was poorly set up or it was dying (generally
resolved by a quick flash with open-ddwrt).

Yet again, please keep us up to date.  I've tracked issues like this in my
current and former neighborhoods, and I'm always curious as to the
experience of others.  And, push come to shove, I've talked to those who
know how to escalate issues.  Keeping evidence of poor or spotty performance
would be necessary for that.  Speedtest and dslreports do a good job of
keeping your test results, but I think speedtest's are IP based.  You can
expect your IP to change if they're sweeping your area or working on your
connection, so you might want to copy those off today, assuming your network
is working!

On Sun, Jun 1, 2008 at 11:20 PM, Robert Coggins <ale at cogginsnet.com> wrote:

> Would these sweeps last for weeks and on the weekends?  I did happen to
> call comcast, but they are sending someone out here to "check the
> signal"  does that make since?
>
> Robert
>
> Joshua Kite wrote:
> > I experienced something like this a while ago with Comcast.  I was
> > supporting the cable industry when I lost my job earlier this month, and
> > here's what I learned.  From time to time a cable company will "sweep"
> > an area.  They will check the levels on the amplifiers and EQ's to
> > ensure everything meets the specifications for the latest standard.  Of
> > course, they generally do this work during the day, which explains why
> > your service returns to reasonable at night.
> >
> > I've had decent luck calling Comcast (at 404 COMCAST, not the national
> > number) and getting a refund on my bill or a discount on my TV service
> > with them.  It certainly doesn't hurt to call once in a while and
> > complain and also ask if there's any work going on in the area.
> >
> > Let us know how things turn out.
> >
> > Josh Kite
> >
> > On Sun, Jun 1, 2008 at 9:01 PM, Robert Coggins <ale at cogginsnet.com
> > <mailto:ale at cogginsnet.com>> wrote:
> >
> >     So, I have been using comcast for about 4 years.  I have never had an
> >     issue with them.  I have been getting good download rates up and down
> >     and downtime hasn't been an issue.
> >
> >     However, the past few weeks I have been experiencing really weird
> >     issues.  During the day I get really really low up/download rates.
> >     Really low meaning *most* of the time I never get a page to load.
> >     During the night though my download rate has been much better.  I am
> >     getting about 5000 kbps.  It is not as good as it used to be though
> >     which was about 15000 often times (using speakeasy speedtest).
> >
> >     I thought this might have been my cable modem at first but I am
> >     beginning to suspect something else.  Anyone else experience
> something
> >     like this before?
> >
> >     Thanks for your input everyone!
> >
> >     Robert
> >     _______________________________________________
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> >     Ale at ale.org <mailto:Ale at ale.org>
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> >
> >
> >
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