My internet service is awful - is there something I can do to improve it?

[Deoxysprime]

I've spent the past few days trying to improve my internet connection. I knew it was bad, but I feel like it's even worse than I first imagined it. Here's my situation, probably way more information than is needed:


ISP and current service:
- I live in an area in which there are only two ISPs. One is Comcast, which offers decent speed with cable; however, their customer service is a nightmare and every time my father used their services they've sent him incredibly high bills and when we try to talk to them to figure out why they're so high they tend to give us the run around. The other is Verizon, which can't offer fiber-optic internet in my area. They offer DSL, but their highest tier of DSL speed is 3 down and less than 1 up. Comcast's service would be nice but I certainly don't want them to charge as much as they have in the past. Charging over $100 a month for any residential internet service should be criminal.

- My current service is fairly poor. The service is advertised a 3d/.5u but as with most internet services you get slightly less than advertised. That doesn't bother me.

- We're using an old modem/router combo. It's an old ActionTec model. We only just recently started using it though. It shouldn't be damaged. I don't think it's a limiting factor when my maximum internet speed should be 3Mbps. I'm currently wired into the modem.


High ping times:
- My ping times are insanely high. Especially when running any download. I've been using PingPlotter to trace my connection; however, it seems that every single address I connect to has awful ping times. Some steps of the traceroute have 100% packet loss, others are perfectly fine. When a download is running it seems that every step of the traceroute has 20% or more packet loss and a very wide ping range from 50ms to as high as 2500ms. When a download is not running there are still generally a couple of steps with 100% packet loss and maybe one or two with 20% but the ping range is from 50ms to 200ms instead.

- When using Speedtest.net I always have a minimum ping time of 40 and it's often much higher. I generally get between 2.4 and 2.8 down and pretty consistently .5 up.

- When playing LoL my consistent minimum ping time is 130ms but it very frequently spikes to highs of 4 digits. WoW is still downloading information when I play it so I don't consider that ping as accurate (it's a minimum of 250ms but very often goes up to roughly 3,000ms.)


How the internet runs:
- The internet runs slowly most of the time, and I can deal with that. However, sometimes I can't load webpages even though I'm still connected to the internet. My games don't disconnect, I still receive instant messages on Skype, and my downloads will continue to run. I just can't load webpages during that time. This occurs for roughly 5-10 minutes at a time and generally occurs every few hours. This has no impact on gaming and is just an inconvenience when browsing.


Other devices:
- My aunt uses this connection, but all she does is light browsing and it realistically shouldn't eat up much of the bandwidth. The internet feels the same whether she's using it or not.



I just think that this poor service should actually be a little better than it is. I think there's something going on that can be changed to improve the usability of the service even though it's old and poor. I just don't know what it is. Do you guys think there's something that can be done in my situation? Is there any specific information I can provide to help? Thanks for bearing with me and my wall of text.

[Vermicious]

It sounds like you're beating a dead horse. Comcast usually has decent service, but I guess that depends on where you are located. I've never heard of them charging $100+ for internet service unless you're getting one of the extreme speed packages, or bundling with Cable TV and/or phone service.

As with all providers like this, you get the best rates by contacting their customer retention dept, they tend to have access to all the best rate plans.

It also sounds like you might be at the max distance for DSL, and or crappy wiring in between. Have you checked all your cables to make sure they are all good, not frayed/kinked?

Getting a newer router MIGHT help, or see if the one you have can be flashed with DD-WRT, you sound techie enough to do that.

[IRunSoFarAway]

When you download something, how fast does it go(how much MB or KB per sec)? I'm not sure if you're converting Mbps to MBps, but if it's advertised as 3 Mbps, that's around 400KBps. Is that what you're getting when you download big files? If what you're getting on speedtest is 2.4-2.8, it's even lower.

[Yunru]

Hm how exacly does your connection look on pingplotter?

1. You packet loss?
2. Your provider packet loss?
3.
4. packet loss?
5.
6.
7. Site you are using (or game) LAG

Is it 1 , 2 or 4?
If its 1 you need some better modem. If its 2 you can just change your provider now! If its 4 then you cant do anything that using some site for a better traffic (IT COSTS MONEY)
Anyway...most of lag that i get is from Telia.net due to bad routing.

Wtb screenshot of ping (you can edit your address).


Also do you use cable or wireless crap?

[Deoxysprime]

It sounds like you're beating a dead horse. Comcast usually has decent service, but I guess that depends on where you are located. I've never heard of them charging $100+ for internet service unless you're getting one of the extreme speed packages, or bundling with Cable TV and/or phone service.

As with all providers like this, you get the best rates by contacting their customer retention dept, they tend to have access to all the best rate plans.

It also sounds like you might be at the max distance for DSL, and or crappy wiring in between. Have you checked all your cables to make sure they are all good, not frayed/kinked?

Getting a newer router MIGHT help, or see if the one you have can be flashed with DD-WRT, you sound techie enough to do that.

I think Comcast has nearly a monopoly on my local area. They don't worry too much about customer retention here when they're pretty obviously the best choice for decently fast internet. That's just an assumption though. All I know is that my father hates Comcast with a passion and I've never been fond of them myself.

As for my connection: the cables themselves are in decent condition. I didn't do the wiring around the house so if there's something wrong with one of the wall jacks or the wires behind them - I don't know and I'd have to find someone more experienced to take a look at that. I'll see what I can do about the modem/router in the meantime; I'm kind of a low-mid level techie so I'll probably have to use some references and guides to figure out what I'm doing.

When you download something, how fast does it go(how much MB or KB per sec)? I'm not sure if you're converting Mbps to MBps, but if it's advertised as 3 Mbps, that's around 400KBps. Is that what you're getting when you download big files? If what you're getting on speedtest is 2.4-2.8, it's even lower.

My average download speed tends to fluctuate between 250 and 380KBps but most often hangs around 330-350. I know the difference between Mbps and MBps now that I actually am looking at various service packages. I always knew the difference between bits and bytes but I was never aware that the Mbps values that service providers were advertising on their plans were Megabits per second.

Hm how exacly does your connection look on pingplotter?

1. You packet loss?
2. Your provider packet loss?
3.
4. packet loss?
5.
6.
7. Site you are using (or game) LAG

Is it 1 , 2 or 4?
If its 1 you need some better modem. If its 2 you can just change your provider now! If its 4 then you cant do anything that using some site for a better traffic (IT COSTS MONEY)
Anyway...most of lag that i get is from Telia.net due to bad routing.

Wtb screenshot of ping (you can edit your address).


Also do you use cable or wireless crap?

I'm currently hooked into my modem with an ethernet cable. The service is an old style DSL using a phone line. Here's a screenshot - http://i.imgur.com/4hghzmW.png - I didn't edit anything because I didn't feel that any of the information was particularly sensitive and even if it was I don't really feel any significant level of risk for posting it. I don't know how to interpret the data from Pingplotter accurately though.

[lordmatthias]

I have comcast, their speeds are pretty awesome, I recently upgraded to their 100Mb/20Mb (down/up) service, and I have their basic cable service because it was literally the same price (about $100). Bill issues are common with ANY provider, usually it is due to a sales person that either entered the order incorrectly, or didn't offer you the correct pricing. I have had 7 different ISPs over the past 15 years, and pretty much all of them had billing issues or something similar at one point or another. The worst one I had was Mediacom when they screwed up the price I had been offered on their website, I had to screenshot the price which included a date of the offering (which I actually had because I thought the price seemed extremely low).

It sounds like you are on DSL, and if you are far from the node your connection will suck. If you read the fine print in their agreements DSL providers usually have a huge swing in acceptable speeds (this is the same issue I had with Quest). They offered me a 9Mb/1Mb connection (back in like 2007), and after I got it hooked up and running it was like 2Mb/.5Mb which ended up be slower than the previous connection which I ended up swapping back to.

If I were you I would give Comcast a shot as long as you are ok with their offering. Just make sure that you get very specific about pricing, ask plenty of questions about when their promotional offering ends and what the price will be afterwards. I would also suggest you process the order via their online chat, as you can save the conversation history and have a record of the entire offering which if you run into problems later on will be invaluable.

[Yunru]

Hm looking at pingploter you seem to have a problem with a bad jumping. Its posible that the internet provider you are curently using is not allowed to use some good ports so they just use cheap ones. (wich makes you lag) Or the other provider with the monopol is blocking them and preventing them to use those lines.

Well you have some options:
*public proxy
*calling your ISP and tell them the packet loss from XXX port (so they fix it)
*renting a virtual box

I would go with second option. Just be sure to be very pissed off and tell them you will change to another provider if they dont fix it.
If you say...hey i got some problem can you fix it, they will just ignore it.

[Deleted]

Install Adblock Edge in a decent browser so you are only downloading what you want to see and not 30mb of shitty video and flash ads all over every page.

[tielknight]

Install Adblock Edge in a decent browser so you are only downloading what you want to see and not 30mb of shitty video and flash ads all over every page.

Did you even read the thread? Or notice the picture they posted showing they have absurd packet loss?


@Deox
Check www.comcast.com/internet-service.html and see what kind of speeds you can get and pricing in your area(calling them isn't always the best option as they will run you in circles until you agree to pay what they say is their price, not their advertised prices), there is no way in hell it should be that expensive, monopoly or not.

The only way I can see it being $100/month is for the bundled-services(phone/internet/tv), which we currently have in our house(and it is a good deal) as their basic internet by itself runs around ~$30/month.

[Vermicious]

As a few others have suggested, I'd look at Comcast again. Using the online chat is a good idea. If you're only going for one service (though they will TRY to get you to bundle services) just insist on internet only. If you happen to be using a different cable provider for tv (unlikely) that would be an issue obviously, as most houses only have one cable running from utility. Even their most basic package will be much better than what you have. Comcast (or at least did) has an economy package that's even cheaper, but it's still like $25/mo for 5/1 service.

Being worried about a package deal (i.e. a set price for 12 months then it goes up) is not a valid concern. As soon as you get the higher bill at the end, call and ask nicely to get another promotion package. If they insist that's only for new customers, ask nicely to speak to their cancellations/customer retention dept, and they will almost certainly give you the lowest price possible for your service, most likely the current best promotional price. Yes you have to do this after every promotion ends, unfortunately. I wish they'd just give good customers the best deal, permanently!

An option: do you have any neighbors close by with wireless? If so, maybe you could pay them for access? If they have Comcast, but no wireless, maybe you could connect a wireless router to their service? Just a thought.

Another option: have you looked into services like CLEAR? They use a cellular modem solution. http://www.clear.com/ although they don't sell their modems there anymore, you could probably find one via eBay or Craigslist.

[Itisamuh]

I feel for you. My situation is nearly identical, except I have no second option.

[tielknight]

I feel for you. My situation is nearly identical, except I have no second option.

I was in a similar position roughly ~1 year ago whereas my only choices were Satellite(worse ping than dial-up, $200 down, bandwidth-cap, etc) or a local company that offered "wireless" internet. And by wireless I mean they bolted a antenna to the side of the house so it could pickup a signal from the radio tower. The ping was....surprisingly good, roughly ~100 when playing WoW. Athough the speeds were meh(3-5mbps/1mbps) and anytime there was heavy rain or it snowed, our connection went into the toilet, it was fairly cheap($25/month and they didn't charge for the equipment).

[Deoxysprime]

Seems that the general opinion is that I should see what Comcast can offer me. I guess my father and I have both been awfully passive in the past about trying to solve price problems - threatening to cancel the service does seem like a decent plan. Thanks for the advice guys.

[Adominitis]

I have Comcast cable unfortunately however, ever since pairing the two with a VPN I haven't had any problems thus far as far as speed and high ping.

As for Comcast's customer service the only way I've found my way to actually getting any real help is elevating my voice to a higher deicbel level.

[Blade and Soul]

My only provider is Comcast, but literally 200 yards away you can get Comcast or Cox Communications. It's quite irritating when I hear they are getting lots of special deals that they don't offer me.

As for dealing with Comcast, immediately tell their customer service you'd like to speak with a manager/supervisor regarding your issue so you jump to the second tier customer support (who can usually actually do something). Or, even better, go to the Comcast store or location they have near you and speak with them directly.

[Sunius]

One is Comcast, which offers decent speed with cable; however, their customer service is a nightmare and every time my father used their services they've sent him incredibly high bills and when we try to talk to them to figure out why they're so high they tend to give us the run around.

Just... What? They send you whatever bill you agreed on when you signed the contract. Did your father sign it blindly and then complain when the bill is higher than expected?

[Deleted]

Did you even read the thread? Or notice the picture they posted showing they have absurd packet loss?


@Deox
Check www.comcast.com/internet-service.html and see what kind of speeds you can get and pricing in your area(calling them isn't always the best option as they will run you in circles until you agree to pay what they say is their price, not their advertised prices), there is no way in hell it should be that expensive, monopoly or not.

The only way I can see it being $100/month is for the bundled-services(phone/internet/tv), which we currently have in our house(and it is a good deal) as their basic internet by itself runs around ~$30/month.

So what? If he is at the shitty end of the line and cant do anything about it by changing routers or from the ISP's end, cutting out 4/5 of the crap that gets downloaded by spam and ads on each page load will help loads.

[tielknight]

So what? If he is at the shitty end of the line and cant do anything about it by changing routers or from the ISP's end, cutting out 4/5 of the crap that gets downloaded by spam and ads on each page load will help loads.

It won't help at all when it cannot even load the page to begin with due to dropped packets, which is the problem they are having.