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Review by mallin See Profile

  • Location: Comanche, Stephens, OK, USA
  • Cost Contract price not specified.
  • Telco party Pioneer Telephone Cooperative
Used to have good DSL service
Then they ruined their DSL service with their IPTV over the same line
Consistently degrading DSL QoS over the past year. Worthless for P2P at this point.

I read the comments by mover2k and the reply by Pioneer. I can't believe Pioneer is resorting to putting the lie that the IPTV is not affecting the DSL in writing and in public. mover2k - Do this test to prove to yourself how much the IPTV is affecting your DSL. Go turn your IPTV receiver box at your TV OFF. Do a speedtest.pldi.net. What you should see is your speed quickly peg out at 3 Mbps and just stick hard with no fluctuations. Now, go turn your IPTV receiver box back on and do the same test. What you will see is a slow and jerky ramp up that will end up oscillating between 2 Mbps and 2.4 Mbps. It's not just the almost meg of speed we're losing that's killing P2P activity - it's the sporadic throttling going on. Also, do some visual trace routes and see how many hops they have us going on through sprint's network - I have 18 hops and one of those suffered 100% data loss.

I spoke with Pioneer yesterday to try to get information on their upstream provider because they claim they are trying to "work out issues" with them. They refused to give me the name. Pioneer is a cooperative - I should be able to request that information and receive it.

At this point Pioneer has a monopoly where we live and are misleading their customers. They put out press releases that this whole IPTV business was because they "listen to their customers". The majority of their customers don't care whether the TV comes over a cable or a phone line - give me a break. It was because they could increase customer base without cable-laying costs. And they seem to not care that their DSL internet customers are still paying $80/month for far less product and worse quality....yeah, they listen to their customers.

I plan to drop their TV and get Direct TV. Then I will eventually drop their internet - if it takes getting my own Comanche coop together and getting a T1. I have been unable to raid in well over a month...I've suffered almost a year of degrading service and at least that long of lies in response to inquiries about what is wrong. I'm done.

member for 15.9 years, 8 visits, last login: 15.8 years ago
lodged 15.9 years ago

mover2k7
join:2007-09-06
Comanche, OK

mover2k7

Member

Comanche, OK

wow, finally someone else can see it!!! I thought I was gonna lose my mind over this. Yeah, the monopoly thing is what makes me angry. Pioneer bought the local cable company and immediately closed it down. People who already had cable got to keep it for two years. When that two years ended and all those people got DTV my connection became completely unusable. And there is absolutely NO alternative. I have DISH for TV, but all the IPTV traffic still kills my connection. I can't stay logged onto xbox live because my connection is so unstable. I'm constantly being dropped due to high latency. The only time i can game is from midnight to 6 AM, when no one is watching TV. I could go on and on, but I won't. We need to find someone at some state agency that is friendly towards our concerns and complain loudly and often. Maybe the state Public Utilities Commission? There's gotta be something that can be done. The City of Comanche is completely uninterested, so there will be no municipal CO_OP to save us. This will go on until either DTV goes away, or Pioneer lays fiber all over Comanche. I'm not holding my breath on either of these.
mallin
join:2008-04-29
Comanche, OK

mallin

Member

Re: Comanche, OK

Not to upset you too much, but my son (due to where he lives) has fiber optic straight off a trunk line in Comanche and he is suffering the same terrible service. So don't get your hopes up on the fiber optic being the solution...not unless they are going to do something different.

I won't mention any names, but if you'll do a search of Pioneer's board you will see that the CEO is former Majority Leader at the State legislative level. I fear what that could mean in us trying to get state government assistance.

As I stated to Pioneer in my last complaint sent in this morning (of course no response on anything I have complained about), I think the better route at this point is to make formal complaints to the FCC and the BBB. But we might should contact some federal agencies that are anti-trust because of the monopoly situation we are under. I don't think we're supposed to be held captive like this....seems un-American. :P

Fael
@pldi.net

Fael

Anon

Re: Comanche, OK

I live just west of the Newcastle area and same problem. I play WoW and the past months have been horrible. Every single night except Fri and Sat (people go out I guess), from about 4pm-11ish pm, completely unplayable. This sudden spike during 'prime time' makes it so clear it's an ISP problem that it's just depressing. I've called multiple times and they won't even attempt to help. I've offered multiple trace routes that show countless packet loss and they don't want them. If it's not on the first 2 hops it's "not their problem." I've purchased new cables, modems and network adapters. I've even called a wireless internet company out but was unable to get a signal. Short of moving there is nothing left. Shame on these people.
Fael

Fael

Anon

Re: Comanche, OK

I got a little book in the mail about their annual meeting in May. Someone sooo needs to go create a scene =X
mallin
join:2008-04-29
Comanche, OK

mallin to Fael

Member

to Fael
Hi Fael,

I have actually seen your tracert posting on WoW technical forums. I got a call yesterday morning from a top level technical support person. He stated they have tickets in with all 3 of their upstream providers and one with Cisco. I'm still inclined to believe the problem is that Pioneer just flat hasn't purchased enough bandwidth for prime time internet use.

This technical support person said they have prioritized my ticket and are going to keep me up-to-date on things. He also stated they have some gamers on their staff who are watching what happens with my ticket. I told him that if my service improved (which of course it hasn't yet) my next step would be to contact the gamers I have identified in other areas of Pioneer's service and verify that their service had improved as well because this has become a systemic cooperative-wide issue and not just my personal service problem.

So you guys who have posted here should expect to be contacted by me if I learn something, or my service changes.

YES! Some one does need to go to the Annual meeting next Tuesday. Next week is finals week for my night class so I won't be able to go, but hopefully some of you folks can show up and rail against the machine. I fear the annual meeting is all show and no substance though, so I figure the response will be them repeating it really isn't their problem but they are researching the issue upstream....some PR'ish kind of statement like that.

P.S. Apparently the upper-level technical support people aren't watching these reviews because when I was explaining to the guy that gamers from Kingfisher to Comanche are reporting the same problem he didn't even seem to know about mover's post on here. He did acknowledge "a gamer in Kingfisher" and I'm assuming that's brianh, but may be yet another disgruntled DSL customer.

Fael
@pldi.net

Fael

Anon

Re: Comanche, OK

Yes same problem. Starts off low and after a few minutes it is up high. I also raid Hyjal and it's by far the worse zone. Disconnects almost every wave. My uncle also plays wow and lives down the road and same exact problem. He has basically given up wow at this point because of our ISP problems.

Yes please keep me updated on this thanks!
mallin
join:2008-04-29
Comanche, OK

mallin to Fael

Member

to Fael
Just wanted to state right here before any ISP person tries to say this is Blizzard's fault. You (Fael) are on a server I have never played on and I have now played on two servers in the past few months and the problem exists on both of those. There is also another Pioneer customer who has posted on the Blizzard Technical threads and he is on yet another Blizzard server. So that's at least 4 Blizzard servers.

My problems are slightly worse on the higher-population Blizzard server (which makes sense), but the same sporadic behavior exists on both the low-pop and high-pop servers - that's not Blizzard. And this is how it manifests - extremely low latency for a few minutes and then it creeps up to 200-500 ms range and then it will start intermittent periods red of 1000+ if you're not raiding. If you are raiding it goes red and you'll see 1500 and up (sky is the limit) on latency, and you'll experience disconnects. I was politely asked to leave a Mt. Hyjal raid three nights ago after I dc'd right at 30 times in an hour and half. When the trash mobs were being fault I was in constant dc's...one right after another.

I have spent a tremendous amount of money trying to make sure the problem wasn't on my side. New video card, new network card, replaced modem, bought new router, transferred character...I haven't got anything inside these walls left to do.

Fael
@pldi.net

Fael

Anon

Re: Comanche, OK

Clearly an ISP problem and not Blizzards. My internet browser moves significantly slower during prime time, and streaming video won't even...stream.
Fael

Fael to mallin

Anon

to mallin
Yeah def not a WoW issue. Streaming videos won't even....stream, during prime time.
brianh5
join:2008-04-05
Kingfisher, OK

brianh5 to mallin

Member

to mallin
I just got an e-mail from someone at Pioneer today about an hour ago asking me how the connection was this weekend. I do have to say it was the first weekend in a while that I didn't feel like cusing at the lag as it got near 9pm. Not trying to get any false hopes going but its possible they may have actually fixed this, FINALLY.

I can't believe its taken them months on end to finally get to it and that they risked ticking off so many of their customers over it while they just sat on their hands for so long, all they're doing is setting themselves up for a mass exodus when another broadband becomes available in this area, but hey, maybe the problem is finally gone for now.

I just hope it doesn't come back around for a third round. Yes, third, this is the second time I've seen the DSL quality dip in the 6 years I've had it, and both times it was a problem for more than a month. Saying that I won't be happy if it happens a third time is an understatement.
brianh5

brianh5

Member

Re: Comanche, OK

Something defiantly changed. Here's a test done to a static DSL line at my place of work that was done back on April 24th, take notice of how it routes, specifically the West Coast route:

»/lineq ··· /2376696

And now here's one I just did today, look at how drastically different the route is now:

»/lineq ··· /2380978

The one cogentco that reads red is a false reading, since the hop right after is fine. Some routers don't respond well to this test but you can tell they're working fine if the hop after has no problems.

So something has defiantly been changed. Keep your fingers crossed that this means the problem is gone for good.
mallin
join:2008-04-29
Comanche, OK

mallin

Member

Re: Comanche, OK

Thanks Brian for the update! I hope this is truly a permanent improvement. I had a voice mail and email from Pioneer this morning asking me if I had seen an improvement over the weekend. Unfortunately, I've been studying for finals and didn't get to play. My daughter played a bit last night but only solo'd so she couldn't tell me how it would be in a raid group.

I emailed Pioneer and told them first chance I get I'll get on and check things out and let them know. Here's crossing my fingers!!! And I'm sure glad to hear you've seen improvement! Step in the right direction I say.

Fael
@pldi.net

Fael to mover2k7

Anon

to mover2k7
Thurs/Fri/Sat/Sun were all very playable for the first time in months. Sat around 9 it got up to just over 300 but that is still very playable. I'm hoping it stays that way!
mallin
join:2008-04-29
Comanche, OK

mallin

Member

Re: Comanche, OK

Played a little last night, but wasn't in a raid. It got a little over 300 for a bit, but all in all it stayed green and below 300. The most noticable thing was that it seemed more "stable" - wasn't bouncing to red and then green and yellow, but just seemed to stick at around 250 ms.

I'm hoping to catch a raid soon - at 25-man will be the ultimate test. Looks like they are making progress though!
mallin

mallin

Member

Re: Comanche, OK

Sorry it has taken so long to give an update, but because of the terrible DC problems I was having on the first raid run I made with this guild, it has taken this long to get invited back to a 25-man raid. BUT, tonight I was invited and things went great. It really does appear that Pioneer fixed the problem.

I hope mover will post to let us know if things have improved on his end as well.

Thanks all for the combined effort, and thank you, Pioneer, for fixing the problem.
mover2k7
join:2007-09-06
Comanche, OK

mover2k7

Member

Re: Comanche, OK

i'll check it out this weekend, I haven't had much time to play lately

mover2k
join:2003-08-15
Comanche, OK

mover2k

Member

Re: Comanche, OK

I gotta say, it's not really any better for me. it's usually good during the day, but at night my latency is really high, especially to the west coast. unfortunately, thats where the xboxlive servers are located. i just pinged los angeles, and it was 423 ms.