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Piggie
Just A Pig With A Computer
Premium Member
join:2005-11-23
Orange Springs, FL

2 edits

Piggie

Premium Member

Piggie has now joined the Haters!


Enough said.........

When I talked to CS last night they said it was given to 2nd level and 2nd level had given it to engineering. I specifically asked for a ticket number and I was told there wasn't one or the rep to whom I was speaking didn't have one nor access to one. Which I thought was strange and I asked again, but same answer.

Another call today, begging I did get a ticket number. Now just to get it fixed.
mojo1
join:2006-12-05
Victoria, TX

mojo1

Member

I am almost a member of your club. After 10 months or so of waiting for acceptable service, then getting stellar results, I am back in the toilet for speeds. I was so confident that I upgraded to 6 meg and was getting that 24/7. Now, I am down to about 1.5 meg.

I called cust svc and they tell me that my problem has been sent to engineering but they cannot tell me much more than that. Someone called last Friday and said they found the problem and it would be corrected by Monday, but it wasn't. The very friendly person I spoke with tonight told me that someone on the engineering team would call tomorrow with an update. I'll wait to see what they say.

Piggie
Just A Pig With A Computer
Premium Member
join:2005-11-23
Orange Springs, FL

Piggie

Premium Member

Mojo, you know me, I have no desire to remain a hater. But I felt it was time to make a point and I don't have any regrets posting it the way I did. Polite, but to the point.

I guess what tripped me and the straw that broke this Kunekune's back was it had been working for 7 months. No one has moved in around here so it's not oversold what so ever and engineering knows it's T1's into my DSLAM taking errors. I was read that over the phone Wed night. They also meantioned it was reported Aug 2 (probably me) and the T1's taking errors was told to me by Monday. I didn't call between Thursday and Monday because it appeared to be fixed.

It's been up and down, regardless of the time of day, so it's not traffic. At first it was livable because the low points were still in the 200 range. It slowly gotten worse since Monday, till now the high points are 200 and lows it nearly stops and often can's even start a speed test.

Ok, if we were back on Hughes, the fan boys there would tell me to get a T1 with 24/7 service, not my point. Yes I know I can't expect a truck to roll and have no more than 2 to 3 hours downtime. But obviously at since Monday it has been known to be bad T1's and it's gotten worse, much worse. It would seem reasonable that a problem like this on working equipment would be back in service within a week? Shouldn't that be time to identify the problem, order the parts and install or repair them?

No where I worked did we dare leave equipment down that long unless there was a problem from a vendor on parts and even then we would shut off the bad trunks (radio SMR) and tell people yes we are down to 3 channels and parts ordered. We didn't leave the bad trunks running, but had everyone fall over on the good remaining ones. We had a complete 5th working channel that wasn't hooked we could in 30 minutes have on the air also. Yeah that was commercial 2way radio, so may I am comparing apples to oranges.

However I do feel that the same way I organized a DSL petition to get DSL in the area, why not have a local users group. A small web site would do and if things were totally out have a call list. I call 5 people, they each call 1 or 2 people, and so on. I believe here on this outage, I would be very curious to see how many people called. I only know of 3 out of a couple hundred customers effected. After all the latency remains good. And a lot of the week it's been above 300 or so, so slow surfing could be a website. Emailing went pretty much unaffected. Even when speed tests were giving me modem or less speeds I could email and ping google in 50ms. Any way I digressed, if 20 or more people from an affected area called, it would raise a lot more flags at the office. Then after a week have them ask for credits should raise the bigger red flag.

Just my rambling thoughts. Flame me, praise me, ignore me, or shame me, it won't matter to me.

BTW how is Mojo doing? and please check what is in his mojo bag, because if there are phone parts along with magic stones, there in may lie the problem! My cats say hello to him but also said they are glad he lives there and they live here.
mojo1
join:2006-12-05
Victoria, TX

mojo1

Member

Mojo is doing great. But she is disparaged about my speeds. She said that if speeds don't come back to where they should be, she will fix it herself. I'm staying away from her for a few days...

Piggie
Just A Pig With A Computer
Premium Member
join:2005-11-23
Orange Springs, FL

1 edit

Piggie

Premium Member

Watch close if her bag changes, or when she is sleeping check the contents. Cause I am no too sure black magic is what we really need to fix this, many many things could go wrong! I had a LOT of trouble with a stuff pig once that was into heavy weapons and time dilation, he even has a web site though I know better from the hackers robots reading here than to post it! I posted a forum I run here once and had to all but shut it down for a month from the robots I presumed saw the post here. I don't care if anyone here knows the site, sees it, even does a whois to find out who I am. But the hackers can really reek havoc.

AnonymousOne3
Former Broadband Rep
join:2007-08-04
Salina, KS

AnonymousOne3 to Piggie

Member

to Piggie
For what its worth, calling into tech support to squeeze info out that we probably do not have wont help. We may be support but we do not unfortunately have every answer or every hour by hour update on things like this. Yes, calling in to report and inquire is a good thing but if it gets to where everyone is calling in every hour for an update...all you will do is upset yourself more when we have no more info provided to us from either the techs or engineers working it. I know how it can be, our cable provider here was that way many years ago and all I used to get was "our network is fine, its your pc". Depending on what is going on, it could take some time for parts or equipment, that stuff is not cheap and has to get approved. Yes we are a fairly good size company that makes money and to be honest, I have no clue how much some of that equipment costs...but it can be quite a bit. Latency is one of the worst things to experience as well as to diagnose and fix on our end. Please update when you can!
mojo1
join:2006-12-05
Victoria, TX

mojo1

Member

AnonymousOne,

I have only called twice regarding the current situation. Once was last Thursday and a ticket was opened then. I received a call on Friday saying that they found the problem and it would be fixed by Monday. I gave them 3 more days beyond the promised day and the problem is still there so, I called again.

The person I spoke with last night was very professional and explained that they did not have an answer but that it definitely was not fixed yet and would have engineering look into it today and call back.

I certainly don't expect the people in support to have all of the answers because they are not told everything that is going on. But, I do expect to get the service that I pay for. To recap my situation, I signed up in October 2006 and had problems from the first day. After many, many calls to support, the problem was corrected around July of this year. I could recap the explanations I was given during those 9 months, but it would take too much time as it was a different excuse every time.

The point for me is that in the last 10 months, my service has worked properly for about 4 weeks total. I think that is a pretty poor record from where I sit.

In Windstream's defense, I have rarely had trouble getting credit for when it doesn't work (Piggie, call and request credit - it is easy) and MOST of the people I speak with are very nice and professional. However, there is only so long most customers are willing to wait to get what they pay for. As I have paid very little over the months, I am still willing to wait patiently to get this problem fixed, again.

Just my 2 cents worth, Please don't take it wrong as I don't intend any harm, I just want my service to work the way it is supposed to. I think 10 months is long enough to wait.

shadowfax
Premium Member
join:2007-01-06
Lexington, KY

shadowfax to Piggie

Premium Member

to Piggie
Theres got to be something going on with the hop through Atlanta on to the AT&T backbone. Things in East Lexington still looking good, Lexington is routed to AT&T through Louisville. Pigster, Did you ever mention youre speeds through the WS ftp site? Some of my speed test to Atlanta were about 1.5 meg, while always 2.5 to Cincy OH. Is Mesue having similar problems ?, just curious if this affecting alot of folks, or just a few . ....SUPERTECH OUT!!!....
kodiak46
join:2005-08-01
Maumelle, AR

kodiak46

Member

Shadowfax.. piggie does have massive errors on the T1's feeding his dslam. I have already checked his connection all the way out to atlanta.. everything there is fine. I should be able to have his dslam fixed this afternoon..

Kodiak

Icon
Time Keeper
Premium Member
join:2004-01-07
Little Rock, AR

Icon

Premium Member

said by kodiak46:

Shadowfax.. piggie does have massive errors on the T1's feeding his dslam. I have already checked his connection all the way out to atlanta.. everything there is fine. I should be able to have his dslam fixed this afternoon..

Kodiak
From all the way up in AR?
kodiak46
join:2005-08-01
Maumelle, AR

kodiak46

Member

T1 Performance Monitoring Status - T1 Port:1

UAS-P ES-P SES-P CV-P CV-L ES-L
24 Hr - Current 109 46132 1 176373 20 4
08/09 0 85018 0 1279582 0 0

T1 Performance Monitoring Status - T1 Port:2

UAS-P ES-P SES-P CV-P CV-L ES-L
24 Hr - Current 0 44578 1 135228 13 2
08/09 0 83365 0 999579 0 0

T1 Performance Monitoring Status - T1 Port:3

UAS-P ES-P SES-P CV-P CV-L ES-L
24 Hr - Current 0 47219 1 226975 2 1
08/09 0 85849 0 1599355 0 0

T1 Performance Monitoring Status - T1 Port:4

UAS-P ES-P SES-P CV-P CV-L ES-L
24 Hr - Current 0 43059 1 115220 11 2
08/09 0 82066 0 864274 0 0

any questions?

Kodiak

Icon
Time Keeper
Premium Member
join:2004-01-07
Little Rock, AR

Icon

Premium Member

Guess my sarcasm switch is broken.

kodiak46
join:2005-08-01
Maumelle, AR

kodiak46

Member

I have sarcasm turned off in the forum..

Icon
Time Keeper
Premium Member
join:2004-01-07
Little Rock, AR

Icon

Premium Member

Probably best with this bunch!

shadowfax
Premium Member
join:2007-01-06
Lexington, KY

shadowfax to Piggie

Premium Member

to Piggie
That s good news ! It much easier to fix a t1 than fixing AT&T backbone issues. Now while youre at it, tell them to go ahead and intall a CALIX while they are there !

Piggie
Just A Pig With A Computer
Premium Member
join:2005-11-23
Orange Springs, FL

Piggie

Premium Member

Icon, you saying you keeping your sarcasm turned off in the forum is into itself sarcasm! OINK! :@)

I have said my peace, internally not out here in public, but I strongly sympathize and empathize with Mojo and all the people in GA and TX where months heck, nearly a year has gone by without full resolution of their bandwidth. While my situation is temporary (I hope) this experience has given me a very nasty taste of what it would be like to know it could go on for a year, or back to Hughes or dial up.

It has been very enlightening at not only a consumer but humanistic level, probably more so the later.

But! :@) I love Shadow's idea! more lightning till the UMC fries so bad I have to wait a year without dsl but finally get a Calix, NOT! I am so far down the food chain in Windstream that I will see 6m after most of Lexington is ADSL2 and willing to bet money on it.
mojo1
join:2006-12-05
Victoria, TX

mojo1

Member

Just a quick note - no call from Windstream, as they promised, to update me on the situation. That is unlike them as they usually call when they say they will.

Upload speed is suffering too now. Looks like I picked a bad time to sign up for VOIP...


Piggie
Just A Pig With A Computer
Premium Member
join:2005-11-23
Orange Springs, FL

Piggie

Premium Member

Try a real ping test like in DOS or PingPlotter.com and find your real ping times. Because those are fast enough speeds for VOIP if your latency is reasonable.
mojo1
join:2006-12-05
Victoria, TX

mojo1

Member

Right now, I am getting in the mid 200 range pinging just about anything from DOS. The VOIP is working, but you can tell when someone is on the phone because web access slows to a crawl.
nfury8ing
join:2001-06-08
Jefferson, GA

nfury8ing

Member

Same thing here, and has been that way for several weeks again now.

Why can't we just accept that Windstream just flat out isn't worth the time, hassle, or suckitude. Too bad they hold a monopoly in this region.

Piggie
Just A Pig With A Computer
Premium Member
join:2005-11-23
Orange Springs, FL

Piggie to mojo1

Premium Member

to mojo1
said by mojo1:

Right now, I am getting in the mid 200 range pinging just about anything from DOS. The VOIP is working, but you can tell when someone is on the phone because web access slows to a crawl.
Mid 200 down or your latency is up to 200 Mojo? And what type of VOIP box do you have because that is good it takes it's slice first from your browsers, it should. Do you have a VOIP box that is in series ahead of your router or do you have in a LAN port and do traffic shaping? Just curious.
Piggie

Piggie to AnonymousOne3

Premium Member

to AnonymousOne3
said by AnonymousOne3:

For what its worth, calling into tech support to squeeze info out that we probably do not have wont help. We may be support but we do not unfortunately have every answer or every hour by hour update on things like this. Yes, calling in to report and inquire is a good thing but if it gets to where everyone is calling in every hour for an update...all you will do is upset yourself more when we have no more info provided to us from either the techs or engineers working it. I know how it can be, our cable provider here was that way many years ago and all I used to get was "our network is fine, its your pc". Depending on what is going on, it could take some time for parts or equipment, that stuff is not cheap and has to get approved. Yes we are a fairly good size company that makes money and to be honest, I have no clue how much some of that equipment costs...but it can be quite a bit. Latency is one of the worst things to experience as well as to diagnose and fix on our end. Please update when you can!
I wasn't going to quote your whole post but I feel any less will take things out of context. While having been CS for a small modem company one in St.Pete FL so I have a limited understanding.

All I want to say and why I said a Consumer's Group was for two reasons.
1) A lot of people don't notice problems until they get very big. This problem started on Aug 2 and for all I know I was the only caller. But it has gotten progressively worse since, until Thursday night (day 8 of the problem) it got so bad and people could not even read email or surf. Then they phone banks when off, from what one customer service person told me. However it was the same problem it just had to get bad. Had we had a group in place, then everyone could have tested for themselves and decided for themselves if they wanted to report their finding at their house. This would have let Windstream know right away that it was not isolated to a pin or DSLAM output, etc etc, thought the person I talked to believed me when I read my margins, etc before being asked and told them all I saw was ATM errors. I can't see how this would be a bad thing. It would help the customers and Windstream.

2) I have been a Windstream (was Alltel) Customer for eons. And it's not just WS, but even back in the old Southern Bell days right after Judge green split them from ATT Longlines, right through Bell South. It's almost like there is a fixed amount of delay in repairing any problem. Well all those except basic dial tone, which coincident is regulated. Coincident? I think not. Actually when I was installing remote radio links for a living, Alltel then was more responsive than Bell South. But I digress to residential. This problem was identified by notes read to me as 4 T1s taking errors feeding the DSLAM on Monday the 6th. But it wasn't until Friday the 11th that 4 actual bad T1 cards were found. I know from calling in during those 4 days the ticket was closed at least once repaired, though it wasn't. So I ask, why did it take so many attempts to find the problem, knowing it was 4 T1s taking errors that it was 4 T1 cards that were to blame. Now I did hardware for 20+ years, in communications, TV, Radio, Cable, and limited phone. So if you have a T1 one that is fiber and probably even copper that has errors, the most likely place to fail is the T1 card at one or the other end of the link. 99 percent of the time noting fails in the middle of a cable unless it's cut or getting wet. Fiber further simplifies this as there is less to break in the cable itself. Just like most lamp, extension, microphone, etc cords fail at the ends, not the middle.

Having the problem narrowed down that close by Monday, by Tuesday the 4 cards could probably be found in under an hour, by just swapping the ones they had in service. That would have given them a 3 to 4 day jump on ordering parts.

So in conclusion, had more customers here been alerted to the problem Wed Aug 2, then it would have escalated faster, troubleshot faster and gotten back up to speed yep faster. So a problem that could have been resolved in a week, will most likely take now at least 2 weeks. It would not surprise me if it extends out a third week, depending on how fast the part are ordered. I realize I am not on a 3 hour response like a T1 line, but 9 days to actually seriously troubleshooting the problem is excessive. And the reason I believe it's tolerated is often it expected a great deal of the customers won't notice it, is why I believe it would be good for users to collaborate. After all isn't that a large part of the purpose of this forum?
mojo1
join:2006-12-05
Victoria, TX

mojo1 to Piggie

Member

to Piggie
said by Piggie:

Mid 200 down or your latency is up to 200 Mojo? And what type of VOIP box do you have because that is good it takes it's slice first from your browsers, it should. Do you have a VOIP box that is in series ahead of your router or do you have in a LAN port and do traffic shaping? Just curious.
200-300ms RTT to any server I try. It used to be much better than that.

My VOIP box is an old Linksys RT31P2 and it is in a LAN port. Not sure about traffic shaping as that is a little over my head. The VOIP is working fine, only noticed once that it had trouble and I couldn't hear the other party for about 5 seconds.

I'm not worried about the VOIP - mostly a cell user but where I live, the signal can be iffy. It is just the overall latency that is frustrating.

School started here last week and the speeds are acting like it was when the problem first started - decent speeds in the day, then about 4PM it starts falling off and gets worse through the night.

AnonymousOne3
Former Broadband Rep
join:2007-08-04
Salina, KS

AnonymousOne3 to Piggie

Member

to Piggie
Let me clarify the "meaning" of my post...
It wasnt to attack you or say to quit complaining, you have every right to! You wouldnt believe how many times some folks do call in (no joke) EVERY HOUR wanting an update. I have had some that spoke to a rep 30-60 min ago and that last rep sent a trouble ticket up and the customer is wanting to know why its not fixed yet. Of course, the first rep should have advised the trouble ticket due date also during their call.
bcruze
join:2006-03-03
USA

bcruze

Member

if you are still having issues with your dsl. call the helpdesk and ask for your local (meaning in your city) supervisors phone number.

i had intermitten problems with our dsl for over 2 years. i continually called the help desk. they can only do so much from kansas, and nebraska i believe.

get that guys local phone number and call them untill its fixed.

i did that, they fixed the issue and upgraded the line to 3mb down 384kup. something the previous ISP would never happen. since then it has been flawless.

hope this helps

AnonymousOne3
Former Broadband Rep
join:2007-08-04
Salina, KS

AnonymousOne3

Member

said by bcruze:

if you are still having issues with your dsl. call the helpdesk and ask for your local (meaning in your city) supervisors phone number.
Please dont do that, we do not have the local supervisor phone numbers!!! Only thing we can do is call the planner/dispatcher only if there is a ticket in.

Piggie
Just A Pig With A Computer
Premium Member
join:2005-11-23
Orange Springs, FL

Piggie to mojo1

Premium Member

to mojo1
said by mojo1:

200-300ms RTT to any server I try. It used to be much better than that.
Ouch, wow, I guess VOIP is even more tolerant than I thought as I have never tried it except the old days of a headset in the computer and both ends on a modem.

200 to 300 ms latency is really high for DSL. That combined with your speeds normally points to a bandwidth problem. Why only the Shadow knows...................... :@)
Piggie

Piggie to AnonymousOne3

Premium Member

to AnonymousOne3
I too never implied to call several times a day. Knowing what I know now about the problem, I won't call again until Monday and ask if the ticket shows any updates.

What I did imply was a local network of users. One sees a problem and calls his contact to see if they have it. Once confirmed it's not normal, call in to CS. And so one.

Two reasons for this.

Sooner WS sees it's widespread the sooner it goes to a group ticket, and hopefully solved.

Two, many of the people I called in the neighborhood the day I noticed it just said well if it keeps up I will call. Several of them did as it has been worse since Thursday. But when they asked for credit, they were not credited back to the date of the group ticket but their individual call marks the begining day of their credits. Which well upset most of them and also they wished they had of called sooner.

And there has to be a factor that the more people on a group ticket that are getting free DSL has to raise a flag. Because if it doesn't, then who is watching the store?
bcruze
join:2006-03-03
USA

bcruze to AnonymousOne3

Member

to AnonymousOne3
well like i said i put up with the script readers for 2 years. after i got the supervisors phone number it was fixed less than two weeks.

im just trying to help

Piggie
Just A Pig With A Computer
Premium Member
join:2005-11-23
Orange Springs, FL

Piggie

Premium Member

said by bcruze:

well like i said i put up with the script readers for 2 years. after i got the supervisors phone number it was fixed less than two weeks.

im just trying to help
Our phone book comes out in April. So April 07 was our first WS phone book (not Alltel). And sure enough they took the our local super's phone number off page one on the inside. The number still works as I have talked to him in recent months about other stuff. And I used to have my local field super's number but bloody lost it!

There is as far as phone support goes, more of a stonewalling customers to at the most to 2nd Level support compared to Alltel that published all the phone numbers in the past, or at least they did in my area.

Like my current problem, I have "heard" what is really going on but not through "official" channels. A few years ago I could call Robert Kelly and if he didn't know he could get Ed Willis to call me about what the problem was and fairly detailed what was going on to fix it. Gone are those days. Now also granted when I worked for Baker Communications, we bought a lot of leased lines and phone numbers from Alltel, so Robert though we never met face to face knew each other over the phone.

I can say after living with my problem for a mere two weeks, I can't imagine the patience of those going on a year of bandwidth problems.

I just before sing up with Windstream DSL also upgraded my cell phone. I really wish I knew what I did now about cell phone data, WAP, and the like. I would have bought a much fancier phone, with a qwerty keyboard, but moreover one I could use a dongle to get internet. Because most cell companies if you have a phone that can do the dongle :@) then you have a good backup service that you can activate on a month to month basis. Live and learn....