Pzykotic
join:2002-06-27
Somerville, MA
2 edits | [Connectivity] Horrible slowness at night -Somerville, MA I was very excited to move from Medford MA to Somerville MA, because it meant I could finally ditch Comcast and get back to RCN who I had in Natick and was incredibly satisfied with.
Alas, I only get the 20mbit down/2mbit up I pay for in the afternoons, when I am usually at work. Once I get home around 8 PM, all the way until I go to sleep (even past 1 or 2 AM), I can't get over 6mbit down, and 1mbit up.
Here's a result not 10 minutes ago from speedtest.net which has shown me 20mbit in the past:
And here's one from about 8 PM when it was at its worst. Both of these have no other traffic on my router except the speed test.
I replaced my leased modem with a purchased D-Link DCM-202 and nothing has changed. My levels are fantastic and I am confident in my network (yes, I have tried directly connecting and get the same results).
Here's the levels from RCN's speedtest site (and my MAC so you can help me, RCN!):
The conclusion is probably, unfortunately, that my node is saturated. However, this is no excuse. I pay for 20mbit downstream and 2mbit upstream, and I can hardly ever reach that.
What can RCN do to rectify this situation? What's the best way for me to go about getting it fixed?
I disliked Comcast for many reasons, but I got a consistent 16mbit down/1mbit up in my previous residence (the extreme speed tier).
Help me love you again, RCN! | |
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 alanisrox69
join:2005-03-29
LHV, PA
 ·RCN CABLE
| Re: [Connectivity] Horrible, depressing slowness at night :( And before anyone blames the DCM-202 as the problem, it's not. I told him to replace the RCN modem with that one......
I use it here, and get 20.2mbps down all the time.
I hope someone can help Pzy 
-Derek-
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CHECK YOUR FSLC TAXES!!! | |
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afty
join:2002-04-21
Somerville, MA
| I also live in Somerville, and I see the same behavior. I have the 10 Mbit service, but in the evenings I am lucky to see 2 Mbits down. During the day I can get 10 Mbit, but I'm not home during the day so that doesn't really help me.
Here is my info from the RCN speedtest page:
Your Modem Mac 00:14:e8:b7:1b:96
Forward Frequency 735000000
Forward Modulation qam256(4)
Foward Signal to Noise 35.2 dB
Forward Power Level 4 dBmV
Return Frequency 24816000
Modem TX Power 40.6 dBmV
Downstream Ratelimit 11000000
Upstream Ratelimit 800000 | |
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boble88
join:2001-12-20
Somerville, MA
·RCN CABLE
| When you run your speed tests is there an anti-virus, malware, trojan, firewall, or any other such program running in the background? Do you have a wireless router as well? I ask this because using these on my home PC has taxed my down load speeds anywhere from 2 to 10Mbps. They also have a smaller affect on my upload speeds as well. Taking my Dlink DIR-655 off line has also raised my download speeds. Which is a new problem for me, which I am trying to solve in the Dlink forum. | |
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| negativeduck
Premium,VIP
join:2002-02-14
Centreville, VA
| Re: [Connectivity] Horrible slowness at night -Somerville, MA Pzykotic,
Hey, so stupid question when you ran your speed tests did you turn off whatever you have doing uploads? We've got your modem running a solid 2mbps upstream almost all last week and only stopping in the wee hours of the morning.
In 7 days you uploaded alot of data So I just want to make sure when you are doing your tests that you have whatever not running. When I quickly matched up time-stamps it looked like they overlapped atleast your tests to RCN's speedtest system. Likewise if you don't have anything running perhaps now would be a good time to change your wireless key if you have one.
Now, so you don't think I'm putting everything on you;
While Somerville as a hole including your specific downstream is slated for upgrade. However, even then it's not nearly saturated enough to cause the results that you are reporting. Is there any chance I can get you to run tests against our servers at a few random intervals?
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Bryan Laird
Director Product and Technology | |
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Pzykotic
join:2002-06-27
Somerville, MA
4 edits | I made sure to turn off any data transfer while doing speed tests, but didn't bother for the levels tests on rcn.net. If there was any overlap, it wasn't significant enough to cause the massive downstream slowdowns I see.
I just performed a speedtest on my home PC, no one in the 3-unit apartment building is home right now (and none of them except me have RCN), and this is the result at 4 PM with no traffic on my local network:
That's about the fastest I've ever seen, and is still almost 5mbps too slow on the downstream side.
It will get worse and worse as the day goes on, once people get home from their 9-5 jobs/school (at least that's what it seems like).
I'll post again at around 8 or 9 PM with new data, and a realtime bandwidth graph from my router to show the speedtest being the only data transfer.
I work from noon until 8 PM, so I only ever see my RCN connection at its absolute slowest, and it's really annoying. Like I said, I was excited to get RCN back after leaving Medford and Comcast, but this is a huge downside.
Edit: I'll be doing the speedtests on my Windows PC running the latest Flash, Java and Firefox, connected via Gigabit ethernet to a D-Link Gig-E switch, which is connected to my WRT54GL router running Tomato Firmware, which is connected to my D-Link DCM-202 cable modem. All with new ethernet and coax cable, and the router/switch throughput tested to be working properly. | |
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Pzykotic
join:2002-06-27
Somerville, MA | 5 PM:
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Pzykotic
join:2002-06-27
Somerville, MA | 6 PM:
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Pzykotic
join:2002-06-27
Somerville, MA | 7 PM:
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Pzykotic
join:2002-06-27
Somerville, MA
1 edit | 8 PM:
(oh the horror)
Here's the graph showing no other traffic:
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Pzykotic
join:2002-06-27
Somerville, MA | Here's the worst of the night. Please fix this, it's honestly just horrendously slow, I couldn't be bothered waiting for the upload test to finish.
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Pzykotic
join:2002-06-27
Somerville, MA
1 edit | Still terrible at 10 PM... what's this, 18% of what I pay for?
And here's the 10 PM graph showing my roommate trying to downloading something, getting abysmal speeds, and then pausing it for me to do a speed test (at abysmal speeds):
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Pzykotic
join:2002-06-27
Somerville, MA
1 edit | It's a new world record of slowness! 7% of what I pay for!
11 PM:
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nickcatal
join:2008-06-23
Chicago, IL
1 edit | Are you using the QOS feature in Tomato on your router? Does this happen when you direct connect to the modem?
QOS is worthless with an unstable max speed... | |
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| Pzykotic
join:2002-06-27
Somerville, MA
| Re: [Connectivity] Horrible slowness at night -Somerville, MA I have never and do not run any QOS, and yes it happens with a direct connection to the modem. What possible cause in my internal network could there be that makes the speed drop precipitously hour by hour, and come back up in the wee hours of the morning?
Sounds like node saturation to me... | |
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| | nickcatal
join:2008-06-23
Chicago, IL
| Re: [Connectivity] Horrible slowness at night -Somerville, MA That is exactly what it sounds like
Remember, you can only push a finite amount of bandwidth through a coaxial cable. When RCN makes the (in my opinion) mistake of offering 20mbit service it is VERY easy to oversaturate the line.
Now if RCN sold it as 8mbps with 12mbps being 'best effort' they could probably deliver a good service to all their customers a lot better. | |
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| | | alanisrox69
join:2005-03-29
LHV, PA | Re: [Connectivity] Horrible slowness at night -Somerville, MA No, that's why there are nodes along the way. So yes it's POSSIBLE to oversaturate....it shouldn't be THIS bad.
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CHECK YOUR FSLC TAXES!!! | |
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Pzykotic
join:2002-06-27
Somerville, MA | 12 AM:
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Pzykotic
join:2002-06-27
Somerville, MA | And the last one for tonight since I'm going to bed:
1 AM........ aaaand still nice and slow.
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Pzykotic
join:2002-06-27
Somerville, MA
2 edits | Can barely even hit 75% of advertised speed at 1 PM on a Tuesday... | |
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Pzykotic
join:2002-06-27
Somerville, MA | Hopefully that's enough info for you, negativeduck.
Maybe now RCN can fix this, in a timely manner.
Thanks! | |
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Pzykotic
join:2002-06-27
Somerville, MA
| Soooo, RCN... any more insight? Still slow.
Here's a graph from 10 minutes of downloading at what should (and can) saturate the entire connection. Average speed? About 5.5mbit. Ouch.
Help! | |
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tut22
@rcn.com | I've been having these exact problems in Somerville for a few months. Earlier tonight my download speed was 5 Mbps but now it has slowed down to .28 Mbps as you can see in the attachment. | |
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tut22
join:2008-09-24
Boston, MA
4 edits | My apologies. Here's the screenshot I promised in the previous post.
I ran the speed test again after that screenshot and the download speed was an even slower 0.24 Mbps (on a 5 Mbps service). I've called RCN three times in the past week about this problem and technicians have asked me to power cycle the modem each time but that had no effect. I don't think the outsourced support staff has any idea why this is happening.
I'll keep an eye on the posts here from now on until there's some resolution.
[Mod note: IP obscurred. Not a good idea to show that on a public board. sash] | |
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tut22
join:2008-09-24
Boston, MA
4 edits | Re: [Connectivity] Horrible slowness at night -Somerville, MA Thanks, moderator. I should have read a little more before my first post here on dslreports.com. I'll obscure my IP from now on.
After my third call to RCN I finally got an appointment for a technician to visit next week. I'll post any relevant updates as I get them.
Pzykotic: I'm a little new at this. What software do you run to get that graph? | |
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(topic move) [Connectivity] Horrible slowness at night -Somervil