boble88
join:2001-12-20
Somerville, MA
 ·RCN CABLE
| reply to Pzykotic
Re: [Connectivity] Horrible slowness at night -Somerville, MA
When you spoke to RCN did you mention that others from Somerville were seeing a slowdown at night? I myself have not contacted RCN concerning slow pm speeds, this is not an individual problem but a system wide problem for our city. If cable internet is a "network" and when more and more computers log on, the system slows down as I have been led to believe. How much speed can we expect to lose? Is this a street by street type of "network" or is it a city wide "network"?
Tonight I will provide the technical data from the RCN speed test site. Now, if someone can help me figure out how to do a screen capture without having the MS paint software I would appreciate it.
Also, I hope RCN or anyone else in this forum does not think that I am a chronic "whiner". These are legitimate complaints.
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lilhurricane
Crunchin' For Cures
Premium,Mod
join:2003-01-11
Purple Zone
clubs:  | Infranview will work without MS Paint
»www.irfanview.com/ |
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tut22
join:2008-09-24
Boston, MA
1 edit | reply to Pzykotic
4.5Mbps at 8am, 0.28Mbps at 8pm. This is typical and why I plan to drop RCN next week if the technician visit doesn't help. |
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rcnman
Jason Nealis
Premium,VIP
join:2003-05-02
Herndon, VA
| reply to boble88
All,
I'm looking into this and will post a reply shortly, I don't believe this is any sort of issue at the node or at your house, it looks to be a issue of congestion and available bandwidth. Let me do some digging and I'll will post a reply shortly.
Jason
--
Jason Nealis,
Sr. Director, Video Product and Network Operations |
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klocwerk
join:2006-02-02
Cambridge, MA
| Thanks Jason, keep us posted!
Just as another data point I've been noticing this since I signed up with RCN this summer. When it was first installed I did a speed test and got like 8mbps on a 10mbps plan, totally within spec. I've been too busy with life in general to focus any attention on it, but the few speed tests I ran since then averaged around 2mbps down.
Don't have network specs for you since I'm at work, but I'm near Tufts in western Somerville. |
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arlingtonposter
@level3.net | reply to Pzykotic
I live in Arlington (right on the Somerville border) with RCN, I have been having the same connectivity issues for a while. Been especially noticeable with latency problems when I online game at night. |
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arlington
join:2008-03-03
| I'm in Arlington, but near the RCN office.
I had excruciating slow page loads a while back along with slow downloads. This was usually on the weekends.
Every thing seems okay now, I have the 5k service and just got 4973k on a speed test. |
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ErikN
@akamai.com
|  reply to Pzykotic
Latency for a day | 
Latency for a week | 
Bandwidth for a week |
It seems to be manifesting itself as first-hop latency (to the default gateway) increasing from a fairly reasonable 5-10ms to well over 100ms. This seems to occur daily during the evenings, ramping up around 6-8 pm and continuing until a little after midnight.
See the attached for latency vs my bandwidth usage over a week, showing that it's like a problem with RCN's network.
(The top is latency for a day, the middle is latency for a week, and the bottom is throughput for that same week.)
The 100ms+ latency will also limit your max download speed given the default TCP receiver buffers in most applications, but it is even more painful for interactive applications.
I haven't yet tried calling RCN about this issue.
(I'm guessing it may be returned Tufts students
playing games and otherwise saturating the network
in the evenings?) |
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boble88
join:2001-12-20
Somerville, MA
·RCN CABLE
| reply to Pzykotic
Your Modem Mac 00:1c:ea:c1:5c:7a
Forward Frequency 735000000 Return Frequency 36816000
Forward Modulation qam256(4) Modem TX Power 33 dBmV
Foward Signal to Noise 35.9 dB Downstream Ratelimit 22000000
Forward Power Level -2.6 dBmV Upstream Ratelimit 2200000
Download #1
------------------------------------------------------------------
File size transferred : 14.75 MB (15468724 bytes)
Total time taken : 11.02 seconds (11016 milliseconds)
Throughput : 1404.0 KB/sec [Kilobyte-per-second]
= 1.4 MB/sec [Megabyte-per-second]
= 11232.0 Kbps [Kilobit-per-second]
= 11.23 Mbps [Megabit-per-second]
Lil, I found MS Paint and will figure out how to use the program later |
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Pzykotic
join:2002-06-27
Somerville, MA
| reply to ErikN
Those latency graphs are very telling, thanks for that!
Hopefully rcnman can help us out. Like I've said, I had 20/2 in Natick 3 years ago and was absolutely in love with it, Comcast could never touch it.
Sadly, my current downstairs neighbors have a 16/1 Comcast plan and when I am pulling 1mbit-2mbit at night, they are pulling the full 16mbit (and it's not speedboost either).
Bring RCN back to glory! You can't just let this happen and lose savvy customers to Comcast. |
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boble88
join:2001-12-20
Somerville, MA
·RCN CABLE
| reply to Pzykotic
File size transferred : 14.75 MB (15468724 bytes)
Total time taken : 6.11 seconds (6109 milliseconds)
Throughput : 2532.0 KB/sec [Kilobyte-per-second]
= 2.53 MB/sec [Megabyte-per-second]
= 20256.0 Kbps [Kilobit-per-second]
= 20.26 Mbps [Megabit-per-second]
Your Modem Mac 00:1c:ea:c1:5c:7a
Forward Frequency 735000000 Return Frequency 36816000
Forward Modulation qam256(4) Modem TX Power 33 dBmV
Foward Signal to Noise 35.7 dB Downstream Ratelimit 22000000
Forward Power Level -1.9 dBmV Upstream Ratelimit 2200000
Here is the AM download speed test |
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afty
join:2002-04-21
Somerville, MA | reply to Pzykotic
Are you guys seeing much improved speeds tonight? I just did a speed test (10:40 pm), and I got the full 10 Mbits down. Normally I would be seeing less than 1 Mbit down at this time of night. |
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Pzykotic
join:2002-06-27
Somerville, MA | No improvement here, I'll double check tonight but last night around 2 AM it was 10mbit out of 20mbit, which is pretty normal for that time of night. |
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Laggingamer
join:2008-09-30
Somerville, MA
| reply to afty
I haven't had a chance to run a speedtest until today (pulling double shifts), as far as i can see, there hasn't been much of an improvement, i'll have to run a few more tests, and record the results to say the issue has been resolved.
I will post by the end of next week, and let you know. |
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boble88
join:2001-12-20
Somerville, MA
·RCN CABLE
| reply to Pzykotic
Was getting around 20.6 Mbps this am, now this.
Download #1
------------------------------------------------------------------
File size transferred : 14.75 MB (15468724 bytes)
Total time taken : 17.8 seconds (17797 milliseconds)
Throughput : 869.0 KB/sec [Kilobyte-per-second]
= 0.87 MB/sec [Megabyte-per-second]
= 6952.0 Kbps [Kilobit-per-second]
= 6.95 Mbps [Megabit-per-second]
Download #2
------------------------------------------------------------------
File size transferred : 14.75 MB (15468724 bytes)
Total time taken : 19.64 seconds (19641 milliseconds)
Throughput : 787.0 KB/sec [Kilobyte-per-second]
= 0.79 MB/sec [Megabyte-per-second]
= 6296.0 Kbps [Kilobit-per-second]
= 6.3 Mbps [Megabit-per-second]
Download #3
------------------------------------------------------------------
File size transferred : 14.75 MB (15468724 bytes)
Total time taken : 14.16 seconds (14156 milliseconds)
Throughput : 1092.0 KB/sec [Kilobyte-per-second]
= 1.09 MB/sec [Megabyte-per-second]
= 8736.0 Kbps [Kilobit-per-second]
= 8.74 Mbps [Megabit-per-second]
Your Modem Mac 00:1c:ea:c1:5c:7a Your IP
Forward Frequency 735000000 Return Frequency 36816000
Forward Modulation qam256(4) Modem TX Power 33 dBmV
Foward Signal to Noise 35.8 dB Downstream Ratelimit 22000000
Forward Power Level -2.2 dBmV Upstream Ratelimit 2200000 |
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boble88
join:2001-12-20
Somerville, MA
·RCN CABLE
| reply to Pzykotic
5:12pm
Download #1
------------------------------------------------------------------
File size transferred : 14.75 MB (15468724 bytes)
Total time taken : 24.86 seconds (24859 milliseconds)
Throughput : 622.0 KB/sec [Kilobyte-per-second]
= 0.62 MB/sec [Megabyte-per-second]
= 4976.0 Kbps [Kilobit-per-second]
= 4.98 Mbps [Megabit-per-second] |
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Laggingamer
join:2008-09-30
Somerville, MA
1 edit | reply to Pzykotic
How's it going guys?
I am sad to announce that i have had no improvement on my connection, here are some of the speed tests i did on Sunday.
I apologize in advance, but there are five pics and they are large, sorry.
First one was at 3:30 pm
Second one about an hour later
Again an hour later
I took a few from 7 pm till 12:30 am, but i am only going to post the one i took at 9:07, since there was no difference between the speed tests, although some were slower.
And finally the last test of the night, at 1:49 am
I am certainly going to continue tracking my speed through out the week, in hopes that improves, Socom Confrontation for PS3 is coming out in two weeks and i want to be able to play the game without LAG, I've been lagging like crazy on the Beta.
I will give it a month, if i still see no improvement in speed and latency, i have to consider getting a new ISP... |
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tut22
join:2008-09-24
Boston, MA | reply to Pzykotic
A friendly technician visited, checked a few things, and promised to call the next day but he never did. I can't tell yet if anything has improved. |
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afty
join:2002-04-21
Somerville, MA | reply to Laggingamer
You guys are right, my speeds are back into the near-dialup range again. Just ran a speedtest (10:30 pm on 10/6) and got 0.34 Mbit down. |
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Jimooo
@rcn.com | reply to Pzykotic
Any news from RCN on this? I'm getting around 2.5 and I'm paying for 20 in Somerville. I'll be giving them a call about swapping my toshiba next week if this doesn't improve. And some credits on my bill as well. |
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