Posted Directly from my email, less the phone numbers.
Hey, this is Rustin again! As you can see I have reposted an older email to you guys. For 8 months now the same issue has gone on with no resolution at all. Unfortunately, I and others in my area have grown fed up with it once again and the problem needs to be rectified or I will be forced to try to clear it up through a new DSL Internet Service Provider or switch to cable if possible.
I have owned DSL from you guys for about 5 years now and up until 8 months ago I never had a problem that has gone on unresolved. Now, due to the VAST amount of time I have had to study the problem I can more accurately describe the symptoms I have been having to you guys and hopefully find a resolution so that I may still enjoy service provided by you guys!
Ok, to the symptoms, Before approximately 8 months ago I could play World of Warcraft with very low ping times 50 generally; 80 at the highest and use Ventrilo, stream videos, etc. without a hitch on my 1.5Mb/s connection. Approximately 8 months ago, WoW began running higher ping times (100-200) and something that players call "Casting Lag" happens all too frequently. Ventrilo will frequently drop voice for a moment and sound very choppy; P2P traffic is VERY slow even though it is my understanding that Windstream doesn't throttle P2P traffic.
Phone Calls also show a couple of strange symptoms, When talking to other windstream customers within my area it sounds similar to talking into a tunnel (ON BOTH ENDS OF THE PHONE!) I have physically went to the other homes in question to make phone calls in many different combinations all with the same noise; It sounds similar to a empty tunnel with wind in it.
Speed Test.net will show as much as 135ms ping and the needle goes absolutely nuts before it lays to rest "within margins" (this has gotten me thrown off of the phone with the techs over 15 times) on a TRUSTED SERVER less than 100 miles from my home (Ookla). The capacity test on Windstream.net shows as much as 500ms of TCP delay and as much as 400 MS Download delay.
A couple of strange symptoms - Pingtest.net shows lower ping times than Speed Test.net to the same servers, but can sometimes show 20ms of jitter. Trace routes can sometimes show outrageous latency even on the first few server hops.
Now, one thing I have discovered, ANYTHING that requires a steady data stream WILL NOT FUNCTION CORRECTLY. Games, VOIP, Ventrilo, Skype, Youtube, the list goes on. Games will lag enough to cause a noticeble interrupt in gameplay, streaming a video results in buffering that I never had to wait on before. Ventrilo, as I stated above, will show a noticable drop in voice for a moment and then be fine for a LITTLE amount of time and have the same "drop-out" in connection again.
My hardware changes since then consist of: A new modem (speedstream 4300, up from the 4200), 2 new server pins (although I was not there to witness it), a switch, every single wire to every network component is new, a tech hard-wired the dsl line into the phone jack (no phones are used on this phone jack and it is not filtered), phone jacks were replaced, the computers connected remain the same and have been scanned professionally for malware which came out clean, all drivers in both computers are up to date, I'm sure more has been done that I cannot remember.
I write this from another customers house that has experienced the same problems as described as long as I have. I have reported this problem for her and the others that I have mentioned but it has yet to be fixed. Windstream Reps have used the excuse that they cannot do anything simply because my BANDWIDTH and that THIER ping times to me are acceptable. Im not worried about my Bandwidth or their ping times, I need a stable connection in order to do the things I purchased this connection for!
As this internet connection was purchased specifically for the purposes listed above and ran almost completely stable for 4 years, less the small problems in between, if the service will no longer attain the results that I payed for prior to whatever change it was that took place, I fear another change will need to be made.
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I will also include pictures from Windstream.net speedtest that clearly shows that SOMETHING is happening. Also it is good to note that this problem will get persistently worse from ~9PM - 12PM that make most things unplayable and then return to the high ping times and lag spikes that aren't quite as bad but still VERY noticable and was NOT normal for my connection prior to the problem.