| Eureka/McKinleyville/Humboldt County - Slow Speed, High Ping I just had Suddenlink 20MB service installed earlier today in McKinleyville. I was aware of the problems with oversaturated nodes in Eureka earlier this year, but Suddenlink staff assured me it had been all upgraded & is problem free now.
I do a lot of online gaming was VERY happy to see 47MB down/1.7MB up (I was told 20MB/2MB by Suddenlink) & even more importantly, pings vs my existing 6MB AT&T DSL. 10-60ms ping reduction to various servers while doing back-to-back tests with both services all day. This was at 2:00pm though..... here is what happened later:
4:30pm pings rose from 15ms to 85ms, & speeds were down to 20MB down/1.3MB up.
7:00pm: 135ms ping, 12MB down/1.2MB up
9:10pm: 240ms ping, 8MB down/1.0MB up
10:30pm: 80ms ping, 16MB down/1.3 up
11:30pm 17ms ping, 47MB down/1.65 up
12:45am (now) 16ms ping, 47MB down/1.7 up
AT&T NEVER fluctuates. It is rock stable all day every day & pings remain the same anywhere day or night. These problems with Suddenlink over-selling their available bandwidth are absolutely ridiculous. I am going to try to contact a high-level supervisor tomorrow & see if they have intentions of a real fix, or if I should just cancel & stick with AT&T that I've been with 2.5 years. |
|
| Now that the weekend has rolled around I have found that most all day from mid-morning on Saturday the latency is horrible, just like during peak hours on weeknights.
Can't do any online gaming on the weekend AT ALL with latency like this. I get disconnected from servers continually, my friends can see me lagging hard, etc.
Speeds are still intermittently choking. I am seeing 12MB download on average (paying for 20MB & get 48MB during non-peak)
Suddenlink is sending a tech out on Monday. I'd imagine he'll just test the lines & such to my home & tell me everything is fine, like so many others have reported here with identical problems.
I will report back here if anything changes. |
|
| reply to SCORPiON5150
Here are some various screen captures of my ping & tracer tests. These were ALL performed between 2:00-2:30pm on Sunday 12/18/11 - Not even during peak times, but on the weekend (read: it only gets worse from here)....
Ping tests to random very popular websites to show this is not a 1-IP isolated issue:
tracert tests to the same IPs as above (in same order - 64.30.224.26 is displayed twice on accident from screen captures):
And multiple back-to-back tracert tests through what are consistently the heaviest offending IPs, peak or not (Suddenlink, 173.219.251.162):
Here is a speed test result from a little later, 2:55pm Sunday:
I normally get 41ms ping, 47MB/1.7MB to this server off-peak hrs.
Some ping tests from 3:05pm:
Normal pings to above are 19ms 0-2ms jitter off-peak.
Normal pings to above are 35ms 0-10ms jitter off-peak
Normal pings here are 28ms 0ms jitter off-peak
The pings right now displayed are totally unacceptable, but not quite the HORRIBLE pings that I see in the evening.
I have also tested every one of these IPs & servers side-by-side vs. my 6MB/584k AT&T DSL today & are seeing the standard #s I expect, 20-35ms pings, full up & down speeds. This gives me further verification that the existing problems are all on Suddenlink's end, as expected. |
|
|
|
| reply to SCORPiON5150
It is now 7:15pm Sunday 12/18/11, & this is the worst I have seen it yet. Same servers from earlier:
A couple more speed tests from other nearby servers:
tracert to the same servers as earlier, but 7:45PM:
& The habitual offending IP again:
 |
|
| reply to SCORPiON5150
Same servers but @ 6:30AM Monday 12/19/11 when the service is not completely choking - A little jitter this morning but overall, these are the totally acceptable speed & latency #'s I should be seeing day or night, & are pretty much on par with my AT&T service (aside from jitter):
tracert tests from 6:45am - as you can see all the problems within the Suddenlink network have cleared up now:
I have contacted Pete Abel from the Suddenlink approved techs listed here & have to give Mr. Abel credit for at very least, responding very quickly. He says he will have this issue checked out ASAP. I am crossing my fingers that the ball will be rolling soon.
Will post back here with any updates. |
|
| reply to SCORPiON5150
Update:
To anyone keeping up with this, it seems that Pete Abel got the ball rolling with some good momentum. I had a tech scheduled to show up this evening before even contacting Mr. Abel. This afternoon I got a telephone call from a man named Casey with the local Suddenlink management inquiring about the issue & giving me some fairly thorough insight & realistic answers to the questions I have about a realistic fix & timelines.
Later the line tech, Ron showed up. He was very professional & thorough in all of his diagnostics & he fully understood the issue. He also had solid insight & realistic answers as far as what was going on & why the issue exists. He had mentioned that it was odd for him to be sent out to McKinleyville. After speaking with him about these problems on a technical level, it was clear he was selectively sent because he was the right man for this job.
Basically Humboldt County is in the process of some major infrastructure upgrades at the moment, which are slated to be completed soon, if all things go as planned & expected - within the next couple of months basically but possibly even sooner. Part of the infrastructure upgrade awaiting to be completed is the integration of a new fiber link coming from the east. Suddenlink is already semi-aware of the issues that I, along with others here are experiencing.
I would like to give a public thanks to Pete Abel, Casey, & Ron from Suddenlink. While I do feel like it's silly my area's been oversold once again & they are unfortunately unable to fix the network right away, everyone @ Suddenlink's level of customer service up to this point has been top notch.
I can't shut off my AT&T net for now if I want to do any online gaming. It's only $25/month. But only after speaking with Ron am I considering the crazy thought of keeping both turned on, even though I will not be using the Suddenlink connection at all except latency/speed tests. I really want to have this "upgraded" net but it's tough to justify $85/month for both & only use the one that costs $25, just to hope they fix the other one soon.
But I just might do it anyway just to see what happens. I've always been curious to try out Suddenlink's service in my area to see for myself if this problem would exist, & I really do want to give them a chance once these problems are rectified. When the service DOES work (super late/early) it is awesome. This huge infrastructure upgrade will likely only improve that.
Since Suddenlink has their 30 day $$ back guarantee, I have no reason not to give them a month anyway, in hopes that infrastructure is upgraded quickly & I am able to use/enjoy the service, & turn off the AT&T DSL.
Ron told me it could be helpful to them & in turn, me & other locals if I continue to provide thorough ping, speed, & tracert tests as I have been. I will continue to post any really bad ones that come about within this thread on a bi-weekly or weekly basis. |
|
Dregos
join:2006-05-31
Mckinleyville, CA | Ya thanks for the heads up. I remember hearing that they were adding a new fiber link. My problem was fixed by a node split, but my friend who lives near by still has a very unstable connection. They've had this problem since they first moved in about 8 years ago and will surely be pleased to hear that it may be fixed soon. |
|
| In Arcata - got my Suddenlink set up on the 15th - called immediately that night about my latency - on the speedtest,net - 105ms - I am connecting to West coast gaming servers and they route me to the east coast and back giving me horrible latency/ping/lag. I have hod someone comout to do absoulutely nothing and another on the way - hopefully i can recomend a node spilt or whatever - this is unnaceptable to have routing issue this bad - i keep you updated |
|
Dregos
join:2006-05-31
Mckinleyville, CA | On Friday, they started the construction of the new redundant fiber optic cable in Humboldt. In a couple months we shouldn't have this node overload problem.
If you insist that your node should be split, keep annoying Suddenlink about it...Tell them you would like to speak to a lead technician who can actually do something about it...
After seeing so many people with this issue, I think its bullcrap that Suddenlink is still charging the full price for internet. They need to discount people who are getting significant ping jitter and get to fixin'. |
|
| reply to SCORPiON5150
So I have not been updating this thread as intended... I have not actually even been using the Suddenlink service. I hooked it up last night to test finally (it's kind of a hassle) & to my amazement, the service seems to be better - but still not quite right.
The latency is still a little questionable during peak hours but it hasn't been horrific now. I appear to be getting full speed now as well during peak hours, & the upload speed is @ 1.9-2.0MB - faster than it ever went before (was 1.7MB max & usually 1.4-1.5).
What I AM seeing that is still an issue is a connection quality problem & lost packets at times: (youtube server)
No real surprise that the issues are still stemming from 173.219.251.162. The #s are often higher with 10-40% packet loss but I didn't sit waiting for a screen cap for very long. You can see the big peaks on the graphs as well.
My suspicion is that they perhaps split me off to another node at some point but the main fiber link is still not done. I HOPE this is the case anyway........ The latency decrease & speed increases to what I am actually paying for give me new found hope that I might just leave this service on & be able to use it.
I will try to post back semi-regularly if anything changes, as I am approaching my 30 day mark & will be watching connection quality closely now while deciding which ISP to stick with. |
|
| reply to SCORPiON5150
I've been having issues all morning/afternoon. I am taking an online class (with high quality video streaming) and it is constantly having problems. Other video services are not working well either (Netflix, Hulu).
I'm paying for 8.0 |
|
| Just ran a speed check again looks like it is fixed
 |
|
| reply to SCORPiON5150
Well.. Ping times have been consistently low since my last post. Download speeds I have seen drop to about 12.5 mb/s but the pings were still ok. Upload has dropped to 1mb often now which is odd, as it was just 2mb consistent.
The only real issues now are high latencies doing tracer tests, stemming from that usual offending IP (173.219.251.162) & I have noticed some routing issues to quite a few websites that take forever to load. I can live with that though because the pings are consistent now & during peak hours only a few ms higher than in the afternoon.
Don't know if they got that fiber finished rapidly or something perhaps but the service seems to be at least mediocre vs terrible that it was last month (so bad I never really used it outside of testing).
It seems reliable enough now that while I still hope they improve the routing a bit & fix that pesky Suddenlink IP, I decided to go ahead & pay them for the 1st month & keep the service. Last night I shut the AT&T 6mb DSL off finally.
I will keep updating this thread if anything changes good bad or otherwise. |
|
 El LocoEl Loco
join:2007-04-26
Greenville, NC
 ·Embarq Now Centu..
 ·Suddenlink
| reply to SCORPiON5150
I wonder, what is considered good ping/latency for online gaming on Xbox 360? I'm just curious because I myself game on Xbox LIVE and have always wanted to know what numbers is considered good ping so you don't experience a lot of lag and get lagged out or kicked out of a game, you know. Thanks! |
|
| reply to SCORPiON5150
Looking at all the information you posted, 173.219.251.162 is not a problem. 10.30.16.1 is, which is the Suddenlink router (CMTS) that your modem connects to. The high latency you're experiencing, which starts at 10.30.16.1, is likely due to saturation of the upstream or downstream of your node.
173.219.251.162 is simply prioritizing your trace/ping packets destined to 173.219.251.162 as lowest priority which cause the latency but it is not affecting packets going through it. |
|
| reply to SCORPiON5150
I've been having issues with suddenlink for the past week. I can't watch Netflix or Hulu with this bad connection. Online games are unplayable as well.
This is what I'm getting tonight (8PM). I've run the test multiple times and keep getting the same results. Half the tests pinged over 400ms. I have the 8mbps package.
The ping is really high. So I really never get the 2.51 MBPS. I only get it in small spurts. Same with all the results below.
This is from last night around 10PM:
This is from two days ago:
I've called suddenlink a couple times about this and no help. Just the standard unplug the modem and router after they reset the connection. They report that its going at full strength.
These tests are on a computer connected directly to the modem.
Hopefully, I can get them to come out and check if any problems are with the wiring.
Figured I would post here just to see if anyone else in Eureka has been having these problems. |
|
| Im in McKinleyville on 20 package. Here's my test to same server as you. |
|
| Thanks for your reply. I'm still having the same issues (trying to watch a Netflix movie before bed) tonight. Less than 1 mb/s and >300ms ping. Looks like I'll need to get a tech to come out since it doesn't seem to be an area wide issue. |
|
| reply to SCORPiON5150
Haven't visited this thread for awhile now, as my service has been mediocre/OK (in comparison to the time of OP). I have noticed that I stopped hitting the 2MB upload speeds almost ever, once again. I'm running a consistent 1.7-1.8MB upload though even @ peak times, so I am OK with that. I have also noticed that the IP I keep complaining about, 173.219.251.162 is sometimes now 173.219.251.154 instead. But... No changes. Still a bottleneck of some sort going on there @ on Suddenlink's end.
I have also noticed that during peak times I get download speed drops down to the 12-16MB range on speedtest.net, vs 40MB that I see off-peak. Actual download speeds (via steam/origin/download.com) always taper down to 2.6MB/s off peak, & I often see 1.5ish during peak hours.
Latencies have been very good for me. I'm seeing between 18-28ms to almost all the servers I have posted above that previously had problems. During peak times those pings may rise by 4-5ms max usually, & the jitter may rise a few ms but nothing I would not expect due to normal net traffic.
Online gaming has been fairly smooth, though it does fairly often reveal my 1 significant remaining complaint. Suddenlink has some pretty crappy routing sometimes. I had noticed this before when comparing head to head with my AT&T, which had excellent routing. I'm quick to pin it on the ISP because I've witnessed the crappy routing via all my ping tests, but also in-game, I can always see certain people lagging a little bit, & those people see me lagging a little bit. But others will all be fine to both of us & others on your team will be saying "no, he's not lagging at all here" about us both.
Another great example of the poor routing would be that if I go run a ping test on www.google.com, www.youtube.com, or www.yahoo,com (some of the biggest websites out there) on suddenlink, it routes to a server that will show 60ms ping or so almost always. AT&T routes to a server @ 18-20ms ping. But here is the kicker.. If I take the IP that AT&T chose for yahoo/google/youtube, & manually ping that IP with the Suddelink net, it often spanks the AT&T ping by 2ms (15-18 vs AT&T's 18-20) & a significantly shorter route...
The best thing I could recommend is for those of you still experiencing issues in this area, is to contact Pete Abel via this site & express your concerns to him. I suspect he was able to light some fire under local Suddenlink's @ss & is the reason my issues ever got addressed. I was told by local management that the new fiber line would be completed BY the middle of Feb. That has come & gone, so @ this point my opinion is it is completely unacceptable for anyone in this area to be experiencing these issues still. |
|
| I'm having a very strange issue.
I can only visit certain domains.
Ping Average:
Google: 20ms
Netflix: 75% lost 22ms
Washingtonpost.com: 100% lost
Speedtest.net: 50ms
Newegg.com: 100% lost
Yahoo.com: 32ms
Reddit.com: 50% lost 83ms
youtube: 75% lost 27ms
In my browser I cannot access any of these pages except for the ones that actually sent/received all 4 pings, but they load slow and incomplete. |
|
