W.O.W. → Re: Cleveland West Side practically unusable since Jan 17

and today my transmit power dropped.
Last I checked was when the issues started a few days ago, and transmit was 37-40.

Noticed the lag was a little worse today than the past few days, so I checked again, right now it is 35.
Also, recieve ddropped from -5ish to -6ish (not a big drop, but still they both dropped).

The lag in gaming has been unbearable the past few days. Kirk didn't respond to my email. Sent Friday, I figured no weekend response, but it is wednesday afternoon with no response.

Dan, is there an update at all on the circuit?

Current signal issues can, believe it or not, be attributed in part to a solar event. Largest CME since 2003. No, seriously - this is not off my BOFH Excuse Of The Day calendar.
»boingboing.net/2012/01/2 ··· -ma.html
While the event is technically over, it's not uncommon for it to take up to 24 hours for complex RF systems to restabilize. During which time, there can (and usually is) increased reports of signal "problems" that are just residual from the CME event. It should be noted, headends are required by the FCC to be RF hardened (and are checked from all angles including overhead) to the point where that equipment is effectively CME immune. Unfortunately, all those lines and junctions on the poles are not in the headend and not CME immune.Well, it's now Wednesday afternoon, and nothing from anyone still. I am getting constant stalling and extreme jitter for all traffic period - DNS, ICMP, World of Warcraft, YouTube, TF2, Instant Messaging, the works. Signal levels here are somewhat unstable still but..

DOWNSTREAM
ChannelID: 3
Mod: 256QAM
Freq: 621000000
Power: -10.2 dBmV
SnR: 35.3 dB
UPSTREAM
Green
ChannelID: 2
Mod: 32QAM
Freq: 37000000 
Power: 48.2 dBmV
 

Compare to prior -7 dBmV, 36dB, 45 dBmV and it's obvious that signal quality has suffered a nasty hit. Still not my modem - still showing packet loss at headend core. It's entirely possible I'm still seeing CME aftereffects, but we should be nearly clear of the window. Speedtests are showing near expected results on repeated runs - 15.8/1.11, so it's not enough signal loss to cause impact.

So are they trying to fix it and just screwing up signalling in the process, or just steadfastly ignoring it and pretending that bandwidth tests are the only thing that matter?

Instead of relying on this forum, you should contact upper management directly: »www.wowway.com/internet- ··· ve-bios/

People on here have emailed the regional VPs or C-level folks and many have reported back getting responses and attention to their issues. Should you have to do that? No - but at least you can (as opposed to other companies where you don't even have that option) and it might help bring some attention to your issue.

I did email them. No response on current issue. Worked with ceo office before, still had phone number, when this issue came up I called, no one returned my message.

we lost three satellite receivers this week due to the solar flare.

Well still signal is lower.
Recieve around -7 to -5.5, just barely in range was about -5
Snr was 39-40 now 38-39
Transmit was 37-40 now 35ish
Still packet loss.
And most surprising, still with WOW.

IIWM I wouldn't focus on signal numbers so much. I don't get "ideal" numbers but have no issues.

Obviously you are having real problems and if you think the signal values are a hint to the cause then go with it, otherwise don't obsess so much about them. Just my $0.02.

Im not focusing on the numbers themselves, just the fact that they keep getting worse. But that transmit is what was giving me issues before, they fixed it 2 weeks ago and it dripped again. I am not complaining just offering the numbers for the sake of describing the issues.

Any solar flare issues should be over, but I will keep checking over the weekend.
Even if the numbers are still 'acceptable', they are still dropping, it should be fixed before they go out of range, although a 34-35 transmit is just barely in range.

can you associate the signal levels with any environmental factors? high humidity, rain, snow, cold, ice?

Weather here was snow the other day, but the weather now is similar to what it was last time I checked. Like I said, the numbers are just or info, as long as I have workin service I don't care what the numbers are, but seeming them drop, I figured might be related. I am so sick of putting on something from netflix and seeing it buffer, or youtube. I tried streaming streaming apple's media event from apple.com and it was crap. I find it hard to believe the issue is with all those seperate services, it has to be with WOW! My speed tests are always good, but ping is inconsistant, jitter is high, and everything lags, games, video streams, etc... Again, I never had any issues, until october, right around the time the new speeds were introduced, could just be a coincidence, I don't know. What I do know is I am not leaving WOW over the issues, but mostly I will be leaving because the contacts I have been dealing with have not returned my calls/emails.

One area supervisor said he might get back to me saturday, if not monday. It is thursday, no response.
A VP quick to respond to emails, sent him one last friday, no response yet.
Left a message with the guy a worked a little bit with from the CEO's office, almost a week, no call back.
I guess I will just keep calling regular support and getting more discounts. The only reason I am still here is how generous they are with discounts.

Yes, but this here is a demonstration of WOW's utter disregard for proper network maintenance and repair. Or a demonstration of their complete incompetence. Take your pick at this point. I'm starting to lean toward "even if they knew how, they'd tell us to screw off because they're butthurt over being called out on improper network configurations." Would you gentlemen at WOW prefer it if I had Level3 and XO call you to tell you to stop passing 10net to them? I can certainly have them do that - I still have both NOCs on speed dial.

Regardless, that doesn't change the facts of:
»/r3 ··· 9502e68a
and
»/r3 ··· aa37e2a2

Which show excessive latency, jitter, and packet loss to their core routing infrastructure. If my DS3 was showing an average of 100ms, I wouldn't just be screaming at XO and Level3, I'd be screaming at TAC and going through every item on the MIB to find out what was going wrong.

So far, all I see is the problem getting worse every day, and Wide Open West attempting to pull an ostrich. If they refuse to acknowledge the problem, then it will go away - or at least the customers will. Well, no. I'm not going away. And I know the proper authorities for each complaint, if they're going to continue to refuse to even make the most basic attempts to correct the issue.

hudiat, since they already know you, do me a favor. Next time you call? Drop these words on them: massive exposure of personally identifying information and the CPE network is totally exposed to all customers. If they don't call you back on THAT? Then we know they're just trying to make us go away.

actually meant for hudiat.

Sorry, should've been clearer. Rather aggravated with the situation for obvious reasons. Totally on me.

To the extent of my knowledge, huidat is served out of the same headend I am - Blaze Industrial, with Brook Park being serviced via a northeast running trunk and signal amps. (This may be incorrect, and I certainly welcome any clarification. It'd be the first response from WOW to date.) If the cabling hasn't changed overmuch - though it probably has - I'm serviced off the West Street overhead trunk through open junctions.
If I am correct though, I believe huidat is serviced by an overhead that runs West Bagley to Engle. Prior statements from WOW to a friend in the Brook Park service area indicated that service was unavailable due to max line distance being hit. So that's my guesstimate there - would be in the neighborhood of a 5-6 mile amped pull.

So, tl;dr version - when huidat and I both see signal degradation at similar levels? It will almost always indicate headend. I'll generally see signal degradation at higher levels and before huidat because my lines are known to be more vulnerable to weather related issues due to open junctions - which I'm pretty adamant about avoiding truck rolls on. (Unless WOW wants to swap to enclosures.) Because of pull distance, huidat's more likely to see headend problems before I am. If we're both seeing it, it's headend. If it's either one of us separately, it's the line.