said by rizzo777:Can the techs tell if one side is more congested than the other?
They need access to the monitoring system and experience with what to look for. It's not something the techs sent to your home normally have access to, in my experience.
They can call a higher level tech who might have access. System Maintenance Techs, Hub/Headend Techs, and Engineers usually have access. Not sure who would on the Phone Support tree, maybe Tier 3.
Most of the monitoring systems used by cable providers use something like
RRD Tool showing interface and other stats pulled through SNMP and other methods. It takes some training or experience to recognize the pattern of congestion. Reports are often generated using the same data and sent to Engineering departments on a regular basis. I've never seen a CSR screen show an indicator for interface congestion when looking up a customers' account and I've never seen a Tech work order with such an indicator either. Those guys have to go looking for the info, if they even have access. Then they have to generate another ticket or work order to get it looked at and fixed which can take days, weeks, or months depending on what needs to be reconfigured to relieve the congestion.