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lunanox315
join:2012-09-27
Martinsburg, WV

lunanox315

Member

100kps Download Speed - Nothing Can Be Done?

I live between Martinsburg and Charles Town in West Virginia. I've had a tech come out 4x in the last 4 months and my line has been cleaned, cleared, and probably run through the ringer to make sure it's as clear as a bell. During off-peak hours I get 2.7-2.8 mbps download which is wonderful since I can only get 3meg max plan here. I have always suffered during peak hours and my speed would drop to around 800kbps, but I could live with that (since they couldn't do anything about it.)

The last 2-3 weeks however, during peak times (7:30 to 11 EST) my speed has gone down below dial-up. I can't get the frontier.speedtest.net to run or the regular speedtest, and when I run the speedtest on my smartphone that I have hooked into my wireless I get a reading of around 100 kbps. I've tried everything on my end - taken out the router, rebooting everything, and even installed Leatrix Latency Fix (I primarily game during these hours, but Warcraft only uses around 6 kbps. Ventrilo however everyone starts and stops talking - it's gotten really bad)

I have no clue what to do now. I'm trying to persuade Comcast to service my house but that might be an uphill battle as my home is technically about 650' from the street as the power lines go.

Does anyone have any suggestions on where to go from here?
Aranarth
join:2011-11-04
Stanwood, MI

Aranarth

Member

We need your line stats.

Have you verified that you have filters on EVERY jack with something plugged into it? (Don't forget your fax machine, cable or dish boxes etc.)

Have you tried a single wire from your NID to your modem and what sort of speeds do you get then?

Have you verified that all the cabling in the house is in good repair and has not been pierced by nails or screws, or chewed on by rodents?

A good piece of new cabling with the shortest run to NID might be all you need.

All of the above are things the tech should have done along with a noise test.

Did the tech happen to say how far you are from the home office?
Aranarth

Aranarth to lunanox315

Member

to lunanox315
I forgot to mention that the line stats will point out if the CO if congested or if you have a physical issue with your line.

You might be able to partially alleviate the issue by asking to have your line moved to a Dslam with more open ports.

Smith6612
MVM
join:2008-02-01
North Tonawanda, NY

Smith6612 to lunanox315

MVM

to lunanox315
Sounds like the common case of night time congestion to me. Would you happen to know if you're coming right out of the CO or if you are on a remote? Remotes are far more likely to see congestion issues than CO-based connections.
lunanox315
join:2012-09-27
Martinsburg, WV

lunanox315

Member

I will run everything tonight and update this posting. I don't have anything plugged into the phone jacks except my 1 modem - I don't have phone service and only use the phone lines for my DSL. The house is less than 7 years old and Frontier has come by and verified that the lines in the house are working perfectly.

I did call IT support today and went through the whole song and dance. The CSR was very nice and said something about maybe taking out a bridge tap. She also is sending out a tech to clean the line although they did clean it when they were out 5 months ago. She also told me that I am in a high congestions area and that Frontier will route traffic through different systems to "share the congestion problems". :/
Aranarth
join:2011-11-04
Stanwood, MI

Aranarth

Member

said by lunanox315:

She also told me that I am in a high congestions area and that Frontier will route traffic through different systems to "share the congestion problems". :/

In other words - "You're SOL until we ad more capacity."

Man, That Sucks!

Though if they can move your line to a different dslam that is not so congested it may help.

It depends on where the congestion is.
lunanox315
join:2012-09-27
Martinsburg, WV

lunanox315

Member

Click for full size
Tracer Result
Click for full size
Ping Result
Ok, I'm attaching the tracert and ping test I did BEFORE peak time hits today along with the Speedtest result.

qi6588
join:2009-05-19
Shepherdstown, WV

qi6588

Member

Sounds like you're having the same issues as many of us are in the Berkley and Jefferson County area. And unfortunately I think we're out of luck until more capacity is brought online. You are lucky to have 3MB (yeah, I know - on a good day) performance as many of us are stuck at the 1.5MB threshold so there's that at least, right? I know, I know small consolation.
lunanox315
join:2012-09-27
Martinsburg, WV

lunanox315

Member

Yeah, I know the service around this area sucks. My father lives west of Glengary WV and he gets like 700 kbps. This however was a real recent and VERY drastic drop, like 2-3 weeks. It did it again last night - went to the worse than dialup download speeds again. The tech is supposed to work on it tomorrow...fingers crossed!
lunanox315

lunanox315

Member



This is what I got tonight when I could actually get it to run...
lunanox315

lunanox315

Member

So talked to Frontier today about my ticket. Last night was almost worse than before. CSR said they are going to physically move my line to "another piece of equipment" but that charges might apply if it's not something on Frontier's end. If this doesn't work I don't know what to do at that point...

Still waiting on that estimate from Comcast at least!
Majestica
join:2009-01-26
Hedgesville, WV

Majestica

Member

Best of luck to you. I am experiencing the same issues that you are, and have been for almost a year now.

I wish Comcast was an option for me.

rsdrysdale
join:2008-09-04
Great Cacapon, WV

rsdrysdale to lunanox315

Member

to lunanox315
we are seeing the same thing - great 3mbps rates off peak, and lower than 100kbs from afternoon til midnight.

located in great cacapon (west of berkeley springs), known to be on a remote DSLAM.
lunanox315
join:2012-09-27
Martinsburg, WV

lunanox315

Member

So just got off the phone with one of the Frontier technicians. He basically said he saw no problem from his end at all. He said he could come check the line again but if they were out there 5 months ago that there was probably nothing else he could do. I explained the issue and he said something about a fiber optics line being cut in Ohio and how it's screwing everyone up here.

He also pretty much insinuated that I should call Frontier back and try to get a discount on my bill since it's their end.

Still waiting on Comcast's report to see if it's feasible to hook into them. If not, I might look into that new broadband satellite but the latency would KILL me for Warcraft (1000-1500 ms) I know, I know, first-world problems...
staregazer
join:2006-12-15

staregazer to lunanox315

Member

to lunanox315
I live in Western WV and they have my traffic going to Chicago (after hitting Charleston WV) before it goes to VA. It used to go directly to VA from Charleston WV. I wonder what is up with that?

Tracing route to www.google.com [173.194.75.105]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 3 ms 2 ms 1 ms 192.168.254.254
2 * * * Request timed out.
3 17 ms 14 ms 19 ms ge--11-0-0---0.car01.chtn.wv.frontiernet.net [74
.42.149.57]
4 48 ms 48 ms 44 ms ae4---0.cor02.chcg.il.frontiernet.net [74.40.1.5
3]
5 43 ms 44 ms 48 ms ae1---0.cor01.asbn.va.frontiernet.net [74.40.2.1
94]
6 46 ms 42 ms 45 ms ae1---0.cbr01.asbn.va.frontiernet.net [74.40.2.1
74]
7 43 ms 45 ms 47 ms 72.14.213.133
8 78 ms 49 ms 44 ms 216.239.46.248
9 49 ms 49 ms 49 ms 72.14.236.148
10 59 ms 59 ms 59 ms 209.85.241.222
11 57 ms 61 ms 57 ms 216.239.48.157
12 * * * Request timed out.
13 58 ms 59 ms 64 ms ve-in-f105.1e100.net [173.194.75.105]

Trace complete.
lunanox315
join:2012-09-27
Martinsburg, WV

lunanox315

Member

Click for full size
Here is the tracert for tonight. I can't even get Speedtest to load and according to my phone's speedtest my internet is running at 103 kbps down.

qi6588
join:2009-05-19
Shepherdstown, WV

qi6588

Member

Well, if it makes you feel any better we lost the whole internet this evening around 7:10pm EDT. I have a big, fat, red light on the modem at the moment with zero connectivity. Not sure if some piece of equipment crapped out somewhere or maybe a there's a physical line break somewhere.

Anyway, I'll check again in the morning and if it's still down, I'll do a trouble ticket when I get home from work. I can't stomach the kabuki theater of modem checking this evening. Just can't do it. For now -- like most evenings -- I use the cellular modem.

I only mention this to let you know we're seeing similar, if not worse, problems each and every day. BTW, I'm outside of Shepherdstown and the problem is persistent with my community so I know it's not just my house.

Arkonen
@mycingular.net

Arkonen

Anon

I live in the Bunker Hill area and have been having this same issue for the last few weeks... I'm lucky if I can get ANY web page to load from 7pm-2am. Lucky if I get 100-200kbps during this time, with average ping around 300. Tech came out this past Monday and said "Its just more congestion at the CO in Martinsburg again".

Having to use my cellular modem to do my job makes things incredibly difficult...

Anyone know who we can contact in executive affairs to get this resolved?

treich
join:2006-12-12

treich to lunanox315

Member

to lunanox315
You know something everytime you call into these "so called tech support" they are just reading off an stupid script and if they cant get you back on or resolve your issue they just say your SOL and dont care about you. They really are doing there jobs really.... I used to work for an local regional mom and pop ISP as an local tech support and never used an stupid script like frontier did we went out on are butts and help the customer get back online or get there speeds back like they post to and sometimes we would be on the phone with customers from 10mins to 2 hours trying to help out.

So that is some dirty little secret that frontier and any larger telco or cable company tech support dont want you to hear.
lunanox315
join:2012-09-27
Martinsburg, WV

2 edits

lunanox315

Member

I honestly don't know what we as consumers can do other than file complaints with regulatory bodies. I think I'm going to file one with the Public Service Commission of West Virginia. I don't know if it will help or not but we know Frontier is aware of it and nothing has changed yet. I already had to complain to the BBB about them last year because they tried charging me 7 bucks a month for renting a modem when I had bought my own (they tried to say it was a service/maintenance charge - even though the bill itself said modem rental and they knew I didn't have their modem.)

»www.psc.state.wv.us/comp ··· ault.htm

For those of us not gaming or don't care about a little latency, this seemed like a promising alternative:

»mashable.com/2012/09/27/ ··· oadband/

Edit: Well crap...Apparently the Public Service Commission approved Frontier taking over after Verizon pulled out...

»www.fiercetelecom.com/st ··· 10-05-14

Ok, just found this one and had to laugh..
»www.broadband.wv.gov/new ··· ion.aspx

Hank
Searching for a new Frontier
Premium Member
join:2002-05-21
Burlington, WV
ARRIS NVG443B
Ubiquiti NanoStation loco M2

Hank

Premium Member

These problems are common in our neck of the woods. Frontier really needs to bring in a management team that first off knows how to manage and second who have some technical understanding. Then they may be in a position to bring in some knowledgeable technical help.

rsdrysdale
join:2008-09-04
Great Cacapon, WV

rsdrysdale

Member

service went down around 7PM last night and came back sometime this morning. speed tests are now showing (at 3PM and 5PM) >2.5mbps down (out of 3mbps possible), which is WAY better than the 110kbps we've been getting from 3pm-1am the past several weeks.

apparently they fixed something while it was down.
rsdrysdale

rsdrysdale

Member

never mind. speed is back down in the mud as of 7:30PM.
lunanox315
join:2012-09-27
Martinsburg, WV

lunanox315

Member

Yeah mine is so bad right now I can't even game which uses like 6kbps. Supposed to hear on friday what Comcast would want to charge me to get their service. If that's not feasible I just might have to try that new broadband satellite...
qi6588
join:2009-05-19
Shepherdstown, WV

qi6588 to rsdrysdale

Member

to rsdrysdale
Yep. Same here. I thought maybe the fiber repair would have cured everything. Back to half of normal speed though it drops to dial-up speeds for the most part.

JoshH3
@50.102.37.x

JoshH3 to rsdrysdale

Anon

to rsdrysdale
Here in SW Ohio, my speed is sitting at .34 MBps down and nothing I've done has budged it. I can't even get Tumblr to load well, much less game effectively. We've had outages one night in four for weeks, some that last over ten hours.

What happened to the promises that things would improve as these infrastructure upgrades happened? Instead they're getting worse.
josh123459
join:2008-01-20
Waynesville, OH

josh123459

Member

Same here southeast of Dayton, .25 Mbps down, its been slowly dropping for about 2 months, outages about once a week. Tech support says everything is ok
lunanox315
join:2012-09-27
Martinsburg, WV

lunanox315

Member

Well, today ended the saga of trying to get my DSL fixed. Basically I found out that a neighborhood about a 1/2 mile up the street was getting 12 meg service so I called and placed a ticket with Frontier to try and get hooked in. A very nice tech just called me back and said that basically it would be too expensive to hook me into that line. He did confirm that the current housing, switch area, CO, whatever you call it is about a mile from me and that it is extremely overcrowded right now. He said there is a plan to relieve the congestion there but couldn't give me a timeframe. Basically, there is nothing else AT ALL Frontier can/will do now.

My next battle ensues...here I come Comcast...you WILL service me!
lunanox315

lunanox315

Member

Update on the Continuing Saga:

So, Concast basically told me that because I'm 650' from the road and they haven't extended the service the 1/4 mile down from my neighboring townhouses that it would cost me $7,000.00 to get Comcast. I asked if I could access the toenhouses that are 100' away from my property and not follow the road/power lines but Concast said they would need documentation showing a utility right-of-way.

Yeah...

So, I put in a complaint about Frontier with the BBB and finally talked to someone at Frontier's Consumer Relations. An actual name and number, finally! This nice lady told me that the congestion in my area is a known issue and that it should be cleared by November 30th or sooner. Now, I'm very excited by this information but am of course cynical, so I asked what would occur if the date came and went and no relief - would I still be changed the $150.00 early termination fee? The lady said she would work with me.

I also found out I can get 4g access through Verizon at my house, but to get the equipment and a decent plan (20gig limit Millenicom 3g/4g Hotspot) would cost me anywhere for 200-400 dollars. Still, it's nice to have an alternative!

Hank
Searching for a new Frontier
Premium Member
join:2002-05-21
Burlington, WV

Hank

Premium Member

Hey, the rest of WV knows that you folks in Berkeley County are all rich!

On the serious side, that really is discouraging.