dslreports logo
 
    All Forums Hot Topics Gallery
spc
Search similar:


uniqs
3258
flxuser
join:2013-02-05
Naples, NY

flxuser

Member

Getting frontier to upgrade regional network

I live in a rural area where many people are captive users of Frontier and unable to take advantage of the superior Time Warner cable offering because they are not in the denser "village" portion of town. The service is remarkably bad. Not only is it slow, it goes completely down for a number of subscribers during peak use hours with packet loss of 50% or more, only to come back at around 1 in the morning. Frontier always claims to have no idea what is happening.

I am trying to figure out how we can pool our resources (total town population is about 2500) to try to get Frontier to upgrade their local networik to reasonable speeds. It bothers me that our users are locked into these 2-year contracts and pay the same price for inferior service. Any thoughts on how to best get Frontier's attention, when they are unlikely to have any competition for some time?

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

Hank

Premium Member

flxuser - That is a question I have been trying to get an answer to for several years. I have asked Frontier on several occasions, in fact my last email was just the week before to the Eastern Area President, Ken Arndt, Ken.Arndt@ftr.com. I guess you would not be surprised to learn that I have yet to receive a response. In fact the only way I seem to get anything done is to call their Executive Office.
pittpete1
join:2009-06-12

pittpete1 to flxuser

Member

to flxuser
Send this link to the Regional Managers and ask them why they are outright lying to its subscribers
»frontier.com/networkmanagement

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

Hank

Premium Member

said by pittpete1:

Send this link to the Regional Managers and ask them why they are outright lying to its subscribers
»frontier.com/networkmanagement

Amazing. I guess they use a different dictionary to obtain the definition of periodic and sustained advertised speed. If I divide my advertised speed by my actual speed, as set by the local office, the answer is 2, yet I continue to pay the price for the advertised speed. Oh, upload comes out to slightly more than 2.

Oh, did I mention that latency does not exist on their network. It is a falsehood created by disgruntled customers.
jamesonnorth
join:2012-12-22
Modoc, IN

jamesonnorth to flxuser

Member

to flxuser
Get everyone you know to complain and demand the problem to be fixed. Frontier says if you're not getting 70-80% of the advertised speed and you're not in a ridiculous location relative to your CO, there is a problem and they will look into it. If Frontier suddenly has 100 or more service calls in one area for the same issue, they will be more likely to upgrade the backhaul and CO equipment.

That being said, Frontier does know the problems with their network. They're not stupid--they just don't have the resources to do a total network overhaul. Just bug them a few times a month until something is done about it.

I wish you luck.
flxuser
join:2013-02-05
Naples, NY

flxuser

Member

Thank you James, sounds like a good plan. Is there any way to tell how much bandwidth Frontier is investing in our town? I think the more they feel we "see" what they're really giving us, the more likely they are to respond more seriously. But area speed tests are a great idea, thank you.
jamesonnorth
join:2012-12-22
Modoc, IN

1 recommendation

jamesonnorth

Member

Assuming they're being truthful and have knowledge about it, the techs might know what kind of backhaul Frontier has feeding your area. Anyone higher than a tech usually isn't willing to give out specific information. The most you could probably hope to pry out of them is whether it's a fiber or copper backhaul, but that doesn't do much for you.

Knowing if your CO is fed with fiber or copper will tell you if it has more or less than 45mbps per connection. To my knowledge (Net+ and a full time Geek) long distance copper backhaul maxes out at 45mbps T3 lines, and Fiber backhaul almost never feeds at speeds less than 45mbps T3, usually starting at least 150mbps up to several gigabits.

Knowing what kind of backhaul the CO has is only useful if you know how many people are using the internet during peak times. If there are 100 people using the internet when it slows down, and it slows to around 1mbps per person, odds are you have two T3 lines feeding your CO or remote connection point and you should definitely complain POLITELY until your CO is upgraded.

This is all pure speculation though, as even with gigabits of backhaul from your CO to the regional connection point, if there's congestion from that regional connection point out to the internet, you will still experience slow speeds.

If you want to know if the congestion is at your CO or in your region, open a command prompt in windows and ping your internet gateway address (it's the first hop outside your modem) with a "-t" after the address. The "-t" sends pings continuously until you stop it or close the window. It'll look something like this: "ping 74.42.148.105 -t" If your ping times vary a lot or you don't get responses, the congestion is probably between your CO and the regional connection point and one of the ends or the connection in the middle might need to be upgraded. If you DON'T experience changes in ping times or dropped packets, the problem is likely beyond the regional connection point on Frontier's backbone network or on the internet itself. You can also do this in Mac using Network Utility's Ping tab and check the "Send an unlimited number of pings" box.

If you don't experience significant changes in ping times, ping times over 150ms, or many dropped packets over a period of 1-6 hours, the problem is likely beyond the scope of what Frontier is willing to do for you, and you'll simply have to wait for them to upgrade their backbone network in your area, which could be a 6 month wait or more, as they have to lay new fiber or lease bandwidth from other companies like Verizon, AT&T, Level 3, etc.

Please forgive this long post, but I feel it could benefit you

kontos
xyzzy
join:2001-10-04
West Henrietta, NY

kontos to flxuser

Member

to flxuser
said by flxuser:

I live in a rural area where many people are captive users of Frontier and unable to take advantage of the superior Time Warner cable offering because they are not in the denser "village" portion of town.

I am trying to figure out how we can pool our resources (total town population is about 2500) to try to get Frontier to upgrade their local networik to reasonable speeds

Start a competitor that offers superior service. It may or may not spur Frontier to sink some money into their local network, but at least you'll have decent service.

mikedz4
join:2003-04-14
Weirton, WV

mikedz4 to jamesonnorth

Member

to jamesonnorth
frontier bit off more than they can chew by buying verizon's properties. Of course if they had actually done inspections they would have told verizon they could keep the properties. I don't think they knew how bad parts of verizon's systems were. Some people I know still can't get dsl cause they live too far from town. A shame in today's age there are people who can't get dsl or cable.

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

Hank

Premium Member

That is almost always used as an excuse when one provider acquires another. I guess that is supposed to give an increase in time to fully integrate the newly acquired network into yours.

If the customer base to profit ratio is not sufficient it will be a long time before any improvements are made.
flxuser
join:2013-02-05
Naples, NY

flxuser to jamesonnorth

Member

to jamesonnorth
Thank you, this is extremely helpful!
jamesonnorth
join:2012-12-22
Modoc, IN

jamesonnorth to Hank

Member

to Hank
Very true. Frontier is a company out to make a profit, after all. If there is limited population growth in an area and Frontier isn't seeing a very high number of new subscribers per year, they're unlikely to invest any more than they absolutely have to in that area. If they see 7-20% growth in an area consistently, they will likely have VDSL2 within 6 months. If the growth is closer to 0% or even declining, you'll be lucky to *keep* the level of service you have now.

I was once told by Frontier if I'm getting over 1mbps 70% of the time, they don't have any obligation to improve my service. I hope you live in a growing market!
slopoke
join:2012-05-20
London, OH

slopoke to jamesonnorth

Member

to jamesonnorth
That's good. Explains a lot. Our tech is a cool, and serious guy and explains all the upgrades. We have rural CO right in town (pop. 800) and still experience peak drops in speed. But they are working, like you said on feeds etc. WE good here (Central Ohio) for DSL, never drops hardly ever. (2 yrs. twice) I appreciate your explanation. Lot's better than Verizon.
flxuser
join:2013-02-05
Naples, NY

flxuser to jamesonnorth

Member

to jamesonnorth
Can anyone recommend a free, easy-to-use piece of software that would GRAPH packet loss or just overall network speed, to visually document the almost-daily outages that happen for a number of local users? Most of them will be even less techy than I am so I am looking for something easy to use that they can understand and share with CSRs.
gozer9
Premium Member
join:2010-08-09
Rochester, NY

gozer9

Premium Member

Simple tracert that shows loss
»winmtr.net

This can do speed monitoring
»testmy.net/
pittpete1
join:2009-06-12

pittpete1 to flxuser

Member

to flxuser
What a shame, Frontier didnt know about the Fairpoint or Hawaii tel deals before taking Verizons unwanted territories.
Frontier IMHO must have its head in the sand knowing full well Verizon would target the same areas it sold with LTE.

naterrrrrrrr
@frontiernet.net

naterrrrrrrr to flxuser

Anon

to flxuser
Click for full size
I live in a small town in Utah Frontier provides Internet to our county about 13,000 people in about 10 towns they have now massively over sold and avg speed is bellow 1 mbit and latency runs from 300-2000 and they told me about 5 months ago they would fix the problem and they have only gone about selling to more users with out fixing the problem they now claim to offer 25mbit in our area to sucker more users to join in their over loaded network when they can't even provide 1mbit more then 20% of the time about 1 am to 11 am any one know if you can get them for false advertising and crappy quality of service ? most people I talk to that have joined were going on about the 25 mbit connection and don't know 1 mbit from 25...
jamesonnorth
join:2012-12-22
Modoc, IN

jamesonnorth to flxuser

Member

to flxuser
I agree with gozer. Keep it simple. But if you're willing to do a little work...

I use a pfSense server, which keeps records of packet loss, ping times, and network throughput for 8 hours up to 4 years. If you set up a pfSense box as a simple router and get links to the RRD graphs, you'll be all set. It's a pretty easy way to keep track, but does require a little work to get it up and running.