Suddenlink → [Speed] 1Mbps in evenings???

So here I am, 8:20 p.m. and speedtest.net tells me I'm pulling 1.00Mbps down, and 1.45Mbps up. It is common for my connection to slow to a crawl roughly 7 to 11 p.m. every night, then return to normal 15 to 20Mbps the rest of the day. Gaming and streaming Netflix or Youtube have become difficult to impossible in the evening.

Help?

I have been having the same problems myself here in the Humboldt area.

its suddenlink..what do you expect..took me almost 5 years to get them to get my problem like that fixed

Considering how incredibly unhappy you are being with Suddenlink, why don't you switch?

I'm in Humboldt, too. Now that I understand that the atrociously slow download speed is not limited to me, I am inclined to switch to DSL. We're a rural region though, and many people do not have that option. There are only two providers for residential broadband, unless you count satellite services.

I'm noticing now that the slowdown isn't limited to evenings.

just a little impossible when there the only company in the area that has high speed internet

Then keep on it 'til the problem is fixed, like you say you have. Like a bad lover, you gotta let it go.

What's steps have you already taken in terms of troubleshooting the issue? Have you called in and had a truck roll?

I doubt that all of the people complaining all live on the same street.

LOL..I have any time a problem comes up, but they have stopped responding to anything from me

Almost none of the people posting lately are registered, or posting anything more than "my connection is bad", so I really couldn't guess to answer that.

Well, if there were Suddenlink techs here or something, maybe they could ask the right questions to elicit information that would help them narrow down the problem. Or maybe people complaining about their download speeds grinding to a crawl during prime time hours rings a bell and they'd rather not talk about it. Who knows.

Or maybe this is not an official SuddenLink help forum and the only SL techs on here are VOLUNTEERING. Again, do you have any kind of useful information to share BEYOND your internet is going slow >.>

you are wrong..if they VOLUNTEERING, than why do they always say they are vetted to help..ppl that VOLUNTEERING dont say that

-_- Really? Are you sure you understand what that word means?

They're 'vetted to help' because all the SL techs that are on here are customer service personnel in one way or another. Call them up or talk to any of them if you don't believe me. SL has NO paid position for this forum (or any forums as far as I know). This is not an official support channel for SL. They are simply coming on this forum while they have down time in their actual job position.

I am also in Humboldt. It's atrocious. In the evenings (directly plugged into freshly restarted modem/laptop) tests at .4mbps when I pay for 15mbps.
Can we compare details via IM/PM? I just did an ARC -> MCK traceroute. 3 hops long. Third hop is 200+MS.

I've been all the way up through to one of the area tech supervisors. It's gotten to the point where I have enough tech's phone numbers where I know whos calling when I file a new ticket. The techs don't even bother to come out to the apartment anymore because we both know its not an issue they can resolve and would be a waste of both our times. I'm nearing my wit's end. I've contacted the local direct sales representative I have a business relationship with, as well as pushed for some escalation from the techs.

Trying to traceroute to player.vimeo.com shows 300+MS on the first hop.

Speedtests since 9/18 show a high end 6pm-6am test of 8mbps. Thats was 3/20+ results.
»pastebin.com/sZZqWCk1
Thats my current export from speedtest.net.

The best part is, I call corporate to see about getting some credit for the time I have been having issues (going on 3 months now). Grand total credited to my account = ~15$.

I'd switch to ATT if it was any better. 6 technician visits from them to my apartment before some resolution. They just plain don't have the infrastructure to offer the speeds suddenlink claims to be able to. Max I could get from ATT was 12mbps.

So since you know all the local techs, have had regionals in, and talk to corporate for credits... what's the official word there?

Would also seriously suggest you get ahold of SDLtech here and let him have a look at what's going on.

I'm waiting for my 8 hour newbie status to wear off. Then I will message SDLtech.

The official word is, "We're aware of the issue and working to resolve it" Thats what the technician was informed to tell me. I asked if there was anything further he could do for me. Thats when we worked out the whole, I contact my sales rep, he contacts his manager thing.

I don't think "regionals" have been involved. The highest escalation to my knowledge was by the local tech supervisor who was working with a network engineer. The network engineer at first reported not seeing any issues. I appreciate the championship claim by the tech supervisor that he was seeing issues. Last I heard from him they were working to resolve it. That was two weeks ago. I called last week and got his answering machine detailing he was out of the office. For immediate assistance there were two other supervisors to contact. I left a voicemail for one and havent heard back. That same day I filed another ticket with the "business retention" department for repair. The first technician's # I had responded. Thus the official word.

Please keep us updated Stragis. Right now, I'd be happy to get 12Mbs from DSL. It sure would beat 0.5 to 1 Mbps in the evenings on Suddenlink. What was your average speed with DSL?

ATT's problems were complete random drops then fails in authentication preventing reconnection. IME bad hardware. First gen 2701hg-b power supplies would fail. With the psuedo u-verse being rolled out (it's still IPDSL) I'm hesitant to go back to them.

Average speeds were about as advertised, when it worked. I think I paid for 6, got 4-6. I'm like 40 feet of cable off of being able to get 12.

Just be glad you have that option. DSL isn't physically available here (even though ATT ran a brand new fiber drop down my road to service the allotment 500 feet away >. )

Have you tried contacting the construct engineering team (or w/e they are called). It's probably cost prohibitive but you may be able to pay to tap into it.

No, but mainly because I'm not interested in paying that price right now, lol

I am having the same issue as everyone else in Humboldt and I can tell you that all the phone calls and truck rolls in the world are not going to fix anything. Stragis is correct that Suddenlink does not have the infrastructure to support their data service. To be more clear, the physical infrastructure is just fine and there is even a redundant fiber path into the county now, the problem is that SL leases a limited size circuit on the fiber and they have reached the limit so in the evenings when everyone is online, their circuit is saturated. This is not the first time this has happened here and I'm sure it won't be the last.

Suddenlink has a vicious cycle they go through in regards to this issue. It started several years ago when they had a single OC-12 circuit that they leased from AT&T. They oversold their data service and saturated it. Thousands of unhappy subscribers and almost a year later they upgraded to an OC-48 and the saturation seemed to be fixed. Then someone came up with the genius idea to increase everyone's data speeds and, lo and behold, the new circuit was now saturated. They tried to bandaid the issue this time by adding two additional OC-12 circuits while they awaited the redundant fiber path that IP Networks was currently working on. The bandaid did alleviate some of the congestion, but it wasn't long before they saturated those as well.

Then finally the new fiber was in place and Suddenlink was able to secure a new 10Gig circuit. This almost quadrupled the size of the OC-48 and 2 OC-12s, but then another genius (maybe the same one) decided to bump everyone's speed again, this time more than doubling what was available previously. Now everyone is experiencing the same issues that have plagued Suddenlink's data service for the last 5 years and Suddenlink refuses to acknowledge the issue to any of its loyal subscribers.

Suddenlink's business practice in regards to this is not only irresponsible and unethical, it should be criminal. They are selling a service that they KNOW they cannot provide and then lying to their customers about it. People can keep calling and keep complaining, but I am telling you Suddenlink knows what the issue is know matter how dumb they try to act. They can watch every bit of traffic on their network and they can watch the circuit saturate as it is happening.

Sorry to rant, but I feel strongly about this and I think everyone deserves to know what is going on. I know how frustrating it can be getting lied to as I was one of the ones doing the lying before.

You do realize that is how all isp work? At some point upstream, all the data for an area is funneled through one link. The problem just gets more pronounced when the third or 4th hop iswhen you go off network. You should have been with my last isp, cma. They had less than 10 t1 lines rented from the phone company for the 400 or so modems on our node. Do the math on that, lol.

Calling over and over and complaining is the only real way to get quicker action. Leasing more bandwidth isnt just up to a local tech

I routinely get 0.5 (and under) down, and ~1.5 up. Like everyone else, it starts at about 5pm and goes until midnight, often later.

It's pretty obvious that suddenlink does not give a crap about their customers. Does anyone remember 3 years ago when their cacheing equipment was serving up http forms with usernames and passwords already populated by other users in the area? Yeah, that was interesting..

Never heard an apology about that one.

Nor did we ever hear an apology for the repeated cable cuts that happened last year because suddenlink has no concept of how to secure their physical infrastructure. A total of three days of downtime and I never even got so much as an apology, let alone a credit on my account.

So what can we all do at this point? I'm unwilling to let a tech into my home because as other users have stated, we all know it's an issue with their infrastructure, not our equipment. I'm really at my wits end, and would happily switch to another ISP if a viable alternative existed. Alas, it doesn't.

moldypickle, I have to respectfully disagree. That is definitely NOT how all ISPs operate. Sure, all Tier 2/3 ISPs are leasing at least some portion of their bandwidth from a Tier 1 company, but Suddenlink's repeated disregard for its network's actual capability is hardly the norm among MSOs of its size. I would rather Suddenlink offer a maximum downstream speed of 10 Mb/s and be able to deliver consistently, than sell a 50 Mb/s package that they can't support, just to say they have 'blazing fast' speeds. This ends up affecting everyone when the line gets saturated.

And comparing Suddenlink to CMA Comm. is unfair. CMA was a small, rural provider and in a single node, 400 sub system there is not enough revenue potential to justify the cost of a larger circuit. Suddenlink, on the other hand, is one of the largest MSOs in the U.S. They have a customer base of over 1 million (300,000 or so of which are data subscribers) and an avg. monthly revenue per video customer of around $150. This is a huge nationwide company that brings in over a billion dollars a year, not a small rural provider.

I do agree that more complaints can't hurt, but I just think people should know that having a tech come to your house and check your drop is not going to solve anything. I'm sure some people could benefit from a truck roll if they have poor levels or old connectors, but for the majority of us who only see a drop in downstream speeds and high latency in the evenings on an otherwise solid connection, all the new fittings in the world aren't going to change anything.

I'm trying to understand. I did a quick search on google about the vandalism done to Suddenlink in the Humbolt area and found the link below. The fiber that was damaged was on the telephone poles that run adjacent to the roads.

So, to get this straight, you want Suddenlink to apologize for one (or more) your fellow residents that randomly cut their fiber? And how would you suggest thei secure the fiber that hangs on the poles? Electrify it? Security Cameras (fiber would still be cut)? Hire private security for the thousands of miles of fiber?

I believe you have an unrealistic expectation of what an ISP can and cannot do. I understand being upset at them for not having enough bandwidth, but shesh, it's not their fault your neighbor is cutting fiber that is distrupting your service.

»mckinleyvillepress.com/s ··· umboldt/

You've got the story wrong. You frame the story as if it's an accidental fiber cut, when it clearly was not.

Suddenlink had their network infrastructure *attacked* multiple times over the period of several months. This resulted in thousands of us having no internet access. No one ever apologized to any of us. Ever. This resulted in multiple days of downtime. How difficult is it to issue a "sorry" and throw a few bucks into my account for paying for service that I didn't receive?

Again, this was no accident. If the fiber were accidently cut (as it has been with ATT in this area in the past) I can easily look past that.

I guess my point is that this is just further proof that Suddenlink is completely incompetent and has no business running a communications company.

Here's what I expect them to do:
1) Talk with their customers about the complete and total degredation of their service and what they plan to do (if anything) to rectify the situation.
2) If you screw up, or your customers are inconvienced, you apologize. I think that's pretty simple to do.
3) Demonstrate to us that their organization is competent enough to provide services that we PAY to receive. Based on reading the experiences of other suddenlink users around the country, a picture of either a) complete cluelessness or b) complete lack of care --emerges.

I've lived in many areas of the country, and have had many ISPs that I thought were pretty bad. I can honestly say that i've never experienced service so categorically terrible as Suddenlink's. To be frank, I have no idea why anyone would ever defend them. Just as I have no idea why a huge portion of customer complaints on this site are met with posts by other users that essentially tell them to "stop being a whiny little *itch and keep paying for degraded, unusable service."