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islets
join:2014-01-12

islets

Member

[Cable] What's the best way to approach intermittent issues?

I am currently on rCable in downtown Toronto. I get tons of packet losses between 8 to 10 at random, the issue lasts anywhere between 30mins to 2 hours. One just passed which is why I am posting here.

I have gone through this process a couple of months back (January by the looks of my email with Teksavvy) and gave up. I opened a couple of tickets, going through the same process each time.
Unplug modem.
Bypass router.
ping, tracert, speed tests.
Try other pc etc etc.

Got a DHCP issue resolved but never got an update on whether the high packet loss was resolved. I still got the issues at a rare occurrence, maybe once every two weeks. Now it's back to every other day.

I am at the point where my internet is down and I sit there debating if it is at all worth it to go through the process of calling teksavvy. I know the issue is intermittent and that by the time I get through to customer support going through all the diagnostic, my internet will be up and running without having received any help.

My question is: regarding intermittent issues like mine. Is there usually something done to resolve it? My past experience is as such:
1) Teksavvy finger pointing to Rogers, telling me that they will send a ticket to Rogers
2) I leave my PC plugged to the modem thus crippling all other devices in my home
3) Rogers checks my connection at a time there are no issues
4) Ticket close, everyone pats themselves on the back
5) I sit there waiting like an idiot.

This is incredibly frustrating as I do not really want to waste 30~40mins each time I stumble upon packet losses. Should I bother doing all the ping tests, recording all of them, opening tickets, going through the pain of submitting my logs or should I just accept that rCable is not my best option. Maybe I should just switch to something else.

If the first post from teksavvy is asking me to post in the direct forum, I am going to araghjajagashjads.

JenSuisUn
Premium Member
join:2006-02-23
Chatham, ON

JenSuisUn

Premium Member

Hi Islets,

There are no requirements from you to do anything if you do not feel you need to.

However, for us to be able to help you we do need to have data.
We understand you may be frustrated about the situation, however doing nothing about your situation won't make things better.

If you have any questions, by all means, ask away.

Martin
islets
join:2014-01-12

islets

Member

Has there been issues resolved by Rogers similar to mine?

JenSuisUn
Premium Member
join:2006-02-23
Chatham, ON

JenSuisUn

Premium Member

said by islets:

Has there been issues resolved by Rogers similar to mine?

Absolutely... Plenty of them.

sbrook
Mod
join:2001-12-14
Ottawa

sbrook to islets

Mod

to islets
That said, Rogers is notorious for checking the problem say in the middle of the night and saying "no fault found" and closing the ticket. And that's for their OWN customers! And what's worse is Rogers wouldn't even TELL the customer that they were closing the ticket, and you had no access to the people who did their testing so, where you say Teksavvy's pointing fingers at Rogers ... the problem is that's exactly how it works (or doesn't work, more to the point).

Intermittent problems take a lot of patience and Rogers is notorious in denial.
i_pk_pjers_i
join:2007-04-20
none

i_pk_pjers_i to islets

Member

to islets
I'd say you should see if you have VDSL2 available in your area and possibly consider switching because DSL is a lot more stable than Cable, at least in my experience. I used to be on Rogers Cable internet and got all kinds of disconnects, latency spikes, etc all the time. I switched to Teksavvy 50/10 DSL and haven't had a single disconnect/latency spike/etc since.

You could just wait it out and hope it gets better if support doesn't want to/seem to be able to do anything about it, it's possible that could fix it.

sbrook
Mod
join:2001-12-14
Ottawa

sbrook

Mod

And I'm just the opposite experience with cable ... apart from actual cable outages, the service has been pretty solid for 12 years.

oceros37
join:2013-07-20
St Thomas, ON

oceros37 to islets

Member

to islets
If the issue happens often enough, and its an option, try and swap modems with a friend/neighbor. See if the problem follows the modem or remains with your home line.

Testing a 2nd modem is pretty key because even if you do press the issue with rogers, the modem -will- be blamed unless there is an obvious network problem. The odds of there being an obvious network problem when you're getting intermittent packet loss is preeeetty low.
mbd84
join:2013-09-12

mbd84 to i_pk_pjers_i

Member

to i_pk_pjers_i
said by i_pk_pjers_i:

I'd say you should see if you have VDSL2 available in your area and possibly consider switching because DSL is a lot more stable than Cable, at least in my experience. I used to be on Rogers Cable internet and got all kinds of disconnects, latency spikes, etc all the time. I switched to Teksavvy 50/10 DSL and haven't had a single disconnect/latency spike/etc since.

You could just wait it out and hope it gets better if support doesn't want to/seem to be able to do anything about it, it's possible that could fix it.

There is no such thing as "DSL is a lot more stable than Cable" or vice versa. Both technologies work perfectly when working as they are supposed to. If the service is intermittent, something somewhere is not kosher. Some locations are better with DSL than with cable, and vice versa. A neighbourhood that is oversold in DSL is not necessarily oversold with cable. A house that has poor coaxial wiring does not necessarily have poor copper wiring. So you can have a poor or great experience with either technology. Plus, it's mostly just the last mile that is different, the back end couldn't care less whether your house is connected by fiber, copper, or coax. As long as that physical last mile is in good order, you're good.

Having said that the intermittent issues are the most annoying to troubleshoot. Unfortunately for you, it's going to take time and work on your part.

If you've been having the issue a while and are already fed up with tech support I assume you've already done all the obvious stuff like check the cable from jack to modem (test another if possible), check the line stats in the modem gui to see if signal strength or snr values are changing at all, rule out your equipment (netstat / task manager / resource monitor / etc etc for any activity at the time of issue).

Next question is does the issue seem to impact all hosts or only some? If you're experiencing a spike does it happen for a noted amount of time, or only an instant? Is it long enough for you to run ping/traceroute to a handful of places to see if all affected?

I was getting intermittent spikes of high latency / poor speedtests / packet loss, and I was about to complain until I realized my HDD usage was spiking at 100% because of utorrent doing whatever. Not saying that's necessarily you're problem, and you've probably ruled that out already, but yeah. Even as someone who does network support and always checks for traffic saturation when troubleshooting these types of issues for my agents, I still almost went to complain about the same.. ha.

anyway i hope you catch whatever it is. another idea -- if you have any neighbours in your wifi range that are open, log on to theirs and see if they're also affected. i did that once when I discovered an outage -- support at the time (videotron) was trying to blame the fact that sometimes I download stuff, yet, I was replicating exactly the same issue with neighbours. like was already pointed out... concrete data is needed
i_pk_pjers_i
join:2007-04-20
none

i_pk_pjers_i

Member

said by mbd84:

said by i_pk_pjers_i:

I'd say you should see if you have VDSL2 available in your area and possibly consider switching because DSL is a lot more stable than Cable, at least in my experience. I used to be on Rogers Cable internet and got all kinds of disconnects, latency spikes, etc all the time. I switched to Teksavvy 50/10 DSL and haven't had a single disconnect/latency spike/etc since.

You could just wait it out and hope it gets better if support doesn't want to/seem to be able to do anything about it, it's possible that could fix it.

There is no such thing as "DSL is a lot more stable than Cable" or vice versa. Both technologies work perfectly when working as they are supposed to. If the service is intermittent, something somewhere is not kosher. Some locations are better with DSL than with cable, and vice versa. A neighbourhood that is oversold in DSL is not necessarily oversold with cable. A house that has poor coaxial wiring does not necessarily have poor copper wiring. So you can have a poor or great experience with either technology. Plus, it's mostly just the last mile that is different, the back end couldn't care less whether your house is connected by fiber, copper, or coax. As long as that physical last mile is in good order, you're good.

Having said that the intermittent issues are the most annoying to troubleshoot. Unfortunately for you, it's going to take time and work on your part.

If you've been having the issue a while and are already fed up with tech support I assume you've already done all the obvious stuff like check the cable from jack to modem (test another if possible), check the line stats in the modem gui to see if signal strength or snr values are changing at all, rule out your equipment (netstat / task manager / resource monitor / etc etc for any activity at the time of issue).

Next question is does the issue seem to impact all hosts or only some? If you're experiencing a spike does it happen for a noted amount of time, or only an instant? Is it long enough for you to run ping/traceroute to a handful of places to see if all affected?

I was getting intermittent spikes of high latency / poor speedtests / packet loss, and I was about to complain until I realized my HDD usage was spiking at 100% because of utorrent doing whatever. Not saying that's necessarily you're problem, and you've probably ruled that out already, but yeah. Even as someone who does network support and always checks for traffic saturation when troubleshooting these types of issues for my agents, I still almost went to complain about the same.. ha.

anyway i hope you catch whatever it is. another idea -- if you have any neighbours in your wifi range that are open, log on to theirs and see if they're also affected. i did that once when I discovered an outage -- support at the time (videotron) was trying to blame the fact that sometimes I download stuff, yet, I was replicating exactly the same issue with neighbours. like was already pointed out... concrete data is needed

Sorry, what I meant to say is in my experience, and in the experience in every person I have ever known, Bells DSL is more stable than Rogers Cable. I know properly implemented cable can be good - Cogeco is cable done right (from what I have heard, I have never used them), but Rogers just gives me chills and makes me shudder. Besides, DOCSIS is known to have higher latency than VDSL, more problems due to congestion, local node congestion issues, etc.
mbd84
join:2013-09-12

mbd84

Member

said by i_pk_pjers_i:

Sorry, what I meant to say is in my experience, and in the experience in every person I have ever known, Bells DSL is more stable than Rogers Cable. I know properly implemented cable can be good - Cogeco is cable done right (from what I have heard, I have never used them), but Rogers just gives me chills and makes me shudder. Besides, DOCSIS is known to have higher latency than VDSL, more problems due to congestion, local node congestion issues, etc.

lol, fair enough! i have only ever heard terrible things about rogers, so there's that. I don't have any experience with their cable service personally though, so I can't really speak to that. i will agree with you that VDSL service can definitely provide some great ping times - at work I consistently see an average ping time of about 5ms from our router to customer's modem, which is great. but speaking to my personal experiences, I have seen 8ms on 10mbps/1mbps ADSL2+ loop (on a 7330) with AEI (Bell reseller), and comparatively I've seen 9ms on 10mbps Videotron cable at the same building. With teksavvy I never get such low pings, nor do I care, they are low enough that I can't tell the difference.

So I think the average ping times are negligible in the context of DSL vs cable (at least from my, probably biased, opinion). as far as local node congestion goes - well, that's obviously going to be moot with DSL as the congestion wouldn't happen at the dslam, but for cable i will say that sure, if they have over-sold then yes that local node congestion could suck. i haven't worked for a cable provider personally, but I'd imagine that most developed areas have caught up and been sufficiently overprovisioned so as to avoid that kind of thing - if not, that is just terribad.

edit: for my case personally in montreal on vCable, i have yet to ever notice any slowdowns with the exception of one outage a few years back (was actually with videotron at the time, and it was actually an outage). i live within 10min walking distance of downtown. i keep a fairly close eye on how my connection is doing, so I'd be aware if there was a congestion issue here specifically. maybe it's just a bad assumption on my part that most developed areas are in similar shape though, or that rogers would be similar.
cepnot4me
join:2013-10-29
L0C 1K0

cepnot4me to sbrook

Member

to sbrook
Even worse than that, if they toll out a tech WE have no access to these people, we don't get to see the notes or the conclusions. Intermittent issues are always a crap shoot. It never occurs when a tech is onsite, or when backend looks into it.
cepnot4me

cepnot4me to i_pk_pjers_i

Member

to i_pk_pjers_i
Not true, I've had intermittent Internet on DSL from day one.. it's a roll of the dice, some areas are in better shape for DSL others DSL is plagued with problems and cable is the better bet. Other areas... both suck.
Milkster
Whitby, Ontario
join:2003-02-12
Whitby, ON
Linksys WRT54GL

Milkster to islets

Member

to islets
How about setting up your own smokeping server or using the one provided by dslreports »Tools FAQ »About SmokePing

It won't tell you why you have packet loss but at least it might pin point at what time of day it happens and if there are any patterns.
hogwild6
join:2004-03-14
Canada

hogwild6 to islets

Member

to islets
Recent intermittent issues on TekSavvy were enough for me to rip my hair out. Very stressful.

One thing I've found that happens a lot is when Rogers is doing upgrades or work in/near your area, intermittent problems happen. Now, I'm sure someone's gonna chime in and negate what I'm saying and say that it's unscientific or not a valid sample, but I've seen it happen/heard about it happening probably a dozen times.

So you may want to find out when Rogers does work and expect there may be umm..issues for a while when it's happening

sbrook
Mod
join:2001-12-14
Ottawa

sbrook to cepnot4me

Mod

to cepnot4me
absolutely cepnot4me ... When I worked in customer support, we had a call handling system that was common through the organization. A single call number for the problem was assigned so if the customer called back, it all went in the call notes. Escalations ... all the notes went to the assigned people and they had to update the notes, so there were was none of this repeated nonsense where a new tech on the phone decides he can fix the problem after 20 others haven't and heads straight down the same path and ends up at the same dead end as the 20 before him!

These call handling systems used by so many companies is broken in that they're really designed for 1 call in, 1 answer all neat and tidy.
sbrook

sbrook to hogwild6

Mod

to hogwild6
hogwild, the trouble is that what Rogers does on my street, nobody except their immediate bosses know about. They haven't got a clue in Toronto, let alone the call centres that John Doe is going to have cable down to main street for about 20 minutes while he replaces a damaged segment or tap. Rogers reporting systems just aren't up to it. The call handling system I worked with would log the time I went on a call, when I came off and if I was on-site or in the office.
i_pk_pjers_i
join:2007-04-20
none

i_pk_pjers_i to hogwild6

Member

to hogwild6
said by hogwild6:

Recent intermittent issues on TekSavvy were enough for me to rip my hair out. Very stressful.

One thing I've found that happens a lot is when Rogers is doing upgrades or work in/near your area, intermittent problems happen. Now, I'm sure someone's gonna chime in and negate what I'm saying and say that it's unscientific or not a valid sample, but I've seen it happen/heard about it happening probably a dozen times.

So you may want to find out when Rogers does work and expect there may be umm..issues for a while when it's happening

Nope, what you're saying is 100% true. There DEFINITELY can be intermittent issues when Rogers is doing upgrades or work in your area, and that's part of the reason why I switched away from Cable and towards VDSL.
cepnot4me
join:2013-10-29
L0C 1K0

cepnot4me to sbrook

Member

to sbrook
Procedure at Rogers is once a maintenance tech is onsite and diagnoses that he needs to interrupt more than the house his order is for, he alerts maintenance dispatch.
Maintenance dispatch then logs a white board ticket for the maintenance tech covering all the affected areas.
If your service goes down, when you call in the Rep checks the white board, gets the tea and says "we are working in your area and your services should be restored in x minutes/hours."

That's the process.

Haven't seen it happen like that in 4 years.

sbrook
Mod
join:2001-12-14
Ottawa

sbrook

Mod

Exactly
InvalidError
join:2008-02-03

InvalidError to mbd84

Member

to mbd84
said by mbd84:

A neighbourhood that is oversold in DSL is not necessarily oversold with cable.

Overselling is almost never a problem with DSL - particularly with anything from the infamous IKNS/stinger and up since those have at least 1Gbps of uplink capacity per 48 ports, meaning they can sustain average per-port usage of 20Mbps or more.

Compared to that, a 100 subscribers cable node with 16 QAMs dedicated to internet traffic can only sustain an average of 6.2Mbps per subscriber.

sbrook
Mod
join:2001-12-14
Ottawa

sbrook

Mod

That said, invalid, most customers do not do sustained download traffic. Most customers actually only download under 10% of the available time during peak hours. We download and then sit and read or type (slowly )

Most of Rogers network is now on 256 QAM downstream per channel so the segments are in a much better position than 6.2 Mbps anyway ...
InvalidError
join:2008-02-03

InvalidError

Member

said by sbrook:

Most of Rogers network is now on 256 QAM downstream per channel so the segments are in a much better position than 6.2 Mbps anyway ...

Huh?

You got QAMs (channels) and QAM (modulation) mixed up... 16 QAMs at QAM256 and 5Msym/s each = 620Mbps usable. Split between the ~100 subs per node, that's an average sustainable speed of 6.2Mbps.

sbrook
Mod
join:2001-12-14
Ottawa

sbrook

Mod

hey, that's my reply. Huh?

OK ... gotcha ... Silly me confuzzed this morning. I'm just finishing my second cup of coffee and trying to face the day!

I look at it as 16 channels at 38 Mbps ... Same thing different way of getting there ...

The important part though is that the majority of users don't have a heavy download duty cycle.
SunMaze
join:2012-10-29

SunMaze to islets

Member

to islets
Also having this problem lately at downtown Toronto. In fact cable is completely out ATM.
islets
join:2014-01-12

islets to JenSuisUn

Member

to JenSuisUn
said by JenSuisUn:

said by islets:

Has there been issues resolved by Rogers similar to mine?

Absolutely... Plenty of them.

So to give some update to this issue.

Tuesday PM: I called support was able to catch them as the issue was happening.
Wed AM: Email saying to test on my side, no issues found.
Wed PM: Packet losses, called again.
Sat AM: Email again, no issues found
Sat PM: Packet losses, called again.

Now I wait again.

Every time I call, I mention that I usually notice the issue between 7 to 9. Every time, my connection is "checked" during the day.

It is very weird that this happens at night during the same window even on weekends. Usually, I notice it on my laptop or tablets while watching netflix. I then quickly go to my desktop, power down the modem, plug my desktop straight to the modem and do the regular pings / tracerts.

That means, it is not just 1 pc, it is not the router, I also used 2 different ethernet cables. What can I do to help the troubleshooting?

The biggest inconvenience at this time is having to bypass my router until rogers does the troubleshooting which leaves all other gadgets without internet. So far it's been 5 days.

TSI Jonathan
Premium Member
join:2011-08-24
Chatham, ON

TSI Jonathan

Premium Member

Hi islets,

I'm sorry to hear about the issue you've been experiencing so far. One of our biggest challenge is intermittent issues. It usually is a bit easier to get our vendor to look at the issue when it happens between a certain time frame on a daily basis. Looks like, so far, they've only been looking at the issue outside of the time frame provided.

I did take a look into your account notes and do see that the last agent who replied to our vendor stressed the fact that the issue needs to be investigated between 7-9 at night. We will await on their response and if it is not satisfactory again, I'll make sure we push to escalate your case.

Thank you,

TSI Jonathan
hogwild6
join:2004-03-14
Canada

hogwild6 to islets

Member

to islets
If it typically happens between certain hours at night, one wonders whether there isn't some kind of RFI (radio frequency interference) or EMI (electromagnetic interference) taking place near your modem at that time.

Is your modem near anything that might create/induce that kind of wave? Stove? Fridge? If you're in an apartment, are you anywhere near the elevators? Any other appliance, fluorescent lights, or anything that might cause EMF or RFI interference? Air conditioner? Fan?

It could even be something your neighbour is using, if you're close enough to his/her walls.

I know this sounds a little silly, but I've seen it happen. With one family I knew, it was the lady's hair dryer at night right near the modem, or plugged into the same outlet.

If all else fails, you might want to check grounding in the outlets in the room and adjacent to them. Some folks have really messed up house wiring.

Marc
@108.162.143.x

Marc to islets

Anon

to islets
I have the same issue. I just signed up and got teksavvy cable 25/2 installed last week and had a major outage yesterday (~2 hours) and did a TON of stuff on the phone with teksavvy, who I might say are super friendly, and helpful and even called me back the next day to see if everything was ok. Today (the following day) I have have 2 minor outages (5 mins each). In all instances the modem is responding correctly and all signals look good however packet transfer rate drops to like .15Mbps up and like 0.1Mbps up.

I feel this is going to be a long road ahead of me. I am only hoping that collectively we can make enough calls/tickets to get this resolved.
SunMaze
join:2012-10-29

SunMaze to islets

Member

to islets
Also having this problem lately at downtown Toronto. In fact cable is completely out ATM.