Windstream → [Speed] Packet loss on 12mb/s connection

Hi all, I've been a windstream customer for the last 4 years. I'm using their 12megabit/s package, and ever since last year, I've noticed that during peak hours (8pm - 12am), I consistently experience packet loss. This packet loss was only 1-5% last year, but recently it's more like 1%-30%.

This is really unacceptable, since even 1% packet loss will significantly increase the delay you experience in online games.

Basically my question is - is this packet loss thing likely to be solved by upgrading to a faster connection? Is it likely to be solved by changing ISPs? (in my case I think the only other option is comcast).

I'm currently trying to resolve similar issues myself, peak hours my ping goes through the roof. I did a few traceroutes and ping tests last night for them, and I can get over 150 ping to google...

(btw I'm in State College, PA)

Well, hopefully their attention will get drawn to this. I am on the direct forum as well trying to talk with them to figure it out.

Some traceroutes response times are insane at whatever hop is directly out of my router & modem, and somewhere in the middle before it leaves the windstream network.

I have Windstream. Live in Nittany Gardens. went from 3 meg to 6 meg this year. problems have actually increased. Every once in a while the pings would go from 50 ping to anywhere (500, 1900, etc) and fluctuate all over the place for hours. Tonight, they have been not only doing that, but actually timing out. its so horrible, I can't even play a slow paced game like The Last Of Us Remastered without getting frozen in place every few seconds. It's unacceptable.

lol I'm at nittany gardens too.

Have you contacted windstream? Did they send a technician out to your place?

I've contacted them. They are looking into some high ping spots along my traceroute inside their network. Interestingly, my modem has a pretty high time on the traceroute as well.

I live just up the road from you guys.

You had a choice between Windstream and Comcast and went with Windstream???

I've had trouble with Comcast in some areas but I've ALWAYS had trouble with Windstream no matter what area.

For sure. For anything where latency is more important than bandwidth (online games, voice chat, etc) I often have better luck w/ dial-up than Windstream DSL. Plus, there's the frustration of having to reload webpages multiple times (Amazon frequently fails to load altogether), trouble getting e-mail, etc.A faster connection would probably have similar latency; it could very possibly become worse if they have to use interleaving or other techniques to boost your throughput.

If Comcast is available in your market, why not try it out at a friend's house to compare? Or, if you have no friends, call the company up and tell them what you're dealing with and what you're paying and ask them if they can do anything for you. Express that you're uncertain about switching and perhaps inquire about a trial or a free install.