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Tasogare5
join:2008-10-04
Carmichaels, PA

Tasogare5

Member

So you stabilize my internet yet I can never get over 2Mb/s download...

So everyone here knows how many issues I've had with ABB, but for once things have actually stabilized since my last problems. I don't know what they actually did, but whatever. Problem is my speeds continue to be garbage. Constantly. Maybe a few hours a day I'll get advertised speeds, but without fail in the morning and night I'll get nothing more than 1-2Mb/s and it is infuriating. I can't play games, I get 500-700ms ping occasionally, I can't stream anything from Twitch, Netflix, anywhere else, even web pages load like they're on dial up.

»www.speedtest.net/result ··· 5770.png

^ This, is what I get from a speedtest 9/10 times. I'm glad I'm connected but when half the day I'm unable to do most of the things I'd be planning to do anyway, it's really freaking irritating. Why am I getting these speeds?
Tasogare5

2 edits

Tasogare5

Member

»www.speedtest.net/result ··· 4650.png

Is what I get an hour after posting that, still. Trying to watch a friend play something on Twitch and it's impossible. I literally connect for three seconds and it shuts off entirely. That result is with NOTHING taking up bandwidth either. No streams, no downloads, etc.

And again forty five minutes later after the stream gives up again. A new record!

»www.speedtest.net/result ··· 0278.png

...

»www.speedtest.net/result ··· 0831.png Really, ABB?
ABBJason
join:2010-06-03
Altoona, PA

ABBJason to Tasogare5

Member

to Tasogare5
I see you've already scheduled a service call. It looks like there is some line issue, so I would think once that is corrected your service should resume working as normal.
Tasogare5
join:2008-10-04
Carmichaels, PA

Tasogare5

Member

Yes, and I only have to live with being able to do basically nothing but Skype for nearly another week because there are so many OTHER calls already scheduled elsewhere. And I mean Skype TEXT, I doubt this would even handle voice calls right now.
Tasogare5

Tasogare5

Member

It's getting worse. I called again twice to try and get an earlier appointment but no go. They also told me if we're not having phone problems than it isn't likely a problem with them at all but that doesn't sound right to me. Based on the schedule I've been keeping since last night to see if time played into anything, I ended up with this:

12:00am - 2.59Mb/s | 1.06Mb/s | 32ms ping |

1:00am - 7.34Mb/s | 1.05Mb/s | 32ms ping |

2:00am - 5.57Mb/s | 0.97Mb/s | 84ms ping |

3:00am - 7.91Mb/s | 1.10Mb/s | 29ms ping |

11:00am - 0.88Mb/s | 0.70Mb/s | 610ms ping |

12:00pm - 1.65Mb/s | 1.04Mb/s | 36ms ping |

1:00pm - 1.44Mb/s | 1.04Mb/s | 36ms ping |

2:00pm - 1.19Mb/s | 0.88Mb/s | 33ms ping |

3:00pm - 0.56Mb/s | 0.91Mb/s | 186ms ping |

4:00pm - 0.43Mb/s | 0.37Mb/s | 40ms ping |

5:00pm - 0.73Mb/s | 1.09Mb/s | 38ms ping |

6:00pm - 0.30Mb/s | 0.50Mb/s | 490ms ping |

9:00pm - 0.26Mb/s | 0.10Mb/s | 581ms ping |

As an aside, why doesn't ABB have their own forum like so many other ISPs seem to? It's very frustrating to be forced into such a limited means of communication unless I feel like calling in--both recent of which have required nearly half an hour on hold, no less.
Tasogare5

1 edit

Tasogare5

Member

So it's been a hunch of mine for awhile but now based on my days of testing schedules. Jason I am extremely concerned that ABB is overselling in our area and getting a tech out here is going to do absolutely nothing. What other answer is there for the fact the only time the net drops is during peak usage? Without fail at 12:30-1am speeds have returned to normal, only to drop right out in the early afternoon until the early morning again.

If you have oversold in our area then we are paying for a service we're not getting, and you're sending is useless internet for the vast majority of the day when it's actually needed--especially when one household member works from home.

Besides entertainment, we have had one household member unable to send work in, and another who teaches unable to complete their lesson plan or update other school related work because their district stores everything on the cloud--which as everything else during the evening, is inaccessible.

This is completely unacceptable and the more I see when testing speeds and looking up similar issues the less I feel certain this tech is going to be able to tell me anything more than ABB has oversold our node like nearly every other grubbing ISP in the country.

Edit: Today's drop right when people start getting off work.

4:00pm - 4.17Mb/s | 0.99Mb/s | 14ms ping |

4:30pm - 0.90Mb/s | 0.97Mb/s | 21ms ping |
Tasogare5

Tasogare5

Member

Jason I am still concerned about overselling in our area, and I'm extremely displeased with constantly being told it's a problem on our end and no one else is calling in, when right after our tech leaves today I see another post from Carmichaels on this very forum made this morning.

Someone who is having exactly the same issues as us just to a lesser extent, and he is also getting fed the same garbage about no one calling in and it being his issue.

Either way, this is totally unacceptable. Our tech said he did see line issues (but dodged the question every time I asked about overselling, likely because IT IS HAPPENING and he doesn't want to get in trouble admitting it), and he'd have to get a line tech out which could be "maybe sometime next week."

SOMETIME NEXT WEEK? We have a teacher in the house who can't fulfill her lesson plans. We have someone else in the house who can't turn in work online or continue their job hunt. We have elderly people who just want their damn Netflix to be able to be watched. We can do NOTHING. This isn't some minor drop in speed this is less than 1Mb/s for the entire length of the afternoon and night. It's 11:00am and it's already down to less than 2Mb/s, probably due to people being home from the cold today.

Telling me to put up with this for "maybe another week" or more is completely unacceptable. I can't even say it's unacceptable "service" because this isn't even SERVICE AT ALL. Someone needs to get out here, fix this line, and they need to do it immediately. And I don't want some line about "Oh we'll get a credit". I DON'T CARE ABOUT A CREDIT I CARE ABOUT OUR DAMN INTERNET WORKING.

neurotik
@atlanticbb.net

neurotik

Anon

I noticed you're from Carmichaels, PA as well, so I figured I would chime in about the issues in this area lately.

This is most definitely not an isolated issue with any one person's line. This is typical behavior of an area being oversubscribed and utilization being way too high. It's just unfortunate that most ISP's will fight til the death rather than admit that they are unable to provide adequate bandwidth to their customers in a particular area.

I am paying for 75mbps down and I rarely see my speedtests go above 5mbps down, and my pings are bouncing all over the place anytime I do anything with my connection.

If you're only going to provide us with ~7% of what we are paying for, then you should be adjusting our monthly bills to reflect this. And also stop publicly advertising that you can offer a 75mbps service in Carmichaels when you 100% cannot provide this at the moment. Not even remotely close. Just because the entire town isn't calling in complaining does not mean the area is not oversubscribed. Stop being naive and acting as if every customer is supposed to be a knowledgeable IT professional who can easily identify when they are receiving the speeds they are paying for and when they are not. Your average Internet subscriber barely has an average understanding of how to use the various technologies and devices in their homes, let alone understand what bandwidth saturation is and ping times and how to tell if their connection speed is correct or not.

I just got off the phone with support for the second time this week. The first time I was told it was "absolutely an overutilization issue in the area" and that "new hardware needs to be ordered and nodes must be split so that we can alleviate these issues, but these things take time.. sometimes 2 months or more." And this most recent call I made about an hour ago, I was told everything looked fine in terms of signal strength, noise levels, etc., and I was simply scheduled a service call for next Thursday.

Come on, ABB. This is getting silly. If you want your customers and competition to view you as a reliable provider of cable services, then live up to what you advertise and refer to yourselves as. Don't evade and deflect every issue that is pointed out and try to pawn it off on the customer as being an "issue on their line." This is an issue in our entire, period.
neurotik0
join:2010-01-10
Carmichaels, PA

neurotik0

Member

This is an issue in our entire AREA, period.* Sorry, left out a word in that final sentence.. fixing it because I'm a perfectionist like that Also forgot I had an account on here that I could've logged in under.
Tasogare5
join:2008-10-04
Carmichaels, PA

Tasogare5 to neurotik

Member

to neurotik
said by neurotik :

If you're only going to provide us with ~7% of what we are paying for, then you should be adjusting our monthly bills to reflect this.

Hell, forget that. Adjusting the bills is nice but we're talking about completely unusable internet right now. I would KILL to get even 5 down. I just did another test now since my Twitch stream started lagging and I got 0.76mb down. And again this is nothing out of the ordinary. We're considering "asking" them to give us the higher speed at the price we're paying now until they get their act together, just so we can have internet that even works at all.
said by neurotik :

sometimes 2 months or more."

And yet this has been happening since October for me to some extent. Going on four months with not only a total lack of improvement but it's only getting WORSE. AND apparently they had the nerve to say someone came out and worked on lines in town as if it'd do anything. Not that I saw them anywhere near our street all day, at least.

Uniontown's supervisor was supposed to call us yesterday too, and never got so much as a ring. I'm going to give it til tomorrow afternoon and then call back the main number in the evening if we still don't hear from them. Because it's really great to keep needing to call a middleman just to get in touch with someone at our own local office, no less.

How on earth did you get someone to even admit it was overselling? I've talked to at least half a dozen people on the phone who just dodge the question entirely and the tech that came out just totally ignored me every time I brought it up. As if pretending it's not obvious will just make it disappear.
neurotik0
join:2010-01-10
Carmichaels, PA

neurotik0

Member

He wasn't even remotely reluctant to admit about the overselling in the area. Granted, I was pretty aggressive on the phone during that call because I was trying to finish up some work remotely so I didn't have to go in to the office and I just couldn't do anything. Looking back on the situation, I am sure he was simply telling me what I wanted to hear and agreeing with everything I had suggested and said to him just to try and placate me and get me off of the phone.

I have had to go through this same sort of nonsense many years ago with Windstream in our area (this is before ABB could provide me with a stable connection at all, so I had no other options at the time). I am 110% willing to step up/band together/etc., and go to bat for our area until this is resolved. I work in IT, so it's typically not an easy conversation to have when I call in about these issues.

Again, I ask.. ABB, stop avoiding having to acknowledge the fact that you are experiencing issues of overutilization in our area. Stop advertising speeds you physically (due to your current hardware limitations) cannot provide/fulfill, and make a public statement across the board and inform everyone of the situation and lay out a plan of action to correct it.
Tasogare5
join:2008-10-04
Carmichaels, PA

Tasogare5

Member

I used to work in IT back in college myself, so I feel your pain. Plus we too used to have Windstream some years ago and it was a nightmare. I think we went a full week without any internet all before they even brought a new modem out, which then worked for all of three days before repeating. Then we switched to ABB which was just peachy until Cogeco bought them out. Ever since then they've been nothing but a nightmare.

I have been thinking about trying to make a case with our mayor about the ridiculous deals cut that allow for ABB to have the monopoly they do, but I'm also not entirely sure letting someone like Comcast come in would be any better. Either way, that makes at least three of us who aren't letting up on this run around.
Tasogare5

1 edit

Tasogare5

Member

Apparently the Uniontown supervisor called us this morning and spoke to another family member. We were on our way out the door so didn't have a lot of time, but he also further confirmed that ABB is a bunch of money hungry pieces of trash that oversold. BUT, it gets better!

Not only did ABB oversell Carmichaels. Not only did they ignore complaints for months on end and only *NOW* just make orders for upgrades. Oh, no. What is the ETA to get this handled? When can we expect issues "fixed"?

... Maybe another month. And even that isn't a guarantee.

Unless we basically get the entire town to start demanding free internet until they get their ass in gear FASTER I don't know what the hell else we're supposed to do. There's no way in hell I'm going back to Windstream, and the only other option in town is satellite with a 10GB monthly cap.

Honestly what are we supposed to do? If I only used the internet occasionally and for casual chatting I'd be happy with the credit but I DON'T, and neither does anyone else in the house. "Here have some free internet" doesn't make up for the fact it's basically nonexistent whenever people need it most. I'm completely at wits' end here and besides talking to our mayor about lifting restrictions on this monopoly I don't know what the hell we're supposed to do.

ABB is completely unapologetic as far as actual actions go and I'm at a loss for any ideas at all.