Canadian Broadband → Will switching ISP help?

I've been with Vmedia Cable for over a year and have been happy with them until

extreme slowdowns in the evening and weekends for past few weeks.

Unfortunately FTTN is not an option as no isp is available for service in my neighbourhood.

I'm thinking about switching to either teksavvy, start, or electronicbox(if avail) but only if making the switch will improve my connections.

Would making a switch solve my problems or is it just same services under different companies?

Without seeing a trace route of where the slow downs are happening, it is hard to know. Generally evening congestion is due to your local node which would be the same regardless of which ISP you are with. Vmedia does however use CIK cable which has had its fair share of slowdown issues, and if the slowdowns are happening there, then another provider like teksavvy or start would be better.

To build on btech805's post, there are some things you'll want to look at.

Your signal levels at »192.168.100.1

Downstream power should be between +11/-11, upstream power between 35 - 52, if the modem reports BER, 0% is what you want to see.

Run a MTR session for good period of time while you're having the slow speed.

And of course rule out any home networking or local devices.

Downstream power should really be in the range +10 to -10 ... although it may work with numbers +12 to -12, it really starts to get iffy ... Similarly for upstream ... numbers greater than 50 are likely to start causing problems.

It is rare though for signal levels to cause slowdowns ... they are far more likely to cause disconnects.

Slowdowns are usually because of congestion, and judging by other posts I've seen, it looks like CIK/VMedia are having congestion issues on their networks and not on the local loops.

It's worth mentioning that vmedia was supposed to have added 2.5gbit of bandwidth to their rcable allotment as of Friday the 2nd of Jan, but that got pushed back to Monday the 5th due to network problems with their upstream provider, CIK.

They've also arranged to dump CIK entirely and become a direct TPIA, effective some time between March 1 and April 1, depending on when Rogers gets around to updating their routing tables.

It's been the same pattern almost every day for me since ~ November... My 25/2 cable plan with VMedia gets very close to the full speed throughout the day. By 7 pm it's down to half the DL speed. By 10pm, I'm lucky if I'm getting a quarter of the speed. It has even dropped below 5 Mbps some times.

There was talk in the VMedia forum that the CBB predictions were off, and that additional capacity will be added soon. When I first signed-up with VMedia, I didn't have these problems, so I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt that they grew faster than expected ( a good thing! ). But, if by the middle of January, If I'm still getting the same pathetic speeds, I plan to switch to Start.ca, because I believe they don't charge the ridiculous installation fee when switching from another TPIA.

There's a lot more involved than just some routing table changes to go from being a reseller of a TPIA to actually being a TPIA.

Then it looks like CIK won't have a congestion problem for long anyway.

Well, I'd suggest that's what they are saying they will do (become a direct TPIA March/April,) but they've already said that was happening this month, Jan, until we hit January and suddenly, like most of the promises out of VMedia, it turns out to be more BS. Come Mar/Apr I fully expect a new 'schedule' to show up ... after all it's not so easy to blame everything on the incumbents if you have TPIA status.

The Dec 2 update was suppose to fix all the problems, then the CIK 'seperation' and 'tuning' was suppose to fix all the problems ... neither one fixed anything for more than a day or two.

Now, maybe all this issues are not VMedia's fault, don't know, and really no longer care, but I am getting sick and tired of all the broken promises and ineffective fixes.

I was very hopeful and supportive of a new ISP and IPTV provider coming on line, but if they are unable to chew what they bit off, then I'm moving away and hoping the next company that attempts something like this (and we need the competition, but being half a55ed competition is really no competition at all) can do a better job.