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nnaarrnn
join:2004-09-30
Nitro, WV
 ·Vonage
 ·Sprint Mobile Broa..
 ·Suddenlink
| Giving Up on Suddenlink
Well, I think I've had it with Suddenlink. I'm told that both of the amps in front of my house have been replaced, and the last thing they did was replace the line to my house (finally).
I must admit that the gentleman (Technical Operations Manager) that has made many trips to my house, has been helpful and informative in letting me know what's going on. He has even made a few trips here in the middle of the night (surveilance footage).
After replacing my line last week, he said that's the last thing he could do and that he would let his superiors know what he has done, and what he has found.
My HD channels haven't been pixelating/lagging anymore, that I know of (dont watch too much TV), but my wife hasn't complained much. The non-hd channels are a little fuzzy, both digital and analog, but the analog channels have always been fuzzy.
My problem is that I'm still getting 1-4mbit most of the time, even to THEIR test server. Sometimes it will hit 9mbit, but my QoS is always less than 90%, sometimes as low as 50%. You would think that there would NEVER be a speed issue to THEIR servers, assuming that they're even on Suddenlink's network.
Though the latency has improved, it still laggs out sometimes. I tried playing Battlefield 2 again this past week, and every server I get on, it lags me out and tells me theres a problem with my connection within a few minutes.
The manger that's been trying to fix me, his email has auto responded with a vacation notice this past week, but I think I'm going to look into other options if this can't be fixed by the end of the week, since I still got my bill this week. Verizon has 7m/1m service in my town now, and DirectTV has a pretty awesome HD line up. I used to have verizon dsl and I always got my speed, and latency to the CO was never higher that 3-5ms, 1ms 90% of the time.
What do you guys think I should do? | |
shelby10763
join:2005-03-12
Greenville, NC | From the sounds of it you tried playing "the game" that;s required to get stuff fixed. I've gone though it several times and I stuck with SL b/c I'm just not sure how reliable DishTV is.
It stinks that they could get their crap together. | |
SCuervo
join:2001-07-02
Charleston, WV
| reply to nnaarrnn
What you should do is ask why Verizon has no presence in South Charleston so we could both switch! Still no idea why I hear about areas like Rand and Tornado having dsl available while So Chas does not. My connection has been more stable (don't have digital tv so can't comment there) but SL's priorities are very different from my own. Poor latency coupled with a lack of upstream throughput means my vent ping skyrockets as soon as I download at 400kb/s. I could live with 6mb down honestly.. but I doubt it'd be the same price it is if there were competition. No communication or announced plans of upgrades and there you have it- a less than winning combo. | |
intent
join:2005-05-02
Mineral Wells, WV
| reply to nnaarrnn
Wow you guys in South Charleston don't have Verizon available? Here in Parkersburg it is available but, unfortunately when I tried it the speeds were worse than Suddenlink for me.
That just makes no sense usually Charleston gets things before Parkersburg. | |
nnaarrnn
join:2004-09-30
Nitro, WV | yeah, i dont understand why South Charleston doesn't have dsl. Maybe he's too far from the CO. | |
eikstoor
@lormadeservers.com
| reply to nnaarrnn
Sad, Very Sad....
Same Here
I feel your pain, The Bad thing is....
If anyone here had a Motorola SB5100 (black modem) back, lets say, within the last 18 months, You will remember that every so often, the modem would drop out and not lock down. Tech comes out and goes to the Diagnostic. 192. IP and Hits the Reset Button... This went on forever, hit and miss as to when it happened and no rhyme or reason, levels good, no splits, heck, you could even have is on a drop from the node. This Had everyone here locally scratching their heads... Multiple Repeats and cost's in the 10's of thousands if you would total all cost associated with a techs going out to all these jobs, and it ONLY done this to the SB5100 series modems.
Someone says, " This needs to be fixed, we have asked from the MTC to the Local Network Analysts, noone can find a solution, someone please find a commonality to this issue and let us know how to fix it."
A simple man of sorts finds the problem, presents the answer, and is told that he is basically a retard. After that day, strangely, noone ever had problems again. That retard months later realizing that he has not seen these issue's again, then ask's someone what the problem was that they had found and fixed. And I'll be darned if it wasn't what that Retard told them it was month's ago. BUT he never got a cookie or a coloring book for his effort's. Guess someone liked the sound of there own thunder?
Now I ask you this------- How many people has the 6 meg service? Yea I know it sucks with the 256 up... BUT, I will challenge ANYONE here to run SL speedtest's with the 6 meg, and Report them. How Many times do you see the Down Drop out to 1/2 or less of what your paying for?
I Bet you NONE.... Unless you wiring sucks or you put that nice gold splitter in for you HTPC...
My point is... That your 6meg down and 256 up with be there almost everytime.. Ever if you would have a 12meg and 6meg modem setting side-by-side on a 2-way/ and same drop, amp,node cmts ip, whatever. Why Is This????
Like I said before, Us Simpleton's dont need to concern ourselves with these issue's so I really dont care to share what I find is the same across the board and more than likley the issue....
Maybe one day once I leave Mc'ds and finish my online PC repair tech degree will I be able to get someones attention.
Until then...
*********SOLUTION************
Get a 12 meg for your UP and a 6 meg for your Down, It will be steady then. | |
nnaarrnn
join:2004-09-30
Nitro, WV
·Vonage
·Sprint Mobile Broa..
·Suddenlink
| I'm betting that the problem is that they're doing some sort of MAC-rate limiting, instead of letting the modem take care of it. The provisioning is not on the modem anymore, and the modem has "Improper Configuration File CVC Format" about every 20 minutes in the log. My company is primarily network engineers, and if any of our networks had these kind of problems for this extended period of time, we'd be fired, and our customer would not recieve a bill. Pretty much everyone I know in the area (Nitro/Cross Lanes) has complaints about Suddenlink, and I'm in the process of writing a letter to the BBB and the Charleston Daily Mail editor. | |
SCuervo
join:2001-07-02
Charleston, WV
| reply to nnaarrnn
I've had drops maybe a time or two a month with my SB5100 for quite a long time and still have gotten them recently. Quite curious as you say- all the lights are on but no one is home. Going into the setup pages and "reset all defaults" causes it to come back up in little to no time but that was after sitting though a call a year or two back. Not everyone has the ability to fix it and I can imagine it indeed costing many thousands needlessly. | |
SL Support
join:2008-01-15
Tyler, TX | reply to nnaarrnn
nnaarrnn, I'm trying to get in touch with the lead tech there in your area to see if we can get this issue resolved with your slow speeds. | |
longgone
join:2000-12-30
Culloden, WV
| reply to SCuervo
said by SCuervo  :I've had drops maybe a time or two a month with my SB5100 for quite a long time and still have gotten them recently. Quite curious as you say- all the lights are on but no one is home. Going into the setup pages and "reset all defaults" causes it to come back up in little to no time but that was after sitting though a call a year or two back. Not everyone has the ability to fix it and I can imagine it indeed costing many thousands needlessly. Same scenario here on the drops with SB5100, but unfortunately a few more than a time or two a month.  | |
DJBuzz24
join:2008-07-01
Fort Smith, AR
·Suddenlink
| reply to SL Support
Here's some advice on how to fix ALL our speed issues:
Fire BBS as your network management provider, throw some decent proxies up to cache http, youtube, and popular bit torrent downloads, and get some real Network Engineers. Once you have these things in place, get some *actual* network management going, setting priorities on specific protocols (i.e. web traffic is bulk, VoIP traffic is premium, and various p2p traffic routed to look *WITHIN* your network for on-net peers), and start beta testing smaller markets.
10:1 says you'll see a decrease in your internet links, and most of your customers using BitTorrent will be feeding off each other from *within* their local network. Caching popular web content should cause the biggest decrease in your internet links, as if 50% of your customers see a viral video on CNN, another 50% of them are likely to try viewing it themselves.
And finally, work smarter, not harder. | |
nnaarrnn
join:2004-09-30
Nitro, WV
·Vonage
·Sprint Mobile Broa..
·Suddenlink
1 edit | reply to nnaarrnn
Well, I was sent an email assuring me that " I’ve escalated your issue, by copy of this email, to our regional leadership for your area. I trust they will get back to you promptly." That was Monday, and I still have not heard from anyone, nor has my service changed. Peaking at 7mbit it seems, which is disappointing. For 12mbit service, it should be NEVER slower than 9.33mbit (70%) and that should only happen during peak usage times, it should be 11+ the rest of the day/night. 6m/1m DSL is now available to me, for the same price Suddenlink has their 6m/256k. I think it's time to jump ship. I just helped one of my customers switch from SL to ntelos DSL (at her request), and she has been happier ever since. (not to mention the 1ms pings to the first hop and less than 5ms pings to her office in Charleston. | |
DJBuzz24
join:2008-07-01
Fort Smith, AR
·Suddenlink
| nnaarrnn,
Out of curiosity, have you ever been told your usage? When these issues started occurring I was told, "your usage is 4x greater than the 2nd greatest user in your area". I was proud at first...as a geek it sounds...cool. As someone that works from home, plays online games, watches plenty of streaming video, and purchases digital content *all the time* (damn you Xbox Live!!!), it sounded like average use.
For what it's worth, I'm to understand that during the Month of May I used ~40GB download, ~20GB upload. I'm sure my constant 128k Sirius radio stream (x2) is at least partially responsible for that (~200MB/day)  After some goading, I was told that the #2 user used just over 25GB down, with the #3 user clocking in somewhere around 18GB. Now, 18 only guzintah 40 2.22x, so I'm not sure where the 4x stat came from. At the time I had a 3Mb, unthrottled connection. Three times that of other users in the area (maxed @ 1Mb). For what it's worth, I certainly don't have the storage space for all that data Maybe SL thinks that by limiting my connection to 256k they'll get some of that 3Mb back, as I've been told time and time again that I was sold that package "in error". Guess it was my error, huh?
I've been in contact with Pete Abel on a daily basis since Tuesday, July 1. If there's some kind of monthly bandwidth cap, I hit it on that day, as I got 133KB transfers for approximately 3 minutes, then dropped to 256k. That's where we've been since, with short, 2-4min bursts of 1Mb.
They've since installed a new cable drop from the pole to my modem. Yes, from pole to coupler, to modem. It doesn't get much more direct-connect than that. They were out this morning and did an excellent job burying it, and conveniently removed my excuse for not mowing the yard.
Pete has assured me that my emails have been forwarded to the CEO, COO, and Regional VP of my area. I already have the contact information for my local installer, as well as his boss, whom I was working with up to this point.
Again, since Tuesday I have only seen 1Mb service for minutes at a time. The Mac OS 10.5.4 update (533Mb) took around 8 hours to download last night. Service, at this point, is asinine. I'm awaiting to hear from Pete, and I hope to have a resolution.
The problem is two-fold.
1. They're massively overselling capacity
2. They're using a 75% throttle on users that use the burst rate more than a couple of minutes at a time. This is just about enough time to get 1/2 of a 3min YouTube video cached, but usually drops to a speed too slow to complete the entire video download without buffering. As of this morning, the ToS were very vague as to "excessive use", instead giving them full, dynamic definition of "excessive". From what I've heard in chatter, such vague definitions are less protection than companies think they provide. You should check that agreement, as well. It basically says that they can raise/lower your speeds, change your pricing, modify your connection profile, or even change the terms of service at anytime without any notification to you. The service agreement even suggests you check the website periodically for an updated version. The Acceptable Use Policy Agreement hasn't been updated since July 2007, so better grab it now before it's revised. Unfortunately the all encompassing and important "Residential Services Agreement" doesn't have a version number, so it could have been updated since I printed it this morning. At least my printed copy is dated. Typical service agreement for 1997, but I'm not so sure users are going to stand for it 11yrs later.
I can get clear, streaming YouTube on my iPhone over EDGE without issue. I can't get this through my *cable* internet provider?
BTW, Item 49 of the Residential Services Agreement is the part you want to check out.
It reads:
~~~~~~~~~~
49. ## Bandwidth, Data Storage and Other Limitations. Customer agrees to comply with Suddenlink’s bandwidth, data storage and other limitations of the High Speed Internet Service as established and modified by Suddenlink from time to time. Customer agrees that its bandwidth usage activity will not improperly restrict, inhibit or degrade any other user’s use of the High Speed Internet Service, nor represent (in Suddenlink’s sole judgment) an unusually large burden on the network. Customer also agrees that its activity will not restrict, inhibit, disrupt, degrade or impede Suddenlink’s ability to deliver and track its High Speed Internet Service, backbone, network nodes and/or other network services.
~~~~~~~~~~
The problem is that the customer can't possibly know if we're causing an impact in overall service. Suddenlink doesn't manage bandwidth, but rather resorts to managing *customers*. Without the customer knowing a) how much total bandwidth is available, and b) how many current users are sharing it, we have no way of knowing if or when we are causing a system-wide impact.
Time and time again this language is brought up in similar lawsuits. Time and time again it is shot down and changed in later revisions. I'm very surprised to see it still exist in an EUA.
Suddenlink does not inform their Technical nor Customer Support of how much, how often, or how frequently bandwidth throttles are put into place. End users have no known "cap" or allowance to budget. Even ATT is up front about my iPhone's 5GB transfer cap, and for many of the same reasons SuddenLink is SuddenlyScrutinized.
Until these metrics are known to end users, SuddenLink simply cannot offload the responsibility of self-regulation. | |
nnaarrnn
join:2004-09-30
Nitro, WV
·Vonage
·Sprint Mobile Broa..
·Suddenlink
2 edits | I monitor my own usage. I have a box that's a x86 firewall running pfsense that gives me traffic graphs:
Remember I'm on 12mbit (although it's normally around 7)
Past month, about 25gb down, 5gb up
6 months, 170gb down, 49gb up--was 6mbit/256k package until march.
The one year graph shows traffic since i first moved here and signed up with suddenlink.
I've never noticed the type of throttling you speak of, but then again, I have more bandwidth head room to lose/fluctuate.
The graph below is the past 4 hours, all PCs sitting idle, although I'm unsure of what the new wii does while idle?!?!
 | |
DJBuzz24
join:2008-07-01
Fort Smith, AR
·Suddenlink
1 edit | jesus man, that's some impressive graphing Unfortunately I have to rely on DD-WRT, MenuMeters, and Speedtest.net.
In any event, Pete got back with me today. It was not good news, so I have placed my order for 10Mb x 512k DSL to be installed around Thursday of next week.
I think it's an amicable split. They don't want me as a user, I don't really want them as a provider. It wasn't so good while it lasted, and I can't say enough about their top notch customer and technical support teams.
The problem is that they're a *cable* company, not a networking company. They've apparently got a crack staff of Networking Engineers covering their top honeypot markets, but smaller markets apparently don't get the same care. I was assured that markets are constantly under evaluation for new service tiers, etc, and they were willing to make special provisions to allow me to at least get 1Mb service, but I just can't bring myself to do it.
I mean, I can't walk around town and recommend them with a clean conscience, knowing that the only reason my service is so good is because I complained to the 2nd in command. It's not the way I prefer to act as a good consumer, nor is it the way I prefer to do business with others.
After talking with CenturyTel (and this may all be salespeak), I learned something I'd not really considered before....
As a Telecommunications company, CenturyTel, Alltel, SWB, etc are government regulated. They can't change rates, speed plans, or even the way they do network management without the government's approval. When I asked him about any type of bandwidth throttling, he said they do traffic *shaping*, but don't directly throttle any specific protocols. He even mentioned that, though he can't officially comment on BT usage, he's not aware of anything that would slow it down, etc. He said, "as far as Telco's are concerned all that is still a matter of legal battles that we prefer not to get involved in", followed by, "we won't make any changes until the federal government tells us we have to". That's comforting, but by the same token, who knows what kinda of side-effects the regulation has.
On top of all that, the guy says that their speed quals are in 3 levels: up to 10Mb, up to 6Mb, up to 1.5Mb. I fall in the 10Mb catagory, which carries a "expected minimum". When I asked him to clarify what "expected" meant, he said, "you can expect to get *at least* 3Mb, average around 6-8Mb, and peak at 10Mb". He also assured me that since they were in full control of the network, bandwidth of the area was not an issue, and they adhere to a strict user:KB ratio (though he did not disclose).
I'll know more in a week or two, but it looks like $20 a month for 6-10x the speed is the way to go.
Wish you luck, but I'm done with this little Ma'n'Pa Cable Company! | |
DJBuzz24
join:2008-07-01
Fort Smith, AR
·Suddenlink
| oooooooo, forgot to mention....
FWIW, Pete couldn't disclose any type of cap for "excessive use". IIRC, he mentioned that they'd had *several* meetings where the discussion was brought up, but never anything decided upon. He said he's aware that the caps exist, he's just not aware of what they were, nor how they were triggered. But he had no problem telling me that I was an excessive user, just no definition of what that may be.
Also, not all areas are subject to the same bandwidth nazis. Some areas are under SuddenLink's NOC's management, some are outsourced to others (my area, for instance, is managed by Broadband Support). From what I understand, there is certainly no network/system/company-wide policy on what determines "excessive use", and instead left at the discretion of whomever is managing that part of the network.
It didn't seem that Pete was fully aware that the ToS offload bandwidth regulation to the user. He said he understood what I was talking about when I said we could not self-regulate without knowing what we should be regulating to, or how much bandwidth we were using. He also understands that the language is indeed very vague, but that only users like "the top 2-3%" (you and I) would even notice, or even have a problem with the service. He said they can't afford to cater to users like us, and instead prefer to cater to the average user. That their service certainly wasn't built for everyone, and that users like us would most likely be happier going to another provider.
So that about covers it. I hope that's been enough information for everyone. I for one know I'm tired of typing, and I know you guys have to be tired of reading. | |
nnaarrnn
join:2004-09-30
Nitro, WV
·Vonage
·Sprint Mobile Broa..
·Suddenlink
| i got a phone call from my local exec/lead network engineer today, and he apologized for my inconveniences and told me there was trouble at the node and they were working on it. My assumption is that it's oversold, since they originally said 20mbit in this area, and then did 12. | |
thatguy5245
join:2004-05-25
Dunbar, WV
·PHONE POWER
·Suddenlink
| i never knew 20mbps was coming to this area.
Before I upgraded to the 12 in December I always got about 6.4 in this area. It was usually Bada Bing and myself on the top of the speed tests here at DSL from WV. After upgrading hardly ever saw 12 (about 10-15 times) and my avg was around 7.5 low was 1.2Mbps. So I was so frustrated I downgraded on about the 15th of June hoping my speeds would somewhat normalize. No such for that theory as i was getting about 4Mbps now on the 6Mbps and lost the upload of course. I have now switched to Verizon DSL 7.1Mbps and couldn't be happier. I'm only getting 720kbps up instead of 768 when I had Sudden**ink's 12 Mbps service but it is much more stable and the latency and ping times are much improved. My download is about 6.5 which I can live with since I really wanted the upload speed. The best part is nobody has said anything about my VOIP which they would constantly complain about when I was on Sudden**ink | |
OlSkool
@cebridge.net
| reply to nnaarrnn
I would like to know what locally can be done for us, because from what I hear, everyone is having problems with 12meg, no matter where you live. Maybe an issue with Bandwidth capacity on the Long Haul? CMTS? -- Cisco uBR10012
I have had my Ntelos service since day one, and Latley been up dated to Rev. A and it is running at what the company ( real world results) specified. So I got 2 PPC6800's and a Aircard. I couldnt be happier, and im getting what the Company said I would.
And I have also noticed since I have seen SL has added another DHCP server, I have had multiple problems with VOD and PPV services, So I really do think there is a problem with design and deployment department within. | |
nnaarrnn
join:2004-09-30
Nitro, WV
·Vonage
·Sprint Mobile Broa..
·Suddenlink
1 edit | I have a Sprint touch (ppc6900), which around here piggy backs on ntelos and alltel. I too get advertised speeds since the evdo -a upgrade, and whats funny is that I can actually play a game of battlefield 2 using my cell, when i cant using Suddenlink.
a coworker of mine is fed from the Milton/Wayne suddenlink area, and he gets 14-15mbit all day long, so I dont think it's a problem with Suddenlink per se, just the charleston area being wayyy overloaded. | |
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