Selected ISP Support > Windstream > "Overutilization outage"

"Overutilization outage"

"Overutilization outage" is just a term windstream uses for we are too damn lazy and cheap to update our broken old equipment, but we are still pushing internet on good customers to take it in the rear.

^^real talk^^

reply to bran_gray
Bran_gray, if you have seen them put in new dslams in your area or new fiber to the existing ones, then you are probably a year away from a fix. I am guessing reading the posts here then knowing they did spend stimulus money for most of the new rural equipment they have deployed, and by law it's supposed to be working by 2014.

If you don't see any work and then you could be years from a fix. If you don't game and don't download much (forget netflix and much streaming) then satellite works. I used it for years and justified the cost because I had a fairly successful online biz at the time. It paid for itself, no doubt in updating the site which was several times a day. But it's pretty easy to hit your limit if you downloaded much at all, and then there wasn't anything to stream or little. I think I had 170 megs a day limit. I don't know what they do now. 170 megs a day wasn't hard to exceed with 4 people in the house online. We often ran out of bandwidth before the night was over. Then they did the limit cycle daily. Most now do it monthly, which is worse, if you run out, some plans leave you at modem speeds until the 1st of next month. Check closely before you jump. It's a solution, yes, but a tricky one to manage if you use much bandwidth.
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| Speedstream 4200 Modem - 3m/384 plan | W98-W2KSP4-XPSP2 - All AMD | Buffalo WHR G54S with Tomato 1.18 | 3 downstream switches feeding 6 total clients (no wireless) | Including the Data port on the side of my neck |

Piggie, I do school online both downloading and uploading projects. Before my internet started having issues I would also stream, torrent, game, and use voip services frequently. Nowadays I'm lucky to do even one of these at a time. My wife likes to stream her shows and my son likes to stream as well.

The problem we're facing is most nights during peak hours our download drops to barely above dial up speeds and our upload speed drops through the floor. Speed tests literally hang on the upload test and never finish. I don't know how many times I've had to hook up my smart phone just to be able to upload a project that's due.

I have no clue if any work is going on in our area (I'm sure up in Sugarland they plan fixes) but down where I am it is unknown. I've just seen it happen over the year of steadily declining service that people will start to have troubles, start to have serious troubles, be told of overutilization outages, and then promised fixes that keep getting pushed back.

I ask this now because if I need to switch then I need to start planning and looking at what is available. And in our area it's not much.

reply to bran_gray

reply to Bashlin
Actually, when I think about it "overutilization outage" is a brilliant term for Windstream to use. It puts the emphasis on customers not using the service "properly" rather than on them providing proper service. I define "proper service" as providing the service promised - that their customers are paying for.

I can appreciate the problem that WS is dealing with - they structured a data network on a legacy voice infrastructure that goes back to the the 1940's or so. They dealt with the distance limitations of that infrastructure by putting in a bunch of remote terminals, mostly serviced by the same copper infrastructure, which is now a major choke point in their network design. But fiber is expensive and investors seem to think the CEO is doing a great job for them if he dinks around with M&A rather than the dull business of actually providing the services that customers pay for.

My main complaints are why WS can't seem to provide a straight answer about network upgrades ("tough shit, country bumpkin" would be a straight answer in my book), and most especially why the US taxpayer is borrowing money (stereotypically from the Chinese) to give to the company to enhance the network that the private investors apparently don't care about - with no accountability required. It's utterly galling to me.

reply to bran_gray
Here in my neck of the woods Windstream got a bunch of stimulus money and dropped fiber across the entire county. Guess what, that was over 6 months ago and they haven't done anything since. Heck there is a brand new pedestal almost in front of my house with the conduit and fiber rolled up inside it, just sitting there. The entire county is that way, lots of brand new boxes everywhere, lots of warning poles in the ground to let people know there is a fiber line in the ground but they haven't made an attempt to actually do anything else.

Yet per one of the local techs, everyday they continue to signup more customers and overload the existing equipment and the 1940s copper trunk lines.

Comcast built out my way about 4 years ago, but they stopped 1600 feet from my house. Had they built out that extra 1600 feet, they would have picked up my house, my mothers house and my mother in law's house. Maybe I should contact them see if they would do it or how much they would charge me to do it. Thats how sick of crappy Windstream I am.

This has been a huge concern for me. The fact DSL really was obsolete before it was rolled out to a lot of the country outside the downtown cores. Just 10 miles south of me, TWC has a 50/5 package that runs well fast enough even during prime time to support 4 streaming TVs in my friends house. Their upload exceeds my download when its working right!
Around here in towns in North Central FL, the cable companies did have over-utilization problems. That was over 10 years ago. They beefed up their feeds to their busiest neighborhoods a decade ago. Now when they come into rural areas, they know times have changed and supply the needed bandwidth into their cable system.

Most don't realize it but cable has much of the same challenge as DSL. You just don't pour a million megabits at the head end of the cable system, like they distribute their TV signals. With TV one or a million customers takes the same bandwidth and can be dumped in at the head end and all if fine. Not so with their internet. They too have to have nodes where they insert the internet into the cable all over town, very similar to the way DSL has to have a DSLAM near it's customers. Do buy the limited range of DSL as the excuse. Cable companies went through this over selling and fixed it a long time ago.

Now I don't know enough if it's because of ATM cell packets they don't use and DSL does or just plain cable supplies the bandwidth. I go with the latter as being the real solution.

Back to Windstream. Do they have the money to hook up all the fiber and boxes they have dropped everywhere? Mine have now been there 4 months. Last time they dropped a box in my neighborhood it too 7 years to hook up the DSL. And that was after a petition I did in our area, where I racked up 250 signatures. Sure some were in the wrong area, some where duplicates. By the time it was done though I have over 100 people that would sign up instantly. The day they hooked it up, which they finished about 2:30pm, by the time the local tech went home at 7 pm that night, he had hooked up 20 houses and had orders for 30 more, in under 5 hours.

I doubt the petition thing would work this time. I mean this is insane. They know and continue to suck the profit out of the company.
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| Speedstream 4200 Modem - 3m/384 plan | W98-W2KSP4-XPSP2 - All AMD | Buffalo WHR G54S with Tomato 1.18 | 3 downstream switches feeding 6 total clients (no wireless) | Including the Data port on the side of my neck |

I've now been told for probably the seventh time that they don't see any packet loss on their end. So I've started saving all my speed tests I run over at Speakeasy that shows I have packet loss. I've also started a Smoke Ping and will be keeping track of what my average packet loss is to both coasts.

And swoopman I feel your pain. Comcast literally stops servicing our area about three houses down from us. We've tried to get a study done to see if we could get service but they never responded to us. You might have better luck. Give them a call and try to get somebody to do a study...you might just get lucky.

bran-
Send me a PM with your account number, phone number and/or Windstream email address and I will be happy to take a look. If you prefer you can start a thread in »Windstream Direct.

Aaron
Specialist II
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We're here to help! wci.broadbandhelp@windstream.com

reply to bran_gray
I put in two requests at Comcast to try to get a survey done. One through an online contact form under their business class department and one by calling the toll free number for residential.

The residential guy says he put in my request, two days later someone called to say it wasen't possible, goodbye. No reason given, the person on the phone wasen't even sure if someone even came out to do an actual field survey. Keep in mind I offered to pay $5,000 towards the 1600 foot plant extension.

My guess is the residential team checked their system saw that they couldn't just tap the exsisting line and run a piece of coax 1600 feet so they said no.

Anyway low and behold just today a very nice lady from their business class department called and asked me what I was inquring about, I gave her my story and she said "It's going to be my mission to at least have them give us a price quote or an actual reason as to why they can't extend the plant." I was totally amazed how helpful she was and how eager she was to try to get me service. Long story short, she went ahead and drew up an order request for 27mb/7mb business class and is submitting the order form along with all the pertinent information to the appropriate engineering department. She noted on the paperwork that I was willing to cover up to 5,000 of the plant extension costs. According to her Comcast would cover the first 3,500. I don't know how much boosters, cable, labor and such cost, but seems to me it wouldn't be unreasonable to think they could run 1,600 feet for 8,500 or less. Their 3,500 and my 5,000. And yes, to get off Windstream is worth 5,000 to my wife and I. We do too much work from home during the peak evening hours to continue to put up with what we have now.

I'll keep you informed how it goes.

reply to bran_gray
Well thankfully the packet loss has been addressed by replacing the modem. It's to bad that my wife and I had to diagnose this problem and hope that this was the solution. I'm guessing the failing modem and packet loss couldn't be seen by Windstreams techs for some interesting reason that I am unaware of.

Now hopefully we are one of the areas scheduled for some fiber optic loving. The slow downs are still hurting of an evening but I can actually upload things without a hitch. It's the downstream that needs work now.

Well it took 3 months and several false starts but finally with the help of Comcast's local business rep Comcast has approved a plant extension approximately 1,800 feet to my house, bye bye Windstream and your less than dialup DSL. According to the engineer report that the rep had, approximately 1,400 feet of aerial and another 400 feet underground.

Total cost for the plant extension is $12,000 I have to pay $3,000 and I had to commit to a 50mb business class account. More than worth to my wife and I to be rid of the crap that Windstream has had us on.

Now just have to wait a few months for them to get the permits, get it scheduled, and get it installed.

I hope Comcast does better with permits than Windstream . Windstream will submit a plan it will get denied then they sit on their hands and wait for city state or county to come up with an alternative while continuing to rip WS customers.