Help with disconnects...lousy ISP

Breadman03 · Aug 6, 2018

Quick background: I had great Internet for years until my ISP was bought out. Unfortunately, we are a 1 ISP town. Now I struggle to get anything done online. My Apex is logging about 20 dropped connections daily. Streaming video, gaming, browsing R2R or FB is a pain.

I'd like to confront my new ISP and get the issue fixed or get my bills cut. I heard about https://uptimerobot.com earlier today and am considering using this or another service to log how often my Internet connection fails. Has anyone used a similar service? What would I have to do to make something like this work to monitor my home connection?

It says that I can check ping, port, or keyword. It sounds like I'd have to do some firewall configuration to allow this service to ping my router and report back whether it works. I'm not tech illiterate and have poked around enough to have basic familiarity, but not much more.

Thanks for any help! Oh, and the ISP is Atlantic Broadband. I can't seem to find many positive reviews...

Ranjib · Aug 6, 2018

Monitis, pingdom etc are all capable of doing this. If you know whats specifically broken (like the whole uplink connection or dns or something speifically), you can deploy specific checks. Its also not that hard to setup your own monitoring, i.e install something like telegraph and grafana on your home computer (even raspberry pi will do) and setup a ping check against google DNS (8.8.8.8) and then use grafana to get weekly/monthly reports...

Breadman03 · Aug 6, 2018

Ranjib said:
Monitis, pingdom etc are all capable of doing this. If you know whats specifically broken (like the whole uplink connection or dns or something speifically), you can deploy specific checks. Its also not that hard to setup your own monitoring, i.e install something like telegraph and grafana on your home computer (even raspberry pi will do) and setup a ping check against google DNS (8.8.8.8) and then use grafana to get weekly/monthly reports...

I'm looking for something external as we only have laptops and they travel to work with us. I believe that all of my equipment is working properly, but the ISP is failing to meet our expectations based on our previous ISP. As to what's broken, I believe it's the ISP because everyone I know in town is having the same issue and it all started the week we got a new ISP. I can't do much about "slow," but I should have a leg to stand on when it comes to no connection.

Thanks!

AdamNC · Aug 7, 2018

Start contacting their corporate office and threaten a small claim court case. Tell them they have 1 week to fix the issue or a lawyer will be contacting them on the premise of not receiving promised goods ie: stable internet service. I work for a cable company much larger than them and have seen instances like this get fixed real fast when corporate is involved. Supervisors and lead senior techs usually get involved. Demand to have all new wire run from the street to a new modem, not a referb. I’ve been on jobs where it was called in in the morning and me and 2 others where there by 11-12:00.

Breadman03 · Feb 27, 2019

Late for a follow up, but I ended up using Uptime Robot to ping my network every 5 minutes. I used screenshots of the logs to show my ISP that there was an issue that needed to be addressed. They ran new drop from the street, then new cables in my house before moving on with no change in quality. They said the issue couldn't be in my house and that they were looking further down the street. After a week or so, the cable guy informed me that they found some damaged equipment on the network and had to wait a few days for parts. Shortly thereafter, my issues were fixed.

crusso1993 · Feb 27, 2019

Breadman03 said:
Late for a follow up, but I ended up using Uptime Robot to ping my network every 5 minutes. I used screenshots of the logs to show my ISP that there was an issue that needed to be addressed. They ran new drop from the street, then new cables in my house before moving on with no change in quality. They said the issue couldn't be in my house and that they were looking further down the street. After a week or so, the cable guy informed me that they found some damaged equipment on the network and had to wait a few days for parts. Shortly thereafter, my issues were fixed.

Sounds like a happy ending... so far!