Is your internet service crappy this year?

[fish farmer]

Somewhat of a vent.

I have high speed internet via TV cable company, generally wicked fast...didn't have a problem watching movies on my computer last winter.

A couple of years ago we had issues with the phone dropping out and the internet dropping out/being slow. That was corrected with faster computers for both of us, a new router from the cable company and going back to a landline.

So my router is only two years old. I called the tech support call center, they did their resets, etc and said the router is fine and if I still have problems to call back and maybe get a new router. I don't think I need a new router.

For me the internet works great early in the morning or later at night, my wife uses it for work so she has problems throughout the day, but usually late afternoon, when I suspect it is hot. Today is was very hot here and was on and off all afternoon on a Sunday.

I'm pretty rural and probably have one line running up my street for a few miles. Even our phone company internet at work is spotty. I look at the outtage website and it seems most of the complains are the same time of day. I really feel the problem is out of our hands and just want to hear it.

Are there more problems with internet with people hanging at home/working from home this year? Does heat really play a factor? Our problems have seemed to start since the last month or so and we have been having record heat.

I don't think it is construction/lines down although they have been doing work in the community.

The internet was working fine while I typed this, but router reset and I'm waiting again to post this.

 

[Flippers4pups]

I can't say about intermittent service, but they tend to do maintenance on their systems late at night or very early in the morning. That could slow things down for awhile.

I replaced our WiFi router last weekend with a mesh 5 router. Big difference in range and can switch from 2.4 to 5 ghz and can handle 4k streams with multiple household devices.

The old router was 8 years old and would drop out and back in constantly, very stressful. Dropping out and back in is usually interface from other WIFI signals.

 

[Mical]

We live in a pretty rural area (town of 3500 - west of Minneapolis) We have high speed internet and Tv service from major cable co. Since the pandemic, yes more people are working from home & loading down the internet.

My girlfriend is a teleprompter operator and can work from home & we upgraded to 300mbs download & 12mbs up and it's blazing fast 24 hours a day. We have 6 computers online, 2 phones, 4 Ipads, 8 security cameras, a smart thermostat and the Apex on it 24/7. You might check your cable company for an upgrade over the basic service.

 

[Chac317]

I work for AT&T let me sell you fiber optic so I can afford more coral lol.

In all seriousness if it isn’t a fiber connection you will notice slower speeds when more people are on the network, which unfortunately is happening a lot in these times with a lot more people working from home. My wife is working from home and her company VPN server requires minimum 100mbps connection, which I imagine is tough, if not impossible for some people based on what speed they have available at their home.

 

[Jake_the_reefer]

I just moved into a new house where I get 100mbs and I couldn't be happier. The last year I was running on 1.5mbps and it was a nightmare

 

[Jake_the_reefer]

I work for AT&T let me sell you fiber optic so I can afford more coral lol.

In all seriousness if it isn’t a fiber connection you will notice slower speeds when more people are on the network, which unfortunately is happening a lot in these times with a lot more people working from home. My wife is working from home and her company VPN server requires minimum 100mbps connection, which I imagine is tough, if not impossible for some people based on what speed they have available at their home.

Att gave me a solid 1.5mbps for 50 a month haha

 

[Chac317]

Att gave me a solid 1.5mbps for 50 a month haha

Yeah that’s a struggle lol. All internet is the same price now so whatever max speed you can get is a flat price.

My parents were in an area with 3mbps. Surprisingly, they could stream Netflix pretty consistently but they couldn’t do much else at the same time

 

[Jake_the_reefer]

Yeah that’s a struggle lol. All internet is the same price now so whatever max speed you can get is a flat price.

My parents were in an area with 3mbps. Surprisingly, they could stream Netflix pretty consistently but they couldn’t do much else at the same time

I could do Netflix easily. The moment you turn on a phone to wifi. boom! You get nothing

 

[Variant]

Might be congestion related with more people using up bandwidth than expected. You should submit a complaint through the FCC. That way they take you seriously...

I did it and a tech came out with his supervisor and they ended up doing an infrastructure upgrade in my neighborhood in 2 weeks...

 

[CubsFan]

I just received a package the other day from my provider. It’s a new modem. They said the old modem couldn’t provide the speeds that they advertised. I’m still getting good service and haven’t set up the new modem. They said eventually I’d be dealing with slower speeds.

 

[vetteguy53081]

I have 400mbps and it is Lightning quick in addition to computer having a 2tb solid state drive with 16gb ram

 

[Ippyroy]

I get 50 up and down all day, My WiFi would drop every 24 hours for about six months. After numerous phone calls and then a month of trolling the provider on FaceBook that issue has been fixed. Love fiber

 

[ReefLab]

no. I have 50mbps and get less than 30 ping when gaming and having 15+ devices connected over wifi.

 

[fish farmer]

Thanks for the feedback.

With my package which is basic I get 200 mbps..speed test just showed 239.5...but it has taking me about an hour or so of resetting the router, plugging it in, unplugging, it connects then boots off, maybe get a few minutes internet time. It has been doing that since 5pm and it is almost 7pm.

This is the worst it has been for me anyway..the wife says thats what it does when you aren't here, lol. My two year old router from the company can do 2.4 GHz or 5GHz.

i already spend enough...not going to give the cable company any more money and I've heard the phone company does fiber, but I hear the customer service is horrible and takes forever for them to come out and fix things.

I'm going to call the local office tomorrow and see what they have to say.

 

[blasterman]

Thanks for the feedback.

With my package which is basic I get 200 mbps..speed test just showed 239.5...but it has taking me about an hour or so of resetting the router, plugging it in, unplugging, it connects then boots off, maybe get a few minutes internet time. It has been doing that since 5pm and it is almost 7pm.

This is the worst it has been for me anyway..the wife says thats what it does when you aren't here, lol. My two year old router from the company can do 2.4 GHz or 5GHz.

i already spend enough...not going to give the cable company any more money and I've heard the phone company does fiber, but I hear the customer service is horrible and takes forever for them to come out and fix things.

I'm going to call the local office tomorrow and see what they have to say.

Are you resetting the router, or modem, or is it one unit? Modem requiring resets is 99% of the time a problem with your ISP and they need to fix it. This is why I keep modems and routers and access points discrete units unless the ISP is going to support them.

A router requiring resets is a different issue. Most people get them mixed up, and if you have a separate modem and you are resetting the router the odds are more likely on your end. Most people call wifi access points a 'router' and I've seen people reset wifi integrated routers all day when the problem is their wifi driver on a $300 walmart special laptop with a driver that hasn't been upgraded from Win7.

Line issues usually get worse in cold weather as conduit contraction pulls on leads and contacts.

 

[fish farmer]

It's a modem, provided by my ISP. Cable goes in, ethernet goes out to the computer. When I logged on now at 9:30 pm it is super fast, all the lights on the modem are on, Power, us/ds, online, and the 2.4Ghz and 5 Ghz lighs are generally on, flashing slightly, but when it goes out, the two Ghz lights will fade then everything can shut down and may reset itself, but all the lights except for power will got out.

I still think it is a time of day thing, this wasn't happening this winter. I had no problem streaming movies around December and early March.

 

[blasterman]

Combo unit huh? They can suck pretty bad. This is why residential customers should really get their own modem (assuming they aren't fiber and their contract allows). So much easier to diagnose this stuff.

The lights you need to watch are the ones than indicate internet connection status. If they go out or blink then it's a connection issue; typically a channel s dropping below proper dB level. Other lights freezing like your wifi indicators (2/4 and 5ghz) indicates a power problem.

If your computer is wired directly I would just disable wifi. I've fixed issue where ISP network gear wifi was handing out DHCP addresses with two week leases, the box would run out of leases, and would brick itself until power cycled. Smart one there Comcast.

 

[robbyg]

I have access to ISP at home and two at work.
The issues I am seeing seems to be related to the internet back bone being stressed due to increase bandwidth being used by video streaming platforms drurung Covid 19.
I get several small outages a week and streaming in 4K can be spotty at times. It’s not so bad on Netflix so long as the show is not in the top 10 ratings. A few of those that I watched would freeze during episodes and then start buffering back up. Unpopular shows play without a hitch! Don’t even get me started on Disney plus. It’s been unreliable to the point of needing cancellation for months now.

 

[GlassMunky]

Reading this thread really makes me happy to not live in the sticks.....
If my speed drops below 300mbs I get irritated.... I’m usually running around 500+

 

[blasterman]

Just a clarification on internet speed.

When your ISP sez you got 200Mb down that means 200Mb down from your modem to their nearest switch. That does not mean 200Mb across the internet. To get to Netflix for example you cross several pier networks, and those are the ones typically congested, ISPs, especially the big cable monoplies don't like to pay for pier network bandwidth because they want you to buy their content, not somebody elses.

Also, everybody blames gamers and work from home people for clogging bandwidth. Not so. Work from home RDP protocols are very light, and while games require very low latency they move very little data. It's those 4k streams that really eat bandwidth.