IDOCSortino

Hey everyone,

So a while back I posted here about some internet issues I was having. Two years at that location and it was never fixed. I finally was able to move and unfortunately got stuck with Comcast as my provider again.

Needless to say, me moving was probably the worst decision I've made regarding this ISP, because now I'm experiencing WORSE problems than my last location...and I've only lived here for 12 days. I'm extremely dependant on my upload speed specifically because I'm a broadcaster to Twitch.TV and that's how I make my income.

Without at least 4-5Mbps I cannot manage to pull a quality broadcast without it going to hell.

I've provided a Google Document[1] for real time updates regarding the issues I'm currently having. To some, you may think me documenting everything is extreme, but I've already dealt with this once before and I'm going to make sure everyone is held responsible.

Does anyone have any advice on what I can do?

That's very odd usually they provide higher level of service to businesses in terms of speed and reliability I'm assuming you've tried the common things such as a new modem, no router, changing your cat5 cables out? Have you had the techs install new fittings try adding an attenuator?

I went as far as buying my own modem after making the last post months back; didn't change anything. My modem doesn't have a router, so we're good there. As far as the rest, I moved into this place as of the 15th of this month so I couldn't tell you. I've opened another ticket with Corporate today but who KNOWS when this issue will be resolved.

Is there anything on my end I can do to see if it's my computer or not? It strikes me as odd how my speeds (using this site) are the same here as they were at my last place. I figured moving would have fixed it.

Do you have their residential or business class internet?

I have residential. Funny thing is I upgraded to business class at my last location but it didn't resolve anything. Even when speaking to a supervisor about internet at my new location, he said business class wouldn't change anything.

So I posted THIS a while back seeking help for Comcast's notoriously terrible internet. Needless to say, this issue was never solved. No one here was able to help, no one on Comcasts end helped.

...My lease was finally up (Aurora, IL) and I was able to move to a different town (Plainfield, IL). Internet was working GREAT... for the first 2 days. Then, everything seemed oh so familiar. Constant issues, download is shit, upload is now even MORE shit than the last place I lived.

I seriously need help. I can't go another two years of terrible internet. I'm a partnered broadcaster on Twitch.TV and this is what I do for money. At this rate, I'm not able to stream because of how LOW my upload is. The cycle is literally repeating itself and I'm utterly LOST.

I am with Comcast and am going through the same things as the topic creator. I've been through about 6-7 techs all claiming everything is fine. One rewired my power lines and cables inside my house. I also purchased a Surfboard and got the exact same results as the 10-15 router/modem combos that Comcast has given me. I game on my PS3, XBOX 360, and PC. I get constant lag on all of them. My speeds are usually 20/4, despite paying for 75/15 with a cable connection but they fluctuate constantly.

 

However, I recently switched to Verizion Fios' 75/75 package, Unfortunately I experienced the exact same thing as Comcast. My speeds were much higher but they fluctuated much more. I went through a few techs and routers with them as well before I cancelled my service to avoid getting locked in a contract.

 

Anyhow, I just wanted to give some insight and hopefully save you from making a jump to another company without checking other alternatives. I am right outside of Philadelphia, Pa by the way. My only assumption is it's an area thing.

Well to be honest, I don't think this is an area thing. It was working when I first moved in to this place for roughly 5-6 months. Then things went spotty. It fixed itself over the course of 1-2 months, and now it's back to acting up again. It's been like this now for about 5-6 months solid with crap internet.

I almost went with Uverse but considering their packages are complete crap (18DOWN/1.2UP) I can't justify that purchase.

My issue is, even though we know I have slow download speeds, I have nothing I can show a basic Tech (who'd at least understand what's going on) or proof I can send Corporate (or at least proof they can understand) to show them my internet is garbage.

That's where my question comes in; is there something I can provide to corporate and/or technicians that will show them PROOF that my internet is not up to par?

How fast was your download?

How long did it take to download? About 3-4 minutes.

These are my results:

So what would this insinuate? This was a test I ran for about 30-60 seconds.

http://gyazo.com/4a2b1a7dcc84be088086d94c49483ffa

I think the key is convincing them to send out a tech who will do more than just do the Xfinity speed test like any monkey can.  If they don't believe the TMN tests, fine - there are plenty of other ways to demonstrate download performance is poor.  Give them a list of ten distinct download URLs to show that they are all slow...and I still think you should do a packet capture to look for packet loss, as I'm pretty sure you'll have it.

 

You can also try quoting the classic line from the old Heaven Can Wait movie:  The likelihood of one individual being right increases in direct proportion to the intensity with which others are trying to prove him wrong.

I've had over 20 technicians out to my house over the course of this issue. All claim to have fixed the line, nodes, boxes, wires, modems, etc. They claim it's MY equipment when it's very clear it isn't my equipment. There's no use in me asking for another technician because it just makes me angry now to explain my situation and them just repeating themselves and basically calling me a liar, then leave.

Could you explain to me as to how to do this packet capture? Last time a tech was out, they told me I had zero packet loss.

Which area of the country are you in, and are you still getting results from your first post - paying for 60/10, but only getting ~ 11 down most of the time?

 

At my residence, I'm paying for 50/10 through Comcast, and consistently get it (my downloads are actually closer to 60Mbps most of the time), and TMN consistently verifies I'm getting what I'm paying for.  It also verifies EBrown's Comcast 50/10, as well as a colleague of mine who lives about 30 miles North.  If TMN is measuring less, I'd believe it, but I also believe you need to validate that with other real-world transfers to show the Comcast people they're FOS.

 

At our office (which is about 7 miles from my house, in another suburb), we just got the Comcast Business 150/20 installed about two weeks ago.  On that, the 20Mbit upload is consistent.  Downloads, on the other hand, are more like 50Mbps.  TMN verifies the "real world" results with other transfer tests, and jives with our NMS monitoring.  The Xfinity speed test measures it at 107/20.  When we first looked into Comcast Business several months ago, 100/20 was the fastest plan available, and it was only recently that 150/20 was available, although the sales guy said our building would need a new line drop to support it.  That never happened, and I believe that to be the reason of the slower speeds.  I haven't yet tested from their modem (bypassing our equipment), but will likely take it up with them in the Sping, when weather would allow a new line drop.  Even the 50Mbps for us is sooo much faster than what we had before, so we're happy for now, but still not getting what we should.

 

Last but not least, have you performed a packet capture during a transfer test, to see if there is packet loss happening?

I've been in contact with someone from Comcast Executive Care for the past 4-5 months now (which is pathetic). I finally convinced her to upgrade me to the 105/10 package for a week to see if it fixed anything. Unfortunately, it didn't fix a damn thing. As a matter of fact, I'm now only getting Kbps speeds on my Upload where it was fine before.

To answer your question, I barely get 11Mbps. Most of the time I get 1.9 exactly on my download tests. I went away for a week to my families house and I was able to do everything perfectly fine (and fast with zero buffering or stutter) on wireless internet with a 16/2 connection. I come back this week to not being able to watch or download anything above medium quality and it STILL buffers most of the time. Yet Comcast to this day tells me my internet is just fine.

If there is anything you recommend that I can test/do/give to these Comcast twats to PROVE their internet is completely jacked up, I am all ears. I want this over with.

Totally forgot to answer your first question. I'm near Chicago, IL.

So it's been months and no resolution with Comcast. Including zero response from the Comcast rep who posted in this very forum who claimed they were going to help.

I've talked with corporate today about giving me a "trial" of the Extreme speed which is somewhere around 105 DOWN/ 10 UP. Ran a few more speed tests and same results: poor.

Comcasts speed tests on the other hand show 126 DOWN/ 24 UP. Again, same issues as before. TMN shows real speeds> technicians call it unreliable> Techs use Comcast speed test> Speed test show awesome speeds> techs leave.

I then decided to purchase my own modem JUST TO MAKE SURE. No dice. No change. I then contacted Motorola (my modem, which is the SURFboard SBG6580) to see if they can help me out. They ran me through testing my power levels to my downstream. Here is a screen shot: http://gyazo.com/6f7f8e655b10da00db9b1c29da89711d

According to the rep I spoke with, my power levels are too high and need to be as close to zero as possible. He said with that high of a power level, it would distort my speed test by that much.

Does anyone have any insight? Thoughts? Comments?

So it's been months and no resolution with Comcast. Including zero response from the Comcast rep who posted in this very forum who claimed they were going to help.

I've talked with corporate today about giving me a "trial" of the Extreme speed which is somewhere around 105 DOWN/ 10 UP. Ran a few more speed tests and same results: poor.

Comcasts speed tests on the other hand show 126 DOWN/ 24 UP. Again, same issues as before. TMN shows real speeds> technicians call it unreliable> Techs use Comcast speed test> Speed test show awesome speeds> techs leave.

I then decided to purchase my own modem JUST TO MAKE SURE. No dice. No change. I then contacted Motorola (my modem, which is the SURFboard SBG6580) to see if they can help me out. They ran me through testing my power levels to my downstream. Here is a screen shot: http://gyazo.com/6f7f8e655b10da00db9b1c29da89711d

According to the rep I spoke with, my power levels are too high and need to be as close to zero as possible. He said with that high of a power level, it would distort my speed test by that much.

Does anyone have any insight? Thoughts? Comments?

Once upon a time I was having issues aswell I kept complaining they kept sending techs it took about 3 months and finally I had a Cox tech in a boomtruck show up he said he was going to check the neighborhood nodes and about an hour later he came. Back and said he replaced a few amplifiers even though they looked good after that I never had another issue

I'll go ahead and mention this to the next Comcast rep I speak to.

So I'm just noticing something. If you check my speedtests I'm getting significantly higher speeds when I test through WiFi on my Galaxy S5:

Yet when I go to test on my Desktop, I get these reduced speeds:

What could this entail?

Also, I just ran these two tests at the exact same time.

My Desktop Speed Test:

My Galaxy S5 Speed Test: 

Is there a setting on my PC that could be causing a reduced speed?

EDIT: Nevermind. I'm now getting 1.3 Down on my Galaxy S5. I ran a few tests from my PS4 to see the results there and they were the same.

I'm still looking to find the cause of OP's issues.

 

Since his signals are great (16 down and 4 up perfectly in-spec channels) and his Comcast on-net speed tests are good (95% of his provisioned speed), and the issue persists after he bought his own modem, I don't believe the issue lies with his premises or equipment.

 

I'm looking beyond his premises, which takes time, because I have to work with teams at the local level.

Which I appreciate 100%! I'm still going to do what I need to do on my end to make corporate aware of the issue and hold them responsible.

Well it's not doing too much so far because these network people are lazy or incompetent or both.

I've been having issues with Comcast for the past three months now with zero solutions. I've filed 4 reports/complaints on Comcast with the FCC and haven't been responded to yet.

Just a little update. I've replaced Comcasts modem with my own. This is the modem: http://www.amazon.com/Motorola-SURFboard-SBG6580-Packaging-570763-006-00/dp/B0040IUI46

Like I expected, my speed tests haven't changed and little has been done to rectify my situation on Corporates end. Of course when speaking to their techs, reps and corporate reps and explaining my TMN speed results, they immediately dismiss my findings and deem this site "unreliable". I have gone to the extent of explaining even when I ping to their servers, I get slow results; no dice.

Is there any way I can provide them with some sort of cred that will make these idiots understand TMN is extremely reliable?

I turned off both just to test the speeds and nothing changed them. The model is the Cisco DPC 3939.

Me knowing nothing about modems or their settings, are all of my downstream/upstream channels supposed to be locked? http://gyazo.com/e9e7c9ac9eadb46ae571e4eb9a71e6ce

Hmm, Just curious what are your Firewall settings? Also again are you using just a modem, modem with connected router or a Wireless gateway ( router/modem/phone all in one unit?)

I've gone to the length of turning off my firewall entirely over the course of a day to see if it was that or not. Same results. I'm direct connected to the PC. I have a Modem with a built in router from Comcast.

What you are seeing is likely devices in place to prevent DOS attacks, synfloods or simply that ICMP packets are being tossed since they have the lowest priority. Or the UDP packets are timing out before they even reach the destination. (TTL)

 

You could try a different flags to either get past the firewall (which also may be set to ignore or drop specific packets), or extend the TTL, change packet type ect...

traceroute -I x.x.x.x
traceroute -T x.x.x.x
traceroute -T -m 60 x.x.x.x

The latter will raise the TTL

 

You might want to do this from the router, as windows capabilities are somewhat different. 

Do you believe this is what could be causing my slow internet speeds (that I originally stated in the OP)?

Just wanted to touch base. Here are some stats from this morning.

Apparently this is the newest modem they have. Yet even with my last modem, these same exact results were happening. 

I'm curious though. Why with Mercury am I getting 54+ Mbps Down, but when I test regularly (with my default server being Texas [which it has always been]) I get these results: https://testmy.net/F6d8ZJ5.png . Now I definitely feel as if I am getting 1.5 Mbps because I can't load an image, watch a stream, play games right now without lag/buffer.

And obviously with Speedtest/Comcast Speedtest I get the standard "54/12". Do either of you (CW and CA3LE) have an idea?

EDIT: I was browsing through the forums and I stumbled on this post: http://gyazo.com/f9bf4d31fb47bc1a58e26a8197474317 . I almost want to see if this is the problem I am having.