entrappedmind

Further update for @CA3LE... Finally got a response - after sixty-six days of being ignored. And if (like me) you think that's funny, you'll find this hilarious - they reverted to the "you have to use our intranet speed test" argument. Sigh. Now, I await the results of their "comparison test." PS: emails attached, as per usual - seems they might have uploaded in reverse chronological order though... If so, sorry for the confusion.

Turns out, I didn't have to wait a month. Back down to <10mbps for the past three days. Sigh. Oh, and still no response from Buckeye - neither tech nor billing. Shocker.

Just a quick update for @CA3LE: Speeds are improved enough that I'm going to reduce the frequency of my tests from 5min to 30min in hopes of saving some of your bandwidth. And no, nothing was changed on my end to fix anything, only serving to reinforce my assertions all along that the problems were on Buckeye's end (not that they'd ever acknowledge that, of course). They're still ignoring my emails, so I don't expect to see any sort of credit to my account for the ~two months of unusable internet, but there's really nothing I can do about that. Don't worry - I'll be back in a month or three when my connection goes kaput again. Thanks for the site, the tools, and all the help!

Trying one more time, because, well, I don't have any other recourse, I guess. (the attached screenshot) I'll keep you updated, @CA3LE.

I've only got four families in my immediate neighborhood, and I'm barely on a first-name basis with three of them (much less a "what-do-you-use-for-internet-and-how's-your-performance" basis), while the fourth is not tech-savvy enough to know a modem from a microwave. As far as my greater area, yeah, there are plenty of complaints. Many quite similar to mine. Many more don't even bother speaking up, because they know it'll do no good. BBB complaints similar to mine go unresolved. It's been this way for roughly a decade and a half, through two separate house moves, dating back to me having to spend nearly a month explaining to their technicians what packet loss was and why is mattered, back when I finally got cable for the first time (albeit one-way, as Buckeye's upload was initially handled via phone back then, with only the download being cable. Anything was better than AOL, though, at that point). I don't know what else can possibly be done. (just got off the phone with Spectrum confirming that they are not available at my address.)

Just an update for you, @CA3LE, the past few days my speeds have gotten even worse than normal - moreover, they've stopped fluctuating. They're now consistently in the 5-10Mbps range. I've attempted to contact support twice more via email, on the 12th and earlier today, and my emails are still being ignored. The last response I've gotten back was April 12. And as I said, phone hasn't given any better results the one time I actually managed to get through the wait time.

44870. Apart from the Hughesnet and their satellite ilk (tech with inherently, prohibitively high ping for my needs), no. And every time I try looking up Spectrum, I get all excited because it appears to be available until you reach the final step of the quote process where they give you a big 'ol "Sorry! This service is not available at your location!" prompt. It also demonstrates how sad my situation is that I'm wishing for a provider with their own long history of service issue complaints such as Spectrum. Alas, that's where I'm at. Yeah, you'll notice his Twitter is now private. That's my fault. After Buckeye blocked me back in '18, he was the first person I messaged to voice my frustration. Didn't get me any further than I anticipate your email got you. I wholeheartedly appreciate the extra effort on your part, though!!! Been there, done that already. As mentioned in my message before your reply, "I've attempted calling three times since they started ignoring my emails and waited on hold over an hour twice and the one time I did get through I got the same run-around I'd gotten via email." No dice. The only option apart from satellite would be a wifi hotspot on my phone, but those speeds are even worse (see attached) - AND I only get around two or three bars of 4G in my location to boot. I'd love to - but it doesn't make any sense to move from a nearly-unusable connection to a completely-unusable connection. And the days of just living without the internet are rapidly disappearing in our rearview mirror, which I'm sure is news to precisely nobody here. lol.

Bump for @CA3LE... Did you have any other ideas, or am I just pretty much stuck dealing with getting ~6% of the bandwidth I'm paying for roughly 40% of the time? My emails are still being ignored; I remain blocked by their Twitter account where I initially sought help back in September 2018; I've attempted calling three times since they started ignoring my emails and waited on hold over an hour twice and the one time I did get through I got the same run-around I'd gotten via email; and when visiting their office in person, I was informed they don't offer technical support in the office and to call their support number or contact them via email. I'm kind of at the end of my rope, here.

This seems to pretty definitively show that with or without VPN, the same bandwidth drops occur. Which, as I understand it, would eliminate the possibility of shaping/throttling.

Exaaaaactly. Which would be back in September of 2018, when they blocked me on Twitter for asking for help (screenshot attached). I'd call the chances of a credit being somewhere in the neighborhood of "snowball's chance in h-e-double-hockey-sticks." Glad to see someone agrees, though, for sure!! At least tells me I'm not crazy. By ignoring me for eleven days, and after being prodded, replying with the same old song-and-dance they've repeated since this began (other screenshot attached). I figured you weren't. I know how stuff falls through the cracks where message boards are concerned. Have run them myself, and had the same thing happen to me. No worries. I've done so, but only on single, isolated tests. Not in the 5-minute-intervals that I've been testing normally. I'll set something up (barring unforeseen issues) and run those tests via VPN overnight tonight. Any other thoughts or suggestions beyond the unlikely possibility of being throttled/traffic-shaped? Thanks for the responses!

Much appreciated, @CA3LE! Please take as much time as you need, and let me know if you need any further updates or anything else from my end. Thank you in advance!

Emails still being ignored by Buckeye, posts still being ignored here... I guess I should just resign myself to throwing away $200+/mo for speeds I used to get from $12/mo AOL dial-up back in the day, eh? I'm out four grand at this point, going back to when these issues began, for crying out loud. I mean, if somebody here is connected to Buckeye, and that's preventing you from addressing my posts, that's understandable - but it'd be swell if someone would tell me so that I stop wasting my time repeatedly posting in the hopes that eventually I'll have provided enough data that something jumps out at somebody. Anyway... Here's the tests going back to my last post on Wednesday (Thurs, actually, but it won't show more than a thousand tests at a time).

@CA3LE, I've noticed you replying more and more to other threads, so I was wondering if I could possibly get some input on my particular issue...? Going on a month since my first cry for help here (and twenty since my first to my ISP), and I'm no closer to a solution now than when I began. In fact, it feels like it's gotten noticeably worse over the time I've been testing. What was once a drop to ~6Mbps is now a drop to ~600Kbps, what was once a ping spike to ~200ms is now four spikes to ~800ms. Or should I just take this as a sign that I should embrace the Amish way of life?

Another week of frustration, another week of the problem (and my pleas for help) being ignored by Buckeye, another week of running a thousand more tests. Sigh.

Still struggling. Back to getting emails ignored. I guess I should be happy to pay $250/mo for the inability to maintain a connection to, essentially, anything on the internet. Can't stay connected to Skype or Discord calls, can't stay connected to Twitch in order to stream, can't watch Youtube or Netflix without continual buffering... Honestly, I haven't been able to use my internet connection for over a month for anything other than complaining about my internet connection. Still hoping for someone here to have some sort of epiphany that solves - or at the very least, explains - my issues. The past week's tests since my last post:

Finally got them to quit ignoring my emails yesterday, as they had been the previous eleven days. Now they're trying to pass the buck by sending a technician out - while asserting that doing so won't fix the issue - which will presumably run me $50. For obvious reasons, nobody is entering my home until this health scare is over with, so this leaves us back where we started. Any further ideas from anybody here? Or am I just stuck dealing with the real-life version of the South Park cable guys? The email chain, continued (sans attachments):

Must have allowed too much time to pass and can no longer edit, so I apologize for the extra post... But I realized I forgot to include an example of the latency issues I was referring to: (https://testmy.net/latency?tID=l8r7vp3ve1)

Having some major latency issues tonight (which is usually how the problems begin once the weekend hits). Your comments about packet loss made me decide to investigate that side of things. Trying a new tool to ping specific IP's every second and log them. Here's the result, from the first ~100 tests: The Google DNS ping is screaming that there's a problem. However, the fact that it isn't repeated on the other pings seems odd. Granted, #3 is bad and even #4 and #5 are concerning - yet Cloudflare is fine? I think I'll ping each hop on the Google route, and see if that shines a light on a specific point in the route that's creating issues... Unless somebody's got a better idea, anyway. I'll report back with my results. EDIT to add: Wow. Left it running a bit while I posted the above, and after hitting send, this is what it showed. YEEK. EDIT to update: Okay, I ran the specific hops in the Google traceroute... Should I be interpreting this to mean there's just something wrong with 8.8.8.8 at this specific moment, and it's causing me to chase my tail??

I don't typically run that test, either. But it's the one they direct you to use. And if it doesn't show any issues, as far as they're concerned, no issues exist. I'm fairly certain it isn't, either. As I referenced (much) earlier, my traceroute (normal and reverse, via various providers' looking glass utilities) testing leads me to point the finger at Level3, where every bit of my data is routed through upon leaving the Buckeye network. Problem is, I can't address it with Level3 (because I'm not their client), and Buckeye refuses to. There are no appliances whatsoever between where the cable enters my home and the router. Comes in the north wall of the basement, runs along the sill plate about ~20' east, then ~20' south, then up ~10' to my router. The only electrical item anywhere close to nearby is a sump pump ~10' below the cable. I don't believe so. The only splitter was already replaced about a year ago by a Buckeye tech in an attempt to fix this (which they now insist never happened, coincidentally).

That does look incredibly similar... But wouldn't that also show up on a test within the ISP's network? Because my issues only show up as soon as the data leaves the Buckeye network - which is why they're refusing to so much as acknowledge there is an issue, much less do anything about it. For example, my most recent tests. These were performed at the same time - one here: (https://testmy.net/db/qqsHYdzLe) and one on Buckeye's network: (http://buckeyebroadband.speedtestcustom.com/result/4793d4b0-7b42-11ea-a918-afd21c61947b). If it was a signal noise issue, wouldn't it show up at least intermittently on the intranet test as well? Also, my cabling hasn't been touched in a decade (and the router has already been replaced in the hopes of fixing the issue), so if it was anything to do with my wiring, wouldn't it have shown up even longer ago than this? As far as I'm aware, coax cable doesn't degrade over time - or am I mistaken? Also, how would that square with the issue that brought me here in the first place, where my speeds had initially been sustained for hours at a time at low speeds, then hours at a time at high speeds? If it were signal noise, that couldn't have happened, am I right? This, for example: Thank you for your response, @nanobot!

Bumping for a response from @CA3LE or anybody else who might have any ideas. Had a window of no tests because my power supply decided to die on me (and the spare I tried using as a band-aid subsequently died, too). When it rains, it pours. Prior to that, though, this was how the last handful of tests I got looked. Still spiking. I mean, I'll take that as a definite improvement over 12+ straight hours per day at ~4 Mbps, but this still ain't right, y'know?

They can't prevent it (nor am I required to notify them), as Ohio is a one-party state as far as "wiretapping" laws are concerned. The issue comes into play whenever something discussed in a previous conversation is referenced. As far as Buckeye is concerned, if it's not recorded in your account, it doesn't exist. And, as is demonstrated quite clearly in my email correspondence referenced earlier, they refuse to record anything that isn't beneficial to them in a customer's account. I would have, a decade ago at least, if there was any alternative. As I said, they have a monopoly on service in my area. Not according to them. "We do guarantee your speeds to us. Beyond our network we can not do anything about that." "...you are getting your correct speeds to us which is what we guarantee." "...we have no control over what happens with data once it is no longer in our footprint." "...we can guarantee are tests performed at speedtest.bex.net, as that traffic stays entirely on our network. We have no control over internet traffic once it leaves our network." That's the other reason I refuse to deal with them on the phone. I can't justify the health risks of getting that worked up by combative representatives over the phone. The answer can't simply be "talk to their service reps." That not working is what led me here in the first place. They have repeatedly refused to do anything. So, with that in mind, what can I do? Just for reference's sake, here's the graph of my last thousand tests, in case anything might jump out at somebody. And an intranet test, completed just now.

No, they have no "ticket" system. They've refused to allow me to record calls on my end, and I insist on having a record of communications.

Weird. Your ping spike would imply that your issue is intranet, where mine would imply the opposite. But, as I said, my issues go back way further than tonight, so any example I provide may very well be tainted by whatever I'd already had going on. EDIT: I take that back. Again, all I can say is "weird."

Northern Ohio. Traceroutes are doing a little bit of odd stuff, but... They do that, at times. Not sure what to make of it. For instance: