Anyone else with "Con"cast problems?

[NotMyBest2Day]

Comcast has been giving me a lot of problems lately. At least once a day, the connection will drop. Modem is still connected, the lights are like they always are, but there is no connection to the internet. Sometimes it's only a couple of seconds, and sometimes, like now, it's been an hour and counting. At first I thought it was the DNS problem again, so I put in the fail-proof DNS addresses and that didn't change anything.

I was talking to my friend online and they were b!tching at their computer since it always messes up, and after they said something about AIM being a POS again, I got kicked off mine, too. That's when I realized it wasn't just me. I'm using a different friend's Bellsouth.net login and pw for dial-up. Ugh, I hate it.

Finally, it's sort of back. So, I'll finish this up and get off the phoneline. Anybody else having CONcast problems? ::chants:: C'mon Verizon FiOS, come to my city!

[PCgeek]

Optimum Pwnz

[omga14]

sorry to hear that but may i suggest you somehow take the file that downloads aol for you and burn it to a disc. now set up some candles in your attic if you have one or somewhere real dark. draw a pentagram on the ground and place the disc in the center. get some 151 rum and pour it on top. light that sucker on fire and pray for the demons to take their prize back to hell.

i guess you can tell i don't like aol. well, i can tell you that there is no way you could ever know my despise/hatred for it.

[Ominous Gamer]

sorry to hear that but may i suggest you somehow take the file that downloads aol for you and burn it to a disc. now set up some candles in your attic if you have one or somewhere real dark. draw a pentagram on the ground and place the disc in the center. get some 151 rum and pour it on top. light that sucker on fire and pray for the demons to take their prize back to hell.

i guess you can tell i don't like aol. well, i can tell you that there is no way you could ever know my despise/hatred for it.

You realize this had nothing to do with the thread?

[Stone Fox]

You realize this had nothing to do with the thread?

Well, no, it doesn't. Bad someone needed to say it, somewhere!

[Nova]

i got the same problem.

[omga14]

in the begining i wished him better luck as i was sorry to hear of his problem. i was just hoping to spread the word of aol's banishment back to hell.

on topic, is there any other service provider you might be able to switch to. i know that in many a city there are 2-5 different providers but you can only have one of em' depending on where you live in the city or county.

[NotMyBest2Day]

Personally, I have nothing against/wrong with AOL. Actually, no, that's not the truth. I would be happy with AOL if the installation process had an "expert mode." That way I could not install half of the BS that comes with it, namely PortMagic. I go back and uninstall all that crap anyways, but it's just a pain to have to do that. Other than that, I like having email, IMs, AOLRadio, and very limited web browsing all in one place. The only browsing I do within AOL is basically only LiveJournal. I made an account so I could be on friends-only journals, but I haven't made a single entry of my own.

There is only one other broadband option in my area, and that is Bellsouth DSL. It's $3/mo more than what I'm paying for Concast, and instead of 4.0/384, it's only 1.5/512 (512/128 guaranteed). Sorry, that's just a wee bit too slow for me. I'll keep fighting the battle and hope for FiOS.

RAWR!

[Nova]

You realize this had nothing to do with the thread?

you realize only about 50% of posts actually have anything to do with the thread, and after the first page that number drops by 1/2 every page.

[AzN]

I dont ahve problems. is it cable or wireless comcast? i run a wire so i dont get any thing bad. my sis' wireless is a pian though.

[NotMyBest2Day]

I wouldn't go with wireless if that was the only form of communication. I'd just go without communication. I'm 100% wired. I don't know what my ping times are now, but four years ago when I got cable, my ping was always less than 50ms. A friend of mine was about a mile away on a map (who knows how far it is with the infrastructure though) and between us, our ping was between 15-27ms. If somebody wants to ping me with the command prompt, PM me and I'll change a few settings in the router and we can test it.

[Nova]

Piece of f*CKING SH!T. seriously comcast just went nuts on me in the past few days. i can't play CS:S without lagging up the game to the point where it crashes. i can't play any online game. i can't dl sh1t, and it takes forever to do anything. ontop of that i just LOVE when i'm in the middle of a game and it just stops, every F*cking 20 min.

[NotMyBest2Day]

Yeah, I've been dealing with that, too. When it sort of works, it takes longer for this forum to load than it does on dial-up. I DLed a file last night and it started off at 500bytes/sec and then eventually sped up to 145k/sec, but by the time it got close to there, it was done DLing.

Is FiOS available where you are, Nova? I know it's in Tampa, but I don't know if it's even in Miami, or in your part of the 'hood. I'd switch ASAFP. I was told when I called Verizon up, that you have to get landline through them, too, in order to get the DSL, which is fine by me.

[Nova]

i have no idea, the dsl place here has just been built and they din't start opening the stores yet. i'll check whenever i can. man miami so nothing close to the "hood" this place is paradise compared to detroit.

[NotMyBest2Day]

I called Verizon up a few weeks ago and asked if it was available here yet, and I already knew it was a "no", but I got put on a notify list for when it is. You should do that, too.

[edit: [insert several handfuls of profanity here] Ugh. So. F'n. Frustrating. ::stabs Concast's connection to the Internet:: Die! Die! Die! RAWR!]

[NotMyBest2Day]

I just emailed Concast and b!tched.

For the past two months, I've been having one problem many times and as the days go on, the problem gets worse. At first I thought it was the DNS crisis you guys had a short while back, so I used a DNS server that I used during that crisis and that didn't fix the problem. My problem is not with DNS, it is with actual data transfer. Sometimes at any time of the day, but mostly at night, including very late at night, the modem will still be connected, but it's like I have it unplugged. Nothing that uses the internet works at all. This problem ranges from a few seconds to several hours.

It is to the point now where I'm having about 20% downtime per day. I am on the server ladson01.sc**********cast.net, which was the closest server four years ago, but now there is goosck01 and I believe 02, and a friend of mine that's not too far away is on hsd1.sc**********cast.net. Through doing my own detective work, I have discovered that the problem I am having is not localized to being just me. I know of several people in the Charleston area that are having the same problems and even a few people in Florida that are having the same problems.

I have been using dial-up as an alternative when the connection starts acting up and honestly, dial-up works better and faster than my broadband internet. It's a good thing I haven't gotten Vonage yet, otherwise I'd be up the creek for having a phone, too. When Verizon comes to the area, I'm getting DSL through them, but if these problems I'm having with Comcast go away soon, I might change my mind.

It was hard to keep it free of profanity, but I'm pretty sure I got my point across.

RAWR! ::goes outside for a smoke::

[NotMyBest2Day]

I got a reply back from them last night, and as usual, "it's just a problem with you." My Mum and I were talking about it last night about how companies just don't want to come out and admit they have a problem, instead they try to figure out something to blame it on instead of just fixing it and apologizing.

Anyways, they told me to run a power cycle my modem, so I did that, and it didn't do a damn thing, and in the response, the lady said that she ran a test and it seems just fine, but if the problem wasn't happening when she ran the test, then they can't tell there's a problem. So I was having the problem again and called tech support and got them to run a diagnostic (which is just using the command prompt and doing the 'ping [ip address] -n 100' (ping it 100 times), and I scored a 41% packet loss. ( Yaaaay!!! ) He said that company policy is 5% or less is considered normal, any more than that and having a technician come out is highly recommended.

So I've got a technician coming out Monday afternoon (1-5pm..Halloween). I'm pretty sure that the problem is somewhere between me and the server (ladson01.sc**********cast.net). The lights are all on, the modem is connected, and the data light flickers like it always does when it's idle, but there's no data transfer. I told the tech support guy that and he asked me to explain, so I explained and he agreed that "there's definately something big wrong here.." I'm pretty sure it's the actual server itself, but the technician will figure it out.

[NotMyBest2Day]

I've figured out some of the problem. The cable that goes from the box to the side of my house is damaged. It's underground, and goes next to my driveway and a 4 foot square of cement that is the lid for a storm-drain junction. I park next to he driveway and drive over the block all the time, so the cable has gotten pinched and breached.

Today and this evening have been fine. Which led me to realize that it hasn't rained in a few days, and I haven't moved my truck in a few days, so the ground has dried out and the cable is fine. My brother calls himself a locksmith and has a key to get into the green fibreglass box, so we opened it up and put our own temporary cable from the box to the Point of Presence on the side of the house, and half the channels were still fuzzy, so it's a problem with their system, too.

[/daily update]

[NotMyBest2Day]

Should be the last time I post. The technician came out today and of course "there doesn't seem to be anything wrong." But I showed him where the cable runs outside to the box and since I already had the trench dug with the conduit run, too, he decided to just replace the "drop" from "tap" to house. We were talking all this technical stuff and I think we both learned a little bit. I was telling him about how I've noticed that there's a bad backbone somewhere between east coast and west coast.

He went to dslreports and went to run a test and I told him that I can't get more than 1.5mbit on any of the test servers they list.

Me>"I found a Speakeasy server in Atlanta and I can get 4.5mbit from that consistently. All day every day. Servers in the central plains are about the same, but it seems to be a backbone that goes across the Rockies that drops it down to 1.5mbit."

Tech>"Hmm. Well you know all these companies say they have 6mbit and 5mbit and all of that, but that's a maximum and only from you to their backbone. After that it's out of their hands."

Me>"Yeah. I was on dslreports this morning and saw that there are Comcast customers that get 10-15mbit and even a few that get almost 40."

Tech>"I don't know where those are.."

Me>"The 10-15's were in Virginia, and the 40's were out of Oregon. I just didn't think the network was supposed to go that fast. The commercials all say 'up to 6 megs' and quite a few people are reporting that they're supposed to be getting 8.0/768 and they end up pulling two and three times the downstream. *shrug* Just curious."

Later on he went on to tell me that I wouldn't be able to get much more than the 4 megs I'm getting now since my neighborhood is "old copper" and I told him that I know somebody downtown (The Historic Downtown Charleston) is only still getting 1.5mbit, but that's really old copper down there.

But anywho, he told me that I've got the "safest" drop in the neighborhood 'cause of the conduit.

Page of pictures and breif comments

[NotMyBest2Day]

Well I just had a 15-minute dead spot, and it actually caused the modem to reset this time. Called the tech support system and had to go through it THREE times because the first two times when they went to pick up and answer, it would hang up on me. I was about to call the cell of the tech that came out earlier, but the third time it worked, and it sounded like some lady in Singapore. And of course, I have to wait a F'N WEEK for a tech to come out again and go "there's nothing wrong." I want them to come out and replace the trunk line. There's something wrong with it between me and the server. ::head explodes::