For Techies

[barb1590]

I should have posted this here instead of what's on my mind. Sorry.I recently switched my service provider from At&t to rcn for cable tv, phones and high speed internet. When I had at&t my connection was extremely fast, like lightening pretty much all of the time. Supposedly, rcn is even faster, and it is pretty quick when I first start out in the AM. After a while, it slows to a crawl and my pages don't seem to want to load. They saidi t may be that my house is too far away from where their contact point is and that the cable is too long. They also said that they had too many tvs hooked up to the same line that my internet is hooked up to, so they ran a second cable to my house and split the tvs up.
Didn't help.
It just doesn't make sense that sometimes it's fast and sometimes it isn't. They are coming to check my modem tomorrow, but I don't think that's the problem. When they ping my computer from their office, they get nothing and they said my
signal is very low. I have two computers connected to a router but again, had no problems with At&t. I don't feel that's the problem either.
Appreciate any help.
Barb

[Shake-Man]

Barb, first off, I envy you and hate you for livng in a civilized area and for having cable internet. But I've got some of the same people showing up for family reunions for both sides of my family, so I've got you beat. Now who's green with envy?

Anyway, considering you had no problem with your system when you had AT&T, and the hookup configuration is basically the same, I feel pretty confident in guessing that the problem is not on your end. I sometimes believe that tech support training school or whatever makes it a point to teach their trainees to blame the customer first for these types of things. It seems to be true in anything computer related. They basically pass the buck in hopes that the customer will either fix the problem, forget about it, or give up. That may not be the case here, but it is pretty common.

From what little I understand about cable internet, the bandwidth is basically shared by all users in a certain area. Therefore, when everybody gets online to download Jennifer Love Hewitt pictures at the same time, performance is going to suffer dramatically. That sounds like that might be the case since you only find the speed slow at certain times. It might be that RCN is simply has more users in your area than AT&T did, leaving you with crappy, shared bandwidth. Or it could be that RCN has some sort of hardware problem on their end or somewhere along the "line" to your house.

Whatever it is, don't give up until they fix it. I hope they find out what's going on soon. I feel bad with you envying me and stuff.

[Tartallini]

I just got cable this month and I love the speed, but I do get a slow connection at peak usage times... evenings mainly. This may be part of the problem for you too. Can you get a faster connection at 10am verus 10pm?

Good luck!
Andrea

[gcomstock]

http://www.dslreports.com

If they don't fix your problem tomorrow...or even if they do, you can sign up for free at this site, and run speed tests, keep a record of the results, and compare them to other folks in your area, with your ISP, etc.

http://www.dslreports.com/tools

Shakeman is right about tech support in general. The one time Mediaone had an area wide problem, it persisted for over 8 hours before the 800 number guys had a clue. Their internal communication was terrible...I was reading a ton of gripes on usenet and message boards from people all over California before the tech support 1st and 2nd tier guys got any heads up from their field engineers.

AT&T's Worldnet (dial-up) has what I consider the most effective approach to customer service: in addition to the usual email / telephone support, their proprietary message boards are outstanding. They have dozens of them, and Forum Assistants respond very promptly to issues 24 hours.

[booboo]

This is the worst company I have ever dealt with in my life!!!! I switched my phone service to them before I switched all. The bottom line...I had no long distance for three weeks, and they couldn't tell me why. I'm just glad I switched back to Ameritech. It may have been that they entered a market that they weren't prepared to support, but they pissed me off. I have to say I enjoy when they call me to pitch their service because I let them have it with my story; they have no come back. I really think deregulation let in schmucks like RCN. OK, this has nothing with cable internet, but I think it speaks of the company.

[barb1590]

Thanks for the help. I have to admit that RCN is really trying. Had someone here looking at the modem. He put something on the back, said my signal was too strong- who knows, I'll keep after them until it's corrected. Works well right now.
Barb

[Annie]

We've had cable modem since late Dec. Loved it at first and then the problem's came. Couldn't get on at all for day's at a time. Customer support sucked big time, we have Charter One. They finally gave us a different modem and last month a Service Tech. came out and told my husband the server's couldn't handle the load in our area. They upgraded them last month. I'm hoping from now on we will not have any more problem's, so far so good.
The last two bill's I've paid I deducted a percentage from since we've only got part-time usage. Basically noted on the bill since our connection only work's part of the time I wouldn't pay the whole bill. Never heard anything from them about the bill.
I hope your's work's out for you!

Take care,

Anne

[barb1590]

Thanks Anne, someone is here whever I call, but noone can really diagose the problem. I think it's overload in my area too.
Barb

[Balayeur]

Our svc, Cox, had a few kinks to work out in the beginning....&....gave all customers $20 GC to Barnes/Noble, ( which I thought was a great good will gesture.)

Hope you all get everything worked out; good luck!

[barb1590]

I hope I do too, because I would hate to have to change back- I've entered too many sweeps with this new email!
Thanks.
Barb

[Balayeur]

I've been wondering about my new e-mail also.....I entered lots of sweeps (which are going to be announced soon)....&....I've pretty much forgotten about those --unless those sponsors/contests notify by phone or mail !


Balayeur

[barb1590]

I hear you- I was very upset I had to change emails- my former at&t which was previously mediaone was making us chage our email address so i just decided to change providers altogether because the new one offers much more for TV for the money. it seems to be working fast today.
Thank you.

[gcomstock]

All technical discussion aside...

...this ISP name changing is sure another good reason to use a "virtual" email addy for sweeping.

[barb1590]

No question about it George, you are absolutely correct!
Barb

[Balayeur]

I've totally written off many sweeps...sure my e-mail would bounce right back to the sponsor. I'm not going to worry about it!
Be advised.