hey all,
i am a computer consultant, systems engineer/administrator, i however do not work for a cable company and have limited knowledge about specifics for cable fiber technology. however i have a firm grasp on networking.
i have had perfect service from RR(oceanic-timewarner) in hawaii until i moved to a new residence.
the house had never had cable service, so when i got it installed it was fresh from the pole to the house to the cable modem. instantly i had issue with modem rebooting etc. i also have the digital phone service.
checking the scientific-atlantic modem reveals t3 time outs and some OID errors there are a few sync ones etc that seem to coincide with the dropped packets(ie connection dropping)
the reason i am posting is that even being able to understand the problem i have had considerable trouble MAKING them fix it. so long story short: i was able to PROVE my problem over and over so that they cannot deny it.(make them responsible to pay my bill and fix the problem)
after swapping out modems, cables, routers, computers, fresh installs, network cards etc... which was all just for the sake of saying it had been done, since the digital phone was also cutting out. also just to note i dont have cable tv so no splitters amps etc. just pole -> house -> cable modem all lines run by the cable company...
so the first tech gave me an older model modem that was "less sensitive" so that instead of rebooting and all the lights resetting every time there was an issue(sometimes every 2-3 min othertimes not for a day or two) it would just drop the connection then pick it back up a few heartbeats later.
so the biggest symptom is playing a game, everything freezes and either a disconnection or then everything goes fast to catch up... like it froze 3 sec then all comes up to speed. very annoying especially when it should be working great(like i said i had no problems at the other house, which i will note was in another district on the island)
ok so heres the meat:
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start menu > run(or on windows 7 hold the windows key between alt/ctrl and tap R)
type in CMD and hit OK
type: ping -t google.com
hit enter
this will start an endless loop of packets going to google.com; you should notice that when the internet is idling there should be a consistent stream of packets flowing in at a similar millisecond(ms) value... ie mines 55ms-66ms with an idle connection.(note: im in hawaii yours should be lower)
so now, i goto the speedtest page for oceanic time warner(speedtest.oceanic.com) your ISP might have something similar, its good to use your own ISP's so that you can truly flood the internet connection to its max vs maybe being bottle necked on some internet router outside of your ISP which might not prove the problem...
ok so anyways i run 2 tests at the same time... one to speedtest.oceanic.com and the other to speedtest.net
now i watch my ping test and see the milliseconds start to go all over the place, then eventually packets are lost indicated by the "request timed out" message
also i can note that there is a pause in the speedtest indicator.
so i had a t2 tech support guy on the phone watching my modem while i was doing this and he was able to see that the signal to noise ratio was going out of spec.
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i got the modem last december 2009. its now november 2010 and i still have the problem. i felt bad for the techs for awhile because it was hard to replicate the problem, but i still knew there was a problem, can hear static/cutouts on the digital phone, game lags, dropped packets etc... but they where still trying to dodge the bullet... i gave them the benefit of the doubt; told the tech i hoped they'd find the problem in their system since they said it wasnt at my house and stopped calling to complain.
time goes by, same problem, getting pissed off trying to use the internet service i pay for and its constantly a hassle. I charge my clients 65$/hr to troubleshoot problems for them, considering how much ive spent on my own personal problem its troubling for me to recommend their service to anyone else even though ive had it for the last 8 years at other homes with no problems.....
so the only thing they havent done on my house is replace the faceplate on the telephone pole, re-run the line to the house and re-run the line to the cable modem. otherwise they have some fked up setting in their system that needs to be addressed. i feel bad for the people without the techincal experience to pin it to these corporate hogs so here you go; hope it helps!
btw, they have told me that i can get a refund from the first time i called to complain, ie january of this year since they refunded december right off the bat because the service was blatantly broken($600 to stand up for what is right. but i still have to fight them for it)
good luck
-themeONE
ps just some basic info:
most cable modems can be accessed at
http://192.168.100.1 and there is a log file that can be helpful, especially to show that its not YOUR equipment with a problem. also it should have the signal specs.
i had lots of techs come up but they never saw the specs fluctuate on the modem, mostly because it was idle while i was on the phone complaining.
from what ive read on the net your cable modem should be within these specs:
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downstream power: -15dbmV to +15dbmV
upstream power: 30dbmV to 53 dbmV
signal to noise ratio(SNR): 33db or more
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