Can't tell if throttling or something else going on...

[bwells794]

Long story short, it's been about a week now that I've noticed high home latency in games and I cant even watch short low rez youtube videos without it stopping to buffer. I'm hardwired to the router and I have tried uninstalling and reinstalling the latested LAN driver and same thing happens. Throttling is one thing, but making the service unusable during the only hours I'm at home to use the service that I pay for is beyond infuriating and there are no options other than Comcast where I live (monopoly much?). Also, it's not just Youtube, it extends to any streamed video. Any ideas what might be going on?

 

[jrrdmchls]

Have you ran a speed test? How old is coaxial wire coming into the house? Do you have any coaxial splitters before the cable enters your router? You could have a bad splitter could be old wiring the best case scenario is for you to call Comcast and have them tell you whats wrong.

 

[bill001g]

Run speedtest and see how stable the graph is. You are not looking so much for the average rate but how consistent the rate is. You can also try simple ping commands to say 8.8.8.8. What you are looking for is data loss and maybe large variations in the delays.

It sounds like you have a issue with the connection to your house. Could be as simple as water got into some connection. If your modem has the a good display it should show you the db rates both up and down. The exact "good" values depend on what type of service you ISP has. You will find it with a simple google search and I will not attempt to replicate that data here.

I suspect you best option is to call the ISP and have them come out and test the line. Generally they don't charge unless it is your equipment.

 

[bwells794]

I actually had Comcast come out about 2 months ago and he replaced a lot of stuff that was theirs and it seemed like it fixed the issue. Now I'm having trouble again. My room mate in the other room just replicated the issue on a 1080p video on Youtube and I'm having the same issue on both my desktop PC (hardwired) and MacBook Pro (wireless). Speedtest.net came back with 51.47mbps down and it was a flat line, no mountain ranges.

 

[lycros]

Do you have access to your router? Check to see if there is any bandwidth throttling enabled.

 

[bwells794]

I wound up calling comcast at about 9:50pm last night and complained to them until a miraculous thing happened at 10:01... everything went back to normal. Funny how peak hours end and I am able to do anything i want with no issues. I told them this is unacceptable. i work 8-5 and am in bed by 10:30-11pm. I can't pay for a service that doesn't work during the only hours i have available to use it. They comped me a free month which was nice but i talked with the reps supervisor and he stated that he was going to look into what he could do about this and call me back sometime today because he agreed that this cannot carry on with me paying my bill and then it getting adjusted every month. A tech is coming out again for the second time on Monday but he Isn't going to find anything because the issue Isn't on my end. I'll keep my fingers crossed.

 

[marko55]

Hate to say this but your hands may be tied. Its the nature of residential cable service. You're on a shared cable segment and "off hours" is when everyone on your street, or in your neighborhood, is streaming all their shows and playing games and downloading god knows what. Unfortunately you're all on the same segment to Comcast's core and you're sharing it.

If you were to order business class then the bandwidth you order is dedicated to you, but you pay for it... This is where FIOS is so great as your bandwidth is dedicated due to the nature of ethernet.

Cable is "sort of" a monopoly as in EVERY area, only one cable company has land rights and can be run there. So you won't find Time Warner and Comcast available in the same location (at least the VAST majority of the time). Where this is NOT a monopoly is they're not always the only ISP available, as many cities have local ISPs, WISPs, FIOS, DSL, etc available.

So, the best solution might be to gang up with enough people in your immediate area to have them all call comcast repeatedly, every time they feel a slowdown. If enough calls come in they might upgrade your segment and widen the pipe.