Question How can I monitor my internet connection?

[Ic3Shafter]

Hi guys,

I’m in a pickle right now. The internet connection at my place isn’t the best. It keeps on dropping at random, and the speeds are fluctuating.
For now, I only have my phone, and laptop connected to the network, but soon I will be having TVs, more phones, another laptop and a desktop connected to it. So surely it will only get worse.

The ISP is one of the worst in my region, and since it’s a rented flat, the landlord could not care less for switching to a decent provider. So I need to somehow monitor the delays, connection, speeds and stability overall. What’s the best software tool for this? So I log this sort of data and provide actual proof that the this needs to be sorted out.
Thanks.

 

[bill001g]

Simple ping command is likely the simplest to start with. Just leave a continuous ping run to say 8.8.8.8.

Your problem is going to be when you do not control the router it will be hard to eliminate a lot of the sources. Could be for example the total combination of all the devices in your house exceed the bandwidth you get from your provider.
Also if your connections are all via wifi it can be wifi interference causing all these issues and wifi interference is almost impossible to solve other than to not use wifi.

 

[Ic3Shafter]

Simple ping command is likely the simplest to start with. Just leave a continuous ping run to say 8.8.8.8.

Your problem is going to be when you do not control the router it will be hard to eliminate a lot of the sources. Could be for example the total combination of all the devices in your house exceed the bandwidth you get from your provider.
Also if your connections are all via wifi it can be wifi interference causing all these issues and wifi interference is almost impossible to solve other than to not use wifi.

Thanks! Well, I do have some control over the router, as in I am able to log into it and change some settings, bu they are fairly limited. The router is a don CH7465VF.
It’s unfortunate that I have to use the router from the provider, since it’s a coax connection…
And the main is issue I think it’s due to the actual infrastructure that the ISP has. Everyone in the city who has this ISP encounters large stability issues.

 

[bill001g]

So lots of people complain and the ISP just laughs and says we don't care because you have no option to get good internet from anyone else.

Not sure how you fix something like that. I know a small city tried to force a ISP to upgrade their network and the ISP just went out of business and abandoned the network. Took them a couple years to get another ISP to come in.

If the ISP would help you can do things like look at the signal levels in the router. Ping is still a good test but you would need to ping the ISP first router. It most time tends to be some loose cable or some cable that maybe has water in it. All stuff the ISP has to come out and test for.

If the problem is the network is overloaded either in the cable segments going to people houses or the connection between your ISP and other ISP these cost lots of money to upgrade. Most times a ISP will never admit these problems.
It was surprising how much more stable the cable company near my house got when another ISP ran fiber to all the houses. Now that people can actually cancel their service and have a second high speed ISP they seem to take customer complaints more serious.