Awful router or Awful ISP?

Squatfurd

I'm leaning toward our ISP has just been bending us over a barrel on this one.

We live out in the country, and we have a canopy service by a local ISP. Our service varies greatly from time to time. I know that we're in the low end of what's avaliable, but this is disgustingly slow, and has been for some time. At times there is no service, even though I have excellent wireless reception. I'm forced to restart the router every 5 minutes, before my internet dies and I have to trudge to the other building and reset it. (which doesn't always fix the problem, even momentarily) A member of my family pays for it, so he's the one who calls and bitches at them every time it gets unbearable, but it enivetibaly gets unbearable again soon. (or doesn't improve at all)

or other times, no sites will load at all. I'm getting nothing, I try to troubleshoot and it says that nothing is wrong.

I've tried to search for solutions to the problem, all I find are very different problems. I don't know what the hell to do, but this has gone on for far too long. It's affecting my school and social life. Are these people offering a service that they can't provide? Can I go to their physical building and physically make them get off of their fucking asses? Do I switch providers?

I feel as though our ignorance is being taken advantage of, even though we know that something is awfully wrong here, no one on the other end of the phone has been able to tell us anything other than "yes sir, we'll get right on it sir!" or "well there's nothing wrong on our end sir" and then nothing ever fucking changes.

Squatfurd

YOUR WIRELESS NETWORK IS CURRENTLY LOST, AND THE EXTENDER IS NOW TRYING TO BRING IT BACK. THE POSSIBLE CAUSE OF THE BAD CONNECTION MAY BE

The settings of upstream AP is changed.

IN THE MEAN TIME, PLEASE ALSO CHECK WITH YOUR ROUTER APPLICATION SETTINGS.

Continue.

404. not found.

see317

Do you have any other options available, as far as ISPs go?

Cause it sound like you're getting dicked around by your ISP, and generally ISPs will happily do that when they know you don't have any reliable alternatives.
I mean, if you (or whoever pays for the service) have gone back and forth with the ISP already, and still aren't getting results, it's time to look for a different ISP. Ideally an ISP that will provide a modem and router for you so that when/if the network futzes up again, the call to the new ISP can go "Your equipment isn't working, fix it" and they don't get to say "Sorry, it's your equipment that's not working". It'll be more expensive to lease or buy from the ISP, but it can, on occasion, save some headaches.

Squatfurd

Thanks See. I'll look into other options. as far as I know at this point I'm remote enough that the only other thing i can do is get a hotspot from a phone for which one must pay through the nose.

Squatfurd

I'm a very patient man, and I don't want to be a jerk. If I only think I've been fucked around the whole time I don't want to go in there and cause a giant fucking stink because of something that I could have fixed at my end. Which is why I haven't pushed the issue. At this point, the problem absolutely needs to be solved. If I need to go in there and have a confrontation, I'm gonna have one hell of a confrontation. I am meek and overly considerate to a fault, but once I know for sure that i've been getting dicked over for a long time... I will conform to the standard mega-asshole that society has put before us.

bowen

I'm trying to understand your network topology here. Do you have a building to building wireless backhaul system going on (you mentioned having to go somewhere else to reset something)?

Or is this straight up satellite type dish that captures cell signal?

If it is what I think it is, you're probably being beholden to the natures of cell phone based internet.

I would look into other options here, what you're probably describing isn't really 'slow' like most people would describe, but a symptom of limitations of the network. So while something like 4G can support a lot of download bandwidth, the time it takes to get from point A to point B causes enough latency to completely destroy the service's benefits in general.

Let me know if I'm off base with what I think is going on here. And yes, I would switch ISPs if there's an option. I've found a lot of these companies upsell you based on total bandwidth rather than latency (lag) you'll get with their service.

DSL and Cable internet would be better, even if they give less bandwidth.

Tofystedeth

I think @Thawmus works setting up rural wireless networks and might have some info.

davidsdurions

Asked nearest neighbors what they use for Internet?

Hevach

If you gut everything back to bare minimum, just plug the first usable wire straight into a PC, how does that work? If this works, a new router is in order, you can basically put that where the PC was during the test and base your network off that. If the problem persists with that setup, then there's nothing left that the ISP can say is wrong outside of their stuff.

I've run into problems like you describe with Pace routers that ATT loves to use - their wireless is beyond garbage, but their wired is just ok. Usually getting your own wireless router and disabling theirs fixes those. Sounds like you don't have ATT, but if you happen to see any Pace stickers on anything, that might be a lead.


I'm willing to bet your internet itself is just junk all the way back to the box, but you can take these steps to confirm that and hopefully back your ISP into a corner.


Also, a tip for dealing with tech support: For persistent, repeat problems, don't deal with the first person who picks up the phone. They've probably got about as much technical knowledge as your average grandmother and are just walking you through canned procedures on their computer screen. In fact, if they DO have technical knowledge, they literally might not be allowed to use it and deviate from those procedures. Make clear it's a persistent problem that you've dealt with before and ask for escalation. They might still walk you through some stuff first, cooperate and don't get belligerent, but after each step, remind them you've been through it all before, and tell them what happened on previous calls before it happens this time.

Eventually they'll usually escalate you, unless the company is so awful they just plain don't allow that, which isn't unheard of, but is a good sigh of a garbage company.

Captain Tragedy

Yeah, I agree with Hevach - if possible, remove everything between you and your connection and try running it with the Internet plugged directly into a desktop/laptop for awhile and see if you still have the same problems. It could just be the ISP, but dealing with various routers, extenders, separate buildings, etc. complicates things (the "other building" comment sent up a bit of a red flag that it could just be a distance/wireless signal strength issue). Either you'll find out it's your equipment, or you'll be able to say to your isp "we have nothing between our pc and your connection and we have the same problems, get someone out here" (or at least get them to admit that it's a problem they can't fix because the service sucks).

Psychotic One

Yeah. When ever possible eliminate as many factors as possible. To prove to my ISP when I think their service is going out, I would plug the laptop directly into the modem by Ethernet and run a speedtest. They have a hard time blaming you and your router when the only thing connected is a modem and computer.

Feral

I'm with Bowen. It's hard to know where the problem is based on your description.

All I can gather is that you have Canopy wireless service, but it is unclear exactly what you are resetting or restarting or even how many pieces of network equipment you have.

Do you have an aftermarket router (say, a Linksys or a Netgear) which is connected by a network cable to a Canopy receiver...
...or did your ISP give you an integrated receiver+router?

When you say "I'm forced to restart the router every 5 minutes, before my internet dies and I have to trudge to the other building and reset it." What are you resetting when you trudge to the other building? A Canopy receiver?

Makes and models of hardware would be helpful to clarify things.

Captain Tragedy

Yeah, a bit more info on the setup would be helpful. I assumed based on your descriptions that you have the Canopy radio's Ethernet plugged into a wireless router in one building, and then have a wireless extender in another building? If this is true, are the problems that you're having occur on computers/devices on the wireless extender's connection only, or do they also occur for computers/devices connected to the wireless router's signal?

Squatfurd

Thanks for the help everyone. I was spring breaking, came back, there's a new router and the connection problems have ceased.

MightyBlackBird

Squatfurd wrote: »

Thanks for the help everyone. I was spring breaking, came back, there's a new router and the connection problems have ceased.

So what exactly resolved your issue ? A new Modem ?

I have a Linksys 6400 wifi extender connected to ISP modem and had the same error: The settings of upstream AP is changed.
Internet was working fine for a day until this, then i pressed OK, and it established internet connection again.

What causes this issue ?

Fiendishrabbit

For future problems like this. If you want to know if it's your router being shitty or your ISP, use the "tracert" command (trace route). Type "tracert 8.8.8.8" (that's googles IP-adress, you can substitute it for pretty much any top tier adress) in cmd and see where the delays are. The first adress is your router and most likely only the final 2-3 hops are on the main internet backbone. The rest of the adresses belong to your ISP.

Typically a shitty router will show up as very high initial delays in connecting to your router and/or intermittent high pings for individual packets, while shitty ISP will typically show up as consistent bad pings at one or several steps of the ISP owned adresses. Repeat this diagnostic whenever your feel like your internet is bogging down and see what kind of pattern emerges.