As was foretold, we've added advertisements to the forums! If you have questions, or if you encounter any bugs, please visit this thread: https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/240191/forum-advertisement-faq-and-reports-thread/

TWC, RR - Crisis being averted, thanks.

lollercancerlollercancer Registered User regular
edited August 2007 in Help / Advice Forum
So, me and my friends are sitting around tonight. We, like any red blooded mother fuckers, would like to play DOTA together. Unfortunately, none of us can host a game, not even a 2 on 2. Our pings are currently 450, each... TO EACH OTHER ON THE SAME ISP! One of my friends can't connect to vent, even.

We all use NYC Road Runner Cable Service. Our connections are saturated beyond belief and have been for over three weeks now. This is a recurring problem that makes it impossible for me to play online games for spans of time, which pisses me off because I sometimes buck up and play at a CAL Pro level. Online games are my fucking thing.

FUCK!

I pay 60 dollars a month for advertised speeds of 10 megs down, and 5 up. On a GOOD day, i can break 60 kbps up in real world settings. Those days come rarely. Normally I get 35 up to a single recipient.

Wait, let me predict some responses: Get a new internet service provider!

Well, here's why i've come here. There are 2 isps in my area that have cable connections and one with DSL. IN NEW YORK FUCKING CITY! One is worse than the other. They have a monopoly on the market. They haven't upgraded speeds since I've started on broadband 6 years ago. They keep splitting up bandwitch between us and new customers.

Wait, let me predict a response: Call up the company, customer service is... LOL

You get transfered over again and again. You get sent to one of 5 levels of tech support, none of whom believe that you actually have a problem.

Responses that i've gotten:
"Sorry, we do not provide customer support to people with routers. The router makes your connection slow because you have too many computers, consider upgrading to our business package."
"It is your cable modem. We will send someone by on friday" (LOL, they came... without a cable modem, just a smile and a wink that assured me nothing was wrong.)

I've read tech forums on this, this is a problem that everyone has, especially in Flushing, where I live.

Fuck, what can I do? What can i dooo... :(

lollercancer on

Posts

  • sinnsinn Registered User regular
    edited August 2007
    I'm probably going to regret this... however:

    I'm a level3 tech for TWC, and I work in the NYC division.

    First to correct a few things in your post:

    There aren't 5 levels of support, there are only three. There is level 1: customer service, they deal with tv and billing issues, they'll walk you through simple stuff like resetting the modem, etc. Then you have level 2, the National Helpdesk, this is where most internet issues get resolved. They deal with connectivity, email, etc.. If they can't fix it, or it is outside the scope of their support, it comes to level3. We deal primarily with pc configuration, network/plant issues, and wireless support. We're the last stop, and are often hard to get to due to having to wade through the buckets of bullshit provided by the first two tiers of support. I'm sure you hate them, and guess what? Everyone here hates them too.

    Now a couple more things. I don't know if it was a typo or a misunderstanding on your part, but you most certainly don't pay for a 10mbps/5mbps connection. Standard RR in your area is 10mbps/512kbps. Which if you do the math (512kbps / 8 bits in a byte = 64KBps) or right around the upload speed you're saying you get on a good day.

    It is true that we won't perform much troubleshooting if you're connecting through a router. There are a few reasons for this: The scope of our support is rather limited, we support a direct connection from our equipment to your pc. By adding a 3rd party device such as a router, it makes it much more difficult to pinpoint certain issues. Most of us here in level3 will be more than happy to work around this if we can, whereas the lower tiers will not. It really depends on the tech. We do have some really ridiculous call time requirements to live up to and some people will use a router as an "out" to get you off the phone. With that said, if you're willing to bypass your router for the purposes of troubleshooting, we'll be more than happy to help you out. And believe it or not, quite a lot of the time that WILL resolve a slow connection issue. This of course doesn't mean that your router definitely has anything to do with it. But for the sake of thoroughness it is an avenue to be pursued.

    With all that said (sorry, but I just had to nitpick) there definitely sounds like there is something wrong with your connection just based on ping times alone. I can help you out if you want to PM me with some details. I haven't dealt with residential accounts in a while, dealing mostly with our commercial/enterprise customers. However that gives me access to some of our more advanced monitoring tools, and should hopefully be able to pinpoint your issue.

    sinn on
    He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past.
  • saggiosaggio Registered User regular
    edited August 2007
    Wait, how does having a router between the modem and your computer affect bandwidth in any way?

    saggio on
    3DS: 0232-9436-6893
  • WylderneedshelpWylderneedshelp Registered User regular
    edited August 2007
    Oops. He said uploads.

    Wylderneedshelp on
  • JAEFJAEF Unstoppably Bald Registered User regular
    edited August 2007
    saggio wrote: »
    Wait, how does having a router between the modem and your computer affect bandwidth in any way?
    Routers don't have any tubes in them, so the trucks have no way to get through.

    JAEF on
  • ViolentChemistryViolentChemistry __BANNED USERS regular
    edited August 2007
    saggio wrote: »
    Wait, how does having a router between the modem and your computer affect bandwidth in any way?

    It wouldn't affect bandwidth of the connection from TW. It could easily affect ping and throughput at the PC, however. That's usually easily fixed by resetting the router, though, or even by simply unplugging the power-cord to it for a bit. If you bury your router under dirty laundry as I've seen people do, that doesn't help either.

    ViolentChemistry on
  • sinnsinn Registered User regular
    edited August 2007
    saggio wrote: »
    Wait, how does having a router between the modem and your computer affect bandwidth in any way?

    It shouldn't, and usually won't, but sometimes does. As an example: I can't tell you how many calls we get about "mai internets is slow!" only to find out that mr self-proclaimed "pc tech" is running an unsecure wireless network with half of manhattan connected to it. And he wonders why he gets > 1000ms pings to google.

    That's just one possibility. Other possibilities include a bad port on the router adding noise to the line, which manifests itself as a very high upstream error rate, and can slow a connection to a crawl. We also see this with bad NICs, and bad modems, but routers aren't immune.

    And of course there are just plain faulty routers. Just like any other part of the equation, from cable line, to modem, to pc, sometimes things are just "broke."

    To say that a router, a hardware computing device who's sole purpose is to manage and pass on network data, can't possibly have any effect on network throughput is just silly and naive.

    sinn on
    He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past.
  • lollercancerlollercancer Registered User regular
    edited August 2007
    "Now a couple more things. I don't know if it was a typo or a misunderstanding on your part, but you most certainly don't pay for a 10mbps/5mbps connection. Standard RR in your area is 10mbps/512kbps. Which if you do the math (512kbps / 8 bits in a byte = 64KBps) or right around the upload speed you're saying you get on a good day."

    groovy, but good days come few and far between. maybe one week per month. A typo, yes. But i believe it to be an issue all together that we only get 512 up. No one in the country has 512 up :\

    "The scope of our support is rather limited, we support a direct connection from our equipment to your pc."

    This, i understand. So i offered to disconnect my router for them to do their thing. They hung up on me.

    "This of course doesn't mean that your router definitely has anything to do with it."

    The problem occurs with or without the router, to me and my friends, ESPECIALLY at peak times. times past 5 pm and before 2 am. gee, i wonder why :-\

    "Routers don't have any tubes in them, so the trucks have no way to get through."

    I have the dumptruck attache-tube installed.

    "It could easily affect ping and throughput at the PC, however. That's usually easily fixed by resetting the router, though, or even by simply unplugging the power-cord to it for a bit. If you bury your router under dirty laundry as I've seen people do, that doesn't help either."

    Welll aware.

    "mr self-proclaimed "pc tech" is running an unsecure wireless network with half of manhattan connected to it. And he wonders why he gets > 1000ms pings to google."

    Encrypted / password / limited amount of ips (1 more than the computers I have)

    moreover, my friends have wired routers.

    lollercancer on
  • MalkorMalkor Registered User regular
    edited August 2007
    I'm not sure if TWC operates this way, but next time you call ask for a ticket number. My company and Verizon assigns tickets to customer complaints we get, and that ticket has the name of someone who's ultimately responsible for the resolution of the problem. If you are able to get the ticket number, and things aren't moving fast enough for you, tell them you are going to make a corporate complaint. Armed with that threat and the ticket with an employee's name should help move things faster. But if customer service is hanging up on you when you're trying to help them with troubleshooting then it sounds like it might be time to eplore other options...

    Malkor on
    14271f3c-c765-4e74-92b1-49d7612675f2.jpg
  • KrizKriz Registered User regular
    edited August 2007
    have you asked if they'll give you (or sell you) a router that they support? some ISPs do this, though you might have to pay an extra monthly fee.

    I'm surprised that you can't get fiber in the city yet. what area are you in? I thought I had read that several telecoms had laid fiber optic cabling for NYC.

    and when you speak of gaming, are you hosting games on your own or friend's machines? because most personal-use packages will not support that, and they'll most definetly pick on you and try and sell you the "business" package for that.

    Kriz on
  • lollercancerlollercancer Registered User regular
    edited August 2007
    i'm currently dealing with the problem thanks to someone on the boards, thanks guys!

    lollercancer on
This discussion has been closed.