Strange problem (higher speeds but lower quality)

[ZickZJ]

Ok, this one has me stumped.
I've got Charter cable 5MB service and for the past 5-6 years I've always got a pretty consistant 4.5-5Mbps download speed. (Just using speedtest.net). Never had any problems playing online games or watching videos via Hulu, Netflix, etc.
Starting last week Wed, my Internet started bogging down bigtime. On wireless laptops I couldn't even bring up webpages. I ran a speed test on the laptops and was only getting about .5-1Mbps download.
So I decided to check my desktop and found it was getting anywhere from 8Mbps to 20+Mbps download speeds. Whoo, I thought no way this is great right? Nope, I tried playing some online games and my connection was terrible. My ping was all over the place and kept losing connection.

I've tested this on 3 different machines and removed my router so it was just a straight connection through the cable modem but I still get extremely higher speeds on the tests but the quality of the connection is terrible. I can't watch any online videos hardly without them buffering all the time.

I called Charter and they were completely useless (figured as much). They just keep having me do the same speed tests that I ran and because it showed the speeds were higher than what I was paying for, they said everything is great. I tried to explain to them that even though the speeds were higher than normal the connection was extremely unreliable. They just kept saying that they couldn't lower my speed They just couldn't get it through their heads that the speed didn't matter!
I worked my way through two help desk reps and even spoke to their manager. How the hell do you get past the idiots at the help desk and get to talk to someone who knows what the hell their talking about.

Even my neighbor across the street was showing the same higher speeds too.
We did just have a big snow storm the day before this happens and when I called a couple days later Charter said there was a service problem in my area and that they were working on it. Well it's the next week and my problem still exists.

My cable modem is showing these in the even log. Not really sure what they mean though.
R02.0 Critical No Ranging response received - T3 time-out
R03.0 Critical Ranging requests retries exhausted
D04.01 Warning ToD request sent - No response received

 

[piasabird]

I dont have that problem with DSL (Use faster Speed).

Charter has lousy customer service, and I have always found that their connection was intermittent. Yes, they are clueless, and even their TV programming sucks. Generally most TV programming is kind of lousy unless you pay for all the High-end Programming. I am watching Online stuff more than TV quite a bit. If you watch streaming TV programs on the Internet, you have to have a steady signal.

 

[JackMDS]

DSL is very steady because it is delivered on an individual line.

As a result it always works at the max that is "pushed" into the Dslam minus the line's quality loses.

That translate almost always to less of what your contract calls for, but as long as the line do not deteriorate it stays the same.

My DSL contract is for 7 Mb/sec. and I get solid 6.3Mb/sec. (the lines in my neighborhood are not in a good shape).

Cable is delivered though lines that are shared by many customers. The final Speed is a combo of many variable some that can not be easlycontroled by the ISP.

In order to compensate for the variation, some Cable ISPs "Pumping" into the lines higher Bandwidth.

Being in NYC my Cable Internet "Speed" can go up to 30MB/sec. during the middle of the night when very few people using it, and down to 15Mb/sec. in the middle of the day.

However even at it worse it is a little more than what my contract is calling for.

Since I am Not the type of person that looks for excuses to complain, I understand the current practical technological constrains and I am OK with both my DSL and cable services.

 

[ZickZJ]

I understand the whole cable sharing but for the last 6 years my connection speed has been very stable always testing out between 4-5 Mbps. What I'm not understanding is why now all of a sudden my speed skyrocketed up to 8-18Mbps and shouldn't web browsing, streaming video, etc be better & faster? Cause its not.

 

[ZickZJ]

I wounder if my cable modem took a hit during the last snow storm. We had a lot of trees/branches come down and a lot of people in my neighborhood lost power and I noticed a few power spikes or power loss in our house where the lights went off for a second. I haven't put in a surge protector yet unfortunatle.

 

[SirGeeO]

speed does nothing when you factor in poor latency

 

[ZickZJ]

Who said anything about poor latency, my latency is 26ms.

 

[SirGeeO]

My ping was all over the place and kept losing connection.

<--my poor judgement....I thought the other way...eh!

 

[ZickZJ]

That was just happening during some online game playing, since then it has stabled out. But every now and then it will freeze up for a sec or two. It's usually around low 20's or teens.
My latency during speed tests has always been around 26ms.

I wish there was an easier way to test the modem without buying one and going through the hassel of having charter switch over to that one. Or if they would at least just send out a tech....

 

[SirGeeO]

Well, I know I had a almost similar incident, where my internet connection was fine as can be, but watching movies and videos (even from youtube), it buffered the whole way through (I waited for christmas on a 9 minute video). I actually deleted a filter for buffers (lower & upper) in the Registry on all my machines and it coincidentally fixed the problem (maybe or maybe not), but I know for sure all my video's since then have been smooth sailing.

 

[Agamar]

What router are you using? Are you hooked straight into the cable modem during testing?

 

[ZickZJ]

It's a buffalo WHR-HP-G54 running DD-WRT and yes I'm bypassing the router and going straight through the modem.

 

[ZickZJ]

Just to update, I was able to borrow my company's cable modem and test it at my house tonight. Speed tests were all stable and solid like they used to be, except they it was only showing about 3Mbps because that's the speed my comp has.
Seems a new modem and surge protector will be on my buy now list.

 

[ZickZJ]

Just another update. Got my new Surfboard SB6120 and my speed fluctuation has stabled out but I'm still seeing about 15Mbps on speedtest.net and about 7.5Mbps on speedtest.charter.com.
But so far it looks like all my issues have gone away.
Anyone know if I might be getting too much signal and could it damage the modem?

 

[RadiclDreamer]

Just another update. Got my new Surfboard SB6120 and my speed fluctuation has stabled out but I'm still seeing about 15Mbps on speedtest.net and about 7.5Mbps on speedtest.charter.com.
But so far it looks like all my issues have gone away.
Anyone know if I might be getting too much signal and could it damage the modem?

Ive never seen someone get too much signal....too little on the other hand....

This is with TW though