ISP's who always say "its your fault"

K

Kaiga

Gawd
Joined
Feb 2, 2005
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So recently I've had a few clients in a neighborhood (a three block neighborhood) complain about internet connectivity issues. We have Insight Communications as a major provider in the Southern Indiana/Northern Kentucky area. It's a love hate relationship with Insight. I love my cable/phone and internet service I have with Insight. Currently I pay $50 / mo for their 20.0 which is a 20Mbps down / 5Mbps up service. I love it, never have any problems.

However I see a trend with this ISP, they are always half assing their tech support and telling their customers that "the problem is on their end." Recently I've been to 4 different houses in this neighborhood and they all had to get on the phone to Insight to get some tech support out there. Nothing.
I've sent my clients off with a perfectly working internal network with working PCs, made sure the configurations are correct and that they are satisfied when I leave. Then the evening hits that day (5PM-5AM), they start to get disconnects, bad latency in network applications, and so they call me and I tell them there is no way its anything on your end.

I've dealt with these scenarios so many times and in the end after tons of complaints to Insight from lots of people (this process can take up to 2 months) only then is a flag raised in the company that there is obviously a problem with the service they provide.
The downfall of all this is that it shouldn't take a months worth of complaints from about 100 users in the same area to raise a flag.

I've seen some of the bad cabling jobs these people have done outside their houses and beyond, the shitty cable modems they give them, or just the fact that the node that is used to support all the broadband connections in the certain area is very old/outdated/not powerful enough/faulty. Yet the company, to keep the customer at bay, just seems to blow it off as the customer's problem.

My best friend had the 20.0 service run to his residence, and it took them a month and about 10 phone calls and then 2 phone calls from me giving them an ear full to come out and get their shit together. Once a tech shows up (a private contractor ussually, they normally do a good job cleaning up what the ISP origionally ran) they normally see decaying cables, or cables that have been run too far from a support node and have attenuation problems with the signal.

Number one problem: The ISP sometimes doesn't give a damn because they don't want to spend the money to have the problems fixed.

THIS IS THE SAME THING with AT&T's service in my area. My friend can't afford insight's service so he's got standard 1Mbps/256k DSL run to his house that is slower than dial-up because AT&T won't send out the right technician to fix it correctly. His connection speed can't even make it over 125k and latency to servers on speedtest doesn't even go under 200ms. At first he had some great speed, but the line had attenuation problems because they ran the line too far and they had to reduce the speed so he could have a steady signal.

Theres my story. Now the questions:
1.Do any of you people have this problem with your ISP?
2.What is the best way to get an ISP to come out and truly sort out their problems and convince them its a problem on their end? How to deal with them?

I've done everything for these people from sending their tier 3 wireshark results, compiled bandwidth test logs, router logs, trace logs, that all show there is a problem outside the client's home. But they'll just use all sorts of excuses to point the fault at the user's end.
Where the hell do you find fault in network that as simple as: cable service's internet>modem>pc?
 
Not sure, but I have the same problem with Brighthouse in Florida. I still have disconnects where the modem will just restart. Whenever I try to call I get no where. I had a tech come out once at my old apt (moved to new place last Oct.) and he checked the speedtests or whatever (I wasn't hope, working) and when my GF asked him to check the modem he said he couldn't he was "just and internet tech."

wow.

I'm going to call them again because this is just retarded. My modem shouldn't restart itself at random points during the day.
 
Similar problems with a smaller ISP in Aiken, SC. They're pretty much the only game in town aside from AT&T DSL, which is even worse (horribly slow / unreliable / high latency).

These guys clearly don't know what they're doing, or just don't care. My network here is flawless, the usage is fairly low, but it's consistently slower than they have any right to provide given our supposedly 10/2 plan (it's more like 2/0.5 in practice). Service is spotty at best, sometimes out for a day or more in a month.

I've called and requested they send a tech out literally countless times; they've come maybe three. Of those three only once did anything happen, and it didn't actually resolve the issue in any way. They ran a partial new line to the house and called it good. Reliability did go up slightly, but speed was still horrible. I think they've got too many customers for their current infrastructure and just keep adding more rather than dealing with the root cause of the problem.

I've spent combined days on the phone with these people, and if I could go anywhere else and get a better experience, I would... but there is no one else.
 
That's pretty much par for the course with all of the ISPs I deal with with. Most of them could give a shit about whether the connection works all that well once the service is sold. There is little to no competition.
 
Dallows said:
Not sure, but I have the same problem with Brighthouse in Florida. I still have disconnects where the modem will just restart. Whenever I try to call I get no where. I had a tech come out once at my old apt (moved to new place last Oct.) and he checked the speedtests or whatever (I wasn't hope, working) and when my GF asked him to check the modem he said he couldn't he was "just and internet tech."

wow.

I'm going to call them again because this is just retarded. My modem shouldn't restart itself at random points during the day.
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out of curiosity, does your cable modem happen to be a modem/router all-in-one thing made by netgear that looks like this one: http://ak.buy.com/db_assets/prod_lrg_images/463/10342463.jpg ? I had one of those at my old apartment and it was a piece of shit. They had known issues where the hardware was insufficient and so it was very very easy to overload the routing tables and make the router reset. And I'm not talking about bittorrent here or anything (the usual culprit for large routing loads), I'm talking about things like refreshing the server list in Steam. It would reset itself and lose internet connectivity several times each day, usually losing internet service for about 15 minutes. Some things, like trying to populate the steam server list, would make it reset instantly, every time, without fail.

I don't remember the model number on the router I had, but it looked like that picture. I complained several times to Time Warner cable (they're a bunch of idiots, by the way) and all they ever did to fix it was replace the modem with a new, identical one which--surprise surprise--had the same issue.
 
I had issues with Charter Communications previously. I had just moved in recently to the Madison, WI area in an apartment. The "tech" came to install the service. We fired everything up and couldn't get an IP address (this was directly connected to my PC). He ended up telling me that the default settings on the NIC within Windows were causing the no DHCP response issue (I disabled NetBIOS over TCP/IP under the WINS tab). He changed it, and then I was able to get an IP. I told him it wasn't. Proceeded to show him by disabling it again and he no issues. I asked him if he knew what NetBIOS was or even WINS for that matter. He didn't have a clue. I told him there was a difference between troubleshooting and coincedence (his method). So, the very first time it took about 10 minutes to connect.

During the next 6 months or so, I had added a wireless router and a Cisco 831 router (I work for a Gold Partner). Occasionally, I would loose connectivity during the day/night. There would be about a 10 minute outage or longer each time.

They would always tell me that the issue was my Cisco 831 router. I would be telling them I'm not seeing DHCP responses to my DHCP requests on my 831. The "techs" would tell me to switch it out. So I would switch it with my linksys and my PC. Occasionally, it would be fixed by coincedence. Finally, after bitching loud as I could. I was elevated to the Level 3 engineers. Wonder what he said?

It went something like this:

Me: I'm running debugs on my Cisco 831 router, wireshark on my PC, etc. I see my DHCP requests do not get responded to.

Charter Engineer: We are aware of the situation. The problem is that our DHCP scopes are too small for the number of customers. There is a request in to enlarge the scopes.

Got to love it. I'm paying for a DHCP address that someone else is getting. Sounds like a perfect business model to me.

I love ISPs!
 
bman13 said:
Got to love it. I'm paying for a DHCP address that someone else is getting. Sounds like a perfect business model to me.

I love ISPs!
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samething with my ISP but its static IP. I have 2 cable modems and both have the same IP. How lovely.
 
Mediacom around here seems to be very quick to send out techs to work on stuff, but I also don't live in a high population area. How ever I've had the same disconnect issue for the past 3 months and their maintenance team has yet to fix it.
 
Eva_Unit_0 said:
out of curiosity, does your cable modem happen to be a modem/router all-in-one thing made by netgear that looks like this one: http://ak.buy.com/db_assets/prod_lrg_images/463/10342463.jpg ? I had one of those at my old apartment and it was a piece of shit. They had known issues where the hardware was insufficient and so it was very very easy to overload the routing tables and make the router reset. And I'm not talking about bittorrent here or anything (the usual culprit for large routing loads), I'm talking about things like refreshing the server list in Steam. It would reset itself and lose internet connectivity several times each day, usually losing internet service for about 15 minutes. Some things, like trying to populate the steam server list, would make it reset instantly, every time, without fail.

I don't remember the model number on the router I had, but it looked like that picture. I complained several times to Time Warner cable (they're a bunch of idiots, by the way) and all they ever did to fix it was replace the modem with a new, identical one which--surprise surprise--had the same issue.
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It's just an Arris modem with voip, but I'm sure it's crap. Wonder if they have any motorolas.
 
had a problem with embarq dsl ..mine would disconenct everytime the phone would ring ..they tested it and whatever they do over the phone and it came out fine....after about 20 calls back and forth and new modems...same thing. eventually they sent out a tech...and he didnt know what to do after he saw it.....then after more phone calls got a hold of someone who was willing to do their job. they decieded to put a new dedicated line just for my dsl. and for free..if i were to pay it was a ridiculous amount....downside is i have to have my modem on the same phonejack and just cant move it around . and yes before this was fixed...they said oh it must be something in your house...blah blah check the phone jacks and filters...then blamed it on my router...but they cant do anything since they didnt "issue" the router to me...
 
Like Captain said, no competition so why do they care?

Here, it's either DSL or cable. Period.
Or you can spend $400+ month on a dedicated circut of some sort.
 
TechieSooner said:
Like Captain said, no competition so why do they care?

Here, it's either DSL or cable. Period.
Or you can spend $400+ month on a dedicated circut of some sort.
Click to expand...

Thankfully that's not the case here, at least for Cable their are 2 choices and part of the reason I think service around here is actually decent. Too bad I'm stuck with Mediacom due to the apartment complexes contract.
 
You all should be able to log into your modems with 192.168.100.1

At least this works with Motorolas. There you might have access to the signal levels. Transmit power should be below 50, downstream power should be between +15 to -15 and signal to noise somewhere 35 - 40.

Anyhting out of range can lead to slowness, random reboots is probably a bad amp in the neighborhood.

Slowness at night is an overloaded node.


I work with this stuff for a cable ISP, so let me know if you have any questions. No DSL questions please. I don't care for DSL ;)
 
Maybe it's just the region that you live in, or for that matter the region that I live in. I live in Springfield, IL and up until 1/1/2008 our local Cable company/ISP was Insight. Their service was BULLETPROOF. I have my own personal cable service as well as 7 retail locations with cable modems. I never had issues with them unless it was a random modem dying.

Comcast (Comcrap) took over the beginning of 2008 and it's been almost endless trouble. I've had 2-3 issues with most locations. Now on the plus side, unless you have static IP service, calling Comcast's business support has always been fairly decent for me anyway. The 3 times I've had to call for provisioning of Static IP service as well as support of it has been a nightmare.
 
I've dealt with a lot of ISPs of all types over the many years in IT...going back to the dial up days.

Some things I've noted over time....

***For the most problem free setup....wherever I've lived, as soon as I move in, I have brand new lines run in from the street to the house...and up to where my modem is. I want the cleanest most problem free connection possible. I used to do this even back in the dial up modem days....and I have my clients do the same thing. No it's not really that expensive to run new lines in. And hey....I (and my clients) don't seem to experience as much down time/issues as others.

***Always be clear that you'll worry about your routers or whatever you're connecting with, it's not the ISPs support problem to support your router.

***Don't talk down to them, try to just be clean and calm in explaining your problem.

In all honesty Comcast has been one of the best ISP support I deal with (and I deal with a LOT of different ISPs) . On the few times I have to call their support for a client...I don't get worried about that day as I pickup the phone, no dreading spending hours arguing with someone across the globe...Comcast support is fairly local for me. They've always been on time and got it right on the first trip for me.
 
I went through a nightmare with comcast a few years back and basicly I losing my connection every 5-10 mins for an hour long period and once it came back it repeated non-stop for months on end , I'll cut it short but basicly after 4 months of calling them everyday , speaking to about 5 floor managers , having around 10 different techs (from the install guys to 2 guys out in a van monitoring my connection for 18 hours to catch the issue). I had to explain every single time to a different employee on the phone that it WAS NOT my network or my router .. or my cable modem OR my FAULT :mad:.. needless to say this was beyond frustrating. I realize that in some cases the user ends up being the issue but come on , all the managers and techs knew it wasn't on my end ..yet the first person I talked to FORCED me everytime to step through the process in order to "put a ticket" in the computer so I could be forward to management.. it was just retarded.

I got it fixed though and it turned out to be a bad amp on THERE main service box about 3 miles from me. I was refunded about 2 months of service but the stress of it all made me freak out a few times , also made it impossible to play with my friends , use the house phone or do anything computer related. The funny part is my cable tv worked great and never had an issue :rolleyes: .. life is weird sometimes.
 
You need to start getting facts. What I have found which is the silver bullet when dealing with tech support is to get names, times, and what was said written down. Also, get the facts to your problem and provide them with technical detail to the fullest extent.

If they persist, ask for a supervisor and start using the names that you have accumulated
 
I have comcast, and their tech support is absolutely worthless, If I have an outage, I call and ask if there is a "Known" outage or issue in my area, 9/10 times they will admit that there is, and I just wait for it to get resolved.

The 10th time, I will wait an hour or two, reboot my router and cable modem, do my own tests, etc... Than I will call them, it usually takes me 2 or 3 calls to get someone who knows how to tie their own shoes, I screen the Tech Rep to see if they know anything, if they dont, I hang up and try again, until I get someone who does.

As someone already said, I always write down who I talk to and take notes, one incident with my cable card, it took me 11 calls and 2 weeks to solve the issue, I wrote up a letter with names and detailed description and send it to Comcast HQ, I ended up getting about $600 of free service for my troubles.
 
I haven't read any of the thread, but I would like to say I worked for a wireless ISP in Indiana for a year, when I started in their philosophy was to tell the customer it was an isolated incident (outages) and that it was on their end, because they were small time, and they didn't want a reputation going around the rural town that the stuff just didn't work. I changed all that by being honest to the customers, and it worked because all the residents are older folks, who just accept that they're fated to use unreliable wireless technology.

Thats just my two cents.
 
I had my previous cable ISP for like 9 years and in two apartments and now my home that I own. They got bought by Knology out of hill billy country and it went downhill since then.

Last summer, it was miserable. I had a couple of tech visits and I with my time loss from work, it ran me a couple of hundred dollars. I even on my own, went and bought a cable modem for $80.

My problem was my cable modem(s) couldn't connect upstream. The techies couldn't ever figure out why nor get it to work.

On the last visit, after about a couple of hours, the techie finally gets the modem to connect up, but the packet loss is 80%. He says, "Well it's working" and I tell him that is not good enough at 80% loss. 2-4% is acceptable, not freaking 80. He says, "80%, that's nothing, I've seen 2000% loss before. It's not gonna be perfect." (Yaa, he said 2000.) I then show him that web pages won't even load. He said, that's cause I run Vista and I have too many things running. Well, that's when I knew I was screwed and pretty much just did a bunch of uh-huhs and got him out of my house before I couldn't take anymore stupidity.

I promptly called Qwest and signed up. 3 days later, I was up and running on 8MB/800k DSL for $43 and honestly, it works a hell of alot better. Knology lost a on-time paying customer of 9 yrs. Hell with it, I will give Qwest my money. As soon as I can find a good sattelite, I am cancleing my cable television as well.
 
Met-AL said:
I had my previous cable ISP for like 9 years and in two apartments and now my home that I own. They got bought by Knology out of hill billy country and it went downhill since then.

Last summer, it was miserable. I had a couple of tech visits and I with my time loss from work, it ran me a couple of hundred dollars. I even on my own, went and bought a cable modem for $80.

My problem was my cable modem(s) couldn't connect upstream. The techies couldn't ever figure out why nor get it to work.

On the last visit, after about a couple of hours, the techie finally gets the modem to connect up, but the packet loss is 80%. He says, "Well it's working" and I tell him that is not good enough at 80% loss. 2-4% is acceptable, not freaking 80. He says, "80%, that's nothing, I've seen 2000% loss before. It's not gonna be perfect." (Yaa, he said 2000.) I then show him that web pages won't even load. He said, that's cause I run Vista and I have too many things running. Well, that's when I knew I was screwed and pretty much just did a bunch of uh-huhs and got him out of my house before I couldn't take anymore stupidity.

I promptly called Qwest and signed up. 3 days later, I was up and running on 8MB/800k DSL for $43 and honestly, it works a hell of alot better. Knology lost a on-time paying customer of 9 yrs. Hell with it, I will give Qwest my money. As soon as I can find a good sattelite, I am cancleing my cable television as well.
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"good sattelite" ;) good luck finding that under 43 dollars a month heh. Not to mention sat has terrible latency for the most part. I've heard so many cable horror stories with techs that couldn't care less about your issues. I've also heard some not so great ones from DSL installs but less frequently so, my guess would be because cable is far more wide spread.

Comcast's new fast service is 139 a month for 50/10 and even then most people don't get a solid 10 for upload (most get around 7) .. if I was paying 139 a month for that kind of connection I would want it TO SPEC period. I'm loving U-verse though its solid 24/7 , makes hosting xbox live games a pleasure. I'm looking forward to the new profile with the speed increase coming soon (mmm 32 mbps here I come).
 
Godmachine said:
"good sattelite" ;) good luck finding that under 43 dollars a month heh. Not to mention sat has terrible latency for the most part. I've heard so many cable horror stories with techs that couldn't care less about your issues. I've also heard some not so great ones from DSL installs but less frequently so, my guess would be because cable is far more wide spread.
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I'm certain the Sat was strictly for TV services
 
I work for an ISP and I know what its like from both ends of the phone! Most of the time its actually the phone line that is at fault (ADSL) but maybe thats just becuase our new ADSL 2+ platform is only 6% of capacity.
 
Yaa, satelite is for TV viewing, I am perfectly content with my Qwest / Microsoft DSL.
 
Ahh ok , I got a friend that uses sat internet and he bitches about it everyday and he cuts out on ventrilo constantly.
 
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