Cheep internet problems and tech support coincidences.

[zanzibar]

My cable connection costs $10 a month.  For the last 12 hours, it's been operating very poorly.  Half the websites I try to visit don't work.  I might be able to visit a webpage but then I'm told the website doesn't exist if I try to click a link.  (An example would be if you visited hydlaa.com/smf/, and then it told you it couldn't find Hydlaa Plaza.)

So, I call up the tech support, give him my IP address etc, and as soon as I start talking to him everything is working wonderfully after more than 12 hours of being crappy.

The guy said that he didn't do anything, but is that necessarily true?


Edit:  5 minutes later, and it's back to being crap!  Websites appearing as text instead of the way they should, links not working, grrrr

[LARAGORN]

It is possible, but unlikely.

It is possible you have a high volume node, or they were doing some work in your area.
I am very fortunate that there are only 4 people on my node so traffic is always low and my speed is always fast.

Do you have a static IP? if so That can sometime create a restriction, due to the route your data needs to take.
If you have a dynamic IP, he may have just issued a new one(if he asked you to reboot, than he definatly did), which on occation instantly increase your speed, due to the route your data takes. If you are in a highly populated area there may be many nodes accesible to you, some will definatly be faster than others, simply due to the number of users on each.
You can test this out if you have a dynamic IP, aquire a new IP and tast the speed of it, then try another and so on, once you have found one that is faster, set it as your static IP. Sometimes the cable company wont like it much, but they hardly ever check to find out.


EDIT: You can try different ways to optomize your system to take full advantage of your conection. There are hundreds of sites about this, here is one I have used and had good results http://www.speedguide.net/downloads.php 

[steuben]

sometimes it is zanzibar. i've seen it too much myself, too like it.

there are a large number of things that could be causeing

the info to go with is
pings to google, yahoo, related website
traceroute to those sites

bypass your router
and see if it continoues...

[zanzibar]

I'm actually not using a router.  I am however using some device that you plug into an electrical outlet instead of a normal modem.


I'm willing to deal with it and suffer.  Problems come and go with this company and I can always just visit a library.  I just find it odd that right when I call tech support, it starts working again, and it stops working almost as soon as I hang up the phone.

[LARAGORN]

This 'device' ?, could it be your cable modem ?
The only other thing i can think it may be is a cable signal booster, but that is usualy only used for your TV cable reception.
If you have cable TV aswell, humour me and try something, call your cable company and tell them you are getting poor reception on a local channel, and ask them to boost the signal. once they do this check your internet speeds.

[ThomPhoenix]

There are companies who offer Internet over the electrical lines.
It's a tad unstable though. Some companies did experiments with in in my country, but it didn't pass.

[steuben]

i've heard about it. one of the brand names is two-wire. it basically is a set of low pass filters and a little signal generator. it basically turns you home electrical system into a micro network.

but if you are using a ip over power... what's the company name?

[LARAGORN]

There are companies who offer Internet over the electrical lines.
It's a tad unstable though. Some companies did experiments with in in my country, but it didn't pass.

I have heard of that but I dont think any companies are testing it in Canada (I could be wrong) It does look like a very awsome system. Just imagine how easy it will be to have world wide connections, everyone with ellectricity would have internet access, totally awsome

[zanzibar]

This 'device' ?, could it be your cable modem ?
The only other thing i can think it may be is a cable signal booster, but that is usualy only used for your TV cable reception.
If you have cable TV aswell, humour me and try something, call your cable company and tell them you are getting poor reception on a local channel, and ask them to boost the signal. once they do this check your internet speeds.

It is my modem, but it plugs into an electrical outlet instead of a cable connection.  Though I do share a TV with my apartment mates, it's with a different company.

I have heard of that but I dont think any companies are testing it in Canada (I could be wrong) It does look like a very awsome system. Just imagine how easy it will be to have world wide connections, everyone with ellectricity would have internet access, totally awsome

Most of the people in the world don't have electricity, so anything to do with the internet cannot be considered to be world wide.

[Under the moon]

Does your connection get better just when you call tech, or when you can anyone? If so, are you using a wireless phone, or corded? Do you have a standard phone connection, or phone though cable?

Just some things to think about. If you are using a powerline connection, and have a cordless phone... Not that I know anything about it, but sometimes electrical fields have odd effects on each other.

[bilbous]

One thing you could try is to put your frequently used web sites into a hosts file an entry might look like

Code: [Select]

209.200.229.95 hydlaa.com That will reduce your ip lookups. It may be they have congestion at their nameservers or your networking points at overloaded nameservers. If you know someone across town who has a connection with the same provider, different nameservers and fewer problems you might try pointing at wherever they are pointing at.

It might be that someone on your cable is p2ping and using all the upwidth so your packest are being delayed.

It really sounds to me that your name lookups are timing out. It could be when the tech was looking at your line his tool prioritized traffic from your current ip while he was looking.

It will be somewhere like this in 32bit windows:
c:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\hosts

[zanzibar]

That all sounds rather complicated, but I'll try to explore that possibility.

All I know for now is that there was a small explosion by the socket and now the room smells funny.

[bilbous]

That is never good, I hope it was a joke. Is that device hooked up to coax   and cat 5 as well as the power? That would be your cable modem which may double as a router. If you blew the power socket the modem may not be functioning properly and could very well be a fire hazard. The same goes in the case that you blew the power converter which plugs into the wall or power bar. In either case it may have shorted some vital circuits in the modem but you should be able to get the cable company to replace it.

[zanzibar]

Things are working fine, it was probably a short of some sort but there's no smoke or sign of fire etc.  It wasn't a joke though.  There was a bang and a big spark.

It's not plugged into a power bar.  It only works if it's plugged straight into the wall.

[LARAGORN]

Sounds kinda fishy to me. You dont get a short and a smell, without something frying. Burnt electronics have a distinct smell. I find it very odd that everything is working fine.