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Cliff's at bottom, but if you read the whole thing, you will understand why I am so pissed.
/RANT ON
You thought Time Warner was bad? You thought AT&T Uverse was bad? You thought CHARTER WAS BAD!?
Let me start from the beginning of this conundrum. We pay for a 12 meg down / 1 meg up package from Grande Communications. Why, you ask? Because they are the only internet service provider that serves my neighborhood in Frisco. Not AT&T, no Time Warner, no Charter, no FiOS, just Grande Communications. It's never been stellar, but we've always got consistent speeds, and I was never really disappointed in it in the two years we have had it. Until now.
I got back from China on the 25th to my parents complaining the internet is slow and they are dropping connection intermittently. I do some speed tests, and everything looks a little lower than normal, but still within tolerable speeds and pings. That night I log on to play some League of Legends, and I'm fine for about 30 minutes...then I start lagging...HARD. We're talking 3000 MS ping spikes. I figure it's League, because there are posts all over the forums of people lagging pretty good after the latest patch; I chalk it up to the same issues. After about a week of this, I start getting really pissed, and start checking things on my computer to make sure I don't have a virus or things downloading in the background. Nothing shows up.
Fast forward to this past Tuesday, the 5th. I finally get fed up and start running more speed tests. Lo and behold, I'm getting <2 meg down, and <1 meg up, with an average ping of over 500 ms: completely unacceptable for cable. So I do troubleshooting within the house, and get as far as I can without the specialty cable installer equipment: the modem. I call, tell them my modem may be going out, and after some more troubleshooting, the over-the-phone tech (45 minutes later) comes to the same conclusion. We schedule a tech to come out Thursday, the 7th (today), and I take the morning off work to wait for him.
Today 8:00 AM: He gets here, tests the modem, says he's getting a strong signal from the line so he tries a new modem. Same results. <2 meg down, <1 meg up, and 1000 ms average pings. So he runs a hot drop directly from the box to the modem to bypass the wiring in the house, same results, only now it's inconsistent. He's getting <2 meg down, next test, about 8 meg down, next test, 3 meg down, then it just quits altogether. So he says everything in the house is fine, and he's going to schedule a line tech to come out and check the amps in the neighborhood as well as the lines. That tech calls me around 1 pm (4 hours later) and says everything in the neighborhood is fine, but more people have called complaining, so they checked the main switch terminal office (3 blocks from my house), and there's a faulty C4 (no idea what that is, except that it's fucking everything up) and that they would have it replaced by the end of the day, but he didn't really have an ETA except that if it wasn't done tonight it would be done first thing in the morning.
Today 6:00 PM: I call to get an updated ETA, and the tech over the phone says that the ticket has been marked closed and that it shows the equipment in the central switch office has been replaced. I say that's impossible, because I'm still getting the same speeds. He says he will schedule a supervisor to come out to my house between 8-10 on Saturday (the next time I'm available, having taken off the morning today I have to go into the office tomorrow).
So now my question is: if the first tech didn't find anything so referred it to a lineman, who didn't find anything so referred it to the central switch location for troubleshooting and repairs, what in the HOLY FUCK is a "supervisor" going to find at my house that the original tech didn't? Why doesn't the initial tech check for everything the first time around just to make sure? What the fuck kind of shitty customer service is this? WHY THE FUCK DOES MY NEIGHBORHOOD NOT OFFER ANYTHING BESIDES GRANDE COMMUNICATIONS!?
/RANT OFF
Cliff's: Grande sucks, been without decent internet for over a week, their tech support is oblivious, and my neighborhood is a bunch of monopoly supporting HOA nazis.
/RANT ON
You thought Time Warner was bad? You thought AT&T Uverse was bad? You thought CHARTER WAS BAD!?
Let me start from the beginning of this conundrum. We pay for a 12 meg down / 1 meg up package from Grande Communications. Why, you ask? Because they are the only internet service provider that serves my neighborhood in Frisco. Not AT&T, no Time Warner, no Charter, no FiOS, just Grande Communications. It's never been stellar, but we've always got consistent speeds, and I was never really disappointed in it in the two years we have had it. Until now.
I got back from China on the 25th to my parents complaining the internet is slow and they are dropping connection intermittently. I do some speed tests, and everything looks a little lower than normal, but still within tolerable speeds and pings. That night I log on to play some League of Legends, and I'm fine for about 30 minutes...then I start lagging...HARD. We're talking 3000 MS ping spikes. I figure it's League, because there are posts all over the forums of people lagging pretty good after the latest patch; I chalk it up to the same issues. After about a week of this, I start getting really pissed, and start checking things on my computer to make sure I don't have a virus or things downloading in the background. Nothing shows up.
Fast forward to this past Tuesday, the 5th. I finally get fed up and start running more speed tests. Lo and behold, I'm getting <2 meg down, and <1 meg up, with an average ping of over 500 ms: completely unacceptable for cable. So I do troubleshooting within the house, and get as far as I can without the specialty cable installer equipment: the modem. I call, tell them my modem may be going out, and after some more troubleshooting, the over-the-phone tech (45 minutes later) comes to the same conclusion. We schedule a tech to come out Thursday, the 7th (today), and I take the morning off work to wait for him.
Today 8:00 AM: He gets here, tests the modem, says he's getting a strong signal from the line so he tries a new modem. Same results. <2 meg down, <1 meg up, and 1000 ms average pings. So he runs a hot drop directly from the box to the modem to bypass the wiring in the house, same results, only now it's inconsistent. He's getting <2 meg down, next test, about 8 meg down, next test, 3 meg down, then it just quits altogether. So he says everything in the house is fine, and he's going to schedule a line tech to come out and check the amps in the neighborhood as well as the lines. That tech calls me around 1 pm (4 hours later) and says everything in the neighborhood is fine, but more people have called complaining, so they checked the main switch terminal office (3 blocks from my house), and there's a faulty C4 (no idea what that is, except that it's fucking everything up) and that they would have it replaced by the end of the day, but he didn't really have an ETA except that if it wasn't done tonight it would be done first thing in the morning.
Today 6:00 PM: I call to get an updated ETA, and the tech over the phone says that the ticket has been marked closed and that it shows the equipment in the central switch office has been replaced. I say that's impossible, because I'm still getting the same speeds. He says he will schedule a supervisor to come out to my house between 8-10 on Saturday (the next time I'm available, having taken off the morning today I have to go into the office tomorrow).
So now my question is: if the first tech didn't find anything so referred it to a lineman, who didn't find anything so referred it to the central switch location for troubleshooting and repairs, what in the HOLY FUCK is a "supervisor" going to find at my house that the original tech didn't? Why doesn't the initial tech check for everything the first time around just to make sure? What the fuck kind of shitty customer service is this? WHY THE FUCK DOES MY NEIGHBORHOOD NOT OFFER ANYTHING BESIDES GRANDE COMMUNICATIONS!?
FUCK.
/RANT OFF
Cliff's: Grande sucks, been without decent internet for over a week, their tech support is oblivious, and my neighborhood is a bunch of monopoly supporting HOA nazis.
I hear ya.
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