Octopus Overlords

The US Gov is trying to lower the standards of broadband instead of raising the bar to the current one. Also Im not sure if its just my state or nationwide that says if you are covered in any way by mobile coverage then you have access to braodband...even if you dont. So if your choice is 5/5 speed for $25 or cell phones with faster speed but $100 costs for about nothing then hey you have broadband congrats.

stessier wrote: ↑Thu Jun 21, 2018 2:28 pm Does it cost a lot more? What did you end up with?

I'll comment after its up and running, next week. It's still just cable as that's the only real option in my neighborhood.

The Meal wrote: ↑Tue Feb 24, 2015 1:33 pm I should document where I am today (and where I'll be in a month).
2/24/2015

The Meal wrote: ↑Thu Apr 02, 2015 9:55 am Before:

The Meal wrote: ↑Thu Apr 02, 2015 5:09 pm After:


Running with Cat-6 cables in the walls, and Cat-5e between the wall and the router, and the router to the switch and the switch to the PC. Cat6 peer-to-peer cables on order.

The Meal wrote: ↑Sat Apr 04, 2015 4:11 pm And now with Cat-6 cables from the optical network terminal to my PC (through one router and one switch):


Whew, much better.

The Meal wrote: ↑Mon May 04, 2015 11:59 am Just had a tech out here to clean some connections (I was down to dialup speed on Sunday -- which was bad timing as I was in the middle of an online poker tournament at the time...)

And now that I'm in the hinterlands east of I-25...

Running Cat-5e from our utility closet to the upstairs office. Showed 151 Mbps (down) @ the closet.

Is anyone running these tests on a wireless device on your home network? 90% of my home network is wireless (all of which are low priority to me, as they aren't mine ).

This has made me think about what the new service package means for the rest of my house, and preliminary research shows I should see some improvement there too, which is nice.

My wireless gets slower the further away the item is from the router. Like the router should be 100 mbps but on the tablet 1 room away with an open door it gets about 60 mbps or less....sometimes just 25 mbps or so.

The Meal wrote: ↑Mon May 04, 2015 11:59 am Just had a tech out here to clean some connections (I was down to dialup speed on Sunday -- which was bad timing as I was in the middle of an online poker tournament at the time...)

So very sorry Smoove. Also, that’s from my iPad upstairs (router is downstairs).

Amazingly, the new modem should be ready for pickup early this afternoon. If I were home I could probably have it up and running in less than 24 hours from the time I called to upgrade.

That's almost unheard of turn around for me living in Ottawa. Pretty cool.

That said, plenty of time for things to go wrong. Not done yet.

edit: And there it is. Wife went to pick up the modem and despite the package being in Ottawa and the delivery notice arriving at our house, the parcel is not available for pickup until after 1pm tomorrow. I'm not sure how that works, especially since it is my understanding that no public facing part of Canada Post works on Saturdays. It will not surprise me at all to find out that after 1pm on Saturday means after 9am on Monday morning.

Edit: internet says it's open from 9am to 5pm on Saturdays.

80 Mbps service is allegedly scheduled to be installed on 7/9. I don't quite believe it will happen, but that's what the CS rep just told me is happening.

My God Smoove you'll soon be in the future with flying cars and sex bots. Be sure to pick up some goggles and seatbelts.

But seriously if you do get that going Im very happy for you. I know what its like wit ha connection you're not happy about. Give it a good test run.

ya but he'll still be slower than most people

naednek wrote: ↑Fri Jun 22, 2018 6:50 pm ya but he'll still be slower than most people

What he doesn't know won't hurt him. That's how I've been operating, apparently.

Downloading both Black Flag and Syndicate at the same time......one on Uplay one on Steam and the one on Uplay says 22 minutes for 20 gig.

GreenGoo wrote: ↑Wed Jun 20, 2018 5:49 pm

Quite a bit short of the "up to" speed though, whereas the previous package was very close to the advertised speed.

It's hard to complain now that it's 3x faster than it was, but...it should be even faster. I'll give it a week while I check the speed periodically then I'll call in and see if there is anything they can do.

If it’s cable, it could just be a bad time to run the test, while someone else on the loop is using the bandwidth. Cable bandwidth is shared. Much to my neighbor’s dismay.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

I recently called in to get a better price. And they gave me a faster tier.

I get about 5 Meg download and one Meg upload.
That's my world.

It's a completely workable world if you don't have kids and aren't streaming multiple videos at the same time you're patching your steam account and downloading a new game at the same time.

downloading a new game at the same time.

I doubt he is ever doing that.

I can already see that after a few days of random tests that my speed presses up against a speed cap that it never exceeds. Since I'm paying for "up to" a higher speed, and that I'm 90% sure my line is capped below that speed, I'll have to have a conversation with them.

Potentially in their defense, they lease the line from a 3rd party and it could very easily be the 3rd party trying to pull a fast one on my company and me. It doesn't hurt that I chose my company because of their reputation for not screwing the customer, while the 3rd party company has a reputation for actively screwing the customer, it wouldn't surprise me to find out "oops, sorry about that" from the 3rd party.

Looks like my issues are router based, not service based. I'm going to pull my router tonight and run a few tests with the router out of the equation. After that I'll have to see what's going on. The router is supposed to be rated for much higher than what I'm getting. I've already found someone posting that seems to be having the exact same problem as I'm having.

edit: God damn it. It's the router. Not a defect, just the wan port is 10/100. In my defense I bought it a couple of years ago and never paid any attention since I never expected to go above 100Mbps. Totally my fault but it only took 4 days to figure it out and without making a fool of myself to the tech guy. Sure, I made a fool out of myself to you guys but you already know I'm a fool.

Well at least now you can replace it and get the faster speed you pay for.

Daehawk wrote: ↑Tue Jun 26, 2018 8:52 pm Well at least now you can replace it and get the faster speed you pay for.

Yep. Was a rookie mistake.

New router, cables purchased and en route. Spent too much on router, a Netgear nighthawk ac2300. Still, it has some nice features that I'm pretty excited to see in action.

Ta da. New router, new cables. Test was run while kids were playing video games and downloading videos. The service package is "up to 150Mbps" so I'm happy. The test server was more than 50 miles farther away than my usual test server.

Here's another one to the server that I'm pretty sure is the start of my last mile. Note: both tests were run at approximately 18:45 local time. (crap, just noticed computer time is off. That should never happen. Wtf time)

Congrats. Now you can PVP easier

I remember starting out on 2400 baud then 28.8 to 33.6. I skipped 56k and went to half ISDN then to cable down and dial up up and finally to pure cable. I do remember the days of 33.6 and hearing of DSL and cable speeds. Sounded amazing to us then. Im not sure what DSL maxes at even for those in range but I know it is not cable speeds. I wonder whats after fiber?

Neural implants.....

Beat that ping time, suckers!

1.6 terrabit per sec internet. Im like Linus' face there.

Smoove_B wrote: ↑Fri Jun 22, 2018 5:42 pm 80 Mbps service is allegedly scheduled to be installed on 7/9. I don't quite believe it will happen, but that's what the CS rep just told me is happening.

Hello 6/22 Smoove_B. I'm here to report that your suspicions were correct. I've been notified by Century Link that "due to unforeseen circumstances" my scheduled upgrade from 5 Mpps to 80 Mbps has been rescheduled to 7/27. I'm guessing not enough people in my area signed up so they're not rolling a truck for 1 person. And now they're hoping that more people do agree to sign up to make it worth it, and when they don't, I'm going to be told on 7/26 that the 80 Mpbs upgrade is either not available or pushed out another 5 weeks.

I received a call last week from my ISP, you know, the guys with the "radio Internet", that they have upgraded some towers and think I might qualify for their "Line of Sight" upgrade. So they are coming on 7/24 to upgrade my house tower for free, and determine if I can upgrade to 10 Mb/s. Who knows if I will be eligible, and it is still "radio internet", but for 3 days I *might* have faster internet than Smoove.
Of course, if Smoove actually gets his upgrade, then you all will still have someone to look down upon as the "Internet Cretin" of Octopus Overlords, so fear not.

Hmm..I thought I updated this. I was told on 7/24 that (big surprise) high speed service would not be installed on 7/26. I know you're all surprised. They then pushed the date out to 8/13, but I'm guessing that once again something will happen and no, it won't be available.

By the way, this article is exactly my situation. I'm paying fiber prices for copper wires.

The NDIA calls the practice of charging identical prices for wildly different speeds "tier flattening." It affects both urban and rural customers who live in areas where AT&T and Verizon haven't upgraded networks because they face no competition, because the upgrades wouldn't result in higher profits, or both. These customers end up using "the oldest, slowest legacy infrastructure," while paying much higher per-megabit prices than other Internet users.

Between this and my ridiculous situation with DirecTV/AT&T, I'm about ready to give up.

Almost wish AT&T would just die out but then others would be free to charge more. The Gov has screwed its citizens for lobby money...as per usual work day. And that son of a bitch in the FCC needs to be fired or imprisoned.

Comcast just upgraded me an extra 50 GPS to 150! So generous of them. I did actually notice a nice bump this weekend so it did have some impact. My poor Dad and nephew who live on the same street are stuck with AT&T. 5 service repairs in the first 2 months of the service with 6 days of outtage. The techs who came out say "I'm surprised we can get it to work at all. They will not let me cancel the service without charging me an early cancellation penalty. I manage IT project rollouts on a national level and broke down exactly to the tier 3 manager how they are actually losing money on our account with the all the service visits and outtage comps and that he would save more by letting us walk. They still refused. So at least once a month they roll a truck to wiggle wires around. So f'ing stupid

150 GPS?

Yes! Gigapoints a second. Lol, i even tried to edit and fix it once. Oh well.

Century Link was supposed to show up two days ago to install 80Mbps service, and big surprise - they did not. That's missed attempt #3 for those keeping track. My wife still thinks it's happening, so she called them to find out why they weren't here and they had no idea. I told her it's because she's talking to corporate in another state and they have no idea what's happening locally. Also, they're liars and it's not really happening.

Regardless, they swore up and down our new date of installation is 8/22. This morning I received an email revising our service estimate. Instead of the 80Mpbs we were promised back in May, now they're telling us we can get speeds of "up to 40 Mbps". While 40Mpbs would be an amazing difference from the 5 Mpbs we're currently experiencing, the qualifying "up to" portion of their quote has me feeling we're in for a world of hurt.

In summary, F them and F the town I live in.

DO YOU BELIEVE IN MIRACLES?

Internet speed was upgraded today. It's 41 Mpbs coming in to the modem, but my wireless network is dropping it to 22 Mbps. I'm sure I just need to poke around inside my router and enable or disable something(s).

Download for Shadow of War went from 96 hours to 10 hours. Amazing. Truly, I'm living in the future*.


*I'm pretty sure 41 Mbps puts me somewhere around 2008

I do *not* believe in miracles and luckily, 40Mbps does not, in any way, qualify (even in New Jersey) as a miracle so I am safe.

So Freyland is the punchline now?