OUR CONNECTION PROBLEMS WERE SOLVED..THANK YOU SUDDENLINK AND MR. PETE ABEL ~

http://carolinaregion.blogspot.com/2009/05/suddenlink-sucks-wont-fix-known-issue.html

Backstory

Let me start by explaining that I’m NOT your average home user. I own and operate an IT company that services the cable, fiber, satellite, and DSL industry. I do professional installation on T-1, DSL, DS3, VSAT, FIOS, and cable connections. I don’t want a pat on the back or anything, but I just need those at Suddenlink who read this that I’m not a net-tard at home with too much free time on his hands who can’t torrent fast enough. In fact, I was TRYING to work until I finally had to give up entirely because the web server I’m trying to connect to in order to work on a client’s web site can’t authenticate me because my connection keeps going down every 30 seconds, so now I have absolutely nothing to do except sit here and watch my connection flutter while I steam between the ears at customer support. I’ve spent three months trying to work through proper channels, and have gotten nowhere so now I’m taking this story to the blogosphere.

My Story Begins

On February 17th I had been experiencing severe speed issues for almost three weeks. At first I attributed it to just a bad week with the ISP, but after three weeks it needed to be addressed. I called Suddenlink and went through the usual mumbo jumbo with technical support that everyone has to. Is it your jack? Is it your router? Must be your computer. How old is your modem? etc. We moved my cable modem from room to room, tried wired and wireless, replaced the RG-6 cabling, replaced the Cat5 cabling to the router, replaced the Cat5 cable between the router and the modem, and basically went through everything possible to remedy my connection issues with no success. I started pulling bandwidth tests and noticed I’m getting anywhere between 1-3 mbits and I’m paying for 8, to the tune of about $120.00 per month for internet and television. I originally ordered the absolute highest package they had at the time, though they’ve since increased to a 12mb package. So, naturally we scheduled a technician to come out.

Tech 1:

I’ll have to apologize for not getting all the technician and support representatives names, but I just didn’t think of it at the time. Anyway… Technician 1 was supposed to be here on the 20th of February, so I waited around all day working at home, or trying to, so I could meet this guy. I finally called and got informed “the tech said no one was home.” WHAT? I was here ALL day. Ok fine, let’s schedule another tech and this time I want a phone call when he’s coming. I’m going to be here but I want this guy on the phone to tell me when he’s here so we can be sure he’s not going to the wrong door or something.

Feb 23rd: The technician they sent out was very nice, very courteous, and completely stumped. He took a look at my speed tests and suggested replacing the cable between the modem and the wall. Ok.. we cut a new cable, tested it for dBm loss on his T-Berd

tester, plugged it in place and rebooted. No change. The speed was no better, no worse. We tried connecting direct to the modem, connecting via wi-fi, etc. The end result was that he suggested I buy a new cable modem! Really? You serious? You think cable modems just kinda get slow after they get old? Dude, it was pushing 8 megs solid for the last FOUR years and now it just cant’ handle more than four megs? It’s not a 1960 Chevy with a burnt valve, it’s a modem!

Ok.. so now I’m a little miffed but not at him. He’s just doing his job So I did as I was asked; went to Suddenlink, purchased a new cable modem, stopped by Staples on the way home and got a new WRT54G router because I was pretty sure that would be blamed next. I came home, installed my new modem and router and called to get it provisioned. Guess what… no improvement. Now I repeated the entire phone call except I had to add the “it’s not my equipment” line to my story to get someone to take me seriously.

Tech 2:

March 2nd: After another flurry of support calls I get a guy from maintenance, and as I understand Suddenlink’s hierarchy there are Level 1 Techs, Level 2 Engineers, and Level 3 Maintenance, or so I’ve been told. So, I’m getting a guy from maintenance. I’m thinking we’ll get something accomplished now. This guy arrives at 0750 in the morning. Good GOD I didn’t want to see someone at that hour. I answered the door in my PJs and we talked about the problems. He breaks out his T-Berd and checks the connection from my jack to the building. No problem there. How about from the building to the Tap? (the tap is the connection at the street where this node and others feed into the main line). Yup. That’s good too. So I suggest in my nicest southern manner “Hey, how about checking from the tap to the head end?” He disappears again for a few minutes and comes back in and tells me “Yup. That sucks.” I Swear to God those were his exact words. He was pulling less than 1 mb at 7:50 in the morning. I don’t usually even have problems at this hour, rather it’s the evenings when my speed really sucks and what I’ve been complaining about all along. He tells me he’s quite sure it’s an MTS issue, meaning it’s something that’s got to be fixed in Suddenlink’s main switch location and nothing we can fix on my end at my house.

Brief Mini-Lesson: Cable Modem Terminology

The image above shows a normal cable internet configuration: A “node” is a group of users. It could be 50 or it could be 400 depending on where you live in a town or city. I’m not sure what Suddenlink’s node average is, but it is typically a neighborhood, community, or some substantial group of users.

Many nodes plug into one CMTS (Cable Modem Termination System) located back at the cable company’s switch room. One CMTS can handle up to 1,000 users.

Many CMTS’ plug into one HFC (Hybrid Fibre-Coaxial) to go out to the internet.

It might be plausible to have 400 users on a node in a retirement community because older netizens don't use the net that much, however I would imagine it would be much less users in a community like mine because we’re all middle age tech-geeks that LIVE on the net. (END OF LESSON)

Being the doggedly persistent person I am, I decided to call Suddenlink the next day and check on the process to see what’s happened. Nothing. Nothing has happened. There were no notes about the MTS issue. So, truly miffed, I got on the phone with a Supervisor and explained to him that the issue was on the MTS end and that they needed to fix it. He wanted to know who informed me it was an MTS issue.. so I told him… “your engineer did. Duh.” He really wasn’t happy that the suddenlink engineer admitted it was their fault. Now he KNOWS they have to fix it and he knows I know they have to fix it. I asked how long I could expect before I could have my node transferred to another card in their switching office. I was basically told (and this is true) that they can’t simply unplug my card without unplugging an entire neighborhood. I told him I’ve done multi-thousand DSLAM user installation and I’m familiar with the headaches involved, but I wanted SOME kind of date. He told me I could expect it to be at least two months before anything happened.

March 25th: Email Begins

Having discovered for myself that this isn’t working, I get frustrated after a few more weeks of poor connectivity and decide to try to email customer support about the problem and maybe get a fresh perspective. This is the email I sent to Suddenlink on the 25thof March via their web submission form.

I've been having major internet troubles now for over two months, all documented in my account history. It took me almost a month to get the maintenance department to admit it's an MTC issue on Suddenlink's end, requiring my local node to be moved to new line cards on Suddenlink's end. Repeated calls to customer support have gotten me nowhere. I'm paying for 8 MB of service each month and for the last two months, I've consistently gotten less then 1-2mb. (also documented by your technicians). 1) I'd like my internet bill credited substantially to reflect this poor service. 2) I'd REALLY like to get my internet speed back! I've purchased new hardware from Suddenlink as requested, made myself available for repeated visits to my home, all of which confirm the problem is on your end, not on mine, and the last call I had with a supervisor resulted in him telling me that it would possibly be MONTHS before my service was corrected. This is absolutely unacceptable. I've been a paying customer for over four years and I expect to have this fixed in the proper manner. I'm running out of options except to contact the BBB, but I really don't want to do that either. Prior to this incident, I've ALWAYS been a huge fan of Suddenlink, but lately this customer service stinks!

March 29th: Email Response From Suddenlink

I got an email back from support 4 days later. It reads as follows:

Dear Tommy Jordan,

My name is Chris and I am the supervisor for the online department. I apologize that you have had to go through these problems with your internet service. I noticed that you have called in several times in February and March, so instead of applying a few minor credits to your account, I credited your internet for a full month. You now have a $31 credit for your internet service on your account now. If there is anything else I can do for you, please let me know.

Sincerely,

Chris

I-Care Supervisor

Ok, I was credited for a month, which I truly do appreciate, but this says nothing about actually Fixing my problem. The “anything else you can do for me” part is to FIX THE PROBLEM! Considering the speed I was currently suffering, prior to that email… it’s a good thing this wasn’t over the phone. Here’s my speed from that same time frame (below). Hint: If that Download number isn’t VERY VERY close to 8.0, I’m not happy!

March 26: Tech 3

It’s now the 20th or so of March and it’s been three weeks since my last technician came by to stare blankly at my problem, so I called again to check on the problem. I’ve heard nothing, been emailed nothing, not been called, nothing… So, I get technician number 3 on the 26th. He comes out and again is very nice, very courteous, very knowledgeable and basically can’t do squat. It’s not his fault; he checked the connection and said “well sir, there’s nothing further I can do from here. This will have to have an engineer come out or someone from maintenance. I informed him that I knew he couldn’t do anything, I knew it wasn’t his fault, and I thought that Customer Support was wasting his time and mine by sending a tech out. This guy completely understood the MTS issue, agreed with it, and left without being able to further assist in getting my connection working right.

Tech Support Gets a Rest

I decided to wait it out for a few weeks at this point, assuming that maybe someone was actually working on my ticket and that they would be getting this handled sometime in the near future. I really used to LOVE Suddenlink and I just hoped that maybe some supervisor was doing as he said he would and attempting to remedy my problem. I managed to wait until about the 20th or so of April and called again. The lady on the phone pulled my ticket and told me there had been no activity on it since the last time I called. Ok.. now I’m really kinda pissed, not at her, but just in general.

So, guess what we’re doing… again? We’re getting maintenance back out here to look at the problem. I just told her what the problem was, like i told the last technician and the three previous people I’d spoken to on the phone, but customer support can only do what they’re allowed to do and all she was allowed to do was get me another maintenance guy. (Whew.. at least it’s not a new guy from tier-1 support, right?)

Not being able to scream at this nice lady, I decided to take it out on the customer support email department, hoping maybe someone would respond who knew how to actually escalate problems to the proper department.

So I sent this email:

April 16th, 8:23 PM - Email To Tech Support

Chris, (Or tech support)

Thanks for the email you sent a few weeks ago. I do appreciate the credit on my account. I’m writing tonight to see if maybe you can help me further. I’ve gone as far as I can with telephone support and don’t know where else to turn.

It’s now the 16^th of April and I started tracking this problem on the 17^th of February. I’ve had engineers to my house, the maintenance department, various technicians, etc. One of them slipped up and told me he knew very well it was an MTC issue that had to be escalated and most likely wouldn’t get fixed for quite awhile. When I told the Suddenlink supervisor that, he wasn’t too happy, but I sat here with the engineer running the T-Bird who tested the network and he agreed…it’s nothing on my end at all.

Synopsis of the problem: I’m an IT engineer.. so I do this for a living all day long every day. It’s not Rocket Science.. it’s Torrent traffic.

I maintain a home office in addition to our main office downtown. If I work from home, as I do some days, my internet service is up around where it needs to be when I start in the morning; somewhere between 6-7 mb. (Look at the attached PNG file for clarification). Throughout the day, traffic is fine. Basically its fine because everyone is at work, school, etc. Around dinner time each night, and I mean EVERY SINGLE NIGHT, my connection starts to suffer, most noticeably around 7 PM and later. At 8 PM, I’ll get 1.32 mb. By midnight, I’m down to less than 1 on most days.

It’s to the point now that I can’t even watch anything online, much less actually get work done after 7 PM. (It’s pretty bad when you can’t watch Hulu because your connection times out and you’re paying for 8mb service!!!). Forget trying to FTP files to servers, perform remote service on other computers, design web sites, or whatever else I might need to do that evening. Based on usage patterns and time of day, you and I both should be able to deduce it’s torrent related. You’ve got 200 students (or however many) on this node bit-torrenting their tails off all night after they go to bed, or when they’re playing xbox, or whatever, but its eating my bandwidth to death and there’s been absolutely NO remedy for months now.

I called tonight to check on my service ticket…. Nothing. No news, no changes, etc. I had to call because every night this week, EVERY night, about the same time of night, my network crawls to the point that I can’t even send out http requests to web sites. I only know I’m online because Skype takes very little packet traffic to remain connected. Basically the net gets so slow I can’t load a web page… ANY web page. This continues for about ten minutes, after which the network stops altogether, the cable modem loses signal, and then it resets itself automatically and the speed is back up again for awhile, before slowing down again within the hour. No, it’s not my computer. I have two computers in the house and other net and wifi appliances and it happens across the board.

Your own engineers have verified that the copper to my building is experiencing very minimal loss, much less than expected. The SNR is fine on the copper outside, inside, and to the tap. I purchased a new cable modem through you guys because they told me it had to be that. There’s another $50.00 I didn’t need to spend. I replaced the router as well, updated the firmware, and then replaced the firmware altogether with DDWRT to get better access to my net statistics. I’ve done everything your support personnel have asked me but the problem hasn’t been fixed at all. The ONLY fix for this is to move my account (and most likely those geographically near me) to another node… at least that’s what your Suddenlink customer service supervisor told me the last time I talked to him. His words were “Well, Mr. Jordan, it’s most likely going to take months for that to happen.” What I want to know is WHY? Obviously my network node is overloaded. Ok fine, put me on a node that’s NOT overloaded so I can get the bandwidth I’m paying for. I’m paying for the next-to-highest package you have and getting HORRIBLE speeds. To top it all off I have to deal with customer support people on the phone who think everyone is a 65-year old grandmother who’s never used the net. I get really tired of telling them there’s no need to reboot my computer just so you can verify what multiple engineers have already told us both…

What can I do, who can I talk to, where can I go to get this fixed? I even looked at dropping cable altogether after about 8 years of service because the quality is so disgustingly poor, only to find out that Embarq’s pricing is HORRIBLE for similar speed packages. I’m out of options here. Please help.

Best Regards,

Tommy Jordan

This is the attachment I sent with that email: (Click it to see it full sized)

OUR CONNECTION PROBLEMS WERE SOLVED..THANK YOU SUDDENLINK AND MR. PETE ABEL ~

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

THANK YOU TO SUDDENLINK AND PETE ABEL FOR FIXING OUR PROBLEM

NEWEST SPEED TEST-JULY,17 2012

Monday, July 16, 2012

SPEEDTEST.NET SHOWS HOW MY HORRIBLE CONNECTION MATCHES TO OTHERS

We pay around 40 bucks a month for internet alone..pay for 3 mb/s download..getting ZERO point ONE SEVEN

I like the way Mr Jordan documented his Suddenlink problems...sounds like MY Suddenlink Internet problems