Black Raven Dragoons

[Grimblast]

I don't normally post much about tech stuff here but I thought I'd share this article from Slashdot.org. For those of you on Comcast, you might be feeling a bit of congestion where you live. This means your internet could be getting hosed because your ISP doesn't have enough bandwidth to support their service. This can result in slow downloads, browsing, latency in games, and so on. If you are experiencing the above symptoms, it doesn't hurt to call Comcast and see what they can do for you. This sort of piqued my interest since I'm aware of some problems Tirian has been having with his internet connection. I can't remember what ISP he has but the timing of this article is somewhat fortuitous.


I'm not a big fan of the cable companies that supply internet due to the way the local providers have supplied the service here(which seems to be the generally accepted model of most cable companies). But I'm aware we have guildies that use those services so if they are having issues that may possibly impede their online experience, I do recommend they contact their ISP and go through some troubleshooting with them to ensure they have good connectivity to their ISP at least. From there, it's in the ISP's hands to resolve any connection issue they have themselves.

[Tirian]

You guessed right I am a not-so-proud Comcast subscriber.

I told Turus the other night that there is a rumor here where I live that Qwest and Comcast -- the two possible broadband providers -- both have a lack of local bandwidth and are not able to provide the amount of bandwidth that we pay for. As a result, they supposedly have begun throttling customers' speeds based on some internal data for A) how much the subscriber actually uses (Grandma doesn't need her 12 mbps for e-mail and Latin pr0n) and/or how much complaining they're getting from the subscriber. There's certainly no way to prove this if one is outside the company, but I can tell you that I've called Comcast three times when my latency and bandwidth were terrible, and each time it magically cleared up.

That said, my cable modem may be going bad, or it may just be a fluke. All my evidence is circumstantial.

On the other hand, I have been in a coffee shop (with a Qwest business internet account -- not sure on the speed) and watched a speed test run as slow as dial-up. The owner places a quick call to Qwest, and suddenly his bandwidth is back to normal. I've seen him do this three times now.

Unfortunately since Comcast and Qwest are my only options here, I'm sticking with the lesser of two evils. Qwest has jerked me around a lot more in the past, and Comcast has a tendency to give discounts or free packages to compensate when they screw things up too much.