I have been having this issue as well. My internet is my lifeline, without it I can't do business or entertain myself. This is my story:
Although the issue began roughly 2 weeks before this. Issues weren’t severe enough for me to be concerned with. There was occasional latency, that was annoying; but nothing extreme. There was also an outage in my area. I know this because I contacted someone else in my area who has TWC and asked about their connection and it was out as well. I usually attempt to contact other TWC customers by text message whenever I have an issue. Usually my issue precedes them having an issue by at least a couple of hours. Their issues also tend to be less severe than mine, although this is not always the case.
May 23 is when I reported the first major issue. It isn’t a disconnect from the TWC service it is more of a slowing down. My Internet speeds usually stand at about 20 Mbps download and 2 Mbps upload (this is what it should be). This would drop drastically, but not completely disconnect. This is also when I became aware of the standard procedure of attempting to fix it. Which involves rebooting the modem. If that doesn’t work rebooting the modem and the router at the same time. If that does not work plugging a computer directly into the box via RJ-45, and then rebooting the modem a third time. I believe the last one is to make sure that there isn’t an issue with the router, which in my case there is not. Along with direct plug in I even replaced the router, just in case, and the issue persists.
Now in the first couple days, they insisted that my modem had been one for over 24 hrs. This was not true, I had rebooted it several times and had even left it unplugged for 15 minutes. Whatever system was being used to monitor it was apparently not reporting correctly. This went on for three days before TWC reported that they were having area issues. They apologized for the inconvenience and next day it seemed to be back to its former self.
The next set of issues began July 5. I again went through the same procedures and contacted TWC. They asked me the same set of questions again. I answered them and they again reported that this issue was area wide. They let me know this immediately this time without a three day wait.
July 24 began the pain. It was at this point, being ready this time, that my connection began to bog down again. I also began more attentively tracking the issue. The upload speed was the primary thing to drop. First to 600 kbps then to 40kbps and eventually down to 8 bits per second. (I took these reading using a desktop widget that was designed to measure speeds through wifi). It does not stay at these low speeds. It bounces back up for a little while and then back down. Almost as if it were a wave cresting and then crashing. Once this bottomed out at 8 bits per second I began the procedure. I rebooted my modem, modem and router, and went to direct plug in. All to no avail and then reported it to TWC at 8:40pm Eastern. They suggested scheduling an appointment to come and look at it. At this point I was used to being informed that my suffering was do to an area outage and was expecting to be told the same. In fact I let TWC know that this sort of issue usually begins right before there is a reported area outage.
A Technician was promptly dispatched for the following morning, July 25 at approximately 10:30am. As the issue comes and goes it was not present while he was there. However, he did take a thorough look through my equipment and at the pole. He blamed it on bad connections at the pole. He said that the connection where operating on two different frequencies: a higher mhz frequency for the download and a lower mhz frequency for the upload, and the bad connectors were prevents the lower frequency from getting through with any sort of regularity. He replaced them and said it should be fine. It wasn’t.
July 27 the issue began again. By this point I was frustrated and furious. July 30 it happened again. Now at this point I began to take note of exactly what was going on. When connected to an external server my latency is usually around 32 ms (ranges from about 25 to 80 with the average being 32). That is good for standard response time between my input and server response. When the issue starts up my latency begins first to jump to about 3500 ms (roughly 3.5 seconds between when information is transmitted and I receive viable info back from the server). Now that will bounce back to up 32ms. It will then bounce to around 7000 ms (7 second delay). Then back to 32ms. Then to around 15000 ms, and then back again. Then up 60000 ms (A full minute between when I transmit info and when I the server responds that it got it). Then back down, then up higher then the server will register a connection (I get DCed from said server). Now I have tried this with a variety of programs to a variety of servers and they are all about roughly the same information. The speeds don’t drop continuously, but seem to bounce between high speed and almost no speed. Download speeds seems mainly unaffected. I say this because although there is a drop on the download speeds when this gets going it only drops to a max of 2 mbps. This is slow, but watching a movie or receiving input is largely unaffected. I also started to try and locate a pattern, however this has proven futile the time this starts seems to be as random as the wind. As I do not get off work till 8pm Eastern I can only report what I notice between then and when I go to bed. July 24 this issue began at 8:40pm. July 27 is began at 10:00 pm. July 30 I submitted a picture of my modem displaying 0 connection to their end at 11:35pm. July 31st this happened again shortly before 9:00pm.
They set up an appointment for August 3, a Saturday, at 4:00 pm. I scheduled that time off work so I could be home. After the appointment was scheduled I had a couple day reprieve from what it had been. August 2 it went out again at 9:00 pm. They reassured me that my appointment was still on for the following day.
The day of the appointment came, needless to say it was working fine when the technician was there. The techs name on his card was Anthony (Tech #52471). He redid the connections inside the house and even replaced the modem. He was very thorough as well making sure everything was working by the time he left. He said he couldn’t locate an issue, but that without being there when it acted up it would be very hard to determine a cause. He also mentioned that chances are if replacing the modem didn’t fix the issue it was something “down the line” that was causing the problem. This got me thinking back to the original installation. No cable line had been hooked up this house in over 30 years. Yet when the installer had arrived he insisted on hooking up to the 30 year old cable. Stating that it would be fine despite having been abandon before TWC even offered internet through their cable service. That night the connection was fine. I hoped that was the end of it.
The following night on August 5 at around 1:30 am it started having issues. I did a speed test through my router and it came back with a download speed of .44 mbps and an upload speed so slow it timed out before registering anything. I sent a picture of the speed test to TWC. TWC responded at about 3:19 am to the information, stating that there was an area problem that they were looking into. I let them know that this problem had persisted for a while and if there was an area issue that I had let them know that my issue usually precedes an outage. Thus the area issue probably could have been avoided if TWC had more closely looked into my issue.
I feel at this point that my home connection has been gone over thoroughly by myself and both of the technicians. To which no issue was found. Thus, as the one tech put it, it is probably down the line. Somewhere between my residence and TWC. I don’t know what the issue is, but I need it fixed. I feel trapped. As for what I do. TWC is the only viable option in our small town. I am frustrated and I feel that I am losing money to a service that isn’t delivering on what it promised. I am not entirely sure where to go from here.
I have started talking to other people in my community and quickly become aware that this isn’t an isolated incident. Most people, including other family members, in the area have been having this issue to some degree. Their internet will go out for no reason, it will fade and come back. I even talked to business owner that said the issue had gotten so severe for him had to drop TWC because he could no longer run credit cards through his system during these time frames. That was losing him more money then the service was worth. Most people in my area still consider internet access to be a luxury rather than a necessity. Thus they have accepted these modulations as a fact of life and don’t vocalize their concerns to TWC. This is not something that I can do.
This issue persists on August 7th and then begins to clear. I am hopeful that this is the end of it. This hope though is dashed. Monday August 12th I experience packet loss and increased latency. Nothing to severe. Tuesday August 13th it increases in severity and I again raise my concern online to TWC as this issue began persisting into Wednesday. They again have me plug directly in and reboot my router. The issue continues to modulate in and out regardless of this. My complaints to TWC give me the runaround. They do call the following morning. The person I talked to (I did not get the name of because they called while I was asleep and woke me up) blamed my router. Of course. When I explained that the issue persisted even if I bypassed the router, in fact it got worse, he then blamed the website I was looking at for going down. He asked if I ran a tracert, a process I thought had died in Windows XP. I told him no, since I was connected to several different servers simultaneously and unless they all went down at the exact same time as well as every other website on the internet this was unlikely other sites fault. He then insisted it was on my end and no one else was having issues. A blatant lie. He then proceeded to blame my system and suggest scheduling an appointment for a time when no one was available to be there. When I told him the times we were he claimed no one was available to come. He then said he would just kick this to another department so no one had to come. This was very obviously blowing me off.
At this point I feel abused. TWC knows they are my only option. They know I have no other choice and they appear to be perfectly happy to sit back and do nothing. I feel toyed with, I have suffered financial loss to their service. I don’t know where else to turn.
This is what I submitted to the BBB I am also looking into filing a complaint with the FCC and anywhere else to anyone else. There is no resolution. Either TWC doesn't know what it is, or they are unwilling to fix it. If anyone knows a way to have TWC fix the issue let us know. Likewise if you have this issue talk to your neighbors. I am betting its area wide.
I am in the process of setting up recording equipment and fraps to video record the issue when it occurs. I plan to go after TWC until they fix it. I would suggest you do the same.
Good luck and god speed.
