RCN Download Speed is not what I am paying for?

[hissingicicle486]

Hi,

I pay for 25mbps download and 5 upload speed through RCN and everynight when I come home from work around 7-10ish my internet speed is always around 1-4 mbps. I have tried calling them and doing all the ways they tell me that should fix the problem but it doesnt work. The thing is the speed is back to normal in the morning and it only gets reduced to 1-4mbps at night around 5 and stays that way until I go to bed. This is unacceptable! They offered to send a tech out to take a look however they will charge me 45$ because I know the tech wont find anything wrong because he will only come during the day when it is fine. Their support thinks I am lying when I tell them this. Is there any other option you guys may know that will help me? I have tried verizon but they overcharge you a crap ton for the same speed.

[rowlfe]

RCN is a cable provider, yes? Well... You ARE getting what you paid for! The problem is you confuse SPEED with THROUGHPUT. Speed is a RATE and is a constant determined by the hardware and radio frequencies used. When they say 25mbps, that IS the speed, but it ONLY applies WHEN data MOVES. Throughput is a quantity of data moved over time. The problem is you are not alone. You are on a party line with other users, so there are periods of time when you do not move any data, which means same SPEED, but lower throughput. Your 25mbps works in bursts. The more users, the fewer bursts you get per second, the "slower" your connection appears to be. Still, the SPEED is a constant 25mbps! The changes you see over a day reflect the changing number of users on the party line with you. The more users (peak use hours), the slower everyone goes as the bandwidth is shared among more and more users. There is a name for this, "the party line effect". The party line effect happens because of two mechanisms of communication over a wire. The first mechanism is the access point at your ISP. Everyone on the line has what is equivalent to a push to talk walkie talkie, in the form of your cable modem. There is a 75 ohm coaxial cable that runs from house to house to house and all cable modems are in parallel on the line. So is the access point... but the problem is, the access point has one transmitter just as you do, and it can only talk to one user at a time, while everyone else waits for a turn. Waiting is dead time, with none of your data moving and your throughput plummets. The second mechanism is a traffic jam. When you want to talk, you listen and if the line is clear, you push to talk and send data. You get a reply and then are free to do it again. No problem. If the line is busy, you wait a bit (dead time) and then when the line clears, push to talk and send data. Again no problem except for a bit of dead time. The big problem comes in when another user is waiting as you are. You both try to talk and you collide. Neither gets through. Then, not hearing a reply, you both do it again and collide again, and again, and again, until one of you takes finally the floor forcing the rest to wait again. The more waiting and trying to talk, the longer it takes for the jam to clear and someone starts moving data again. This is complete dead time for everyone waiting to talk. So, THAT is the party line effect in a nutshell and why you will NEVER achieve the SPEED advertised. The only way to achieve the speed advertised is if you are alone, one transmitter moving data to one receiver. By the way, this SAME effect applies to wireless access. Your wireless neighbors count as they have transmitters and have to wait just as you do for the line to clear before talking. Wireless is a party line within your home network, on which you are your own worst enemy.

Bottom line: SPEED is a constant. You pay for a particular speed and that is exactly what you get. THROUGHPUT is inversely proportional to the number of users on the line with you. Throughput varies because the number of users wanting to talk varies with the time of day.

There is NO technical problem for them to find since the system IS working exactly as it was designed to do AT the rated speed they SAY it does. Don't shoot the messenger... The ONLY things you can DO is dump wireless in favor of wire in your network to get rid of that party line. But you are stuck with cable. Or you could swap over to DSL which is a private line from your router to your ISP's router and NOT shared on a party line with anyone else. On DSL your speed IS your throughput. 256K DSL = 2mbps cable throughput