Silly me for downloading FreeBSD and OpenSolaris images on the same day. (This time.)

“Unlimited Access”, so long as you don’t use it.
What is the purpose of the FCC?

We’ve been as upset as you seem to be (and worse, I’m sure), because we share your belief that, in the end, this all boils down to false advertising, fraud, or just plain old theft.

I’m curious about the monitoring software you’re using and what tests you’re running, output of test results, as well as what your setup looks like, which cable modem, which router, what your bandwidth usage is like, etc. We’d be happy to post your setup, tests and data/results here.

Thanks again for your comment. Good luck with everything, and keep us informed as you see fit.

I appreciate the feedback, wherever you might post it.

AC: I’ve actually run a cord from the next-door neighbor’s place since I’ve seen it mentioned that it could be that (but honestly, TW themselves have blamed sunspots, overpowered ham radio, CB radio from semi traffic nearby, every network and phone and cable-using device ever made…and on and on, no lie). Anyway, it made no difference.

The cable modem is currently connected just inside my foundation where the line enters the house (albeit currently with a splitter (also replaced by them) so we can watch TV). The problem still occurs with just the CM connected, sans splitter, btw. Literally every cable and connector from the cable modem’s current location 3 feet from my basement wall, all the way back to the pole behind our house, has been replaced by TW since this started. None of that has fixed anything.

As for interference, wouldn’t that be an ongoing problem anyway? We’ve been in a pretty steady weather pattern lately, so no real changes as far as furnace use or anything else. Heat is a gas furnace on opposite side of the house from the coax and cat6 runs. As for cables running near anything electrical, they’re where they’ve always been for the last three years we’ve lived here (with the exception of a recent move of the CM to the basement to test the house-wiring-of-some-sort-is-mucking-things-up theory), so the lack of any changes inside our house would seem to rule out it being a problem inside our house, imo…right? We’ve not added any new electronics or phones or anything of the sort since this started again.

I’m really at a loss about how to even explain this to anyone at TW, when we can even GET anyone to talk to us about it. NO one I’ve talked to seems to really ‘get’ that it could be a problem anywhere but inside my house. The last tech they sent out did the smallest/fastest local speedtest possible, which runs quite quickly…and that passed, so he called everything OK. Before he left, I hopped online right after that, and it’s same-as-it-ever-was. He shrugged, said he didn’t know, and to let them know if it continued!

I’ve lost all patience for service calls involving my home interior at this point, because they’ve all proven to be complete wastes of time. I’ve literally tried everything I know to try/test, eliminating other equipment, etc.

So clearly there’s something wacky _somewhere_, but it seems like a ghost in their machine “out there” and I would love to be able to direct them to some specific part or location or something–anything–to get them to take a look. It seems like they’re monkeying around with something, and it’s wreaking havoc on us here.

What does it take to get TW to take this seriously, and do some good testing? I’d think they could bring their own cable modem, sit out at the pole 100 feet behind my house, try to download something–anything–and watch the CM reboot… Keep tracing it backwards from our pole, until it goes away. With only one guy (me) noticing and complaining, though, they apparently don’t feel particularly pressured to take the time and spend the money investigating this. Meanwhile, I’m out $55/month for Roadrunner service I might as well not even have for as much as I can rely on it.

As for CM levels, they are always within the limits I’ve seem mentioned around online. Nothing weird there. Very rarely I’ll see some “No FEC lock” errors in the log, but for the most part, nothing weird in the logs or admin UI at all except for the constant spontaneous rebooting I see listed.

The most frustrating part of this whole thing seems like it’s being blown off and not taken seriously by TW. Literally zero response to long letters, long explanations to techs, etc. Promises of CM monitoring with eventual callbacks…none of which ever happen, etc. But they’re always right on top of the bill! *sigh*

We’re moving 50 miles or so north eventually (month or two from now), but not out of the TW-Milw. service area… so if it’s a bad line or connection in a neighborhood junction box or something, maybe the problem won’t follow us and we’ll eventually be fine. Who knows. The lack of comparable options is quite frustrating. I’ll still worry for our current neighbors and the next family that lives in this house.

Thanks again.

Your modem is rebooting. That nearly eliminates purposeful ISP throttling as a cause as many DOCSIS modems cannot be rebooted from the headend. This is why most ISPs tell you to reboot your router when a network upgrade happens so that it can phone home and download and apply its new config file.

Now — I’m the guy holding Comcast’s feet to the fire for throttling. So if I thought it was TWC + throttling, I’d certainly tell you.

It still is TWC who owns everything from your rented modem up to the node at the CMTS. If the cablemodem loses contact with the headend, a “watchdog” function in the modem will cause it to reboot in hopes to reestablish communications. There are several reasons that can happen — 99% of those reasons are TWC issues. The modem normally won’t reboot if it loses connectivity with your router or computer — so if the modem is rebooting, it’s because of an issue on the DOCSIS side.

That said, there are some “you” things you can check — is the AC supply a clean one? Have you added any cables or splitters that might weaken the signal? Do your cables run near any electrically “noisy” sources that might dampen the modem’s link to the headend — such as an electric baseboard heater?

Thanks for letting me visit your blog. I might be back to your blog from time to time, but I read DSLReports every day or two. If there is anything I can do to help, please contact me on DSLReports.

–Robb (aka funchords)

i’m seeing the exact same thing, ALWAYS with bittorrent, sometimes with SCP/FTP and streaming video (youtube and others).

i bought a mac mini the other day and it took THREE modem reboots to get completely through the system updates.