Please help ignorant me diagnose my sucky Internets

Factual Questions
1

Both husband and I need a home internet connection for work and are using it several hours a day, every day, twice on Sundays.

Our current connection is awful. We pay Comcast something like $115 a month just for cable internet (we don’t have, don’t want, couldn’t even use if we did have cable TV, so no package for us). It seemed pretty good for the first couple of years we had it, but it has slowly dwindled to head-bangingly frustratingly inconsistent and slow in the past year or so.

How do I go abouut figuring out what the problem is? I understand there are many possible sources of problem, and I know very little about any of them, and would love some pointers on where to start reading up.

We don’t have a ton of alternative service providers. AT&T does the only DSL around here and I refuse to work with the local AT&T people ever again (long story, but they are impressive assholes). Cell service of any kind is patchy around here too – coastal New England, 45 minutes’ drive or more from any real cities, not much going on right here. Verizon and T-Mobile (how much longer will it stay T- Mobile? I have no idea) are about it, and both are around 3 bars at our address, give or take a few bars. T-Mobile has been slightly superior and that’s what we have for our phones, no landline, but given the buyout we could switch if it would help us get a package, I think. Our contracts are way past the penalty-for-leaving stage.

We used to could watch streaming videos, and even upload them to the YouTubes sometimes. Now we rarely get either of those to work on the first, second, or third try.

Here’s the equipment we’re using, just in case anyone can take a glance at it and say “Well here’s your problem, you fools!” and point to something on it and laugh.
[ul]
[li]Comcast Motorola SB5120 Cable Modem[/li][li]Netgear 54 Mbps Wireless Router WGR14[/li][li]this here iPad2 running OS5; also has Verizon, but with a low limit, and it’s through work, so I shouldn’t use it freely – using mostly Safari, though I have a dozen or two free browser apps I could try if it would help[/li][li]my Dell Inspiron 1470 laptop running Windows 7 Home, using mostly a recent-version Firefox, but loaded with the other main ones[/li][li]my husband’s Asus notebook running whatever it is those things run, using, I think, Safari or Opera or both[/li][li]and his old laptop running Linux and stuff, using who-knows what old browser[/li][/ul]
I dunno what inner parts and cards and drivers and whatnot we might have, if that’s what I should be looking at.

Resetting the modem and/or router (though it looks like the router is working OK; it looks like it’s the cable connection that’s getting lost) often but not always seems to help when the connection has copped out or got very patchy. We’re doing that ten times a day or more lately, which pretty much sucks the joy out of wireless.

Anyone? Any hints what to start researching or testing or replacing?

2

How old are your computers? I thought my comcast connection was slowing me down on my old Dell laptop, but then I upgraded my laptop (MacBook), and it works fine.

If you have a windows machine that is more than a few years old, that’s what I’d suspect.

3

First, check your machines for spyware. They’re the leading sucker of bandwidth (sticky is at the top of the page).

Second, CALL COMCAST! Tell them about the crappy service, and give them a chance to fix it. A replacement cable modem could fix all the issues.

4

Ask Comcast for a new modem (which should also have a built-in router). That model’s manual is copyrighted March 2004. So even though the manual doesn’t seem to say, it probably uses the DOCSIS 2 protocol. DOCSIS 3 is much faster and was introduced in 2006.

In the meantime, the manual has a troubleshooting section that may be helpful until you can get the replacement.

I had exactly this problem about a year ago and getting a new modem largely resolved it. But the only reason I got a new modem was because I asked. I’m quite sure my ISP would have been happy to let me use a 2400 baud, acoustically coupled modem if they thought I would let them get away with it, so don’t take no for an answer.

5

Just this past weekend I called them about my poor connection. The guy on the phone went through all the steps with me and still my connection sucked so he suggested that my modem might be a bit old (10 years!) but he couldn’t say straight out that that was the problem. So I got a new one. I would say my download speeds are about 5 times faster now.

I did not get the built in router because mine seems to be fine, it was an extra $100 and I needed it TODAY so there was no chance of shopping around.

6

Comcast doesn’t give modems away for free (you get charged a rental fee)- get your own new one from Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Motorola-SB6121-SURFboard-DOCSIS-Cable/dp/B004XC6GJ0/ref=dp_ob_title_ce
When it arrives hook it up and call Comcast and have them activate it (and remove the modem rental fee, if you have one). You just need the MAC address which is printed on a sticker on the new cable modem. If that doesn’t fix your problem try hooking up your fastest computer directly to the modem without the router in between for a day or two. If it is still slow you need a service tech from Comcast out to check for problems in your cable wiring or at the pole or with comcast’s equipment.

7

I’m going to chime in and say call Comcast. I was suffering download speeds of less than 1.5 Mbs (yes, 1.5!). A tech came out, hooked up a new modem, and now I get a respectable 12 Mbs. Even if you prefer to own your own modem, a new one will probably fix your problem.

8

Some old, some not very old, and they’re all having the same problems, Windows, Mac, and Linux alike. My laptop is less than two years old. This is an iPad 2 I’m on now, which is less than six months old.

Good idear, so I ran Comcast’s free antispyware on the laptop, finding nothing (though I bet I should follow up with whatever the sticky recommends later). It’s amazing how well using Firefox with AdBlock+ cuts down on infections – like taking your kid out of daycare, hur hur.

Well, as it happens, I have a people virus (did I mention my son is in daycare?) and I’ve lost nearly all my voice for at least today. I did try a couple of Real Human Live Chats! on the Comcast site just now, with, amazingly, the same Agent both times, Chris, who ended up using surprisingly stock phrases to tell me to fucking call the help line already. He/She also suggested that route to divine why the package I finally figured out we’re using, “Performance,” is listed at $46 on the site but $60 on our bill (not including the modem rental in either case, or any taxes or fees or whatnot). BTW I was way off in the OP – our bill is only $67/mo. $115 is our cell bill.

“Chris” helped me find the information that our modem is either considered End of Life or Not End of Life, depending on which page you look at, but he and/or she claimed an upgrade was not expected to improve service using the Performance plan. Explanations were not available. “Please contact our Customer Care Center to discuss the , crappy connection problem you are experiencing. I would like to tell you that , we are not able to access your account information, please contact our Customer Care Center to get help with a pricing.” I really hadn’t realized, BTW, that we still pay $7/ month for that antique modem. I love how “Chris” wanted me to look up on a list online to find out whether our modem is still supported… when we rent it from them. (Seriously? You guys would charge me $7/mo for a modem you expect people to know is too old to use, and never mention it might be a problem?)

Ooh! Good info. Thank you.

I hope you’re right, but I am sore afraid I’ll have to upgrade to a more expensive package to take advantage of DOCSIS 3.0. That would make me cranky.

9

I have . . . what the hell is their name again . . . oh right, Cablevision. They swapped out the old one with just a service call. I’m probably paying a rental charge too, but I prefer to not think about that. Just the remote control is $2, so I really don’t want to think about it. :frowning:

I’m not an expert, but I’d be willing to bet there is almost no chance that they will charge you more for DOCSIS 3. The reason is, and I’m guessing, that since that is the protocol that runs their system, there would be no basis for an extra charge.

Yeah, yeah. I guess I shouldn’t declare that as if the facts really mattered.

The only thing I can see happening is that they might want a slightly higher rental fee for the new modem, but I’d say the odds are against it.

10

By all means follow the steps outlined above, but there is one other possible cause to consider. If a lot of new customers have signed on to Comcast’s internet service in your area, you might be seeing the effect of a finite amount of bandwidth having to be shared among a large number of users. Basically everyone is sitting on the same wire and ‘sharing’ the bandwidth. Sort of like an old telephone ‘party line’ although with Comcast internet you can’t hear each other - its secure.

DSL, and FIOS for that matter, provide a direct line (sort of) to each end user so you get the same bandwidth no matter how many people are in the same area.

At least that’s how it used to be - I don’t know if Comcast has done anything to change that.

11

Docsis 3.0 isn’t going to cost you more (and it might help your problems, even if it is on the comcast side). A faster package that uses all the theoretical speed of Docsis 3.0 would cost more, but you don’t need a faster package - you just need to get all the speed out of the package you have, which is something like 10mb/sec - plenty fast enough that the only time you should want faster is if you want to do something like very large online backups every day or torrent dozens of movies at the same time.

12

I would suggest ashampoo internet accelerator 3 I don’t think it would hurt to install that program and see if it can hit the right tweak to get you’re computer handling your internet faster. It’s got a trial but I mean if it doesn’t help at all just uninstall it.

13

Update: We went out and got a new wi-fi modem and ZOOOM! Fast internets!

Thanks all for your help. And boo to Comcast for continuing to rent us a superannuated modem.