Today I ordered an upgrade to the top Internet speed. The Customer Service Rep (CSR) said “OK I’ve put your order in and it’ll take them two business days to activate it, so you can expect to see an increase on Tuesday. It may take a week to finally see your speeds top out.” (Today is Friday)
I was just wondering what exactly is the process in upgrading to a higher speed. Do they just flip a switch? Or do they have to do something complex?
[BTW AT&T is matching Comcast. AT&T’s elite (up to 6mbs) is normally $35/month. Comcast is offering $19.95 for up to 8mbs. So if you have AT&T DSL and say you were thinking of canceling AT&T and going to Comcast, but you have a “friend” that got a special deal on the Elite Package, they’ll give you the AT&T Elite package for half off or $17.50/month]
So if you have AT&T and not getting the Elite deal you may want to try this. It’s good for six months but you can always switch back or try to get it for another six months
Well…it can mean just flipping a switch or something more like physically connecting you to a higher speed network. I would assume AT&T only needs to flip a switch as anything else would be time consuming and expensive for them. It may be someone takes an order and thent he order goes to someone else who flips a switch.
Remember there is more to network speed than bandwidth. Think of bandwidth like having more lanes available on a road. More lanes can carry more traffic. You still have things like speed limits and stop lights and what not that can affect overall speed.
Cable companies can be particularly dodgy on this one. You may have a theoretical speed of 6 mb/s but you share that pipe with a lot of other people in your area. At peak times your speed can diminish noticeably when everyone is on. At 3a it can be lightning fast.
For cable they just alter the bandwidth limitations caps on their end. They can tell who you are based on the hardware ID of your cable modem, so they can restrict the rate at which data flows to you at their end. Pay more and you get a higher speed before they start to throttle you.
At least, I think that’s how it works. It’s possible they can give instructions to your modem to limit the bandwidth there through DOCSIS commands. I’m not positive.
I can’t imagine why “It may take a week to finally see your speeds top out.” - it shouldn’t be a gradual process, they either raised the cap or they didn’t. Maybe it takes them up to a week to set things up on there end - or if it’s done remotely to your modem (like I said, not positive), maybe there’s a check in time for automatic updates that happens in a weekly window.
Typically, your cable modem itself is responsible for managing speed. Every time it starts up, it downloads a configuration file (the name for which escapes me right now) from your provider that sets up various things, including upload and download caps.
Depending on your brand of modem, there are sometimes technical ways to view this information, but tech support can connect directly to them and verify things from that end, if you think it might not be set up right.
First, they run a line diagnostic just to make sure you are close enough to the DSLAM to get above the next lower cap (so if you can get 3.1 mbps, they will sell you the 6mbps service).
The next thing they do is change your account in the database, and whenever they run the next batch, the central office (in Richardson TX, last time I checked) sends a message to your DSLAM raising your cap. There is basically no human intervention other than the sales person you talked to on the phone. Unless you have been a very long term customer, your modem can already handle 6mbps, and if they are offering the service at all, your DSLAM already has 6mbps-capable cards installed. So it’s really just an automated database entry.
I used to do tech support for SBC, and part of my job was handling these exact jobs when they messed up (usually because they used PPPOE and their authentication servers sucked).
ETA: oh yeah, the reason they say it might take up to a week is because they don’t know when the next batch will go out, (usually within two days) and the other reason is that your modem has already negotiated a speed with the DSLAM and if your connection is pretty stable it won’t need to re-negotiate again and will keep chugging along at 1.5mbps. I recommend rebooting your modem daily until you see the new cap on your modem’s status page.
It sounds, in theory, like something that could be hacked. I assume there are safeguards to prevent savvy users from turning their 6 meg connection into a 12 meg connection?
Comcast uses some sort of physical filter. I wish I knew the details, but I had a fun time for a while at 20 Mbps. My plan was only at 6, but they rushed the installation to get it set up in time for the office to open. It took them about a month before they finished installing hardware on a phone pole and that’s when they added the speed restrictions.
Having seen Comcast’s boxes for residential apartments (again, where the cable comes in from the street pole and then goes to each apartment), I have seen physical color-coded filters inserted between cables and the jacks that carry the signal into the apartment. If you could pick the lock, you could activate or upgrade your service. That was a few years ago, though… it seems consistent with the more recent office installation, but I don’t know the details any more.
If you Google around you see it’s not hard to hack a modem. From what I’ve read though, it’s very easy for the company to tell the modem’s hacked and you will be billed for excess bandwidth at a very high rate and possible subject to criminal prosecution.
Everything I’ve read said basically it’s not worth it to hack the modem 'cause it’s too easy for the company to see you’re getting too much bandwidth.
It’s important to note that DSL cannot be hacked by the end user. Bandwidth is set by the DSLAM. Your modem will always train to the highest speed allowed by the DSLAM. Cable is different because users share a loop, so regulating individuals at the cable company’s end would be difficult. DSL is one pair per customer, and so is more easily regulated at the phone company’s end.