Quicksand Fans

Over the last week or so, the speed of our internet connection has been dropping like a rock.
We have high speed cable through EarthLink, but they rent bandwidth on TimeWarner's system. TimeWarner was just gobbled up by Charter Communications. We pay for "up to" 20 Mbps. Currently, download speeds are between 0.56 Mbps and 0.34 Mbps. I tried to download a ~12 Mb trailer from this site, and finally gave up. The "estimated time left" was bouncing from 3 minutes to 45 minutes and everywhere in between.
I also wonder if it might be Windows 10. Upgraded to that (was fine with Win7, but Microsoft is really pushing Win10.)
If we lose our Internet connection, that is going to be a problem for me starting up in the QS video business. Plus my Lady Wife uses the Internet so much for bills, etc. that we send maybe one bill per month by mail. Oh, and we recently dumped our Satellite TV, since there was nothing on to watch. After all, we can always watch Netflix, Amazon Fire TV, etc.

No issues here. This computer has used Windows 10 since last fall.

I had a similar problem with a cable connection several years ago. It turned out to be a loose connection between the house and the street. Also had a similar problem here shortly after the house was built. That turned out to be installation of the wrong kind of cable from the antenna to the modem.

Do NOT mention anything about problems with a business in talking to the cable company - they will start charging you a business rate.

nachtjaeger wrote:Over the last week or so, the speed of our internet connection has been dropping like a rock.
We have high speed cable through EarthLink, but they rent bandwidth on TimeWarner's system. TimeWarner was just gobbled up by Charter Communications. We pay for "up to" 20 Mbps. Currently, download speeds are between 0.56 Mbps and 0.34 Mbps. I tried to download a ~12 Mb trailer from this site, and finally gave up. The "estimated time left" was bouncing from 3 minutes to 45 minutes and everywhere in between.
I also wonder if it might be Windows 10. Upgraded to that (was fine with Win7, but Microsoft is really pushing Win10.)
If we lose our Internet connection, that is going to be a problem for me starting up in the QS video business. Plus my Lady Wife uses the Internet so much for bills, etc. that we send maybe one bill per month by mail. Oh, and we recently dumped our Satellite TV, since there was nothing on to watch. After all, we can always watch Netflix, Amazon Fire TV, etc.

Thanks for the good advice.

Fred588 wrote:No issues here. This computer has used Windows 10 since last fall.

I had a similar problem with a cable connection several years ago. It turned out to be a loose connection between the house and the street. Also had a similar problem here shortly after the house was built. That turned out to be installation of the wrong kind of cable from the antenna to the modem.

Do NOT mention anything about problems with a business in talking to the cable company - they will start charging you a business rate.

nachtjaeger wrote:Over the last week or so, the speed of our internet connection has been dropping like a rock.
We have high speed cable through EarthLink, but they rent bandwidth on TimeWarner's system. TimeWarner was just gobbled up by Charter Communications. We pay for "up to" 20 Mbps. Currently, download speeds are between 0.56 Mbps and 0.34 Mbps. I tried to download a ~12 Mb trailer from this site, and finally gave up. The "estimated time left" was bouncing from 3 minutes to 45 minutes and everywhere in between.
I also wonder if it might be Windows 10. Upgraded to that (was fine with Win7, but Microsoft is really pushing Win10.)
If we lose our Internet connection, that is going to be a problem for me starting up in the QS video business. Plus my Lady Wife uses the Internet so much for bills, etc. that we send maybe one bill per month by mail. Oh, and we recently dumped our Satellite TV, since there was nothing on to watch. After all, we can always watch Netflix, Amazon Fire TV, etc.

If you have a family of four, and everybody has a phone, and a pc, and there's an Xbox and a Playstation and a couple of smart tvs and a blueray player all using it at once that 20 Mb/s gets eaten up fast. Could be somebody's hogging the bandwidth.

Is there a chance someone nearby is tapping into your bandwidth? A colleague of mine had similar issues and huge bills until he realized a neighbour was taking advantage of his unsecured wifi network to surf for free. I heard of others who would park in an area with "loose" wifi and download like crazy using their laptop, leaving others to cover the costs of doing so.

A couple of local businesses stopped offering wifi for a similar reason... folks would visit the resort to download as much as possible without having to pay for the service... the business, a shoestring whitewater rafting outfit, couldn't police it effectively... passwords were shared by guests to buddies, etc.

Earthlink should be able to run a test straight to your 'modem'. You might want to have them do that. Their equipment can give them feedback on the entire path, plus possibly what is referred to as Physical Layer (cable/connector) issues.

The slowness could be for a variety of reasons. If it's congestion, that would be most noticeable in the evening. The longer it persists, the more likely it is local to your premises or to your immediate area (not as many folks complaining, if any).

If you are using a personal router, try plugging a PC directly into the modem (we keep saying modem when really, they aren't any more).

In any case, if you eliminate your own equipment, and don't see anything obvious with the cable (are there any splitters by chance?), call Earthlink.

I have 200Mbps split four ways. I have noticed a decrease in speed, but not enough to become a problem yet. I don't think it's related.

If you dumped satellite tv in favor of streaming services, perhaps others watching the streaming programs could be sucking away the bandwidth. Or, perhaps, there is increased internet activity in your neighborhood, putting a strain on your neighborhood network node (or it could be faulty), resulting in lower speed.

Jon Smith wrote:I have 200Mbps split four ways. I have noticed a decrease in speed, but not enough to become a problem yet. I don't think it's related.

I was referring to a coax cable splitter for the RG6 bringing the service into the house.

Even so, network hubs and/or switches are usually not a problem, but can be. Good trouble shooting would start with stripping down the home network to a bare minimum in any case.

Thanks. I upgraded our wonky cable modem to a modem/router/WiFi that has been 100% so far. WiFi is secured, and my Lady Wife's and my PCs share a table with the router and are cabled in. Will check the outside line.

dlodoski wrote:

Jon Smith wrote:I have 200Mbps split four ways. I have noticed a decrease in speed, but not enough to become a problem yet. I don't think it's related.

I was referring to a coax cable splitter for the RG6 bringing the service into the house.

Even so, network hubs and/or switches are usually not a problem, but can be. Good trouble shooting would start with stripping down the home network to a bare minimum in any case.