Comcast Network Latency or Lag in NJ?

waynenf · Post by **waynenf** » Wed Feb 20, 2002 10:44 pm

Is anyone else in the Southern New Jersey area experiencing tremendous lag and latency on Comcast's network? For the past 4 days, web browsing has slowed to a crawl. Pages start to load, stall, load some more, stall - it's worse than dial-up. I've sent numerous emails to customer care and tech support concerning this problem, but haven't even had the courtesy of a reply.
Just so everyone doesn't ask me the same questions:
1. TCP/IP settings have been checked.
2. Modem is only 4 weeks old, and is functioning properly.
3. My cache is cleared at the end of each browsing session, as are my cookies and history.
4. I'm using IE 6.0 with all current patched and updates.
5. My connection was fine last Thursday... nothing has changed... no change to TCP/IP settings, no new software installed or removed, nothing modified.
6. Slowness seems to be with all net apps, even FTP and email. I monitor my throughput by watching the upload/download lights on Zone Alarm Pro... some times, it looks like the download just stalls for about 5 seconds, and then starts up again, only to stall and startup again in a vicious cycle.

It's frustrating me to no end... the problem is at it's worst between 7 PM and 11 PM during the week, and mornings on weekends.

Kinda reminds me of my 28.8 modem days...

Anyone else having problems? Maybe there's a bad router or an overloaded node in my town? I live in Vineland NJ.

waynenf · Post by **waynenf** » Wed Feb 20, 2002 11:16 pm

On Wednesday, February 20, at 11:09 PM, my bandwidth results from phl.speakeasy.net:

Test running..........
** Speed 328(down)/123(up) kbps **
(At least 6 times faster than a 56k modem)
Finish.

GRRRRR.... this problem has been occurring on and off for about 4 days now, and it is just plain unacceptable.

jarablue · Post by **jarablue** » Thu Feb 21, 2002 7:09 pm

Move out of NJ. That is the worst place to live. I grew up in a scumbag town called Somers Point. God I am so glad to be out of there. Anyway back on topic. Have you tried doing any tracerts to see where the congestion is? Get more info then call them back and let them have it. Then tell them how bad NJ sucks. </rant>

njeddiek · Post by **njeddiek** » Thu Feb 21, 2002 7:19 pm

I live in central Jersey and I am experiencing the same problem during the day. my speakeasy tests went from averaging 1445/121 to 989/80. It only improves slightly late nite. Fortunately it is not as bad as what your getting but it really p**s me off. First Comcast cuts our cap in half, now over the last few days we can't even get close to the new lower cap. Dsl is starting to look really good.

bent · Post by **bent** » Fri Feb 22, 2002 3:30 pm

Dear Waynenf,
After talking to former employees of @home and a current Comcast employee who lives in our apartment block, I will give my 2 cents:

@home had completely oversold the south NJ area by the time of their demise - peak times were sometimes close to modem speeds for many users, depending on their location. This was corraborated to me many times by @home employees.

Unfortunately Comcast's new network is not currently up to the traffic it's getting in south NJ either ...

Most of the apartment complexes here have analog equipment that precludes them from getting DSL - the Verizon operator told me they are pounded everyday by people trying to get away from Comcast, especially since the @home changeover.

It will be interesting when Comcast moves to the "user-punishment" tier-pricing structure, perhaps this will prompt one of NJ's politico's to start investigation Comcast's monopolistic and fraudulent business practices - one can hope!!

Regards,
Bent