I have DSL service from a local phone company

I'm paying 39.95 a month for 512 kbps. the last 4 or 5 weeks the speed in the evening slows to less than 100 kbps. Its like it is an overcrowded connection because it works fine from midnight or so until the next afternoon about the time school lets out. What I would like to know is what can I do about it, I can get dialup from another company but it is only 56 kbps which is painfully slow. Aren't the service providers required by law to provide a certain level of performance or am I on my own? this company offers dialup and dsl of 384, 512 and 768 kbps. I would appreciate it if someone could shine a little light on this for me.

so they've covered their butts for overloaded circuits during peak times.

On edit: mine slows down during the day, as I'm near a university. It's pretty fast at night.

They finally agreed with me that it looks like an overloaded condition but do I just have to take the slow speed and just move along here, nothing to see type deal? Anyways it sure gets frustrating when I can't watch a video clip without it being a pain in the a or waiting forever for the page to refresh.

And unless you're willing to pay Comcast's prices and put up with the lack of security on a cable connection (a real issue in my case), slower speed at peak times will be the scoop until the phone company upgrades their system.

which is so slow I can see the electricity snaking through the 'tubes'. but seriously it is most of the time faster than dialup.

I have been ultra pleased with my cable connection. Its very fast and seldom fails.

but for some reason they quit. It was running at 3 mbps which according to my neighbor was blistering fast compared to our dsl with the phone company. we have direct tv and they have high speed but they also want 600 bucks up front and 60 buck a month so that is out.

looked into DirecWay, way too expensive.

But even if it were affordable, RUPERT MURDOCH owns DirecTV. I cancelled immediately when I found out, and told them that was the reason.

40% failure rate (requires multiple attempts, says it is connected but nothing works like browsers etc, quits working)

average dial up speed is about 36 kbps, once in a while 40, and sometimes as low as 22.

customer service in India

all this for $22 a month.

so we switched to dslextreme dialup for $10 although it is not much better. at least their service is in CAlifornia.

Msongs
www.msongs.com/political-shirts.htm

but if something doesn't change with this I'll be finding out again. I just hate to pay good money for a service I am not getting, and so on principle I will be forced to toss this dsl. we decided to give them another week to try to find and fix the problem but I'm beginning to think that it won't be fixed for quite some time. grrrrr

We already had Adelphia cable, but decided to try Embarq DSL because it was cheaper. Thank goodness we didn't cancel Adelphia. We were less than impressed after a couple of weeks on DSL -- drop-outs and slow-downs that we never experienced on cable.

Cable is more expensive and vulnerable to slow-downs depending on who else is using it in your area and what they're doing. DSL is not supposed to be effected by that as it comes directly to you through your phone line. What does effect it is distance from the main office, quality of the line and how up to date the local exchange is.

If DSL is new to your area as it is to ours, you'll probably have to wait a year or so for them to work out all the kinks. We lived in the UK when British Telecom was first rolling out DSL, and it took them several years to get it right for the majority of customers.

and up until about a month or little more ago it was acceptable. I say acceptable but what I mean with that is it didn't get on my nerves by slowing down in the evenings. I never was a tv person as I never developed an appreciation for it and when I try to read after a little while my eyelids won't stay open, so I wake up with bent glasses and wrinkled books.

ZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. lol

You shouldn't be experiencing slow-downs unless they've been bringing on a lot of new customers without having the server power to support everyone. Which might well be the case. Does this happen in the evening around the time people are coming home from work/school and logging on for a few hours of surfing?

I assume you've tried calling tech services to find out what the problem is? And demanding a discount if they don't fix it? That's what I'd do. It worked a lot better in England, though, where hearing an American voice growling down the phone at them used to carry some weight. :)

and last until after my bed time which is close to now. I have been calling tech service and am pretty much on a first name basis with all the techies but it still hasn't helped much. No one else that I can find offer dsl service here. There is a local wireless company but there is a big hill between here and there so that is out.

Tell them you know from the timeframe you're being impacted that they don't have the server speed to handle everyone who's connecting to them in the evening, and ask them what they intend to do about it.

If they have plans to upgrade their servers in the not too distant future, good. If not, I'd start running online speed tests regularly through the evening and jot down the results. There's lots of free ones like this: http://reviews.cnet.com/7004-7254_7-0.html

If your speed is significantly and consistently lower than the one your ISP advertises, you might have a case. But it may come down to threatening to cancel their service if they don't correct things. If you can't afford to do that you're probably stuck. :(

For $39.95, you should get a much faster connection. For example, Verizon provides a 768 kbps connection for $15 and a 3Mbps connection (peak) for $40 or so.

The slowdown is perplexing though : ADSL data rates do vary with distance / line conditions, but IIRC they don't drop drastically no matter how many subscribers there are, because the DSL service is not a 'shared' one.

they came out friday and checked my line and said it was fine. They put this new line in about 5 years ago when they started offering dsl service. check this out they charge 59.95 for 768 kbps, I know those folks are getting ripped off big time because the technician had me set at the 768 rate and the fastest I seen was 520 kbps. And that is during the early morning hours when it is ok, its in the evenings that pisses me off.

The world of deregulation ... the world of "free trade" (the choice of 'take it' or 'leave it') ... the world where such deliberately oversold bandwidth can only be fought by a class action suit with little remaining chance of succeeding (federal courts only, now, right?), even if the 'customers' could find a deep-pocketed law firm to take the case.

The 'theory' is that the oversold capacity will (somehow, magically) cause someone to add capacity to meet market demand. Don't hold your breath.

The 'good news' is that there's a precedent. AOL oversold their capacity in the 90s and lost a major class action suit ... and had to settle. Laws? They're what get argued in a class action suit. It's not criminal. Yet.

well the first one maybe.

This site has been around for years, all the best broadband info to be had. At the least it will give you a better understanding of high speed connections, and possibly some ammo to use if you call your ISP to get it worked out...
http://www.dslreports.com/forums/all
edit: hiya fellow okie! :hi:

service here except directtv and they are priced out of the picture. thanks for the link I will check it out.
to DU

I use them, rather tan the local Qwest service. Maybe someone can be more precise about the technical aspects, but my understanding is that here they reroute the DSL over lines/bandwidth that is (owned/leased/reserved for) COVAD, and thus may be less crowded. My experience with tech support has been very positive. I am a bit too far from a hub to get top speed reliably, so they put the connection down a notch and I get about 770kbps down and 300+ upload speeds, from servers on the other side of the country, but more importantly it doesn't seem to vary.

Look here http://www.speakeasy.net/ and give them a call if they serve your area. My experience leads me to believe you will get an honest answer about what kind of speeds you can expect.

I would suggest downloading and then viewing it if possible after the save.

the vid clips here on du which is mostly utube.