Slow Cable Modem, Part 2
I've replaced the modem with a nice new SURFboard, and the speed is still as
slow as ever. Not much to talk about here other than this is very
annoying. I used to be able to download a single CD full ISO of Knoppix in
about 30 minutes, now it's taking hours. The upside is that they are going to
come out and check the wiring and see what the hang up is, the downside is that
they are going to do it "sometime Wednesday morning" so I have to take a half a
day off from work. When I used to get paid salary this wasn't such a bad
thing, but when you get paid hourly and are on a tight budget it's annoying.
So, I'm having a hard time believing though that it is wiring. We (tech
support) went the web
interface of the modem and the signal strength was about as good as it gets,
and the signal to noise ratio was supposedly excellent. Other than wiring the
only thing I can think of it someone is hogging the bandwidth on my cable
segment. Hopefully it's just wiring.
As far as buying a cable modem goes, I finally got the answer on why they don't
give you a discount for owning one. The service comes with "free cable modem
rental". I'm sure I'm paying for it in the cost of the service anyway though.
I did learn though that, supposedly, I could get 768k/128k ADSL from Speakeasy
which is an improvement. I'd much rather have 1.5M/384k if I had a choice.
Maybe I'll call them up and see since they are more friendly to us tech types
than the average ISP. I shouldn't be to hasty though and give Service Electric a chance to
work through the problem. All in all the service has been satisfactory.