There has been an ongoing issue in my area of Va. for going on a week. Usually in the afternoon or evening, but occasionally around noon, net access becomes impossible. Pinging my Default Gateway reveals packet loss routinely in excess of 50% (I'm pinging the gateway). Pings outside the gateway are the same.
Usually there's some warning if I'm online before the connection degrades and I hit a site like DownDetector.com and sure enough, there's a color blob over my area. Or, if I'm unable to get there, when I check after I'm back up I see that there was an issue in my area.
I don't usually call support because frankly it's useless. The support focus will inevitably become my 660R Embarq supplied modem as the likely issue. No one is ever able to tell me whether there's an issue in my area and so the problem is assumed to be mine. I've even gone to the NID with the modem, had no access, and been told the issue is on my end.
Yesterday, I broke down and called because this down-time occurred first while I was trying to do my taxes, and then later as I was about to stream netflix. Same experience with the 660 as the likely problem, and how they couldn't "see my modem"
My question: If I'm unable to ping my gateway without packet loss in excess of 50%, how likely are they to see it? And how it is they have absolutely no way to aggregate trouble calls into meaningful information in which to formulate whether there's an issue possibly in an area?
First, the tech rep told me he could not see my modem. Then, when I asked him to ping my default gateway he said he could not do that without a supervisor. So I asked him to get a supervisor because I wanted to know the result of pinging it for my own satisfaction. The rep comes back to say they now "see" two IP addresses associated with my account. That's likely because after I was told to remove the switch from the chain and plug the computer directly into the modem (which did nothing) I released my IP and booted my backup 660 and obtained a new IP in the usual amount of time.
If they can see the IP addresses associated with my account, and I'm seeing massive packet loss to my gateway, how is it that support works with a system that they claim is unable to ping my gateway? If they are able to see my IP and I'm telling them my gateway is borked whenever this has occurred over the past week, why is it still assumed to be the modem(s) first? They didn't want the IP of my gateway - as if they knew what it was. So why is no one able to tell me whether that router is functioning properly?
I don't think I'm in an oversold area unless they oversold it in a very short amount of time because I've been rock solid and streaming HD without interruption for years. But then how do they have an issue that lasts for a week that involves sporadic high packet loss?
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