Over provisioned network segment

[PatrikP]

Hi, sorry for the long email.  I recently moved about 2 miles and moved my internet service with comcast.  My last house was in a business area and my new house is in an residential area.  I get high Ping spikes in my new area at night starting at 9PM-midnight and Lunch starting at 10am-1pm.  This never occured at my other house.   I realize we are on different segments of the network.  I have had Comcast out at numrous times.  Changed XB6 modem from Intel chipset Puma7 to XB6 with broadcom chipset.  Now changed from XB6 to XB7.  Checked the line for noise and repaired.  I am hardwired with CAT6e, had all my CAT cable tested.  I just recently decided to bridge the XB7 to a different router to try and eliminate issues on my end.  I have ran pings to Comcast DNS, Google DNS, Nexthop, Comcast NOC in my region over longer period of tiems and a pattern is emerging.  How do I get in contact with the Comcast team to evaluate if my segement of the network in this area is over provisioned.  It does not appear to account for burst.  I sold my last house to a colleague and he (2miles away) does not see the same spikes and load on his network.  I get no-where with comcast support, just the regular, reboot modem, we will test the line, I seem never to be able to get to the NOC guys for any suppport/resolution.  attaching some images.  Lunch.jpg = todays lunch time frame.  NExt Jpg is the last week overview, lastly is overall link performance.  All these are to the next hop after my gateway/subnet.  Any help would be great.

[PatrikP]

thatworth noting is that my modem is direct to comcast, I do not use splitters.

[EG]

Can't see your pics. Since you are a new poster, they need to be approved by a Forum Admin. That could take some time. In the interim, you could try hosting them at one of those free third-party pic hosting sites like Imgur or Photobucket and post the link to them here.

Or copy all of the text of the status page and paste it into the body of your next post here.

[PatrikP]

ok Trying this

weekly performance

https://imgur.com/XiMX0OG

lunch hour today
https://imgur.com/w0Psiz5

Gemeral "First hop" performance over time
https://imgur.com/mdQE2Pn

[PatrikP]

Now that my XB7 is bridge, how do I get to it for log files?  

[EG]

Comcast has recently disabled the user from accessing the error log page. BIG MISTAKE !!

What do the modem's signal stats look like ? Try getting them here http://192.168.100.1 or here http://10.0.0.1

Please post the *Downstream Power Level*, the *Upstream Power Level*, and the *SNR* (Signal to Noise Ratio) numbers.

[PatrikP]

Model:CGM4331COM

Product Type:XB7

Flash Part:8192 MB

Download Version:Prod_19.2_d31 & Prod_19.2

Downstream power level

	6.1 dBmV	5.1 dBmV	4.9 dBmV	5.0 dBmV	4.9 dBmV	5.1 dBmV	5.0 dBmV	4.5 dBmV	4.4 dBmV	5.1 dBmV	4.7 dBmV	5.7 dBmV	6.0 dBmV	5.9 dBmV	6.1 dBmV	6.1 dBmV	6.0 dBmV	6.1 dBmV	5.8 dBmV	5.6 dBmV	5.7 dBmV	5.7 dBmV	5.7 dBmV	5.8 dBmV	6.1 dBmV	6.3 dBmV	6.2 dBmV	6.1 dBmV	6.2 dBmV	5.7 dBmV	6.0 dBmV	5.7 dBmV	6.4 dBmV	NA

SNR

SNR	42.0 dB	42.2 dB	42.1 dB	42.1 dB	42.1 dB	42.2 dB	42.4 dB	42.2 dB	42.1 dB	42.6 dB	42.1 dB	42.3 dB	42.3 dB	42.3 dB	42.4 dB	42.4 dB	42.4 dB	42.5 dB	42.3 dB	42.2 dB	42.3 dB	42.2 dB	42.3 dB	42.1 dB	42.2 dB	42.5 dB	42.2 dB	41.9 dB	42.2 dB	42.0 dB	42.1 dB	41.8 dB	41.8 dB	NA

Upstream

Power Level	38.3 dBmV	38.8 dBmV	38.8 dBmV	38.8 dBmV

here is an example of what happens at night on my segment.

https://imgur.com/6nV7fmM

[EG]

The stats that I asked for have nothing to do with your Comcast "segment". They are local to your modem.

[PatrikP]

updated above, thanks!

[PatrikP]

@EG  Heyya EG, thanks for helping, I posted the signal levels above.  Thoughts from your expertise on this?  I had sever issues again this morning while on conference calls.  Any help / suggestions would be appreciated!

/cheers

[EG]

The stats are all in spec. Perhaps there is a local node capacity / traffic congestion issue due to everybody currently working from home.

[PatrikP]

Yeah that is what I am thinking as well.  Do you have any suggestions how I can get Comcast to address that?  How can I escalate to start a discussion for my area.  It is signifcantly affecting both productivity(video conference calls) and entertainment(gaming).  THoughts?

[PatrikP]

Does anyone know if there is a way to talk directly to anyone beyond level one support regarding overloaded nodes? @EG , any suggestions?  What can I do as a subscriber?  Any guidence would be amazing.  Thanks!

[EG · Accepted solution]

FWIW, they typically will not increase node capacity unless there are many complaints about problems by all those customers who share any particular node.

Maximum complaints equals a maximum response ! Good luck with it !!

[PatrikP]

Thanks.  I am moving over to the Reddit sub to see if they have someone who can take a look.  I allready started collecting names in the neighbourhood today, and so far almost everyone is having similar problems as many of us work from home.  Sad really that you have to go for some sort of neighbourhood petition to get them someone to listen.  These are smart experts who must constantly make future capacity planning, and the advertisment actullay states that "comcast is plannining and building infrastrucutre for worst case scenario".  When I design my networks (old ATM, Frame Relay centrall office switchint engineering) we always planne for burst.  When we did OC12 architecture it was constant upgrades.  There simply has to be someone responsible.   Thanks @EG , appreaciate your time.

[EG]

You would think.... But that goes against the typical corporate business model. Underprovisioning = maximum profit. Most systems don't normally have a large number of people online simultaneously, so it's not usually a problem. Now with COVID 19, there is.... Good luck with this !

[PatrikP]

Things seem better. I kept pushing with support and they scheduled a tech yesterday. Before he came out I got a voice message stating that "Our engineering teams found an issue which may not require a technician on site, would you like to cancel?". While things seem better, I kept the tech appointment. Line is clean, no issues, he agreed that based on time of day it could be the node, and that it is scheduled to split. But no ETA. We'll see about that. He said my line is also being actively monitored for issues. I have had this before (at another house) and the moment it is taken off monitoring the problem returns, but I am xing my fingers it is truly resolved. Got a name and number to a supervisor for the area if my issues return. Significantly better. My advise for someone trying to get resolution. First, this will be your priority for about a month to get resolved.

A) Be kind

B) Be persistent, demand escalation

C) Log your calls, statistics, what you have done and what you have tried

D) Measure your performance 24/7, identify patterns, use tools like PingPlotter, Emco etc.

E) When tech comes out ask for area supervisors contact information, have it validate that it works (calling the supervisor) before the tech leaves, ask permission of the supervisor to be able to call them directly if the issue persists.