Current Events > So, my job has been feeling the pain of Spectrum overselling their network

(+) Yeah! (+)

tl'dr: A Spectrum tech finally admitted today after repeated service calls that their coax infrastructure is oversubscribed.

Since before I was hired at this place, we've had Spectrum cable modems in the mix in our WAN infrastructure. We also have site to site IPsec VPN tunnels running over those Spectrum internet connections. Every now and then, we get alerts saying a VPN tunnel dropped, which would kill business critical production traffic that goes through those VPN tunnels.

By the time I would check connectivity (typically within 5 to 10 minutes if I'm at home or at the office), the problem would be gone and stuff is working. I'd call Spectrum's tech support to see if they see any problems. We'd get the typical "can you powercycle the modem," which I would go ahead and do as long as it wasn't during business hours. No problems would be found that would explain what happened, though.

Back in July, we moved to a new corporate office a couple miles down the road from our old one. As a part of my network design, I opted for Spectrum fiber as the primary internet connection, and we don't have a cable modem anywhere in the mix at this location. VPN tunnels to our other sites with Spectrum cable modems were still dropping.

So we started looking into the kind of firewalls we have, the VPN tunnel settings, etc. to see what the hell would be causing it. No luck.

Then we opened an office in Canada with Rogers. We've never seen the VPN tunnel to that office drop unless there was an internet outage (rare so far). We sent a different model firewall up there, so we thought the problem might be either with Spectrum or with some bug in the kind of firewall we have at our other sites in Austin.

Then we had Google Fiber installed late last year at one of our locations. When we moved our primary connections to Google Fiber, the VPN tunnel drops ended. This pinned the blame squarely on Spectrum.

Fast forward to today, we had techs go to our other two locations that have Spectrum cable modems... And the tech that went to one of the locations told me that their coax infrastructure in Austin is oversubscribed at their plants. When the shared usage gets too high, some traffic has to wait until there is space, and that kills our VPN tunnels.

Finally getting to the bottom of this mess. Spectrum is working on migrating about 60% of their customers in Austin to their fiber infrastructure by the end of the year, which should improve performance for people with cable modems. I think we're gonna opt to upgrade to fiber as long as the cost isn't too high, though.
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did you figure all this shit out?
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spectrum regularly crashes where i live
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Giant_Aspirin posted...

did you figure all this shit out?

Not by myself. I've just been trying to drive it to resolution over the past few months because it has been bugging the hell out of me. We have a 3rd party company that monitors connectivity to 4 of our locations and deals with Spectrum on our behalf for those sites.

When I was trying to dig into it before that 3rd party company came into the mix, I never got Spectrum to do anything other than the normal "powercycle the modem" and "we don't see anything wrong." They were able to get higher level Spectrum techs to look at the problem and get them to come out multiple times.

The local techs are much more candid and thorough than the people you talk to on the phone, which makes sense.
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InB4 some jackass says net neutrality is the problem.

The problem is bureaucracy and corruption in local politics. Even Google couldn't cut through the red tape of pole work laws.
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Webmaster4531 posted...

InB4 some jackass says net neutrality is the problem.

The problem is bureaucracy and corruption in local politics. Even Google couldn't cut through the red tape of pole work laws.

Yup. Google Fiber is STILL working on installing their service in many areas of Austin.
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This has been known since the early 2000s and TWC was one of the first offenders of it. I have a few friends in upper management in Spectrum and they're always telling me how much of a shit show TWC was and how much of that got absorbed into Spectrum.
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Can you give a tl;dr version? I don't know jack about networking but the only thing I do know is that Time Warner Spectrum is charging me $108's for 20mbps internet because they said due to technical issues my area can only provide 20mbps internet if I buy the triple package.
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Prestoff posted...

Can you give a tl;dr version? I don't know jack about networking but the only thing I do know is that Time Warner Spectrum is charging me $108's for 20mbps internet because they said due to technical issues my area can only provide 20mbps internet if I buy the triple package.

That's likely due to the same issue. They've oversold their network in your area and can't guarantee that you'll get any higher than 20 Mbps consistently.
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Time Warner is the worst service provider I ever used, without exaggeration.
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