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General discussion

ISP disconnecting constantly for 4-5 months now

Sep 17, 2007 11:26AM PDT

I have Charter broadband 3.0mbps and depending on the day it goes out anywhere from 5 times to about 50 times. It's not at any particular time of day, either. It'll disconnect for about 30 seconds to a minute then come back up. sometimes it'll disconnect again after about 2 minutes like it's doin now, sometimes i get lucky and can go a few hours before it starts chain disconnecting again. Occasionally at night it'll go out for about an hour or 2.

-I have called them and everything. they said they were "reporting an outage for my area" and that it would be fixed in an estimated 2 hours. Well.... it's been about 5 months now that it's been doin this.

I can't change ISPd because this is the only broadband there is here and they probably know that, hence the reason for staying with an ISP that disconnects more times each day than i can count.

I have even contacted the FCC about it about 3 weeks ago but haven't gotten an answer back yet.

Can ANYONE tell me how to more or less smack CHARTER CABLE over the head and make them do something right? Death threats? I'll take any suggestions.

Discussion is locked

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Tell us more
Sep 17, 2007 6:34PM PDT

How are you connecting to Charter? Wired? Wireless router, make and model?


Rick

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same here
Sep 18, 2007 5:03PM PDT

I'm having almost the exact same problem here. The internet will go down for a minute or two, then will come back up all night long. About once a day it goes down for 2-3 hours. Charter has sent out technicians and they find nothing wrong. We're connected with a wireless router connected to a cable modem. Our router is a Linksys WRT54G wireless router, Motorola Surfboard SB5105 modem.

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Please read the forum sticky
Sep 18, 2007 7:20PM PDT
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no dude
Sep 20, 2007 5:40AM PDT

i'm having this problem, my brother's house it, and the guy that posted earlier is also (wherever he lives?). it's not a problem with routers or releasing IPs or anything. It's charter. It's nothing we can fix. Charter has to. Like I said, my brother's house loses their connection when i lose mine and they live a few miles away, have a different router, etc.

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As you know
Sep 20, 2007 6:23AM PDT

the outside cables get old from the weather and animals sitting and walking on them. Is your cable on your television messy on the lower channels? Usually a first sign of a bad cable. I would check the inside cables first, then if the problem persists, have them do the outside cables. I had a friend , with another cable company, have a bad router. It kept dropping. There are a few possibilities but Charter will have to send someone out to repair.


Rick

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well
Sep 20, 2007 2:34PM PDT

when you try to contact charter, they either force you to go through a half hour process while the automated voice treats you like you're stupid and is telling you all the obvious stuff like "unplug and replug the modem" or "is your modem connected to the coaxial cable?" (haha). OR like it's doing now, you call and before you can do anything else it says "we are currently experience an outage in your area, the estimated time to fix it will be apporixmately 2 hours. ... that was 5 months ago.

The channels here are blurry and fuzzy anyway. Even when they came out to install the modem years ago and we told them to fix the tvs while they were at it, they were still fuzzy.

Charter's just a very pathetic excuse for cable and I know I'm lucky to even have that where I live.

I've seen cable repair trucks about 3 times in the past 2 weeks in this neighborhood, but I have no idea what they're doing. Wonder if someone in this neighborhood is doing it somehow. It could also be what I was worried about to begin with, they're trying to run this whole small town off the same grid and are too cheap to want to install more BECAUSE most people here wouldn't know the difference anyway. Your average person here doesn't even know why a 3.0 GHz cpu would be better than a 2.0ghz, thats what i'm dealin with.

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I would complain about the television reception
Sep 20, 2007 2:45PM PDT

then you have them, They come out and see your television is fuzzy and blurry. Now the replace the cable. Then you have a better and clearer picture and your internet connection will also improve.


Rick

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you were right
Sep 24, 2007 3:30PM PDT

I called them and I wasn't getting anywhere with the internet, they didn't seem to care much. But when I brought up that my lower tv channels were fuzzy they set me up an appointment and said they'd fix my internet at the same time. I just never went that far because for months now when you contact them online or phone, they just tell you there's an outage. this time i just decided to ask the dude - WHY!?!? ***!?!?

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It's the squirrels and the weather
Sep 24, 2007 5:40PM PDT

I'm glad your getting results. Let us know what they find.


Rick

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here we go
Sep 25, 2007 12:03PM PDT

they called today while i was at work and didn't leave a message. I called them to see what was up and it turns out they CANCELLED my service request because our area is marked as "an outage" so they automatically cancel personal visits in outage areas. I told the lady it's SAID THERE'S BEEN AN OUTAGE FOR 5 MONTHS NOW so she reinstated my request and put in caps on there "DO NOT CANCEL" and told me that whatever it was I had a problem and they need to come out and fix it.
So I'm going to keep checking and making sure they don't cancel it again. I have a feeling they'll cancel it right before they come out and do it and just keep delaying me that way. I'm not the only one that thinks they just don't want to fix our area and they're hoping we all just cancel our service. The way i see it, they're either not making enough money in this area with it, or they have too many people on the same grid and don't want to upgrade it.

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Lol, you made my day
Sep 26, 2007 2:26AM PDT

Maybe I'll cancel sending my payment, since it's been an outage for 5 months. They wouldn't want to hear that.

Next question to ask them

What constitutes an outage and how quick do you repair outages?

I'm afraid to hear that answer.


Rick


Keep us posted.