Really Slow Doubled is Still Pretty Slow
Are you a Suddenlink customer? If so, have you wondered about the their current TV ad where they claim to have doubled our internet connection speed? Don't know about you, but I haven't seen any speed bump. So, I decided to ask 'em about it. After holding for 10 minutes on the phone, I decided instead to try out their live chat support feature, in order to get a transcript of the dialog. Here's how it unfolded.
Chat History
rod has entered the session.
Eric: I keep seeing TV commercials about how Suddenlink has doubled the speed of its internet connections. I'm not seeing any speed increase at all, so I'm wondering if there's a problem with my connection.
rod: Welcome to Suddenlink Online Support. My name is Roderick and I can help you today.
rod: In order to assist you today, I will need some additional information. May I please have the city and state your services are in; the physical address, name on the account and the last four digits of your social security number or Pin number?
Eric: ****
rod: Give me one moment, I am fixing to run a diagnostics on your internet connection.
rod: The test on your internet connection came back good.
rod: Do you have a router connected to your modem?
Eric: Yes.
rod: How many PC's do you have connected?
Eric: One connected directly; several laptops connected wirelessly (none in use at this time).
rod: Go to
rod has sent you to www.speakeasy.net/speedtest.
rod: Run a quick speed test, and give me the results.
[New window opens and I run the speedtest]
Eric: 2569 kbps download; 514 kbps upload
rod: One moment please...
rod: I recommend that you by pass the router, and connect directly into the modem. Save that link as a favorite, power down your PC, and then bypass. Once you have everything connected, power back up, and run the speed test. If the speed does not improve then, contact us at 1-888-822-5151, so we can possibly troubleshoot further.
Eric: OK, I'll try that, but just to confirm: you think that I should be getting faster speeds than what I'm now seeing, right?
rod: One moment please...
rod: For connections that are running through a router, you are around average. It really depends on how many people are located on your node.
rod: Your total bandwidth is 8 Meg down right now.
Eric: Well, now I'm confused. Should my connection speed have doubled recently or not? And if not, what are the TV commercials talking about?
rod: Your bandwidth has doubled. Before, you were at 4 Meg bandwidth.
rod: So we doubled the bandwidth, and that in turn will double your speed.
Eric: But that's just theoretical, right? Because in actuality, nothing has sped up on my connection. Websites still load at the same speed as before. Sorry to be so dense; I just expected to see more of a dramatic improvement, and I'm confused as to why that's not happening.
rod: Both theoretically and actually, your speed has doubled.
Eric: OK, I guess I'll have to take your word for it. I'll try the router thing and see if it helps. Thanks for your time.
rod: When you had only the 4 Meg bandwidth, you were more than likely getting half of the speed you are getting now.
rod: There are many factors that come into play when you refer to how fast websites load on a periodic basis. The server that is hosting the website may not be able to upload the site faster and all other sorts of things. The only way to get a real good picture of how fast your actual connection is, would be to run these speed test, and see.
rod: The server that is hosting the site may have a lot of visitors, and that may be causing it to slow down.
rod: We see a lot of that with Myspace.
rod: So the best way to really tell is to run the speed test.
rod: Are there any additional services or questions that I can help you with today?
Eric: Nope. Thanks again.
rod: Your welcome.
rod: It has been a pleasure assisting you. Thank you for choosing Suddenlink.
rod has exited the session.
You are the only user left in the session.
So, what we seem to have learned here is that my speed has doubled because, well, they say it has. Never mind that I can't tell any difference in day-to-day usage. (For the record, I have not bypassed my router to see if that makes a difference.)
Anyone actually feel like they've seen a recent significant bump in their internet connection speed?
And, can anyone explain to me the relationship between bandwidth and connection speed? I understand that they're directly proportional, in theory, but how does Suddenlink's claim of "8 meg of bandwidth" relate to a Kbps connection speed? It seems like an apples-and-oranges comparison so I'm obviously missing something.
I have to admit that I like this live chat thing for tech support. I've used it on other sites and it seems to work well. It's good to have a written record of the conversations.
rod: Both theoretically and actually, your speed has doubled.
That's beautiful.
These aren't the droids you're looking for. You can go about your business. Disconnect everything and reboot and all will be fast and good.
Posted by: Brian at October 24, 2007 05:14 PMThese aren't the droids you're looking for.
OK, that made me laugh out loud! Thanks; I needed that.
Posted by: Eric at October 24, 2007 05:17 PMI'm getting about 4914 kbps download and 517 upload. That's using my MacBook wirelessly to connect through the router to the Suddenlink modem and testing the Seattle server. I got about 50% faster download against the Dallas server.
Don't know what any of it means, of course.
Posted by: Kelly at October 24, 2007 05:58 PMI have consulted the great Oracle of Tim and he sayeth thus: "The whole 'your whole web will go faster thing is baloney. So if they increase your bandwidth, the only time you're going to notice if you're using applications that were bottlenecked by the previous bandwidth. So for example, if you're browsing web pages (heavily) and that's taking up 100k/sec then as long as your bandwidth is 100k/sec or more you won't notice any difference. Unless the latency in the connection goes up or down. For example, fiber optic would have latency in the millisecond range whereas a satellite connection is in the hundreds of millisecond range and cable, DSL, and dialup are somewhere in between. So your router is probably adding microseconds of delay. The reason pulling the router out is a good test is in case the router is faulty. What's probably happening is that there are a bunch of people on the node sharing the bandwidth. Or he has a bad connection. So another good test is to try it really early in the morning or the middle of the night and see if that is faster."
This concludes the sayings of the Oracle Tim.
Posted by: beth at October 24, 2007 07:31 PMOracle Tim is one savvy fellow. You should hang onto him.
Kelly, thanks for affirming my inferiority in yet another venue. ;-)
Posted by: Eric at October 25, 2007 08:39 AM"how does Suddenlink's claim of "8 meg of bandwidth" relate to a Kbps connection speed?"
Your Test results =
2569 kbps download; 514 kbps upload
This may shed some light on the problem you are having with understanding the speed. The 2569 kbps download is actually 2.6 Meg. See the speed test gives it's results in standard kbps format. I don't know how educated you are in math, but when you "convert" 2569 kbps into Meg's, which is what your bandwidth is measured in(8Meg), that equals 2.6 Meg.
In my opinion, if you want support, you should at least do what the "Technical Support" tells you to do and follow through.
You haven't even done that for them to assist you any further. How do you expect for them to help you if you do have a problem, if you don't follow their directions.
From the chat above, it looks like Rod knows what he is doing. Do you?
Posted by: Concerned Person at October 25, 2007 09:12 AMDear Concerned Person (if that's REALLY your name),
I don't know how educated you are in the English language, but I made it pretty clear in the post that I don't know what I'm doing. In the future, I'll try to type slower in the hope that will improve reader comprehension.
Thanks for the helpful suggestions.
Signed
The Management (however clueless)
Oh, yeah - One more thing, hopefully now, your apples are starting to look like oranges. Sorry for the double post.
Happy Surfing!
Posted by: Concerned Person at October 25, 2007 09:22 AMIt seems like you are a naturaly mean person. I did not mean the post in a disrespectful way. I was mearly trying to help you in understanding the comparison of kbps and mbps.
Posted by: Concerned Person at October 25, 2007 09:25 AMIt seems like you are a naturaly mean person.
Yeah, I think any regular reader of the Gazette will probably confirm that that is, indeed, the case. I'm a mean, mean person.
Posted by: Eric at October 25, 2007 09:29 AMEric mean? They say a good laugh promotes good health... I must be feeling really healthy!!!!
Concerned person, you really should be more careful about how you word comments because they do sound disrespectful. You'll get a much better response that way :).
Posted by: Rach at October 28, 2007 05:10 AMRach, you're so mean. ;-)
Posted by: Eric at October 28, 2007 08:16 PMAbout the publisher
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Eric, I haven't noticed any increase in speed ...... but I am noticing a big DEcrease in problems with internet connection, which I had with Cox .....
I, too, "like this live chat thing for tech support." I used it recently with Staples customer service/product repair, and was pleased with the quick diagnosis of the problem ..... and, I was very please with the immediate solution that was offered.
Posted by: Jeff at October 24, 2007 05:09 PM