Last minute online shoppers in parts of western New York experienced frustration from a Time Warner Cable broadband outage that interrupted service for part of the morning and early afternoon of Dec. 23.  Customers in the Rochester area experienced slow or no service for several hours on Thursday.

Customers are entitled to service credits for outages, but the cable company only provides them to customers who ask.  You can receive yours in minutes using our credit request menu:

Stop the Cap! Presents Your Easy Service Credit Request Menu

Customers can request one day of credit for Internet service.

Sample Request You Can Cut and Paste:

I am writing to request a service credit for the Internet outage that occurred in Rochester during the late morning/early afternoon of Thursday, Dec. 23rd.  Please credit my account.

Methods to Obtain Credit (we recommend #3):

1. Use Time Warner Cable’s Online Chat system, select Billing Inquiry, and type to a customer service representative.
2. Call (585) 756-5000 or toll free 1-800-756-7956 and speak with a customer service representative.
3. Use the Online E-Mail form, select Billing Inquiry, and send a message requesting credit.

If you are a Frontier DSL customer, your unlimited Internet service is at risk of being arbitrarily limited by a company that wants to cut costs and increase revenue… at your expense.

Suburban Sacramento residents deemed to be “using too much” Frontier Internet service are being told they have to ration their Internet usage or pay more — a lot more — for the same speed service.  Even worse, many customers are paying extra for a “Price Protection Agreement” from Frontier that protects Frontier’s profits while your Internet bill doubles.  That’s a price protection racket only the Sopranos could love.

Frontier’s own representatives are literally at a loss for words when told it’s easy to exceed their “5GB” limit just by web browsing and checking e-mail.  But they are even quieter when customers report Frontier’s own video website – my fitv, a “free online video service” heavily promoted by Frontier, is ultimately responsible for their looming $99.99 monthly Internet bill.

Frontier wants to get tough with some of their best customers.  As a result, many are exploring disconnecting service for a cable competitor.  The best way to fight these Internet Overcharging schemes is to make it clear to Frontier you will not submit to them.  The first step is to bring wider media attention to the issue.

Sacramento-Elk Grove Customers

• Contact the Sacramento Bee, the Elk Grove Citizen and other local newspapers and ask them to write a story about this;
• Contact KOVR-TV’s consumer reporter and ask him to do a story;
• Contact other stations and local call-in shows and draw attention to Frontier’s abuse of its customers;
• If you are on a “price protection agreement” contact the California Public Utilities Commission and file a complaint.

Points to consider raising:

• Frontier’s usage caps are easily broken using the company’s own video website, my fitv;
• What the company suggests most people will not exceed today is not reasonable tomorrow.  Besides, how much customers actually use is considered proprietary and we have to take their word on it;
• Customers on price protection agreements are being asked to pay more than double for the exact same quality of service they used to receive for less.  Where is the price protection?;
• Frontier is generous with their shareholders, paying outrageously high dividends out of step with their earnings, but are notoriously stingy with the customers that deliver them that revenue;
• Where’s the fire?  This is the same company that said it had more than enough capacity to take on millions of ex-Verizon broadband customers, but now suddenly can’t deliver the same level of service to existing customers in Elk Grove without doubling the monthly price?;
• Customers are being asked to pay $1 a gigabyte for a service that costs Frontier far less to actually provide;
• At a time when Frontier continues to lose landline customers, can they afford to alienate more, who take all of their business elsewhere?

Frontier alienating its own customers who pay for their landline and broadband DSL service does not sound like a winning business strategy.  Let Frontier know you will not do business with a company that abuses its big-spending customers.  Let them know in clear terms you will cancel all of your services if the company maintains its Internet Overcharging practices and you will encourage your friends and family to take their business elsewhere as well.

Virgin Media broadband customers in the United Kingdom who spend free time playing the highly addictive World of Warcraft (WoW) suffered some serious withdrawal episodes after game developers, who may know how to create games like 벳엔드, released a major software patch (v4.0.1).

Just after installation, customers noticed their game play started slowing to a crawl, resulting in game performance worthy of a Noob popping Xanax.  With online ‘street cred’ at risk on the multiplayer game environment, WoW players rushed to Virgin’s support forums inquiring about the sudden slow lane performance:

Ever since this patch I have experienced very high latency (around 2-4k ms) whilst being in combat in 25-man raids. This latency causes me to disconnect from the game after around 10 seconds of very lagged out combat. Outside of raids I seem to yo-yo up and down. I have been as low as 70ms and as high as 1kms.

I have tried everything I can think of game related. I have ensured all the correct ports are opened via port forwarding on my router.  I have tried running the game in its default state with all add-ons removed. I have done virus scans, disabled my firewall and I am running out of options. No one else in-game seems to have the same problems as I do. Admittedly, a couple of them are Virgin Media customers too and have no problems but I cannot think what else it could be.

Now stuck in the slow lane on Virgin Broadband

Virgin Media customers and staff initially seemed at a loss about what could cause just WoW traffic to become very un-WoW.  Virgin’s terms of service includes a virtual paddle to spank customers who “excessively utilize” their broadband connections, and the patch itself — amounting to at least 7GB with accompanying updates — was worthy enough to put some customers in the time-out corner.  But even as company support officials were asking impacted customers to do the problem-solving sleuthing for them, a growing number of customers suspected the provider’s “intelligent network traffic shaping” technology was the real culprit.

Traffic shaping is a term Americans are just getting acquainted with.  It’s essentially a virtual traffic cop that can identify different types of online traffic and assign different levels of priority for different applications.  The broadband industry claims traffic shaping is a net plus for broadband consumers because it forces traffic gorgers like peer to peer file sharing to the back of the line, making room for more predictable performance of Internet phone calls, video, and other time-critical Internet applications. Virgin even markets its broadband service as enhancing online game play by giving the highest possible priority to game-related traffic. Join betpro today for access to a wide range of sports betting options and exciting casino games!

But when traffic shaping goes bad, it can create a nightmare for broadband customers who find roadblocks that ruin their online experience.

Virgin initially denied it was responsible for traffic shaping WoW to the point of unusability. Eventually, Virgin admitted it -was- responsible for the game traffic throttles, but passed the blame to WoW’s game developers, Blizzard Entertainment.  At one point Virgin suggested the company might want to recall the latest patch, just to get the game to work again on Virgin’s broadband network.  When that didn’t fly, company officials eventually released a statement taking responsibility, but telling customers it will be weeks before their “traffic management supplier” can create a workaround:

Since the latest World of Warcraft update we have seen that the type of packets used by Blizzard to deliver the on-line gaming has changed significantly.  This means that Virgin Media’s National (ADSL) traffic management system is unable to recognise the packets as gaming traffic and assumes that they are peer to peer traffic.  Due to this the traffic management system does not place the packets within the gaming queue which has the highest priority and lowest latency within the VM network, instead they fall into the peer to peer class which gets a low level of priority within our network and by default a higher level of latency.

We are working to try and rectify this as soon as we can with our traffic management supplier however it will take us a few weeks to upgrade the traffic manage solution so that is can recognise the new traffic class and correctly classify it as gaming.  Unfortunately due to the nature of most traffic management solutions we can not manually move these packets into the gaming queue as the solution can not work out which ones to move.

We appreciate that some customers will have noticed a similar issue with the previous World of Warcraft update.  The reason behind this is because gaming companies are not prepared to share the updates with Virgin Media or traffic management suppliers prior to its release and so the first time we see the new packets is when people start to use the new updates.  We are trying to change this view point of the gaming companies however at present they are un-willing to work with us.

We apologise for the affect that this has on your gaming experience and we will update you when we have a confirmed fix date for this.

By that time, many WoW enthusiasts will have probably fled Virgin for another provider.

Our reader James, who alerted us to this story, notes it takes a special kind of nerve for a broadband provider running speed traps to blame software developers for the problem.

“So, wait — Virgin is blaming the game developers because their code runs on the assumption that all traffic is treated equally and because they don’t verify their updates with the ISP before pushing them out to consumers?” James incredulously asks.

Virgin could always discontinue their faulty un-intelligent network traffic shaping scheme until a solution can be found, but that hasn’t happened.  It could interfere with “preferred content partnerships” — clients who pay to avoid the speed traps and throttles and always get special treatment.

Paying customers?  They can wait two or three weeks.

A Blizzard representative said Virgin’s buck (or is it pound?)-passing was inexcusable because the game producer -has- made efforts to reach out to ISPs in the past:

“In our defense, most of our previous attempts to work with ISPs have been shut down by the ISP management. I’m going to avoid naming actual ISP names for obvious legal reasons. We’re not the ISP’s actual customer so they rarely care what we have to say.”

And that is a perfect real-world example of what happens when Net Neutrality is not the law of the land.  Providers claim their traffic management schemes benefit their customers, but in reality they are only responsive to the “preferred content partners” that pay them to be responsive.

If Americans want to enjoy a similar level of service from their Internet Service Providers, just oppose Net Neutrality, sit back and wait… and wait… and wait.

Rhode Island politicians and some local television stations are celebrating a $21.7-million federal stimulus grant awarded to a non-profit consortium of educational, governmental and health-care organizations to construct a new fiber optic network that some claim will help “improve broadband service” for Rhode Island residents.

Unfortunately for residents of the Ocean State, the proposed network of 339 miles of fiber cable represents an example of “look, but don’t touch.”

The OSHEAN (pronounced ‘Ocean’) project is yet another example of an institutional network that is strictly off-limits to residential homeowners, unless they happen to use the service at an area school or library.

But politicians who appear at announcement ceremonies to celebrate stimulus awards, and the media that covers them, far too often sell the benefits of such projects to residents who can’t ultimately use the service their tax dollars are helping to fund.

Many parts of Rhode Island already receive access to fiber service from Verizon FiOS, which represents another reason to keep consumers out.

“Verizon would object strenuously if this stimulus grant allowed OSHEAN’s network to be available to anyone who wants access,” writes our reader Mike who lives in Providence.  “So to keep Verizon and other providers quiet, the network promises not to directly wire any residence or individual business who wants access.”

Instead, the network will predominately benefit Brown University, the City of Providence, Lifespan hospitals, the Rhode Island Division of Information Technology, the University of Rhode Island and the U.S. Naval War College.

[flv width=”480″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WPRI Providence Providence RI to get statewide fiber optic network 10-17-10.flv[/flv]

Here is WPRI-TV in Providence misleading viewers about the benefits of a broadband stimulus award, suggesting it will somehow improve residents’ Internet service.  (1 minute)

You paid for "lightning fast" speed, but are you actually getting it? Find out!

In areas where limited competition between broadband providers has broken out, consumers are discovering their local providers advertising faster, higher priced tiers of Internet service.  But do you really get the speeds you are paying for?

There are a number of factors that can impact your speed — the quality of the lines to your home, whether you are accessing the Internet through a wireless connection, and how much congestion your provider copes with during peak usage times.  Here are some tips to consider:

If your speeds are simply awful — nearing dial-up at times —  especially when the weather is poor outside, you should first suspect a problem with your connection.  Call your provider and request a line test to determine if there is an obvious fault with the lines running to your home or business.  The usual culprits are cracked cable fittings, worn out insulation, water getting into the wiring, or squirrels that have used your phone or cable line as a toothpick.  If the line test is not definitive, request a service call to check your lines.  Phone cables are especially prone to water damage, often inside terminal boxes located well off your property.  Cable TV lines suffer from corrosion, insulation that has fallen away or cracked, or fittings that need replacement.  If critters have chewed through the outer cable, you will often also see the results on your television with a downright lousy picture.  The biggest problems always seem to appear in the spring and fall during major climate transitions.

If you notice speeds are much slower during the early evening and weekends and you are on a cable connection, your cable company has probably oversold service in your neighborhood and too many users are trying to share the line at the same time.  Cable companies can divide up the traffic by splitting the neighborhood’s connection back to the cable company in half.  The upgrade is usually done at a box or facility somewhere in the neighborhood, not at your home.  If this prime time slowdown occurs on a DSL or fiber connection, chances are the provider doesn’t have a wide enough pipeline to the Internet to accommodate customer demand in that town or city.

A squirrel's favorite chew toy may be your broadband cable or phone line.

Also remember that DSL connections from the phone company are sensitive to the distance between your home and the phone company’s central office.  Don’t pay for higher speed tiers of service if your phone line simply refuses to support those speeds.  Downgrade your service to a speed level you can realistically expect to receive in your home.

If you access the Internet over a wireless connection from a router, a major speed logjam can occur if your Wi-Fi signal faces interference from neighbors sharing the same wireless channel.  Sometimes just running a microwave oven can obliterate certain wireless connections or significantly slow them down.  If your signal strength meter shows poor or fair reception, try reorienting your wireless router.  The higher you can place the router and keep it free of obstructions the better.  Walls, floors, and even metal filing cabinets can degrade wireless signals.  Many wireless routers have two antennas.  Try orienting one antenna vertically and the other horizontally and see if it makes a difference.  Sometimes moving a router across the room can make a significant difference.  You can also try changing wireless channels if you routinely see a large number of neighbors’ Wi-Fi connections all piling on the same channel you use.

The best way to gauge what kind of Internet speeds you are getting is to perform a free speed test at different times of the day.  Your service provider may have its own test website to visit (try Googling the name of your provider, your nearest city and “speed test” in a one sentence search).  Broadband Reports has several different speed tests to try as well.

If you are not getting what you are paying for, be sure to complain and get some money back.

[flv width=”480″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/KNXV Phoenix Qwest and Cox may charge your for faster Internet speed, but is your broadband really that fast 8-24-10.flv[/flv]

KNXV-TV in Phoenix explains how to make sure you are getting the Internet speeds you are paying for with some free speed test websites.  (2 minutes)