Rachelle Chong, a former commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission during the Clinton Administration, member of the California Broadband Task Force (2006-2008), commissioner of the California Public Utilities Commission (2006-2009), and Comcast’s vice president for government affairs for the California region (2011-2013) also happens to be a Comcast broadband customer.

She took to Twitter this morning to complain the company she used to work for was giving her a fraction of the speed she was paying for.

At least Comcast’s poor service doesn’t discriminate. Less prominent customers are experiencing the same issues:

I feel like if @comcast internet is reliably running at 20% of the speed I pay for I should only be expected to pay for 20% of the bill.

— Brian E. McElaney (@McElaney) July 29, 2015

4th attempt to contact @comcastcares for same slow internet speed issue, no response. Left wondering what @comcast actually cares about.

— Dave Perks (@writegud) July 28, 2015

One customer isn’t too sure fast speeds matter much. He lives in one of Comcast’s usage cap test markets, where Comcast enforces a usage allowance on their Internet service, with a bill-shocking overlimit fee if you dare exceed it.

Congratulations! Comcast has increased your speed so you can now hit your data cap 50% faster! https://t.co/Vh7Y9fwkgg

— Doug McCaughan (@djuggler) July 25, 2015

Are you paying Windstream for 6Mbps DSL service and getting half that speed or less? Stop the Cap! doesn’t think it is fair to charge full price for half or less the speed you paid good money to receive. If Windstream shrugs its shoulders when you complain and tells you there is nothing they can do to improve your speed, it’s time to take 10 minutes to file a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission. That 10 minute investment may get you $120 in relief.

Complaints sent to the FCC are forwarded to Windstream’s executive relations team of customer service representatives, who have tried to placate customers with a monthly $10 discount off poor-performing DSL. Although your complaint will not get Windstream to pry open its safe and make immediate investments to correct your situation, it will keep the phone company’s fingers out of your wallet, collecting money it doesn’t deserve for a level of service it refuses to provide.

Windstream blames the Internet slowdowns on Internet traffic growth that other providers quietly manage with periodic upgrades. Windstream would not experience these congestion problems if it elected to spend some of the money it collects from customers on upgrades. As Stop the Cap! has reported before, in states like Georgia, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, New Mexico, Kentucky, Alabama, and beyond that does not seem to be happening as often as it should. Windstream appears to be waiting for a ratepayer bailout from Connect America Funds to pay for service upgrades it should be doing with its own money. Until they do, you are owed a discount and here is how to apply for one:

Filing a Complaint with the FCC Regarding Your Windstream DSL Service

1. Visit Windstream’s Speed Test website, select the server nearest you, and perform several speed tests, preferably over the course of a few days. Windows users can hit the F10 key on their keyboard to capture a screen image, use the paste command in any picture editor, and then crop and save the result as an image file. Paint.net is a good freeware program to use for this purpose. Mac users can follow these instructions. If this is too complicated, you can print a copy of the web page within your web browser.
2. Visit the FCC’s Consumer Help Center – Internet Complaint Form and complete the form online. You can upload and attach file(s) showing your speed test results at the bottom of the complaint form. Choose “speed” as your complaint category and let the FCC know you are paying x dollars for x Mbps DSL service from Windstream you are not getting. If you have previously complained about the speed and performance of your connection to Windstream directly, let the FCC know that as well, in addition to any response you received. The more details about your bad experience(s), the better. You can also suggest that as long as the problem continues, you want a discount for the poor performance of your Internet connection.
3. If you wish to mail or fax your complaint, download this complaint form and attach any printouts showing speed test results.

It will likely take at least 4-6 weeks for a response to reach you from the FCC, usually also containing a written response from Windstream. Some customers scheduled for significant upgrades this year may not get the same credit others not scheduled may receive. There are no guarantees Windstream will offer you any specific discount or credit for your service, especially if the problem can be corrected right away. But you won’t get a thing if you don’t ask.

Time Warner Cable broadband customers who briefly unplug their modems to reset them will discover slightly improved download and upload speeds from the cable company.

Multiple customers from around the country have reported to Stop the Cap! Internet speeds have been over-provisioned by at least 10 percent as of this week and the PowerBoost feature that delivered a short burst of faster speed during the first few seconds of a download appears to be discontinued.

Before

On average customers can expect the following speeds:

• Standard (was 15/1Mbps) is now 16.5/1.2Mbps
• Turbo (was 20/2Mbps) is now 22/2.2Mbps
• Extreme (was 30/5Mbps) is now 34/5.6Mbps
• Ultimate (was 50/5Mbps) is now 55/5.6Mbps

We have also heard from four different customers that Time Warner Cable has started providing a DOCSIS 3 modem for Turbo customers, which means those considering Turbo service and planning to buy their own modem will best be served choosing a DOCSIS 3 compatible unit. We continue to highly recommend the Motorola SB6141.

After

We do not expect Time Warner Cable to advertise the speed increases. They are likely a result of the discontinuation of the PowerBoost feature which was first offered to Time Warner Cable customers in New York City in 2008 and became available nationwide a year later for Standard and Turbo tier customers.

The Federal Communications Commission’s ongoing verification of the nation’s largest ISPs advertised speeds would have registered a broad-based speed decline had Time Warner simply discontinued the temporary speed boost technology. PowerBoost does affect speed test results because it provides a temporary speed bump during the download speed verification process. By “over-provisioning” customers’ broadband speeds, the company can compensate for the change and likely even see an improvement of its speed ranking by the FCC’s testing program.

Time Warner Cable increased broadband rates by $3.00 this summer and raised its monthly modem rental fee to $5.99 this month.

Courtesy: WKRC-TV Cincinnati

Frontier Communications’ DSL service to some residents in Sardinia, Ohio has been progressively slowing down to the point Speedtest.net rated one man’s connection an “F-Minus.”

Larry Meeker’s broadband service from Frontier achieved speeds of just 190kbps — about four as fast as traditional dial-up Internet service.  Upload speeds reached just 1kbps.  When Meeker called Frontier Communications to complain about the lousy broadband speeds, he reports Frontier didn’t seem in any hurry to improve his service.

WKRC-TV TroubleShooter Howard Ain reports Frontier had done little for Meeker initially, saying “it will cost a lot of money for the company to upgrade” the broadband facilities in inherited from an acquisition from Verizon Communications.

Frontier changed its mind when Ain indicated the company’s broadband woes were about to be a feature item on WKRC’s 6pm local news.  Meeker also told the station he was preparing to file a complaint with Ohio’s public utility regulator.  Just a few days before the report aired, Frontier called Meeker to tell him improved service was on the way.

Meeker reports it used to take 10-15 seconds to load even basic web pages over Frontier’s DSL service.  But after the company began work on Meeker’s connection, pages are loading much faster, usually after 1-3 seconds.

The Sardinia man noted the best way to get action out of Frontier might be to call the media to get the company to do the right thing.

“I’m very happy that it is so easy to contact Channel 12 news and Howard Ain and know that somebody is at least going to call you and if there is a problem they are going to check it out and investigate it,” Meeker told the station.

A spokesman for Frontier Communications blamed the old owner — Verizon Communications, for inadequate broadband facilities in place to serve Sardinia and surrounding areas. The company says it is spending $90 million on upgrades because people are using the Internet a lot more in the area.  New circuits bringing additional capacity are anticipated to begin service by the second week of February.

[flv width=”360″ height=”290″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WKRC Cincinnati Broadband Service 1-18-12.mp4[/flv]

WKRC TroubleShooter Howard Ain covers Frontier’s lack of performance in Cincinnati suburb Sardinia, Ohio.  (2 minutes)

Sprint’s 4G experience has been nothing to write home about for a number of their customers, who are increasingly disabling the service to save on battery life.

Speed tests of Sprint’s 4G WiMAX experience show increasingly unimpressive results, as the network grows exponentially more crowded with customers trying to capitalize on the higher speeds 4G is supposed to deliver.  The result?  BTIG Research in April found, after exhaustive testing, the average Sprint 4G customer was now getting around 1/1Mbps service from a network that promised to deliver speeds many times that.

This isn't even a contest. (Source: BTIG Research)

Now an increasing number of customers are simply switching the 4G service off completely to extend battery life.

Doug Mahoney, a contributing editor for TechZone360, says he has about given up on WiMAX:

WiMAX tends to stay turned off so I run 3G and there’s no big differences in the convenience of reading email or using simple apps like Twitter and Foursquare.  With more public places starting to offer free WiFi, the case for WiMAX — or LTE — on a smart phone starts to grow weaker between the extra cost and the battery life issue.

Mahoney complains Sprint’s 4G network is simply not robust enough to support consistent speeds and access.  In suburban Washington, he compares Sprint’s 4G coverage to an open air tree, with spotty service scattered across the region.  As a result, his 4G phone spends a lot of time desperately-seeking-signal — a process that accelerates battery depletion.

Given Sprint’s WiMAX “tax” of an additional $10 a month for the service, Mahoney isn’t so certain he’d pay it again on a future Sprint phone.

Are the same speed reductions in store on Verizon’s currently-lightning-fast LTE 4G network few customers use right now?  Perhaps, but Verizon’s brand may force the company to make sure coverage is much stronger than what Sprint customers currently tolerate:

LTE has the same power consumption issues as WiMAX. I suspect Verizon will have better, more ubiquitous LTE coverage just due to the characteristics of the 700 MHz spectrum and physics involved, so I should have faster broadband available in more places rather than the abstract green tree coverage map.