I just don’t get it. After several weeks of getting lousy internet performance from my ISP, I got home today and suddenly it’s near perfect. You see, I’ve been paying for 1 megabit of bandwidth for the past 2 years, but sometime this summer it suddenly dropped way down and I started getting huge packet loss. Packet loss for a wireless connection like mine is typically in the 2% range, but mine skyrocketed to a consistent 20% to 40%, with occasional periods of around a minute where NO packets would get through. That’s right, 100% packet loss for 60 seconds at a time. I’ve gone around and around with MHO Networks, and they even sent a technician to check it out. Essentially, they told me there’s nothing they can do. There’s a tree between me and the tower, plus there’s interference from the north metro emergency district’s access points.
So I’ve been stuck paying for 1000 kbps and getting between 100 and 200 kbps, with around 30% packet loss on average. They finally agreed to change my billing so I’d only be paying for the next level down, which seems fair. But I noticed on my Visa statement they were still charging me the original full price. So I emailed them. Then I got a phone call and a message from someone in accounting.
When I got home from work today, I went to call MHO Networks back to explain the deal, and I found that all of a sudden I’m getting around 500 kbps and 2% packet loss. So after two months of consistent, frustrating problems, the day I call to get them to lower my monthly fee, the problems have suddenly disappeared! What a coincidence!