Jolt Country

Until yesterday, we were on the 105mbps plan. Running speedtest, I would generally get about 105mbps. I was a (with regard only to the internet, and not everything else about Xfinity, which is terrible) satisfied customer.

Yesterday we went to the store, and I upgraded to the 300mbps plan.

Since then, speedtest reports 30mbps, never higher.

So far I am not terribly happy with this "upgrade".

My cable provider told me that my modem was too slow to get anything over 100mbps, so when I upgraded to 150mbps, I had to upgrade my modem, too. It doesn't make sense that it would drop from 100 to 30 (unless someone fat fingered "300" as "30.0") but you might ask them about your modem.

I figured it was a modem issue. Sheeit. What kind do I need now?

I was told mine wasn't capable of "channel bonding," and needed to be upgraded. If you're renting yours they should just swap it out for a new one. I think I paid around $100, maybe $120 for my new one. I'd double check with them first. Someone might be able to just beep boop blip something on their side and get it working. 300mbps is sweet, btw. I was holding out for gigabit here but it looks like everything fell through.

Yesterday I ran Speedtest.net on my computer "Quadcore" which is my old Acer Aspire which runs Cat 5 wired Ethernet to my Tenda router, which runs Cat 5 Ethernet to the router supplied by Comcast. I was getting an abismal rough 3mb up and 3 1/2 down.

I knew something was wrong as I was routinely getting buffering indications on YouTube videos.

Just now I ran it on this computer "Avatar" which is my 6-core Avatar running on a Tenda Wireless-N adapter, which retails at Micro Center for $9 plus tax. I got an extremely good reading of 17ms, 18.36 down, 6.18 up.

Usually it's 15/5.

Well, after talking to their online chat, he "did something" to reset the router, and now we get 300mbps down, but only if plugged directly in. Wifi still tops out at 100 or so.

So the only one here who gets 300 is my wife, who just looks at Zulily in the morning, answers email, and then leaves the room.

This is fucking BULLSHIT.

They say you can get 300mbps down with 802.11n and dual channel bonding, but I've never seen it. Without dual channels the max is 150mbps with N, and that would be with your laptop literally sitting on top of the router. Add a wall or two between you and the router and 100mbps is actually really good.

Let's go in the room with the router and see what i get.

Same. Oh well, nothing more to be done, I guess.

This concludes The Xfinity Files.

(I will say, my experience with their online chat support was actually POSITIVE, which is the first time I've ever had a good Xfinity experience. So, my thanks to Saji and the other one for their timely, professional assistance.