Flow Broadband - Status Thread

[Spazosaurus]

Yeah thats all in bits.

[Eroo]

Flow internet and cable down in Palmiste for over 6 hours now.

I'm using my backup blink line. Anybody know if blink doing some upgrades because ,y backup line is the 256k package but look at the results I getting

[TheApprentice]

that's megabits not megabytes right

yea megabits. Don't know why speedtest.net have the speed results in the "Mb/s" format which implies megabytes/s. Terrible speeds for a 25mbps connection.

[TheApprentice]

I nearly cuss up that flow CSR boy..way...






I explaining to him that I not getting any speeds near what I'm paying for to overseas servers BUT everything is fine in local speedtests. This is the same exact effing problem I getting for over a year eh. It worked fine the first month after the 10-25mbps upgrade and gone back down the gutter.

The man busy lecturing me for 5mins on how "we not physically at those servers", "how they might be down", "giving trouble". I ask him so you implying that google's servers, microsoft's servers, adobe's servers, rapidshare's servers ALL giving trouble at the same time? He start back on the same friggin lecture loop, "We can't do anything about that".
Something frickin wrong but everything perfect on their end. He say how its not Flow's fault, its the websites and servers I connecting to overseas fault and that I'd NEVER get 25mbps overseas.

What friggin idiots they have working in there, seriously. Instead of arguing with the customer how bout being like "Ok there seems to be a problem with our network and I'll elevate to such and such to see what the problem is".

The solution they have is sending a technician to replace the modem.
I dunno if that'd change anything seeing that family living in my area having similar latency/speed issues.

[joel1730]

you guys are very lucky to have flow.. am in central and all i can sign up for is blink and greendot...although my tstt line is disconnected,  i payed to fix the line 2 months now and they haven't reached yet but with greendot they came after 30 days.. and hooked me up with a 1mb..  does anybody know when flow will reach central areas like couva??

[TriniXaeno]

must really be something in your area apprentice

This is what I am getting



I'm on the 5mb, testing to the same servers, using the same isp.

So it can't be external factors. Has to be something internal to Flow causing the slow down in your area.

but if you're getting high speeds to flow in the last test, how does that explain the choke with the florida tests?

very confusing

Should be an interesting one to investigate

[Spazosaurus]

Apprentice, I hope u have more luck than I did in getting that sorted out.

More and more men seem to be "having problems in their area".

Trinidad not so big, hopefully the term 'area' dont eventually translate into 'the whole country'.

[TriniXaeno]

lol, could always count on Awesome to be part of the solution.

[woodyear99]

Youtube doh play smooth even with these speeds lol.

[Spazosaurus]

hmmmmm

Can I just jump in and say that with my lowly 2meg blink I can very often stream 720p video on youtube with no interruptions. I watched about 20 of the Old Spice Man's responses to comments with no waiting.

[woodyear99]

Hehe yeah but I use my connection to download primarily 1080 stuff on usenet, getting a solid 2500 KB/s

[Spazosaurus]

Yeah boy, cant argue with the sheer bandwidth. But right now meh lil 720p rips does chug along @ 200k, go hadda wait hour and a half but it does come.

[woodyear99]

For real, yuh definitely made the right choice after all the Flow horrors in ur area..

[TheApprentice]

but if you're getting high speeds to flow in the last test, how does that explain the choke with the florida tests?

very confusing

Should be an interesting one to investigate

Exactly. This is a very mind-boggling issue that the IT people at flow refuse to understand. They busy argue with you that "Flow doesn't host those servers" (DUH!) and not accept that "Hey, there might be a problem here."
So far with my calling around and what not it does seem to be an area-wide issue.
Its not a congestion issue as Flow staff say our area is and never really passes 30% capacity.

Aha!
It has to be south people discrimination. Damn world treating we like sh!t too -.-
lol

Edit - It is also a very inconsistent issue.
This evening these are my results:






I dunno yes. Another factor in this whole debacle is my looking like an a$$ complaining about Flow's service when it runs like how it runs now. Something is wrong somewhere in the south area. Some bug in the system, trolling foreign connections. Regular Flow I.T. staff may not be able to find this one :/

[Spazosaurus]

Not to alarm you Apprentice, but this is how my troubles started. At first, things would work well in the daytime but as soon as 7pm reach, pressure.

Then eventually it get so bad that the service was horrible horrible horrible ALL the time.

Real hope that dont happen, i wont wish it on my worst enemy.

[TriniXaeno]

very strange stuff.  I can't wrap my brain around it either.

Just did some tests again and all looks fine on my side.

oddly, getting heavy lag in starcraft 2.

Figured it might be someone else at home on the wireless sucking the bandwidth.

but then, the tests should reflect that.

They aren't. Download speed and pingtest results look fine.

Still, disconnected everyone from the router except the machine running starcraft 2. still laggin.

Pings to www.carigamers.com are normal.

Ghost in the machine yes.

Restarted machine and router and now the ping test at least looking like the way the connection performing. C immc



also, just for kicks, I did a speedtest to curacao.

nasty results. Not blaming flow for this, I'm just guessing curacao has crappy bandwidth available to this server.



Now here is one to florida, normally clock a lot higher to this server:



And the requisite flow server:



Which is running like lightning.

Only thing I can interpret from this, is that the congestion is external to flow.

If it were all the people in my area congesting the connection, we should not get such a solid speed back to the flow server.

sigh.

Someone put a hand

[suzieboy]

...is wat i gettin.....normal for me i guess

[TriniXaeno]

Thanks suzie,

if anyone else can run the tests now, so we can compare. That would be great

[woodyear99]

My 25 mbit package.

[Spazosaurus]

Yes, blame Flow oui. Look what 'the competing network' pumping out.





2 megs. Its what im paying for.

And the best part is that torrents were running in the tests above!



The following are no torrents running.







and a pingtest for good measure...



...and this is any day, any time. Lemme see yall flow connection push THAT kinna ping and jitter (CONSISTENTLY)

I much much rather this than this kinna sometimeish performance Flow like to heap on people. They say the grass greener on the other side, it very true in my case. Dried, dead hay with Flow, Nothern Range in the rainy season with Blink.

No, I never get tired of saying this. Each and everybody here on this forum who is on Flow NEED to stand up to Flow and let them know that this is unacceptable. We DONT want a service that kinna ok sometimes and other times questionable. We want it GREAT and we want it CONSISTENTLY.

It is ONLY when all of us, as a community of TECHNICAL people stand up and make our voices heard will anything of substance be done. See, we are in a unique position because of our organization to instigate a change in the status-quo. If WE dont, what do you leave for the ordinary man on the street who have no real voice?

I for one will not tolerate that nonsense. If you all are ok with that, then we not serious. We hold an honorary title of 'techie'.

Wyatt, you especially, I was a bit disappointed when I asked you to talk to the big man in flow who is your real boy. You have the contacts. What is the use in having them if they are not put to use for the betterment of the service you receive, your members receive and the country as a whole receives? Take heed.